Budapest Airport

Travel Tidbits from an airport near you

Hope you had a restful holiday weekend. Here are some travel tidbits from airports you may be visiting soon. Or may want to.

First: check out this nice assortment of souvenir snow globes I spotted over the weekend at the Budapest Airport. Quality-wise, these are nicer than the snow globes we come across in many airports, and these had a nice assortment of local buildings to boot!

Will you be passing through St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) before November, 2019?

Courtesy STL Airport

If so, be sure to look for the exhibit sent over by the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) that highlights the special connection between plants and people through history. Plants and People: The Collections of the Missouri Botanical Garden is on display through November 10, 2019 in the Lambert Gallery near the C Concourse exit in Terminal 1 .

Here are some more snaps from the exhibit:

Courtesy STL Airport
Courtesy STL Airport

And, at San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the SFO Museum has a new exhibition all about… Victorian pedestals.

Sounds like an odd topic, but we trust the SFO Museum to bring us exhibits that not only look intriguing but teach us something as well.

Here’s the pitch on the pedestals:

Victorian pedestals, meant to showcase sculpture, are fascinating decorative art objects to behold. The most ornate pedestals were made in the United States during the Gilded Age—a time following the Civil War until the turn of the twentieth century, when the country experienced rapid economic growth. From the mid-1860s through the 1880s, in particular, collecting and displaying sculpture led to an increased demand for pedestals. Wealthy Victorians preferred elaborate furniture on a grand scale and richly ornamented rooms. Several pedestals displaying artistic objects might adorn the drawing room or parlor. Victorians selected pedestals that suited their tastes and living interiors. Pedestals, as a result, offer an intriguing look at the design styles popular at the time.

Courtesy SFO Museum

The Style of Display: Victorian Pedestals is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall Departures Lobby at San Francisco International Airport through January 12, 2020.

Earth Hour at the airport

This Saturday, March 26, 2011, lights will go out in homes, buildings, towns and cities around the world as part of a coordinated effort to raise public awareness of climate change and the need for energy conservation.

Several airports are joining the effort.

 

At LAX, the 100-foot-tall LAX Gateway pylons that illuminate the entrance to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), will light solid green for one hour before Earth Hour. During Earth Hour, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m., the pylons will be turned off and then resume their color-changing display at 9:30 p.m.

Toronto Pearson International Airport will also be marking Earth Hour this year by reducing lighting in terminals, parking garages and support buildings, turning off or reducing HVAC systems, turning off high-speed moving walkways in Terminal 1 and taking other energy-saving measures.

Singapore’s Changi Airport will switch off all decorative lights, dim non-critical operational lights in much of the airport.and give out battery-less flashlights to travelers who take a simple energy quiz.

London Luton Airport will be switching off lights in many parts of the airport, including its illuminated logo on the front of the terminal building.

And at the Budapest airport they’ll switch off the entire airstrip for Earth Hour. According to Earth Hour organizers, “We have been assured that airport staff are well prepared for the temporary black-out, which will take place under strict national and international control to ensure the utmost passenger and aviation safety.”

Let’s hope so!

Always travel with a sweater

sweater-striped

Here’s another reason why it’s good to travel with a sweater – and why airports worldwide may soon be more enthusiastic to embrace solar and other alternative sources of energy.  According to Reuters:

Hungary’s main international airport, Budapest, switched to oil from gas heating on Wednesday [today], after Russian gas imports via Ukraine stopped.

Local news agency MTI reported that the airport, owned by Germany’s Hochtief, was among industrial users whose gas consumption had been limited.  … The airport has about 70,000-80,000 litres of oil reserves.