Tripologist: How should I spend a three-day stopover in Tokyo?

We person a three-day stopover successful Tokyo, reasoning to enactment successful the Akasaka area. Any recommendations for hotels successful the area, tours/tour guides, and areas of the city/things to spot for first-time visitors? D. Miller, Woollahra, NSW

Akasaka is simply a bully prime though it’s not adjacent to the Yamanote Line and that’s the champion mode to get astir the city. OMO3 Tokyo Akasaka looks similar a concern edifice but determination are plentifulness of boutique touches that elevate the experience. Rooms are connected the choky side. Read Traveller’s full reappraisal here. If you privation thing much upscale, the Ana Intercontinental Tokyo is simply a amended choice, portion higher up the luxury ladder, the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo delivers sumptuous comforts astatine a terms of much than $1000 a night.

Takeshita Street successful Harajuku.Credit: iStock

I’ve done a Tokyo circuit with Meg Yamagute and she was an fantabulous guide, lifting the lid connected aspects of Japanese beingness that you won’t get connected your own. I’d program to bash a mates of half-day tours with her connected antithetic days. My highlights see the Tokyo National Museum, the Edo-Tokyo Museum and the nutrient hallway successful the Ginza Mitsukoshi section store, Rikugien Garden and the Meiji Jingu shrine. Shinjuku Crossing is 1 of the world’s busiest; sojourn successful the evening and past caput for the bars of Golden Gai, fashionable with artsy types, intellectuals, journalists and academics, amended done with a guide.

Tokyo thoroughfare manner takes phantasy to extremes, spot it successful Harujuku’s Takeshita Street connected the weekend. Nearby is the Togo Shrine, a small gem astatine the different extremity of the taste spectrum. For one-stop buying spot Coredo Muromachi, a assemblage of desirable things you ne'er knew you wanted.

You tin work Traveller’s broad usher to Tokyo here.

I’d emotion to sojourn France’s Guedelon Castle but it seems the lone mode to get determination would beryllium to prosecute a car. I’m tense of driving a left-hand drive, particularly done traffic.
K. White, Mirboo North, Vic

Guedelon is an ambitious task to recreate a 13th-century castle utilizing the exertion and materials of the Middle Ages. Located successful bluish Burgundy, the castle is unfastened until November 3 successful 2024 but it closes connected immoderate days, truthful cheque the website. However getting determination is hard via nationalist transport.

Guedelon successful Burgundy is being constructed from scratch utilizing 13th period manual gathering techniques.Credit: iStock

The astir convenient mode from Paris is bid to Auxerre and past a autobus to Saint-Saveur-en-Pisaye, adjacent to Guedelon, but the lone autobus work departs from the presumption successful Auxerre astatine 5.45pm daily. You could enactment successful Saint-Saveur and determination are a mates of tiny hotels. Jean-Christophe Besland is simply a section who operates a taxi work who could instrumentality you to Guedelon, telephone him (+33 386455750) beforehand. The astir applicable enactment is to quell your fears and get down the instrumentality and determination are respective car-hire offices successful Auxerre including Enterprise and Alamo, some astatine the railway station, and Auxerre would besides marque a bully basal for a enactment of respective nights. This is simply a superb portion of France, adjacent to the Upper Loire and the celebrated vino portion astir the towns of Sancerre and Chablis, the metropolis of Orleans and the Parc Floral successful Apremont-sur-Allier and the beauteous villages of Menetreol-sous-Sancerre and Briare, but you request a car.

My hubby and I person a cruise finishing successful Boston. What are the highlights to spot astir Boston and New York, the champion mode to question from Boston to NY and however agelong would you urge we stay?
S. Bennett-Williams, St Ives, NSW

Stay astatine slightest 4 nights successful Boston, 5 successful New York City. Standouts successful Boston see the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Common, the oldest nationalist parkland successful the United States and Harvard Square wherever you tin research the campus, including the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Harvard Art Museums. The 4 kilometre Freedom Trail passes 16 Revolutionary-era sites, including the Boston Massacre site, the USS Constitution and Paul Revere’s House. Back Bay is an elegant neighbourhood, known for its 19th-century brownstones and funky boutiques.

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.Credit: iStock

Train is the champion mode to get from Boston to New York City, the travel takes conscionable nether 4 hours. A hop-on, hop-off autobus circuit is simply a large instauration to New York City and aft that, for me, the essentials see a cruise past the Statue of Liberty connected the Staten Island Ferry, for sheer quality McSorley’s Old Ale House, for artworks MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Frick Mansion and the fantastic postulation of Himalayan taste objects astatine The Rubin (which closes for bully connected October 6).

Have a nighttime retired astatine Smalls Jazz Club, different nighttime retired astatine Marie’s Crisis Cafe successful West Village, meal astatine Bar Pitti successful Greenwich Village (but you’re present for the atmosphere, the nutrient is so-so), a locomotion on the High Line, different on Fifth Avenue from 59th Street arsenic acold southbound arsenic Saks Fifth Avenue section store, a overmuch longer locomotion done Central Park and the Tompkins Square Greenmarket successful the East Village if you hap to beryllium astir connected a Sunday. You could besides articulation a circuit successful some cities, see tourradar for options.

Read Traveller’s comprehensive usher to New York here.

We privation to question from Bari to Dubrovnik successful October. Is the ferry reliable?
R. Kesey, Hawthorn, Vic

Jadrolinija operates ferries from Bari to Dubrovnik and this is by acold the astir convenient mode to marque this trip. The ferry departs Bari astatine midday and reaches Dubrovnik astatine 8 pm. It costs €40 ($65) and you tin bargain tickets online. In October, sailings instrumentality spot connected Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Travel proposal is general; readers should see their idiosyncratic circumstances.

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