Kosmos

The Christmas markets are over, carnival -season is not here yet. These winter celebrations will help to keep boredom at bay.

Dancing firebrands

At the Up Helly Aa celebrations in Lerwick, the Shetland Islands’ capital, a flaming torch parade is followed by a Viking ship being set alight, then drinking and dancing till dawn, which arrives very late up there on January 29.

uphellyyaa.org

Reindeer Revels

The 400-year-old Sami winter market in Jokkmokk, nothern Sweden (February 7 through 9) celebrates everything reindeer, including pelts, meat, racesand parades.

jokkmokksmarknad.se

Furry Fun

Originally a big fur traders’ market, the Fur Rendezvous, aka Rondy, is now Alaska’s biggest winter party. Held in Anchorage from February 22 through March 3, the event ends on a climax with the legendary Iditarod dogsled race.

furrondy.net

Michelin-class vegan fare is still pretty hard to track down – unless, of course, you know exactly where to look!

Neil Armstrong was the first so set foot on the moon in 1969. Fly Me To The Moon. The Moon Landing: 50 Years On opens at Kunsthaus Zürich April 5.

kunsthaus.ch

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During Songkran, Thailand’s New Year’s and biggest folk festival, people express the joys of spring by slinging bucketfuls of water at each other. These dousings symbolize purity and fertility. This year, the festival takes place April 13 to 15.

Smells amazing! You don’t just need to see these places with your own eyes, you need to follow your nose and inhale them.

Floral Fragrance

Grasse smells of roses in May and jasmine in August. Each of these blossoms, cherished by many perfumers, has its own festival in the southeastern French town and world capital of perfume, where famous factories offer guided tours.

Sumptuous Sap

You land in Oman, step into a taxi and the heady fragrance of frankincense greets you – as its does later in your hotel, in cafés and in shopping malls… The aromatic resin once brought the sultanate fabulous wealth, and it is still tapped from some 60 000 frankincense trees in the Dhofar region today.

Olfactory onslaught

Not for sensitive noses: Delhis’s Khari Baoli spice market, the largest of its kind in Asia, is enveloped in veritable clouds of aromatic clove, cinnamon and cardamom.