Here are some notes on Spain from a trip my wife, Betty, and I took to the Costa Blanca area for a week and a half in April ’08 before continuing on to Greece. It was our first trip to either country.

We found southeast Spain to be very beautiful. We stayed with our friends Bob and Maryann, of Connecticut, who had rented a villa for a month, and our friend Jan, of Kansas.

The villa was very high on a hill outside of the village of Moraira. The view of the Mediterranean up and...

My wife, Guyette, and I in late 2006 booked a fall 2007 trip on the Trans-Siberian Express, Moscow to Vladivistok, through MIR Corp. (www.mircorp.com). MIR booked the train portion of the trip as well as two business-class seats (at $2,184 each) with Aeroflot for a flight from Vladivistok to Moscow at the trip’s conclusion. For the round-trip flight from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Moscow we purchased our own tickets through Delta.

All went well on the 13-day train trip through eight...

I’m writing in response to the subscriber’s letter titled “Cruising ‘Italian Style’ on Costa Europa” (July ’09, pg. 31), which listed multiple complaints. My friend and I, both Americans, were also on the Jan. 17-31, 2009, sailing of that ship, in the Indian Ocean, for which the base price was $3,340 plus a fuel supplement of $252. (I purchased my own air.)

We and four other Americans dining with us daily did not share the above-mentioned subscriber’s opinion. We did not spend time...