December 2015

The Gare du Nord in Paris is a beautiful rail station. Having arrived there early by taxi from our hotel on May 8, 2015, my daughter Linda and I enjoyed watching the proceedings from the long balcony on the second floor, including the departure of the Eurostar.

Our boarding process was a breeze. Finding the numbered car indicated on our tickets, it was with excitement that we embarked the 12:19 p.m. high-speed Thalys (www.thalys.com/be/en) train to Amsterdam.

My wife and I spent two weeks in Portugal, mainly focusing on Lisbon and Porto, in September 2015. In each city, we rented an apartment for six nights. I would highly recommend these apartments, both of which were booked through Homeaway.com (www.homeaway.com).

• In LISBON, we booked Homeaway Rental No. 841261, for which we paid €100 (near $110) per night plus a €40 cleaning fee. A 30% deposit was made via PayPal at the time of booking, with the remainder paid in cash upon arrival.

My husband and I generally are independent travelers, but for our customized 20-day, 19-night trip to Peru, April 20-May 9, 2014, we used the services of ITN advertiser Tara Tours (Miami, FL; 800/327-0080, www.taratours.com).

Our decision to use a tour operator was driven by a lack of time to do all the investigation to make the arrangements, ourselves, particularly the segments that we wanted to do by bus and within the Sacred Valley. Tara Tours’ José La Torre arranged our trip and did a superb job. 

Heading to Dubrovnik, Croatia, on May 30, 2015, I was sitting in Premium Economy Class on a Lufthansa flight from New York to Frankfurt. Without having removed or even loosening my seat belt, I leaned forward in my seat to talk to my daughter, Dorie, who was sitting in front of me, and I bruised my liver!

I don’t think my seat belt was cinched too tight for just sitting, but I should have loosened or unfastened it before leaning forward. 

The Booking Now app, by Booking.com, facilitates reserving hotel rooms around the world within 48 hours of check-in time. 

When searching for a room, a user can specify hotel room preferences, including price range, Wi-Fi availability and having meals included in the price. The app can also use GPS to find the hotels meeting the user’s preferences nearest to his location and then give directions to the chosen hotel.

We hopped on the donkey cart at a dusty corner in the Bahariya Oasis, about half a block from our hotel. The driver of the cart spoke no English and we spoke no Arabic. The lead donkey walked with a slight limp as we started down the main road. 

Released on Oct. 13, a report on the Dutch Safety Board’s investigation into the July 2014 crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine blamed a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile for downing the plane and killing all 298 people on board.

The board did not have the authority to assign blame regarding who fired the missile. Ukraine, the US and NATO have blamed Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, while the rebels and Russia have blamed Ukrainian armed forces. Both Ukraine and the rebels have the equipment to fire Buk missiles.