6-day / 5-night camping, kayaking tour in NORWAY, summer 2013. Easy to moderate activity (up to four hours’ paddling per day and some walking). Highlights: Art Nouveau town of Ålesund / kayak to Vermøya Island/stay at historic Åkernes farm / paddle past Bridal Veil, Suitor and Seven Sisters falls / Geirangerfjord. Land, $2,490. No single accommodations. Tofino Expeditions, Ltd. (Salem, OR; 800/677-0877).
My husband, Bob, and I are in our 80s, and when we travel we like to go a little more slowly and stay longer in each place. We’d rather cook our own meals and eat less than what restaurants generally serve.
I like to have an apartment wherever we go. We use Untours (Media, PA; 888/868-6871), which offers apartments in lots of overseas locations and sometimes includes a car with the rental. In every Untour apartment, there is some food stocked when you arrive, such as bread, milk, butter, eggs and cheese.
Three of us took a cruise of the British Isles, and while in Edinburgh, June 7-8, 2012, we used the services of an excellent guide to see the countryside and some of the city. Her name is Kathy Cameron (15 Arkland, Inveraray, Argyll, Scotland, PA32 8UD; phone 44 [0] 1499 302361).
The Netherlands’ Floriade World Horticultural Expo takes place once every 10 years. Running dates in 2012 are April 5-Oct. 7. On May 20, my husband, John, and I drove from Amsterdam to Venlo, near the German border, to attend Floriade 2012. Unfortunately, we were disappointed with it.
The expo’s infrastructure was impressive, with shuttles taking us from a distant parking lot to an area where we walked through a plexiglass tunnel over a highway to the large entrance. Laid out amongst a few woods were five themed areas (“Environment,” “Education & Innovation,” etc.).
We asked any of you who attended a concert, a recital or any music or dance performance or stage production outside of the US in the last couple of years to tell us how you learned about it and how you obtained tickets. The responses this month, comprising part seven in this ongoing series, are about events attended in the United Kingdom.
We asked you to write about a restaurant, shop or other business housed in a historic, unique, spectacular or interesting building (outside of the US) that can be entered without paying an admission fee. We weren’t looking for a place like the Hard Rock Café that just has pictures and antiques everywhere but, if it is a café, a place where the architecture is as much the experience as the meal. Or it can be a working library in a castle. Or a butcher shop in an old cathedral.
When my wife, Jean, and I wanted to take a Danube cruise, we contacted several ITN advertisers. While speaking with Corinna Vargas at Value World Tours (Fountain Valley, CA; 800/795-1633), I knew I had found the right person at the right agency.
A wonderful place to stop when on a Black Sea vacation is Hotel Selena (Yani Popov str. 7, Sozopol 8130, Bulgaria; phone/fax +359 550 25200 or phone +359 550 25300). This lovely, 72-room hotel is located on the shore of a horseshoe-shaped bay. Odd-numbered rooms overlook the beach and harbor.
My wife, Sandy, and I stayed there June 1-9, 2012. For €30 (near $38) per night, we had a very comfortable, clean room.
I traveled to Albania, Macedonia and northern Greece in June ’11. Albania is trying very hard to attract and impress tourists. I encountered friendly, welcoming, accommodating people, and they were not just those in the tourist industry.
In Macedonia, our local guide was not as friendly as the one in Albania.
That the 16-day “Treasures of Turkey” tour of Insight (Rye, NY; 888/680-1241) was sold out and there would be 40 travelers plus a tour director and driver on the motorbus was daunting news.
Not to worry! The tour members turned out to be a very interesting and diverse group of travelers, with nary a complainer among them. The other English-speaking tour members came from eight countries.