http://www.post-gazette.com/travel Travel news and features, Travel Editor David Bear's column en-us Copyright 2009, post-gazette.com. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:31:13 -0500 15 http://www.post-gazette.com/includes/2007design/images/150x30pg_now_logo.gif http://www.post-gazette.com/ 144 39 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1015374-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml A marvelous painting of a gourmand at his table hangs in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris -- a portly, pink-faced figure happily gorging on a regal casserole, with a bottle of wine at one elbow and a luscious-looking soufflé at the other. It is traditionally believed to be a portrait of Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, an aristocrat notorious in Napoleonic France for gratifying his palate with the same abandon as his contemporary the Marquis de Sade showed in indulging ca Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1015375-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml "The big empty" is how my seatmate describes the landscape as our plane makes its descent to El Paso. To me it is the opposite: this is a place I've visited and lived in for the last 13 years, and it is a land filled with memories, adventure and possibility. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1015376-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml INDIA is modernizing rapidly, sometimes too fast. You have giant malls, but grandmothers afraid to use the escalators. There are villages in the middle of nowhere, with ornate temples soaring into the hot sky. Still, old Rajasthan endures, evoking rulers with giant mustaches, harems of beautiful women in the finest colored silks and some of the most spectacular palaces ever built. They can be found in the state's three biggest cities: Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1015377-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml BED-and-breakfasts are starting to man up, doing away with the lace bedspreads and trading high tea for brewskies. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1015378-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml A hotel tapas bar located smack in the middle of one of Madrid's busiest tourist hubs? Easy to pass up, perhaps. But then I took a closer look. An artfully stylized pattern of filigree mantilla combs -- the restaurant's logo -- covered the ceiling and swept down the wall. The menu promised the classics, but with more than a whiff of innovation. I was hooked. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1006966-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml VIENNA -- Sachertorte. Magnificent palaces. ... Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09325/1012575-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml CONCORD, N.H. -- The New Hampshire tourism department has started offering special deals to fans of its Facebook page. ... Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1014920-455.stm?cmpid=travel.xml A bumpy half-mile missing link on the North Shore Trail will be filled handsomely this winter by a $5 million elevated structure stretching near Millvale. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:13:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1015030-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml Matanuska Glacier, Alaska -- THE temperature was soaring to 75 degrees, and I was walking on ice. Around me the Matanuska Glacier, about 100 miles from Anchorage, sparkled and shimmered in the afternoon sun. The only sound was an occasional rush of cool wind sweeping down from the towering Chugach Mountains and the crunch of my crampons as I made my way up a crevasse with a group of six other trekkers. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1015031-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml SEATTLE-- LIKE a reminder of theater's past, the face of the playwright August Wilson stares out from a gleaming glass door set in a 12-foot steel portal at the top of August Wilson Way here, a sloping side street behind the Seattle Repertory Theater. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1006964-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml TORQUAY, County Devon, England -- She has been called England's most prolific serial killer, having disposed of some 300 victims during the course of a lengthy life of crime, in such a variety of ways -- poisoning, garroting, stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning -- that an FBI profiler would have been flummoxed. ... Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1012574-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, N.C. -- A mainstay of western North Carolina tourism is making a transition from attraction to a portion of a foundation. ... Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1014886-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml Where: Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, 4141 Fifth Ave., for nonstop dancing at the ninth annual PittStop LindyHop How far: 10-15 minutes from Downtown Pittsburgh How much: $20 at door for Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09324/1014974-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml WASHINGTON -- Flights over much of the eastern United States were delayed yesterday by a predawn failure in a fairly new communications system, which led to the shutdown of a computer that accepts flight plans from the airlines and feeds them to air traffic controllers. Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09323/1004266-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml TAMPA, Fla. -- A spotlight on Tampa's Ybor City neighborhood in the October issue of Southern Living magazine reveals a vibrant blend of cultures. ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09323/1006962-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml LYNCH, Ky. -- Joseph Marzelli is glad for the cheerful canary singing in the darkness of an Appalachian coal mine. ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09323/1012571-287.stm?cmpid=travel.xml LARAMIE, Wyo. -- The Snowy Range Ski Area is scheduled to open in late November this year. ... Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09322/1006961-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml HOPE, Ark. -- The Bill Clinton First Home Museum will soon be a part of the National Park system, a designation that will give the modest structure on a busy street more visibility as a tourist destination. ... Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09322/1012569-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml OAKLAND, Calif. -- A new guide to Vancouver is just out from Lonely Planet's pocket-sized Encounter series. ... Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09322/1012570-140.stm?cmpid=travel.xml LAKE PLACID, N.Y. -- If the Adirondacks fall off of your vacation radar once summer ends and autumn's foliage fades, you might be surprised to hear that hotels, lodges and attractions stay open year-round in places like Lake George, Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. ... Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09322/1014233-37.stm?cmpid=travel.xml Art review and art news: In ways comparable to today's multitasking cell phones, a new technology began to change the way people envisioned and documented their environments, and one another, in 19th-century France. Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:01:00 -0500