My wife and I took a memorable 2-week Greek vacation in August ’07, spending four to five days each in Crete, Santorini and Athens. We traveled only to Greece because we had missed it on a previous trip and we wanted to focus on one country to experience it more in depth.
Fresh air and the exposure to sunshine helped reset our body clocks, and the exercise felt great after the long flight the day before. At the end of the trail was an array of seafood restaurants, well stocked with refreshing cold drinks and snacks and convenient for either having lunch, as we did, or just awaiting the arrival of the ferry back to Hong Kong.
Martha and I, like many travelers, are drawn to Paris and seem to return there more often than to any other European city. On a recent 3-week trip to France, we spent our first week in Paris.
Everywhere I went in this outdoor museum, something enticed me to look more closely. The city’s Baroque past was everywhere. Men and women of stone and marble stared out from doorways of elaborately ornamented buildings while carved faces peered down from amongst the swirls and curves above their windows. The statues that couldn’t fit at eye level adorned the parapets — a veritable army of warriors, saints and historic figures living at the rooflines.
Looking for some royal treatment on your next trip overseas? What better place to be treated like a royal than London, where they’ve been perfecting the art of luxury for centuries?
Granted, with current exchange rates, it’s not the first destination that comes to mind for those on a tight budget, but if you’re ready for a bit of a splurge, perhaps an account of my September ’07 visit will provide a few suggestions to make your trip a more memorable one.
A dawn boat ride on the Ganges is the highlight of any trip to Varanasi, also known as Banaras or Benares. Situated in India’s state of Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi is a sacred center of Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism. However, for over 2,000 years it has been the religious capital of Hinduism, more revered and sacred than all the other places of pilgrimage put together.
by J. Norvill Jones, Alexandria, VA
Iran has been demonized by our government and the American news media, but is it really part of an “axis of evil”? As one who spent much of his working life dealing with foreign policy issues, I am inherently skeptical of government pronouncements. In April 2007 I went to Iran [...]
by John Penisten, Hilo, HI
On a March ’07 trip to Japan, my wife, Susan, and I wanted to experience something of the country’s hectic urban life as well as the slower pace of its small towns and countryside. We got both during our train trip through the heart of Honshu Island.
The small, sedate market town [...]
by Joyce Bruck, Ocean Ridge, FL
My longtime friend Winnie Outcalt joined me in Johannesburg, South Africa, on August 18, 2006, for an adventure to Namibia. My interest in Namibia began when I saw pictures of the Skeleton Coast with its sand dunes, animals and shipwrecks. As I did my usual extensive research, I discovered there [...]
by Harvey Hagman, Fort Myers, FL
After spending the winter of 1419 on the barren, white sands of the island of Porto Santo, Portuguese explorer João Gonçalves Zarco set sail for the mist-shrouded land on the horizon. Zarco found an island of towering peaks and thick, ancient woods — madeira means “wood” — with rugged, cliff-lined [...]
