International Travel News

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August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Nahuat Tours in El Salvador

My wife, A.J., and I spent a week exploring a considerable amount of El Salvador in April ’04. As our base we used the InterContinental Hotel, very conveniently located opposite the largest shopping complex in San Salvador, the Metrocentro. A room for two including breakfast was $133 plus taxes of 13%. (El Salvador’s currency is the American dollar.)

The city and some of the surrounding areas we explored on our own. We felt perfectly safe, and the people were always very warm and...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Oases in western Egypt

In the spring of 2004 I took a most exciting and unusual trip to Egypt. Instead of just visiting the tourist sites in Cairo and Luxor, four companions and I visited five oases in the western Egyptian desert. This was arranged for us by Spiekermann Travel (18400 East Nine Mile Rd., Eastpoint, MI 48021; phone 800/645-3233 or 586/775-9550, fax 586/775-9556, e-mail info@mideasttrvl.com).

The cost was nominal: $2,190 per person, in shared rooms. We arrived in Cairo late on March 18 and...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

District Six Museum, Cape Town

In Cape Town, South Africa, the District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant St.; phone 461-8745) memorializes an important chapter in that country’s history — when an entire neighborhood was bulldozed at the height of apartheid. Being a civil rights activist, on my trip in March ’04 I was attracted to this museum.

Forty years ago, Cape Town’s Sixth District, near Table Bay, was a mixed-race, multiethnic, working-class neighborhood. An estimated 60,000 people — Jewish, Muslim, Christian and...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Fine dining in Europe

In the May ’04 issue (page 52) a reader raved about La Tour d’Argent in Paris. Thirty-plus years ago we dined there and also had their famous pressed duck.

The owner, a tall, thin gentleman, came to each table asking how the meal was. I told him it was the third-best I had had on that trip. Very politely he asked what the other two restaurants were, and when I replied, “The Jockey Club in Madrid and the Hostel de Orso in Rome,” he grinned and stated that they were also two of his...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Memories of La Tour d’Argent

I enjoyed Rita Murray’s comments about her meals in Paris at La Tour d’Argent very much (May ’04, pg. 52). I wonder if ITN readers might be interested in reading about how different things were in Paris and at the Tour d’Argent in 1952.

I was in my early twenties and living and working for the U.S. Army in Germany. Europe had not yet made an economic recovery from the Second World War and there were few tourists.

My friend Bev and I arranged for a 4-day weekend in Paris. We...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Paris dining

On a trip to Paris in June ’03 we stayed, as usual, at Hôtel du Danube (58 rue Jacob, 75006 Paris, France; phone +33 01 42 60 34 70, e-mail info@hoteldanube.fr) — in the Saint Germain des Pres area on the Left Bank. Rooms run €110-€160 (near $130-$190), with a junior suite or apartment €220.

We paid return visits to two favorite places to eat:

• La Soummam (25 rue des Grands Augustins, Paris; phone 01 43 54 12 43) — a small neighborhood restaurant frequented by locals. This a...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

Credit card fraud

We were in Spain for three weeks in April and May ’04. We kept all of our receipts for credit card purchases and when our bill came we verified that the correct amounts had been posted.

In early June I went online to our MasterCard account to check whether a totally unrelated purchase had posted and was alarmed to discover that there were three fraudulent charges from Spain totaling $500. I immediately called the fraud department of the card issuer and was told that an actual card...

August 2004 issue | Appears on page 0

AmEx emergency cash

In my letter “Nightmare in Guatemala” (June ’04 , pg. 34), I mentioned American Express and the long time it took for us to get replacement checks after our kidnapping ordeal, plus all the personal information AmEx requested while all of us were using the reception desk phone in a hotel lobby.

I wrote to AmEx over these issues and received a personal phone call on June 4 from one of their executive customer relations agents.

I learned that Guatemala City not only had a bank...