Norse shenanigans! The site of November’s photo is Mt. Torghatten on Torget Island, near Brønnøysund, Norway. Legend has it that one night the troll Hestmannen spied the beautiful troll Lekamøya and her seven sisters bathing and decided she was for him. But the girls fled and, although Hestmannen was on horseback, he couldn’t catch up.
by Judith Anshin; Contributing Editor
12 days, 11 nights; Oct. 1-11, 2014. (Departures after Oct. 11, call for new rates.) Highlights: In Athens, Acropolis, Syntagma Square, National Library, Hadrian’s Arch and Panathenaic Stadium/fly to Mykonos, island of narrow streets, windmills/overlook ancient caldera on Santorini/hydrofoil to Crete and see Minoan palace at ancient site of Knossos/walking tour of Heraklion. Land, double from $3,871 (4-star) to $4,797 (5-star); single $4,886 (4-star) to $6,410 (5-star).
Bill Altaffer; San Diego, CA
I left San Diego via Asiana Airlines in June 2013, and 36 hours later I was in Kota Kinabalu (KK), Malaysia, the gateway to the Spratly Islands and my final destination. KK’s airport is new and modern — not the place I saw when I visited 25 years earlier.
Garbage and raw sewage spilling onto beaches in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have resulted in 12 beaches being declared unsafe for swimming by the government’s environmental agency.
In Rio, which has an urban population of more than 11 million, only 40% of the sewage is treated. The remaining 60% flows into the nearby rivers, lagoons and ocean. Swimming in untreated sewage can lead to infections and diarrhea.
During a visit to Cancún and the nearby Riviera Maya, on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Nov. 28-Dec. 4, 2013, my wife, Fyllis, and I stayed at a hotel of Sunset World Resorts (800/494-9173), a group of six properties, each boasting unique attractions. Guests may take advantage of the facilities and services at all of them.
A guest room lying 13 feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean is part of a structure floating over a clearing in a coral reef 250 meters from Pemba Island in the Zanzibar Archipelago, off the coast of Tanzania.
Spotlights outside the room’s eight windows illuminate any sea life swimming by. Guests can climb a ladder to a lounge and bathroom at water level and continue up to the roof to sunbathe or stargaze.
A quick Internet check told me that there were once two to three thousand castles in Scotland. Many still exist as family homes, castle hotels or tourist attractions. Some remain picturesque ruins. Others have simply vanished with hardly a trace, their stones incorporated long ago into other buildings.
If the February “Where in the World?” photo looked familiar, it’s because a picture of the same monument was printed in this space in the April '12 issue. This time, however, you got to see the FRONT of the statue.
