Hints Archives ⋆ The Passenger

January 20, 2025January 20, 2025

Manchester Airport

Well, the airport of Manchester isn’t very modern and does deserve a makeover. But maybe the busiest airport of the United Kingdom outside of London also fits well to the worker bee city, to the former heart of the Industrial Revolution. MAN airport was opened in 1938 and formerly known as the Ringway Airport – it is located 15 kilometers south of the city, in the civil parish of Ringway. The airport has two runways and three terminals nicely linked using skylinks.

January 19, 2025January 19, 2025

Dichterfürst

One of the most important sons of the city of Frankfurt am Main is for sure Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He died at Weimar and is buried at the Fürstengruft there, but he is still present in his birthplace. One example of that is the Frankfurter Goethe-Haus at the Großer Hirschgraben, the place he was born at in 1749 and the seat of his family until 1795. Unfortunately, the house itself was destroyed in 1944 during an air raid – but the interior was preserved. After long debates the house was rebuilt and serves as a museum today.

January 3, 2025January 4, 2025

Teide

The highest mountain of Spain can in fact not be found on the Spanish mainland, but on the island of Tenerife belonging to the Islas Canarias. The Teide is 3,715 meters high and of volcanic origin – the last erruption was in 1909. Surrounding the mountain you can find a beautiful national park and a caldera named Las Cañadas with a diameter of 17 kilometers. The Pico del Teide was also the holy mountain of the Guanche indigenious people who gave it the name Echeyde, El Teide is just the Spanish transformation of this name.

December 28, 2024December 30, 2024

Ghost town

If you’re into lost places or graffiti art you should consider a visit to the Sanatorio de Abona at Abades, on the southern coast of Tenerife. Leprosy reached the island rather late and in 1943 it was decided to create a sanatorio with all you need: from different houses via hospitals to a church in Franco style. Prior to finishing the construction works leprosy could be defeated and the sanatoria became superfluous. Not a single person moved and was treated there. As the buildings were never finished and repurposed, Abades is today a ghost town close to the shore and tourist houses.

December 27, 2024December 30, 2024

Drago milenario

The icon of the city of Icod de los Vinos is a very old ‘dragon tree‘ or Dracaena draco. These trees grow very slowely and in former times this large one was expected to be 3,000 years old – in fact it is growing close to the city center since 600-800 years, still impressive. The Drago is 16 meters high and has a circumfence of six meters. Its resin is blood red and the Guanche living first on the island treated the tree as their sanctuary and used the resin to cover their deceased. The tree has been declared a national monument in 1917.

December 26, 2024December 30, 2024

Reina Sofía

North and south are concepts that are used in a flexible manor on Tenerife. The island was created by different volcanoes and is Y-shaped. Everything that is rather north of the central mountains is considered north, everything else as the south-side of the island. Driving distances are never really long, but it might be sensible to have an airport north and south of the Teide mountain. The one in the south is the Aeropuerto de Tenerife Sur Reina Sofía (TFS) located in the community of Granadilla de Abona.

November 11, 2024December 2, 2024

Marrakech-Ménara

The international airport of Marrakech (RAK) is located at the city quarter Ménara pretty close to the modern part of the city. It was opened 1942 as an airbase of the United States (like most airports at Morocco) and transports 2.5 million passengers each year with its one runway. That is just a third of the volume of the airport of the economic powerhouse, Casablanca. The modern airport building is connected via busses to the city, but because of the short distance also fixed-price taxis are a very valid option.

November 10, 2024December 8, 2024

Jardín Ménara

Where do the locals of Marrakech spend their Sunday afternoons? A lot of them you can find in the relaxed atmosphere of the Jardín Ménara, a vast olive grove in the southwest of the city. Between these olive trees people gather for a picnic, play and make music. Food and drinks are sold on the ways leading through the garden and to the large water reservoir in its center. The garden was created in 1156 by the rulers of the Almohad caliphate and today belongs to the Marrakech UNESCO world heritage site.

November 9, 2024December 8, 2024

Oullywood

One of the most beautiful places of Morocco is Äit-Ben-Haddou, a traditional city with houses made of clay at the Asif Ounila river. It is a maze of streets, towers and houses in the desert which slowly turned from a real city into a movie industry hotspot and tourist location. Today still some people still live there, but preserving the hold houses is costly and housing comfort is better elsewhere. Those who stay, live from tourism and therefore preserve this magnificent place.

November 9, 2024November 26, 2024

Paradise of Silence

Visiting the old Ksar of Äit-Ben-Haddou is a unique pleasure, but the rest of the city is just a collection of restaurants and houses on the opposite side of the river. Most people get there just for some hours and then travel further on. But where to stay if you want to spend a night in the city? On a hill above the city you’ll find the Riad Paradise of Silence, a wonderful guesthouse optimized for that.