The Best Western Hotel Carlos V (Maestro Victoria 5, 28013 Madrid, SPAIN; phone [34] 91 531 4100 or visit www.hotelcarlosv.com) is located on a pedestrian street just a minute or two on foot from Puerta del Sol. It is convenient to popular tourist sites, restaurants, shopping and two metro stations.
There’s lots to see and do in Berlin. If you want to save money on your accommodations, rent the apartment of Dr. L. Schnitzer (Belziger Str. 21, 10823, Berlin, GERMANY; phone/fax +49/30 44 355 940) as we did Sept. 12-21, 2006. Dr. Schnitzer has been advertising in the Mart pages of ITN for years, and her apartment’s price is still just $490 per week.
In Paris, FRANCE, we have stayed three times at Hôtel du Nord et de l’Est (49 rue Malte [11e] — Métro Oberkampf; phone 01 47 00 71 70 or e-mail info@hotel-nord-est.com), most recently in February ’07. Located on a quiet street near the Place de la République, it’s just about halfway between the gares Nord and Lyon and also not far from the Right Bank tourist attractions.
The couple who runs the place caters to business travelers and tourists from elsewhere in Europe. The desk staff speaks English.
Hotel Bonaparte (61 rue Bonaparte, 75006, Paris, FRANCE; phone +33 01 43 26 97 37, fax +33 01 46 33 57 67 or visit www.hotelbonaparte.fr) is in an excellent location, but I didn’t like the hotel and would not stay there again. My stay was in October ’06.
This 2-star hotel is two blocks from Place St. Germain heading north (toward the Seine) and one block from Place St. Sulpice heading south. There are Métro stops at both places.
We recommend Campanile Roissy (Zone d’Activites du Parc de Roissy, Allee des Vergers, 95700 Roissy en FRANCE; phone +33 1 34 29 80 40, fax 80 39 or e-mail roissy@campanile.fr) to anyone looking for a reasonably priced hotel near Charles de Gaulle International Airport.
I spent a delightful week at a lovely, small hotel in London, ENGLAND: the Blandford Hotel (80 Chiltern St., London W1U 5AF, U.K.; phone 44-207-486-3103, fax 487-2786 or visit www.blandfordhotel.com). I first stayed there in January ’05 and liked it then, but on my most recent visit in March ’07 I found that the entire hotel has been beautifully renovated from top to bottom.
On a 2-week trip to Ecuador in January ’06, my wife, Barbara, and I chose to splurge a bit and stay in Hacienda Cusín (visit www.haciendacusin.com or phone U.S. rep, Myths & Mountains, at 800/670-6984), near Lago San Pablo and about 10 kilometers southeast of Otavalo. We reserved a few days prior to arrival by calling from our hotel in Otavalo; we used a local number: 918-013. (Our Cingular GMS phone worked fine in Ecuador.)
While visiting Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA, my husband, Joe, and I decided to stay in the residential neighborhood of Sea Point. We chose Winchester Mansions (221 Beach Rd., Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa; phone +27 21 434 2351, fax 434 0215 or visit www.winchester.co.za) for our September ’06 stay because of their sea-facing rooms.
We stayed at these three places on an October ’06 trip to JAPAN.
For a 13-night program to Bhutan that I was leading, our group departed for Paro, Bhutan, on Sept. 29, 2006, from Bangkok, THAILAND’s, new Suvarnabhumi Airport, which had officially opened at 3 a.m. on Sept. 28. Due to an early departure on Druk Air, our group stayed at the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel (Suvarnabhumi Airport, Racha-Taeva, Bangpli, Samutprakarn 10540, Thailand; phone +66 2 131 1111, fax 1188 or visit www. bangkokairportonline.com), adjacent to the new airport.