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Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the US, Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.
This month’s winner is STAN C. KIMER of Raleigh, NC:
Upon returning from a trip to Morocco in April ’07, we were going through Customs in New York with a large Berber rug that we had purchased in Fez.
My wife, Barbara, and I returned from a 10-day trip to Beijing in October ’08. Our first trip to China was on a tour in 1985, and we wanted to visit highlights that we had not seen 23 years before. A very effective and inexpensive method to accomplish this presented itself at our accommodation, Traders Hotel.
White Island, in the Bay of Plenty 30 miles off the coast of Whakatane on New Zealand’s North Island, is an active volcanic site. On a December ’07-January ’08 tour, my wife, Eva, and I arranged for a helicopter tour to the island with White Island Volcano Adventure (Box 10, Waimana, Whakatane, North Island, NZ; phone/fax +64 7 308 4188 or, toll free in NZ, phone 0800 804 354, www.vulcanheli.co.nz).
This is a “must see”! You walk about, and the scenery and colors are fantastic.
My husband, Leon, and I went to Rome for five days and then on a Mediterranean cruise for two weeks in October ’08. Leon uses a wheelchair, though he can walk a bit when he needs to.
Taking advantage of some frequent-flyer miles on United Airlines, I decided to travel to Spain on my own, May 10-27, 2008. It had been 10 years since my late husband and I had been in Spain, and I wanted to revisit the south.
Although I have Spanish friends near Madrid, I decided to join the hospitality organization SERVAS (US SERVAS, Inc., 1125 16th St., Ste. 201, Arcata, CA 95521-5585; 707/825-1714, www.usservas.org) in order to meet new people and have some personal contacts during my travels.
My wife, Jane, and I traveled to Copenhagen for the first time in 2006. We went to the town square to find a sightseeing bus and boarded one which had “Hop On-Hop Off” prominently displayed on the side. We rode for two or three stops and then hopped off at a palace that had been made into a museum.
After visiting the museum, we returned to the bus stop and within five minutes another bus appeared. We hopped on and went to see the Little Mermaid for the photo op. Another bus picked us up within 15 minutes.
From a visit in early October ’08, I believe I have finally found the best way to get to Paris and back from the confusing Charles de Gaulle International Airport arrivals/departures “terminals.”
by Yvonne Horn, Contributing Editor
The winged lion of Venice, sculpted in stone, stood high above us just beneath the tip-top bronze bell of St. Mark’s Torre dell’Orologio, looking down on the populace as if it owned the world.
