October 2007 Blog Posts (31)

Europe will always be a favorite destination for us, but sometimes travel close to home brings some rewards of its own. We drove a short five hours to reach this beautiful part of the New England coast this past September and discovered just how much beauty our own country has to offer. Rockport, MA is the quintessential New England seacoast getaway. In late September, you can have it almost to yourself. There's a wonderful…

In preparation for our trip to Paris next Spring, we have been borrowing French movies from our local library. It's good to be exposed to the French pronounciation as well as the French scenery. I'm beginning to recognize certain common words. Well tonight we watched a gem. It is called "Les Choristes" (The Chorus).

If you have the opportunity, rent this movie or borrow it from your local library. It is a heartwarming story with beautiful music. Not only are you exposed to the French…

I read recently about a Untourists positive experience with hiring a taxi driver for a day driving tour of Athens and Cape Sounion. They were very satisfied, but the price they quoted was much higher than it should have been in my experience. It's sometimes hard in Greece to know who is reputable and who is not and prices can vary greatly for services depending on who you talk to. I always like to ask people I know for recommendations when possible so I thought I would offer one to you all…

I come from California and have enjoyed many wine tasting trips to the Napa and Sonoma valleys. Over the years living in Europe, wine has become a hobby and I love to try the local wines wherever I go. I'm not an expert, but I do know some people who are and I'm happy to listen and learn from them when I can. Many people do not know how wonderful Swiss wine is, partly due to rarely finding it in stores outside of Switzerland. The various reasons for this have been explained to me by…

Hi everyone, I just saw this NY times travel article and wanted to post the link. It's about public bike rental in Paris (I was recently in Lyon and Vienna and they had the same system) For those looking for a unique city experience, bikes are a wonderful way to get around and see a much different viewpoint of the city.…

I arrived yesterday in Vienna after an easy train ride from Werfen to Salzburg to Vienna. It was sad to say goodbye to the mountains, but the wonders of city await!

(Salzburg)

Claudia held the orientation yesterday afternoon, since the other Untourists who arrived yesterday were coming from Prague and so weren't jetlagged. There's so much to do here, that I think I'll need to set up an hour-by-hour schedule to make sure I do everything that I'd like to.

The…

I'd like to start a little mini-series of blog posts about our the Untours staff people you meet when you are on site in European countries. . Since I've recently returned from two weeks in Switzerland I begin by musing about our one full-time European colleague. We have about 55 part-time (full time equivalent 25) staff in Europe.

When I took the original six Untour guinea pigs to Meiringen, Switzerland in September, 1975, I stayed…

On this morning's Today Show, they reviewed some free websites. One of them is www.expertvillage.com. This is one of the videos I found. More videos on learning common French phrases can be found by clicking on the following and scrolling down:…

Wednesday, September 26: our first day at the cortijo, Las Sirijuelas. The cortijo sits in the center of a bowl of mountains, on a working farm. Our host, Dolores, showed us around our home for the next two weeks. She had laid out so many goodies for our dinner: tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette), serrano ham, sausage, soup, figs, and grapes. Each and everything came from the farm, which Dolores tells us is entirely organic. She showed obvious pride - and well she should!…

Come with me to Las Sirijuelas...

you leave the highway when you see the sign with orange ox horns:

Follow the road past the town of Carcabuey. "Buey" means ox in Spanish.

Please note the requisite hill-top castle ruins!

Not too much further now... there's the turn up…