From the March 27, 2005 E-letter
Easter in Sarnano,

Happy Easter and Buona Pasqua from Sarnano where the pagan traditions mix with the Christian Easter beliefs as easily as they do in the USA. There are no Easter Bunnies to be seen as they are more of a German tradition than Italian, but every store is selling huge chocolate eggs filled with candy and other surprises for the bambini. One bakery is even selling lamb-shaped decorated cakes. Meanwhile, during the entire of Holy Week, the church bells are marking every quarter hour, even in the middle of the night, in contrast to their usual desultory fashion of only periodically announcing the hours during the day.

On Friday night I witnessed a procession that made me think that I was in the middle of a Travel Channel sequence. When I went into my kitchen, I noticed that there were flames just outside the apartment. Since I didn’t smell smoke and there were no crackling sounds, I didn’t hit the panic button. I went outside and found that the entire street was lined with candles. “Hmmm, interesting,” I think. “I wonder what this is all about?” About a half hour later I heard some drums and went out again. It took a while to come into view but finally a procession rounded the corner. No exaggeration, in the next half hour, at least 800 of the 3500 citizens of Sarnano solemnly passed by my front door. First came three not-so-little drummer boys, followed by a priest periodically praying and/or chanting, his voice amplified by four portable speakers carried within the procession. Two of the town’s major icons were carried by four men each. The first was a slain Christ reclining on a sort of 4-poster bed. The second was a Virgin Mary(?) seemingly unconcerned about a sword that had been thrust into her chest just above the left breast. Some of the men were carrying substantial crosses. Acolytes of both genders were bedecked in white. Meanwhile, interspersed in all of this were the townies, ranging in age from the most ancient on their canes to the stroller set being pushed by their parents. I felt like a voyeur standing there in the doorway wearing my TX Texas sweatshirt. I wanted to go inside and change into something dark and somber, but I didn’t want to miss any of the procession. No, I didn’t take any pictures as this would have been some sort of sacrilege.

Growing up, I will have to confess that it took me a long time to come to grips with Easter. I had a hard time reconciling the Easter Bunny with eggs (why isn’t it the Easter Chicken?) and chocolate with the risen Christ. Later as an adult, I was a choral director and began exploring the rich literature of the Counter-Reformation. I was bothered by the seeming disconnect between the part of the mass, “Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us, etc” and then finding that an almost universal traditional Easter dinner consists of, you guessed it, lamb. (I will have mine medium rare with a red wine sauce rather than the traditional mint. But I digress.) Okay, so I finally connected spring, fecundity, eggs, bunnies and so forth as part of the pagan celebrations that long pre-date Christianity and Easter.

But I still didn’t understand the spring part of the equation until I moved over here. I grew up near Phoenix, Arizona. What’s to celebrate about spring? It only means that it is going to be hotter than the hinges of hell within a month. Living in Berkeley for fourteen years, spring was a brief moment between the rains in winter and the fog in summer. Yes, it was beautiful, but the winters were so mild, why make a fuss? Spring in San Antonio is a pleasant enough time, but its arrival is unpredictable and its departure always comes too soon.

Spring in most of Europe arrives suddenly. Not only that, once it arrives, it sticks around for a while. When I left for Paris to meet the group on March 12, there was still snow all about Sarnano. When I returned, there was none to be seen anywhere in town. The Paris group got to witness this sudden change. During our first day, snow flurries had been predicted but did not materialize. We definitely needed our coats that day and the next and sweaters for the next two days. After that it was shirtsleeves. In Sarnano, after the snows of January and February, spring is definitely worthy of celebration. The swallows are back, the town cats are noisily working to produce more cats, and I have planted my spring garden on the balcony. Life is good. Buona Pasqua to all!

Laurence Barker

From the February 4, 2005 E-letter
Dear BET & Friends,

Greetings from a snowy Sarnano. Gentle flutterings began on Sunday afternoon, January 23, and continued until the following Sunday. It never could have been called una tempesta (a storm), and it certainly wasn’t una tormenta (a blizzard). There were never any howling winds and the temperature only dipped down to freezing once. But little flakes that keep falling 24/7, literally, do begin to add up, and five days after the snowfall ended the region remains buried under a white blanket.

The locals insist that this has never happened before, and this time I believe them. (If you travel, you have heard time and again that it is NEVER this hot, cold, rainy, snowy, windy, whatever.) Yes, it usually snows during the winter in Sarnano, but never this much. My little street remains an icy/slushy mess, but Sarnano’s major shopping area, if you can call it that, has been shoveled out. My opinionated painter tells me that he won’t return to finish the touchup work on the first half of the apartment until he can find a parking place on my street. I may be in for a long wait. You can check out some of my winter snapshots on http://homepage.mac.com/laurencebarker/PhotoAlbum6.html

Some brief tour news:

There is still plenty of room but not much time left for PARIS (March 12 – 20, $1500@ in double, airfare not included). I will provide a pass that gets you into over 60 museums and a transportation pass that will get you to those museums and back. You organize your days—shopping, museums, strolling in one of the parks—just be back at the hotel in time to walk to dinner at one of the great restaurants that I have chosen for the night.

UMBRIA (May 14 – 28, $2560@ in double, airfare not included) remains sold out at 26.

The BULGARIA tour (June 12 – 28, $2500@ in double, airfare not included) is a definite “go” with 11 people, but I sure hope that I can find more takers. Americans, for the most part, do not know Bulgaria. This is a pity because the country is pro-Western, a new member of the EU, has a rich and varied cuisine, fine wines, beautiful people, and excellent Greco-Roman-Thracean “rock and rubble.” I promise the following: If after the tour you feel I have overstated the attractions of Bulgaria, I will give you back every cent of profit that I made from you on the tour.

I still have room for a few more for EGYPT (November 5 – 18, $1700@ in double, airfare not included. Add one night in London on the return for an additional $162@ in double.) I only have one seat left for the group flight with British Airways, RT Chicago-London-Cairo, for $964, but I may be able to reserve a few more places. If this is not possible, other flight options are available.

For details of all of the tours, visit the BET web page, http://www.barkereurotours.com/index.html .

FUTURE tour plans:

For the first time in 12 years, I will not be doing a post-Christmas tour since so many of the BETVet “regulars” will have just returned from Egypt. The first two tours in 2006 will be repeats of 2005. A number of you who are still tied to a school calendar bemoaned my scheduling EGYPT in November. I will offer EGYPT again to coincide with the Spring Break at UTSA in March. This will not be Egypt Lite—I will be able to include almost everything that is on the November tour. The excursion into the desert will probably have to be an option for those who can take more than the nine-day Spring Break. The May tour will be a return to BULGARIA since scheduling made it absolutely impossible for people to do both the Umbria and Bulgaria tours in 2005. I will definitely do a June tour again to accommodate those of you who can’t get away until school is out. As to the destination, I am open to suggestions: Ireland comes to mind, maybe Scandinavia, or perhaps even Australia. And finally, I will do another fall trip. I have several destinations in mind: Sardegna or Puglia in Italy, Croatia, or Spain/Portugal. E-mail me back if you have any thoughts about the above possibilities.

Hoping to travel with you soon,

Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours
Via Bruno Buozzi, 47/A
62028 Sarnano (MC) Italia
Fax/phone +39 0733 658 528
Mobile +39 347 151 4820
From the December 15, 2004 E-letter
Dear BET & Friends,

Buon natale, buone feste, auguri! I returned to my home in Sarnano after three+ weeks in the states expecting to find a winter wonderland but instead I barely needed a jacket. There was much less snow in the nearby Sibillini Mountains than when I left in November. The situation changed this morning as there was a nice dusting of snow in the mountains overnight. I can imagine that the operators of the ski resort that is visible from my apartment window are breathing a little easier now since the short ski season begins in one week.

I have read in the papers about the Brits flying over to NYC to snap up luxury goods with their strong pounds versus our quasi Banana Republic devalued dollars (down more than 50% since February 2002). I too did some shopping while in the states, but my shopping list was far more prosaic. I lugged home, among other things, peanut butter, microwave popcorn, oatmeal, raisins, and zip-lock bags. When I rented a car in October, I was able to find peanut butter and microwave popcorn in an ipermercato (think Costco) near Perugia. True, the small jar (350 grams) of peanut butter cost more than the five pound tub of Adam’s 100% Natural Peanut Butter that I stuffed into my luggage, and the microwave popcorn cost a dollar for each packet, but at least I was able to find these decidedly American products in Italy. When I took the labels into my local frutta e verdura and asked if they could get these items for me, they said that I had to go to an ipermercato for them. I explained that I didn’t have a car, showed them the distributors’ web sites, and said that I would buy them if they would stock them. They replied in essence that they had never carried these things before and weren’t about to start now. End of discussion, even though I am a regular customer and am greeted warmly in spite of my slaughtering their language.

As for the other items on my shopping list, oatmeal was hit and miss even in relatively cosmopolitan Verona. It is unheard of in Sarnano as hot cereal is not a breakfast item for most Italians. Raisins are also in short supply as Italians look at dried grapes as a bottle of wine that got away. What I really don’t understand is the lack of zip-lock bags. They are not even available in the ipermercati. One can only find flimsy bags with twist ties.

But I am happy to be away from America and the annual December war between the so-called secularists and the born agains, made even more vitriolic this year because of the results of the recent election. One would hope that the “Keep Christ in Christmas” crowd could develop a little historical perspective and realize that every northern pre-Christian culture had a major festival around the time of the winter solstice and that the early church only began celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 in an effort to offset the very popular Roman seven-day Saturnalia festival that began on December 17. (Vestiges of this drunken orgy still exist today with NYE celebrations.) Likewise, it would be nice if the ACLU types would choose their battles a little more carefully. Acting to have Alabama Judge Roy Moore’s 3-ton Ten Commandments behemoth removed from the courthouse is one thing. Coming unglued any time a manger scene is temporarily placed where it can be seen by the public is quite another. (Manger scenes (presepi) abound in Italy as any of you who have traveled with me in December-January can attest. In one comical instance somebody slipped a pair of gloves onto the Joseph mannequin during a particularly frigid time in Rome.)

Italians for the most part consider themselves to be Catholic, but range in practice from baptized, married, buried types to those who attend services on a daily basis. With the recent influx of Islamic immigrants, there is now some discussion about taking the crucifixes out of school classrooms, but they have been there so long nobody really notices them anyway. Since Italy is culturally Catholic, it is spared the relentless Protestant marketing of salvation. You do not see bumper stickers proclaiming the superiority of one flavor of Christianity over another, no gimmicky “SonrisE Fellowship,” and God does not speak from billboards. (For those of you living outside of the San Antonio area, one rich believer paid for a series of sometimes clever ads. One billboard, for example, proclaimed: Dammit is not my last name. --God.)

Our great nation began with the principle of separation of church and state. The founding fathers only had to look at recent (17th century) European history to see the wisdom of such a plan. I am very concerned that the Republican Party has invited a group into their tent who would like very much to set this principle aside. Since the 17th century, the Europeans have learned their lessons and they strive mightily towards secular governance. Why are we being moved in the opposite direction? What is the attraction of a return to the Middle Ages?

But enough dark thoughts. On the 21st, we in the northern hemisphere will all experience the longest night of the year. Light a candle, throw another log on the fire. And on the 24th or 25th, some of you will be privileged to witness the wide-eyed innocence of a child experiencing the magic of Christmas, a child too young to utter those soon to be familiar words, “but is that all?” Personally, I will be in London waiting for the arrival of the group on the 26th. I will do my best to get to Westminster Abbey for services. It has been rumored that they have a pretty good choir.

Again, Buon natale, buone feste, auguri! (In essence, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!) May travel be in your plans for 2005.

Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours
Via Bruno Buozzi, 47/A
62028 Sarnano (MC) Italia
Fax/phone +39 0733 658 528
Mobile +39 347 151 4820
From the September 3, 2004 E-letter
Dear BET & Friends,

Having participated in the building of two new homes and the remodeling of yet another, I have always said that building anew is infinitely easier. But here I am in the middle of a major remodeling project which will involve installing a new kitchen, revamping the heating system, removing wallpaper and then painting throughout. And all of this in Italy, no less. I finally got enough moving-in stuff done during the first month so that the apartment was actually livable—lights hung in the kitchen and dining room, existing furniture moved around in ways that worked, telephone connected (but no ADSL for the moment), washer hooked up and so on. Then Thursday morning, after many futile attempts to reach any of the workers to find out when they were planning to begin, the man who will redo the walls showed up unannounced and said that he was ready to start. He has been pounding away all day removing the unwanted tile from the kitchen walls. Telecom called and told me that I should have my ADSL modem installed between 10:00 and 11:00 on Friday. And the plumber dropped by to tell me that he will start on Monday. I guess August in Italy is now officially over.

