Airlines suspended flights to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following multiple attacks on King Khalid International Airport in October. The most damaging was an October 10 strike that killed 12 people and injured more than 300 others.
For more than 20 years, I'd built my North Wales coverage around a charming medieval banquet at Ruthin Castle. Driving into Ruthin — and knowing its banquet was no longer being held — I intended to cut the town entirely from my book. I was on edge, moody, as if I was about to commit a violent act. I was mad that many of my readers wouldn't be able to see the one thing that put it on my map.
12-day, 11-night “moderate”-level hike in central JAPAN. Departures Sept. & Oct. 2022 and Sept. & Oct. 2023. Highlights: In Tokyo, Old Town districts/bullet train to Iiyama to prepare for hiking Shin-etsu Trail, including from Mt. Nabekura down to Sekida Pass/trains to alpine Matsumoto for medieval castle, sake breweries/train to historic Nakasendo Way for tea plantations, rice paddies, gardens/Kyoto. $3,250 ppdo (Sept.-Oct. ’22 & Sept.
13 days, 12 nights in Eastern Europe, May 4-16, 2022. Group minimum, 10. Highlights: In Kraków, POLAND, Wawel Hill, Kazimierz (Jewish Quarter), Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory museum/Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp/Ksia˛z˙ Castle’s underground tunnels in Wałbrzych/underground city of Osówka/in GERMANY, Dresden, Bautzen memorials/Prague, CZECHIA/in AUSTRIA, Mauthausen concentration camp, Gestapo Haus Memorial in Vienna. $5,500 ppdo.
In Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, near the Catherine Palace, about 15 miles south of St. Petersburg, the Alexander Palace opened as a museum on Aug. 13, 2021.
