My wife, Marilyn, and I hired Julia Ivanushkina (Tipanov str 34/3-26, St. Petersburg 195233, Russia; e-mail juliaguide@gmail.com or visit www.spbwondertour.com) to guide us on a May ’08 day tour of St. Petersburg, Russia, because we had seen her ad in ITN’s MART Classifieds.

She did an exceptional job, and her tour was by far the most fascinating and enjoyable we experienced on our 3-week cruise aboard the MS Royal Princess of Princess Cruises.

For starters, Julia arranged for...

About 70 kilometers south of Baku, Azerbaijan, the settlement of Gobustan and the Gobustan State Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are worthwhile places to visit.

12,000 years ago the Caspian Sea was some 80 meters higher than it is today, and hunter-gatherers lived on its shores in caves surrounded by lush vegetation. Today, in a most unusual setting of rocks and caves, there are an estimated 600,000 petroglyphs in this area.

We spent several hours looking at the etchings...

It’s easy to understand why the Azores, lying in the Atlantic about 800 miles off the coast of Portugal, has never been a stop on any grand tour of Europe. These Portuguese islands boast no great art or museums, have no must-see sights and aren’t known for their beaches or nightlife.

But here’s what they do have: to reach them, a shorter flight from the US than it takes from the US to mainland Europe; volcanic attractions like thermal springs, lava tubes and fumaroles (openings in...