A Toned Down Olympics. I did get the TV set up in time to watch some of the Olympics and was struck by the quiet demeanor of the American athletes. Apparently, they were given the explicit word to cool it. (Are only the upper levels of the administration allowed the more typical American swagger and arrogance?) This quieter side was also in evidence with the recorded version of the national anthem played during the victory celebrations. Instead of the usual key of B-flat, it was toned down to A-flat. And instead of being played by a marching band, it was scored for orchestra. Brasses dominated the opening phrase as one would expect, but the strings predominated in the “whose broad stripes” repeat of the phrase. The middle section (“and the rockets red glare. . . .”) was positively ethereal. The arranger obviously had listened to the final scene of Verdi’s Aida a time or two. All in all, it was a quiet but effective rendering. (As opposed to that over-the-top martial medley of USA service songs performed by a choir at the RNC. But enough parenthetical political sniping.)

This was the first time that I had seen an “unedited” version of the Olympics. Always before I had experienced the time-delayed package presented by an American network. EUROSPORT began coverage by 8:30 in the morning and continued until long after I had gone to bed. If I wanted to watch the games in Italian, I could switch to RAI 2. I hope that NBC showed at least some part of the two Marathons, the shot put competition, and/or the outdoor bicycle races. That way those of you who were in Greece in May could go “hey, I was just there!” All in all, the Greeks are to be congratulated. Nobody, self included, thought they could get everything ready in time. They did, and the opening ceremony was particularly moving. Well done, well done indeed.

Banking in Italy. I have been told on numerous occasions that I am living out a dream for a number of you. I am here to tell you that dealing with banks is not part of that dream.

First of all, efficiency is not a long, strong suit. This is known by any of you who needed to change money in the old days (seven years ago) before ATMs became the norm. For instance,
Last week, I needed to pay a telephone bill and to get a receipt. I had the bill and cash in hand when I walked up to the teller. Fifteen minutes later the transaction was complete.
Inexplicably, I needed to be at the bank when the cash was disbursed to the seller of my apartment. We were all there at 3:00, as scheduled. We finally left at 4:00.
The second problem is with the charges. My bank charges for everything.
Monthly fee; €9.26 No surprise here, but that is only the beginning.
Transaction fee, as in every check you write, any debit to the account, whatever: €2.80
ATM usage, even at the bank itself: €2.00 + 5% of transaction (At this point I handed them back my “free” card, but apparently that wasn’t an option. So now I have it in a safe place, never to see the light of day.)
Any automatic deductions, such as mortgage payment: €0.80
And I am sure that I will discover other little charges as time goes by.

But nobody held a gun to my head and told me that I had to move to Italy, or to actually buy an apartment. And since the bank did give me the mortgage, they can dictate the terms, and one of those terms was that I have an account with them. It all balances out: the interest on my mortgage is only 3.96%.

My bank does offer online banking, and interestingly enough, at no extra cost. Those of you who also indulge in this sort of thing know the drill: The bank (or credit card company) gives you a temporary PIN and then separately a password. Then, the first time you access the service, you change the PIN and password to ones that you actually have a chance of remembering. My bank adds an extra twist. First, the account name that they give you is the one you use: no options here. Then you give yourself a PIN and password. When you go online, you enter the account name and password and then they ask for two specific letters/numbers of your PIN (4th & 9th, whatever, it varies) and then you get to access your account. Not sure if this extra step adds to the security, but it is the way they do things.

In closing, I offer the following vignette to describe the pace of life here. As I said in an earlier essay, cats rule in Sarnano. This is good since I have not seen evidence of a single rodent in spite of all kinds of inviting habitat. My particular small street is dominated by an old tom who has obviously been through the wars. He is owned, if you can say that any cat acknowledges an owner, by the woman who runs the small cinema next to my apartment. Like any cat, he spends his day searching out the most agreeable place for a nap, in the sun or shade, exposed to the breeze or in a sheltered spot, wherever it is most comfy. As often as not, this spot is in the middle of the road. So about once a week I hear a horn blasting away, followed by profanity laced invective. The cat refuses to budge until the driver gets out of the car and moves toward it. Only then does he vacate his carefully chosen spot. Luckily for the cat, the only people who drive on the small road are locals, and nobody wants to be known for the rest of their life as the one who ran over the cinema owner’s cat.

More news on tours next time. Until then,


Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours
Via Bruno Buozzi, 47/A
62028 Sarnano (MC) Italia
+39 0733 658 528
+390 347 151 4820
From the August 16, 2004 E-letter
Dear BET & Friends,

Greetings from Sarnano where chaos and confusion reign. After ten days in purgatory waiting to take possession of my new-to-me apartment (the palazzo was built in 1550), the day of the closing finally arrived. At the very beginning of the proceedings, the seller requested that I not take possession until the bank paid her in full in 10 to 20 days. “Surely this would not be unreasonable,” she demurred. Naturally I balked. Spending another two weeks in a hotel did not seem at all reasonable to me since all of these details were to have been worked out during the two months since I had agreed to buy the place. We went back and forth to no avail and finally I was led into another room while the two real estate women, my lawyer, the notaio and the bank representative tried to talk sense to her. (I think the seller’s new companion precipitated this crisis. Perhaps he felt he needed to do something to justify his presence at the meeting. At one point during the three-hour ordeal, I asked my lawyer “Where is Rossini when we need him?” Certainly, there were comic opera aspects to the whole scene.) Finally a compromise was reached whereby I agreed to sell the place back to her if the bank failed to come through with the mutuo (mortgage) as promised. New papers were drawn up, translated, and duly signed. As required by law, the notaio then read all of the fine print of the contract at an impossible clip, even by Italian standards, while I dutifully followed along on the translation. Then we signed every page of every document and translation. At the end of the time, signing Barker Laurence Earl, Barker Laurence Earl, Barker Laurence Earl in the Italian way seemed perfectly normal.

Then the fun really began. My apartment had not been occupied for about four years. After her husband died, the seller apparently returned to Rome to live full time. You can imagine the dust and the molds that collected in an unheated space with a cracked window or two. She left my place partially furnished, but it would be more accurate to say that she abandoned a lot of things that she didn’t want or need any more. One comical moment came when the tecnico was installing my new satellite receiver. He connected her abandoned TV to make sure that the receiver was working and as he was flipping through the channels, the screen suddenly went blank and smoke started pouring out of the back. We quickly unplugged the old set and I learned a new term in Italian: buttavia, to throw away. The term is always accompanied by a dismissive gesture, a backhand flick of the wrist.

And buttavia has been the operative word for mismatched pots and pans, incomplete sets of glasses and dishes, drawers of makeup, medicines and medical paraphernalia, an incredible number of shoes, an old sewing machine, truly ugly furnishings and so forth. I have set some of this aside for the Italian equivalent of Goodwill, but daily trips to the dumpster have been the norm.

Thus far I have not regretted the move for a moment. Sarnano has served as a summer destination for Romans for many years as it is usually about 5°C cooler than Rome and Verona. Sarnano is lively and has a vitality that belies its small population. Thursday is market day and it seemed like all 3,000 of the inhabitants turned out to shop, join the passeggiata or simply sit around and watch the passing scene. Last weekend there were two parades and about half of the town participated, the other half lined the street to watch. I asked the proprietor of the frutta & verdura shop what was the occasion and was told that it was because it was estivo (summer). Whatever, it works for them.

This Saturday night there was yet another parade, this time for the Palio di Serafina. I was quite impressed with the costumes as most of the lords and ladies, pike men, peasants, monks and so forth, looked as if they had just stepped out of a medieval painting. No Nikes or Adidas were in evidence as authenticity went well beyond the tights, robes and gowns, all the way down to the footwear.

Meanwhile I wait for the phone company to connect me to the outside world and to install an ADSL line. But this is August in Italy so who knows when this will happen? I rely on the kindness of Costantino, a geologist who has an office in the flat below, to let me plug into his phone line for a s-l-o-w dialup connection.

And I wait for the idraulico (plumber) to show up again to give me a quote for connecting the metano (natural gas) line that the city has recently provided to all of the houses in Sarnano. With this change he will need to install a new water heater for the bathroom, kitchen and radiators. A return call by the elettricista (electrician) will also be welcome, as I seem to trip the circuit breaker with alarming frequency. Ah, the joys of home ownership. Mercifully the ferramenta (hardware store) is within easy walking distance.

While my focus has been on nesting, I have not totally ignored BET. I believe that I have kept the web page www.barkereurotours.com <http://www.barkereurotours.com/> up to date in spite of only being able to go online here and there.

There is still time to give yourself a nice Christmas present, a fun week in London. I have reserved enough rooms in the Hotel Russell to accommodate around 30 people. The location is perfect, just around the corner from the Russell Square tube stop and minutes from the British Museum. You can even walk to the West End theatres if the weather is cooperative. The details are on the web page. Hope you can join in on the fun.

Until next time,

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours
From the July 23, 2004 E-letter
Dear BET & Friends,

I am nearing the end of my longest stay in the states since I moved to Italy almost four years ago. I arrived on June 1 and will return to Italy on July 25 to begin a new life in Sarnano. Before I offer some observations of American life from an ex-pat’s eyes, first some tour notes:

TOURS: For details about any of the tours below, go to the web page, www.barkereurotours.com <http://www.barkereurotours.com/> . Or call Scott at one of the numbers above and he will send you a copy of the tour page that interests you.

London: (December-January) There are 19 of us currently signed up for this fun week and there is room for plenty more. Most people (16) are choosing to fly from the states on Christmas day and returning on January 1. Others are leaving on the 26th and coming back on the 2nd. And still others are staying over for some extra days at the end. British Airways and Continental seem to be offering the best fares at the moment, but in these wacko times, the situation changes daily.

Paris and Portugal: (March) One full week in the center of the most beautiful city in Europe, including museum entrances, transportation pass, superb dinners, all for $1500@ in a double room, airfare not included. I promise to have the Portugal details by the middle of September but can tell you at this time that it will include Lisbon and Coimbra. I am trying to work in an overnight in Bilbao so we can make a visit to the Guggenheim Museum, but I am not sure that this will work.

Umbria: (May) There is room for at least one or two more for this tour. I will be making the final arrangements when I return to Italy next week.

Bulgaria and possibly Romania: (June) I am not taking orders yet, but would appreciate your contacting me if you are interested. A draft itinerary is available on the web page.

Egypt: (October-November 2005) I will be contacting an Egyptian travel agency when I get back to Italy. I should have more details by mid-October.

Now, some observations on the American life:

When did the Hummer replace clunky gold chains as the symbol for conspicuous consumption? What is the attraction? Why would anyone want to buy a vehicle that looks like the design was taken from a drawing by an artistically challenged four-year old? I can assure you that I have never seen a Hummer in Italy not only because there are minus style points involved, but mainly because it would be impossible to find parking for one of these behemoths. You couldn’t even drive one up the street outside my new apartment without doing major damage. I realize that the bigger the better is the American way but the Hummer may have crossed a line. With a cost of over $50.00 for each feeding at the gas pump, I wonder how long this curious fad will last?

Marketing is something that America does well. After all, we have somehow convinced the world that Bud Light is a wonderful beer. (Why not just drink one less beer?) But with this trip back, I was impressed by the different way advertisers, promoters and programming gurus approach American audiences rather than Italian. Take CNN for instance. In Italy, I watch CNN International. The programs are called “Your World Today,” “Inside Africa,” “World News” and so on. In America the same corporation, CNN, apparently finds it necessary personalize everything, particularly during prime time. So you get “Wolf Blitzer Reports,” “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Paula Zhan,” and finally ending with “Larry King Live.”

This personalization is carried even further when it comes to the coverage of the Tour de France by OLN. I have watched the Tour for three years now on Eurosport. I’ll admit it is a little weird watching a bicycle race in France while sitting in an apartment in Italy and listening to German commentators. With Eurosport, the coverage begins at the start of the race and continues until the race is over. There are commercial breaks to be sure, but they only cut away from the race every fifteen minutes or so. The coverage on OLN (which stands for Outdoor Life Network, but should be called Our Lance Network) is totally different. The coverage begins two hours after the race has started, has non-stop commentary, is totally focused on Lance Armstrong, and consists of five minutes of racing followed by five minutes of commercials, interspersed with annoying taped “up close and personal” style interviews that were initiated too many years ago by ABC during the Olympics. And most of the interviews concern Lance Armstrong. Don’t get me wrong—I admire Lance and have been pulling for him to win the Tour for an unprecedented sixth straight time. Obviously, the execs at OLN think that Americans will not watch this event unless there is a parochial focus. And they are probably right. But it is interesting to contrast the differing focus of Eurosport and OLN. (If you have cable and time in the early morning, tune in even if your last cycling experience was in middle school. The helicopter views of the colorful riders pedaling through the French countryside are beautiful.)

