December 2007

by John Penisten, Hilo, HI

Searching the Internet for an apartment somewhere around Lake Garda in northern ITALY for our 3-week stay, April 21-May 12, 2007, I found Residence Bella Vista (Via Rimembranza 29, 25080 Manerba del Garda, Italy; phone/fax +39 0365 551805, www.residencebellavista.com).

The former hotel, converted to seven apartments in 2000, is in an ideal, quiet location in a small village on a ridge overlooking the southwestern part of the lake.

Residenza Castello 5280 (Calle Casselleria 5280, 30122 Venezia, ITALY; phone +39 348 733 49 84 or fax +39 041 296 06 00, www.veniceby.com/castello5280/index.html) — only a 2- to 3-minute walk from St. Mark’s Square (unless your wife stops to look in every shop window on the way) and five minutes from the Rialto Bridge.

A wonderful place that we found through the website www. bookings.com, this old building had just been renovated in 2007. It had high ceilings and Murano glass chandeliers. My wife, Thea, and I stayed four nights, June 10-14, 2007.

I highly recommend Albergo San Zulian (San Marco 527, 30124 Venezia, ITALY; phone + 39 041 5225872 or fax 5232265, www.hotelsanzulian.it). Tucked behind the San Zulian Church, the hotel is a short walk from both Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge.

It has only 22 rooms. We paid €130 (near $187) for our overnight stay in January ’07. Breads and rolls made fresh each morning will delight you for breakfast.

We stayed for five nights in Berlin at Louisa’s Place (Kurfürstendamm 160, 10709 Berlin, GERMANY; phone +49 [0] 30 6 31 03-0 or fax 03-100, www.louisas-place.de) at the end of March ’07 and couldn’t have been more pleased.

Bill Steltzer of West Grove, Pennsylvania, lamented that on a May ’07 trip to France he had trouble finding public Web-access points.

by Jim Sill, Silverado, CA

An offputting and potentially dangerous event happened during a red-eye flight from Anchorage to San Francisco on Alaska Airlines, Sept. 12-13, 2006.

We had our first encounter with a personal butler at the Royal Livingstone Hotel in Livingstone, Zambia, where my husband and I stayed two nights, June 21-23, 2007.