August 2004

Prince Phillippe of Belgium inaugurated his nation’s second high-speed line on Dec. 10, 2002, between Leuven, 20 miles east of Brussels, and Liège in eastern Belgium near the German border.

When visiting CHINA, Xi’an was one of the highlights on our tour. This is a very old city and it has much to offer. I was anticipating specifically the Terra Cotta Army, which is probably the biggest tourist attraction, but what a surprise it was to find in Xi’an such a wonderful museum as the Shaanxi History Museum.

My wife and I stayed at the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel (San Martin 1225, Buenos Aires, 1104, Argentina) on Jan 30 & 31, ’04, as part of a package tour to Antarctica.

In my letter “Nightmare in Guatemala” (June ’04 , pg. 34), I mentioned American Express and the long time it took for us to get replacement checks after our kidnapping ordeal, plus all the personal information AmEx requested while all of us were using the reception desk phone in a hotel lobby.

I wrote to AmEx over these issues and received a personal phone call on June 4 from one of their executive customer relations agents.

We were in Spain for three weeks in April and May ’04. We kept all of our receipts for credit card purchases and when our bill came we verified that the correct amounts had been posted.

On a trip to Paris in June ’03 we stayed, as usual, at Hôtel du Danube (58 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris, France; phone +33 01 42 60 34 70, e-mail info@hoteldanube.fr) — in the Saint Germain des Pres area on the Left Bank. Rooms run €110-€160 (near $130-$190), with a junior suite or apartment €220.

We paid return visits to two favorite places to eat:

I enjoyed Rita Murray’s comments about her meals in Paris at La Tour d’Argent very much (May ’04, pg. 52). I wonder if ITN readers might be interested in reading about how different things were in Paris and at the Tour d’Argent in 1952.

I was in my early twenties and living and working for the U.S. Army in Germany. Europe had not yet made an economic recovery from the Second World War and there were few tourists.

In the May ’04 issue (page 52) a reader raved about La Tour d’Argent in Paris. Thirty-plus years ago we dined there and also had their famous pressed duck.

In Cape Town, South Africa, the District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant St.; phone 461-8745) memorializes an important chapter in that country’s history — when an entire neighborhood was bulldozed at the height of apartheid. Being a civil rights activist, on my trip in March ’04 I was attracted to this museum.

In the spring of 2004 I took a most exciting and unusual trip to Egypt. Instead of just visiting the tourist sites in Cairo and Luxor, four companions and I visited five oases in the western Egyptian desert. This was arranged for us by Spiekermann Travel (18400 East Nine Mile Rd., Eastpoint, MI 48021; phone 800/645-3233 or 586/775-9550, fax 586/775-9556, e-mail info@mideasttrvl.com).

The cost was nominal: $2,190 per person, in shared rooms. We arrived in Cairo late on March 18 and departed early on April 2.