Self-Guided Tour

My wife, Debby, and I are on an 18-month tour of Europe, and we wanted to share some travel snippets with fellow ITN readers. 

On my trip to Switzerland in June 2015, I flew from London to Geneva. From the lower level of the Geneva Airport, I took the train to Lausanne after purchasing my round-trip ticket in the airport lobby for about $85. The train, which was very well maintained, left exactly on time.

Be sure to write your destination on a card, as the names “Lausanne” and “Lucerne” can sound the same if not carefully pronounced.

Escaping the dry, browning Central Valley of California was a perfect excuse for my wife, Betty, and me to schedule a return visit to the lush gardens and green hills of England. 

What should I do with my $219 American Airlines voucher? That was the question. 

I didn’t want to have to add on too much more in cash, but I was definitely in the mood for some interesting international travel. Hmmm.

Since I would be attending a dermatology conference in Riga, Latvia, my wife, Yuki, and I decided it would be a good time to visit the three countries collectively known as the Baltics: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Vilnius

A self-guided tour of Copenhagen locations from the Oscar-nominated movie “The Danish Girl,” with map, can be found on Denmark’s tourism website at www.visitdenmark.com/denmark/tour-danish-girl-locations. Sites include Børsen (the stock exchange building), the Royal Theater, Charlottenborg Palace, the Marble Church and the Fiolstræde Library at Copenhagen University.

Many travel agents, in planning trips to Eurasia, lump three countries into a single unit. Nestled together in a corner against the Caspian Sea, those countries are Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. My wife, Margo, and I visited them in July-August 2014.