By Peggy Karas

Set in the Lombardy Plain of Northern Italy, Milan, with a population of 1.3 million, is often dismissed as an industrial centre known mainly for its fashion industry and perhaps La Scala, its fabled opera house. A  visit in early July confirmed that the city is indeed a mecca for fashion and that it can be hot and muggy. The first week of July is the beginning of the much vaunted sales by the fashion houses and my husband and I were astonished by the numbers of visitors and even more so by the numbers of visitors carrying many bags (representing hundreds if not thousands of euros spent) from the exclusive designer  stores. Purchases from Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada were all well in evidence. It became a game as we sat in the streetside cafes and wandered  through the fashion district deciding who was a “looker” and who was a “buyer”. I am definitely of the “looker” variety. A Louis Vuitton bag reduced to 500 euros from 700 euros was still too expensive for me (I would spend more time worrying about losing it than enjoying it). However we discovered there is much more to Milan than fashion sales. Add a comment

A PERFECT DAY IN VENICE 

By Peggy Karas

It had been 35 years since our last trip to Venice (as poor students) and my husband and I were looking forward to renewing our acquaintance with a city which had thoroughly charmed us the first time around. Unfortunately we made the mistake on relying on our GPS system to guide us in our rental car to the closest location to catch the ferry to our hotel.  For some reason the system took us around the mainland to a ferry dock with limited service which brought us to the far side of the island away from Piazza San Marco.  We would have been much better off to follow the highway signs which would have taken us directly to the large parking garages in Piazzale Roma  adjacent to the vaporetto docks.  Since no cars are allowed on the island we left our car in a garage and took the vaporetto (or water bus) to the main island. Add a comment

 By Peggy Karas

Forget the debt ceiling crisis, the high unemployment rate, the crashing stock market—the American Dream is alive and well in Cooperstown, New York. 

A recent visit to this Village of 2,000 people in New York State found the accommodations fully booked, the restaurants busy and the main street crowded with tourists. Cooperstown  is a pretty Village located on the shores of Otsego Lake and is known as the birth place of that all American pastime: baseball. As home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, it attracts sports lovers from all over the United States and Canada, but it has so much more to offer than that.  During our recent visit, my husband and I didn’t even go by the Hall of Fame, and we  found plenty of other interesting things to do.