September 2018

In Sukhumvit, Bangkok, Thailand, the class "Cooking with Poo," led by chef Khun Saiyuud Diwong (known as Khun Poo, short for chompoo, or "rose apple"), instructs students, in English, on traditional Thai cooking.

At Ireland's Shannon Airport (phone +353 61 712000, shannonairport.ie), the world's largest collection of die-cast model aircraft went on permanent exhibit on July 5 in a gallery off of the Departures lounge. The 1,500-plus models of commercial aircraft, military aircraft and more, each at a 1:200 scale, are on loan from the private collection of Michael Kelly of County Limerick, who has been collecting them for 30-plus years.

On the peak of Gaislachkogl Mountain, at an altitude of 10,000 feet in the Austrian Alps, a new James Bond museum, 007 Elements (Sölden, Austria; 007elements.soelden.com/home-en), opened in July 2018.

The futuristic building and its Ice Q restaurant (the film's "Hoffner Klinik") were filming locations in the 2015 Bond movie "Spectre." There is a screening room plus nine galleries, each with a different Bond theme, such as gadgets, vehicles or villains.

You're finally going to Morocco. That's great! So what do you need to know that might not be prominent in your guidebook?

First, upon arrival at the airport, you must complete a challenging Immigration form. Remember to complete a duplicate form or take a photo of your completed form; you'll need to provide essentially the same information at each lodging check-in.

My husband, Clyde, and I had to renew our passports in June 2018, and we vaguely remembered reading something in ITN about a new procedure ("Extra Passport Pages Nixed," June '15, pg. 4). We found the Travel Brief through a search on the website.

The item stated that additional pages will no longer be added to existing US passports, noting, "Under the new rules, all new and renewed passports will come with 52 pages, 43 of which will be blank. The current standard US passport has 28 pages, 18 of them blank."

I created a Berlin opera festival for myself. I was in Berlin, Germany, for six nights in May 2018 and attended four operas.

Two were part of the Festival Verdi and were at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Bismarckstraße 35; deutscheoperberlin.de/en_EN); another was at the Staatsoper Berlin (Hinter der Katholischen Kirche 1, Bühneneingang; staatsoper-berlin.de/en), and the last one was at the Komische Oper Berlin (Behrenstraße 55-57; www.komische-oper-berlin.de/en).

During a trip to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in June 2018, my husband, George, and I flew to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where we spent the night before continuing on to Azerbaijan.

For our return trip, I added a second night in Dubai. On our extra day there, we hired a taxi for a short city tour, then were dropped off at Mall of the Emirates to go to Ski Dubai (Sheikh Zayed Rd.; www.theplaymania.com/skidubai), a huge, indoor snowy mountain for skiing and snowboarding.

When I signed up for "Switzerland, the Heart of the Rhine & Moselle" with Vantage Deluxe World Travel (Boston, MA; 888/514-1845, www.vantagetravel.com), the cost of the trip, including air (Miami-Basel, Amsterdam-Miami), insurance and an optional Luxembourg excursion, was $6,342. There was no single supplement, as the ms River Voyager offers four single cabins.