In St. Petersburg, I highly recommend the independent-tour-guide company DenRus (Ligovsky Pr. 73 Office 608-610, St. Petersburg 191040, Russia; phone +7 [812] 572 4511 or, from the US, 561/459-5534). My husband, Lou, and I used DenRus during our 3-day cruise stop there, July 19-21, 2009, staying on the ship at night.

We signed up for the “Value Tour,” at $395 per person for the three days, with a promise that there would be no more than 20 to 25 people on the tour. As it turned out,...

At Ljubljana, Slovenia, I stayed near the airport at Pension Jagodic (Vopovlje 10, 4207 Cerklje, Slovenia; phone +386 4 25 21 333) on June 1, 2009.

By train from Salzburg, Austria, I arrived at the main depot in Ljubljana, went to the bus terminal and took a bus for the airport. I told the driver I was heading for Pension Jagodic and he said he knew the Burgar family and dropped me off in front of the pension, which is 15 minutes (three kilometers) from the airport.

This is a...

My friend Billie Rivers and I spent two nights in Greenwich at One Six Two (162 Westcombe Hill, Greenwich, London, SE3 7DH, U.K.; phone +44 [208] 4655444, e-mail

bookings@onesixtwo.co.uk) in September ’09. The location is convenient to the London City Airport, and it’s walking distance from the park.

The guest house’s webpage described the room as a boutique-style twin room with stylish en suite shower facilities. It also had a digital TV and free WiFi access. We found our twin...