From the ultimate college town – Ames, Iowa – to Hogwarts to Wat Mahathat royal temple in Bangkok, six places to have an educational holiday
- Buddhist ruins in India, a living Buddhist temple in Bangkok, or a museum in Germany devoted to the inventor of the printing press – you are spoiled for choice
- If it is seats of learning you seek, there’s a university in Morocco founded in the 9th century, the home of Iowa State University or Harry Potter’s alma matter
There’s far more to education than textbooks and teachers. The acquisition of knowledge and skills is a lifelong undertaking, and much can be picked up on our travels.
To recognise that fact, here are some attractions that may appeal to those holidaymakers looking for an educational edge to their post-Covid-19 trips.
The Gutenberg Museum, Mainz, Germany
Textbooks are important, of course, and they wouldn’t have become the bedrock of school life unless someone had invented a press with which to print them. And that someone was Johannes Gutenberg.
Although the first books printed in metallic type had been produced in the 13th century, in Korea, Mainz-born Gutenberg managed to harness several innovations in his wooden machine based on an agricultural screw press. By 1450, his printing press was in operation and within five years, Gutenberg had completed his Bible, about 180 copies of which he printed. The rest, as they say, is history – which can be read about in textbooks, of course.
Founded in 1900, Mainz’s Gutenberg Museum is dedicated to the German city’s most accomplished son. The museum’s treasures include two original Gutenberg Bibles and a reconstruction of the workshop the inventor used.