Relentless marketing of fast food has had well-documented catastrophic results on American waistlines. (Unfortunately I’m beginning to see this phenomenon spilling over into Italy.) And because national and even regional franchises have huge advertising budgets, it is possible to drive from sea to shining sea without ever leaving the all too familiar confines of KFC, Burger King, MacDonald’s, Pizza Hut, et al. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when traveling in that you can pick and choose your own particular brand of mediocrity. You might miss some great dining experiences, but you can also avoid some true disasters. There are certain similarities when dining on the road in Italy, as there are four chains that operate restaurants on the autostrade in Italy. But since they figure that you are a captive audience (you pay a small premium if you leave the autostrada and then get back on), they feel no need to advertise. And the food is surprisingly good.

Speaking of eating out, there is a downside to living in Italy. When I want to take a break from shopping, cooking and doing the dishes at home, I have a choice of one kind of ristorante—Italian. In the larger cities there might be a Chinese restaurant or two, and perhaps a Japanese or Vietnamese restaurant. But if I have a craving for French or any other international cuisine, forget it. As a consolation, Italian cuisine is one of the best, and the pizzas are always excellent if I don’t want the full-blown dining experience.

In closing, it has been a fun eight weeks. I have never seen San Antonio so green and lush—a wet spring and 9” of rain in June will do that—and Seattle has been warm and dry. You can’t ask for better luck. I want to thank my generous hosts along the way: Alan Cutler, Maureen Nowotny, Linda Nelson and Sara & Charlie Lewis. But it is now time to get back and start a new chapter in life in the small village of Sarnano. I have no illusions—I am going to miss Verona, which has been my home for the last three+ years. But I think Sarnano will be a good fit. I will keep you posted as to the various triumphs and frustrations of fixing up a 200+ year-old apartment and living in an isolated medieval hill town. Also, I will send you any developments in the upcoming tours—London, Paris, Umbria, Bulgaria and Egypt. Hope to see you soon on my side of the pond.

Until next time,

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours

From the April 29, 2004 E-letter
Further reflections on things Italian

It is almost May, spring has arrived, the windows are open to the street, the breezes, and the racket of the daily packs of school kids walking by. In Italy it is the same as in America: If the kids haven’t learned it by now, they aren’t going to pick it up during the rest of this school year. Best to wait for some maturation over the summer and then they will come back fresh for the next year. But legislators everywhere, with parents’ blessings to be sure, dictate that the schools will continue for another month or so. How do the teachers deal with this problem in Italy? The same way they do in America—Field Trips!

Since I know there is no equivalent to a Butter Crust Bakery in centro storico Verona, I followed one group just to see where they were headed. This group of middle schoolers, all in blue baseball camps, was being shown the architectural details of a renaissance palazzo. Another group was peering down at the Roman ruins that were excavated a few years back. Surprisingly, most of the kids were paying attention.

Besides the noise of the passing schoolkids, the open windows let in the ubiquitous ringing (squillo in Italian) of cell phones. Since the Italians are always using them (there are 2,000,000 more cell phones in Italy than there are Italians), I figured that they must be getting a better rate than my 40 centessime (almost 50 cents) a minute. Wrong. After shopping around, the best deal I found was that for every €20.00 that I spent on calls made in Italy, I get a free €10.00 recharge. This is still rather expensive for saying, “ciao mamma, I’m at the stazione. You can put the pasta water on now.” And as near as I can tell, that is about as profound as most calls get.

[The rest of this piece is about one of my addictions, coffee. If you are a tea drinker or your doctor has told you to lay off the caffeine, I’ll see you next time.]

As any of you who have traveled in Italy know, the coffee experience here is very different than in America. First of all, I doubt if there is a single Starbucks to be found. The founders of Starbucks used the ubiquitous Italian bar as their business model and then Americanized it to a fare-thee-well. The Starbucks execs are not dummies. They know there is simply no need for a franchise in Italy. On my short street alone, there are five bars. And on my ten minute walk to the supermercato, there are an additional three opportunities for caffeine injection.

In the typical Italian bar, you have the same dizzying number of choices that you get in a Starbucks except most of the time there is no menu. Also, you don’t get your choice of blends—you get whatever bean the bar chooses to serve. Order a cup of coffee (Vorrei un caffè, per favore) and you will be served what we call an espresso, a thimble full of a rich brew in a small cup. This is not a drink where you sit around clutching your mug and sipping for twenty minutes. Most Italians walk in, order, pay, and two gulps later are out the door having mainlined their caffeine fix.

The variations to the basic caffè are myriad and you will recognize most of them:
Caffè macchiato = an espresso with a little bit of frothed milk
Cappuccino = same as above, only in a bigger cup with more milk. This is my favorite drink (more later)
Caffè corretto = an espresso that has been “corrected” with a shot of grappa or a liquor
Caffè decaffeinato = surprisingly good for anyone who needs to limit their caffeine intake but still wants the flavor
Caffè latte = espresso with milk in a glass, served either hot or cold
Caffè Americano = in a bar, they will take an espresso and “dumb it down” by adding hot water. In a restaurant you might get brewed filtered coffee, just like at home.
And of course there are variations to all of the above: corte, lunga, doppia, con panna (cream) and/or cioccolato and so forth.

As mentioned earlier, my favorite choice is cappuccino. When I walk into “my” bar, Tubino’s, about four doors down from the apartment, they look up and without a word being exchanged, in less than a minute I am enjoying the frothed milk with a nice caffeine jolt at the bottom of the cup. And a minute later I am out the door to the frutta e verdura or the macelleria (butcher shop). Yes, I could save €0.39 by getting a caffè macchiato, but I will gladly pay the difference for a good capuch. To me, the joy of cappuccino is the frothed milk. You take a spoon, stir it around to get a mix with the espresso and then enjoy. After the coffee is gone, inevitably there is a little bit of milk to finish off with the spoon. One of life’s little pleasures.

Unfortunately, I have just about given up ordering cappuccino outside of Italy. The Spanish turn it into a dessert, complete with whipped cream and a cherry on top. The Brits for the most part haven’t a clue. The Moroccans, Greeks and Turks can’t get the foam right. However, the worst cappuccino I ever had was in a Starbucks in Seattle, of all places. The size and proportions were all wrong. Somewhere down at the bottom of a 16 oz paper cup (!!?), underneath eight inches of foam was the coffee. Bigger is better is the American way, but it doesn’t work with a cappuccino. By the time I had dealt with enough of the foam to be able to find the coffee, it was was cold. For a good cappuccino, you have to be able to mix the coffee and the foam and still have a hot drink. The Italians have the proportions right. That is their secret. This is not a knock on Starbucks as they have opened up a huge market and do a fine job, for the most part. But next time I will stick with their medium size dark French roast coffee latte and give the cappuccino a miss.

The conservative Veronese frown on anyone drinking cappuccino after 11:00 in the morning as they consider it a breakfast drink. But I do notice that they will order caffè macchiato at any time during the day. Excuse me, but what is the difference except by degree? I do see their point after a long Italian meal, complete with many courses, wine, and dessert. Here, the biting, bitter taste of un caffè is much better than a cappuccino. Incidentally, if you do order coffee at dinner in Italy, it will not be brought to you until after dessert. Coffee during the meal is considered barbaric.

When I first arrived in Verona, when I would ask for coffee, I would get a condescending reply of, “I assume that you want American coffee,” with the “American coffee” part of the sentence dripping with even more condescension. But I have yet to go into a kitchen in Italy where there has not been an American style filtered coffee maker. Perhaps we Americans have made at least one contribution to the coffee culture.

I’m looking forward to my month in San Antonio. Alan Cutler has generously let me use his condo in June while he is in France. And if any of you know where I can find a good cappuccino in San Antonio, please let me know!
--
Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours
Vicolo Corticella San Marco, 23
37121 Verona Italia
+39 045 800 6592
+390 347 151 4820

From the April 16, 2004 E-letter
Back in Verona again, finally,

There are times when I think I should probably give up my apartment and work out a deal with a hotel somewhere. After having been home for only about ten days since mid-February, it will feel good to be in Verona for over a month before the Greek Islands tour.

TOURS PAST: SPAIN-MOROCCO was simply wonderful. The concept of pairing Moorish Spain with Islamic Morocco really worked. It was interesting to see places in southern Spain where Jews, Christians and Muslims lived together peacefully for hundreds of years. (And then along came the Catholic kings. . . . .) The next time you visit the web page <http://www.barkereurotours.com/>, take a glance at the photo of the group. Yes, that is in Morocco, as in Africa. We saw flowers, gardens, verdant fields, mountain villages that could of been in Switzerland, but not a single sand dune.

The only jarring note was the terrorist attack in Madrid two days before we arrived in Spain. I wasn’t surprised at the number of people who reported that they had been pressured to skip the trip because of the attacks (nobody dropped out). Obviously, the pressure came from non-travelers who just don’t realize how big the world is. Almost two hundred people were killed and an additional two thousand were injured, some maimed for life. I don’t want to belittle the pain or the loss, but this was one train station in one city. Most of the people made it to work that day. The trains continued to run. Life continued. With terrorism, we can only hope that we are never in the wrong place at the wrong time. And keep in mind, that “wrong place” could be anywhere, including the USA.

The Moroccans are embarrassed that some of their citizens were involved in the attack. There were many signs in Tanger saying, “No to terrorism” in four languages. While sitting in the front of our tour bus on our long drives through the country, I finally got tired of waving back at the friendly faces. Okay, so one bratty 13-year old stuck her tongue out, but most Moroccans were obviously happy to see us.

Look for a return to North Africa in the near future. I might do a repeat of Morocco or consider a trip to Tunisia. Stay tuned.

TOURS PRESENT: It is time to close the door on the GREEK ISLANDS tour. There are 24 of us ready to hit the beaches as well as view the ancient rock and rubble. If you are still thinking of joining us, it is time to nail down your flight and buy your sun block. Those of you who are signed up, continue to monitor the web page for itinerary developments.

TOURS FUTURE: I am now taking orders for the UMBRIA tour in May 2005. Details are on the web page. This tour is limited to 20 passengers due to the small size of an Agriturismo, La Casella, that I want to use. They only have twelve rooms for us so we will be limited to eight twin/doubles and 4 singles. I am having Scott send out invoices to the eighteen of you who have indicated interest. E-mail me if you want to be placed on the list. If we exceed twenty people, please continue to sign up if you are interested. Undoubtedly someone on the list will need to change their plans.

In a new development, I am working to add another tour in June 2005. I had several requests to run the Umbria tour in June, but the hotels that I am planning to use are not available. Instead, I would like to offer you two countries where I have never taken a BET group: ROMANIA & BULGARIA. I visited Bulgaria three years ago and really liked it. (Great food and wine, beautiful scenery, friendly people and a very favorable exchange rate. Also, they have some of the best Greco-Roman ruins to be found anywhere.) I would run the tour during the last two weeks of June so those of you who are tied to a school calendar would be able to participate. I have been assured that the weather is still moderate at that time. I don’t have any prices or details yet, but please E-mail me if you are interested.

OTHER TOURS: I will be in San Antonio during June and will put the finishing touches on the SEATTLE trip. There is still room to join in the cool fun—don’t forget how you will want to escape the heat and humidity in SA in August.

The title for the December/January tour, “LONDON, Just for the fun of it” says it all. We already have a good group signed up, but I still have plenty of rooms in the incomparable Russell Hotel. This is one of the few times that I will open a tour to the grade school set as there is so much for the young ones to see and do at that time of year. Yes, I will need to make special arrangements for dinners for the happiness of all concerned. Let me know if this will interest any of you.

I will have PARIS details at a later time, including the add-on of Portugal (or maybe Tunisia?)

On a personal note, it seems that my lump-in-the-throat announcement at the pre-tour meeting that I was going to give up living over here may have been a bit premature. Maybe it was the resurgence of the dollar, or spring sweeping away my winter of discontent. Or maybe it was the realization that my choices really boiled down to a 20-year old KB home in the ‘burbs or staying over here. At any rate, I am staying on for the foreseeable future. I will probably give up my expensive apartment on the trendy shopping street of Verona, but I will definitely be staying in Italy, and probably Verona. I thank all of you with whom I shared my lengthy angst.

Hope to hear from you and travel with you soon!

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours
April 16, 2004

From the January 13, 2004 E-Letter
Gennaio

A certain calm has descended on Verona. It is possible now for me to go out for my evening stroll without running head-on into an impenetrable wall of fur. It is not that it has warmed up that much, just that the seasonal passegiata crowd has already been seen or has seen all it cares to see.

