Today's Video of the Day brings you a moment of Zen from an unlikely source: Boston Logan Airport at rush hour. Boston-based Chris Eagle made the time-lapse video from about 40 minutes of airplane runway footage, and with the accompanying music by Little People, it feels almost peaceful (probably much more so than if you were on one of the planes waiting to take off). The video is a sequel of sorts to another time-lapse from Logan last year, but the original has a much different feel, watching the airplanes rocket off into the sky.

See any cool travel videos? Share them in the comments below or on the Gadling Facebook page for another Video of the Day.

Easter Island is getting a new, 75-room luxury boutique hotel, located just a five-minute walk from the only town of Hanga Roa.

The Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa officially opens on September 1, with a soft opening August 31, for which guests will receive 30 percent off nightly and package stays if they book now.

The Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa is being deemed an integral tourism property based on sustainability, located in the most remote inhabited island in the world, 2,181 miles from mainland Chile.

Each detail of the hotel's architectural design and functionality is on the cutting edge of green technology due to the ecologically and culturally sensitive environs. Energy-saving measures, water filtration and reuse systems, waste recycling programs and the use of organic and locally sourced food products at the property's two restaurants are some of the green methods used by the hotel.

The Hangaroa's 500-square-foot Kainga double rooms and 800-square-foot Ma'Unga suites are made of volcanic rock, clay and wood, including washbasins and freestanding tubs. The hotel's lounge spaces, reading room and lobby are designed to resemble a traditional casa bote, a traditional Rapa Nui house that appears as an upside-down canoe. Manavai Spa utilizes holistic as well as high-tech treatments that incorporate ancestral techniques of the Rapa Nui.

The Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa philosophy is to bring the community into the project. More than 75 percent of the hotel's staff members are local and ethnic Rapa Nui, and the Hangaroa has developed a series of educational and professional training programs that also seek to maintain and conjoin the Rapa Nui's beliefs, rites and traditions. The Hangaroa will also donate funds to local educational programs and environmental causes every year.

As part of the Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa's desire to give back to the local community, the hotel subcontracts acclaimed local tour company Mahinatur to provide cultural experiences for guests, such as visits to the Rano Raraku quarry, the Ahu Tongariki with 15 standing moais and the Rano Kau volcanic crater.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Ndecam]

Gallery: Hangaroa Eco Village & Spa

For those who love admiring ancient artifacts, you may want to visit Rome while they're still there. According to police, there has been an outbreak of tourists stealing mosaic pieces, marble mile markers, cobblestones and other pieces of the city's history.

Luckily, airport security has been vigilant and is on the lookout for the items. In fact, they've been able to return a large amount of artifacts stolen in the last six months. Moreover, they're finding the majority of the thieves are travelers coming from Britain and northern Europe. These people are not arrested, but instead given a stern warning.

Says Police Chief Antonio Del Greco, "I can understand the legend and splendor that is Rome but that does not mean bits of it should be stolen ... If they want a souvenir of their visit then they should buy something from a shop."

[photo via agoodfella]

"New York City Subway Stairs" from Dean Peterson on Vimeo.

Whether it's a health hazard or a quirk of New York living, we're not sure, but this unique subway station has one stair set a fraction of an inch above all others, causing nearly everyone who visits it to trip.

This amusing video catalogs a day's commute. We'll be watching our footwork at the 36th Street Station!

Madrid is famous for its art. The "Golden Triangle" of the Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza attract millions of visitors a year.

But there are plenty more places to see art than those famous three. One of my favorites is the Conde Duque, an 18th century barracks that has been turned into an art and educational space. Behind an elaborate Baroque gate are three large courtyards. The high, thick walls muffle the sound of the busy city outside and a sense of calm reigns.

There are three major exhibition spaces, although all aren't always showing something at the same time. Conde Duque has recently reopened after a major remodel. While it's lost some of its decaying charm, the building seriously needed work because termites were eating away at the old beams.

Entrance to the exhibitions is free. Evening concerts of classical music are often held in the courtyards and these charge for tickets. This is a popular nightspot for madrileños so book well in advance.

Right across the street from Conde Duque is Blanca Berlin, one of the best photo galleries in Madrid. They have a constantly changing collection of photos for sale from established and up-and-coming photographers from all over the world. They also have a permanent stock of photos you can look through. Unlike some of the snootier galleries in Madrid, they don't mind people coming in just to browse.

These two spots are at the edge of Malasaña, a barrio famous for its international restaurants, artsy shops and pulsing nightlife.

Still haven't satisfied your art craving? Check out five more overlooked art museums in Madrid.

[Photo courtesy Luis García]

What do you get when you mix a 300-pound gorilla, giant skulls, a 30-foot waterfall, battling pirates, '50s-era carnival games, taxidermy, flamethrowers, a mariachi band and mediocre Mexican food? The Denver area's kitschiest restaurant, Casa Bonita.

