Life Is Hard--but Then There’s Austria

Bundle up for wintery tours to Austria:

An 11-day trip to visit the romantic cities of Vienna and Salzburg leaves Jan. 10 and focuses on history, culture and the arts. Participants begin their tour in Vienna and visit the Old City; St. Stephen’s Cathedral; Belvedere Palace; the Imperial Crypt, where three centuries of Hapsburg monarchy family members are buried, and the Austrian National Library. An evening is spent at the opera.

In and around Salzburg, visits are made to the monasteries of Melk and St. Florian, the Renaissance Residenz palace of the archbishops, Mondsee and Wolfgangsee, and Castle Leopoldskron, where the von Trapp (“The Sound of Music”) family lived. The tour is led by Professor Peter Gravgaard.

Cost: $1,960 per person, double occupancy, including hotels, breakfast and dinner daily, motor-coach transportation and sightseeing and entrance fees. Not included: air fare to Austria. Contact: Plantagenet Tours, 85 The Grove, Moordown, Bournemouth BH9 2TY, England; telephone 011-44-202-521-895.

Three tours to Austria let travelers soak in its culture via sightseeing and specialty classes from art to cooking to crafts.

Oct. 8-15, a hands-on artist’s trip takes in Vienna’s top art museums, and classes with local painters, sculptors, potters and craftsmen. Nov. 5-12, participants can get the opportunity to learn to cook the Viennese way with chefs providing the instruction and visits to shops, restaurants and historic districts that play a part in the country’s cuisine.

Dec. 2, participants get into the Christmas spirit by celebrating Advent in Vienna at the city’s famous crafts markets. Guests will learn how hand-dipped candles and hand-blown glass ornaments are made. Each tour includes sightseeing tours and concerts.

Cost: $1,950-$2,350, per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from New York, accommodations and most meals. Contact: Herzel Tours, 355 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017; tel. (800) 684-8488.

California Missions

Return to the California of centuries ago on a tour that visits nine missions where Franciscan friars labored to convert Native Americans to Catholicism and establish enclaves of Spanish civilization in a new land.

The weeklong tour, which leaves Nov. 7 from San Diego, will be led by anthropologist Margot Liberty and historian Jack McDermott. The tour begins with a visit to the tip of Point Loma, where Juan Cabrillo landed in 1542 and claimed territory for Spain. The group will visit missions established by Father Junipero Serra and his followers between 1767 and 1823. Participants will learn about the lives of priests, soldiers and native peoples who built churches, living quarters, bell towers and elaborate aqueducts that turned the countryside into ranches, orchards and farms.

The tour follows El Camino Real, the road that connected the missions, and stops at museums, battle sites and haciendas.

Cost: $989, per person, double occupancy, including motor coach transportation, hotels, most meals, sightseeing and entrance fees. Not included: transportation to San Diego. Contact: History America Tours, P.O. Box 797687, Dallas, Tex. 75379; tel. (800) 628-8542.

European Museums

Great museums of Europe that specialize in Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern, Greek and Roman collections are visited on a 12-day tour March 9 that takes participants to Leiden, Netherlands; Berlin and Hildesheim, Germany, and Paris.

The tour is led by art historian and Egyptologist Robert Bianchi. In Leiden, guests visit the National Museum of Antiquities, known for Greek pottery and its Egyptian collection.

In Berlin, four days are spent exploring several museums including the Pergamon Museum, the Antikemuseum of Greek and Roman Art and the Aegyptisches Museum, which holds the famous bust of Nefertiti. A side trip to Dresden is scheduled. The medieval town of Hildesheim is visited to see its 11th-Century St. Michaelis Kirche (church).

In Paris, three days are spent in the Louvre. Free time is available to explore the city.

Cost: $2,570 per person, double occupancy, including ground transportation, hotels, entrance fees and some meals. Not included: air fare to Amsterdam and from Paris. Contact: Archeological Tours, 271 Madison Ave., Suite 904, New York, N.Y. 10016; tel. (212) 986-3054.

Andes Wildlife

November means long days and warm weather in the Patagonian Andes of Chile and Argentina. Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology are sponsoring a 16-day tour Nov. 5 to see wildlife, from penguins and shorebirds on the Strait of Magellan to the rheas and red foxes in the Torres del Paine National Park.

Cost: $4,280 per person, double occupancy, including accommodations, most meals and transportation within Chile and Argentina. Not included: international air fare. Contact: High Country Passage, 943 Emerson St., Palo Alto, Calif. 94301; tel. (800) 395-3288.

New Zealand Hiking

Easy to moderate day hikes are part of the daily itinerary on an 18-day trip to New Zealand that leaves Los Angeles Dec. 18.

Participants begin their tour on the North Island in Auckland and visit the volcanic hot springs of Rotorua and Tongariro National Park. On the South Island, hikes are taken at Nelson Lakes National Park, Cape Foulwind, Paparoa National Park, Pancake Rocks and the Fox Glacier, where guides take hikers through a labyrinth of ice caves, crevasses and pressure ridges. The tour ends with visits to Mt. Cook, Queenstown and Christchurch.

Cost: $2,790 per person, double occupancy, including hotels, most meals, ground transportation and guides. Contact: Mountain Travel-Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito, Calif. 94530; tel. (800) 227-2384.

India’s Exotic Cities

A 14-day tour to India to see its most exotic cities leaves Los Angeles Dec. 8. Participants will visit Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Bombay.

Deluxe five-star and palace properties have been selected including the Oberoi Hotel; Lake Palace Hotel, built in the center of a lake, and a farmhouse in Udaipur, where an Indian safari into the countryside is planned.

Cost: $3,175 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air transportation, air, train and land transportation within India, hotels and guide. Not included: meals. A free slide show about the trip will be held at the World Trade Center Assn. at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 6. Contact: World Trade Center Assn., 1 Park Plaza, Suite 150, Irvine, Calif. 92714; tel. (714) 724-9822, Ext. 12.

Baja Whale Watching

Get up close and personal--even reach out and touch--Pacific gray whales as they congregate in Baja’s San Ignacio Lagoon to give birth and mate.

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium’s naturalists will be taking 30 passengers out on the 113-foot Royal Polaris to this access-controlled lagoon where mother and calf pairs swim close enough to touch from small skiffs.

The nine-day excursion leaves Feb. 25 and includes stops at Todos Santos, San Benito, Cedros and San Martin to allow participants to investigate diverse geological formations and explore native vegetation on naturalist-led walks. Back on water, guests will also see elephant seals, sea lions and sea birds. Shipboard slide and video lectures enhance what guests see outside.

Cost: $1,895 per person, double occupancy, including shipboard cabins, meals, education manual and round-trip motor-coach transportation between the museum in San Pedro and San Diego. A gratuity of $40 is payable in cash to the boat crew. Contact: Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, 3720 Stephen White Drive, San Pedro, Calif. 90731; tel. (310) 548-7563.

The Times is not responsible for changes in prices, dates or itineraries. These should be confirmed with cruise lines, travel agents or tour operators.