Food & Wine

From FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 12, 2008. . .

A controversy was sparked earlier this year by Thomas Kohnstamm’s new book, “Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? A Swashbuckling Tale of High Adventure, Questionable Ethics & Professional Hedonism.”

My partner, John, and I, were on Easter Island, Feb. 6-11, 2008, attending this year’s Tapati Festival. In Hanga Roa, the island’s only town, we found that restaurants often serve only one item.

One of the restaurants my granddaughter, Michaela, and I enjoyed during our March ’08 visit to Amsterdam was Lieve Belgisch Restaurant (Herengracht 88, 1015 BS Amsterdam, Netherlands; phone [020] 624 96 35, www.restaurant lieve.nl).

Here are notes from our 17-day “Egypt and the Eternal Nile” tour, Feb. 22-March 9, 2008, from Odysseys Unlimited (Newton, MA). The cost from New York was $8,210 for two.

A query in ITN’s “Person to Person” section led to a deluge of recommendations for Africa 2000 (P.O. Box 1204, Hilton 3245, South Africa; phone +27 33 3433911, fax 3431786).

My husband, Frank, and I and three other couples (a very nice group size) worked for many months with the Africa 2000 owners, Gill and Graham Maskell, to develop a trip which suited all our interests and budgets. The result was the trip of a lifetime, March 25-April 17, 2008.

by Jack & Yvonne Prevo, McKinney, TX

On a 10-day trip to Paris, France, in May ’08, we spent a day outside of Paris that included a visit to Château de Malmaison in Rueil and a nice meal at Le Restaurant de la Fournaise in Chatou.

I traveled to Bali, Indonesia, May 14-26, 2008, and the island of the gods remains one of the cheapest destinations on the planet, just the opposite of my trip to Iceland and Norway last October.

I took a trip to London in July ’08 with my mother and two sons and wish to highly recommend the area around Earls Court tube station both for restaurants and for the accessibility to Heathrow from there. There are a number of 3-star hotels in the area, as well.

We enjoyed our stay at the Best Western Burns Hotel (1826 Barkston Gardens; www.burnshotel.co.uk). A hot English breakfast was included in the rate of £98 (near $183) for a double room. This was a pay-ahead, nonrefundable rate; the walk-in rate was £165 per double.