Japanese Ceramics, Fine Arts, Festivals

Ceramics and fine arts, festivals and hot springs are highlights of a fall tour to Japan hosted by Yoshino Japanese Antiques in Pasadena. The 10-day tour will begin Oct. 6 in Nagoya and travel northward to Takayama, to experience the Hachiman Shrine Festival. During the festival, decorated floats called yatai are paraded through the streets.

Participants will recuperate at the Gero Spa hot springs, where guests will stay at a ryokan. The following several days the group will be visiting the Tajimi, Seto and Mino areas seeing various museums and learning about the ceramics of those areas.

The last several days will be spent sightseeing in Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital. A one-day excursion to Shigaraki, one of Japan’s oldest pottery areas, will be taken, where there will be a lecture by one of the local potters, an exhibition at his gallery and a chance for guests to make their own ceramics.

Cost: $3,225 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, all hotel accommodations, ground transportation in Japan, daily breakfasts and some meals. An English-speaking guide is provided throughout the tour.

Contact: Gary Myers at Yoshino Japanese Antiques; telephone (626) 356-0588.

Italy 2000

It’s time to start thinking about where you will be Dec. 31, 1999. One place to celebrate the new millennium is in Italy. This 11-night tour, from Dec. 22 to Jan. 3, takes guests to Venice for Christmas and Verona for New Year’s. Six nights are spent in Venice in a hotel on a canal near St. Mark’s Square. Guests can view Christmas festivities around the city and then transfer to Verona for end-of-the-year celebrations.

Cost: $2,999 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles on Alitalia, transfers, lodging, daily breakfast and hosts.

Contact: Carlucci’s Italy; tel. (949) 707-5824.

Country Cruise

A “Country Christmas” cruise aboard the Mississippi Queen steamboat is available Dec. 21 to 28. Guests will board in Memphis, Tenn. Stops along the river route include Cape Girardeau, Mo., a historic trading port from 1806; Paducah, Ky. (named for the Chickasaw chief, Paduke), where Union soldiers boarded steamboats for the Civil War battle of Shiloh; Dover, Tenn., to see a Civil War fort; and Nashville, where the cruise ends.

Cost: from $1,034 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, transfers, all meals on board and port taxes.

Contact: Historic Tours of America; tel. (714) 846-9595.

London Thea-tah

Theatreworks of Colorado is offering two tours to London in December and January. The first, “Swinging at the Savoy,” is a weeklong tour beginning Dec. 27 that features theater shows, discussions with theater professionals and trips to the English countryside. Guests will stay at the Savoy for the week and attend an extravagant New Year’s Eve party there.

The second trip, the “London Theater Tour,” lasts 11 days and begins Jan. 7.

Participants will attend several performances and take tours of London and the surrounding area. Both programs include a backstage visit to the Royal National Theatre and a tour of the newly reopened Globe Theatre.

The trips are directed by theater professors Murray Ross and Drew Martorella from the University of Colorado, who will supply tour participants with on-site lectures and information about London’s theater scene.

Cost: The December tour is $4,266, and the January tour is $2,589 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, first-class hotel accommodations, daily breakfasts, entrance fees to sites and theater performances.

Contact: Drew Martorella at the University of Colorado; tel. (719) 262-3275.

Religious Sites

A pilgrimage to Rome, Lourdes and Fatima led by Father Eamon Mackin of Huntington Beach is being offered Oct. 12 for two weeks. In Rome the group will get an audience with the Pope and visit the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Catacombs.

They will also visit the hill town of Assisi and Pisa’s Leaning Tower. In France, devotees visit Lourdes for two days before crossing the border into Spain to visit Burgos and Santiago de Compostela. The tour then moves on to Fatima in Portugal, and it ends in Lisbon.

Cost: $2,950 per person, double occupancy, including round-trip air fare from Los Angeles, hotels, overnight sleeper train, daily breakfast and many dinners, sightseeing tours, guides and airport transfers.

Contact: Betty Leonard, Shamrock Travel; tel. (949) 470-0301.

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