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My husband, Bob, and I spent five nights at hotelmüller München (Fliegenstrasse 4, D-80337, Munich, Germany; phone 0049 89 2323860) in May ’09. What a find!
In a perfect location, it’s just around the corner from all forms of mass transit and a 10-minute walk from the Marienplatz. We took the metro from the airport.
We booked through gtahotels.com (New York, NY; 888/210-2543). Our double room on the second floor cost $140 a night, with breakfast.
In response to Lawrence Schonbrun’s “Person to Person” question (Nov. ’09, pg. 77), using a cell phone worldwide is easy. You need just two things: a “world phone” and service.
I spent 26 days in Turkey in May ’09 traveling solo and on the cheap. Excluding airfare, my total expenses were $951. I wrote about my visits to Bodrum (Oct. ’09, pg. 14) and Selçuk (Jan. ’10, pg. 30) and now cover Marmaris.
We got a terrific response to the assignment we gave you a few months ago.
by Richard Berner, San Diego, CA
In the first of our writing “contests” about inspiring destinations, we posed the question “What makes Madrid “Madrid”? From the responses received, it is clear this city makes for vivid memories. We are accepting no more submissions for this contest and will print a few more of the entries received in the next couple of issues.
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.
My wife, Gail, and I are both snorkelers, big time, and had read about divers swimming with whale sharks. We had the opportunity for such an experience during an eight-day tour of the Philippines in March ’09.
Whale sharks are not mammals like whales but are, instead, fish, belonging to the shark group. However, whale sharks are not predators; they feed mostly on plankton sieved through their gills as they swim. It is the largest fish in the world, growing to over 40 feet and weighing some 39 tons.
A number of my friends and I, who are in good but not spectacular physical shape, decided to craft our own bicycling itinerary through Switzerland and northern Italy. The result was a wonderful 2½ weeks of biking among the spectacular Alps, June 17-July 3, 2008. Six of us biked and one nonbiker rode in taxis with our luggage.
Two of us had biked along the Danube in 2006, utilizing the services of a tour company that furnished bikes, daily shuttle and reserved lodging plus contingency services. With that experience “under our belts,” we decided we could plan this trip ourselves.
My husband, Carl, and I took a private tour of Vietnam, Jan. 5-29, 2009, with All Asia Travel (57-59 Do Quang Dau St., Pham Ngu Lao Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; phone 84 8 39203 493 or 446, fax 203 886).