Category Archives: Blog

The Journey to Sarajevo

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Sarajevo is a tricky place to fly into from Boston. I arrived at the airport in Boston early for a Lufthansa flight that would take me out across the Atlantic and connect in Munich for a flight to Sarajevo. There aren’t too many other flight options for getting there.

In Boston, Terminal E is jazzing its act up. There is now a Legal Seafoods and a taco place in addition to the awful Durgin Park, which for some reason still occupies a space somewhere in Boston. It’s dreadful! I was sitting at Legal’s quite happily having my clam chowder and tuna sashimi when I started to see my flight falling apart on me. First it was a one hour delay, then a two hour delay.

Lufthansa assured us that all onward connections would be taken care of “when we arrived.” Yeah, right. I quickly checked my phone and could easily see that firstly I was going to misconnect and secondly the nightmare would only just begin and it would take me all day to get to Sarajevo if I was lucky.

What to do?! I had my boarding card and was through security already. Then as an oasis appears in a desert, I saw the magical light of Turkish Airlines in the distance. Turkish Airlines departed for Istanbul at 11:30 pm and then had a straight onward connection to Sarajevo. I called my agent (it’s handy to have someone to guide you through this) and made the shift while inside security in the terminal.

While the Lufthansa flight was finally boarding, I went up to their counter and explained that I was going to be a no-show on their flight. I had my bags with me, they removed me from the manifest, and wished me good luck on my 11 hour transatlantic flight to Istanbul.

I sat down, had another beer, and waited for the Turkish Airlines flight. And what a great flight that was! You can do a lot with 11 hours – two movies, a bite to eat, and five hours of sleep. My kind of transatlantic flight. I’m thinking of flying to London via Istanbul next time!

Istanbul Atatürk Airport

When you come off of a transatlantic flight and have three hours to kill, there are certain airports that make you want to stick around. If you are flying in business and you happen to be transiting through Istanbul Atatürk Airport, head straight to their business class lounge. It is enormous and has every single convenience that you need to while away the time before your onward connection. I even discovered the cinema – yes there is a cinema with comfortable lounge chairs inside of the Turkish Airlines lounge.

I sat down, watched a movie, relaxed, dozed off, set my iPhone for an alarm in case I got into a heavy sleep, grabbed a Turkish coffee (why not?!), and made my way over to my onward connection to Sarajevo. It was just about as smooth as I could imagine. Turkish Airlines is a great airline but more importantly, the lounge knocks the socks off of most air lounges out there. It’s even voted as one of the top 10 airline lounges in the world.

Faroe Islands Part 2: The Adventure

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The Faroes have been compared to a grain of sand on a dance floor; impossible to find but a complete world onto itself once it is seen through a looking glass.

I was fortunate enough to travel for a few days in the Faroe Islands and stayed at the Hotel Føroyar in the capital, Tórshavn. It is like no other place I have been to.

This is a land of 50,000 people and 70,000 sheep. There are two sub-sea tunnels, one Michelin Star restaurant in Tórshavn (Koks Restaurant), 62 churches, and one bridge crossing the Atlantic sea. It’s a land of temperate gulf current Atlantic waters, tons of puffin birds, and fabulous cuisine. It has only 840 sunny hours per year and rains most of the time. Stark but beautifully colored houses with grass growing on the rooftops are scattered across the landscape. The grass is used to keep the houses warm in both the winter and the summer!

The Faroe Islands are known for its sheep and its fish. It’s very famous for its knitwear and wool was once the gold of the Faroe Islands. This archipelago also has one of the largest salmon fish farming industries in the world. In fact, much of the farm raised salmon we get in super markets and restaurants come from the Faroes.

The Faroes has its own language although everybody speaks Danish and English. Nothing is open on a Sunday – absolutely nothing including gas stations! The greatest discovery in the whole world on a Sunday in the Faroe Islands is the small but great café, Fríða Kaffihús. Service is a bit challenging but very friendly. But hey, it’s open.

