The 31 Places to Go in 2010

The island, with a population of just 20 million, feels like one big tropical zoo: elephants roam freely, water buffaloes idle in paddy fields and monkeys swing from trees. And then there’s the pristine coastline. The miles of sugary white sand flanked by bamboo groves that were off-limits to most visitors until recently are a happy, if unintended byproduct of the war. Among the most scenic, if difficult stretches to reach, is Nilaveli Beach in the Tamil north. While a few military checkpoints remain, vacationers can lounge on poolside hammocks under palm trees or snorkel in its crystal-clear waters. Or they can order cocktails at the Nilaveli Beach Hotel (www.tangerinehotels.com/nilavelibeach), a collection of recently renovated bungalows with private terraces. An international airport in Matara, on the island’s southern shore, is under construction, which will make the gorgeous beaches near the seaside village of Galle easier to get to. Decimated by the tsunami in 2004, the surrounding coastline is now teeming with stylish guesthouses and boutique hotels. Unawatuna, a crescent-shaped beach a few miles south of Galle, may be furthest along. Higher-end hotels there include Thambapanni Retreat (www.thambapanni.biz), which features four-poster beds, yoga and an ayurvedic spa. The Sun House (www.thesunhouse.com), in Galle, looks like a place where the Queen of England might stay, with its mango courtyard and colonial décor. One stylish place tucked within Galle’s city walls is the Galle Fort Hotel (www.galleforthotel.com), a refurbished gem merchant’s house run by a couple of Aussies. — Lionel Beehner 2. Patagonia Wine Country Ten years ago, a group of adventurous winemakers set their sights on an Argentine valley called San Patricio del Chañar, an unusually fertile and eerily beautiful corner of Patagonia. They plowed, planted and waited. The outcome? A blossoming wine country with delicious pinot noirs and malbecs and smartly designed wineries. One of the area’s pioneers, the 2,000-acre Bodega del Fin del Mundo (www.bodegadelfindelmundo.com), which works with the influential wine consultant Michel Rolland, is racking up international medals for its complex merlot, cabernet and malbec blends. And NQN (bodeganqn.com.ar), which is associated with the Argentine oenologist Roberto de la Mota, has seen its 2006 Colección NQN Malbec get 92 points from Wine Enthusiast. Nearby is the new Valle Perdido winery (www.valleperdido.com.ar), which includes an 18-room resort surrounded by vineyards. At the spa, ask for antioxidant wine-infused treatments. — Paola Singer 3. Seoul Forget Tokyo. Design aficionados are now heading to Seoul. They have been drawn by the Korean capital’s glammed-up cafes and restaurants, immaculate art galleries and monumental fashion palaces like the sprawling outpost of Milan’s 10 Corso Como and the widely noted Ann Demeulemeester store — an avant-garde Chia Pet covered in vegetation. And now Seoul, under its design-obsessed mayor, Oh Se-hoon, is the 2010 World Design Capital. The title, bestowed by a prominent council of industrial designers, means a year’s worth of design parties, exhibitions, conferences and other revelries. Most are still being planned (go to wdc2010.seoul.go.kr for updates). A highlight will no doubt be the third annual Seoul Design Fair (Sept. 17 to Oct. 7), the city’s answer to the design weeks in Milan and New York, which last year drew 2.5 million people and featured a cavalcade of events under two enormous inflatable structures set up at the city’s Olympic stadium. — Aric Chen 4. Mysore You’ve completed 200 hours of teacher training, mastered flying crow pose and even spent a week at yoga surf camp. What’s next? Yogis seeking transcontinental bliss head these days to Mysore, the City of Palaces, in southern India. The yogi pilgrimage was sparked by Ashtanga yoga, a rigorous sweat-producing, breath-synchronized regimen of poses popularized by the beloved Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who died at 94 in 2009. Mr. Jois’s grandson is now director of the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute (www.kpjayi.org). First month’s tuition is 27,530 rupees, or $600 at 46 rupees to the dollar. Classes generally require a one-month commitment. Too much time or money? Mysore’s yoga boom now has shalas catering to every need. Off the mat, the yoga tribe hobnobs at Anu’s Bamboo Hut or the Regaalis Hotel pool, studies Sanskrit, gets an ayurveda treatment or tours the maharaja’s palace. — Mary Billard 5. Copenhagen As thousands of environmentalists heckled world leaders in Copenhagen last month for the climate summit, a solitary unifying note could be heard amid the cacophony of discord: the Danish capital has already emerged as one of the world’s greenest — and maybe coolest — cities. Copenhageners don’t simply preach the “progressive city” ethos, they live it. Long, flat urban thoroughfares are hemmed with bicycle paths where locals glide around the city, tourists saddle up on the free bikes that dot the city center, and fashion bloggers take notes on the latest cycle chic (see copenhagencyclechic.com). Over in the harbor district, a public bath at Osterbro, due to open in 2010, will complement the two swimming areas set off on Copenhagen’s inner harbor, a formerly polluted waterway recently transformed into the city’s summertime hub. Away from all the modernism and the happy cyclists, cultural thrill-seekers are being coaxed to the once dangerous district of Norrebro, which has arguably become Copenhagen’s edgiest hub. A heady mix of hipsters, students and immigrants mingle in the cafes and galleries around the district’s focal square, Sankt Hans Torv, and the city’s young and excitable night owls can be found dancing in local clubs until the early hours. — Benji Lanyado

