The invitation came by post. I thought it was junk at first and stacked it with the rest of the mail until my wife Anne came home for lunch from her dental office. A handsome brochure touting the attractions of Peru is included along with a letter describing the dedication of a group sponsoring a conference on art and disability. I cannot determine how my name came to their attention but recognize this invitation as the chance of a lifetime and speculate for a couple days on how we might manage to afford the trip.

Since my visit to Asturias, Spain, last October, I’ve been dreaming about a rustic chicken dish I was served there. I was visiting for the natural paradise that is Asturias, with hiking, climbing, horseback riding, kayaking, even coal mining on my itinerary. But all that exercise led me to explore the fantastic kitchens of the region too.

January is heavenly in Greece. According to Greek mythology, Alcyone, the daughter of the king of the winds, married Ceyx, the son of the Morning Star. When Ceyx drowned in a storm at sea, Alcyone was so distraught that she threw herself into the sea in grief. Out of compassion for the loving couple, the gods changed them into kingfishers. In order for Alcyone to be able to make her nest and lay her eggs on the beach in peace, her father restrained the winds and calmed the waves for a short period each January . A lovely story; a lovely time of the year; a lovely place.

As recently as 1990 there was virtually no tourism to the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. Located in the Arctic Ocean between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole, Svalbard ("cold edge") was believed to be discovered by the Vikings in the 12th century. It became a base for many Arctic expeditions, then home to whalers and coal miners. Thanks to companies like Hurtigruten, it is now on the map for the world to see.

Do you ever say to yourself when contemplating future trips – "well, I've been there and done that – what else can I do?" OK, in this month's travel column let me share with you (briefly) five offbeat things to see and do. I loved 'em, and I'm reasonably sure you will too.

The troop of chimpanzees we were tracking numbered 120 but because it was the end of September, our guide lamented that the chimps were harder to find because much of their nearby food supply had been exhausted. You might want to check ahead of time to see when the fig trees are bearing the most fruit – that apparently determines how many chimps you're likely to see.

What can be said that has not already been said about Hadrian’s Wall: A marvel of Roman ingenuity, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the last frontier of the Roman Empire. A stretch of 73 miles of stones from sea to sea, covering the entire width of the island of Britannia, from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. A Wall once believed to be 15 ft. in height and 6 ft. deep with large forts and smaller mile castles and intervening turrets. It took six years of work by skilled Roman engineers and masons, along with thousands of auxiliary soldiers, to build. Upon its completion, the Wall was fully manned by approximately 10,000 Roman soldiers to protect the Roman province of Britannia, Imperial Rome’s final province and frontier, from the barbaric Caledonians of the north.

The mountains of Lake Como, like so much of Italy, refer to the past, where the Romans once roamed, dusty cathedrals with rusty bells abound, and villages and towns such as Como, Bellagio, and other hamlets are entrenched on the shores of the lake or carved into the mountains with steep staircases. Tunnels were dug through granite and sandstone leading to narrow two-lane roadways originally designed for horse and carriage, all magically sculpted into the base of the mountains with a master chisel. The mountains have been compassionate and patient, but for those searching for a parking space is when a lucky moment can happen.

It all happened in 2015, because our vacation home at Lake Havasu wasn’t being used enough.  After having had the place for almost fifty years, it was difficult to part with, but the expenses weren’t worth the one or two times a year the house was used.  So I sold it and did well on it financially.  My daughter suggested that instead of adding the income to the family trust, I should enjoy it with the family.  It sounded like a good idea, so I invited kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and shirt-tail relatives, adding up to a party of twenty.  A cruise of the Greek Isles was chosen because of its calm waters, in deference to my son-in-law and anyone else in the group who might suffer from sea sickness.  We would all fly to Venice, Italy, the embarkation location.  With twenty people planning to go on a trip, I was fearful that someone would get ill and need to cancel, but that didn’t happen.  We all made it!  My daughter Jeannette did the planning and worked with a travel agent, so all I had to do was hand over the credit card.

When the couple, there for their 20th visit, commented that it was the first time they had taken the house tour -– one of the staples of the Mohonk Mountain House experience -- I asked what they had been doing all those years. Liz and Dan Gleason from Haddon Heights, NJ replied: “There’s just so much to do all the time, you just can’t fit it all in. Every year, there’s a new surprise. This year, it’s the Smiley family parlor.”