June 2006

Treasures in India

While in Bled, Slovenia, you should definitely spend a couple of hours in Bled Castle. In addition to touring the museum and chapel, be sure to stop by the print shop where, with the help of a friendly, traditionally garbed printer, you can print a souvenir certificate for yourself for a small fee.

The issue of accommodating handicapped or disabled persons on tours or cruises was raised in two readers’ letters (March ’06, pg. 35 & July ’05, pg. 27). The issue goes beyond handicapped or disabled persons to anyone who cannot meet the physical requirements of a trip. As I see it, there are various aspects to addressing the problem.

• Tour operators need to specify the physical requirements of a trip as clearly and realistically as possible. (Are there elevators? How much walking is involved? What kind of surface?)

A travel companion (TC) and I visited Paris, Jan. 14-18, ’05. We were lucky with the weather. Temperatures were in the upper 30s or low 40s every day, with no rain except on the last morning of our trip. According to the weather forecast info at www.worldexecutive.com, Paris has less rainfall in winter than it does in spring and summer. If that’s true, then our weather experience for January was the norm.

Kruger National Park in South Africa is a premier game park with thousands of animals living in the wild. It’s the size of our state of Massachusetts. Kruger is one of our very favorite places in the world. We have been there six times, most recently in September ’04.

My wife, Anne, and I took a tour of Sicily, Dec. 2-10, ’05, booked through Pilgrim Tours. The price was $794 per person, excluding airfare.

I took a month-long tour to both North and South India with Adventures Abroad in February ’06. The basic cost of the tour was $4,870, but my total of $6,203 included single accommodation and an extra night in New Delhi pre-tour.

by Steven Emmet, Solana Beach, CA

Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.

This month’s winner is MARTY PEREZ of Stockton, California:

One rainy November afternoon in Nepi, Italy, as we ducked under the portico of the striking Palazzo Communale with its baroque 18th-century architecture, school let out and the piazza in front of us exploded with activity.

Buses quickly filled with running, shouting children. Girls wore white smocks under their coats; boys wore blue. The line of children walking home came a bit later, and the waiting moms or, more often, grandparents greeted their charges with extra umbrellas and hats, kisses and snacks.