My wife, Rita, and I returned on Nov. 21, 2006, from a tour of Japan with Overseas Adventure Travel (625 Mount Auburn St., Ste. 200 North, Cambridge, MA 02138; 800/493-6824, www.oattravel.com), the best group tour we have ever taken.
The land portion was $5,458 for two for 13 days. We bought only the land tour because we had frequent-flyer miles with which to upgrade; we flew over three days early to see more of Tokyo.
by Jay Brunhouse
My wife, Darlene, and I, following a private tour in Mongolia (June ’06, pg. 85), were among a group of 96 people from all over the world who made an incredible private train trip across the Russian Federation along the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway, Aug. 19-31, ’05. We took the railroad’s classic route, westbound from Vladivostok to Moscow. The trip covered eight time zones and 10,405 kilometers (6,466 miles).
Last January’s railpass price increases were very friendly. We won’t know most of the 2007 prices until the first of next year, but you can insure that you won’t have any unpleasant surprises by locking in 2006 prices before year-end.
—by Vernon Hoium, Minneapolis, MN
by John Penisten, Hilo, HI
Düsseldorf (phone +49 [0] 211/1720 20, www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de), which means “Village on the Düssel River,” is no longer a fishing village on the right bank of the Rhine River where the Düssel joins it. It is one of Germany’s Magic Cities (www.magic.cities.de), a great commercial and administrative center and the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia.
by Susan Fogwell, Princeton, NJ
When Berlin’s new Hauptbahnhof (Hbf, or main train station) was inaugurated on May 26 this year with a free public party, eardrum-splitting music, a hip stage show, a choreographed light show and an open house (read: station) until 3 a.m., the crowd packed itself so tightly that it took two hours for ambulances to make their way through the multitude.
