We have made a cyber-tour around the world, like the characters of Jules Verne,ho fatto un tour intorno al mondo, but we've never left Graz...

“A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so a serious thing as a wager ”. In 1983 Jules Verne wrote in one of his most famous novels” said Phileas Fogg solemnly. “ I will bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who wishes that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less ”. This is what Jules Verne wrote in 1983 in one of hi famous novels. Fogg challenges his club’s friends. The rich gentleman leaves London with his loyal servant Passepartout and always travelling eastwards makes a tour of the world in 80 days, using all possible means of transport, including a hot-air balloon.  Who knows what he would have written if he had lived nowadays? The title of his novel would have likely been “ Around the World in 80 clicks ”. The clever French servant Passepartout would turn into a computer and the travel would take Fogg 80 minutes instead of 80 days. We tried to live this adventure (written during the last century) by using the modern technology. With a computer connected to the net we made a cyber-tour around the world. We’ve never left Graz but we’ve really seen the places, monuments and landscapes, as though we had really been there personally. Are you asking yourselves how? Well, thanks to the thousands of webcams located all around the world. These little cams are connected to a computer and film practically every resort, harbour, monument, town, beach and bay, from the African jungle to the ocean depths, from Cape North to the Southern Pole. How? To see in real time what is happening on the other side of the world you just have to type in on your browser the website that manages these webcams and in a while the Australian kangaroos or the turtles of the Cayman Islands will appear on your screen. It’s easy, but before travelling remember to take the time zone into account. When in Italy it is 2 p.m., in New York it is 8 a.m. (6 hours earlier), in Los Angeles it is 5 a.m. (9 hours earlier), while in Tokyo it is 10 p.m. (8 hours later). If you want to be sure to see only by-night images you just have to set your time zone connecting to http://www.hilink.com.au/times . We have planned the various stops of our tour and looked for information about the places.. Online, of course. We have found out that there’s plenty of eyes pointed on the world, dozens of thousands webcams. There are so many cams that there are sites that group them by continent, country, town, subject and so on.. To find these websites we just typed the word “webcam” in a search engine. The best sites are:

http://www.123cam.com  **  http://www.earthcam.com **  http://webcamworld.com **  http://www.webcamlocator.com  **  http://www.camcentral.com   

Here we found the sites we then visited, but you are free to choose the tour you prefer or visit places we did not consider. And if you want it as easy as possible you can visit the home page of the website http://www.123cam.com where you can find an option that leads you on a random tour around the world. Each time you leave for a cyber-tour you visit webcams of different places and countries. Apart from the webcams pointed on the most famous monuments of every town, the most breathtaking are those filming nature. If you have always dreamt of becoming an explorer but you cannot afford a Safari, you can visit http://www.africam.com , a site that manages about ten cams located in the jungle and in the savannah. You can watch in real time elephants and rhinos watering, but also gorillas, gazelles, giraffes and zebras. Very fascinating is the underwater webcam located at the Cayman Islands. Through breathtaking sequences it makes you see how the turtles of the Gulf of Mexico swim. Almost every park in the USA has a very good website with cams at everybody’s disposal. The best are those of the Yellowstone National Park. Comfortably sitting at home you can watch American bears hunting salmons along the river or water spurting out from the famous geyser Old faithful. In Southern America there are less webcams than in other continents, but they let you see wonderful landscapes, such as the view on Rio de Janeiro and the island Fernando de Noronha, patronized by VIP holiday-makers. For those who have cancelled their holiday in the East for fear of the SARS it is still possible to satisfy their curiosity by watching the images taken by various webcams. Those who had planned a journey to China or Shanghai cans  see the " high wall ". Those who had booked a holiday to Japan can visit Tokyo also. Very interesting is the site of the Canon webcams. Canon is a leading company in the production of cameras, printers, and photocopiers and its site …. offers a map of all the “mini webcams” they have installed in the world (there are really lots of them in Japan and in the East). These cams are innovative because the user can move them as he/she likes and zoom on the details he/she is more interested in just by using the browser. One of the most fascinating virtual tours in the Middle East is that to Jerusalem, you can see the Wailing Wall in real time. Another gripping stage of our tour was Oceania. Unlike other countries, where webcams are put online by lovers, in Australia cams are managed by national websites. We heve seen  Sidney from various angle-shots and to remote control the webcam. Exciting was to see New Zealand again after the nights spent to watch Luna Rossa and Mascalzone Latino during the America’s Cup, but even more thrilling was landing at Cape North to see the sun that never sets. European towns, like American ones, are the most “visitable” on the net. Now it is possible to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg as well, as they have opened up to the web showing their most beautiful monuments through the webcams. The use of these “little eyes” has been greatly boosted by the various anti-traffic plans carried out in almost all the European capitals.  Among the several cities we visited the one that most caught our attention is New York. There are hundreds of cams pointed on the city centre and on the outskirts of the Big Apple. The most clicked are the ones that make you see how are going on the works at Ground Zero, the place where once rose the Twin Towers. As it happened in Jules Verne’s novel, it took us less than the expected time to finish our tour. Phileas Fogg and Passepartout made a tour of the world in less than 80 days, while we did it in less than 80 minutes thanks to a computer and an ADSL connection.