The annual festival Eurochocolate (www.eurochocolate.com [in Italian only]), in Perugia, Umbria, central Italy, Oct. 14-23, 2011, will draw hundreds of thousands to attend cooking classes, seminars, tastings and exhibitions on all forms of chocolate. In the medieval streets, stalls will sell all forms of food with chocolate — ice cream, cakes, pastries, etc.
My wife and son and I attended the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, with BayernTrips (Ironwood, MI; 888/686-4240), which we found on the Internet. BayernTrips owners Scott and Vonia led our 12-day “Connoisseur’s Trip,” Sept. 11-22, 2010. The land cost was $2,500 per person, with single supplement $495.
After everyone in our small group arrived in Munich, we set off to visit Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery. Its outdoor courtyard was the perfect spot to sample many regional beers.
I am explaining this so you understand why, for the past two decades, at least, I have wanted to visit some of the Christmas markets in Europe, especially those in Germany, which are reputedly among the best. Something always intervened — my job, Paul’s job, family responsibilities — and a visit to the Christmas markets was always postponed. That is, until December 2009, when the opportunity finally arrived and we grabbed it.
Pilgrimages fascinate me — the ritual, the pageantry, the dedication of the pilgrims, their willingness to undergo hardship and their sense of fulfillment upon the achievement of their quest. My own “pilgrimages” have been secular.
In August ’08 I was simply a traveler drawn to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain for the annual late-July festival of Santiago, the biblical Saint James.
Fred DeVinney, Walnut Creek, CA
In Condé Nast’s 2009 Readers’ Choice poll, Oaxaca, Mexico, was listed among the top 10 cities in the Americas (excluding the US). After my late-October ’09 trip there for the marvelously colorful Day of the Dead festivities, I can certainly understand why.
My sister Betty, our nephew Joe and I spent a wonderful week exploring Christmas markets in Germany, Dec. 1-9, 2008, visiting Munich, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Nuremburg and Berlin. We were frugal and did the trip for a total of about $1,300 each, which included the airfare round trip from Chicago O’Hare to Munich, a four-day railpass, food and hotels.
We ate our way through sausages, kraut, stollen, marzipan, sugared nuts and the warm mulled wine at the market stalls.
• Founded in 1990 by Leonard Bernstein, the Pacific Music Festival is a celebration of classical music held annually in Sapporo, Japan. For two of the last three years, I’ve attended the festival’s Picnic Concert, held the last Sunday of July in Sapporo Art Park.
During an April trip to Japan’s Honshu island, we visited the Nebuta-no-sato Museum, where some of the floats for the Nebuta-matsuri in Aomori are housed. (The festival takes place Aug. 2-7 each year; visit www.nebuta.jp/english/index_e.htm.)
If you’ll be shopping overseas and want to know the Customs regulations on what you can bring back, visit the website www.customs.gov/xp/cgov/travel. — CLAUDIA REED, Las Vegas, NV
