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When you have more time in Paris

I always use Rick Steves’ wonderful guidebooks for the basic, nitty-gritty information about traveling in Europe. However, he assumes that you will have only a week in Paris and tailors his recommendations accordingly. For those of you privileged to spend more time there, I have some ideas of things to see and do.

I exchanged houses with a young couple in Paris for two weeks in May ’10. The chance to live in a flat instead of a hotel was a treat, not to mention that it saved me a lot of money. This was my sixth trip to Paris, though I had never been for this long.

Meštrović museum

During my trip to Zagreb in July ’09, I visited the Atelier Meštrović (Mletaçka 8, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia; phone 385 1 428 586, www.mdc.hr/mestrovic/atelijer/opci-en.htm). Ivan Meštrović’s studio and 17th-century house are the setting for a vast array of his sculptures and models.

Bilbao vs. Madrid

For four exhilarating days, Dec. 11-14, 2009, I “basqued” in the élan of bodacious Bilbao. It was my fifth visit to that blossoming metropolis. Also a fifth visit, I stayed in Madrid, Jan. 4-11, 2010. While, I think, Madrid is getting by on its past, Bilbao has eagerly embarked on the future. For me, it is the most exciting and vital city in Spain.

Amman museum

An unexpected find during the trip my husband, Charles, and I took to Jordan was the Jordan Archaeological Museum (phone +962 [0] 6 463 8795), on Citadel Hill in Amman, adjacent to the Umayyad Palace.

The museum presents the history of man in the Jordan Valley along with artifacts, from the days of the Neanderthals to the rise of Islam over the Crusaders. Included are Dead Sea Scrolls. What a find!

ITN: a lot more substantive info than slick magazines

From the mailbag: “In just one issue of ITN I got a lot more substantive info and a broader range of possibilities than I did from a bunch of slick magazines, nice as they are.” Observant people there are in Austin, Texas.

I’ve talked to lots and lots of people who have been to Copenhagen, Denmark. Sadly, not a single one of them had ever been to a museum that has been on my agenda twice. And that is the Resistance Museum. (It’ s in the city center.)

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