June 2008

The Berlin International Beer Festival is held on a 2.2-kilometer stretch of Berlin’s Karl-Marx-Allee. Along with live music on 18 stages, more than 240 breweries from 80 countries will present 1,750 brands of beer, Aug. 1-3, 2008, and Aug. 8-10, 2009.

Admission is free; souvenir beer mugs (6.7 ounces) are sold for €3.50 (near $5) and, when presented at a brewer’s stand, cost €1.5 to fill up.

Contact Praesenta, Ltd. (Köpenickerstrasse 325, 12555 Berlin, Germany; phone 030 657 635 60, www.bierfestival-berlin.de).

Twenty-four specially schooled Helsinki Helpers will be available to assist visitors to Helsinki, Finland, in up to 20 languages, including English, Japanese and Croatian. From mid-May to early September, they can be found from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily in key tourist areas of the city center. Services are free.

In Copenhagen, holders of the CPH Card get free admission to 60 museums and attractions; free transport by train, bus and metro (including airport routes), and discounts at participating restaurants, car rental agencies and attractions.

The cost for a 24-hour card is DKK199 (approx. $41) adult and DKK129 ($27) child 10 to 15 and for a 72-hour card, DKK429 ($89) adult, DKK249 ($52) child.

The Marco Polo has been sold by Norwegian Cruise Line to Global Cruise Lines and will be operated under charter by Transocean (in UK, phone 0845 4300274, www.transoceancruises.co.uk, or see a travel agent). She will keep her name.

Based at London Tilbury, she will cruise the British Isles, North Sea, Baltic Sea and Russia and, in October ’08, across the Atlantic to the West Indies. Sample rates — £849-£2,799 (near $1,681-$5,543) per person for the 13-day Baltic-Russia and £2,299-£5,999 for the 33-day West Indies.

The U.S. Department of Transportation on April 14, 2008, revised the rules (Part 250) regarding the rights of passengers who are “bumped” (involuntarily denied boarding from an oversold flight) from any scheduled-service flight within or leaving the U.S., including those of foreign carriers. (Excluded are charter flights and planes with fewer than 30 seats.) The limits on the amounts that airlines must pay in compensation have increased; other changes are subtle. In this summary, the major changes are highlighted in bold.

Just one of the three million pieces of art in the 1,000-room Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

GERALD RODRIGUEZ

Santa Fe, NM

You’ll never meet a traveler who, after five trips, brags, “Every year I pack heavier.” The measure of a good traveler is how light he or she travels. You can’t travel heavy, happy and cheap. Pick two.

Due to the recent horrendous Post Office price increase to magazines, we now must charge $2 per issue on a one-year subscription.

About the same as you pay for a glass of iced tea in a restaurant.

We think the abundance of Travel information you find in International Travel News is more valuable than half a latte at Starbucks.

A woman called up to complain, saying that she could get another Travel magazine for $12. I fought the urge to say that they know what their magazine is worth.