The Travel Show - Larry's in Cologne; Rhine River Highlights; Jim Gee and the Great Migration Safaris in Kenya

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Good Morgen, vill Kohmann the Travel Show. I'm Larry Gelwicks,
that get away Guru, and I've gotten away to the Fatherland. Yes,
I'm in Germany today and we've got a great show
lined up for you. Now back in studio through the
miracle of technology, my good friend, the Ultimate Safari Guide.

(00:37):
I kind of call him the Doctari of all African safaris,
Jim Gee with Discovery Expeditions. Now Jim's back in Salt Lake.
I'm in Dusseldorf and Cologne or Kerhnn as the Germans
pronounced it. Jim, welcome back to the Travel show.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
It's good to be back.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
It really is. Now Jim is going to be taking
us to Africa and what to look for in a
wildlife safari, and we'll be doing that here in the
first hour. The travel show is sponsored by Morris Columbus Travel,
where you always travel More and pay Less, and Norwegian
Cruise Line, the home of freestyle cruising. I did say greetings,

(01:20):
Guten Morgen. Well, it's evening here, but it's morning back
in Salt Lake City, in Dussdorf and Cologne. Now you remember,
folks that I invited every one of you to come
with me. You remember we were talking about this Rhine
River cruise starting in Amsterdam down to Basel, Switzerland, will
be cruising the Netherlands, which we have Germany, France and Switzerland,

(01:46):
then spending a couple of days in Lucerne and Zurich
in a land post cruise tour. We were in London
for a few days prior to coming down to Amsterdam.
Although the statement is often attributed to Sir Winston Churchill,
he actually didn't say it, but Samuel Johnson said this

(02:08):
about London. When a man is tired of London, he
is tired of life. And you know, London one of
the great cities of the world. Now, Dusseldorf is a
fun really a fun place, and you know they it's
kind of a post monitor tee. It's a fashion capital
of Germany, renowned for its arts and music. It's raised

(02:31):
many artists and some electronic music pioneers. But that's where
the ship that we're with, Almah waterways, and that's where
the ship has docked. And we took the short drive
over to one of my favorite German cities, Cologne, which
is the English name for Kern. And you want to
visit old Town, the cathedral, beautiful floor and botanical gardens.

(02:55):
Of course, what I have in every city in any
of the Germanic country is a brought verst for lunch
sometimes too.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
They really taste different over there, Gym bite into them.
The bread is always fresh, and it has a crust,
you know, a crust. It's all not all soft like
Pillsbury dough boy, you know, and that kind of brown
German mustard on it. You can get kraut on it
if you want sour kraut. But when you bite into

(03:25):
the brat over there, it pops and you get a
little juice on you.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah. Well, I like the ones in lambeau Field in Green.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Bay, that's some good ones there. But I'll tell you know,
right there on the river is the Cologne Cathedral, a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it's a beautiful cathedral. And
at the very back of the cathedral is a crypt,
and the tradition is, and they'll tell you straight faced,

(03:54):
that's where the three wise men who went to Bethlehem
two thousand years ago are buried. So what they must
have done is hit Jericho and taken a wrong left
turn headed north and made their way to Deutschland. It's
a great story. Now are they buried there? I don't
know there's three guys buried there, but who knows if

(04:17):
it's really.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Uh the three wise men, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Peter, Paul and Mary. Anyway, the three Wise Men. With that, now,
you know, I reflect Jim on travel all the time.
I fly internationally every month and domestically every month. I'm
always going somewhere. I'm a hopeless travel junkie, and I've

(04:41):
never lost the miracle of flight. I see these planes
take off, like how does that thing even get in
the air and go so fast?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
You know?

Speaker 1 (04:50):
We we have a ten hour flight actually from Europe.
We went NonStop to London. It's about ten ten and
a half hours. And it's like, I'm like, oh, a
ten hour flight, Well, come on, it's two meals, three movies,
and a couple of nap times. And I think of
our ancestors who were in those old sailing boats bouncing

(05:16):
around the cold Atlantic, unsanitary, horrible food if you got any,
and then walking or wagon trains across the Western Migration.
What a bunch of woosies we are, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
We are. We're used to the easy life.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
We are and I love every minute of it. I
always say, you know, there's a big difference when you
fly in the jumbo Debt jets between sitting in row
two and row fifty two is where I sit, you know.
I walk past the business class the lie flat seats
a meal that's actually pretty good, and I go back
and have filet of peanut or rack of pretzel is

(05:57):
what they're feeding me. But I love to try travel,
and I think how blessed and you know, to me, Jim,
travel is experiences and the experiences that we share.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
I think of my daughter Emily. We took off. She's
forty plus now, but we took all kids everywhere when
they were growing up. And she was sitting in I
think second or third grade and they're having a kind
of a world history presentation and the teacher held up
a picture of Westminster Abbey and kind of to tease

(06:34):
the class, I bet nobody knows where this is. Emily
raises her hand. She's like eight years old and says,
I do, and that teaches you know where this? Yes,
it's Westminster Abbey in London. How did you know that, Emily?
My dad took me there? And then the teacher really

(06:56):
had it. I bet you don't know what's underneath the
the floor. She goes, I do dead people? See they
bury people underneath the floor in Westminster Abbey. I think
of traveling into Samoa. I spent so much time of
my life in the South Pacific, and let the say Eli,
one of my dearest friends, he worked for the government,

(07:19):
had a great job to taala. That's the currency in
western Samoa. Two tall on hours about a buck and
a half in US currency, and grateful for it. No car.
They lived in an open sided folly. You know, they've
kind of replaced the grass roof with corrugated iron or

(07:40):
metal because it holds up better. They lived near the
street the roads of that one light bulb. No indoor plumbing,
meals cooked over and open fire. We would sleep on
mats when we go out there. Now we always had
stay Kathy and I at Aggie Gray's a beautiful hotel
there in Apia. But we had all always go out.

(08:01):
I'd rent a pickup truck and take a load of
you know, fifty pound bags of rice, corned beef, all
sorts of things that they just can't afford. That it
was our gift to them, and we'd always stay a
day or two. So I don't know this love of travel. Now,
if you think nostalgia, Jim, you're old enough to remember

(08:24):
Pan American World Airways or PanAm.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Of course, my first flight, actually the London, was on
a pan AM seven forty seven.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
They were one of the pioneers back in the nineteen
sixties of the Boeing seven forty seven jet. You know,
PanAm is synonymous with glamorous travel. Do you remember the
movie Catch Me if you Can with Leonardo DiCaprio. Of course,
you know that was the glamour days. By the way,
here's some trivia you don't know. When I was twenty

(08:54):
two years old in nineteen seventy two, I applied to
be a PanAm flight attendant. I've never told you that,
and I got a response back they said, you are
a perfect candidate with your background and everything. I grew
up in San Francisco. But that was when that first

