The Naples Daily News from Naples, Florida • 97

WTTTTTT Diary Recounts Woman's Travels Near and Far the Potyala Palace (now a museum) through the old part and down the newer part We saw where the dalai lama slept although when he saw a photo of it he said the items in the picture were not his We had mostly Chinese food in Tibet prepared by a Chinese chef and only at the guest house dining room Two of the dishes were Ti terward there was a dinner party at the Metropolitan Club on the 38th floor of the Lotte Hotel We paid homage to Dr Louise Yim founder of the university and first representative to the United Nations from South Korea a longtime friend Five of us spent two days on a trip south as far a Kyung Ju which took five hours of driving each way It was lovely to return after 14 years and we visited the cember I'll return for the foundation's semi-annual meeting In all I'll have a total of 27 flights indud-ingone helicopter THE BIG TRIP this part year July 14-Sept 6 was a fabulous eight weeks Three of the weeks included a tour and the remaining five weeks I saw 84 Mends and relatives when I was traveling alone I went to Seattle Washington Honolulu Hawaii (my 21st visit i bullc there) Tokyo the Hiroshima by boat to two islands filet train to in the inland Sea Omishlma noted for its ancient armor museum and Ikuchishima and then on to Kyoto the ancient capital where I stayed at the Mlyako Hotel We visited two famed temples and Se- the Enrakuji (clear water) kisan After three days in Japan I flew to Seoul South Korea and wu entertained at Chung-ang University both campuses one in the city and the newer one on the outskirts Af- pital some 36 years ago and had returned to practice surgery and teach Several hours later I joined the Hemphill-Harris tour group (15 of us and a Chinese guide) One of our afternoon excursions was a delightful boat ride on the busy Huangpu River to the Yangtse We went by train to Wuxi after two days in Shanghai Wuxi in the lower Yangtse Valley is noted for picking and shipping silk cocoons rice and water chestnuts and a cuisine that included Baked Alaska BACK IN SHANGHAI the manager of our guest house joined us for a scrumptious banquet and later dancing at the guest tea house In 12000- foot-high Lhasa the capital of Tibet we visited three monasteries the Jokhang Drepung and Sera and the seventh-century Zuglakang Temple in the old part of Llasa We rode part of the way outdoors and climbed therest of the way to the Golden Crown (roof) of Cruise in the Lap of Luxury Aboard Renovated 'Polaris' By TONY WE1TZEL Napjei Dally Newi Travel Editor (Editor1 new: Wemm are trevellne "re ifiee kuiy day end an Imarralva mjmbar 4 them ara what the airline traveler" nlc knew ta alva me a brief 'diary an bar recent bvilnes traval and hara wa to Dear Tony: traveled more tnli year In January I viilted the west coart of Florida In May I made my first trip to South Carolina to attend a pretty wedding with a rtop-off in Washington and Silver Springs Md Toward the end of May I drove to York Pa to see the Amish country Early in June I flew to Cincinnati Ohio for the annual Scripps-How-ard trustees meeting at which was unveiled its prospective sizeable grant for the renovation of Ohio University School of Journalism's future EW Scripps Hall I was elected a vice-president and assistant secretary for New York for another year In early De Travel World By TONY WEITZEL Naples Dally News Travel Editor All's Fare Folks who travel on airplanes have been happily edified by the bouncing fare schedules which sometimes seem almost on the verge of flying you for a small handful of peanuts But a number of the US airlines are fighting back against the plague of discounted air rates already announced 5 percent increases in most of the promotional tariffs effective Feb 11 Not included in the hikes are the $198 round-trip seven-day advance purchase level that many air carriers are selling with capacity controls in the mike of Continental's original offer The fare expires April 1 The fares that seem almost bound to rise in the latest filings of tariff are the transcon Super Savers of American TWA and United The New York-Los Angeles San Francisco Super Savers will go up from $358 day $3 18 night to $399 night Air carriers that are filing changed fares are Eastern American Delta and Pan-Am Piedmont raised its discount rate 8 percent on Jan 17 and Frontier means to hike coach levels by 5 percent March 4 The carriers seem to be targeting their efforts against revenue-cutting discount levels The Air Transport Association estimates these fares represented more than 80 percent of domestic traffic as of last October New Schedule Davis Levene Royal Viking's Southeast region vice president says the line's new cruise schedules are keeping the staff so busy district sales managers have to help answer reservations phones the rush? The Royal Viking people say it's a new marketing strategy that has shortened cruises and changed itineraries Now the line is using "building blocks" of 14-day segments that usually interlock and can be booked separately And most of the new 14-day segments leave port on weekends instead of weekdays which is apparently an additional incentive to the current market Levene says "there is an affluent market with the money to take our voyages but they are no longer inclined to make the longer sailings We have noted this and gotten advice and obviously it's the right About Las Vegas Folks at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas say that if there is a recession in the desert gambling