No purchase necessary to enter or win this giveaway. One entry per person. The Rick Steves European Cities Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm PST on December 31, 2010.

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to enter  - Win a week-long tour of Paris, Rome or London! Your choice of a fully-guided Rick Steves Tour

Your choice if you win

Best of Paris in 7 Days
Your week in Paris will include a monumental mix of the city’s greatest sights: the Louvre, Orsay and Cluny Museums, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, and Versailles Palace. You’ll also enjoy guided neighborhood walks through the city’s historic heart — and quieter moments to slow down and savor the intimate cafés, colorful markets, and the joie de vivre that brings life to the City of Light.

Best of Rome in 7 Days
During your week in Rome, you’ll tour Ancient Rome’s Colosseum, Forum, Pantheon, and the Roman seaport of Ostia Antica. From the Renaissance and Baroque eras, you’ll see St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and Borghese Gallery. You’ll also enjoy today’s Rome, with a cooking demonstration, neighborhood walking tours, memorable restaurants, and time to wander on your own.

Best of London in 7 Days
During yourweek in London, you’ll tour The Tower, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, and the Cabinet War Rooms. You’ll see priceless art and artifacts at the National Gallery, British Library, and British Museum. Your guide will take you on neighborhood walks, a Thames cruise, and a train trip to Windsor Castle — and you’ll have time to rub elbows with London’s colorful street life and pubs.

That means you’ll save more than $100 on four nights at a hotel that costs 200 euros a night, and a 28 euro train ticket from Rome to Florence will cost $37 instead of $41 — small change in some cases, but the savings add up over a 10-day vacation.

According to travel executives and industry analysts, the strengthening dollar, combined with fading panic over the economy and Americans’ fondness for cobblestone streets and Riviera promenades, has already contributed to an increase in bookings to Europe this summer.

“Leisure travelers are really back,” said Jean-Philippe Pérol, the United States chairman of the European Travel Commission, which expects overall peak travel to be up slightly this year, though tempered by soft business travel numbers.

That bullish leisure travel outlook meshes with double-digit increases in summer bookings to Europe, as reported by American Express, with London, Paris, Rome, Athens and Barcelona as the top five destinations so far.

The Airlines Reporting Corporation, which handles ticketing for most travel agencies in the United States, has seen about a 20 percent increase in the number of tickets sold through March for travel in May and June to Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain — sales that a company spokesman called “phenomenal.”

But with the number of seats on flights to Europe this summer remaining about the same as last, the laws of supply and demand are working in the airlines’ favor, allowing them to raise prices as more people plan trips.

“Fares to Western Europe are up 17 percent,” said Genevieve Shaw Brown, senior editor at Travelocity, referring to tickets the company sold through March for travel from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

“That’s not to say that getting a decent fare is out of the question,” Ms. Shaw Brown said, suggesting that booking a flight and hotel package was one way to save. “But it’s going to be a lot harder this year than last to score a last-minute deal.”

Prices also vary depending on your destination.

According to Travelocity’s sales data, the average round-trip fare to Western Europe was $1,330, compared with $1,141 in the same period last year, but the price is roughly the same as it was in 2008. The average fare to Eastern Europe is actually down 5 percent, to $1,255. Flying to Dublin is still generally less expensive, with an average fare of $1,006.

While fare information is fuzzy until actual tickets are sold, the consensus among fare watchers is that prices to Europe will be higher this summer, owing in part to increased demand and to reduced competition on trans-Atlantic routes.” (via nytimes.com) by SUSAN STELLIN

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Or so says Paul Bennett, owner of the highly acclaimed Context Tours, who maintains that “there’s no substitute for the impromptu interaction with a knowledgeable and personable guide — best of all, one with a Ph.D. in the topic! Socrates had it right…

When you can ask questions and engage in a real dialogue, learning happens.”…

On a guided walking tour, travelers are not only listening, but also seeing, hearing and feeling….
Most guides are constantly researching and thinking of clever ways to explain historical background and current happenings in a city.
If a new building is going up, they know about it. If a place has just been renovated, they will tell you why and how.

Unlike the voice on the iPod, live guides live right in the city and know the enchanting alleys and shortcuts. After the overview a guided walk provides, it’s much easier to return to places along the way. And walkers learn a lot while they are strolling along.

The tours themselves also provide entertainment. On a route through Dickens’ London, a guide, fully costumed in a long dress and bonnet, will act out scenes from novels like “Oliver Twist.”

On a tour of Rome’s Forum and Coliseum, you may go to a special panoramic location with a knockout view of the ancient city’s temples, palaces, courtyards and government houses.

