Available at Tourism Ireland offices, the brochure “Ireland’s Cultural Explorer” features information on the country’s 130 castles, museums, monuments, parks, distilleries and gardens. At www.irelandvisitordiscounts.com, you can print out a pass that gives you savings on all 130 venues.
Contact Heritage Island (Marina House, 11-13 Clarence St., Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Ireland; phone 353 1 236 6890, fax 236 6895, www.heritageisland.com).
With the service chinaONEcall, travelers in China trying to understand someone who speaks only Chinese (a taxi driver, for instance) now can call a translator to interpret over the phone. The company is based in the U.K., and service is available 24/7 through mobile phones.
Prepaid packages of minutes are available starting at £39 (near $77) for 60 minutes. You can add more minutes in 30-minute segments while on the road. For info, in the U.S. call 877/660-2838 or visit www.chinaONEcall.com.
The historical monument Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory (Nördlichaes Schlossrondell 8, D-80638, Munich, Germany; phone +49 089 179 197 0, fax 179 50, www.nymphenburg.com) offers guided tours year-round every Wednesday at 10 a.m. (reservations recommended).
Visitors see the entire cycle of producing porcelain art, from refinery at the porcelain mill to the creation of pottery, free-hand painted cookware and delicate fine art pieces. The cost is €25 for the 1½-hour tour.
Several of the most-used cars of old East Germany, the smoky, 2-stroke Trabi, are used on guided tours of Berlin and Dresden in convoys for up to eight people.
In Berlin, the Classic Route covers historical sites and modern city life, and the Wild East Route focuses on relics of the planned economy and socialism. Dresden’s route takes visitors to parks, villas and the castles on the Elbe River.
In Venice, the Orsoni Glass Foundry (Cannaregio, 1045 - 30121 Venezia, Italy; phone 041 2440002 3, www.orsoni.com) is offering 3-, 5- and 10-day mosaic workshops. The foundry, which has operated since 1880, provides instruction on cutting the glass, judging colors and making an art piece.
A 3-day workshop costs €480 (near $711), a one-week class is €750, and 2-week portraiture and micromosaic classes cost €1,800.
The Rayavadee Resort (One Premier Corporate Park, Soi Premier, Srinakarin Road, Nongbon, Prawet, Bangkok 10250, Thailand; phone 66 2301 1850 or fax 66 2399 1060), on the coast of Thailand’s Krabi Marine National Park, offers excursions to the park’s tropical islands on the 54-foot Pla Luang, a renovated Siamese junk.
For two people, half-day excursions cost 14,000 baht (near $462) and full-day excursions, 16,000-18,000 baht ($528-594).
On selected departures of Quark Expeditions’ “Active Adventure” Antarctica itineraries, Nov. 22, 2008-Feb. 26, 2009, travelers can choose from these options: a day of mountaineering or cross-country skiing, kayaking trips through Antarctic Peninsula waters or a night of camping on the Antarctic snow.
On 16 of its Mediterranean itineraries, Crystal Cruises is offering optional helicopter excursions.
Examples — the 6-hour “Majestic Dolomites” tour ($3,268 per person) includes flying over Venice, Treviso, the Piave River and Mt. Civetta, with lunch in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and the 1½-hour “Mount Etna” tour ($1,995) overflies Europe’s largest active volcano, then lands in Taormina where guests can explore on their own.
On ships of Crystal Cruises (888/799-4625, www.crystalcruises.com), the lounges, bars and entertainment areas have been primarily nonsmoking for years. A new policy prohibiting smoking on the verandahs of all staterooms and suites will go into effect May 7, 2008, for the Crystal Serenity and May 25 for the Crystal Symphony. Cigarette smoking will still be permitted inside private accommodations.
• Emirates airline on its Airbus A340-500s now provides SMS (short message service) and e-mail service to passengers’ mobile devices, using a satellite linkup.
Passengers can use their own GSM cell phones for text messages (SMS). Rates for cell-phone text messages are $1 per message. Passengers also can use Emirates’ in-flight WiFi service to send or receive e-mail on their own laptops or WiFi-enabled Blackberries.