capital they haven't discovered it Horst Dziura hotel vice president and general manager says the Hilton Tower has posted profits of around $50 million in each of the last three years including the tough year of 1982 He says 1983 will be even better The 2250-room Flamingo just finished a $42 million expansion the third since 1976 Dziura says doing the job by de-emphasizing convention business and concentrating on tour and travel sales Among the promotional prices have been the Winter Holiday rate of $19 a night double which includes the midnight show two drinks a dinner and five cocktails in any of the hotel lounges The Flamingo Fling at $63 offer two nights' accommodations the midnight show breakfast dinner1 parking and bell service tips "A casino hotel must attract he said "An empty room never placed a bet on a out of the country There was little to buy in the only "department We spent a week in Llasa The first extra day we visited Lake Yamzho and had a picnic lunch We saw the largest river in Tibet Yarlung Zangbo 137 miles round-trip over rough roads We saw Mount Nyantika snowcapped in August and traversed a 17000-foot pass to the 16300-foot Gonggan Monastery Hie monastery had been bombed out reputedly with bombs furnished by the Chinese The Tibetan monks are rebuilding it and they already have quarters for the dalai li IN XIAN CHINA we saw the long-buried but now partially unearthed pottery warriors of the Quin dynasty We visited the Great Hall in Peking We stayed in Villa 10 at the Guest House When Richard Nixon was there he had Villa 18 Made five stops from Sonoma to Sarasota Florida (Signed) NL Section NAPL8S DAILY NBWS Sun Feb 6 19S3 service Polaris begins her voyages in 1983 in Denmark the gateway to Scandinavia Copenhagen lies on the Danish strait separating the Baltic and the North Sea It was 16th-century King Christian IV who founded Copenhagen's reputation for fine buildings and strong fortifications The handsome buildings remain but the fortresses were removed more than a century ago to make way for Tivoli and other gardens that adorn the city POLARIS CROSSES the Baltic to Sweden the land of forests and lakes which stretches nearly a thousand miles from Arctic Lap-land to the fertile plains erf Scania She makes port at Kalmar for centuries known as "the lock and key of A magnificent Renaissance castle dominates the sound that separates the mainland from the Isle of Oland King Gustav Vasa built the castle It wu beautified by the mad King Erik IV who vainly courted the first Elizabeth of England and Mary Queen of Scots The castle is worth a thorough visit So are the glass works of Or-refors and Kosta and Boda As Polaris nears the island there may be fantastic cloud formations over Bla Jungfrun Stora Karlso is an island bird sanctuary with avians of special beauty Next is Gotland largest island in the Baltic littered with erratic boulders and porphyry and stack rocks in weird shapes all relics of the Ice Age Visby the "City of Rosu" dominated the trade of northern and western Europe from Gotland in the 13th century and the merchants grew rich they built churches There are 17 churches within the town walls and 80 outside The Swedish capital Stockholm is built on a cluster of islands where the waters of the Baltic mingle with Lake Malaren so that a hundred streets end in a vista of placid water THE ROYAL PALACE is still the residence of the King of Sweden on the site where the fortress of Stockholm was bom The cellars are now a museum and there are remnants of the castle that burned in 1697 The great church the Stockholm Cathedral dates back to 1250 but seems new Many kings have been crowned there and its finest art treasure is the statue of St George and the Dragon given to the church in 1489 Leaving Stockholm Polaris cruises east through the world' largest and perhaps most beautiful archipelago with 24000 islands forming a huge delta that seems constantly teeming with small boats Cruise to Moja and board the Zodiacs to visit the ancient church and enjoy a barbecue dinner ashore Next morning sail between Li-dofjarden and get back into the Zodiacs to travel a canal built by Russian war prisoners in the 18th century Now the Polaris sails through a beautiful archipelago to Finland a flat but beautiful country of lakes and forests of birch and pine Helsinki the Finnish capital is a sort of bridge between the Soviet Union and Scandinavia Helsinki is a handsome city and its Rock Church is often called one of the seven wonders of the world Polaris sails the Gulf of Finland and up the River Neva to Leningrad named originally for Peter the Great of Russia betan we were told but I can get Tibet them in New York at the Kitchen which is I believe the only Tibetan restaurant in America In Red China we saw many young Chinese soldiers tin roofs Chinese madebeautifully-complexioned girls from the mountains YOUNG NATIVE GIRLS work in a ruh factory earning 20 yuan a month In China working pay starts at 50 yuan a month This is very little I bought a very pretty Tibetan prayer rug at the factory Jeweled Tibetan artifacts are not permitted Estate By TONY WEITZEL Naples Dally News Travel Editor Naples travel agents tell me there is a brisk market for what some folks consider mega-buck cruises Folks who buy these luxurious holidays may or may not be millionaires But they are affluent and they have traveled the world and they know where they want to go and in what style One couple had sold a business that had taken them most of a lifetime to build Now the money was coming in so fast that they decided