English Palace to Offer Lodging for First Time

Overnight accommodations will be offered in an English royal palace for the first time when Hampton Court Palace starts taking paying guests early next year. Two sections of the palace, on the River Thames 15 miles southwest of London, are being renovated into suites and will come with “good, quality, robust antiques” but without TV, radio or trouser press, according to a spokeswoman for The Landmark Trust, the company operating this lodging and others in British historic properties. One of the two suites, known as the Fish Court room in the Tudor wing of the palace, will have four bedrooms and rents ranging from $430 for a four-night winter stay to $1,215 for the Christmas and New Year weeks. The other suite, called the Georgian House, is in a building originally designed for a kitchen and laundry. It will have three floors and four bedrooms, priced from $575 for four nights to $1,710 for end-of-year holiday weeks.

Hampton Court was built in the 16th Century by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to accommodate 280 guests and a staff of 500. In an attempt to curry favor, Wolsey presented the palace as a gift to King Henry VIII in 1529. Henry promptly seized all the rest of Wolsey’s possessions and set to work expanding Hampton Court. Five of Henry’s six wives lived at the palace, and the emblems and initials of Anne Boleyn--wife No. 2--are carved in the great hall. Queen Victoria opened Hampton Court for public viewing in the 19th Century, and since then a few apartments have been rented to favored employees of the crown and relatives of employees, some of whom still reside there.

Travel Quiz: What train is the fastest in the world?

News Reports Spark Questions: The Egyptian Tourist Authority reports that news stories of an Oct. 21 attack on a bus carrying European tourists through the Nile Valley in Upper Egypt prompted hundreds of phone calls within a few days and that companies specializing in tours to Egypt have been inundated with calls from concerned travelers. One British woman was killed in the attack by Muslim militants on a tour bus near the town of Dairut, a remote area not usually frequented by tourists about halfway between Luxor and Cairo. Before the attack, an extremist Muslim fundamentalist group had threatend to target tourists.

A spokesman in San Francisco for Naggar Travel Group, an international company that specializes in tours to Egypt, said that it had received almost 150 calls in the 10 days after the attack. Another company, Vision Travel of Los Angeles, reported that approximately 50% of those booked on October and November tours to Egypt had called to question the safety of such trips. Both agencies reported few trip cancellations so far, however.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government has announced that it will monitor major tourist areas, including the Nile area where the attack occurred, with military helicopters. The U.S. State Department is not suggesting that travelers avoid sites normally visited by Americans, such as Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbal, Cairo, Alexandria and the Red Sea Coast or Sinai. But the U.S. Embassy in Cairo is cautioning Americans against travel in and around Dairut and in the two adjacent governorates of Asyut and Minya.

Quick Fact: Of U.S. corporations, 95% pick one of four companies--Avis, Budget, Hertz and National--as their first-choice car rental agency. (Source: Runzheimer International.)

Mazatlan Tollway Opens: A new four-lane coastal tollway connecting Mazatlan, Mexico, to Culiacan, 120 miles northwest, is now the shortest, easiest and safest route from the United States to the major Mexican coastal resort, according to Mexican tourism officials. For about $26, the new 110-mile tollway connects Mazatlan with Culiacan and the Highway 15 freeway/tollway system leading north to Nogales, on the U.S.-Mexico border. It replaces the former 13-hour trip between Mazatlan and Nogales with a 10-hour drive. In addition, the divided tollway will feature rest areas and stops, increased security and a state-of-the-art drainage system to protect against flooding. To reach the new tollway from San Diego, travelers would take Interstate 5 south to Tijuana, then Mexico Highway 2 east through Mexicali to Santa Ana. In Santa Ana, Highway 2 connects with Highway 15, which goes south to Culiacan and the tollway leading to Mazatlan.

Another new roadway--linking Acapulco with Mexico City--is expected to be completed in January. It will turn what is now a five- or six-hour trip into a drive of about 3 1/2 hours.

Smoke Defectors: Citing the health risks to passengers of smoke-filled flights, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. affiliate that sets air transportation standards, has recommended that its members phase out all smoking on international flights by July 1, 1996. While the resolution is not binding on governments or airlines, it should accelerate a growing movement to smoke-free flying. The United States and Canada, two of the resolution’s sponsors, already ban smoking on domestic flights. Some smoke-free international flights are offered by Air Canada and Northwest Airlines in North America, Scandinavian Airlines in Europe, Cathay Pacific in Asia and Qantas from Sydney to Hawaii and Los Angeles. The U.S. Army last summer banned smoking on all international flights transporting its troops, including chartered commercial flights.

Amtrak Survey on Training: Many of the approximately 300 Amtrak employees interviewed in a recent survey think the railroad has safety problems, according to a report on the survey, which was commissioned by the railroad but conducted by an outside consulting firm. The survey--which sampled a small slice of Amtrak’s non-management and management employees--found that a majority of workers below management level believe the railroad is more concerned with cost control and on-time performance than with safety and quality of service. The report, dated August, 1992, was written after interviews conducted in April with Amtrak employees across the country. Written by the management consulting firm Towers Perrin, the report also found morale problems among rank-and-file workers. The railroad in June settled a long and bitter labor negotiation with several unions representing mechanics, electricians, locomotive engineers, dispatchers and machinists.

Quiz Answer: The world speed record for trains in service is 320 m.p.h., set by France’s Tres Grande Vitesse (TGV) in 1990.