Welcome to the July 2007 ExperiencePlus! Rambler E-Mail Newsletter

• Dear Folks, A letter from the owners
• The Shapes of Puglia
• A New Look for ExperiencePlus.com
• From Our Customers: Peter Wester
• Émile Zola's Paris
• From Paola's Kitchen - Fragole al Limone

Dear Folks,

I came back from Poland Sunday night to find our office staff up to their eyebrows in finalizing our new website. They launched it last night in time for our monthly Rambler Newsletter. Have a look and please send us your feedback. (Be kind, it's been a long haul getting this up and out!)

Paola and I are back in the USA for the second 4th of July in the last thirty years. We came back earlier after our summer in Europe as Paola took up her new job as Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures on Monday, July 2nd. So far things are calm.

Europe, as usual, was great. Rick was in Turkey, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kalinigrad (Russia), and Poland besides being in Italy where both he and Paola went to explore our new Coastal Tuscany tour. If you are looking for an easier Tuscany tour you might consider that one.

Puglia and Turkey both still have space this fall. If you like Mediterranean food and if you like mixing culture and history both of these bike tours should do the trick, and include fabulous cycling as well. Keep in mind, Puglia is an easier tour as the Coast of Turkey is a challenging 301 level tour.

Rick joined our 2007 St. Petersburg to Istanbul ExpeditionPlus! for twelve days from Tallinn, Estonia to Warsaw, Poland for the last two weeks. Most interesting was the part of the trip to Kaliningrad, Russia. This is "East Prussia," the Russian enclave created after WWII giving Russia a year-round seaport on the Baltic Sea. But it is still Russia -- we had visa problems, hotel problems, and it rained! In spite of it all, it was fascinating.

Speaking of Expeditions, this coming winter we’ll repeat our ExpeditionPlus! Coast to Coast ride across South America through northern Patagonia.  This is a fascinating and beautiful ride across a low pass in the Andes from Chile to Argentina.

Besides Coastal Tuscany we've got a bunch of new tours in the works -- Germany, Poland, Argentina, and more. So give us a call to let us know you are interested and we'll keep you posted.

Happy pedaling!

Rick Price and Paola Malpezzi Price

If the word "Italy" evokes in you a mental image of cypress trees surrounding a rural villa in Tuscany, Puglia is sure to surprise you. It's a land of strange shapes and textures, long ignored by tourists despite its balmy Mediterranean climate. This month, Julie Van Scoy explores Puglia's unique architecture and landscapes.

Even Puglia's pasta takes unique forms, where the specialty isn't the conventional spaghetti, but ear-shaped orechiette instead.

• Read more about Puglia's unique look here.
• Check out the "Puglia - Cycling Southern Italy" tour here.
• Or read about the longer "Puglia - Cycling Southern Italy Plus! the Ionian Seaside" tour here.

Our good old website has undergone an exciting transformation, which will make it more fun and a lot more useful for all of our customers! Some of the highlights are:

• A super "Tour Finder" that allows you to search in seconds based on your start/end dates, destination, tour type, and tour length. You'll see a full listing of tours that meet your criteria -- and then you can either search again with new criteria or get down to the details.
• New organization that makes navigation quick and easy. You'll find lots of links to related topics -- all the information you'll need in just a few clicks.
• New articles that describe what to expect on an ExperiencePlus! tour, stories about the fascinating people you'll meet on tour, and plenty of info about our bikes and destinations.
• Fresh design, vibrant colors and lots of great photographs.

One thing that won't change is our little round friend and mascot, "Mungo." Look for him in the upper left corner of the new design.

Be sure to visit our website and let us know what you think! As always, we'll be glad to hear from you.

Visit the new ExperiencePlus.com.
Read more about what's new at ExperiencePlus.com here.

Our interview this month is with Peter Wester, who joined us for two tours in South America last winter (including our Coast-to-Coast ExpeditionPlus! trip). Peter's views on travel struck a chord with us:

What motivates you to travel to far-off places? Underneath it all, curiosity. I have been fortunate in my adult life to have spent immersion times in a number of different countries and I really enjoy finding out what a place is about. To me this is the antithesis of sightseeing. And I find that a bicycle is an exceptionally good way to do this.

Read the rest of Peter's interview here.

For his book review this month, Rick returns to the Golden Age of the bicycle, as portrayed in Émile Zola's Paris:

[Zola's protagonist] finds himself on a bicycle ride with a young woman who was betrothed to his older brother. Their conversation about bicycling and women gives us a window into the mind of a liberal intellectual at a time when the power of personal mobility for women was only just beginning to be understood and the layers of strict Victorian morality were being stripped away from traditional French society.

Read the rest of Rick's review of Paris by Émile Zola, here.

Summer cuisine is at its best when it combines seasonal abundance with the lazy, "it's hot and I don't feel like cooking" ambience of a summer evening. This month's recipe, a childhood favorite of Maria Elena's, does just that.

Maria Elena noticed at a dinner party last week that her American friends were unfamiliar with a simple Italian dessert that she grew up with. Since this is strawberry season, it seemed the perfect recipe for July.

Click here to read the rest of Maria Elena's Strawberries with Lemon recipe.

If you would like additional recipes, visit our online recipe archive. You'll find recipes for European and Latin American specialties like Panzanella: a Tuscan Salad, Tapenade, Gallo Pinto, and more.

Happy Walking and Cycling until next month!

E-mail us at tours@ExperiencePlus.com with comments and questions. Or give us a call at 800-685-4565.

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