The stroller set has received the last of its largesse, a gift binge that began on Santa Lucia Day, December 16. St. Lucy is huge in the Veneto. Her body is laid to rest in Venice, alarmingly visible, in a church near the train station that bears her name. Of course there were more gifts for the kids on Natale, December 24, with the season ending on Epifinia, more commonly referred to locally as the Night of La Bufana. La Bufana can be seen by Americans as a combination of the Halloween Witch and Santa Claus. On her night, January 6, she rides through the skies on her broom and either rewards children with gifts if they have been good, or a lump of coal if they have been bad. I guess this threat keeps the sugar-besotted bambini in line for a few more days during the holidays.

The Veneto group is now all safely back at home. We had a great time, though the weather didn’t cooperate on the day we went to the outer islands in Venice. We got off the boat in Burano and after walking to the center of the island, we took one look at each other and headed back to the dock and took the next boat to Torcello. There, we spent more time in the 6th century church than we probably planned to, and then sat down to a long, satisfying lunch at the Osteria al Ponte del Diavolo. After some great food and copious amounts of wine, we were better able to deal with the cold, wind and rain.

Since nobody enjoys reading “and a great time was had by all,” I will instead focus on “news you can use.”

They have totally redone the space in the Loggia in San Marco, Venice. There is now adequate space to see the four bronze horses and they have opened up a wide hall that runs the entire length of the basilica. It is filled with manuscripts, tapestries, and mosaics that were in storage or they found during various reconstructions. And, there is even a rest room!
The restoration of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova is a major success. It is not as dramatic as the restoration of the Sistine Chapel, but the videos and written materials are excellent. Reservations are required, but now that the chapel has been reopened for almost a year, you can get them in person when you arrive. However, if your time is limited, call ahead or E-mail them. The numbers will be in any recent guidebook.
The “Ice Man” in the South Tyrol Archeological Museum in Bolzano was a major hit. To give you some idea of the intensity of the experience, everyone in the group was clutching their audiphone as they were going through the first three floors and the body language was unmistakable: “Do not even THINK about interrupting me!” After we all worked our way up to the Medieval period, we all relaxed a bit and started talking again. I know it is hard to imagine a bunch of us getting all excited about the Stone, Copper, and Bronze Ages, but it happened. If/when you go, make sure that you spend the extra 2 euro for the audiphone. There is also a lot of information in English at the displays, but the audio presentation really helps.
Finally, we found a mediocre restaurant in Verona! Regular readers of these E-letters will remember that I have stated many times that I have yet to find a bad restaurant in Verona. Well, the restaurant to the left of the Roman Theater comes close. The fish soup was boring and the spaghetti with fish was overloaded with baby octopus. Not only that, they were tough. However, the tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms reportedly were quite good. But, if you are hungry when you exit the Teatro Romano in Verona, turn left but keep walking beyond. You will undoubtedly find something better in the Piazza Isola area.

Alas, I have saved the bad news for last. During the last 2+ years, the dollar has tumbled over 30% against the euro. Since I am paid by you in dollars but pay for most all of the trip expenses in euro, I must, yet again, tack on a 5% currency surcharge. Hopefully, at some point this trend will head the other direction and I will be able to give back 5%. For those of you who are signed up for Morocco, the surcharge is $160@ for a double, $183 for single. For the Greek Island tour, the surcharge is $155@ for a double, $172 for a single. The dollar has slipped over 5% in a month against the UK pound sterling, but instead of charging more for London, I will adjust the package. I was going to offer dinners on all seven nights. Now I will just organize five dinners. Actually, this won’t hurt the tour that much since you can use those two nights to go to the theatre and either grab a snack before or after the show. The dollar did rise in yesterday’s (January 12) trading so maybe we have reached bottom. But then again, . . . .

News of the tours can be seen on the web page <http://www.barkereurotours.com/>. Hope you can join in on one of the adventures.

Until next time,

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours
Verona, Italy
January 13, 2004
From the December 12, 2003 E-Letter
It was good to see so many of you during my recent return to the states. And thanks for all of your responses to my blue funk E-letter, “A Darker Verona,” that I sent out in November. The response gave lie to the words of the old song, ”Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.” I have sent out happy, chirpy newsletters that have received nary a peep in return. With this one, the response was huge. After receiving so many positive notes and seeing all of you in either Seattle, San Antonio, Austin or the SF Bay Area, I was in such a good mood when I got back to Verona that when a twentysomething started to cut in front of me after we got off the train, I didn’t alter my pace one whit and the resultant collision was deeply satisfying. Welcome home!

Verona is ablaze with Christmas lights, of course, though not up to over-the-top American standards. However, I found that the accordion playing gypsies had returned after an eight month respite. Trust me, their playing has not improved during the time they spent elsewhere. If John Silantien, Director of Choral Activities at UTSA and erstwhile accordion player himself, would ever consider a career change or perhaps indulge in a little public service, he could come over here and teach this band how to correctly play “The Anniversary Waltz.” Last night, one hapless fellow kept laboring over an approximation of the first phrase and then sticking his cup out for a donation from passersby. After muttering to myself too many times “a waltz is in 3 you idiot, not in 2,” I scored a bull's-eye with a glass of water from my third floor balcony and he departed the scene. Hey, cut me some slack--in the same spot during the Middle Ages, he would have been hit with the contents of a chamber pot!

There were multitudinous motivations for my return trip, including maps to distribute for the Veneto tour and dealings with the bureaucracy for my Medicare birthday. But mainly, I needed a dose of the comfy, the familiar, the ability to call an 800 number and hear English at the other end, even though it may have been spoken by a Bangladeshi in these globalized times. And I needed to share meals and lift a glass with friends without struggling with the language.

I am also embarrassed to confess that I also needed to watch team sports that have meaning to me and scream either at the TV screen or in person at a Spurs game. I now know any number of scatological terms and phrases in Italian, but there is no satisfaction in using them. This is an intellectual exercise, not a deep-down, gut reaction to a perceived idiotic call by an official or a dumb-ass play by one of the locals. Yelling “stronzo” just doesn’t cut it. Also, the only game in town over here is soccer, or futbol as it is called. I can now follow and can even recognize some of the more arcane aspects of the game, but my reactions are intellectual, not visceral.

And with that and an eventual return to the states in mind, my sister Sara and I checked out a number of condos in Seattle. We could then go to ten or so Mariners games a year together and I could continue to follow the Spurs on the tube. Sad to say, a combination of affordable and livable seems impossible in the Greater Seattle area. I did find the perfect condo downtown, but at $274K, I don’t think so. On the way back home, I asked Sara to pull over so I could buy a Lotto ticket since that was the only way I could afford Seattle. The next day I found that I had hit a personal best in terms of Lotto numbers but was still two numbers short. A $30 payout is not going to buy a $274,000 condo.

An eventual return to San Antonio looks to be more likely as I found any number of places that would work. But I still have this dream of finding and fixing up some place that is over two hundred years old, and living the village life in Italy. And hopefully, watching the Spurs on TV at 2:30 in the morning via the satellite!

Meanwhile, I hope you can join me on a tour on this side of the pond. The current offerings can be seen at <http://www.barkereurotours.com/>. Here’s wishing you una festa senza mal di testa! (a headache-free holiday). Buon natale, auguri!

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours
December 21, 2003

From the November 11, 2003 E-Letter
A Darker VeronaI
have been in a funk the last several weeks. Nothing serious but not much fun either. Perhaps it was brought on by the weather. With just a month to go before the winter solstice, Verona is not getting much sun these days. And what sunshine that does come over the horizon is being filtered through rain, fog and general yuck. I might as well be living in Seattle (which might happen, but that is another story.)

Maybe my dark mood of the moment is due to the realization I will never learn this infernal language, that maybe it is time to head back to car-driven, consumer ridden America. After all, it is home.

Or maybe it is finally seeing the darker side of the Italians. There are several characteristics that are starting to wear on me. The first is relatively minor. Italians don’t listen. The next time you are in Italy, look around. You will see a group of Italians standing around talking. Nothing unusual here except nobody is listening! If it is a group of four, three will be talking away while the fourth is catching his/her breath. Again, nothing wrong with this except when I need to communicate. They all tend to hear one or two words and then rush in to finish the sentence, often going in the opposite direction to what I am trying to say. When the conversation is in Italian, I can understand their impatience since I am sure they would love to stick a hand down my throat and pull out the words I am trying to remember. But when we are talking in English, it gets damn annoying to constantly have to say, “No, that is not what I mean. Could I finish the sentence, please?”

The second trait is a little more serious: I am getting tired of running into women. Literally. Let me backtrack a little bit. I have lived most of my adult life in the states, but have traveled extensively during the last fourteen years. I like to think that I understand the basic nuances of crowd behavior. When walking along a street, sidewalk, mall, whatever, you try to avoid running into people. You pick this up unconsciously as a child, probably after slamming into an adult or two with painful results. Later, you learn the civilizing niceties of giving way to an older person and so on. You learn to shift a half step to the right (left in the UK) while the oncoming person also shifts a half step and you pass each other without a problem. Or one person steps into the street, doorway, whatever, to allow a group to pass unimpeded. These conventions are followed by most everyone everywhere I have been—France, Spain, Greece, Morocco, Turkey and so on.

Italian women after a certain age don’t seem to operate on these civilizing principles. Recently, I was walking down Corso Porta Borsari with Claudio, a fellow ex-pat, and after I had come to a dead stop to let one woman careen diagonally across in front of us to a shoe display, and getting slammed into by another even after I had stopped, I asked Claudio, “Am I invisible?” He replied that he had had similar experiences. And it is not just Verona. Bud and I were discussing this phenomenon in Rome over coffee. Though he and Aase had only been in Rome for two weeks by then, he had noticed the same thing. And not four minutes after our discussion a woman who was headed in my direction, suddenly drug her young son in front of me and came to a dead stop in front of a store display. I had no choice but to stop, back up and then walk around them to continue on. She could have adjusted her angle only slightly, or delayed one step and then would have reached her objective without cutting me off.

Last night might have been the worst example, the one that may have triggered this tirade. I was taking my evening stroll up Corso Cavour, eventually turning on Via Roma to Piazza Bra, up Via Mazzini to Piazza Erbe and back to the apartment. The sidewalks were all but deserted when I saw a twentysomething headed in my direction. I shifted slightly to the right almost stepping into the street. She also changed directions—towards me! I started to step into the street but then saw that she had at least six feet of sidewalk on her side. I continued straight on and we collided. I neither offered nor received an apology. Brutish on my part, to be sure, but why should I have stepped into the street when there was plenty of room on the sidewalk for both of us?

What is curious about this is the fact that Italians, for the most part, are courteous drivers. They stop for you if you are in the crosswalk, and lane control is infinitely better on the autostrade than it is on the freeways in California or Texas. I don’t know what accounts for this behavior, whether it is obliviousness, latent hostility, or a blatant power grab. And it is particularly difficult to deal with in touristy Verona since you don’t know whether you are meeting a foreign woman who follows the rules, or an Italian who doesn’t. (A clue: Look at the shoes.)

Relief is on the way. On Sunday, I am headed to London for the night and then on to Seattle, San Antonio and the SF Bay Area. Three weeks and three days in the states should help me get over this funk. By the time I return to Verona, the unsettled weather of November will be gone and the streets will be ablaze with Christmas lights. And the streets and sidewalks will be so crowded that movement will be impossible anyway. So I get run over by a shopper or two? Buon natale. Just a part of the season.

Laurence Barker
Barker’s European Tours

From the September 1, 2003 E-Letter
Further Observations

Dear BET & Friends,

I have survived yet another August in Italy. Life is renewed again as the Italians return on schedule from their August vacations. Predictably, scenes of traffic jams leading into the major cities have played on the TV news. One would think that the Italians would learn to return home either a couple of days earlier or later, but that is not how it is done over here. And right on schedule I woke up this morning to a cool apartment after enduring one of the worst summers on record. San Antonio heat without San Antonio air conditioning is not pleasant.

My summer was made somewhat easier by spending the first two weeks of August visiting sister Sara and brother-in-law Charlie in Seattle. Seattle had been hot and dry before I arrived. It remained dry, but the temps were quite nice. One day I even wore a fleece vest that I picked up in Victoria.

Some observations after the visit:

CAR CULTURE: Please take the following as an observation, not as a criticism. I am an American and have owned at least eleven cars in my lifetime. I would like to have a car over here, but parking is impossible and so I call Hertz anytime that I absolutely have to have wheels. But it was when Sara and I were running errands and stopped for a light at a major intersection it really hit. There were six full lanes of traffic stopped for a light while another six lanes poured by. On all four corners were more cars--three parking lots filled to the brim and the fourth corner was a new car dealership.

