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After a wonderful 14-day cruise around Cape Horn to Buenos Aires on the Norwegian Crown in December ’03, a friend and I took the advice of an ITN reader (April ’03, pg. 70) and stayed at B&B Olleros 3000* (Olleros 3000 Colegiales, Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA 1426; phone 54 0 11 4554-7269, fax 54 0 11 4554-1097, e-mail info@olleros3000.com.ar or visit www.olleros3000.com.ar).
I spent a week in Ubud, Bali, in January ’04 staying at Sania’s House Bungalows (Jalan Karna No. 7, Ubud, 80571 Bali, INDONESIA; phone [0361] 975 535 or e-mail sania_house@yahoo.com).
On a cobblestone street in the heart of Sultanahmet, the historic Old City of Istanbul, is Special Artemis Hotel (Kücük Ayasofya Cad, Cayiroglu Sok, No. 25, 34400 Sultanahmet-Istanbul, Turkey; phone +90 212 516 58 65, fax +90 212 638 25 58, e-mail artemis@artemishotel.com or visit www.artemishotel.com).
Indeed a special hotel in every way, this is a relatively new, 24-room boutique hotel (which was being refurbished and renovated).
My husband and I visited the island of Crete, Nov. 20-26, ’03. Since it was off-season, the majority of accommodations were closed. Fortunately, for us, Nymphes Luxury Apartments (Aghia Pelagia, Crete, GREECE; phone 30 2810 371605, fax 30 2810 811842, e-mail nymphes@ier.forthnet.gr or visit www.greekhotel.com/crete/heraklion/nymphes/home.htm) is open year-round. We can’t imagine a nicer place to stay on Crete, anytime of year.
In September ’03 my wife and I stayed seven nights at the Jedermann Hotel (Bayerstrasse 95, 80335 München, GERMANY; phone +49 89 54 32 40, e-mail info@hotel-jedermann.de or visit www.hotel-jedermann.de).
The Jedermann has been owned and operated by the Jenke family for over 40 years. It is located a 5- to 10-minute walk from the Munich central rail station and within a short walk of the Oktoberfest field and the not-to-be-missed Augustina brewery, beer hall and restaurant.
On March 12, ’03, my three sisters-in-law and I began a trip that had been in the making for over two years. We flew to southern France, via Paris, for one week of horseback riding at Domaine du Soleil (Route de Villesque, 30610 Sauve, France; phone 0033-0466804515, cell phone 06-82658301 or e-mail barbara.gahn@wanadoo.fr), a large estate on 70 acres of land and home to horses, goats, pigs, chickens, five dogs and one burro. Each of us varied in our riding skills but shared a common willingness to do our best, not a small thing for four women in their 50s.
The Arosfa Hotel (83 Gower St., London WC1E 6HJ, ENGLAND; phone/fax 020 7636 2115), located a 5-minute walk from Goodge Street Underground Station, is more a B&B than a hotel, in my opinion. It is one of several small hotels along busy Gower Street. I would recommend requesting a room in the back of any of them, as Gower Street has traffic noise most of the time.
The rate was £45 ($83) per night, single. All rates posted at the Arosfa refer to rooms with facilities en suite, and accommodations range from singles to quads. Breakfast is included.
by Michael Algar, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Within easy reach of London, some of East Anglia’s landscapes will live forever in Constable and Gainsborough paintings. But it is wealth from this area’s cloth-weaving industries that is reflected in its historic communities of such appeal today.
In September ’01, shortly after the tragedy of 9-11, we traveled to Ireland for two weeks and then to the Isle of Man. As U.S. citizens, we were met in both places with kindness, understanding and concern.
When we arrived on the Isle of Man, a game of golf was immediately scheduled. But on the chosen morning, when we arrived at the King Edward Bay Golf Club via taxi, the only person around was the golf pro. After renting clubs to my husband (I don’t play), he told us he was leaving for the day and said, “Just put them in the locker room. I’ll leave it unlocked.”
The ITN staff found the strategy described in the following letter clever and thought that, with the wealth of guidebooks available on so many destinations, some readers might be inspired to use this method in planning which sites to visit.
In view of the plethora of guidebooks on England and their sometimes divergent opinions, a few years ago I thought it might be both interesting and useful to determine the degree of conformity among them in choosing what they considered that country’s top tourist attractions.