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July 2010 issue

Grand Circle ‘stepped up’

I took the “Holland & Belgium in Springtime” cruise with Grand Circle Travel (Cambridge, MA; 800/959-0405), April 7-17, 2010. With air from Des Moines, the 11-day cruise plus a four-day precruise extension in Brugge cost $3,720.

We had fine weather, comfortable quarters aboard the M/S River Aria and great meals impeccably served. We saw wonderful old buildings, windmills, tulips, flower auctions and chocolates. It was a great trip.

As we were packing to leave, the volcano in Iceland spewed forth its ash cloud, closing the airport in Amsterdam. Grand Circle had a boatload...

January 2004 issue

Stood up by Paris shuttle

A Parisian friend arranged for us to be picked up at her nearby apartment, where we were visiting her in 2002, by Air Line Shuttle (112 bis rue Champimnet, Paris 18e, France; phone 01 42 51 2656). We were going to Charles de Gaulle Airport at about noon and thence home.

She called the service several days prior to our October date. When the office person answered, my friend was alarmed by her manner and thus visited the office the day before we were to leave. Many assurances were given that the shuttle would be on time (about 6:30) the next morning.

As it turned out, we...

August 2010 issue

Festival of Santiago

Pilgrimages fascinate me — the ritual, the pageantry, the dedication of the pilgrims, their willingness to undergo hardship and their sense of fulfillment upon the achievement of their quest. My own “pilgrimages” have been secular.

In August ’08 I was simply a traveler drawn to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain for the annual late-July festival of Santiago, the biblical Saint James.

Legend says that the Romans cut off his head and his friends ferried his remains to a grave in what is now Spain. Over time, the site of the grave was lost, until a field of stars (...

November 2010 issue

The ’Stans by rail

“The Legendary Silk Road by Private Train,” offered by Lernidee Erlebnisreisen GmbH (Eisenacher Str. 11, D-10777 Berlin, Germany; phone+49 [30] 786 00 00, www.lernidee.com), was the first group tour my wife and I took that had no other native-born English speakers.

We traveled Oct. 13-26, 2009, and chose that departure because Lernidee promised an English-speaking guide. Only four of us on the 45-person tour spoke no German, but, as advertised, Lernidee flew in a guide, a delightful Russian woman, who spoke excellent English and German and, of course, Russian.

As it turned...

January 2011 issue

Lufthansa’s speedy payment

My wife, Judy, and I flew on Lufthansa from Detroit to Budapest via Frankfurt on Aug. 28, 2010. When we picked up our luggage in Budapest, Hungary, one of our suitcases had been damaged. A wheel was missing and the bag had been ripped.

We immediately went to the Lufthansa service desk, just a few feet from the baggage-claim area.

The desk clerk spoke enough English for us to communicate. I told her my problem. She looked at the damage and asked the value of the suitcase. I told her that we had paid about $75 for it. She immediately started filling out a form, then asked me to...

July 2010 issue

Exploring Kurdistan

My husband, Bernard, and I were part of a 15-member “Iraqi Kurdistan” tour in October ’09 with Distant Horizons (Long Beach, CA; 800/333-1240). The land price for the 12-day/11-night trip was $5,860 per person.

I was initially skeptical when Bernard suggested we visit Iraq, then I saw a BBC America segment on “the other Iraq.” It cited the Kurdish region, four northern provinces of northernmost Iraq, as a paragon of peaceful coexistence between Kurds and Iraqis.

Maintained by the Peshmurga (similar to the National Guard) and by numerous types of police, we saw that security...

January 2005 issue

On procuring visas

On our trip to Southeast Asia in January ’05, we will be visiting Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia and Hong Kong. While we are independent travelers, we purchased package deals for Thailand, Cambodia and Hong Kong with Pleasant Holidays (e-mail generalreservations@pleasant.net or visit www.pleasantholidays.com).

The package for Burma is being provided by Golden Rock Tours & Travel (grtt@goldenrock.com.mm or www.visitmyanmar.com).

Both Burma and Cambodia require visas to enter their countries. Pleasant Holidays has a service that provides visa applications using a fax...

April 2010 issue

Lousy options after missed flight

Editor’s note: In the following account, ITN has agreed to withhold the name of the subscriber and tour company. Nevertheless, we feel readers can benefit from the lessons imparted.

A subscriber wrote in and described how, following an Adriatic cruise-tour that he and his travel companion took, they and the ship’s passengers headed to the Dubrovnik airport, where they learned that, except for two couples in business class, all their names were not on the manifest for the Croatia Airlines flight to Frankfurt.

It was discovered much later that that happened to be the day that...