History

The hostess of our château pensione near Naucelle, France, was speaking about her visit to the United States.

The Kingdom of Jordan may not have the oil wealth of its Middle East neighbors to its east. It does, however, have wonderful art and historical riches available now for ordinary travelers to view in this troubled area. Petra is certainly Jordan’s crown jewel and a must for every tourist, but, having gone that far, travelers shouldn’t bypass Jerash, Madaba (July ’99, pg. 146) and Jordan’s capital, Amman. To these treasures, we’d add another site.

I spent a week in September ’04 self-cruising up Ireland’s Shannon River, stopping each day to wander about and enjoy some of the ruins, great scenery and picturesque towns.The Shannon empties into Lough Derg, a huge recreational lake. With many marinas and small villages around the lake and along the river, it is a popular place for Irish families and travelers alike to putter about on pleasure craft.

by Lew Toulmin

Wanting to take a 2-week trip into lesser-known territory of the U.K., in September ’04 I covered a lot of ground, first visiting London, the Isle of Man and western Scotland (April ’05, pg. 16 & May ’05, pg. 79). At long last, I was leaving by ship for the Orkney and Shetland islands.

by Arline Wills, Lynnfield, MA

We stood in rapt attention as our guide pointed out the figure of a bison on the cave wall. The artist had used the natural contours of the rock to give a 3-dimensional quality to the body of the animal. As the guide used his flashlight to outline the figure, we could almost imagine it was a torch like that used by a shaman or medicine man 15,000 years ago.

We were in Grotte Font-de-Gaume, a cave in the Dordogne, or Périgord, region of southwest France. This is one of the last caves with Cro-Magnon polychrome paintings still open to the public in Europe.

by June L. Griffin, Lewiston, ME

My husband, Norman, and I were lured into visiting Hungary by the idea that it was one of the bargains left in European travel. As we found on our trip in September ’04, this proved to be correct. It has joined the E.U. but, for now, is still using the old currency (forint). Nearby Austrian visitors flock there for dental and optical bargains as well as plastic surgery, we were told.

As we usually do, we planned our own itinerary and rented a car, wandering around with lots of guidebooks and local advice when possible.

For our fourth trip to China, in October ’03, we selected areas of the country that had UNESCO World Heritage Sites that we had either read or heard about for many years. Our new destinations would be Shanghai, Tunxi, Huang Shan, Chengdu, Leishan, Zigong, Dazu, Chongqing and Suzhou. How to journey to these destinations over three weeks was left to the five travel companies I sent my proposed itinerary to with the hope they would develop a memorable trip for us.