electronics take up valuable luggage space, waste too much time, and blow hotel fuses. In other words, leave them at home. Take a small battery-operated alarm clock and one of those tiny flashlights for poking around ancient ruins and finding stuff in the dark. Still determined to lug around half of an electronics store? Then you need to know the following: American current runs on 110V and 60 cycles, and European current runs on 210V to 220V and 50 cycles. Don’t expect to plug an American appliance into a European outlet without harming your appliance or blowing a fuse. You need a converter or transformer to decrease the voltage and increase the cycles. You can find plug adapters and converters at most travel, luggage, electronics, and hardware stores. Travel-sized versions of popular items such as irons, hair dryers, shavers, and so on come with dual-voltage, which means they have built-in converters (usually you must turn a switch to go back and forth). Most contemporary camcorders and laptop computers automatically sense the current and adapt accordingly (first check either the manuals on the bottom of the machine or with the manufacturer to make sure you don’t fry your appliance).

Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland: One of Europe’s premier cultural extravaganzas, the festival features the art, dance, film, plays, and music of some of the world’s top creative talents and performers. The traditional bagpipes-and-kilt Military Tattoo at the castle is the festival’s elliptical highlight. The Edinburgh International Festival takes place over three weeks in August and early September. The August Fringe Festival started off as a small, experimental offshoot to the main festival, but over the past decade it has exploded in popularity (and ticket sales, topping 1 million in 2003) and now boasts more than 1,500 shows and events — compare that to the 111 offered as part of the official Edinburgh Festival in 2004. Either way, August is a fantastic time to be in Edinburgh.

Carnevale, Venice, Italy (and just about everywhere else): Carnevale is a feast of food and wine and a raucous celebration of spring a true pagan holdover grafted onto the week preceding Christian Lent. Carnevale turns the world upside down: The lowly hobnob with the elite, and everyone has a roaring good time. The whole Christian world celebrates Carnevale (called “Carnival” in Rio and “Mardi Gras” in New Orleans). The most famous celebration in Europe, however, is Venice’s Carnevale, a series of elegant-yet-drunken masked balls reminiscent of Casanova’s 18th century. But you find eventful celebrations throughout Europe. You can see chariot parades and a wild bacchanal in the Greek city of Pátras; the solemn burial of a sardine in Madrid, Spain; satiric political floats in the port of Livorno, Italy near Outer Banks rentals ; and flower battles and bonfires in Nice, France. Carnevale starts a week or two before Ash Wednesday (usually in late February) and culminates on the final Tuesday, called “Fat Tuesday” (Mardi Gras in French). Fat Tuesday immediately precedes the sober period of Lent.