Flexible option: ATMs
MY WIFE AND I ARE TRAVELLING TO ROME IN OCTOBER AND SPENDING FOUR DAYS THERE. WE ARE KEEN TO TAKE A DAY TRIP TO HERCULANEUM. ARE THERE TRAINS OR BUSES THAT WOULD ALLOW US TO DO THIS IN A DAY? WHAT OTHER MUST-SEES WOULD YOU SUGGEST DURING OUR BRIEF STOPOVER? WE FLY OUT OF MELBOURNE AT 11.50PM; ARE THERE LOUNGES WE CAN PAY TO USE?
B.STUBBS, HOBART
Herculaneum is a great idea; it's a lot less crowded and better preserved than Pompeii, its more famous neighbour. Herculaneum is relatively compact and seeing the entire site is possible in the time you have available.
Painted murals inside a room at the ancient Roman ruins at Herculaneum.Credit: Alamy
You can certainly do it on a self-guided tour, and a train from Rome's Centrale Station would be the best option. Ercolano Scavi is the train station you want at Herculaneum, about a 10-minute walk from the site. You could also take a guided tour from Rome. Most guided day tours from Rome include Pompeii as well as Herculaneum. One that does not is Stefano Rome Tours (stefanorometours.com), which offers a tour of Herculaneum along with an easy stroll on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. On your other days in Rome, St Peter's, the Forum, the fruit and vegetable market in Campo de' Fiori, the Colosseum, Hadrian's Villa, the baths of Caracalla, the Spanish Steps and the gardens at Villa Borghese would all be on my list. The Sistine Chapel is another must but queues can be long and, if so, it's worth paying for a guide who will shunt you straight to the front of the line. An ice-cream in Piazza Navona, a stroll along chic Via Condotti and an evening at a restaurant in the Trastevere district should round out your visit nicely.
I'm not sure what airline you're aboard out of Melbourne, and therefore I don't know exactly where your stopover will be, but whether it's Dubai, Singapore or Hong Kong there are pay-for-use lounges in all three. They vary a lot in quality and some are not worth the price. You can find reviews of these lounges on the Tripadvisor website (tripadvisor.com.au).
RECENTLY, WHEN GOING THROUGH SECURITY AT CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT IN PARIS, I WAS RANDOMLY PICKED FOR A MORE THOROUGH CHECK, WHICH INVOLVED A SEARCH OF THE CONTENTS OF MY CARRY-ON BAG USING A DRUG OR EXPLOSIVE DETECTION SWAB – WHICH THE OFFICER WENT OUT OF SIGHT TO GET. THE RESULT WAS NEGATIVE BUT, IN HINDSIGHT, I THOUGHT THE SWAB SHOULD HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM A SEALED STERILE PARK IN FRONT OF ME AND MAYBE EVEN WITNESSES. ARE THERE PROTOCOLS IN PLACE REGARDING THESE TESTS?
Airport screening - the price we pay for safer skies.Credit: iStock
T. BIRD, BUNDANOON
Random explosive trace detection (ETD) checks are part and parcel of the air traveller's lot these days. These checks are carried out at airports all around the world. If you're selected for an ETD test and you fail to comply you won't be going anywhere, at least not by air. Some explosive detection systems (EDS) require a fresh swab for every test and some don't but I'm not sure that using a fresh swab is necessary to protect the innocent. If the swab returned a positive reading – and false positives are not uncommon – your bags would undergo a far more rigorous examination, which in your case would confirm you were not carrying anything you shouldn't. Nobody likes it much when they're pulled over and their bags are "swabbed" but, if this small inconvenience helps us fly safe, I'm all for it.
I AM TRAVELLING TO SCANDINAVIA AND RUSSIA. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE THE VARIOUS CURRENCIES WHILE THERE? I WILL BE IN EACH COUNTRY FOR ONLY A FEW DAYS. ALSO, WHAT IS THE BEST SIM CARD TO USE THERE?
B. CALLAGHAN, HAWTHORN
You need to stay flexible when you're hopping from one country to the next with different currencies, and ATM machines are great for this purpose. You can withdraw only as much as you need and, if you're running short just before you leave a country, you can make a small withdrawal to tide you over. On the downside, currency conversion fees and ATM fees can take a bite out of your funds and the card many frequent business travellers rely on is the Citibank Visa Debit Card, which has no overseas transaction fee, no annual fee and no monthly account keeping fee. If you use a Citibank ATM facility to make your withdrawals you'll also dodge the ATM withdrawal fee. You can get a multi-country SIM card to cover all the countries you'll be visiting. Woolworths Global Roaming SIM card offers good rates for calling Australia from Scandinavian countries and also for data, but less so when you call from Russia, where calls cost more regardless of which SIM card you're using. Data downloads on a SIM card are vastly expensive in Russia. Confine your data usage to those times when you have access to free Wi-Fi or you'll burn through your card's credit in the blink of an eye.
Conversation over to you…
The question was "The shore excursions that cruise lines offer are convenient but they're expensive. Have you organised your own?"
M. Nash writes "Cruise directors want to sell their own shore excursions, they often use scare tactics to dissuade inexperienced passengers from doing their own thing in port (too many stairs, you may not get back to ship in time etc). Our ship's bus transfer from the port of Piraeus to Athens was €52 a person. We walked 10 minutes to Piraeus train station and bought an all-day train pass for €6!"
From D. Clancy, "We have organised hop-on, hop-off buses on the internet before we go as well as tours on Viator; great as we pay in Aussie dollars. Now we get off the ship to find heaps of tour companies at the dock, doing exactly the same tours as the cruise lines at a quarter of the price."
"On our Mediterranean cruise, we had a private tour of Herculaneum with a group of 12 people organised via the Cruise Critic website," writes I. McMartin. "The tour was excellent and much cheaper than anything offered by the ship. The taxi we took to the site then offered our group of four a tour for the rest of the day for €60."
J. Edison writes "We hit the jackpot in Stanley in the Falklands. The ship wanted $US300 a head to see the famous penguins. Instead, a proud Falkland islander charged us $20 each. We saw penguins only a metre away, learnt much history about the area, and were even given a partial tour of the island on the return journey. It was a highlight of the trip."
"My first experience of shore excursions was on a cruise to Noumea," writes G. Clarke. "Those organised by the cruise line ranged from $50 to over $100. The dock was crowded with local operators offering tours for a fraction the cost of the ship's tours."
Next question: Food is a great way into a culture. Ever taken a cook's tour of Italy, India or anywhere else, and how was it? Send your response to tripologist@fairfaxmedia.com.au. The best response will win a Lonely Planet guidebook.
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