(09:15):
big oil crisis started, you remember, in the early seventies,
and they said we're laying off pilots and flight attendants,
and so some years later, I guess I could have reapplied,
but I got into my life. I've often wondered how
my life would have been. See what the reason I
want to be a flight attendant for PanAm was. I
wanted to see the world, and they only flew international,

(09:37):
and they were going to pay me to see every
corner of the world. Well, they stopped flying in nineteen
ninety one, but you know, the name PanAm and that
unmistakable blue ball logo still emanates nostalgia and you know
symbolizes an era before we talked about over tourism or

(09:57):
a selfie stick. Well, there's a chance to fly PanAm again,
provided you got some serious cash. PanAm Brands, which owns
the licensing rights for the former air line, will fly
a special PanAm branded private jet on a twelve day
trip from New York in June of next year, and

(10:21):
they're going to be visiting all over Europe and Ireland
and parts of the Atlantic Islands. The price tag fifty
nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars per person. Ye're
looking at almost one hundred and ten grand. I would
love to go. I'd rather have the money, which I

(10:42):
don't have, but I'd rather have the money. Hey, listen,
when we come back here on the travel show. Everybody
asks me how I deal with jet lag. I'm going
to tell you Larry's insider secret. Welcome back to the

(11:12):
travel show. I'm Larry Gelwick's the getaway Guru. It's Saturday
evening here in Deutschland, the Fatherland, Germany. I'm with a
wonderful group of travel show listers. And remember I invited
all you guys to come with me. I do that
all the time, say Hey, I'm going here, who wants
to come with me? But we're on a rhyin river
cruise and we docked in Dusseldorf this morning, which was

(11:36):
last night, late last night for you, and we took
a trip over to Cologne. I'm joined today by a
very dear friend of mine, someone that I admired, Jim
Gee with Discovery Expeditions, who is our partner on the
Great Migration safar As that you've always heard me brag about.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Jim.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Welcome to the Travel Shower. Yeah, Jim is in Salt
Lake in studio and I today am in Germany. Through
the miracle of technology, we can talk like that, but
I got to tell you we can't take your calls
when I'm remote like this unless you want to come
into the studio. I guess, Jim, we could do that.
They're lining up at the door already. Okay. People ask

(12:20):
me all the time because I travel constantly, as I said,
international every month, at least once a month, sometimes twice
a month International. Those are long flights. Do you know
that the longest commercial flight is with Singapore Airlines from
Singapore to New York nineteen hours? Wow, that's a long

(12:44):
time to be in the air, you know. I hope
they have good movies and good meal. Singapore Airlines is
a great airline, one of the best in the world.
But they ask me how I deal with jetlife. So
I'm gonna put before I answer, I'm gonna put the
question to you, Jim. You fly to Africa how many
times a year?

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Probably six or seven and then that's a long way.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, how do you deal with jet lag?

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Well, the way I deal with it is I've learned
to sleep on the plane, so I uh take naps
or sleep for several hours so that when I arrive,
I'm set up to accle me to whatever time frame
your destination's in. So so if I land in Kenya

(13:27):
in the middle of the night, that means that last leg.
I don't sleep, so that when I get there, I'm tired,
and then I sleep.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
You know, I have a different routine. I have a
sleeping pill that would knock out one of your African
bull elephants. Oh it's a prescription, it's pretty powerful. I
take that and I can sleep anywhere, car, bus, train, anywhere.
I specialize in church is where I get on best arrested.
And you know, I just say, well, I was praying. Yeah,

(13:57):
you don't interrupt my prayers. Gee, he's been praying for
it hour. Very righteous man anyway. And then when I
get to the sounds awful, get to the other side
like I've died or something. Well, for example, when I
flew to London, right we arrived in the morning, the
worst thing you can do is take a long afternoon nap.

(14:18):
You'll be up all I recover. A one hour power nap.
Forcing yourself to get up is okay. But what I
do is I take that sleeping pill on the flight
and then I overdose on diet coke. I do. Now,
this wreaks havoc on my body. My doctor doesn't like it,
but it sure works for me. Did you know that

(14:39):
diet coke is the most popular in flight drink.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
I believe it. They stuck more of that than anything else.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And you know, I've had flight attendants tell me it's
the drink they least like to pour because it fizzes up,
it foams up more than other soft drinks. Anyway, Coca
Cola has an interesting history that led us to the
number one in flight airline drink. The Confederate Army found

(15:08):
themselves across on the Chattahoochee River right at the end
of the war, and the Union cavalry assaulted the other bridge.
A Confederate officer named Lieutenant Colonel John Pemberton took a
slash from a sword, a saber right to his chest. Now,

(15:30):
when the war ended, he became addicted to morphine to
ease the paint, and morphine was used right and left.
I got to tell you, I've had morphine in the
hospital for some of my surgeries, and it's like, hey,
I don't care what you do, what you cut off,
just keep the juice coming, you know. Anyway, in trying

(15:50):
to cure his own addiction, he didn't know that he
created a three hundred billion dollar glow empire. Pemberton had
been a doctor prior to the war and a skilled
chemist with a drug store in Columbus. He began creating
patent medicines after the war and started selling his very

(16:14):
first popular medicine, called it Pemberton's French Wine Coca. Now
the beverage was wine mixed with cocaine, and then he
took caffeinated colon nuts and dimiana, which is a flower
which made the early the early virgins of margarita cocktails.

(16:38):
So you got cocaine something for margarita cocktails, cola, nuts
and wine. Good heavens if they serve that on the plane,
everybody would sleep well. The active ingredient, of course, with
all that is still cocaine mixed with wine, and as
one might imagine, it was marketed as a remedy for

(17:01):
almost everything. Well, Pemberton wasn't the only wounded Confederate veteran
addicted to morphine. There were many of them. And to
top it all off, the people of the rapidly changing
South were known from suffering from fatigue, headaches, anxiety, and depression.
Pemberton was looking for a cure all to help both

(17:24):
veterans and civilians alike. Remember it's called French wine. Coca
seemed to do the trick, and of course it became very,
very popular. So he soon moved from Columbus his operation
to Atlanta, where he sold even more. But then alcohol
was banned in Atlanta eighteen eighty six, so he had

(17:46):
to make a non alcoholic version of the medicine, and
he did it in a brass kettle in his backyard.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
He started experimenting with different ingredients, and while at the pharmacy,
he mixed syrup with carbonated water and knew he had
found the magic. He called it Coca cola because he
liked the aliteration.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Well.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
The new beverage was marketed as the Temperance Drink and
contained coca leaves coca, but used sugar syrup instead of wine.
It was sold at soda fountains and pharmacies. And the
rumor is he took the cocaine out, but nobody who
drank it ever believed he did. He ended up selling

(18:32):
it later and it became a worldwide phenomenon. Hey, we're
going to be headed to Africa. Would we come back
here on the Travel show? Welcome back to the Travel Show.

(19:01):
You're listening to the number one travel show rated program
in the country. We are now syndicated on nineteen stations,
including stations in Texas and Florida. May I just say
thank you for joining us here on the Travel Show.
You make this program, and you know it's so much
fun that maybe three, four, five, six times a week

(19:24):
I will be stopped in a store and someone will
say I recognize that voice. And I so appreciate folks
saying hello. I always stop and chat with them. And
you know, I'm on KUTV every Monday as a reporter
giving a travel report, not a commercial, but it's on
the new News, usually plays between twelve forty and twelve

(19:47):
forty five. And people recognize my Aloha shirt too. So
I'm joined today back in studio in Salt Lake City.
I'm in Germany by Jim Gee, who is the president
and owner of Discovery Expeditions, our safari partner. Jim, Welcome
to the Travel Show.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Thanks min glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
You know the word that is overused, but I honestly
hear more frequently than any other one word. I guess
it's two words about a great migration safari, which is
very different. There's great safaris all over Africa, of course,
but the Great Migration is the ultimate national geographic experience.

(20:34):
The two words that I hear is life changing. My
wife says that I say it. And you know, we
have a group in Africa, a Morris Columbus group right now,
and I've already gotten some text from them, and they've
used that term life changing. What is it about a
great migration Safari that's different? And what is the great migration?

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Well, is the world's largest animal migration, which consists of
one zero point five million wildebeast and about five hundred
thousand zebras, and they move a nine hundred mile journey
from southern Tanzania to the north into an area called
the Mara Triangle, which is the northern extension of the Serengetti.

(21:23):
Serengeti is a Mah word which means the plains, and
so right, the very northern extension of those plains is
the river called the Mara River, and that's where the
destination comes to an end. They crossed that river into
the triangle and then but there's just so many they're
concentrated that triangle. They come from wide broad area up

(21:45):
to that narrow triangle and that's when they get compacted
and like you're people that are there right now, they
see those because I got reports from my guys telling
us about the great herds for as far as you
can see.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
You know, you talked about the wildebeese and the zebra.
One of the things that Morris Columbus Travel and Discovery
Expedations do is you'll receive a lot of material, but
one of them is a booklet with the most common animals,
about sixty or more sixty seventy animals pictured with a

(22:21):
brief description, and invariably by day three we have checked
off and I go every year we have checked off
fifty or more species, not including the birds exactly.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
That's why we give you that field book. But we
have a checklist there for those who like to keep track,
and they mark them off. And besides, we're by that
time we're done with the first area up in sambru
or in parts of three Waters, we've already got up
to fifty and you could get up to sixty five
seventy different species of am not counting birds. Because birds
there's thirteen hundred species of birds. So if you love birds,

(22:58):
there's so many, and all colors and Brighton, you know.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
In Kenya, which I think is the choice for an Africans.
Far as I've been in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, I've
been everywhere in Africa, never had a bad one, but
the great migration only takes place in Tanzania and Kenya,
and for a whole host of reasons, Kenya is the

(23:22):
better choice with that.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
And so.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
The thing that has impressed me is that in Kenya
there are fifty game parks. Not one of them has
a complete fence around it. I've been sitting in a
pride of lions looking at them, and then off, you know,
four or five miles in the distance there's a small village,
but those lions aren't really moving. There's so much food

(23:48):
that is available. But in my view of the fifty,
there are four primary You have the mar Or Serengetti,
Old Pagetta, Sweetwater, Samburu and the one over by Mount Ambaseilla.
But now we see the three which is more in

(24:13):
the western part of the country, Samburu Old Pagetta than
the Serengetti over at Ambaseli. It's wonderful, but you won't
see anything there that you don't see elsewhere. But we
have Mount Kenya. You know that is so spectacular that
here we are on the equator and we have a
snow capped mountain right in front of us.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Right right in front of your ten As you wake
up in the morning, there's the sun rises right to
the left of Mount Kenya.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
What makes I'm gonna Tashia softball here? What makes the
Morris Columbus Travel Expert and the Discovery Expedition Safari different?

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Well, the number one difference is the lodges we stay
in are in the best locations, in the best parks.
And number two, we only put four in a Safari vehicle.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
I've seen eight and nine in the same type of vehicle,
those Toyotas land cruisers.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, and they're customized to hold nine to ten people.
We only put four so that you have a three
sixty view. No one ever blocks your view.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
You know the problem is and here's what it is.
We got to work on this. The animals when you
have a crowded vehicle, have not learned to only come
to my side because you can't move to the other side,
you know, with the lodges. Now, let me take up there,
say on the Mara and the Sarrangetti we stay at

(25:40):
the Ashviell Lodge, the number one requested lodge up there
on the Serengetti. And I will say, there are some
beautiful lodges in the area. You got the Mount Kenya
Safari Club, a gorgeous place. Other lodges and they're beautiful,
but you will drive one to two hours each way

(26:01):
to get to them. To get where we are, which
is right on the mar River, on a bend in
the river where we're at the Ashvieill Lodge where we
only stay up there. Once you're in your vehicle in
the parking lot, you are outside the gates in about
thirty seconds or less looking for animals, and the others
have to take one to two hour drive each way, right.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
And they're hurrying to get there because the best time
to see the crossings are in the morning, in the
morning or late evening or not late evening, but early
evening and see by then they have to head back
to their camp. So we have times in the morning
and times in the evening where there's nobody.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Almost we got it to ourselves now. My favorite animals
for Kathy, it's the warthog. She loves the warthogs. For me,
it's the lions. Tell me about the lions.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Well, just like for today, for instance, your group saw
a huge pride of twenty with big males, black main
mail lions in the.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Which are kind of rare there in Samburu.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, and so they saw them Sarbru when they get
to the to the Mara there and there where our
camps located. We're on the kind of corner of about
three prides, so we have three prides within a short proximity,
and so there's just a tremendous amount of lions. And
the group that just finished and just arrived home, they

(27:19):
saw so many lions that they stopped counting how many
lions because they're quite active during this migration because the
food's so abundant, and so it's a Thanksgiving every day
for the lions.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
You know.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
I've enjoyed Kruger National Park in South Africa. It's a great,
great park. But the vehicles have to stay on the
paved roads. And again we've got to work on this
because those animals have not learned to only congregate on
the side of a paved road. Now up there in

(27:52):
the Marra and other places that we visit, the vehicles
go off road, off road right, and it's really kind
of of fun is all the guides are talking to
each other and they will say, hey, we've got this
or we've got that, and everybody else then comes in right.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
They come to the place where the animals are found.
And what's interesting is we can get off road and
get right up close to them and the vehicles do
not interfere with the wildlife's behavior at all.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
You know, a lot of people are concerned will it
really be safe, because we could have animals walk literally
past our vehicle, the Toyota land cruisers, and if you
are brainless, you could you would reach out and touch them.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Don't do that.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
But you've explained that the animals don't see you individually
when you're in the vehicle.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Now, you stay in the vehicle and to them you're
no threat or no, you're not there or in their world.
But once you reach out or get out or get out,
and you're all to come a victim because they're not
used to something like that, and so they will go
for it. And you've heard recently some of the people

(29:15):
that have had encounters with situations like that, it's because
they don't listen and they get out of the vehicles.
But if you stay in the vehicles and keep your
hands inside, you're gonna.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Have a grow long you've been doing.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
This, I've been doing this for thirty years.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
You haven't had an incident one thirty years. Oh my gosh.
You know. One of the things my wife Kathy. I've
been to Africa a number of times, but my wife
Kathy some years ago, had never been and was She
wanted to go, but she was a bit hesitant because
she thought it was all going to be chuck rama,
you know, with the lions and the predators. And yes,

(29:49):
the lions and their cubs need to eat right, and
the cheatah.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Is a need.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
I want you to talk about cheetahs in just a minute.
But it's that's just one part of a man part
symphony of life. It's the it's the whole evolution of life,
the circle of life, right with it? Tell me about
the cheetahs.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Well, the cheetahs are a very unique animal, unique cat actually,
because they have feet like a dog's.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
They don't have claws, no no.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
So they can't lie it so they can't climb a tree,
but they will get up on a termite mound or
a clump of trees that have fallen down, or they'll
jump on our vehicle so they can get a good
view because their eyes sight is extremely well. They're the
only daytime hunting cats that they only hunt during daytime,
so we get lots of opportunities to see them hunt.
In fact, your last group actually saw a kill and

(30:40):
a takedown watching those cheetahs go from zero to seventy
five in less than three.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Seconds, seventy five miles an hour. Right, Oh my gosh. Well,
we're talking to Jim Gee, the owner and president of
Discovery Expeditions, the safari partner of Morris Columbus Travel, and
next year twenty we're already filling up. We have these
are the USA departure dates. We have the July twentieth,

(31:07):
July thirtieth, and August nineteenth. And by the way, the
Great Migration is really only July August. September is one
month better than another.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
No, they're really not. I think we've found it. Whether
you're in July, August or September, you're gonna have a
great time. So I think any one of those times
you'll have a time of your life.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
And i'd love to have you join me. I'll be
taking the July thirtieth, twenty twenty five departure and we're
gonna have a lot of fun more when we come
back on the Travel show. Check this so far as
out at morriscolumbus dot com. Good Morgan and Villecole the

(32:00):
Travel Show. I'm Larry Gelwicks to get Away Guru, and
I've gotten away to Deutschland, the Fatherland, right here on
the Rhine with a wonderful group of Travel show listeners
on a Rhine River cruise. We started in Amsterdam there
on August the Firs, just a couple of days ago,
and we will finish up in Basel, Switzerland, and then

(32:22):
set out on a land tour for just three days
two nights into Lucerne and Zurich. Wonderful Netherlands, France, Germany
and Switzerland. I'm looking forward to Strasbourg, France, one of
my favorite places in all of Europe. La Partite France

(32:43):
is the old town. And you think you've stepped back
hundreds and hundreds of years. So here's what I want
you to do. I want you to go to morriscolumbus
dot com. That's Morriscolumbus dot com and on the homepage
scroll down. It's like the third entry it says Morris

(33:03):
Murdoch Escorted Tourists, So click on that and what the
next page that comes up is the Morris Murdoch a
division of Morris Columbus Escorted Tours. And then you just
you can click on LDS Church History Tours, Cruises, the
Holy Land, the America's North and South and Central Europe, Asia, Africa,

(33:27):
the South Pacific. If the tour you're interested in has
a cruise, click on cruises. Don't click on the geographic.
The geographic designators are for land tours only. So I'd
love to have you join me. It wasn't that fun
talking to Jim Gee really is such a good guy,

(33:48):
so knowledgeable, and as I mentioned, next year.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
I will be.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
There in Africa and I would absolutely love to.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Have you join me.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
My USA departure date in twenty twenty five is July
thirtieth and then coming back August the ninth, so hope
to have you join me there. Well, listen, what type
of hotel do you stay in? Are you a Motel

(34:24):
six guy or a Ritz Carlton or jdaw Marriott or something?
The oldest according to the Guinness Book of World Records,
the oldest hotel that is still in operation is located
in Hayakawa, not far from Mount Fuji in Japan. And
catch this it has been in continuous operation as a

(34:47):
hotel since the year seven five. I mean we're talking
over thirteen hundred the property, of course, it's been updated
through the generations, has been passed down for fifty three generations.
And it's called an onsen, which is it's a public

(35:12):
hot springs. You know, that's part of the Japanese culture
is going to these hot springs. And one of the
things if you're kind of if you like to get
into the real culture when you go to Japan, they
have public baths, gender separated, and what you do is
you don't bathe in the bathtub. At these they're huge,

(35:35):
like the size of a you know, half a classroom
at school or something. But traditionally the water is one
hundred and six degrees because that was cleaning people. So
what you do is you sit on a stool and
you have shampoo and soap and a bucket, and you
sit on this stool with a water faucet and you

(35:57):
douse yourself. You shampoo you lather yourself up and then
you rinse off and get in these relaxing hot pools. Well,
at this particular hotel they do have the natural public
hot springs scattered around there. A lot of fun there.

(36:17):
Now here's one I just cannot figure out. Would you
help me figure this one out. Hurts rent a car,
You remember OJ running through the airport. Well, that's Hurts
is charging people a refueling fee. You know, you rent
a car and you have the option to prepay the gas, which,
by the way, they charge you for the entire tank

(36:40):
and you never use the full tank, but it is
very very convenient, or if they have to fill it up,
it's like double the price of the gas pump down
the street. But they tell you this is what you're
going to pay if we have to fill it up
all or part. And so they've been charging and several
of these been reported. Here's one in the Hurts President's

(37:03):
Circle customer the Elite Medallion level for Hurtz. They charge
this man two hundred and seventy seven dollars and thirty
nine cents for not filling up his car with gas.
Two hundred and seventy seven bucks. Just one problem he
rented a Tesla, a Tesla Model three. It's an electric car,

(37:27):
it doesn't use gasoline, and Hurts will not back off
from charging this guy a fee. And I've seen several
reports of this, So if you're going to be renting
from Hurtz Man, you are on your own listen. Coming
up in the second hour, as we come to the

(37:49):
close of the first hour, I want to talk to
you about some Christmas traditions. What are your Christmas traditions?
And whatever you do, do not misbehave on an airplane.
You will not believe what one airline did to an
unruly passenger. You know, I grew up in San Francisco,

(38:10):
and I'm going to give you a little bit of
the history of Fisherman's Wharf and where to find absolutely
positively the best sour dough in all of San Francisco.
Will then be headed to Iceland, Bruce, Belgium, Bruce may
be the most beautiful city in all of Europe and
a new Splendors of Italy tour. All that in our

(38:31):
number two of the Travel Show. Welcome back to our

(38:56):
number two of the Travel Show. I'm Larry Gelb, the
Getaway Guru. Carlos feeda the Argentinian Gaucho and my good
amigo is taking a CSTA somewhere back in Utah, and
I'm a solo. Now I'm in Germany today and it's
just a little bit after eight pm Saturday. We're on

(39:18):
a Rhine River cruise with one hundred of our Travel
show listeners and we have two thirds of the ship.
I gotta tell you a funny story about oh some
years ago, we had a charter. We took the whole boat.
On this one, we took what's called a part charter,
which doubled the discounts. I mean, the rates that we

(39:42):
were offering this cruise for were anywhere from four five
hundred dollars to one thousand dollars per person, lower than
what I'm a Waterways the cruise line Ultra Deluxe Cruise
Company was charging. But this was a different cruise. This
was pre COVID, and we chartered the entire ship, which

(40:05):
offered just incredible rates. And one of the things I
did with the commissary as they were, you know, getting
all of the food and drink and everything for the
cruise line, is I said, now listen, there's going to
be a you know, a number of people who do
not drink alcohol, do not drink coffee or tea. You know,

(40:29):
I don't know the numbers. We don't ask. There's no
litanus tests. But being from Utah, most of our customers
there will be some for religious regions don't do that.
But and these are the very words that I used.
I said, but they will suck you dry of diet coke.
And I said, triple the amount of diet coke you

(40:51):
normally provision on your ship. Well, folks, they didn't listen
to me, and on day two, day two, we ran
out completely of diet coke. And I said, guys, I
told you, well, blah blah blah. Anyway, on day three,
we're in Vienna and I see an armada of ship

(41:13):
employees in their uniforms with dollies, and case after case
after case after case piled on these dollies, and they
brought enough diet cocon to get us through the next
five days. So we were talking about Christmas traditions. I
told you we had mentioned. Do you know it's only

(41:33):
one hundred and forty four days till Christmas? Now that
is crazy. Here we are in the heat of the
summer and by the way, it's really nice here in Europe.
The high temperatures have been from the mid seventies to
low eighties. I think eighty two is the highest that
we've had. It's been seventy four to seventy five. Absolutely delightful.
None of this triple digit stuff for our cruise. But

(41:56):
it's only one hundred and forty four days. So what
are your Christmas traditions? You know? Do you leave milk
and cookies for Santa? Well, the tradition of leaving milk
and cookie for Santa, and of course carrots for Rudolph
and his buddies the reindeer really skyrocketed as an American
tradition in the nineteen thirties amidst the Great Depression. Parents

(42:22):
wanted to teach their children, even during such trying times,
the importance of giving back and being thankful, so they
set out milk and cookies to show their gratitude. My family,
growing up in San Francisco had a wonderful Christmas tradition.
One was to take gifts and go out and do

(42:44):
service at the Juvenile Hall and the orphanage. And I
remember my mother always organized that. You know, we weren't poor,
but things were really tight for us. You know, we
were weren't poor. We didn't go without meals, although in
the early years my dad would go fishing and he

(43:06):
was on the gi bill coming out of World War two,
and if he caught something, we had we had a
fish for dinner. If he didn't, we didn't have dinner.
And you know, those were the early days. But as
I said, we weren't poor, but things were pretty tight
for our family, and we had a favorite treat. Are
you familiar with Sea's candies? I love seased candies. The

(43:32):
dark chocolate California brittle is absolutely positively my favorite. I
can be bribed with dark chocolate California brittle. Anyway, we
could only afford to get seased candies at Christmas time,
and our mother would take me and my three siblings

(43:55):
down to a seased candies there in San Francisco, and
we got to a two pound box. It was absolute heaven,
and of course we did that thing you get a
knife and you kind of dig under the bottom or
take a bite and put it back. Used to drive
my mother crazy well to this day, and I tell
the story to my five kids, and who've heard it

(44:17):
many times. In our twelve grandchildren and we go down
to the Seas Candies in Salt Lake City there on
seventh East and twenty first South, and we buy a
box of Seas candies for all of our grand all
of our children and their families and they get to
pick it out. Then all the young kids get to

(44:38):
get the lollies and the suckers, and this, that and
the other. Sets us back a bit of money, but
it's keeping that Gelwicks tradition alive. Well, you know, there's
a lot of Christmas traditions, and the one that is
the most memorable to me is the Christmas markets of Europe.

(44:59):
Kathy and I've done this number of times, both on
the land and on a river cruise. We much prefer
the river cruise. And with that you see all the
normal sight seeing Nuremberg, Passau, Regensburg, Vienna, Budapest on the
Danube River. I'm on the Rhine on this one, but
the Christmas markets in December, December fourth to the eleventh,

(45:20):
I will be your personal host and tour guide. We
sail from Nuremberg. Now, Nuremberg is positively the best Christmas
market in my view, in all of Europe. It's a
six hundred year tradition in the old town. We go
on to Regensburg and Passu and Milk. We overnight in Nuremberg,
we overnight in Vienna, we overnight in Budapest. You know,

(45:42):
one of the things I absolutely love about Vienna is
the music. It's a city of music. It's the city
of Mozart and the city of Beethoven, and the city
of the Imperial Palace. And so one of the things
you can you can get every night is there's concerts. Ever,

(46:05):
many of them are in the cathedrals, others are in
concert halls. It may be a full orchestra, it may
be a quartet. I was in Vienna when in May
and just walking about Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the famous collection

(46:26):
the Four Seasons was playing. It was an eight string
group of cello's and Vienna's and a harpsichord was the constant.
We sat in this beautiful cathedral. Well you get all
of this, but the Christmas markets themselves are not department
store but they are. Wouldn't they're outdoors. Wouldn't chios be

(46:46):
decked with evergreen boughs? And it is everything Christmas, and
it's music, and it's food, it's drink, and you'll see
people singing. It's everything you'd dream Christmas to be. It's
like looking for Heidian grandfather to be coming off the
mountain or something. Now I call this trust Larry time,

(47:09):
Trust Larry time on the Christmas markets because again you
get to see all of the sight seeing on the
Danube that you would normally see any month of the year,
and then the Christmas markets are added to it. We
bought half the ship and depending on the cabin category,
your savings will be three four five hundred dollars per person,

(47:31):
seven hundred dollars even up to one thousand dollars per person,
below what Alma Waterways sells it for. By the way,
we took half the ship and Alma Waterways is asking
us to give space back. They're completely sold out of
their half. We got I believe five cabins left. I
would love to have you join me. You know, I've

(47:54):
been everywhere in the world, one hundred and thirteen countries.
I got three new ones coming up this year, some more.
My goal is hit at least one hundred and fifty
countries before I go on to the Great Airport beyond.
You know, And this is honest. I've been everywhere. I
rate the Christmas markets of Europe in the top three

(48:17):
travel adventures of a lifetime. Now you know, Thailand is
there also, and the Great Migration is there that we
talked last hour with Jim Gee. But the Christmas markets
of Europe are something else that I just hope you'll
come five cabins left and I'll be looking for you

(48:39):
on that particular cruise. Well, as I said earlier today,
we were in Cologne, the ship docked at Dusseldorf. We'll
be sailing later tonight. But I love Germany and the
whole German culture, everything about it. I was going to
mention one thing in Nuremberg because in Germany every town

(49:02):
has its own sausages, and you know about the size
of a Jimmy Dean sausage, the little ones you know
in the Brown and Serve. Well, Nuremberg it's considered the
best sausages, and that's about the size there. Like Jimmy
Dean or Brown and Serve, they come in plates of
three or six. A good Zimle roll comes with it.

(49:23):
You can get it with sour kraut or that mustard,
all sorts of fun things when we come back. Don't
you ever misbehave on an airplane? And I'm going to
tell you why you're listening to the travel show. I'm

(49:51):
Larry Gelwick's your humble host. Humility a character trait. I
have never been accused of it. Thank you for joining
us here. In all sincerity, this is just so much fun.
I'm on a Rhine River cruise. I'm in Germany today
and I wish you were here with me. Well, I said,
don't misbehave on a plane? Listen to this, I mean,

(50:14):
what is with people? By the way, if you want
to have a really fun thing, go on YouTube and
just type in unruly tourists, unruly passengers and you'll get
some of the funniest videos with people who have absolutely
lost their mind. Well, an American Airlines passenger who kicked

(50:35):
and spat at flight attendants and passengers attempted to open
the cabin door while they were in flight before she
was secured to a seat. Catch this with duct tape.
I've seen a picture of it. They have her legs
tied together with duct tape. Her arms are taped to

(50:56):
the armress across her chest. There's rolls of duct tate.
They even ductaped her mouth. Now she can breathe through
her nose, but they ductated her mouth because she was
spitting at people and yelling obscenities. So Heather Wells that
now there's a gem, isn't it. Heather Wells, age thirty four,
of San Antonio, was traveling first class on American Airlines

(51:20):
from Dallas Fort Worth to Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Charlotte Airport. About an hour into the flight, Okay,
they're at thirty five thousand feet. About an hour into
the flight, she ordered a whiskey and became agitated and
said she wanted out of the plane. Heather Wells began
running towards the back of the airplane, where she dropped

(51:43):
to her knees. You thought she was going to pray. No,
she wasn't praying. She dropped to her knees in the
aisle and began talking incoherently to passengers before crawling back
through the main cabin on the aisle. Well a flight
attendant responded, and miss Wells became verbally aggressive and told

(52:05):
the male flight attendant that she would hurt him quote
unquote if he didn't get out of way. She then
pushed him moved to the front of the plane, where
she lunged at the cabin door. I mean that's the
one you walk in and out, the one that goes out,
and she's pulling on the arm trying to open it
at thirty five thousand feet, all the while screaming and

(52:27):
yelling profanities. Now, just a kind of a little side
note here. In flight, those doors are locked. You can
pull on that lever all you want, and that door
is not going to open. It has to be disengaged,
such as an emergency. But you're on the ground. Well,
two flight attendants and a passenger tried to physically restrain

(52:51):
miss Wells, who then punched out one of the flight
attendants in the head one, two, three for multiple times
pounding this flight attendant well. Finally, the group was able
to restain her with duct tape and the flexcuffs. Flexcuffs
are those plastic handcuffs that every airline has on board.

(53:13):
They placed her in her seat. She continued to kick
and spit, attempted to bite and headbutt passengers and flight attendants,
which necessitated further restraint with the duct tape, including her mouth. Now,
she continued to act violently until police came on board
in Charlotte and she broke the seat in front of her.

(53:37):
So the FAA, Federal Aviation Administration that oversees flight transportation
in the US, has assessed her a fine eighty one thousand,
nine hundred and fifty dollars, the largest ever find assessed
by the FAA for passenger unruly behavior. Well, like I said,

(54:01):
don't misbehave You know, are we seeing more of that? Now?
You're seeing that? You can go to YouTube, Instagram, social
media and people. You know, there was a Southwest Airlines
flight and the flight had landed in San Diego and
a man stood up starting and they're still on an

(54:22):
active taxi where a flight attendant had said you must
sit down. What does this guy do? He punches this woman,
the flight attendant, right in the face, knocking her tooth out,
some of it, two of her teeth knocked out. Well,
of course he was arrested and prosecuted. But it's just
one thing after another. We're seeing unruly behavior. You know,

(54:44):
what was it? Two weeks ago on July twentieth, I
was in Salt Lake. We talked about the behavior of
passengers that often gets out of control. When they're asking
you to give up your seat, they want to trade
you and it's not always an even Stephen trade. Well,

(55:04):
fun times, well, you know, you know I have a
love affair of San Francisco, don't you. That's where I
grew up, That's where I went to school. At one time,
one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It's
not anymore. There's still some really fun times. I still
enjoy going there, but I tell you, the police said,

(55:25):
don't rent a car, don't even drive in the city.
But if you have to make sure you have full insurance.
The smash and grab and the crime is out of control. Now.
If you go down to the Embarcadero, that's a major street.
It's right along the waterfront from the oh about the
old ferry building. See when I was a kid, of course,

(55:47):
the Bay Bridge the Golden Gate Bridge were there, but
we would often drive our car on a ferry boat
from Oakland over to San Francisco, or San Francisco over
to Marine County, Saucelito, and you could buy for a
nickel a bag of chopped up fish, and the sea
lions would follow, the fairies even jump on the back

(56:10):
and as kids We love to throw fish to them.
But from the ferry building which is now boutiques and restaurants.
They do have some boat service over the sas Alito
and Angel Island. Follow the Embarcadero west past the cruise terminal,
down to Peer thirty nine, Giadelli Square, the cannery. All
of those, you're gonna be okay. But Fisherman's Wharf is

(56:34):
an iconic San Francisco landmark. Now it's always maintained an
Italian atmosphere. Italian immigrants started coming in the eighteen fifties
and established a fishing industry. Most of the immigrants in
the early days were from the Genua area in Italy. Later,
large number of Sicily Sicilians came and unlike their Tuscan cousins,

(56:57):
most were undereducated, had one design, own your own fishing boat. Well,
you still see some small family owned fishing boats today,
and you can see the fishmongers, Hide Street Pier, the
National Maritime Museum. I love going to Fishman's Wharf and
we come back. I'm going to tell you about the

(57:18):
best sourdough and where to get.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
It in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
You're listening to the travel show I'm Larry Gelwicks to
get away, Guru, and just again so thankful that you're
here with it. It's about eight thirty pm here in
Germany where I am today. That should make it. What
about twelve thirty pm just after lunchtime back home in
Salt Lake City And for our listeners on the East

(58:03):
coast in Florida twelve or excuse me two thirty Texas
one thirty. We got people listening all over, so we
were talking about Fisherman's Wharf. It's iconic San Francisco. I
think it's gone downhill. San Francisco in many ways has
become a dirty city. There's still some wonderful parts to it,
but it just breaks my heart. But again, from the

(58:26):
Ferry Building down to say Giri Delli Square, during the day,
you're going to be just fine. And there's so so
many things to do and see. I like to take
the Bay Cruise, the Red and White Fleet or the
Blue and Gold Fleet and take a cruise of the
bay around Alcatraz. By the way, if you go to Alcatraz,

(58:47):
there's one place that sells tickets. It's through the National
Park System, and there's all sorts of companies and they
will charge you a fee and they don't really disclose
it that well. They'll take the cost of going to
Alcatraz and then add ten twenty bucks to it, and
you think that's what the cost is. Whatever website you

(59:09):
buy it from, you want to see NPS in the
address in the URL, and that is National Park System.
With that, now you know. I love Sarado bread. I
am addicted. I'd like to take it intravenously if I
possibly could. But there are three brands of soaradough bread.

(59:32):
I'm still looking for a really, really good one here
in Utah. You know, honestly, the best saradough bread My
daughter in law, Samantha Gelwicks, she bakes sarado and it
is as good as anything I get in San Francisco.
But she doesn't sell it. She just bakes it for
friends and family. But in San Francisco there are three

(59:56):
brands that you want to get after prob the absolute
best is the Tartan Bakery tar Ti n People line
up down the street. You can get pastries and sandwiches.
I just get a loaf of sour dough bread there.
And The New York Times actually wrote an article about

(01:00:18):
the Tartan Bakery and said it is the perfect loaf.
Everything you want in a sour dough loaf comes from
the Tartan Bakery. Another good one I like. It's actually
baked in Berkeley, but you can buy it in San
Francisco is Acme ac Me. And what I like it's
baked on a hearth rather than a rack, and it gets,

(01:00:40):
you know, a nice bottom part of the loaf. You
can get the long loaf or the round loaf, or
the soup bowls, soup loaves, things like that. It has
a wonderful crust to it and that soft, pillowy texture
of the The other one I do like because it

(01:01:02):
has such a good sour dough taste, although it's cooked
on a rack and I prefer the hearth is Bodine.
Now you can find Bodine's down at Peer thirty nine
at Fishermen's Wharf in different parts of the city, even
some in the Bay Area, and it really is good. Now,
what I do when I go to San Francisco is

(01:01:24):
I take like a big athletic gym bag you'd keep
all the footballs in and something, and I will literally
bring home twelve loaves. Now that Samantha is baking it. Well,
I get them there, but what I would do? Our
kids grew up on sourdough bread. And my daughter Jenny

(01:01:46):
was at a friend. She'll just tell you like it is.
And she was, what about eight or nine? And see,
our French toast is thick cut, maybe a couple of
inches thick of sour dough bread and cooked in real
butter with real maple syrup or coconut syrup. We like
the coconut syrup. And that's all they ever knew. That's

(01:02:08):
what they thought French toast was. So she's had a neighbor,
she had a sleepover, she was eight, nine or ten,
and some girls had a sleep over there. And the
next morning the mom fixes French toast on like wonderbread,
and Jenny looks at it and says, what's this. She
says it's French toast and she says, no, it's not.

(01:02:30):
It's not, friend, and proceeded to tell her what real
French toast was thick cut on saradough bread. So the
Tartan bakery, Acme and Bodine are to die for. Have
you ever heard of Bruce Belgium? You know it's right
there right on the North Sea, and it rivals Old

(01:02:52):
Town Prague as the most beautiful city in all of Europe.
Bruce is famous, but it's not a big, big city.
It's a smaller city. But the architecture, the waterways, the canals,
the flowers, the trees, the parks, the open spaces make

(01:03:12):
it absolutely fun and quirky about this medieval Flemish capital.
Cobblestone streets, winding walkways, each of them holding some real secrets.
And what's fun is the ghost stories and myths that
go along to it. Well. Bruges is famous for its

(01:03:33):
lace making. The Bruce crafts of lace are some of
the most luxurious in the world. You can pop into
any one of the many many lace shops that dot
the city to buy a souvenir, better yet a larger piece,
maybe a tablecloth or something for your bed. Bruges has

(01:03:53):
more castles, and actually this whole area in the Flanders region,
which is based around Bruce, there more castles than any
other city. Now Flanders has five hundred and seventy castles,
but Bruges has fifty fifty castles. French Fries. No, they

(01:04:15):
weren't invented by the French and some people call them
American fries. They weren't invented by the Americans. The earliest
trace of French fries or fritz pom fritz. They dip
it in mayonnaise, which to me is just ghastly. Is
an iconic food staple in Bruges and the rest of Belgium,
and it was there in Belgium that most people agree

(01:04:39):
was the original French fry frying cut up pieces of potato,
and Bruges is haunted. You know, you can take a
free walking tour to hear all about the ghostly legends
of Bruce starting with the old Augustinian monastery where a
monk searches a ghost monk searches of the nun he

(01:05:01):
murdered for trying to run from him. Well, now the
ghosts wander the streets and wander the castles and the monastery.
There are more than eighty bridges, and they're all beautiful,
they're all photogenic, they're all iconic. Eighty bridges in just
the city. And due to the sheer amount of canals

(01:05:23):
and bridges, Bruges is known as the Venice of the North. Well,
so many things about that you're only an hour by
train from Brussels, and yeah, it's just a great visit.
You know, I'm going to be taking a group of
travel show listeners to Bruges on the Iceland to London

(01:05:48):
cruise tour. Now this is next year. I would love
to have you join me on this catch this itinera.
It's June twelve to the twenty second, twenty twenty five.
Great weather, the summer crowds have really hit. We will
board the ship in Iceland. Now you've heard me talk
about Iceland. I love everything about Iceland, the people, the adventure,

(01:06:11):
the activities, the outdoors, the blue lagoon. Well, we'll board
the ship with it's a new ship with Norwegian Cruise
Line in rekuvic Iceland, the capital. We make two other
stops in Iceland. This is out in the wilderness the countryside.

(01:06:32):
Then we'll be sailing to Norway. We stop in the
cities of Olisant and Bergen and then see the Fjords
of Norway and Flum sailing on to Amsterdam, Netherlands. By
the way, that's where we started our river cruise was Amsterdam.
Then we stop in Bruges, Belgium, and then off to
Southampton in England and just a short drive up to London.

(01:06:55):
Now you can stay longer and we will offer a
post cruise. So again in Iceland, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium including
Bruges and England. What a I mean? This is just
a great itea of June twelfth to the twenty second.
We will do our own shore excursions where we always
packed a lot more in love to have you join

(01:07:18):
me on this and it'll be a great experience. So
where would you like to go? You know, I have
a love affair with Amsterdam. I just I really love Amster.
It was founded in the thirteenth centuries of fishing village.
It's right there on this sea and it was built

(01:07:40):
on the river Amstell, hence amstill Dam Amsterdam dam dam
means a structure that blocks or controls the flow of water.
It can also mean a causeway, a street, or a barrier.
So you have Amsterdam, Rotterdam, e Dam and others. In Amsterdam.

(01:08:03):
There are one hundred and sixty five canals. Now let's
put that into perspective. You think of canals, you think
of Venice, don't you. That's what I do. Venice has
one hundred and fifty canals, Amsterdam has one hundred and
sixty five. Now where would I live if it weren't
for my kids and grandkids. I've been telling you this

(01:08:23):
for years. I would live in Thailand. I love Thailand.
Everything about Thailand. Well, Bangkok has canals they call klongs
in Thai. One thousand, six hundred and eighty two canals
in the city of Bangkok, and it's about oh two

(01:08:47):
hundred and forty miles of waterways in Bangkok. Now, going
back to Amsterdam, you know there's a Dutch influence and
settling and colonization in Indonesia, so you'll see a lot
of Indonesia influence there. My favorite meal is called a
rice toffel or rice table, and it usually consists of

(01:09:09):
twelve to twenty five dishes. Now, the dishes are small,
much like tapas dishes in Spanish cuisine with rice and noodles.
You have the Nazi goring, which is the fried rice
of Indonesia, and you put rice on a plate and
then add from the small dishes and it. You know,

(01:09:29):
they don't bring all the dishes out at once. They'll
bring out one or two, and I mean don't. It's
not a quick in and out meal. Did you know
that there are more bicycles in Amsterdam than people. And
by the way, the Netherlands and Holland are not the same.
Holland is a province or state, Netherlands is the country.

(01:09:56):
So some of the things I love to see. In fact,
we saw this on our Rhine River crew starting August first,
what a couple of days ago. The Anne Francause, the
Reis Museum and the van goh Museum, the Rembrant House Museum,
the parks, the canal tour. Oh my gosh. You know
you also see a lot of Turkish influence. Kebab's all

(01:10:18):
of that. Hey, we got more when we come back
here on the travel Shoe, including discounts. I'm Larry Gelwicks.

(01:10:44):
This is the travel show today. I'm in Germany. We'll
be sailing on the Rhine River very shortly. We docked
in Dusseldorf earlier today while you were still sleeping, eight
hours difference between Germany and Salt Lake City, and we'll
be headed down the river to Heidelberg, to Strasbourg, to

(01:11:06):
just all these villages along the way, and we'll finally
make our way to Basel, Switzerland. We recommend if you're
parking out at the Salt Lake Airport, a twenty percent
discount is offered by park and Jet. Now there's two
big off airport parking companies. There used to be three.

(01:11:30):
One is closed up the Diamond Parking has closed up
right there off Redwood Road. But now you have Parking
Jet and one another. And I recommend Parking Jet. One
is because it's very personal. But what's important to me
is it's locally owned and everything stays right here in
our state and our economy. It's not shipped out of

(01:11:52):
state to who knows where. And they have a free
car wash. They have detail Now the detail work, of
course is an additional charge, but you can have your
car detailed. They pick you up right at your car.
You don't have to, you know, schlup your luggage through
the airport economy lot and particularly in the hot weather
or the snow and rain and cold. But just go

(01:12:15):
to Morriscolumbus dot com and print out the twenty percent
Parking Jet discount coup I'll save you a lot of money. Hey,
you know, who doesn't love Italian? You know, Italy is
one of the most popular destinations I visit our mini
offices at Morris Columbus Travel. I say, what are people

(01:12:37):
calling about. They're calling about Alaska, They're calling about Vietnam
and Portugal and Italy, especially Rome, you know, and what
a couple of weeks ago. I did kind of a
deep dive on life in Rome two thousand years ago.
But Morris Columbus Travel has a wonderful tour the Splendors

(01:12:59):
of Italy. It's April fourth to the fourteenth, hosted by
Mick and Diane Smith. You'll absolutely love them. But you
start in Venice and end in Rome. You'll see Tuscany, Ravenna, Florence, Sienna,
the Vatican City, and there's so many I can't even

(01:13:20):
begin to tell you how many unique activities that you'll
have that, of course, you eat well. You know, the
biggest difference between Italian food here in the US at
most restaurants. I've had some that are very very good.
Il Cortile in Little Italy and New York is probably

(01:13:41):
my favorite Italian restaurant in all of the United States.
It's reportedly owned by the MOB. Now I don't know
if it is or not, but there's some big burly
guys there. I just say, hey, don't send the food
back to the to the kitchen. I don't know, I
don't care what it is. But ill cortile there on

(01:14:02):
Mulberry Street, which is right in the heart of Italy
in New York City. But the biggest difference at most
restaurants is here in the US, we don't put a
focus on the type of pasta and the type of
flower that is used in the pasta, and we tend
to oversauce things where you taste the spaghetti sauce where

(01:14:23):
the Italians they want to taste the pasta, and the
sauce is merely a perfume, merely an accent to the
pasta itself. You can see all the details of the
splendors of Italy April fourth to the fourteenth of twenty
twenty five with Mike and Diane Smith. If nothing else,

(01:14:43):
just go read the itinerary and even if you can't go,
maybe you've been to Italy and you can say, hey,
this is a legit deal for that particular one. I've
talked to you before about different air promotions out there.
I hope you didn't miss that one that inspired what
July thirty first. I kept telling you about it and

(01:15:05):
you snooze and you lose. Where Viking had free international
or free reduced international airfare, that one is gone. So
when you hear these promotions, jump on them right now.
Norwegian Cruise Line they have a legit promotion that'll give

(01:15:27):
you a combined seventy percent off the second guest. Well
that's like thirty five percent off the first and second.
You get seventy percent off the second guest, and then
you get free airfare. It's really a buy one, get
one free, where the first personal pay a discounted rate,

(01:15:47):
the second person goes absolutely free. Now, the airfares change
depending on the season and where you're going, but I'll
give you an example. You remember I talked about that
Iceland London trip I'm doing next June, June of twenty
twenty five. I don't know what the airfares are going
to be like, but we did that in twenty twenty three,

(01:16:09):
and we started in London and sailed to Iceland. And
my airfare Salt Lake to London home from Rekuvik Iceland
was sixteen hundred dollars. I priced that out with United
and Delta both were over twenty three hundred. I got
it for sixteen hundred and Kathy went absolutely free. That's

(01:16:32):
an effective rate of eight hundred dollars. Now, the one
thing you have to understand on this air promotion is
NCL Norwegian Cruise Line. They choose the airline. You can't
say I only fly Delta, I only fly Unite. No,
they choose the airline for that. And then you have

(01:16:53):
the free at Sea, which is free unlimited drinks, leaded
and unleaded, free Wi Fi, free specialty dining, free shore
excursion credits on select cruises, the third and fourth person
sales absolutely free. Well, i'll say alfeeder Zein from Dusseldorf,
Germany talked to you next week in Zurich