Hot off the Press!!!!

The 2007 Untours catalog is out! It should be arriving in your mailbox any day now if you haven’t received it already. In this catalog, you will find a selection of ‘not to be missed’ events on nearly every page to help you plan the best time to travel for you. If you are not yet on our mailing list, click here to request a catalog today! If you want a sneak peek, you can visit this page on our website to view all of the catalog pages. You will need Adobe Reader to view these files.

Our first host hall of famer: Berit Greutert (right)
with long-time Untours Swiss staff, Mary Lefever.

The Untours Host Hall of Fame by Marilee Taussig, Director of The RIGHT Vacation Rental

Over the years, there is nothing that has meant more to us here at Untours than the relationships we have seen blossom, between our hosts and our Untourists.

The stories are truly legion regarding the efforts – both Herculean and homey – to which our hosts go to make Untourists feel at home in their Untours accommodation. We'd like to begin an occasional series that for lack of a better title, we will call the "Untours Host Hall of Fame" which will introduce you to some of the remarkable people that make up our network of hosts. Our initial inductee is one of the most famous, from the country of our first Untour – Switzerland.

Berit Greutert: There will never be "THE Best Host" for Untours; there are simply too many amazing and wonderful people that are part of our network of landlords, agents, friendly neighbors, and caretakers, but if there were……………

Berit and her husband Albert have been hosting people in their wonderful apartments in the lakeside town of Sachseln, Switzerland, one of our Swiss Heartland locations for nearly as long as there have been Untours (more than thirty years). It is nearly inconceivable how many friends they have made, vacations they have transformed, and acts of kindness they have offered. More than that, for anyone who has ever met her, pound for pound, Berit (a Norwegian native married to Albert, a Swiss citizen and happily installed there for forty years and counting) is more fun than almost anyone on earth. Don’t even think about going to the Greutert’s unless you are prepared to laugh a lot.

Two Berit anecdotes illustrate her inimitable ways:

• Berit used to be part of the onsite staff, as well as a landlord. On one Untour trip to see cheese made in high alpine huts, one Untourist had chosen to wear high-heeled sandals, AND as luck would have it, the hut du jour where the cheese was being cooked and where our tourists needed to walk included an entry path for our guests that was directly through the barn. (Anticipating these sorts of possibilities is one reason we always tell people who come on this excursion to WEAR STURDY SHOES!) Our guest not only had high heels on, but also wore very scanty hot pants (bright pink!) As you might imagine, although she tried to tiptoe through the cowpies that are an inevitable part of barn life, her shoes slipped and down she went, actually slipping UNDER a resting (and thankfully friendly) cow.

Berit, the nearest Untours staff person didn’t blink an eye... immediately wading in, to help the lady out from under the cow to shepherd her to the cheese maker’s bathroom where she helped her clean up. When Berit and our unfortunate victim emerged, all cleaned up and dressed in the cheese maker’s hand-me-downs, Berit gave a big wide grin and said, "Only on an Untour!"

• On her sixtieth birthday, Berit celebrated by doing cartwheels down the street of her village. (My father, Hal Taussig, and about ten years her senior, gamely joined in.) I was thirty at the time and with them that night…and too immature to jump on the bandwagon.

Don’t even think about choosing the Greutert’s as your Untour host family unless you love to laugh!

To visit one of Berit and Albert's properties click here: Chalet Berit. This property is also available in the winter (limited staff support) and is an excellent base from which you can do some phenomenal skiing close by. Call 888-868-6871 for more details!

We always hope when we choose our accommodations to honor two things:

• Independence — people are free to come and go, making friends or staying footloose and on the go, and
• Common ground — we have a preference for friendly and open-minded people – in our clients and our hosts. We hope when they get together, they occasionally discover that friendship is an unexpected consequence of a delightful place to stay.

Albert is ready to offer you some of his famous Rösti!

Untours Featured Accomodations...more stories about great landlords

Here are some of our favorite properties. Usually you can read information about the apartment itself, but this time, we wanted to focus on the hosts of these great places. Read more below to see why staying in one of these accommodations will make you feel like you are family.

Austria Untour

Seiwald A apartment

"Terry [Seiwald] was everything of the lively ball of fire that we were told she would be. Occasionally we'd find a scrumptious dessert made by Terry awaiting us at our apartment door when we would arrive home after a day's journey. Terry and Josef's hosting of strudel and kaffee one evening was a delight as we got to know our next door neighbors, fellow Untourists from Virginia. And Ray got along famously with Grandpa, who took a delight that Ray speaks some very credible German. Discussions ranged from the weather to politics to religion, and everything in between!

Our daughter and Terry's daughter Anna made fast friends. What better way to introduce our child to another culture but through playing games, biking, and going to grandpa's farm with the kids in the neighborhood?"

Raymond, Julia & Bianca Giolitto, West Hartford, CT

Alsace Untour

Chalet apartment

"Our hosts/landlords were Françoise and Robert Bruppacher, who made us feel so welcome we were sad to leave when our time there was over. They own the vineyards for which this house is named, and they were friends from the day we were welcomed with a bottle of their own Pinot Blanc and a bowl of the best strawberries I have ever eaten.

A week later they invited us and Untourists staying at the other property they own in Beblenheim to an evening of partying on our terrace – wine, appetizers, kugelhopf, and tarte flambée. The fact that we Americans spoke very little French and Françoise only a bit of English (Robert no English) didn’t deter us at all from chattering, gesturing, and laughing away 4 hours of conversation and good refreshments!"

Virginia Knueppel, Alpharetta, GA

Spain Untour     

 La Cubertilla  

After passing through this quaint little town, we rumbled along an unpaved road out to La Cubertilla. Maria [Untours staff] actually owns La Cubertilla, and she lives in the main house there with her husband, Jean-Claude. There were two apartments in addition to the house in which we stayed.

Maria showed us around: the patio with lemon trees and a swimming pool, the spacious entry way, dining room and kitchen, a living area with a fireplace stocked with wood, and then upstairs to the four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Maria had even left food for us: some braised chicken with vegetables and potatoes to reheat on the stove, delicious vegetable soup, some fruit and the makings of breakfast: coffee, tea, eggs, cereal. It was wonderful to have someone lead us home, and to have dinner waiting for us, weary travelers that we were."

Joy Rankin, Portland, OR