To get around the Faroe Islands, you need to rent a car, which is easy to do. Then each day you can set out to discover one of the 18 islands, most of which are connected to one another by tunnel or bridge. As I drove across the various islands, I started to notice trampolines everywhere. Unofficially, this must be the country with the most trampolines per capita in the world. Not saying that there is not a lot to do there…either that or some sales guy really had away with trampolines. In addition, the Faroese love to play soccer. They have a national team and they have had some big results in the past. Every tiny town dotted around the 18 islands has a decent size stadium. They like to drink beer and the craft beer industry is growing like crazy. As they are part of the EU, the young Faroese have access to the entire world of 26 EU countries to work.

If you plan to visit the Faroe Islands, one suggestion I would make is to break up the different islands. It would be best to travel from Iceland to there and then finish with a few days in Copenhagen. It should also be noted that you can take a ferry from Scotland. But frankly, with the stormy Atlantic seas out there, I would rather fly if only to avoid sea sickness alone!

Faroe Islands Part 1: Getting There is Half the Fun

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When I was a kid in the UK, I used to listen to the shipping forecast on the radio late at night. It felt cozy and reassuring when I was tucked in my bed and thinking of all these ships bobbing around in the harsh waters around the northern parts of the UK and beyond. It has become quite a famous institution in fact. At the London Olympics it was played along with Elgar’s Nimrod to denote Britain’s maritime heritage. There were updates of mysterious places like Tyne, Dogger, German Bight, Fair Isle and the Faroe Islands. I had no idea where most of these places were but like most youngsters in the UK, it became part of every Brits upbringing and it still beams out across the air waves today. This summer I decided to go visit one of these places; The Faroes. I had never been and had not much of a clue exactly where it was.

Getting there is not easy. Perched between the Outer Hebrides and the southeast tip of Iceland in the inhospitable waters of the Atlantic ocean, there is no direct service from London or many other European gateways. You can fly quite conveniently from Copenhagen or Reykjavik on SAS or Air Atlantic (the Faroe national carrier). We chose SAS and that was probably our first mistake in trying to get there.

It’s a two hour and 30-minute journey from Copenhagen. The runway at Vágar Airport in the Faroe Islands is small. It was a cloudy day and when we finally arrived, after some delay, the pilot felt encouraged to make his descent. But the cloud cover ultimately was too much for him. As we descended, I felt the surge of the engines as he pulled out of the landing. After circling above for 10 minutes, he informed us he would have to go back to Copenhagen.

Yes, that really did happen.

According to the locals, only travel on Air Atlantic as the Faroe pilots know how to land in cloud cover on a short runway. That was advice I wish I had earlier!

The next day we tried again. The weather was much better and the views were spectacular. As we descended, the archipelago of 18 islands suddenly appeared as we dropped onto what seemed to be a 50 yard runway that is cut into the edge of a steep cliff. We had made it and so the adventure began.

Another Reason to Travel to Canada

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I have been thinking a lot about Canada recently. We just opened our trips to Canada for school groups and it has already grown in extraordinary fashion. It seems as though Canada is on everybody’s “Places I’d like to Live” list. The healthcare is good, college is great and practically free, and there’s lots of open space. In addition, it has mountains for skiing on both the east and west coasts and a train service that connects the savvy traveler across the country with arguably one of the best rides in train travel that there is.

So, there’s more good news about Canada. The USA dollar is strong – about 25% more than a Canadian dollar – which also means that Air Canada has started to become an interesting player for international travelers. Air Canada has strengthened its Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver hubs, and have made it easier for USA passengers to transit through. As everybody knows, when you pass through Canada on the way to the USA, then you clear customs in Canada. Given the state of the lines at immigration here in the USA, that is a massive boost so as a connect destination it’s a player.

What else does Air Canada have to offer? In addition to the good service and cheaper prices, since every single air trip that travels between the USA and Europe or Asia has to pass over Canada anyway, the transoceanic part of the journey is cut down. The fleet that Air Canada uses has been refreshed with new Boeing 787s and 777s and it has lie-flat business class seats on every long-haul flight. Consumers are giving them the thumbs up by flying them. Increased passengers gives Air Canada the leverage to open up more flights and more access points into the USA.

So, I guess it’s not just the healthcare, the fabulous education, and the quality of life. In addition, it’s about a transoceanic experience that just got better.

When Your Bag Never Arrives

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Word on the street is that airline technology is moving in so that you can track your bag through messaging on your phone. That means that you don’t have to wait for half an hour at a baggage carousel when the airline already knows that your bag is not going to show. A simple alert, and you can head straight to baggage information.

But airlines are moving beyond this and want to eliminate that mess. You know, selecting what your bag looks like on an identity kit picture and filling out a silly form that is filed away (FYI: never lose your bag at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport!). So, this is an improvement. However, airlines get a whopping $4 billion per year in baggage fees. This is another way for them to give you false statistics. If you do not fill out the form and they inform you your bag is missing, you can alert them on where you would like to receive your bag. That means that your bag is not lost or missing but is simply “arriving for your convenience at your home address.” So they look a little more efficient than they are. They still charge you for the baggage fee. All they have done is change the goal post, make our lives a little better, and make themselves look fabulous.

I for one am all for avoiding the dreaded line at baggage services. That’s at least a two-hour killer right there. Frankly, the only reason that you should ever check your bag is if you’re skiing or emigrating.

Get Me to the Front of the Plane

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Here’s a confession, I like to travel at the front of the plane.  But guess what, who doesn’t?

We work on getting our points up, we stay on airline routings that are not necessarily optimal, and we do this all so that we can boost our points with one airline.  This way we collect millions of points!  But then usually we squander them on a $200 Amazon gift card.

JetBlue Mint Service

As everyone in the points business knows, you never use your points for small dollar items.  You use your points to get to the front of the plane on long-haul flights and the airlines know this.  The business of flying in business is changing though.  A continental business class roundtrip ticket used to cost $2,600.  With JetBlue and its Mint service, that price drops by $1,000.  Frankly, from a service point of view, JetBlue can easily take on the United’s and American’s of this world.  In fact, they have done so successfully that United and American have been dragged screaming into the lower cost option.  The problem for these guys is that they have high cost infrastructure and nothing to sell except for creaky old planes and cranky staff.  Good luck with that.

Extra Checks at TSA

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Given the recent state of events, it’s not surprising that TSA is tightening its grip on the security checks at airports.  There’s not just the possibility that we all may soon have to travel without our computers, but at the screening stage it looks as though we are headed to a process that has us separate the contents of our bags into different bins.  The days of simply removing your liquids and creams into a separate bag may soon be over.  Now there are going to be bins for jackets, belts, shoes, creams, liquids, plus paper and electronics.  If you’re traveling, it probably makes sense to unclutter your bag.  The more stuff that you have floating in that thing, the more likely it is that they will want to look inside it.  That is what will cost you time and hold up the lines.

In addition, TSA is becoming super diligent on the two bag carry-on rule.  I ran into a problem the other day at Logan Airport and had to quickly unzip my main bag and put my man bag inside of the main bag because I had a backpack as well.  Of course, all of this is good as it is all planned to make us safe and secure when we fly.  This always bring me to the question – why don’t more people apply for TSA Precheck or Global Entry?  None of the rules that apply or are shortly to be launched will affect TSA Precheck.

That brings me to the last thing, airlines do a phenomenal job of screening passengers.  Soon they will be able to determine through government issued ID whether you have a reason for them to be suspicious.  Where is Amtrak in all of this?  Take the Acela from Boston to New York or New York to Washington; a well-trafficked route and you wonder why they do not institute an x-ray machine and an ID check before you get onto the train.  It’s not perfect but it seems in this ever security-concerned world that it would make smart dollar sense to invest in something here.

Incidentally, TSA has assured us that the extra security checks they are putting in place will be tested not just for security but also for speed for consumers.  You almost wonder why people that fly on planes are not forced to get global clearance.

A Petition for Better Swimming Pools

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When I travel, I like to swim.  It’s easier to carry a pair of goggles and light-weight Speedo than it is to cart a whole bunch of keep-fit stuff in your bag.

So, I have a fairly honed in radar for decent pools.  I even have an app to detect swimming pools in Paris and I know all the great pools in London.  I swim in the sea if the beach is protected and the water is calm but I constantly run into hotels with lots of land and inadequate pool facilities.  I wonder if these guys ever had a pool advisor.  If you would like to work out in a pool, it has to be a minimum of 20 meters; 25 is preferable and anything beyond that is gravy.  It always amazes me that on cruise ships with 4,000 to 5,000 passengers and luxury accommodations, the pool is nothing more than a tiny splashing pool a little bigger than a big over-chlorinated Jacuzzi with God knows what in it.

Huge resort complexes have fancy pools with kidney shapes that you cannot swim in and more often than not are unheated.  Hotel pools are, in general, absolutely hopeless.  I just want to advocate for a few more meters and some common sense.  After all, people do use swimming pools for exercise and when you sit on a 1,000-acre complex, what difference does it make to add 10 extra meters to a pool?!  Trying to find out whether the pool in a hotel or complex is adequate for swimming is also tricky.  Go look at the photographs of the pool online.  Those images can be mighty deceptive.  It’s like the pool at the villa in Tuscany or Spain that you rented that turns out to be a little bigger than a bathtub.

For those of us who like to swim, preferably in a heated 25 meter pool, let’s just get some common parameters for discovery and let’s ask hotels and complexes to give a little more thought, a little more honesty, and a little more land for the non-Olympian swimmer who likes to keep fit.

Flight Delays: A Lesson in Patience

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While stuck at LaGuardia for 7 hours due to a delay,  I was reminded about the issues facing our teachers who are travelling with their large groups and encounter a situation similar to the one that I encountered.  Let’s face it – in travel, stuff happens, and weather, equipment problems, and any host of other issues can cause delays to occurs.  It’s one thing for a single traveler to have to deal with a delay, and that in itself can be a bit of a nightmare.  Tempers get frayed and the best plans get ruined under the best of circumstances, when flights are delayed for only a couple of hours.  But now add 30 people and group travel to the mix and you have a whole different ball game going on.

First, most of us who travel regularly, tend not to check our bags.  That is a huge advantage when you are faced with a delay because you can move around easier and abandon ship quickly without having to wait for your bags to be retrieved.  But mostly everyone travelling with a group has checked their bag so there’s no flexibility.  Furthermore, everyone travelling with a group is super time-sensitive about their scheduled itinerary.  There are excursions, dinners, a tour guide, you name it, everything is synchronized around an arrival and a departure date.  If you change one day, you cause a ripple effect that sometimes is tough to recover.  Three days in Paris is not easily tradeable. There are trains and timed entrances that hang on these itineraries. One day off can throw a whole year of planning out the window.  All of the meetings that have taken place to prep the groups, prepare the parents, and then all of a sudden, a weather delay can throw off the entire itinerary.

It’s so important to have a service-oriented organization that is ready to make adjustments quickly and do everything to make this better.  At ACIS, that’s what we try to do.  Make it better, accommodate requests, shift itineraries around, stay in constant touch with teachers at airports, and try to intervene and assist in guiding airline representatives as they attempt to sort out the mess.  The amount of emails flying around here during a delayed flight is astonishing.  Bottom line, everyone is trying to help and trying to get our clients to their end destination as efficiently as possible without skipping a beat.

It is not always easy and not always seen as such.  That’s the tough thing about delays and cancellations.  From our point of view, we try to think for the airline, look at options, and beat the crowds that have already formed at the gate as delays and inevitable cancellations start to cause havoc.  Just being able to see things that the rest of the delayed passengers can’t see, gives our ACIS passengers a key advantage.  Our air team is always looking to resolve this stuff ahead of the airlines.  If we can think for the airlines and come up with solid suggestions, we can beat the crowds.  That’s what we want to do.  Tour managers at the other end are busy accommodating these changes as well. They are trying to figure out how to synch the late arriving group with an itinerary that doesn’t quite look like it did.  We also ask airlines to accommodate groups, if they have the flexibility, by extending a day wherever possible.  Sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn’t if there just isn’t the space on the return journey to accommodate.  Plus sometimes groups do not have the flexibility to add an extra day.  We add stuff to itineraries and redress the things that have been missed.  We want to get this trip of a lifetime back on track.  Usually, we succeed.  The most important part in all of this is the group leader.  They set the tone.  They are the leader.  More often than not, that is the difference between winning and losing.

