In our roundup of travel stories this week: what it’s like inside Air New Zealand’s new bunk beds, why cruise ships are adding a phantom destination to their itinerary, plus the dark fascist secret that lies under one of Europe’s biggest train stations.
It’s a little over 80 years since the end of World War II, but the legacy of that dark period of history lingers on.
In Italy, Milan’s main train station is a tourist attraction in its own right. Its monumental facade is festooned with statues of winged horses and gargoyles, and inside, vast staircases sweep up to the 21-platform departure hall.
However, beneath Milano Centrale’s main passenger facilities lies a concealed platform which, during World War II, was used by Italy’s Nazi occupiers and fascist sympathizers to dispatch Jews and political opponents to death camps. It’s the only place of Nazi deportation to still exist intact.
On the remote Pacific island of Peleliu in Palau, one of the bloodiest and least remembered battles of World War II’s Pacific theater took place nearly 82 years ago.
