June 2013

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Free guided walking tours are now being offered in Barcelona by Sandemans New Europe (phone +49 0 30 510 500 30). Every day, rain or shine, 3-hour tours with up to, perhaps, 25 people depart at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. from the Plaça de l’Àngel, visiting the Gothic Quarter, Barcelona Cathedral, the historic harbor and other sights. 

The eighth annual International Garden Show Hamburg is taking place April 26-Oct. 13, 2013, on a 200-acre site in Wilhelmsburg, a 10-minute train ride from Hamburg*, Germany. The 3-mile main route of the show winds through six themed regions, such as World of Water, World of Nature and World of Religion.

A 2-hour guided tour of the show takes place at 10 and 11 a.m. each day and costs €4 ($5.30). The show is open 9 a.m. until dusk. Admission, €21 ($27).

Sudeley Castle (Winchcombe, Glouces­tershire, England, GL54 5JD; phone 01242 602308) offers special tours.

The 75-minute guided “Garden Tour” is offered at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. the first three Fridays and Saturdays monthly April through October. £18 (near $27) includes general admission.

The 75-minute “Gardening for Wildlife” tour, offered at 3 p.m. on six dates each in May and September, focuses on the hundreds of wildlife species on the castle grounds and how the garden supports them. £18 includes general admission.

Deepdale Farm, a working farm on the Norfolk coast in England’s southeast, has a large, undeveloped area where travelers can camp or stay in a yurt, teepee or hostel or, now, one of two shepherd’s huts. Each hut, 6 by 11½ feet, sleeps four and has a woodburning stove (fuel is provided) and an outside barbecue for cooking. 

For Android and iOS, the app City Maps 2Go ($1.99) allows users to download maps for cities and countries around the world for offline use. Users may also download a layer that includes the most popular Wikipedia articles about features on the map. 

During a June ’12 trip to Romania, my wife, Yuki, and I visited the “Merry Cemetery” in Săpânţa. There, the headstones are almost all wooden structures painted with “naïve” pictures of folks in various trades, with amusing comments about the deceased inscribed below each picture. One has to buy one’s burial site, which includes the construction of the headstone and epitaph, then about $50 a year is charged for its upkeep.

This is the 60th summer that the Dartington Hall Estate in Devon is holding music classes at the Dartington International Summer School (Dartington Hall,Totnes, Devon, England, TQ9 6EN; phone +44 1803 847077).

Five groups of week-long classes, July 27-Aug. 31, 2013, each have a theme, with courses suitable for beginners, advanced musicians and children.

(Part 2 of 3 on Colombia)

For the second portion of our February 2013 Colombian adventure, “Colombia’s Colonial Jewels & the Coffee Triangle,” in which I was hosted by Overseas Adventure Travel, our group traveled by air from Medellín to Pereira via Bogotá.

Pereira is one of the three legs of the Coffee Triangle, along with the cities Manizales and Armenia. On our final descent, viewing the coffee plantations below — a veritable sea of greenery — served to heighten my excitement.