Titanic Trail in Manhattan

In the run-up to April 15, 2012 — the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking — museum

exhibits, lectures, concerts and even entire museums are memorializing the collision between the opulent ocean liner and an iceberg that killed more than 1, 500 people. But Manhattan tells

the Titanic story with more than just ephemera.

The Titanic was headed for Manhattan when she went down at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912 off the coast of Newfoundland. The Carpathia brought the survivors to Manhattan. Many of the people on board were New Yorkers or were bound for New York City to make it their new home. Manhattan, therefore, has more authentic sites connected with the Titanic than anywhere else except for Belfast, where she was built. Unlike a museum visit, the Titanic Trail in Manhattan takes travelers to fascinating places in the city — a shrine for America’s first native-born saint, the South Street Seaport, an old-fashioned hotel where the bellmen wear 1930s regalia, lower Broadway with its famous statue of a charging bull and thd gorgeous Hudson River Park with its gardens, fountains and five-mile promenade along the river.

The 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking will come and go. In Manhattan, the Titanic is part of the city's fabric — Pier 54 at 13th Street, where the words "Cunard White Star Line" are still visible in faded paint on the rusted ironwork, 9 Broadway, where the White Star office was located at that time, the American Seamen's Friend Society Sailors' Home and Institute, now The Jane, a hotel at 113 Jane St., where the surviving crew members of the Titanic were housed, and more. Long after the centennial, in Manhattan the Titanic and its story will live on.

Taj Mahal Tours- How to Select a Tour?

Taj Mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This wonder is located in the heart of India and is a tourist attraction to foreigners all over the world. The state revenue comprises of a major contribution from the tourism industry of the city of Agra. There are various Taj Mahal tours made for the foreigners as well as the Indian residents.

The Taj Mahal is a symbol of love built by Shah Jahan to his wife Mumtaz. This piece of art took 22 years to be completed. An interesting fact is that the Emperor wanted to build the same monument in black marble for his tomb but this dream did not fulfill as he was imprisoned by his youngest son, Aurangzeb. Talking about the architecture, the colored stones used in the designing of the monument each were bought from a different country. These stones came from places like Sri Lanka.

The Taj Mahal tour packages will vary depending on the location you are coming from and the time that you want to spend there. For example, if you are from Agra and a local resident, the amount will be very small as the India travel agent is providing commute for a small distance and this will be a one day trip. The entire package will include travel from a particular place as decided by the agent and the sight seeing of the wonder. Taj Mahal and return to the agreed spot. This is a one day trip for the local people.

Philadelphia Flowers

Philadelphia's famed flower show, which has been presented with few interruptions since 1829, closes today (March 11) but other flowers are still blooming in Philadelphia. A captivating exhibit called "Van Gogh Up Close" continues at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through May 6.

Van Gogh loved flowers and painted them over and over -- in vases and in fields and gardens where he marveled at their colors as they played

against an abundance of greens that evoked every nuance of his palette. Van Gogh's passion is

readily felt in his flurries of brush strokes, stipples and thickly applied paint. As he experimented and grew more sure of himself, his paintings become luminous with deftly applied layers of color that feed off each other -- orange and yellow and lavender and blue violet. Van Gogh's love of nature is a balm in our technologically saturated times. People are flocking to see his paintings. They look at them in reverential silence.