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.

Delta Vacations® offering you a chance to win an air and hotel vacation to Italy. Enter the sweepstakes by Aug 31, 2010.

Visit the centuries-old, epic landmarks of Italy’s historic past. Marvel at the ancient Colosseum, toss a coin and make a wish at the Trevi Fountain, climb the Spanish Steps for a stunning view of the big city, and visit the Pantheon, the Vatican, much more.

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to Enter for a chance to win a trip for two to Italy!

Special Summer Package filled with exclusive benefits…

Book a consecutive 5 nights stay between 1 July – 12 September 2010 and receive…

-1 complimentary night for every 5 nights booked…

-A €100 Food & Beverage voucher to use in the hotel…

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here for Europe – 1 free night with 5 booked + €100 Food & Beverage voucher to use in the hotel from InterContinental Hotels

• CYPRUS
• InterContinental Aphrodite Hills Resort Hotel
• CZECH REPUBLIC
• InterContinental Prague
• GERMANY
• InterContinental Berchtesgaden Resort
• InterContinental Berlin
• InterContinental Cologne
• InterContinental Frankfurt
• InterContinental Hamburg
• GREECE
• Athenaeum InterContinental Athens

• HUNGARY
• InterContinental Budapest
• ITALY
• InterContinental de la Ville Roma
• NETHERLANDS
• InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam
• POLAND
• InterContinental Warsaw
• ROMANIA
• InterContinental Bucharest

• SPAIN
• InterContinental Madrid
• InterContinental Mar Menor Gold Resort & Spa
• InterContinental La Torre Golf Resort Murcia
• TURKEY
• Ceylan InterContinental Istanbul
• UKRAINE
• InterContinental Kiev
• UZBEKISTAN
• InterContinental Tashkent

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)

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read the rest of Guided city walks. Smart ways to explore great urban destinations

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

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read the rest of Robert Wagner – Traveling with the Stars

Many of the film’s church interiors aren’t the real deal, but the exteriors often are authentic.

Moviegoers know that his character, Robert Langdon, is trying desperately to stop a grisly murder, following a trail of secret clues laid down nearly four centuries ago by the scientist Galileo and the baroque sculptor and architect Gianlorenzo Bernini. What they don’t know is that this graceful piazza itself harbors a dark secret.

Piazza del Popolo — and its namesake church, where Langdon is headed — was built to evict Nero’s ghost. This had been the hated emperor’s ancient family estate, and his likely burial spot, and area residents had for centuries complained that Nero’s evil spirit haunted a pine grove on the site. Finally, the Vatican chopped down the trees, exorcized the site, and built the piazza and its church “of the people.”

Many of Rome’s important sites are featured in “Angels & Demons,” the latest codes-and-clues thriller courtesy of author Dan Brown, director Ron Howard and leading man Tom Hanks.Travel + Leisure slide show: Rome’s “Angels & Demons” secrets (spoiler alert!)

These Roman spots are full of secrets and scandals, and while the movie reveals several — and invents a few more to serve its plot involving Illuminati assassins and Renaissance intellectuals — the true miraculous and demonic events that took place at them are often even stranger than those Dan Brown’s imagination could whip up.

First, a reality check: the movie’s church interiors aren’t the real deal. Howard wasn’t allowed to film inside any of them, especially in the Vatican. (Actually, no one can shoot movies in the Vatican, not even the producers of the official John Paul II biopic.)” ( via cnn.com  ) by Reid Bramblett

Pointswizard.com Spin: Click here to read the rest of Rome’s ‘Angels & Demons’ secrets

The Pointswizard.com Spin: Don’t live in Washington DC area? Fly to DC from your home airport and get the United flight from there.