We had visited Costco, a megastore that is based entirely on its clientele owning a car, the bigger the better. While wheeling the huge shopping cart down the wide aisles, I felt an obligation to fill it up. So I stocked up on items unavailable or ridiculously expensive in Italy: Four 40 oz jars of Jif Peanut Butter available only in twin packs; two 32 oz packets of raisins, again available only in twin packs; and a 9 LB box of oatmeal, the smallest size available. In Verona, the shopping cart wouldn't have come close to fitting in the aisles of any of the stores I frequent. And as for lugging all of that home for four blocks, across one bridge and up a flight of stairs? No thanks.

I realized with some sadness that I would have a difficult time financially returning to the states. Here, I can live quite comfortably. In the states I would need a car and I don't have to tell you how much that wonderful beast of burden, or burdening beast, costs per month.

SINGLE FAMILY HOMES AND THE SUBURBS: This is very much related to the car culture discussed above. The norm in Europe is an apartment in the city. Except for rural areas, only the very rich live in detached homes and villas. Interestingly enough, there was a study just released that shows that people in the 'burbs weigh significantly more because they drive everywhere rather than walking. And I know from personal experience, that a number of those trips are to the hardware store to pick up something needed for that single family home. It is the great American dream, the home of your own, and this dream usually includes land on all sides, not neighbors top and bottom, front and back. I lived that dream for most of my life. I never considered the alternative. Now I'm living it.

BASEBALL: While in Seattle, I caught up with Major League Baseball. I taught sister Sara how to keep score when she was eight. (That way I could nap and still know what happened when I woke up.) Little did I know that I was helping to create a future Mariner's fanatic. We went to two games at Safeco and watched countless others on TV. What a beautiful game. The plays are the same at all levels, it's just that the players in majors do it so much better. A double play is a thing of beauty, unless your team suffers from it. Ichiro, the Seattle superstar right fielder threw out a hapless rookie who was trying to go from first to third on a short single to right. The rookie figured it would take a perfect throw to nail him. He was out by fifteen feet. I'll have to confess that the only thing I really miss living over here is watching spectator sports that I understand and care about. In Italy, it is soccer, soccer and then some more soccer. Yes, they do play basketball here, but the level of play at this point is below NCAA.

I have one related question: What is the attraction of bobble-head dolls and why would anyone over age 10 want one?

TV RESTAURANT ADS: Watching all of the baseball games on TV, I was struck by the numbers of ads for restaurants. I remember KFC, MacDonald's, TGIF and several local restaurants. I am sure there were many, many more. This phenomenon just doesn't exist in Italy except for children's TV, and those ads are all for American chains. For better or worse, the franchising of food just has not caught on over here.

Enough of the observations, now I have to do some business. I want to thank all of you who responded to my last E-mail concerning the tour lineup. I have all of the tours on the site now, www.barkereurotours.com <http://www.barkereurotours.com> though a number of them are "under construction." I have listed those of you who expressed interest in the particular trips. If I left your name off, or you would like to be included, please E-mail me back.

I still need to fill some more places on The Veneto. Again, I will drop the price down to $1650 if just four more people sign up. There are still affordable seats available on Delta, but don't wait too much longer. Check with Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity or other Internet travel sites, or call Alamo at (210) 593 0084.

Until next time,

Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours
September 1, 2003
From the September 11, 2003 E-Letter
Spain/Morocco
I am back in Verona after ten days in Spain and Morocco and omygosh do I have a great trip for you. Spain was charming, different, enchanting, all of the good reasons for traveling there. And it was as dull as ditch water compared to Morocco! I was thinking at one point of pitching the entire itinerary and starting over, but then realized that there is a good balance by including the two countries. With this tour we can see the effects of three of the great religions (Catholic, Islamic and Jewish) on the cultures of the two countries. Also, I think a week in Morocco will be sufficient. By then you will want to return to some semblance of Western "normality."

Ironically, France might have been a better choice than Spain for a pairing of countries as Morocco did not achieve its independence until 1956 and French is still the second language of most Moroccans. The only other language you will see besides Arabic is French: street signs, menus, billboards are all in French. The Moroccans look back at the French with some fondness. This is not the case with the other colonizing country, Spain.

As most of you realize, this tour is one of the few that I have not stitched together from whole cloth. My goals in this site inspection trip were to confirm that the towns were worth visiting, the drives not too long, and that the hotels and restaurants are up to snuff. The trip was definitely worthwhile since I ended up making a number of changes, including the last minute addition of MARRAKECH. A summary:

HOTELS/RESTAURANTS
Hotel Cervantes, Torremolinos. This is a Costa del Sol beach town 4-star which is showing a little wear and tear. There was some refurbishing going on but nothing intrusive. Whatever negatives are more than compensated by the location as most all of the rooms have a view of the bay. Both breakfast and dinner were buffets with the breakfast being particularly varied and generous.

Hotel Carmen, Granada. This modern 4-star has all of the amenities, is well located and was the best of the Spanish hotels. I think you will really like this one. The breakfast and dinner buffets were a cut up from the Cervantes.

Gran Hotel Lar, Sevilla. At first I was put off by the location as the street seemed a little seedy. But it is close to transportation, shopping, and a number of the major attractions. The hotel could use a little refurbishing, however. I will ask the company to schedule at least one of our meals away from the hotel because I think by now we will all be tiring of the buffets, as nice as they are.

Hotel Maestranza, Ronda. This is the smallest of the Spanish hotels we will be using. The rooms that I saw were comfy with a more traditional feel. The hotel will offer us a choice of menus. Ronda may not show up on your radar and you may wonder why we are staying there. You will wonder why we didn't stay longer after you see this little gem. The drive to and from Ronda is also quite beautiful.

El Minzah Hotel,Tanger. The hotel is centrally located with a nice view of the harbor from some of the rooms. It is a 5-star hotel, but I find it equivalent to the nicer 4-star hotels in Spain & Italy. The breakfast selection was rather limited for protein but omelets are available by request.

Hotel Zalagh Parc Palace, Fes. Inexplicably, I was put into another hotel during my two nights in Fes. However, I may put us in this hotel, the Hotel Merinides, as it has a nice panoramic view of the city. I was able to check out the scheduled hotel, the Zalagh Parc Palace one morning. It is a genuine 5-star hotel with all of the associated trappings, including three swimming pools. The breakfast buffet was the best I have seen. I can't comment on dinner since I didn't eat there. The only negative aspect of either hotel is location: both are somewhat isolated. But I am not sure that we will want to be going out in the evening anyway. Our days will be filled and we will probably be happy enough just using the hotel for R&R.

Marrakech. No details yet. Watch the site and I will add the hotel and activities when I get them. Leaving out Marrakech from the beginning was due to a misunderstanding. The Moroccan tour group thought we were only going to be here for five days and including Marrakech would have made the travel time quite daunting. When they found out we had six days, they quickly made the adjustment. I will visiting Marrakech for the first time with the group since this change was made on the last day of my site inspection.

La Tour Hassan, Rabat. I may not be able to blast you out of this one when it is time to leave. Wonderful rooms, attentive service, nice buffet and so forth.

FOOD & DRINK
At this point we are scheduled to eat in the hotels for a number of our dinners. The buffets are nice and they do make for easier selections. In several hotels we can choose from a limited menu. I have asked the company to send us outside the hotels for several of our dinners. Since we will need to stay together at lunch time in Morocco, I am including three meals a day in Morocco. Our local guide will make our arrangements so we should get some of the authentic local Moroccan cuisine. I particularly enjoyed the soups. Tajines (meats or fish with vegetables cooked under a conical dish) are quite tasty. I was told not to eat raw salads. Luckily, the ubiquitous Moroccan cooked salads were fine so getting veggies was not a problem. Those of you who have a sweet tooth will enjoy the desserts in both countries. Also, breakfasts in Spain offer any number of choices that would be on the dessert menu in other countries.

Drinks will be included on the tour since this makes life infinitely easier for all of us. Wine is available in Morocco in spite of it being an Islamic country. After all, the French were here for a number of years and they taught the Moroccans the fine art of wine making. However, I did send two bottles back. With one, the wine had been subjected to high heat at some point and the cork had failed. With the other, it was so sour I am amazed that there had been enough sugars in the grapes for fermentation. Do not drink the tap water in Morocco. Spain is fine, Morocco is not. Bottled water is readily available.

SHOPPING
Guys--stop rolling your eyes. When I took a group to Turkey, there was a "feeding frenzy" at a carpet outlet, and several of your gender ended up with over $2,000 worth of new hand made carpets. Also, I was not born yesterday. I am very aware of the relationship between some guides and some outlets. Our guide will only take us to places we want to go. Besides the colorful Berber market on the way to Fes, I am recommending the following three visits since I think you will find them interesting and informative. Also, you can get some great bargains if you are in the market.

I want to definitely include a stop at a ceramics cooperative in Fes. If a "feeding frenzy" develops on this tour, it will be here. I found the presentation most instructive and spent the rest of my stay in Morocco looking around and saying to myself, "Yes, I know how they made that!" If you purchase anything large, shipping, including insurance, is included in the price. The large ticket items that may tempt you include mosaic fountains and tables, large vases, and dinner place settings. Naturally the usual tourist stuff is available.

The second shopping opportunity is a leather outlet. I will definitely have us stop here since you can get a good view of the Medina in Fes and also a look down at the centuries-old vats where they process the hides.

We can also visit a carpet cooperative. The hand made carpets are high quality and the prices are attractive. If we do go here, I will have them skip any presentation on how they are made and just show the carpets. The colors and decorations are different from the Turkish variety, of course. Only wool carpets are available, no silk. If you missed the excellent presentation in Turkey, many of the group will remember the important aspects and will be happy to tell you what to look for. And yes, they ship. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, dirham, euro and $US are all accepted at all of these outlets.

My advice is to hold off buying anything until you get to Morocco. The prices are much better and there is a wide range of handicrafts. The one exception might be Ronda as I did see some attractive items there.

Now, since I have accommodated the shoppers so well, I will insist on the following: When we are together as a group, we will NOT stop for anyone to dawdle over post cards or the same tourist crap that is found everywhere. Do that on your own time.

MONEY
Spain uses the euro which is currently around 0.87 to the dollar. Morocco uses the dirham which is currently around 9 to the dollar. At these rates, with the dirham you can either divide by nine or move the decimal over to the left and add ten per cent. With the euro you just add a little more than 10%. I also noticed that the euro is widely accepted in the Moroccan shops at the current official exchange rate. And yes, the ubiquitous ATMs are available all over in both countries.

IMPRESSIONS
Calm chaos is the only way I can describe the traffic in Morocco. Pedestrians have rights here--they have the right to get hit if they aren't vigilant, even in the crosswalk. The traffic scene here makes Rome look orderly. Yet I saw no accidents and everyone goes about their business without a second thought.

There is a system of taxis in rural areas that I had never seen before. For the most part, the "fleet" consisted of advanced vintage Mercedes-Benz sedans. By law they can only carry six passengers (kids and small animals apparently don't count towards the limit) so they load up and drop off as they go along until they get to the village at the end of their route. Then they turn around and head back. I have no idea what the fare costs are, but it must not be much since you see a wide range of the population using these taxis.

Islamic fundamentalism has made few inroads in Morocco as you see women driving and shopping by themselves. Most of the older women were dressed traditionally, but the younger ones tended towards more Western styles. However, these styles are nothing like overheated Italy where exposed underwear is a fashion statement. In contrast, in the week I was there I never saw one belly button or even so much as an errant bra strap.

I expected sand and desert but instead we drove through rich agricultural lands. There are deserts in Morocco to be sure, but I didn't see them. Watching farmers following their mule drawn plows made me feel somewhat guilty for having owned a 17-HP Kubota tractor for about ten years that I only used to knock six acres of Hill Country brush and native grasses into shape.

I have not come remotely close to "digesting" all that I saw during these ten days. Why not come along on the tour and see for yourself? There is still room for six more people. You can find all of the details at the site, www.barkereurotours.com/andalucia.morocco. Hope you can join us.

Until next time,

Laurence Barker
Barker's European Tours

From the May, 2003 BETletter

A major change
Acknowledging what has evolved over the past two years, this is the last of my general newsletters to the entire mailing list. I have been moving more and more to the internet and sending newsletters via “snail mail” no longer makes sense. A case in point: There are two upcoming trips, the December-January tour to the Veneto and the March tour to Spain and Morocco that have never been mentioned in print. In spite this, together there are currently 36 people signed up for these two tours. Also, I have been sending out E-letters for the past two years, describing life on this side of the pond, observations of similarities and differences, and occasionally mentioning a tour or two. I have found this venue a much more effective way of communicating.

