by Beth Habian, Features Editor
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?
Close by the spa town of Druskininkai, Lithuania, is the strange but compelling museum Gruto Parkas Grutas (www.grutoparkas.lt). The brainchild of Viliumas Malinauskas, this fabulous sculpture park is littered with several “Stalins” and “Lenins.” You can gaze upon row after row of Communist sculptures from all over Lithuania.
Near the entrance is an exhibition in memory of Lithuanians deported to Siberia under the Soviets, including some of the original freight cars that carried thousands of them to their deaths. (Most of my relatives died in Siberia.)
The Impressionist School of French painting was the focus of a 10-day/12-night trip, Sept. 26-Oct. 8, ’05, with Elderhostel (11 Ave. de Lafayette, Boston, MA 02111; 800/454-5768, www.elderhostel.org), in conjunction with Experiment France (89 rue de Turbigo, Paris; phone +33 [0] 1 44 54 58 or visit www.experiment-france.org).
The land price of the program was $2,888 and the single supplement, $471.
There were 23 travelers in our group, and our tour guides and lecturers were articulate, well qualified and interesting.
Following a wonderful Norway coastal cruise in May ’06, my wife, Dorothy, and I flew to Brittany, France, to visit our daughter. While there, we had an opportunity to visit Port-Aven, an artists’ colony, one especially popular in the early 1900s. Paul Gauguin worked there before moving to Arles.
(Second of two parts)
While in Vienna in fall 2004, my wife and I went to the Central Cemetery to see the graves of the composers. While there, we decided to take a look in the Dr. Karl Lueger Kirche that is in the cemetery. It was a real suprise for us! The church was restored in 2000 and is now an Art Deco gem.
To get there, take tram No. 71 to the next-to-last stop — the cemetery and church are in front of you.
ROGER F. REAM
Akron, OH
—Kathryn Whitmer, Bellingham, WA
London was crowded with tourists in August ’04 and it was also the wettest August on record. Daily sky bursts were the norm, and before your umbrella was fully extended you were sopping wet. So many people running for the same shelter at the same time only exasperated the situation.
Although it rains everywhere, there are many places in the outskirts of London, away from the crowds, that offer a super day of art, architecture, history and nature.
by Rod King, New Haven, IN
