YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Where should we stay and go in Chicago?
Q:My girlfriend and I are planning a two-week trip to Chicago and surrounding areas, leaving on August 22nd. I wonder if you or your readers could suggest places to visit or things to do.
We are hoping to get on the road and visit places such as Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Duluth, Green Bay, Grand Rapids, Detroit or wherever else is worth a look.
Ideally, our trip will include some physical activities and a few days relaxing.
DOD, Cork
A:Chicago is a great city, and there is so much to do you will have to drag yourselves away to explore the surrounding states.
During the summer there are concerts on Navy Pier and in Grant Park. The lake is so big it seems like the ocean, and there is a lovely beach downtown. Sailing is very popular, and you can take boat trips from Navy Pier. A Chicago River tour is a great way to see the skyscrapers. The local nightlife centres on Rush Street, which has good restaurants and lively bars and nightclubs.
Your hoped-for itinerary would see you spending a lot of time on the road. I would suggest you take a circle tour around Lake Michigan and enjoy this very friendly part of the United States.
Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan - the tri-state Great Lakes area - all face the lake, and life goes on in and around it. Milwaukee is well worth a visit for some of the icons of America: Harley-Davidson, Miller beer and one of the newest, Milwaukee Museum of Art. See www.great-lakes.net/ tourism.
You can also take a tour at the Harley-Davidson factory. The museum of art, designed by Santiago Calatrava, is is a fabulous building.
Wisconsin covers huge areas of flat farmland. The city of Manitowoc had a huge ship- and submarine-building tradition; you can see the USS Cobia. You can cross Lake Michigan (www.michigan.org) at Manitowoc on the SS Badger to the town of Ludington. The crossing takes about five hours.
At Silver Lake you can have great fun on the huge sand dunes, driving jeeps, quads or scramblers (www.thinkdunes. com). The Double JJ ranch on the lake shore near Muskegon, on 800 hectares (2,000 acres), has a great selection of things to do: golfing, horse-riding, sailing, barn-dancing and visiting a rodeo. See www.doublejj.com.
Continuing down the Michigan peninsula will give you a chance to visit Grand Rapids and then go onwards to Detroit, to explore Motor Town (www.visitdetroit.com). Your options then can take you back to Chicago or to, say, Toledo.
The American Automobile Association website, www.aaa.com, will help you plan your route.
Q:I wish to travel from Cracow to Vienna by overnight sleeper on a Friday night late next month. Is this feasible and is it necessary to book a ticket in advance? If so, could you advise how I could purchase the ticket?
AC, Kildare
A:The train from Cracow to Vienna departs at 10.25pm, arriving at 6.03am the next day. You can check the timetable on www.oebb.at/en or www.bahn.de. It is not possible to purchase the ticket in advance on the internet, but it will cost about €29, plus €39 for a couchette. I would suggest you buy your ticket when you arrive in Cracow.
Q:My daughter and her friend, both 16, were travelling back from Paris Beauvais with Ryanair last week. They both had excess luggage, but when they reached the top of the check-in queue they were told they could pay only with a credit card. Neither has one. They were told to approach another passenger and give him or her cash in return for the passenger making the credit-card payment. They lost their place in the queue and had to begin at the back again. Eventually, when they reached the top of the queue for the second time, I paid over the phone by credit card. I cannot see anything on the Ryanair website about not accepting cash. Is this its policy and, if so, is it legal? Is cash not legal tender?
MC, Dublin
A:At airports other than Dublin, Ryanair operations are handled by ground handling agents, and it is the agents' responsibility to collect excess-baggage charges on Ryanair's behalf. Some handling agents will accept cash, others will accept only credit cards. It varies from airport to airport. I checked the website, too, and could find no mention of this. Perhaps Ryanair will consider letting people know in the travel-questions section of its website.
Send your questions, with your name and address, to jscales@irish-times.ie