I would like to add you to this E-list. If you are already active on the internet, send me a note at Lbarker291@aol.com and say “put me on the list.” (If you are already on my E-list and received this mailing by mistake, please contact me.) If you are not currently on the internet and are curious about how to go about getting on, call Scott Anderson at (210) 698-2579 and he will talk you through the process. Or talk with any of your many friends who are already active. If you are NOT remotely interested in exploring the internet, again call Scott and leave a message with your first and last name and ask him to add you to the ABNC list (active but not connected). With this choice, Scott will download and print my E-letters and then send them to you. I will continue to send descriptions of upcoming tours to all active BETVets and all of you who ask to be put on the ABNC list. Again, if you have any questions, call Scott at (210) 698-2579, or outside of Texas, call (888) 307-0145.
The dollar
The dollar has taken a mighty thumping of late, dropping over 20% in the last year and almost 9% in this calendar year alone. I have had a difficult time pricing tours since most of my expenses are in euro and the cost of the euro keeps increasing. I have had to raise the prices on the last two tours and ended up pricing the Morocco tour higher because of the changes. The problem is not with the current level of the dollar as it is still much higher than what it was in the mid 90’s. What hurts is the size and timing of the drop. Europe still remains a bit of a bargain, just not as much as it was six months ago. War, SARS, terrorism
There are enough things going on right now to make one stay in bed and never venture forth. Particularly troubling is the recent terrorist attack in Casablanca. I chose to plan a trip to Morocco not only because a number of us wanted to go there but also because it was one of the more stable Islamic countries. This appears to have changed, at least for the moment. I will continue to monitor the situation and if Morocco destabilizes, we will make other plans. Luckily SARS seems to be on the decline though certainly scary enough Remember more innocent times when your major concern was picking up a cold from a toddler on the flight? Meanwhile, we keep on traveling, acknowledging that we only have this one life to live, at least in the current form!

Essence of Italy: The Veneto
December 26, 2003 – January 6, 2004
The Veneto region is the part of Italy that was dominated by the powerful city state of Venice during the Medieval period. It extends to the west from Lago di Garda to Venice and from the Dolomites in the north to the Po River valley in the south. The major cities are Venice, Padova, Vicenza, and Verona. While there is some light industry, agriculture continues to dominate with corn for polenta, rice for risotto, extensive orchards, and, of course, vineyards to produce the excellent table wines of the region. The topography is essentially flat in the south rising rather quickly as you move north into the Dolomites. In the foothills of the Dolomites one finds the marble quarries that have been in operation since Roman times. This proximity to the quarries accounts for the marble sidewalks found in both Bassano and Verona.
Venice (3 nights) is truly unique--there is no other place like it on earth. Venice is the only major Italian city that has no Roman history as it came into being during the perilous times after the fall of the Roman empire. The Venetia people began building the city on the islands to escape from the marauding armies coming down from the north. They established a strong navy first to defend the city and later to dominate the entirety of the Adriatic and the eastern part of the Mediterranean. Venice reached its prime when the trade routes to the East all funneled through the city. The gradual decline began in 1492 and the Age of Exploration when the power shifted to the Atlantic coast.

The uniqueness of Venice comes from its islands, boats, gondolas, bridges and canals with no cars, vespas, or even bicycles. Also, it is virtually unchanged since the 18th century. However, Venice is in peril since the islands are slowly sinking and the seas are rising due to global warming. The phenomenon of aqua alta (high water) occurs with alarming frequency. Hopefully it will not occur while we are visiting, but I do know the city well enough to guide you around the affected areas. This will be 10th time I have taken groups to Venice and I hope I can continue to do so for many years. However. . . ,

Bassano del Grappa (three nights) is located in the north central part of the Veneto in the foothills of the Dolomites. The "Grappa" part of its name from nearby Mount Grappa, which also accounts for the name of the local product, that most Italianate of distilled spirits, grappa. Yes, there is a grappa museum and of course we will visit it. We will also take an excursion to a number of the small villages around Bassano and will take in the Canova (a local boy who made it big) Exhibition in Bassano before it heads for New York. We will bring in 2004 at the New Year's Eve Gala at the superb hotel restaurant.

Verona (four nights) as most of you know, is my new "home town." I can live anywhere and choose to live in Verona. I will shape the Verona experience to the group that actually signs up but will definitely include an excursion to the nearby Valpolicella region for a visit to a cantina. We will decide later whether to do a cooking class specializing in the regional cuisine.
Details
DATES: December 26, 2003-January 6, 2004
DURATION: 10 nights- 11 days
INTERCITY TRAVEL: Train and coach.
HOTELS: 3-Star in Venice, 4-Star in Bassano del Grappa and Verona, two meals a day, drinks included.
PRICES: $2595@ in double room, single supplement $250. This price is based on $1.00 = €0.92. (Note: The dollar is currently trading at $1.00 = €0.86 so there may need to be an adjustment, not to exceed 5%.) Reduction for "bring your own air" is $677.75.
ENROLLMENTS: The tour is conceived for between 12 and 16 people. I will run it at a minimum of 8. If we go over 18 people, I will make some adjustments to the itinerary and perhaps lower the price.
OPTIONS: Want another day in Venice? Look to see if any of the airlines are offering bargain fares for flying on Christmas day. The hotel will cost €150 for a double room and you can pay after you arrive. "Been there, done that" with Verona? Bail out on Sunday to either fly home or travel elsewhere in Europe, either by rail or air. I will reimburse you in euro for what I don't spend on you, approximately €158 at this point for the two days.
WEATHER: Yes, most of the Veneto is further north than Maine, but DO NOT think of snow, ice and blizzards. Those of you from the northern tier of the US will come over to thaw out. And often, Verona is warmer than San Antonio during the winter. As to exactly how cold it will be will depend, of course, on the weather gods. Last year it only went below freezing once. The year before it was much colder.
FAMILIES: This tour is during the family time of the year. Some people sign up for the December tours to get away from the togetherness, others may want to use the tour as an opportunity to get together in a more neutral area. I will offer a $100.00 discount to each member of a family group who sign up together under one invoice. Any children must be mature enough to participate on the tour activities, particularly the long dinners.
ITINERARY: A complete itinerary can be found on the web page. The URL is below. Or, again, if you are not “connected,” call Scott and he will print you a copy and send it to you.

CALL NOW TO ORDER
IN San Antonio: (210) 698-2579
OUTSIDE San Antonio: (888) 307-9145
lbarker291@aol.com
www.barkereurotours.com

From the July, 2001 BETLetter
Verona and Venice
December 26--January 4, 2002
$2289@ in double room, $250 Single Supplement
Florence & Classical Rome
January 3--12, $2015, $220 Single Supplement
Both tours: $2995, $470 Single Supplement
Deduct $585 if you arrange your own air*
Come visit Italy in the off season. The weather is not that bad (much better than San Antonio last year at the same time) and the hoards of tourists that plague Florence and Venice in the warmer months are diminished. The food is as wonderful as ever and I have booked us into some great hotels that I/we couldn’t afford at any other time of year. Verona and Venice will be very special. I live in Verona and Venice is only 90 minutes away. Florence and Classical Rome can either be done as a stand-alone tour or you can combine the two tours for an all-out Italian experience. The itinerary can be found on the web page, or call Scott at (210) 698-2579 for a printed copy.

Street Scene, Venice: I’m hanging out my window in the Hotel Saturnia, watching a Senegalese selling “Gucci” bags on the street. He targeted couples and if she showed any interest whatsoever, he went into action. At that point, the couple both had to firmly say “no” and move on or he had a sale, usually within a minute. When he closed his 4th or 5th deal, I hollered down to him, “Hey Senegalese—you’re GOOD.” He looked up and beamed and in a heavily accented voice proudly proclaimed, “I’m businessman.”
Paris
March 9 - 17
$1765@ in double room
Carnac Option
Add $100
Amsterdam Add-on
March 17 – 20
$400 in double room
$340 Single Supplement for both tours
Deduct $500 if you arrange your own air*
This year’s group had so much fun that we are returning once again to Paris. This time you will have several options. You can spend all seven nights in Paris at the Hotel Violet. Or you can do four nights in Paris and then spend the next two nights in Carnac before returning for Saturday night in Paris. You can do either of the preceding trips and add three nights in Amsterdam. At this point most everyone is doing the Amsterdam Add-on, but I will still keep the Paris return in case any of you are not interested in continuing on. Again, the itinerary can be found on the web page, or call Scott at (210) 698-2579 for a printed copy.

CALL NOW TO ORDER
IN San Antonio: (210) 698-2579
OUTSIDE San Antonio: (888) 307-9145
lbarker291@aol.com
www.barkereurotours.com

Street Scene, Verona: I’m passing the church next to the Hotel Accademia and a gypsy half-heartedly sticks out a plastic cup for a donation. Two things were different—the gypsy was male and he was not a kid. He was also cupping his right ear so I checked to see what sort of mutilation he was feigning. The guy was talking on a cell phone! Probably calling back to the camp to see why the mother and child were not at their station on time.
Little Italy
May 13 - 20
2995@ in double room
Single supplement TBA
Deduct $800 if you arrange your own air*
In a recent BET E-Letter, I asked if anyone was interested in a Little Italy tour. There was a tremendous response. The tour will include old favorites Bellagio and San Gimignano plus three other wonderful places to be named later. NOTE: We will not be visiting Venice, Florence or Rome on this tour. They are just too crowded in the summer months. If you want to visit the three major attractions, see the December-January tour above. This is definitely a work in progress but I should have most of the details worked out by mid-August Taking orders now.

Street Scene, Edinburgh: I’m walking to dinner and pass a young man who is playing the guitar and singing with far more enthusiasm than talent. He has a horrible looking bandage on his left foot. When I return from dinner, the bandage is on his right foot. I ask him about the change. Without missing a beat he says, “I have to see which foot works best.”

Scotland
June 17 - 30
2995@ in double room
$275 single supplement
Deduct $800 if you arrange your own air*
Having observed too many times that Americans want to “see it all” but then complain about long bus rides, I have made an arbitrary decision: Originally this tour was to have included northern England too, but I am choosing to limit us to Scotland only so the bus rides should be short and enjoyable. With castles, lakes, islands, ferry rides and “ooh-ahh” scenery all around, we will have a full two weeks. We will begin with four nights in Edinburgh, then two nights each in Inverness, Portree (Isle of Skye), Brodick (Isle of Arran) and Sterling. Families are welcome (age 10 and above) as the kids will enjoy the castles and ferry rides. Pack your Gore-Tex and/or your umbrella as some rain is necessary to maintain all of the glorious scenery.
Egypt
November 2002
Target price: Between $3000 & $3400
I’m not taking orders yet, but I do have a tentative itinerary and an idea of costs. I will be going to Egypt in November and will have the details for you after I return.

Euro Update. The changeover from local currencies to the euro in those countries which chose to change will begin on January 1, 2002. The Verona and Venice group will be there to experience the confusion first hand! If all goes well, the ATMs should begin dispensing euros rather than lira on January 2 There will be a transition time where both the local currencies and the euro will both be accepted. What does all this mean for you as a traveler? When you change countries on a tour you won’t need to change currencies so those of you who are taking the Amsterdam option on Paris+ will not need to worry about having leftover French francs. And you probably won’t feel the need to change any leftover euros back to dollars since you can use them for your next trip.

COME TRAVEL WITH ME!

*Approximate figure. Exact savings will be calculated after I ticket the group.

From the April, 2001 BETLetter

BETVET Reunion
The BETVET Reunion will be Sunday, April 22 at 3:00 p.m. at 26052 Fox Briar Lane. Bring food from your favorite country to share. BET will provide beer, wine and soft drinks. As well as a reunion for all the survivors of previous tours, this get-together is also a photo swap opportunity for the Oaxaca, Verona and Paris tours. Hope you can join us.

Transitions
This will be my last opportunity to directly host the reunion as Scott Anderson is in the process of buying “BET Corporate Headquarters,” a.k.a. my house on Fox Briar Lane. With the purchase, Scott has agreed to host BET functions and maintain the office. Thus he will continue to be the USA representative for BET, depositing your checks, getting out the BETLETTER and answering your phone calls, distributing airline tickets, etc.

Please note: I am NOT retiring. I will be moving to Verona, Italy, where I will continue to run BET. My goals are to continue learning Italian, eliminate two transatlantic flights a year and serve you better by getting an insider’s view into Europe. Even though I will live in Europe for ten months out of the year, my social life will probably not change that much. I only saw most of you once or twice a year anyway, and that usually was in Europe. Besides the web page and E-mail, I will have a phone and fax line after I get established in Verona in July.

