The 20th Century Railroad Club is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a one-day excursion to Marshall, Mich., Sept. 7 or 8, to enjoy the town’s 33rd annual Historic Home Tour.
Visiting Marshall will be like stepping back in time, for the city has one of the largest collections of historic buildings in the United States and has remained virtually unspoiled by fast-food outlets and strip malls. Tour participants will have approximately six hours in which to explore 13 unique structures built in Marshall between 1848 and 1939, including eight private homes. Other weekend attractions include museums, a Civil War reenactment, a parade and live music.
The train leaves Chicago’s Union Station at 7 a.m. and returns at 9:45 p.m. The trip costs $75 per person. Deadline for reservations is July 20. For information on this excursion or a catalog of other club-sponsored one-, two- and three-day getaways, call 312-829-4500.
– “Unique dining experience” doesn’t begin to describe the Wisconsin Trolley Museum’s dinner train. Located in East Troy just north of Lake Geneva, the museum has the only railroad dinner train service near Chicago. You’ll enjoy two-hour dinners in air-conditioned comfort aboard the Ravenswood or Beverly Shores cars, which were created from former Chicago, South Shore and South Bend Railroad electric commuter coaches. The dinners cost $40 per person and includes tax and tip. Seating is limited and prepaid reservations are required. The museum address is 2002 E. Church St. Call 414-548-3837.
– Steam engines are back at the Grand Canyon this summer. Through Sept. 30, an antique steam engine will pull the Grand Canyon Railway passenger train from Williams to Grand Canyon National Park. Passengers aboard the “William’s Flyer” will ride in authentically restored 1923 Harriman coaches across 65 miles of pine forests, grassy plains and small canyons before arriving just steps from the rim of the Grand Canyon. Adult round-trip tickets are $49.50 plus tax and applicable National Park Service entrance fees. Children 16 and under ride for $19.50 plus tax. One-way options and overnights at the canyon are available. The train departs from the Williams Depot at 9:30 a.m. and arrives at the Grand Canyon at 11:45 a.m.; it departs from the canyon at 3:15 p.m. and arrives at Williams at 5:30 p.m. Call 800-843-8724.
Music mecca
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sir Georg Solti. London.
Need we say any more?
WFMT-FM and the Chicago Motor Club’s AAA Travel Agency are sponsoring a seven-day trip to London, the highlight of which will be hearing Solti conduct the CSO performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Royal Albert Hall. The tour will be expertly led by Dan Schmidt, senior vice president of WFMT, and his wife, Julie, an oboist.
In addition to the CSO performance, the Sept. 8-15 package includes a sightseeing tour of London, tours to Windsor Castle and the Cotswolds, a guided tour of Buckingham Palace, a dinner cruise on the Thames and a performance of the new Cameron Mackintosh musical “Martin Guerre.”
The trip costs $2,949 per person based on double occupancy (single supplement $799) and includes round-trip air fare from Chicago, six nights at the Park Lane Hotel, all breakfasts and two lunches. Call 800-223-7049.
Faberge eggspedition
The Rockford Art Museum is sponsoring a members-only weekend art trip to Richmond, Va., Sept. 26-29 to see the “Faberge in America” exhibit of nearly 400 objects from the famed workshop at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The weekend begins Thursday with a backstage tour and tickets to the premier theater performance of “Anastasia” and continues Friday to the Faberge exhibit, which includes 15 spectacular Imperial Easter Eggs. On Saturday, the group will visit Colonial Williamsburg and stop at Shirley Plantation. On Sunday, the group will visit the Lewis Ginter Gardens and end in Washington, D.C., with a tour of the National Gallery of Art.
The “Faberge in America” tour is open to all members of the Rockford Art Museum. The tour costs $499 per person double occupancy (single supplement $225) and includes round-trip air fare to Washington, D.C., accommodations at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, all breakfasts (but not lunches and dinners) and all attraction admission fees. Call 815-398-8888.
Paris on foot
Rather than strolling the boulevards and admiring the facades, you can see Paris come alive during a “Paris on Foot” walking tour. Limited to groups of six, you can take four different walks on Paris streets with an English-speaking guide who will explain the city’s 2,000-year history. You can explore the Ile de la Cite and the Ile St. Louis and the quaisides in The Heart of Old Paris tour, or taste the bohemian flavor of the Left Bank in the Latin Quarter Tour. If the Right Bank is more to your taste, one tour takes you through the historic Marais district and another through great glass-roofed passages of the late 19th Century arcades near the Louvre. The three-hour tours cost $39 per person, and advance reservations are recommended. For a free brochure describing each tour in detail, call 800-594-9535.
Falklands flights
Best known for the 1982 war between Britain and Argentin, the Falkland Islands in the far South Atlantic appear as far from nowhere as you can get, unless you’re on your way to Antarctica. But looks can be deceiving. There has been a growing tourist interest in the Falklands, which have seen a 23 percent increase in tourism in the last year alone. What’s luring them? Wildlife photography, game fishing and the lure of getting away from everything in unspoiled natural surroundings.
British Airways for the first time has scheduled regular flights to the Falklands with help from Chile’s Aerovias DAP Airlines. Flights leave London’s Heathrow Airport at 10:15 a.m. every Tuesday aboard a Boeing 747-400 and arrive in Santiago, Chile, at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays. Tourists then connect with Aerovias DAP on a Boeing 727 and arrive at Mt. Pleasant Airport in the Falklands at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday. Round-trip fares from London begin at $2,069, although there is a special residents’ fare for $1,451 for families living in the Falklands and their relatives. Call 800-AIRWAYS. (Americans could, of course, fly direct to Santiago and pick up the Aerovias DAP flight to the Falklands from there.)
