Hotels and Lodging

After taking a group tour of Mayan ruins in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize, I stayed six extra days in western Belize, Feb. 10-15, 2015, to visit more Mayan sites near the Guatemalan border.

In Sévaré, Mali, on Aug. 7, suspected Islamist militants attacked a hotel used by UN peacekeepers, killing a number of people and taking hostages. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The militants had first attacked a nearby military base, with no deaths reported. 

Malian troops stormed the hotel on Aug. 8, freeing the hostages. In total, 13 people were killed, including five UN peacekeepers.

Commanding a spectacular view of Switzerland’s Wetterhorn, the Rosenlaui Glacier and the Gadmen Valley, Hotel Gletscherblick (Urseni, 6085 Hasliberg, Goldern, Switzerland; phone +41 [0] 33 972 40 40, www.gletscherblick.ch) is situated on a bend in the road on the Hasliberg plateau above Meiringen.

My husband, Dick, and I, along with our son Jim and his family, spent a week there in July 2015. For Dick and me, it was our ninth visit to this special place, which I had discovered around 20 years ago while hiking in the area.

In mid-May 2014, my husband, Bob, and I began a ’round-the-world trip using the frequent-flyer miles we had accumulated during 10-plus years of commuting. Our second of six booked stops was Amman, Jordan.

The many historic sites along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile are the focus of many visitors to Scotland’s capital. Waverley Railway Station, just to the north, provides convenient rail access, and nearby is Waverley Bridge, the nexus of various tour bus routes and the express Airlink buses to the airport.

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Jeff Carrier of Naples, Florida, had the following request for subscribers (Jan. ’15, pg. 68): “I would like input from readers who have traveled recently to any of the nearly 40 countries that are pretty much always on the US State Department’s ‘Travel Warnings’ list, which appears monthly in ITN. How did they do it and what were their experiences?” A number of responses received appear below, and more will be printed in next month’s issue.

While visiting northern Portugal with my wife, Kay, in September 2014, we spent two nights at Casa do Ameal (Rua do Ameal, 119, 4900 – 585 Meadela, Viana do Castelo, Portugal; phone +351 91 420 62 27, www.casadoameal.com).

When we arrived, the owner, Isbel, came down the front steps to greet us and take us to our room. The beautiful house, purchased in 1669, is still in the same family. It was converted to a bed-and-breakfast a little over 30 years ago.

Sometimes it's “location, location, location.” Central to almost everything in Paris, including Notre-Dame on Île de la Cité, the Hôtel Saint-Louis en l’Isle (75 rue Saint-Louis en l'Île, 75004 Paris, France; phone +33 [0] 1 46 34 04 80, www.saintlouisenlisle.com), on the neighboring mid-Seine island of Île Saint-Louis, is a delightful, well-run hotel.

I’ve always been a fan of budget travel tips. For 30 years I’ve written and lectured about ways to stow away, picnic and get special deals to be able to afford international travel. My feeling has long been that “you experience more by spending less.”