If you plan to spend time in Inverness, we re commend Dunhallin House (164 Culduthel Rd., Inverness, SCOTLAND, IV4BH, U.K.; phone 44 1463 220824 or visit http://dunhallin.co.uk) — located on a quiet street about 1½ miles from the central district.
Restaurant L’Impasse (4, Impasse Guéménée, 75004 Paris, France; phone 01 42 72 08 45 or visit www.limpasse.com) is a tiny, bistro-style restaurant which I visited Jan. 16, 2007. Within a 2-minute walk of the Bastille Métro stop, it’s tucked away in a dead-end street off of rue St. Antoine, in the fourth arrondissement. It is closed for lunch on Saturday and Monday and is closed all day Sunday.
When visiting Sanssouci Park in Potsdam, Germany, do yourself a favor and enjoy a tasty and relaxing meal at the Wiener Restaurant & Café (Luisenplatz 4, Potsdam, Germany; www.wienerrestaurantundcafe.de). It’s located near a bus stop on a square two or three blocks south of the eastern entrance to the park and at the west end of Potsdam’s newly redeveloped, pedestrian-only Brandenburger Strasse.
A friend in Delhi told us to never eat anything in India unless it is cooked and hot. This would have kept us totally healthy on our first trip, Nov. 14-Dec. 21, 2004, but we would have missed out on a lot of the best of India.
We took some measured risks, eating some street food, some room-temperature buffets and some uncooked deserts but no raw milk products (risk of T.B.) and no fresh fruit or vegetables unless we could wash them in bottled water and peel them ourselves.
We ate at the restaurant Lubitsch in Berlin in May ’07. Recommended by a reader (Jan. ’07, pg. 75), it is indeed a very fine place to eat — good food and good ambience at a reasonable price. I think we had a starter and a main course each, two glasses of wine, two beers, mineral water and coffee and our bill was €66 (about $91) for two.
In connection with a short trip to Marrakech to see one of the last remaining medieval North African walled cities, I stayed at Riyad Al Moussika (62 Derb Boutouil, Kennaria, Marrakech-Medina, Morocco; phone +212 [0] 44 38 90 67, fax 44 37 76 53, www.riyad-al-moussika.com).
Dusty and Margi Miller took two trips to China in 2006 with Pacific Holidays (12 West 32nd St., Sixth Fl., New York, NY 10001; 800/355-8025, www.pacific holidaysinc.com).
To celebrate their 10th anniversary as a company, Orient Odyssey (1385 Gulf Rd., Ste. 203, Point Roberts, WA 98281; 800/637-5778, www.orientodyssey.com) offered a 10-day trip for September ’06 that I could not resist. It was to Guizhou Province in southeastern China, and the price was $1,430 from Vancouver, B.C. (In 2007, Orient Odyssey offers this trip as a 12-day itinerary for $1,990 from Los Angeles or New York.)
Jeff Garrett, owner of JMG Tibet Tours (6001 Falls Cir. Dr., Ste. 301, Lauderhill, FL 33319; 866/548-4238, www.jmgtibettours.com), does an amazing job of coordinating all travel plans and keeping expenses down. I can’t say enough about the wonderful job that he did making my April 5-23, 2007, trip such a success. The cost of the tour, not including international airfare, was $2,895.
The tour was very well organized. Group members came and went, with up to 16 at times.
Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.
This month’s winner is LOIS HALUNEN of Livermore, California: