Informative guide to cruising as an alternative holiday choice, covering types of cruises and ships, times to travel, what to expect. Most useful information for any traveler.

As part of a job opportunity to gain film experience in his career, Sam Zebba’s detailed account of his trip to Tahiti describes his fellow voyagers, his encounters en route and the friends he made. Indeed, a onetime exotic experience that he will remember and treasure forever.

Jews have been in Rome for 2,000 years and have had times of prosperity and times of rejection. In the sixteenth century the Ghetto was built outside the city walls. Some of the original central streets still exist but much of the area has been rebuilt. With its striking synagogue, museums and eating places it is one of Rome’s main tourist attractions.

Exploring the city of Rome with three grandchildren, from the well-known sites of the Coliseum, Pantheon and Forum - to churches, squares, statues and catacombs – and the Jewish area. Walking through the narrow streets the writer felt a “togetherness” with the crowds but also had to take great care when crossing the road due to reckless drivers.

A visit to Corfu, on the Ionian Sea, proved a delightful experience, as did the spacious hotel facing the sea. The town (Kerkyra) is well worth visiting as is the old synagogue kept in pristine condition. The population of Corfu is 150,000, “but we have five million olive trees,” a proud local said.

The Mistral III’s crew sailed for a week to Cyprus and back. Although dealing with Cypriot bureaucrats on several occasions, they enjoyed the local residents they encountered and the sites they visited. Despite the hot weather, fishing was quite successful.

People traverse China by bus, boat, train, taxi, and cable car. Extremes abound: history and modernization, affluence and poverty, upscale malls and small markets, classic Chinese gardens and snow-covered mountains, watchful authorities and accommodating citizens. Contrasts are everywhere.

Steve Kramer writes about a hike in the Yarkon and Tel Afek National Park in central Israel. Starting at the estuary of the Yarkon River, which has been cleaned up and is now full fish and lush vegetation, they walked as far as Rosh Ha’ayin. Biblical locations, ruins, fortresses, the old flour mills and more modern concrete structures they saw on their route as well as picnic and areas of natural beauty.