Music from one of 25,000 original music rolls played on any of several antique player pianos can be experienced in the Pianola Museum (Westerstraat 106, 1015 MN, Amsterdam, Netherlands; phone +31 20 627 9624, www.pianola.nl/Pianola_ Museum/Welcome.html). Visitors also will learn about the history and mechanics of player pianos.
The museum is open for general admission 2-5 p.m. on Sundays only. €5 (near $5.50). Private visits can be arranged.
Diane Robbins of Penfield, New York, wrote (Dec. ’16, pg. 53), “I would like to hear of the experiences of… travelers who, after having purchased travel insurance, had to cut short their vacations because of medical issues.
Cerro Negro, an active volcano outside of León, Nicaragua, is one of the only places in the world where an adventure-junkie can volcano board on a wooden sled at speeds of 40 to 50 miles per hour.
My wife and I set up our September 2016 Nicaragua trip, ourselves. First we went to Tamarindo Beach, Costa Rica, for a half-marathon and zip-line tours. Then we took a bus to Granada, where we stayed with friends.
This month’s winner is ROD SMITH of Oskaloosa, Kansas:
My wife and I visited Victoria Falls in 2012. After I did the bungee jump from the bridge that spans the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia, we went to the outdoor Bridge Café for lunch.
We sat down at a table, the only patrons, and ordered hamburgers and fries. When the waitress brought our lunch, she took out a slingshot and walked over to the railing. My wife whispered to me, “What do you think she’s doing?” So I went over and asked.
To celebrate my husband, Al’s, recovery from a near-fatal illness, we decided to return to Switzerland, our very favorite country, Aug. 4-19, 2015. However, we got off to a rough (and very sad) start on our departure day when we had to say a final ‘Good-bye’ to our beloved 16-year-old cat, Alexander. We buried him in our backyard and left a few hours later to begin our travel to Switzerland.
In the Santa Lucia train station in Venice, Italy, be sure to visit the gelato counter GROM (www.grom.it). It’s dead ahead of you when you walk up the ramp on the left and through the station door.
Even though I hardly ever drink coffee, that flavor of GROM’s gelato was wonderfully “espresso” tasting. I also enjoyed the darker chocolates and the fruit flavors, all of them seasonally fresh.
Returning from Morocco with family members in October 2016 (March ’17, pg. 14), we stopped over for three nights in Madrid, Spain, where, in addition to seeing the usual tourist attractions, I looked forward to having paella (a dish of rice, meat and vegetables) at least once and returning to what the Guinness Book of World Records considers the world’s oldest continually operating restaurant, Restaurante Botín (C/Cuchilleros, 17, 28005, Madrid, Spain; phone +34 913 664 217, www.botin.es/en), which opened in 1725.
My husband and a friend and I spent a week at a resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, March 2-9, 2017. Although we usually cooked for ourselves in our villa, we sometimes caught ourselves in town at lunchtime.
One day, we decided to eat at a new restaurant we had spotted, Añejo Limon Restaurante (Calle Basilio Badillo 229, Puerto Vallarta; phone +52 322 222 1110, anejolimon@gmail.com). It looked like it was open, so we went in.
I went to an exhibit in Pforzheim, Germany, called Rome 312 (Hohweisenweg 6, Pforzheim; phone +49 7231 7760 997, www.gasometer-pforzheim.de/en) in March 2017.
The exhibit is a 4-story panorama of Rome, Italy, as it looked during the time of Emperor Constantine. It’s done in the round, and you really feel like you’re there.
It’s housed in a repurposed gasholder, circa 1912. The exhibit is fully accessible.
If you’re in the area, it’s well worth a stop. There was plenty of free parking.
JUDY FAITEK
San Diego, CA
