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March 2008 issue

‘Petra By Night’

I visited the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site of Petra, Jordan, in October ’07. A daytime visit is a long and hot walk but definitely worth the effort. For me, however, the highlight was the lesser-known night trip to the Siq and Treasury.

Starting at the Petra Visitors Center, you walk down the road through the kilometer-long Siq (a narrow gap between rock faces) to the famous Treasury. The entire route is lit only with lanterns on the ground (actually paper bags each with a candle inside) and moonlight.

At the Treasury, the lanterns cover the ground in front of the...

July 2008 issue

Ethiopian villages

We timed a September Ethiopia trip so that we would hit local market days in the south. We visited the Key Afer Thursday market, the Dimeka Saturday market and the Konso Monday market.

Key Afer and Dimeka were fascinating for both the goods displayed and the people (Tsemai, Benna and Hamer peoples) buying and selling the goods. The Konso market was not as interesting.

We also visited two tribal villages. A long, rough drive to see the Karo ethnic group was rewarded with views of a scenic village on a lovely site overlooking the Omo River. The Karo, with their body paint and...

December 2007 issue

Lesser-known museums in Paris

During a wonderful 4-day visit to Paris at the end of April ’07, my husband, Lou, and I visited some of the city’s lesser-known museums. What a treat these were!

• First up is Musée Pasteur (25 rue du Docteur Roux [off boulevard Pasteur], 75015 Paris; phone +33 1 45 68 82 83, fax 68 89 72, www.pasteur/fr/pasteur/musees) — Métro stop Volontaires or Pasteur.

Part of the Institut Pasteur, it offers guided English-language tours of the scientist’s apartment, museum and Art Deco burial crypt, 2:30-5:30, Monday-Friday. €3 (near $4) adult, €1.50 student.

You can get a sense...

October 2007 issue

Athens day tour

My wife, Margaret, and I, during a September ’05 trip to Greece, took a day tour of Athens with Dimitri from Spiros Taxi (Athens, Greece; phone 011 30 6944 285 686 or visit www.athenstaxi.net). Spiros himself was on vacation, but Dimitri turned out to be an able substitute who knew the area and its history and spoke excellent English.

Normally, Dimitri told us, he would take us to the Acropolis first, but because of an unfavorable weather forecast (which turned out to be erroneous) he suggested we drive down the coast first, to Cape Sounion. There we saw the Temple of Poseidon, high...

April 2007 issue

EgyptAir, Cruise West, Lindblad

I feel I have to respond to two letters, one dissing an airline (Oct. ’06, pg. 31) and one a cruise line (Dec. ’06, pg. 29).

• Although EgyptAir’s (800/334-6787, www.egyptair.com) business class isn’t exactly state of the art, it’s very cheap.

We flew it in November ’06, and we were preboarded and given preference through both security checks, going and coming home. The usual sequence is every coach passenger boards, then they come get you out of the VIP lounge and you are seated just before takeoff.

The food on both of our flights was the best I’ve ever had, and I...

May 2008 issue

Pöstlingsberg Church

We embarked on a Christmas markets cruise with Grand Circle Travel in November ’07, spending four days in Austria and three days in Germany. On the day we were in Linz, Austria, it snowed very hard in the morning, greatly reducing visibility. Our guide mentioned the turn-of-the-century streetcar to Pöstlingsberg Church at the top of the mountain and said that if the snow stopped, the view would be magnificent. It stopped mid-morning, and we took the streetcar straight up the hill to this beautiful church. We could see for miles from the lookout point.

DIANE HARRISON

Creve...

June 2007 issue

Senior renting car in Ireland

When feasible, my husband (age 75) and I prefer to drive about a country. Planning for a trip in May ’07, we discovered that many Irish rental agencies do not rent cars to anyone over 75, while with some the limit is 74 and some, 70.

I found Auto Europe (Portland, ME; 888/223-5555 or 207/842-2000, www.autoeurope.com) to be very helpful. I phoned them in March and was very glad I did. Their rep was very aware of the age restriction and he spent some time checking out various companies for us (they broker with several car agencies).

Car rental is quite expensive, and he found...

November 2008 issue

Opus sectile in Rome

On a free afternoon in Rome, I visited the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme (Largo di Villa Peretti 67; phone 06 3996 7700 — open 9-7:45 Tuesday-Sunday; admission, €7), part of the Museo Nazionale Romano. I knew it contained a fourth-century stone artwork of a type called opus sectile. Opus sectile is a technique similar to mosaic except that the stones are large sheets of various kinds of marble, ground thin and precisely cut.

Unfortunately, after an interesting but long cross-town walk to the palazzo, I found that the work I wanted to see was “out for repairs”; however, there were many...