Hotels and Lodging

The hotel group Best Western has a website that features hotels around Britain with excellent golfing facilities. Tee times can be arranged online. Visit www.bestwestern.co.uk/hotelsforgolf or phone 0845 6340 559.

My wife and I stayed at the Sheraton Buenos Aires Hotel (San Martin 1225, Buenos Aires, 1104, Argentina) on Jan 30 & 31, ’04, as part of a package tour to Antarctica.

Queenstown, set along the gorgeous, blue-green Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by the beautiful Remarkable Mountains, should be on every New Zealand visitor’s itinerary. It offers golf, sailing, paragliding, jet boat riding, bungy jumping and more. The dress code is casual, with hiking boots common.

On the beautiful island of Santorini, GREECE, we stayed in a grouping of “traditional cave houses” set into the walls of the caldera overlooking a picture-perfect view of blue sea, volcanic islands and white, cliffside dwellings.

While traveling in Sicily in September ’03, we found a good place to stay outside of Palermo. We had a rental car but didn’t want to drive in the city. The Albergo Le Due Torri (Via Kennedy 85, Capaci, Sicily, ITALY; phone +39 091 8372487 or fax +39 091 8697302) cost €63 ($79) for two. They also have a family restaurant; we had dinner for two with wine for €25 ($31).

If you are looking for a place to relax in quiet, beautiful countryside, I strongly recommend the lovely B&B Imandorli (15021 Cardona di Alfiano Natta [AL] Via Troglio 1, ITALY; phone/fax +39 0141 922521, e-mail info@imandorli.it). We spent three weeks there, Sept.10-Oct. 2, ’03.

This is a restored 17th-century villa with a small adjoining house with one bathroom suitable for two couples or a family. It rents for €110 ($134) per night.

Piecing together off-the-beaten-train-track itineraries in Europe can make for very long travel days; we prefer to take some breaks. Here are the hotels we used for two overnight stops we made in June ’03 in ITALY.

• Hotel Della Punta (Via S. Ampelio, 27-18012 Bordighera [IM], Italy; phone +39 01842 62555, fax +39 01842 68925, e-mail info@hoteldellapunta.it) — in Bordighera, one of the small towns on Italy’s “Flower Riviera” just across the frontier from France.

In Barcelona, Hotel Nouvel (Santa Ana 18-20, 08002 Barcelona, SPAIN; phone 93 301 8274 or fax 93 301 8370) is ideally located just a block off the Ramblas and two blocks from Plaça de Catalunya. It is in the pedestrian area, but taxis (only) can get in if you have much luggage to carry. You can easily walk down the Ramblas to the water.

The hotel is away from the traffic, so we found the rooms quiet, but the plumbing was noisy!

The décor is Art Nouveau, with a beautiful marble floor of intricate design.

by Arline Wills, Lynnfield, MA

On a trip to the Balkans my husband and I took in May ’04, we had wanted to travel by bus and find accommodations as we went. As soon as we arrived in Tirana, Albania, we realized that language problems would require us to have a car and driver.

In three hours, Sadik Malaj of Sondor Travel & Tours (sondor2002@hotmail.com) made all the arrangements. Our driver was his son, Dorien Malaj, who spoke English very well and was an excellent driver. The car and driver for eight days cost €1,250 (near $1,530), and we paid our own meals and hotels.