Columns

Germany and Austria are a work in progress -- each country has great and innovative museums and galleries to share its culture with its many visitors. Here's the latest for 2015:

While trains are usually the easiest way for Americans to get around Germany, ultra-cheap buses are a new option worth considering. The main bus lines are MeinFernBus (with the most extensive network), FlixBus, Berlin Linien Bus, and City2City. Taking you across much of Germany for around 15 euros -- and using train stations as starting and ending points -- they can...

The Gold MasterCard overseas MasterAssist Medical Protection program has canceled the outstand­ing benefits for overseas travelers as described in the article “Selecting Travel Health Insurance” (ITN, May ‘91, pg. 64).

This cancellation is effective Jan. 1, 1992. Benefits now are essentially ones providing “referrals” and other “assistance.”

The provisions in effect through 1991 supplied no-extra-cost health insurance, medically required trans­portation to cardholders’ home cities and several other benefits not avail­able through other credit cards.

For me, they’ve...

A couple of hours north of Lisbon, Coimbra is the Oxford or Cambridge of Portugal -- the home of its most venerable university. It's also the country's easiest-to-enjoy city -- a mini-Lisbon, with everything good about urban Portugal without the intensity of a big metropolis. I couldn't design a more delightful city for a visit.

One of the best activities in Coimbra is wandering the inviting, Arab-flavored old town -- a maze of narrow streets, timeworn shops, and tiny "tascas" (budget eateries). A pedestrian street divides the lower...