Upcoming Tours
Both Turkey and Prague-Krakow-Warsaw-Berlin are now closed. The pre-tour meeting for both groups will be an hour before the BETVET Reunion on April 22.

There is still plenty of room on both Verona-Venice (December 26-January 4, 2002) and Florence-Classical Rome (January 3-12). The 2000/1 Verona tour was too good to only run once. I have made a few minor adjustments but I will keep the Accademia Hotel in Verona and add a day trip to Lago di Garda. Instead of just a day trip to Venice, we will stay three nights in the luxurious Hotel Saturnia. Florence and Classical Rome can either be done as a stand-alone tour or you can combine the two tours for an all-out Italian experience. This is the first time that I have included all three of Italy's most popular destinations on one tour. The enrollment is currently at 10; there is room for 25. You can see the itinerary by going to http://www.barkereurotours.com/verona. If you are not active on the web, call and I will send you a printed copy.

FAMILY REUNION DISCOUNT
The Christmas season is often a time for extended families to get together. If your family is thinking of getting together this year, consider meeting in Italy. The activities and hotels for the Verona-Venice tour are conducive to a family gathering. You could do the tour activities in the morning, do family things in the afternoons and then all meet for dinner in the evening. Both of the hotels are in the luxury, 4-star category and have generous, attractive public areas. I realize that families come in a wide range of ages. For both ends of the spectrum-youth and maturity-I ask that all participants be independent travelers and willing and able to participate on the tour activities. Call for details.
Paris+ (March 9—20, 2002) This year’s group had so much fun that I am planning to return once again to Paris. This time you will have several options. You can spend all seven nights in Paris at the Hotel Violet. Or you can do four nights in Paris and then spend the next three nights in Carnac and Amiens. Or you can do one or the other of the preceding trips and add three nights in Amsterdam. I’m not taking orders yet as I still have some details to work out. However, it would be most helpful if I had a “show of hands” of all of you who are planning to go (including the ten of you who have already said to sign you up.) Please indicate whether you want 1) Only Paris; 2) Paris, Carnac and Amiens; and 3) Amsterdam.

For May/June of 2002 it is time to return to the land of bad weather and worse food--England and Scotland. I have no dates or details yet as the tour is still in the early planning stages. As most of you realize, my quip about the weather and food is an exaggeration. Yes, it does rain, but it usually doesn’t interfere with any tour activities. And the food in Great Britain has improved in the past ten years. . Again a “show of hands” from all of you who are interested would be helpful in my planning of the tour.

I will be going to Egypt this November to plan a tour for early November 2002. I am announcing this tour very early since a number of you will need to make special arrangements to get off work at that time. Also, this will probably be a very expensive tour, given the need to use the highest quality hotels, and the travel distances involved. Again, please let me know now if you are interested (even those of you who have been bugging me for years to go to Egypt!)

Under Consideration
The December/January 2002-03 tour will probably be to Sicily; I am considering Ireland for March 2003. The May 2003 tour will include Romania and Bulgaria with the opportunity to combine with a cruise including Istanbul, Rhodes, Santarini and Athens in June.


ITALY
For the winter holiday season next year, I’m offering two tours that can be combined into one grand Italian splurge. This is the first time I’ve offered all three of Italy’s most popular destinations—Venice, Florence and Rome. To that venerable list I add my favorite Italian city, Verona.

On the first tour, Verona and Venice, I will be using 4-star hotels. For Florence and Classical Rome, I will use more modest 3-star hotels to keep the price more reasonable.

Verona and Venice
Verona (Dec. 27—Jan. 1, 5 nights)
“I had no idea that Verona would be this beautiful.” “Wonderful hotel.””. “Great food. But why did I eat so much of it?” “What a great town. No wonder you are thinking of moving here.” Those were some of the comments I heard on the tour last December. Verona is a wonderful “Intro to Europe” town with lots of good Roman stuff, Medieval castles, and Renaissance palaces. Verona has a population 300,000, but we will focus on the historic center. I will provide two city tours with a local guide, a museum pass that will also get you into all of the beautiful churches. Also included is an excursion to nearby Lago di Garda. I will use the 4-star Hotel Accademia again, located just off of Via Mazzini and minutes from either Piazza Erbe or Piazza Bra with the 1st century amphitheatre that the Veronese call The Arena.
Venice (Jan. 1-- 4, 3 nights)
This is Venice as never before, Venice without compromise. Water taxis will pick us up at the station and take us directly to the Hotel Saturnia, a 4-star splurge just minutes from Piazza San Marco The location is so ideal that I won’t even bother to give you a bus boat pass until the last day when we go to the outer islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello.. Besides San Marco, the Rialto Bridge is an easy walk, and you can get to the other side of the grand canal to the Peggy Guggenheim and Accademia museums by taking a Traghetto, a gondola ride that will cost you a whopping 35 cents. Entrances to the special areas in San Marco, and the Accademia and Guggenheim museums are included.

Florence and Classical Rome
Florence (Jan. 4—7, 3 nights)
Dr. Alessi and I are putting a new spin on Classical Rome this time. Instead of starting in Rome, we will go first to a minor outpost during Roman times, Florence. January is probably the best month to see Florence if you want to avoid the crowds. There were still lines to get into the Uffizi except in the late afternoon, but you could walk right into the other museums. I will include entrances to your choice of five museums or L.60.000, whichever comes first.
Rome (Jan. 7—12, 5 nights)
Ah, the glories of ancient Rome. And the excitement of contemporary Rome. Dr. Alessi will again bring the ancient stones to life. Besides the Pantheon, St. Peter’s, Vatican, Forum, and Coliseum, I will arrange for excursions to ancient Ostia and Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli.
Options
You can do the entire 16 nights, of course. Or do just Verona and Venice and then fly home from Milano. Or you can do Verona, Venice and Florence and then fly home from Rome. Or you can you can choose to join us in Florence for the last 8 days.
Prices (Subject to change)
$2289 Verona and Venice
$2015 Florence and Classical Rome
$2545 Verona, Venice and Florence
$2995 Both tours
Prices are per person, double occupancy, and include airfare, ground transportation, museum entrances, two meals a day. Single supplement price by request.
Other Tours
The PARIS tour remains closed at 30. I will be going to Paris in very early February to make some final arrangements, including our excursion to Rheims and the champagne country.

I will be going again to Turkey in late February to finalize the arrangements for the tour. Meanwhile, I only have room for eight more people. The regular price is $2565. The "bring your own air" price is $1593. Here is a very rough draft of the itinerary:

I have chosen the hotels and made most of the basic arrangements for PKWB. I will visit the cities once again in February to work out the day-to-day arrangements and choose the restaurants. I still have room for six more people on this tour. The “land only” price for the 13-night tour is $1991.00. Suzan at Alamo Travel will work with you to get the best airfare.
Plan Ahead
You might want to mark your calendar for early November, 2002. I am scheduling EGYPT at that time. The crowds and the airfares are down, and the weather is nice. Don’t have prices or details yet, but I did want to get you to thinking about it this early. I recognize that early November is not a traditional travel time for Americans. I hope enough of you can make an exception this time. For those of you who are on academic calendars, you might want to start building up favors so you can perhaps take off for a week or so

From the December, 2000 BETLetter

Life across the pond
Greetings from Verona. Life across the pond is gradually taking on a semblance of normalcy. I can now go online easily and have enjoyed receiving E-mail from a number of you, have found various markets nearby, and only spend a little of my time wondering where I am rather than being lost half the time. The Italian lessons are going reasonably well. I found I was unique, one of a kind—I was the only student who didn’t already know a considerable amount of Italian. This lack of knowledge placed me in a class by myself, literally. Yesterday, after two weeks of classes, I was able to string a couple of sentences together that actually made sense to an Italian. I think this is the first time I’ve been able to do this in any language besides English. Yes, I’ve been able to memorize phrases before, but never have I been able to make something up on the spot. Maybe there is hope for this monolingual American after all.

When contemplating this adventure, I was concerned how it would impact BET. I knew that living in Europe for an extended time would help me add depth to my tours and am already really excited about developments to the Verona tour. But how would it affect the day-to-day operations? Thus far, any fears have failed to materialize. Scott Anderson is handling “Corporate Headquarters” and Suzan Carrillo still holds forth at Alamo Travel. Checks have been sent in and have been deposited. We’ve even taken a couple of orders. Life continues.

You can reach me in several ways. The easiest is by E-mail, of course. You can call Scott at the numbers listed below. He will return your call shortly and can take your orders or answer your questions (remember that he does have a day-job at USAA). Or you can try calling me in Verona. Keep in mind that there is a considerable time difference (seven hours from San Antonio), and, most importantly, the phone line is usually plugged into the computer rather than into the phone. But I can be reached. Meanwhile, here are the developments for the tours:

Verona
The tour is now closed. See the site for the updated itinerary (all but one of you have internet access). I will have a hard copy of the itinerary in your hands before departure.

Paris
The tour remains closed at 30. I will be going to Paris in very early February to make some final arrangements, including our excursion to Reims and the champagne country.

Turkey
I will be going again to Turkey in late February to finalize the arrangements for the tour. Meanwhile, I only have room for eight more people. The regular price is $2565. The "bring your own air" price is $1593. Here is a very rough draft of the Itinerary:

Monday, May 21: Depart USA for Istanbul on Delta Airlines. (SAT/ATL 9:25A-12:47P; ATL/JFK 1:45P-3:50P; JFK/IST 5:30P)
Tuesday, May 22: Arrive Istanbul at 10:25A. After purchasing entrance visas for $45.00@ (US cash), picking up luggage and clearing customs, we will transfer by coach to the Merit Antique Hotel. After checking in, a shower and nap, you should still have time to take a stroll around the neighborhood. Before dinner at the hotel we will receive a briefing about the tour and Istanbul.
Wednesday, May 23: After breakfast, visit to the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, Hippodrome, Basilica Cistern and Grand Bazaar. Dinner at a fish restaurant.
Thursday, May 24: Morning at Topkapi Palace and Archaeological Museum. Afternoon free. Dinner TBA.
Friday, May 25: Morning departure for Canakkale. We will cross the Dardanelle by ferry to visit the site of ancient Troy. Afterwards we will continue on to Canakkale and the Arkusu Hotel. Dinner and overnight at the hotel.
Saturday, May 26: After breakfast, departure for Pergamum. After exploring this ancient site, we will continue to Ephesus where we will visit the ancient site and the purported home of the Virgin Mary. Overnight in Kusadasi and the Tusan Hotel. Dinner and overnight at the hotel.
Sunday, May 27: After breakfast, departure for Parmukkale, the snow-white mineral pools descending from the tumbled ruins of the ancient Hieropolis. After a swimming opportunity in the hot spa pool, we will continue to Konya for dinner and overnight (hotel yet to be chosen).
Monday, May 28: After breakfast departure for Cappadocia. En route visit to Agzicarahan Caravansary from the 13th Century. Dinner and overnight in Cappadocia Dedeman Hotel.
Tuesday, May 29: Day excursion to Goreme open-air museum, Uchisar, and Avanos Return for dinner and overnight in Cappadocia Dedeman Hotel.
Wednesday, May 30: After breakfast, departure for Istanbul. On the way, visit Derinkuyu or Kaymakli underground cities. Dinner on the way. Overnight at Merit Antique Hotel.
Thursday, May 31: Leisurely last day for shopping at the Spice Bazaar and an excursion up the Bosphorous by boat.
Friday, June 1: For those of you who are returning to the USA: Airport transfer departing hotel at 9:00. (IST/JFK 11:55A-3:50P; JFK/ATL 5:30P-8:00P; ATL/SAT 10:00P-11:31P) If you are continuing on to PKWB: Airport transfer departing hotel at 2:00P so we can be on time for our flight to Prague. (IST/PRG 3:25P-5:10P)

PKWB
I have chosen the hotels and made most of the basic arrangements. I will visit the cities once again in February to work out the day-to-day arrangements and choose the restaurants. I still have room for six more people on this tour. The “land only” price for the 13-night tour is $1991.00. Suzan at Alamo Travel will work with you to get the best airfare.

Here are the hotels and dates:
Thursday, May 31: Depart USA for Prague.
June 1--5: Hotel Meteor Plaza, Prague
June 5—8: Hotel Dom Turysty, Krakow
June 8—11: Hotel Europejski, Poland
June 11—14: Upstalsboom Hotel Friedrichshain, Berlin
June 14: Return to USA or travel independently.

From the September, 2000 BETLetter

Tour Developments
I am still accepting bookings for Verona, the "procrastinator special." There are fifteen of us now and I no longer hold any seats with any airline, but Suzan can still find some attractive fares using consolidators (see discussion below). The dates are December 26 through January 2 (Verona only) or January 6 (with Florence option). The "bring your own air" price for the six nights is $1,115; add $300 for four nights in Florence and Milan.

