I didn't update this blog in the last week because we went with my GF to Tenerife and I decided to leave this computer back home to unplug for a while. We had a really amazing time in the biggest Canary Island. The weather was warm but not scorching hot; the landscapes were really nice and quite different across the island; the seafood was so fresh and delicious; and finally, the people were extremely friendly. It was just great.

Some of the highlights of the trip were (besides the stunning Teide you see in the picture above):

1- The nice town of La Otorava:

2- The picturesque town of San Andres where we stayed, and the nearby "Playa de las Teresitas":

3- Walking around in Santa Cruz:

4- The old town of Garachico and its natural rock swimming pools:

A couple of days ago we visited Lindau, a major town and an island on the eastern side of Lake Constance. We stayed at a hotel on the island that is connected with the mainland by a road-traffic bridge. The current harbour of this island was built in 1856 and the iconic Lion sculpture and lighthouse mark the entrance of this port. An interesting fact is that this lighthouse is the only one in Bavaria!

Eurostat published some very interesting stats regarding the mobile internet connectivity of the EU citizens in the Information society section of the Eurostat regional yearbook publication. The map above shows the countries with the largest and smallest percentage of users browsing the internet through mobile devices in cities. It was not surprising to see the Nordic countries at the top of the list, but I wasn't aware Italy was at the bottom.

Here is a barchart with the countries sorted by percentage:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit the Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria and I learned about the interesting history behind this castle. The palace was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria, as a refuge from his constitutional monarchy duties, in order to revive his romantic dreams of the medieval king figures. The guide described how the king was deemed insane; he was arrested and died mysteriously. Yesterday, my GF and I were discussing whether he was insane or not, but he brought good fortunes to this region of Germany for sure!

Eurostats have a very interesting article and dataset about tourism in the different European cities. The chart above shows the most visited European cities in terms of millions of nights spent by tourists, next to the percentage of those related to the local population.

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