An Alps-backed setting, fairy-tale villages and a benign climate have long contributed to Lake Constance’s reputation as a compelling southern Germany travel destination. To that list, I had another reason to make my way to Europe’s third-largest body of water: gardens, including an entire island turned spectacular garden, Mainau.
A friend and I spent two weeks motoring around southwestern Scotland and England’s Lake District in late June-early July ’11 eating a great variety of local fare, but NONE was better than our lunch at the charming Queen’s Head Hotel (Townhead, Troutbeck, Cumbria LA23 1PW, U.K.; phone 015394 32174), just three miles north of Windermere.
One cannot spend much time in the tiny multi-island nation of Malta without running smack-dab into the Knights of the Order of St. John.
I read the subscriber’s letter about pickpockets at Plaza San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina (April ’11, pg. 56). I witnessed this during my stay, Nov. 24-27, 2010.
Staff at our hotel, the Marriott Plaza Hotel Buenos Aires, suggested that we avoid the nearby Plaza San Martin subway station and, instead, walk 15 to 20 minutes to the next station so we could have a direct train and not have to change lines. I didn’t realize they also were cautioning us for safety reasons.
Sicily presented a problem. Searching through guidebooks, I could not find a “Garden Path” garden to visit. With that, I wrote to the Italian Government Tourist Board (630 Fifth Ave., Ste. 1565, New York, NY 10111; 212/245-5618), giving them a list of Sicilian ports I’d be visiting in early fall of 2010 while on board Sea Cloud, the 1930s-built plaything of heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post.
An e-mail message came flying back: ‘From Syracuse, make your way to Il Biviere.’
by Yvonne Horn
by Yvonne Horn
Combine picturesque Dutch cities, luxuriant waterlands, acres of bulb farms and the famed Keukenhof garden in full splendor with a witty guide, skilled barge pilot, master chef and 16 compatible travelers and you have yourself a fine vacation. That is what my friends Bernadette, Karen, Marian and I came away feeling about our May 2-9, 2010, bike tour aboard the canal barge Elodie.
by Randy Keck (Part three of three parts on Cuba. Part one, in the May 2010 issue, thoroughly explored the legal considerations for Americans considering traveling to Cuba.)
On the morning of day seven of my January ’10 tour of Cuba, our ElderTreks group of 16 visited the Cienfuegos Botanical Gardens for a highly informative guided walking excursion that featured many varieties of exotic palms.
by Yvonne Michie Horn