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July 2006

07

Trouble converting US currency

My wife and I departed for Amsterdam on April 3, ’06. We were to be there for five days, departing on Sunday the 9th for London Heathrow, where our driver would meet us and take us to Bath to stay three nights, stopping by Blenheim Palace on the way. We then would stay three nights in Shaftesbury, finally heading into London on the 16th for a stay of four nights. To complicate money matters, the 17th was Easter Sunday and Monday would be a bank holiday.

Debit/credit card purchases in UK

When we used our MasterCard for a purchase in Glasgow, Scotland, on April 10, ’06, the new machine refused it because there was no “PIN number.” We insisted that the assistant try again and she refused. The manager came over and inserted our card again. The machine then said to enter the last four digits of the card. She did so and the card was accepted.

Britain & France ‘chip & PIN’ cards

My wife and I in April ’06 took a most enjoyable holiday touring Britain with Midway Motor Travel (Southerwicks, Corsham, Wiltshire, England, SN13 9NH; phone 800/214-8738 or e-mail admin@midwaymotortravel. com), and I would like to endorse the many excellent references made over the years by ITN readers about this excellent company. I would, however, like to bring to your attention details of a serious problem visitors to Britain now encounter when trying to use credit or debit cards.

Travel Tidbits

A “must see” in Bodrum, Turkey, is the Museum of Underwater Archeology, housed in the Castle of St. John. The Institute of Nautical Archeology has been excavating in the Mediterranean since 1973, and the collections displayed include treasures from a series of historic wrecks along Turkey’s southern shores. Mycenaean and Cannanite artifacts from the 12th century B.C., a reconstruction of a seventh-century Eastern Roman Empire wreck and finds from the world’s oldest shipwreck, a 14th-century B.C.

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