Travel Briefs 3 – Here Comes Summer

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With the melting pot of a new administration, Trump travel paranoia, anticipated holdups in immigration entering the USA, and a strong dollar, international travel inbound to the USA has decreased.  Add to that there is an increased likelihood of the laptop ban in the Middle East countries being expanded into other countries and the USA as a destination starts to feel the pinch in terms of dollars.

The fares for international travel have also dropped as airlines are trying to lure Americans outside the country with great deals in land and air.  Domestic airfares, on the other hand, have increased as more Americans are staying at home.  It is going to be an interesting period for travel this summer.  The discounted European airlines are disrupting the regular stakeholders and consumers are benefiting across the international skies.  There are phenomenal deals on Turkish Airlines at the moment if you are willing to go that route.  Turkish is one of the largest airlines in the world with feeder flights across the European landscape.  Good news for Europeans is that in spite of the recent terrorist incidents, London reports strong traffic and Athens, perceived safe, is up by a whopping 41%.  So the Americans are on the move but the Euros are staying put.  In the Caribbean and Central America, Zika is still a massive negative for young families.  Bottom line is that there are deals to be had, places to go, and people to see.  It’s time to leave the house and go through the garden gate.

 

Travel Briefs 3 – The Secret of 261/2004

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Does anybody really know that there is a flight compensation regulation called 261/2004 which establishes, under EU law, common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding, flight cancellations, or long delays of flights?  Well, there is money in them there hills folks! 

Compensation can be between 250 Euros and600 Euros depending on the flight distance and length of the delay.  Short delays of two hours get you 250 Euros but a four-hour delay through an overnight will clear a cool 600 Euros, not to mention compensation you can independently retrieve for hotels.  This only applies to flights that originate in the EU but it also means that any American carrier is fair game.  However, it has to be a non-weather related delay.

For an overnight delay, a mate of mine just pocketed 1,800 Euros plus the cost for the added hotel night.  This rule is out there but most people do not know about it or take advantage of it.  So, next time you are delayed in Europe, you might want to pray that the delay goes over two hours!  The mechanism for retrieval of the money is pretty easy and it’s protected by the solid ruling of the EU.  Who said delays were really lousy?

 

My First Jaunt in Cardiff

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It’s a strange place to go for a football game.  When I think of Wales, I always think of rugby, but this was the Champion’s League Final; the most important soccer game of the year. For some ungodly reason, the match was held in the Welsh capital of Cardiff. Presumably because someone paid a lot of money to someone else for the privilege.

Confession #1 is that I had never been to Cardiff before and was ready and waiting to discover a part of the British Isles that I was unfamiliar with. Confession #2, Wales had never really been on my wish list. Still, only a two-hour intercity train from London’s Paddington Station and voila…you’re in Wales or Cymru. What I know about Wales is that its famous for its castles, its rugged interior, and the mountain range known as Snowdonia. Add to that a strong Celtic tradition, a bizarre language, and a history of coal and it’s all a bit of a hodgepodge!

The Sandringham Hotel, our base for the weekend, which was a bit of a scramble because of the Champion’s League Final, was a perfectly centrally located hotel, albeit a little basic. It was a short walk from the station to the hotel and delight upon delight we found that the hotel had another side to its personality. This was no ordinary bog standard hotel. It had a ground floor jazz club that stayed open until 3 o’clock in the morning. Things were looking up.

We were right on St. Mary’s Street, the main drag of Cardiff, where I imagine there are more pubs in the one quarter mile than most cities in the world. For a Champion’s League soccer match or a rugby match, you could say that this was pretty optimal. In addition to that, places seemed to stay open late. Still, we had a lot more to see than just pubs. We had to visit the famed castle and the Central Market which was just off St. Mary’s Street – in fact everything seemed just off St. Mary’s Street!