Paris (March 10--18) is still full. If you want to go, call in a credit card number and I will put you on the wait list.

I will be going again to Turkey (May 20--June 1) in late February to finalize the arrangements for the tour. Meanwhile, I only have room for eight more people. The regular price is $2565. The "bring your own air" price is $1593.

I can offer a $100 price reduction ($70.00 if you use a credit card) for Prague-Krakow-Warsaw-Berlin IF we book your air NOW. This is a consolidator ticket using NW/KLM to fly you from the states to Prague and then return from Berlin. Call soon as I don't know how long this offer will be available.

Pre-tour(s) meeting
The pre-tour(s) meeting for Oaxaca, Verona and Paris will be Sunday, October 15 at 6:00 p.m. at 26052 Fox Briar Lane. See The Book of BET for directions. I'm combining the upcoming trips since I will be out of the country from November 9 through March 19.

Now, if you don't ever want to be involved in arranging your own air and choose to pay by check rather than credit card, you will probably want to skip the rest. More trip news next month.

Making your own air arrangements
As you know, I have always included roundtrip airfare in the price of my tours. I will continue to do this in that the vast majority of you would rather have me work out the details rather than saying, "well, I'll see y'all in Milan!" However, with the current chaotic pricing policies with the airlines and the increased sophistication of BET clients in using the internet, I need to formalize the procedures for making your own air arrangements--IF you so choose.
Booking your own flight
Before you start, kiss off at least two to three hours (maybe days) of your time--I will provide phone numbers of any number of BETVets who have volunteered to give testimony to this fact! Understand that I will deduct only what I don't spend on you, not the amount that you end up spending for your ticket. Also, if you are using another airline and are arriving at a different time than the group, it will be your responsibility to meet up with the group--at your expense. Finally, there has been several times where I have moved the dates of a tour to take advantage of some special circumstances--check with me before booking your ticket. If, after all reading all of the above you still want to take the time to book your ticket, read on. Just keep me posted.
Using frequent flyer miles
Here is an opportunity to make huge savings on your trip. However, it is not easy. Most of you know the following, but it might save a phone call or two: Depending on the airline, you will need 40,000 to 50,000 miles for a coach seat. You will need 80,000 to 100,000 for business or first class, again depending on the airline. The airlines do not make that many reward seats available on any of the flights so the sooner you put in your request, the better. By sooner, I mean six to nine months before the flight. No, you can not combine miles from two different accounts, nor can you combine miles with two different airlines.
Upgrading your flight using frequent flyer miles
This option is trickier. First, you have to have 40,000 to 50,000 miles in your account. Next, I will have to take you out of the group and book you in a higher priced class of service that allows an upgrade. Trust me on this one: none of the airlines will allow an upgrade on a negotiated fare. Finally, an upgradeable seat has to be available on our flights. I have been able to make this work just a couple of times for clients. Usually there is one problem that makes this option impossible, but if you have the miles and don't mind paying a little bit extra, go for it.
Using Consolidators
Also called wholesalers or bucket shops, these firms buy up large blocks of seats from the airlines at deeply discounted rates. They then pass on the savings to the consumer. These are the "too good to be true" prices that you see advertised in the Sunday papers. The terms are usually highly restrictive, i.e., once you buy the ticket, that's it--you either travel on those days or lose your money. And you don't usually have many options. But there are real savings IF you can follow all of the terms. Suzan Carillo at Alamo Travel (210/593-0084) can help you.

Again, I will always arrange for the air transportation. But my feelings won't be hurt if you are able to get a lower price. I will start including a "bring your own air" price for all of the tours.

Credit Cards
A number of us (myself included) play the credit card game, using specific cards to get points or miles, whatever. Most of you realize that these points or miles are not really "free." Besides the interest you pay the card issuers, merchants have to pay 3% for credit card purchases. With the typical retail markup of 40% to 50%, they can consider the 3% as part of the cost of doing business. If my margin were anything near 40%, I would be a very rich man, except that my tours would be unaffordable. I will continue to take credit cards to pay for trips. But since the vast majority of you pay for your tours by check, I will start quoting two prices--one for check and the other for credit card This is not really a change in policy. It is just that I will begin to be a little more consistent. If you decide to use a credit card, I will charge you for half of the tour when you sign on and the balance when I ticket with the airline.

From the APRIL 2000 BETLETTER

www.barkereurotours.com
The all-consuming website is now functional. I will not say done. I have assumed the responsibility for making the changes and am slowly learning how to manage the site. For those of you who were worried that I was going to stop sending out the BETLETTERS, you are holding in your hand proof-positive evidence to the contrary. I realize that 99% of my business comes from word of mouth. I just hope that the web will give BET a bigger mouth! Incidentally, if you are not on my e-list and would like to be, send me an e-mail at lbarker291@aol.com.

CHANGE IN THE LINEUP
After the Ireland tour (great weather) and the London Extension (we walked around in shirtsleeves), I traveled on to Paris for one night (the fondant du chocolate at the Bistrot des Lavandieres was to die for), and then on to Istanbul for five nights. This was my first excursion to an Islamic country and I will have to confess some culture shock. The call to prayer, particularly at 5:00 a.m., can be a bit alarming. Amplified through speakers located at the tops of the various minarets, the sudden presence of a high male voice chanting at 125+ decibels is hard to ignore. But the singers are well trained and you soon treat the intrusion like church bells in the rest of Europe.
I liked Turkey. The people are friendly, perhaps to a fault. The exchange rate is daunting, nearly 400,000 Turkish Lira to the dollar. But everyone knows the rate, even the 10-year-old kid selling postcards on the street. I changed most of my money at the ubiquitous ATMs, but when I ran a little short, I was able to use dollars at the various markets, usually at a favorable rate of exchange. I did come home with two rugs that I had no intention of buying (which I like very much). The carpet salesmen are extremely skilled. Good luck trying to leave without a purchase as they have a 900-year tradition of carpet selling behind them.
After talking with the hotel people and tour operators ("Oh yes, come in January, there are no crowds") and various other people that I met elsewhere ("You’ll freeze your butt off"), I am changing the Turkey tour to May 2001. I will keep Crete and Athens for December 26—January 4, but instead of going on to Istanbul we will head for London and the relative warmth of the British Museum. I like traveling in the off-season to avoid the crowds, but avoiding going outside because it is freezing is quite another matter. Crete and Athens should be fine, but Turkey is just that much further northeast and the wind can come whistling down the Russian steppes. Let’s put it this way—I prefer to serve Turkey (ahem) thawed rather than frozen.

THE TOURS
FROM VENICE TO VIENNA
May 17—30
Wish that more of you would have been able to go on this beautiful tour, but I think I oversold my list with the successes of Sicily and then Ireland.
OAXACA Day of the Dead
October 28—November 2, $1,289
I am very pleased with the response for the October-November tour to OAXACA for the Day of the Dead Celebration. At this early date we are over half way to the 15 minimum needed to run the tour at the advertised price. See last month’s flyer for a description or call for a new one.
Crete—Athens—London
December 26—January 7, 2001, $2795
With London Week, $3195
After last year’s success in Sicily, this time we move further east in the Mediterranean. In Chania we will stay right on the old Venetian Harbor. In Heraklion we will visit the ancient sites of Knossos and Festos. A high point of the tour will be a visit to the Archaeological Museum. With Cretan art, I see elements of the Egyptian art that preceded it and Grecian art that will follow. New Year’s Eve (or new millennium for the purists) will be celebrated in great style at the Candia Maris Hotel in Heraklion. We will spend three nights in Athens in the incomparable Elektra Palace Hotel. We will visit the Acropolis and Archaeological Museum. Usually I don’t tout shopping, but we will be right in the Plaka. We then wend our way to London so we can view the many treasures of Ancient Greece in the British Museum. The museum is a five-minute stroll from our hotel.
London Week
January 3--11, $1725
Plays, musicals, museums and the legendary London January sales. Price includes two meals a day, 7 nights in the beautiful Bloomsbury Forte Posthouse Hotel, transportation pass for the Underground and the red double-decker buses. I will include either a ticket to a musical or one excursion outside of London. We will decide as a group when we get closer to the tour.
Paris
March 10—18, $1795
Come with me to my favorite neighborhood in Paris. Museum and transportation passes included, along with great meals, and seven nights in the Hotel Violet located right off of Plâce du Chatelet. I will include an excursion outside of Paris. We will decide as a group our destination later.
Turkey
JDetails later
Prague—Krakow—Warsaw—Berlin
May 31—June 14, Target Price: $3000
Prague (4), Krakow (3), Warsaw (3), Berlin (3). I’ll give you more details later. Meanwhile, dust off your old Cold War spy novels.
Note: You may begin payments for these last two tours (as six of you have already done) but I will not invoice you until I set the prices in June.

From the JANUARY BETLETTER

Y2OK
Now that the Millennium Bug has proven to be the non-event of, well, the millennium, I do feel the need to gloat a bit. Twenty-eight of us braved the unknown and had an absolutely marvelous time on the Sicily Millennium Tour.

Before the tour I was asked repeatedly "aren't you afraid that (a) the planes will fall out of the sky; (b) the power will go off for months; (c) you'll get trapped in an elevator; (d) civilization as we know it will cease to exist." The answer of course turned out to be "(e) none of the above."

I heard other irrational reasons for not going to Sicily, including fear of the Mafia, terrorism and the cold weather. Our only suspected contact with the Mafia was on New Year's Eve when a very extended "family" rented the restaurant in the hotel where we were staying. One older member of this well-dressed, multi-generation group came up to two of our young women and made them an offer they could not refuse. "You will come to our party and dance." They did, and had a great time.

As far as the weather, this was the third straight winter tour that I took along my thermals but never used them. We only had one brief shower-the rest of the time the weather was quite pleasant, thank you.

Seriously, for those of you who missed the tour because you were required by your job to stay at your computer to make sure that none of the glitches occurred, I will be offering the Sicily tour again in two years. Of course I can't promise the great weather or that a Mafiosi don will ask you to dance.

IRELAND

The March 11-19 tour is totally sold out, filled to the brim. Thirty-two of us will have the opportunity to hoist a pint of Guiness on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.

One sad note on the Ireland tour. Paul Dearnly, our driver and guide for Scotland-Ireland and with whom I was putting together the Ireland tour died suddenly in his Galway hotel room. Paul was a born teacher. I wished that he could have given a seminar to all of my drivers and guides. I admired his ability to weave multiple stories, answer questions, and all the while expertly guiding his bus through the tangle of narrow Irish roads. "Could I get back to you on that" he would respond if the answer to someone's question would be more appropriate at a later time. With Paul it was not a ploy to buy time while he tried to come up with a response. Two hours (or days) later, the answer would come, woven into yet another wonderful narrative. We will all miss his wit and wisdom.

I have invited Patricia, Paul's widow, to join us for dinner on one of the nights at the Great Southern Hotel in Killarney. Patricia insists that our upcoming tour will not be compromised. Paul's friend and colleague, who according to Patricia "is so much like Paul it is frightening" will take over the tour.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE SIGNED UP FOR IRELAND: I will have an itinerary out in early February; the pre-tour meeting will be at my house on February 20, beginning promptly at 5:00 p.m.

UPCOMING TOURS
I was able to put the final touches on Venice to Vienna when I was in Europe in October. I have sung the praises of Bellagio many times in this space. The charms of Venice need no introduction. And I am very pleased with the special arrangements I made for us in Vienna.

The new kid on the block is the charming town of Ljubljana. What a delightful place. A castle looms high above. A river runs through the town and two blocks from our hotel it is spanned by three old stone bridges, one leading to an open-air market that defines what one expects from a market in an Old World setting. More details in the next BETLETTER.

I am now accepting orders for the October-November tour to OAXACA for the Day of the Dead Celebration. The dates are Saturday, October 28, through Thursday, November 2. You will have the option to spend an additional three nights in Mexico City, returning on Sunday, November 5. For the five nights in Oaxaca, the cost is $1289. Add $120 to fly from Los Angeles. Add an additional $200 to fly Executive Class (Upgrade seats are very limited and available on a first come, first served basis). Cost for the three nights in Mexico City is $359.

PLAN AHEAD.
Given the success of traveling to the Mediterranean in the winter, the next December--January tour will be to Crete, Athens and Turkey. I still have to work out some of the details, but I'm planning so you can either do 1) the entire trip (14 nights); 2) just Crete and Athens (8 nights); or 3) Athens and Turkey (9 nights). I will have prices for you in the next BETLETTER and a description of the tour after I return from Istanbul following the Ireland tour. Target price for the entire 14-day tour is $2,995, but higher airfares may increase costs.