Trains

by Dennis Cavagnaro, Oakland, CA

The German railway system offers a great way for travelers to get around while visiting that country. Many guidebooks and websites describe how to use the rail service but often omit facts that would be very useful to novice travelers. The following isn’t a complete primer on the German rail system but is intended to primarily fill in some of the gaps present in other sources of information. It’s based on our visits to Germany in each of the past three years, most recently in May ’05.

by Jay Brunhouse

I have never been tempted to write to a magazine before, but the topic Best & Worst Places to Drive immediately drove me to my computer! (Excuse the pun.)

by Don and Betty Martin, Columbia, CA

In the ’90s, my wife, Alice, and I three times hired a car and drove through the newly opened countries of Eastern Europe, but we had yet to visit the three countries that were former Soviet states: Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova. In May ’05 we made up for that omission.

If we were younger, we would have handled the trip totally independently, but we’re now in our mid-70s and the thought of arriving at airports and train stations and trying to sound out the Cyrillic alphabet (let alone understand the language) in places where few speak any English was daunting.

Nestled in the hills outside of Nagoya, Honshu Island, Japan — and running through Sept. 25 of this year — the 21st century’s first international exposition, EXPO 2005 Aichi, is crawling with robots: a marching Dixieland band, a Tyrannosaurus rex, a lovely but animated “Actroid” who answers questions in English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese and, for active mothers, a child-care robot. There are more, and they represent the future. A well-preserved frozen mammoth and the recently discovered skull of a seven-million-year-old hominid represent the past.

by Jay Brunhouse

A misty sky hovered over a pastoral patchwork of emerald and lime. White-capped waterfalls cascaded in glistening sheaths along the green hillsides and weaved through the wild heather and forested terrain. In the distance, a glimmer of sunlight struggled to lighten the lavish landscape drenched by days of rain.

“Looks like a bit of sunshine. Not very typical for Ireland, love,” said our bus driver, John, with a cheery lilt that belied the inclement weather.

On a trip to lesser-known territory of the U.K, Sept. 11-24, ’04 (April ’05, pg. 16), my travels took me to western Scotland.