As it turns out, Heineken had taken over the Cardiff Castle so all we got was the view of the outside. The Dutch had invaded Wales! As for the marketplace, it had a glass atrium, an upper level, and a very Victorian feel to it, but most of the shops had decided to close, presumably because there was a spare 60,000 people in town who wanted to buy something. These guys really knew how to make money! No problem, we wandered around, found a tea shop, and had some Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit depending on who you asked (it’s basically just cheese on toast with a lot of brown sauce on top of it).

We went to the game which was truly fabulous and the stadium was remarkable. I believe it was almost twice the size of the town! In the end, Real Madrid won the game and we got to eat at the Charleston’s Steakhouse which is the only place in the world I had ever been, apart from McDonalds, where you must pay for your meal before they serve you. Their secret recipe? They stay open until 4 o’clock in the morning and they were doing a lot of business.

So, Cardiff – a lively city? Yes. A great stadium for soccer and rugby games? Absolutely one of the best in the world. A lot of things to do there? Absolutely not. The pubs stayed open late and no wonder since there isn’t much to do here besides drink, eat Welsh rarebit or rabbit, and have a steak at 4:00 AM. It’s a place I can wait to return to.

Roaming Naples: Part 3 – The Naples Metro

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I’m not a big fan of the Rome Metro but I was persuaded by my Italian friend that the Naples one is just about the best in Italy.  So I decided to take a chance.  To start, there is the usual Italian problem of any Metro entrance – where do you buy a ticket?!  It’s a struggle.  The ticket machine does not work, the guy that has the booth by the entrance does not sell them, and the woman at the top where the newsstand is wasn’t there.  After five minutes of inquiry, we discovered a shop where you could buy these train tickets.  I guess Neapolitans have season tickets or something but it sure was a bit of a struggle to figure out how to get on the train.  Once down in the dungeon of the Metro though, it all looked pretty cool.  The trains were clean, it was highly logical, and unlike the chaos of the streets above, the metro had a quiet sense to it.  We were able to travel clear across town with ease.  Sure, the Metro map was a little graffitied up and maybe some of the posters were a bit too raunchy for some tourists, but the trains were perfect.  I quite liked the idea that Helmut Newton photographs were being advertised here and exhibited at a palazzo nearby.

 

Keep Rolling On

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As a traveler, I’m finding more and more people want to know about the safety of visiting places in Europe. What’s it like traveling on the Metro or the Tube? Did you feel insecure about being in a crowded square? Were you suspicious of people who look different to you?

I am quickly becoming an authority on answering these questions. I was in London many years ago at the time of the horrific bombing of the Tube and buses (the 7/7 tragedy), I was in Paris the same day that there was an incident at the Louvre, and I was in London the day after the recent attack at London Bridge. As statistics will bear out, the truth is that it’s safer to travel in all of these cities than it is to step in your car or ride your bike through New York City. Life goes on. Imagine the alternatives – we lock ourselves away, we stop traveling, we stop interacting, and we prepare for the worst by surrounding ourselves with a moat. How crazy is that?

I walked across London Bridge on the Monday after the incident. Commuters were going to work, the bridge had temporarily become a pedestrian zone, and I looked across the river to Tower Bridge on one side and St. Paul’s on the other. The Shard towering above the ancient river as if it had been there forever. Everything seemed normal. Just then, a young girl on a skateboard rolled past me and I smiled to myself. That’s what we have to do – forget the moat, keep rolling along.

Roaming Naples: Part 2 – The Naples National Archaeological Museum

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Not far away from the nativity street is the entrance to the National Archaeological Museum right on the edge of the Centro Storico.  Here there are lots of statues and art that easily rival or outperform anything to be found in the British Museum, the Louvre, or the Vatican.  These are the great marble collections of ancient Rome, Pompeii, and Herculaneum.  However, the main draw for me was that this is the only place in the world where you can actually see the artwork paintings of Pompeii.  They are still as beautiful as if they had been painted on a wall only a few years ago.  This is where you get to see the people, the backdrop, the landscape, and how people dressed in Pompeii.  The most iconic fresco in the room is the “Woman with Wax Tablets and Stylus” also called “Sappho.”  I wanted to stare at her forever.  If you have never been to this museum, jump on a train and enlighten yourself.  It’s a mindblower.