Ireland through to Japan, six to eight nights
All nine on one page, and you can reserve one of nine weeks through a San Diego travel agency
Neither price nor country orders these nine places: the distance between the good week and the poor one does. With two of you sharing a room, the figures start at $1,340 per person and reach $3,180.
Reserve one of these weeksSend the form whenever it suits: it never shuts. Someone here replies inside one working day, and no charge arises at this end.
Reading a row
Each row carries a name, a country, a count of nights, a figure, and the mark for gap width. Under it runs a line saying what the place physically amounts to, held to the fewest words honesty allows. Narrow gaps come first throughout, which puts the smallest penalty for a poor week at the head of the list and the largest at its foot. Preference on this end orders nothing, since all nine pay the same commission.
Nine is a small number on purpose
An honest poor version takes just as long to write as the good version, and writing both for a tenth place would mean working from a brochure, which a close reader spots straight away.
The Camargue
France6 nightsfrom $1,340narrow spreadsalt lagoons and grazing marsh between the two arms of the Rhone
Alentejo cork country
Portugal7 nightsfrom $1,490moderate spreadcork oak on wide dry plains, and the fortified villages between them
Zagori and the Vikos gorge
Greece8 nightsfrom $1,580moderate spreadstone villages and arched bridges above one of the deepest gorges in Europe
Shetland in June
Scotland6 nightsfrom $1,940wide spreadtreeless islands, nineteen hours of light and cliffs full of nesting birds
The Danube delta
Romania7 nightsfrom $1,520wide spreada flat water maze of reed and willow where the river gives up
Lofoten in late winter
Norway6 nightsfrom $2,740very wide spreadgranite walls straight out of the sea, and the sky doing whatever it does
The Burren and the Aran shore
Ireland7 nightsfrom $1,680very wide spreadlimestone pavement running to the Atlantic, with gentians in the grikes
The Majella
Italy7 nightsfrom $1,610very wide spreada high limestone massif with hermitages cut into it and very few people on it
Finish the sentence and a week gets reserved
Whatever the hour, what you send lands here and is read by a person, who replies inside one working day. Sending it binds you to nothing, and no sum is ever taken at this end.