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My two girlfriends and I took a 2-week independent trip to Italy, June 7-21, 2006. We always plan our trips ourselves (no packages), customizing them for what we want to see and leaving plenty of free time in between the sightseeing for cafés, hiking, etc.
This trip included Venice (plus Murano, Burano and Torcello islands), our hiking the entire Cinque Terre trail, Florence (with a stop to tour Pisa en route) and Rome.
My husband, David, and I have stayed 12 times at Hotel de la Paix (Bernastrasse 24, 3800 Interlaken, SWITZERLAND; phone +41 33 822 70 44, fax 822 87 28 or visit www. hotel-de-la-paix.ch), most recently in August ’06.
I returned to SWITZERLAND in September ’06, this time with a cousin.
Looking for an inexpensive place to stay at Roissy Aéroport Charles-de-Gaulle Paris Nord? I stayed at the Etap Hotel Roissy (335 rue de la Belle Étoile, ZAC Paris Nord 2, Roissey en FRANCE 95974; phone [+33] 892 68 3056, fax 149 89 3342 or visit www.etaphotel.com). There are 20 Etap hotels in the Paris area. Etap is a member of the Accor chain (800/466-8356).
I paid only €39 ($51) for one night in October ’06 and got what I paid for. There was no room key (instead, you enter a special code), no bellhop, no cart for hauling your own baggage, no phone and no clock.
In the middle of August ’06, I found myself in Helsinki, FINLAND — one of the world’s “Top Ten Most Expensive” cities — without a hotel room! So I logged onto the Internet (imagine travel today without the Net?) and within minutes had a room at the independently owned Airport Hotel Bonus Inn (Elannotie 9, 01510 Vantaa, Finland; phone + 358 [0] 9-825-511or e-mail hotel@bonusinn.fi).
The rack rate for a double room was €213 ($276). I found an Internet rate of €130 ($168) for a double.
by Roxana von Kraus, Boston, MA
“American? Welcome. Welcome to Egypt!”
Siem Reap is the town nearest to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, and on my visit to the famous temple, Jan. 11-14, 2007, I stayed in one of the town’s smaller hotels (about 30 rooms). The room had an in-room electronic safe into which I put some U.S. dollars, my passport and a few travelers’ checks.
I didn’t give it a second thought, having used these safes countless times over decades with no problems. I always assumed that a “safe-deposit box” was exactly what the words imply.
Based on my experience with hotel staff around the world, it seems the people out front are usually working at a hotel because it’s a good job to have while they’re in college or while they have something else as a career that just isn’t there yet. They’re very nice but have little training and even less motivation. They’re on the front line for complaints and get very few compliments.
I’m writing in response to the situation posed in the January ’07 issue, page 115, in which a hotel guest reported a malfunctioning television and mini-bar to the desk and nothing was done. ITN asked what steps should have been taken.
A 4-star hotel worthy of the rating should have been both able and eager to remedy the situation or, at the very least, offer a substantial room discount. The writer did not say if the occurrence was over a weekend, but, even then, true 4-star hotels should have maintenance personnel on call.
I began learning Italian in my late 50s by taking a class at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. However, I did not really start learning and using the language until I began attending a variety of private and state language schools in Italy, taking classes in Rome, Puglia and Sicily. When I visit Italy now, I can understand movies and theater in Italian, read standard newspapers, magazines and books, and speak the language better.