November 2025: Christmas on the Danube
We traveled with a group from the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Library to experience Christmas on the Danube with Collette Tours, a river cruise that starts in Wurzburg, Germany, and ends in Vienna, Austria, with stops in Nuremburg, Regensburg, and the Wachau Velley in Austria. A number of us continued on to Prague. We visited several Christmas markets on our trip, experiencing local foods, goods, and gorgeous decorations.
March 2025: Discovering Rome & the Amalfi Coast
Eighteen Friends embarked on a trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast, with five Friends opting for the pre-tour extension to Florence. Led by our never-tiring tour manager, Daniel, from Collette Tours, we visited Rome, The Vatican (a day after the Pope returned from the hospital), enjoyed lunch and a wine tasting at Bosco de’ Medici Wine Resort, a limoncello factory (with tasting!), Pompeii, several towns on the Amalfi coast, and enjoyed a day trip to the island of Capri.
October 2024: World War II Memorials
We had a wonderful time visiting WWII sites in England and France. Highlights included the Churchill War rooms in London, D-Day Story Museum in Portsmouth, visiting all five beaches and the American Cemetery in Normandy, and stopping at Saint-Mer-Englise where American paratroopers landed on D-Day and now the site of the Airborne Museum. We stopped in Giverny to visit Claude Monet’s home and gardens on the way to Paris where we learned about life under the Nazi occupation.
This was a memorable and emotional trip with a special group of Friends!
September 2023: Discovering Poland
The Friends’ trip to Poland was everything we hoped it would be and more. After two cancellations, the third time was a charm for the 20 Friends who left for Warsaw on September 15.
We visited Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Kraków. Some of the highlights of our tour included a visit to the Zabinski Villa at the Warsaw Zoo, the setting of the book and movie The Zookeeper’s Wife; a tour of the amazing Malbork Castle on the way to Gdansk; and an in-depth look at the labor and solidarity movement on a visit to the Gdansk shipyards.
In Wroclaw we searched for some of the 600 gnomes that are scattered around the city and in the beautiful Market Square. We visited the countryside to see the beautiful Church of Peace and a local vineyard. On the way to Krakow we stopped in Czestchowa to see the famous Black Madonna at the shrine. In Krakow we enjoyed their beautiful Market Square and a visit to the famous Wieliczka Salt Mine to marvel at the amazing statues, chapels and murals all carved from salt. We learned of the horrors of the concentration camps on a visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
We enjoyed great weather, delicious food, and met a lot of wonderful people. We hope you’ll join us on one of our future trips!
February 2023: Charleston, Savannah and Jekyll Island
A small group of Friends had a wonderful visit to Charleston, Savannah, and Jekyll Island. We enjoyed learning about the history of that area, delicious food, great weather, and old-fashioned Southern hospitality.
We started our tour in Charleston, a city that has defied all odd: surviving the Civil War, major fires, an earthquake, and hurricanes – and still exudes elegance, charm, and grace.
Charleston offers a wonderful historic center with hidden alleys and quaint areas that are only accessible by foot. Fort Sumter, where the first fired shots of the Civil War were fired, is a short harbor cruise away. City Market, one of the country’s oldest public markets and the central hub for Gullah sweetgrass basketry – an intricate handicraft of African origin – is an excellent place to shop.
We toured Savannah’s historic district with its many landmark squares and homes, and enjoyed the lively shops and restaurants along River Street and in City Market.
St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island are Georgia’s Gold Coast — Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and J.P. Morgan once vacationed here. The area has a stunning lighthouse and wonderful historic district.
October 2022: Chicago & Michigan
A small but intrepid group of Friends ventured to Chicago and Michigan for a wonderful fall trip in October 2022. Starting in Chicago, we were amazed by all there was to see and do in this beautiful city. We started off with a food tour, stopping at several famous restaurants to sample iconic Chicago foods. We took an architecture cruise, marveling at the various building styles, took a wonderful city tour including Millennium Park and had a behind the scenes tour of Wrigley field.
From Chicago, we traveled into Michigan, stopping in Grand Rapids to tour the beautiful Meijer botanical and sculpture gardens, saw the wonderful mushroom houses in Charlevoix and then took the ferry to Mackinac Island for the highlight of our tour, a stay at the Grand Hotel. It was stepping back in time as we were met by a carriage to take us up to the hotel. Mackinac Island doesn’t allow motorized vehicles so everyone gets around by bicycle or horse and buggy. The hotel is wonderful, everything you would expect and more and we made sure to sit in the rockers on the longest porch in the world overlooking beautiful Lake Huron.
After leaving Mackinac we stopped in the beautiful Bavarian town of Frankenmuth and visited the world’s biggest Christmas store. Our final stop was Dearborn, where we spent a day at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. We enjoyed their amazing collection of Americana including the Rosa Parks bus, the limo JFK was riding in when he was shot, the chair Lincoln was sitting in at Ford’s Theater, still stained by his blood and even Charles Steinmetz’s Mohawk River cabin.
We all enjoyed this trip with Collette tours and are looking forward to our next adventure!
Friends of SCPL 