Once you enter, you'll go through an amusement park-style line system. For some reason, the restaurant thought it would be a good idea to have guests order their food at the door, before waiting in line with a tray for food and then a separate line for a drink. Oddly, you still get an assigned waitress once you sit, to do what I'm not sure. The host will put a flag on your table, and when you need something you raise it.

While the food and service are subpar, what you really go for is the atmosphere. A mix of tacky play land, circus performance and "Alice in Wonderland" surreality, you'll be wondering what could possibly come next as you pick at your overpriced burrito. During my meal, I saw two pirates ferociously fight over a princess, Olympic-skilled divers flipping into an indoor lagoon, fire eating dancers and a giant ape chasing a safari guide with a butterfly net. I was even serenaded by a Mariachi band. Moreover, I had a caricature drawn, was hit by a pink light saber, wandered over an indoor wooden bridge, got lost in a bubblegum pink tea room and stared out a submarine window at plastic fish bobbing in a milky man-made ocean. Basically, it's a lot of fun, and worth a few hours just for the shock value. Just make sure to bring your inner child, and a fully charged camera.

People sometimes think that sailing is a sport centered upon warm sunny days and graceful lines across open water. Competitive sailing is a bit different. If it rains, you sail through the storm. If you need to tack in the middle of the night, you get up, grab a handle and start grinding. And if the salt water is 34 degrees and the swells are higher than your boat – well, you deal with it.

Foul weather gear is what sailors use to stay (mostly) dry during harsh conditions on the water. At the Volvo Ocean Race's stopover in Miami this spring, our friends at Camper gave us a chance to try on some of the team's gear. As usual, it didn't go as planned.

There are few places in the world where you can find modern Toyotas sharing the streets with Model T's, and Cuba is one of them. The country's abundance of classic cars may be the result of historic trade restrictions, but it's also a key element of Cuba's romantic, stuck-in-time ambience.

Why does Cuba boast so many classic cars? Until last October, Cuban residents were forbidden from buying and selling vehicles without the government's permission. Only automobiles purchased before the 1959 Cuban Revolution could be freely traded, forcing car owners to use creativity and craftiness to make their existing vehicles last. By outfitting their old cars with replacement engines, fixtures, lining and paint, many have been able to significantly extend the lives of their vehicles, instead of sending them to the junkyard as we're so quick to do in the Western world. In fact, most cars you'll find on the street resemble a mash-up of different parts: a hubcap here, a dashboard there, topped off with a dash of house paint and often a Playboy bunny sticker.

Gallery: Classic Cars of Cuba

It started on our flight back to Paris from New York: our seats had been put through the drier. They were too small to hold our newly fleshly forms. After a month in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City we had expanded our views – and backsides. Well, I had. My wife doesn't thicken. Her DNA descends from termites.

The Paris taxi seemed luxurious after the battered Yellow Cabs of Manhattan. But it was shoebox-sized: half our luggage rode on our laps. We nudged bumper-to-baby-bumper down uncannily smooth surfaces into the groomed, green perfection of central Paris.

How quaint and prosperous and picturesque the tidy spider's web of tree-lined streets with toy houses along them! The Eiffel Tower was slim and naked: it wore no cladding. Back home it might be demolished as pornographic. The Seine seemed a trout stream compared to the Hudson or Sacramento. And what were all those arched bridges built of stone? Surely steel and cement were superior?

In our absence friends who'd stayed at our apartment had exchanged our wormy furniture for dollhouse accessories. The ceilings and windows had downsized too. Our concierge, apparently by nibbling the wrong side of a mushroom, seemed the height of a child.

Forget inches: at 176 centimeters I towered over people and places! It felt wonderful. Petit was beau. How could I have forgotten why I moved here a quarter century ago?

Not only was small beautiful in Paris: old was pretty nifty too.

In 1918, the emerging Communist government of Russia shocked the world when it assassinated Tsar Nicholas II, his family and members of his staff.

The Tsar had been blamed for a series of national setbacks. First, there was the humiliating defeat of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, followed quickly by a popular rebellion that was brutally suppressed, the pervasive influence of the unpopular Rasputin and finally, disaster at the front and starvation at home during World War I.

Nicholas abdicated in 1917, but that didn't stop the anger against him. The Bolsheviks were gaining ground in the fight to take over Russia and turn it into a Communist country. They captured the former Tsar and his retinue and moved them to a secret location. On July 17, 1918, the prisoners were led to the basement of the house where they were being held and put before a firing squad.

Now the assassination of the Romanovs is the subject of a new exhibition at the Russian State Archives in Moscow. The BBC reports large numbers of Russians visiting the exhibit, curious about an important piece of history that was glossed over in Soviet times.

Several items from the family and their executioners are on display, including the Tsar's letter of abdication, some of the weapons and bullets used in the killing, and numerous photographs of them in captivity. One especially poignant artifact is an unfinished embroidery by the Empress Alexandra.

The event has created an enduring interest to later generations. Numerous movies have been made about the family's last days. Several women claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, weaving elaborate tales of surviving the firing squad, but their claims were later refuted by DNA evidence. The Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed Tsar Nicholas II and his family saints in 2000.


[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]