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Our plan was to attend the Chelsea Garden Show on May 22, ’03, with the preceding week spent in and about London seeing all the sights. We were warmly welcomed everywhere — I really don’t think I have ever encountered friendlier people. The Brits really miss us, and London is a wonderful place to visit.
I had the pleasure of attending a one-week Tuscan cooking course, Sept. 29-Oct. 5, ’02, given by the Aolmaia Country School, based in beautiful San Miniato, Italy. It offers courses in cooking and other Tuscan/Ligurian arts and subjects such as stained glass, mosaics, wine, the Italian language and Etruscan history, to name a few, at reasonable prices!
Based on one’s choice of course, prices range from €390 (near $447) a week, without lodging or meals, to €2,688 ($3,082) for six nights’ lodging at a 3-star hotel with cooking lessons and all meals included.
We returned Oct. 16, ’03, from a month in Italy, where we had a car for 24 days. We found that if you’re planning to drive in Europe for 17 days or more, it generally pays to lease a car rather than to rent. We leased a brand-new mid-size Renault Laguna with air-conditioning and manual transmission for $1,337, everything included (all taxes; all insurance, including CDW, theft and liability; airport surcharges, etc.). There was nothing else to pay.
The following will be of interest to art lovers, especially, since Rome’s Borghese packs one of the strongest punches of any museum in Europe.
To sightsee Barcelona, I recommend the Bus Turistic. Run by the local transit authority, it is a 25-stop bus route featuring both a north and south loop. A multilingual tour guide is aboard each bus.
One- and 2-day tickets are available at €15 and €19 (near $17.50 and $22). They can be purchased at the Playa de Catalunya in the heart of the city. A 6-language guidebook is provided as well.
Facilitating planning a tour, brochures are available all over the place showing the routes and stops.
by Dan Gifford, Arlington, VA (Part 6 in a series of 6)
Dear Globetrotter: