Travelers' Intercom

On the day after Christmas 2007 we were in Brest, France, and found many of the restaurants closed for vacation. After a little searching, we found Les Caudalies (1 rue Malakoff, 29200 Brest), a 36-seat neighborhood/family restaurant.

Once we were seated, the host/waiter/owner brought the menu, written on a small chalkboard and listing four starters and five entrées.

Of the starters, one of us had the Marine salad (quarters of two kinds of crab, several small shrimp, a slice of tuna and mackerel and two oysters); a second had 24 medium shrimp in a cream garlic sauce; a third...

I read Rick Steves’ 2007 “Scandinavia” guidebook looking for tips on transportation between Norway and Sweden. I decided to try the train, booking passage from Oslo to Stockholm (a 5-hour journey) for July ’07.

Via the Internet, from ACP Rail International (www.acprail.com) I purchased standard-class tickets for two adults for $105 per person. My son (under 12) traveled for free.

I specifically requested three seats with a table so we could face one another. We ended up with two seats together and a third seat in the row ahead, without a window; I had a view of a torn curtain...

My husband, Uwe, and I flew into Chengdu, China, on June 17, 2007, intending to board the train to Lhasa the next day.

We had booked a package with Pineapple Tours (Währinger Straße 135, A-1180 Wien; phone +43 1 403 98 83 0, fax 98 83 3, www.pineapple-tours.de), an Austrian company that supplies German-speaking trips. It was for 14 days door to door, June 15-28, but we would be 10 days in Tibet, traveling about 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles).

The cost was €2,100 (near $2,826) per person and included our round-trip airfare on KLM from Frankfurt to Chengdu via Amsterdam; the...