to spend some of it doing things they always wanted to do THEY HEARD i 1 about a glistening white ship called "The MS Lind-blad a totally renovated luxury ship with accommodations for 76 passengers in 33 double cabins and five double suites a sturdy sea-kindly craft of a size which enables her to enter ports which would be inaccessible to larger cruise ships And her fleet of Zodiacs the inflatable rubber landing crafts used with tremendous success by the "MS Lind-blad Explorer" make it possible for passengers to enter narrow channels or go ashore in waterways which the ship cannot enter The Polaris has a Sky Deck which is a perfect observation point The Boat Deck includes the Polaris Lounge the Vega Lounge the Strindberg Library the officer' bridge and officers' quarters The Wasa Deck has a restaurant with panoramic windows four suites and seven double cabins for passengers The Main Deck has the ship's hospital a reception desk a well-supplied shop and 21 double cabins A Deck has one suite five double cabins and a sauna Polaris is completely air-conditioned and heated and each cabin has individual controls Each cabin also has an individually controlled broadcast relay system with channels for music lectures and news There is open seating for meals and tables are not assigned QUALIFIED SCUBA divers may use equipment on board ship including compressors tanks and weights There is a physician aboard and ship-to-shore phone and radiogram and the 15th century convent of the Holy Ghost Now you sail across to the west coast of Sweden and Gothenburg its second city The city stands on both sides of the Gotaalv where it joins the Kattegat NORTH OF KARLSTAD you visit the home of Selma Lagerlof and a museum commmemorates the Nobel Prize authoress' life Polaris crosses the Skagerrak Sea and heads north along the deeply indented Norwegian coast Sealochs and chasms split the rocky coast in a series of awesome to use a Norwegian word Fjords unlike river channels are long straight and narrow with steep parallel sides plunging far below water level The Norwegian fjords stretch a thousand miles from Stavanger to Kirkenes on the Russian border Sognefjord 120 miles long and 4000 feet deep is the largest and most impressive in Norway Storf-jord flows through landscapes of dazzling beauty Nordfjord is the most beautifol of all temples and folk villages to i REACH MAINLAND China I had to overnight at extensive Na-rita Airport my 12th stay in Japan a South Korea does not have diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China At Shanghai Airport I was met by a member of the China International Travel Service and taken to a very comfortable guest house not far distant Spent a pleasant after noon with Dr Katherine Li who had trained at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hos place along the Baltic Coast the Soviet republics of Estoniua and Latvia and Lithuania Polaris visits two of them and lecturers explain how these countries clung to the Latin alphabet instead of using the Cyrillic Russian sprint Estonians have always wanted to be a free state but they enjoyed only 20 years of freedom Today her capital of Tallinn is one of most historic cities The Lower Town is medieval towers and steeples and red tiled roofs-fortified gatehousesthe vaulted mansion of the Great Guild built in 1410 a fine example of northern gothic RIGA IS THE proud capital of Latvia with its Old City and its castle and museums and the lovely medieval houses in Vestures Street And on the cruise back to Copenhagen the isle of Bornholm is a strange place unlike any other isle Bornholm is solid granite buildings and round churches (built to worship God and defend against strangers) Enjoy Your Seagoing Fairy Tale By TONY WEITZEL Naples Dally News Travel Editor Perhaps beginning to get Lars Eric idea across The Polaris is a magnificent seagoing fairy tale in which you can play a luxured role The Frenchman Voltaire said the united magnificence of all the cities of Europe could barely equal the glory of Czar Peter the Great's creation which has survived as Leningrad The city is a treasure house of 18th-century architecture with museums and galleries that could only have been put together by a great and powerful emperor Leningrad even under the Soviets remains the hub of gorgeous loveliness in this almost pristine fairyland Dostoyevsky and Gorky made it their home So did great musicians like Borodin and Tschai-kovsky Repin and Vereshchagin PETRODVORETS 50 miles from Leningrad is a vast estate with a monumental museum in its midst Sages call it "the Versailles of the East" There are other fascinating All this was just for openers The Baltic and Russia is a 17-day introduction to this Nordland Another 17-day adventure is called "Fairy Tales and It sails from Copenhagen but goes overnight to Aarhus a bustling seaport on Jutland that sharply portrays the old and the new of Denmark The copper roof and red brick walls of the cathedral (Scandinavia's largest church) can be seen for miles St Clement was built in 1201 and the remains of its founder Bishop Vognson lie beneath a black marble slab near a richly carved altarpiece by 15th century master Bernt Notke BUT THE TOWN HALL designed in the late 1930s is just as impressive but more controversial design is radically different You either like its extravagant murals or you don't Now you drive to Aalborg through winding lanes filled with medieval houses There is the 17th-century mansion of Jens Stenhus the 12th-century cathedral dedicated to the English St Botolf ffi if fn ti in i a i.