On the French Revolution Walk in Paris you may stop in front of Le Procope, the café where Voltaire, Robespierre, Marat, Ben Franklin and others often met, and be treated to rich, anecdotal history. ” (via msnbc.msn ) by Emilie Harting (FORBES TRAVELER)

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He spent part of the 1960s living in Italy and France but now resides in Aspen., Colo., with actress Jill St. John, his wife of 19 years…

Q: Where have you been recently that you liked or were surprised by?
A: I was in Beaune (in the Burgundy region). I had driven through there before but this time was a tremendous experience. I was really taken by it. I love the French country.

I was able to appreciate it and accept it more this time. Some friends of ours asked us to go with them and this one man is very much into wine. He was able to open some doors for me at cellars that were incredible. I hadn’t been aware of those wines in that part of the world. I stayed at L’Hôtel de Beaune. It was just wonderful. I’m not very good at those long dinners. I’m more of a bistro and country cooking (man).

That’s what I like — simplicity… and this time was such a simple travel experience for me and that always makes it better.

Q: What’s the best place you’ve ever visited?
A: I lived in Saint Paul de Vence, France, for a year in the 1960s. What did I do? I lived. I drank it all in. I took it into my soul. I did a movie. I had given up my apartment in Rome. Oh, it was a wonderful time. I lived at La Colombe d’Or and I never thought that would happen to me.

David Niven had introduced me to the hotel and I had heard about it. I got to know the people who ran it, the Roux family. I just loved it there. I felt so at home and they were so warm to me and nice. It was a great privilege to be able to stay there for that length of time. I’ve been back several times. It’s very romantic.

I was back there with my (second) wife (Marion Marshall), who is the mother of my daughter Katie. I was back there with Natalie (he married actress Natalie Wood twice) and with Jill. That whole valley is so captivating and the warmth and feeling of the people and the feeling of life is there. I had no obligations then.

Natalie and I had divorced and I was kind of on my own. And then Marion and I went there. Timing is it. It just worked for me and I was able to take it in, thank God.
Now all of these places have changed so much because of the people who have found them and go there. It’s just become overpowering. The thing about traveling for me is the culture and being able to engage yourself in it. You find that the basic needs and wants and caring are all the same, particularly when you see people with children and young people.” ( via usatoday.com) by Kelly Carter

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and three nights hotel stay  in the selected destination…

Each winner will be allowed to choose a single destination from the five cities listed above.

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to enter to win a trip to to Berlin, Buenos Aires, London, Paris or Shanghai

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN/ ends 11:59 PM Eastern Time on 0 8/31/09

From Continental Airlines and advocate.com

But there’s good news: About 22 museums offer free entry every day. And the French government also subsidizes free days and nights at an even longer list of attractions. A complete rundown of these cultural freebies can be found at the Parisinfo website, and some of my favorites are listed below.

Free Every Day: Entry to see the permanent collection of these museums is always free. There may be a small charge for temporary exhibitions.” (via current.newsweek.com ) by Meg Zimbeck

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Round trip airfare for 2

5 day/4 night hotel stay in Paris

A wine and cheese tasting dinner at a Paris restaurant

$500 in spending money

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to enter – Springtime in Paris Sweepstakes. Win a trip to Paris, France and $500 spending money

France, Spain, and Italy
New York – Barcelona    $149*
New York – Madrid        $149*
New York – Nice            $149*
New York – Paris           $149*
New York – Milan          $149*
New York – Rome         $149*
New York – Pisa            $169*
New York – Venice        $169*
New York – Malaga       $181*
New York – Catania      $219*

Other Countries
New York – Brussels       $149*
New York – Zurich          $149*
New York – Frankfurt      $149*
New York – Munich         $149*
Philadephia – Frankfurt   $149*
Houston – London          $149*
New York – Copenhagen $149*
New York – Edinburgh    $149*
New York – London        $149*
New York – Manchester  $149*
Houston – Amsterdam    $149*

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for this special pricing (go to Winter and Early Spring Sale on right side of page)

All fares displayed are one-way based on a round-trip purchase and include the fuel-surcharge.
Fares are valid for departures through May 15, 2009.
You must book by March 11, 2009.
You are allowed one free stopover in Paris in each direction, which means that if you fly elswhere than Paris, you can take your connecting flight several days later at no extra charge.

-The Secret Hotels of Tuscany,
-How to Eat in London and Gain Pounds,
-Paris at a Price That’s Right,
-Greece – Online Trip Coach,
-Eat Like a Local in Barcelona

or many,many other topics from Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel Online
click red link below

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Get cultural, go to concerts, use funky new urban transit, and learn to laugh at the five-star experience (do you really want to fly 4,000 miles to watch a flat-screen TV in your room?) Eat the freshest local food at some of the world’s best markets, and hit beaches that don’t make it into gossip magazines (on this side of the Atlantic, anyway).

It helps, of course, to stay clear of London and Paris, which have become staggeringly expensive even without the miserable exchange rate. But if you can’t stay away, we’ve got tips for those dollar-devouring shark pools, too … ” ( Via www.msnbc.msn.com and Concierge.com ) by Ralph Martin

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