Restaurant Report: Venissa, on Isola di Mazzorbo, Italy

But your ultimate port of call is the small, sparsely populated island of Mazzorbo, where a pile of unremarkable homes and an ancient walled vineyard, the Venissa Estate, are almost entirely overlooked by even some of the most ambitious tourists. Mr. Bisol spent the last decade restoring the estate, which is designated as an Italian Natural Environment Park; he opened the restaurant in 2010. But his greatest act of reclamation may be his restoration of the Dorona grape, a Venetian varietal that ceased to be cultivated in the lagoon 600 years ago. Today it grows in perfectly trained rows inside the estate’s medieval walls. “The lagoon is my second home by the sea,” said Mr. Bisol, a descendant of an illustrious family of vintners who have been making wines and prosecco in the Italian province of Treviso since 1542. “It’s important to us to reclaim arable land, conserve history and create employment opportunities for people here.” At the helm of Venissa’s kitchen is Paola Budel, who relies on all things local: produce from the estate’s vast vegetable gardens; lagoon fish like eels, mullet and crabs stocked in their nearby fish farm; and oysters culled from beds on the neighboring beach. “We pay homage to cuisine from the lagoon and the Veneto,” Mr. Bisol said. “We get honey from the nearby Island of Sant’Erasmo and langoustines and salicornia seaweed right from the lagoon.” This emphasis is immediately evident on the menu. During a recent lunch, I had an unctuous starter of crumb-crusted, pan-fried lagoon eel with a cream and broccoli sauce, then a steaming bowl of nutty kamut spaghetti with fresh lagoon anchovies and sautéed wild spring onions, foraged that morning. The main course was a thin veal cutlet, breaded and pan-fried until golden, with a tangy artichoke cream. In between courses, and before the cheeses and coffee arrived, there were liberal pours of Crede Bisol prosecco and Zenato Ripassa Valpolicella, two excellent regional tipples that punctuate Mr. Bisol’s commitment to all things Veneto. Venissa, Fondamenta Santa Caterina, 3, Isola di Mazzorbo; (39-041) 52-72-281; venissa.it. A three-course meal for two, without drinks and tip, is about 85 euros, $118 at $1.40 to the euro. Open March through November for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

PERSONAL JOURNEYS; In Sardinia, Memories Come Floating Back

ON a mid-September day in the Maddalena archipelago, off the northeast shore of Sardinia, autumn still felt far off. The temperature hovered around 85 degrees, but a light Mediterranean wind kept our sailboat moving briskly and the ship's captain, Luca Imbagliazzo, and me pleasantly cool. At Spargi, one of the many undeveloped islands that make up the national park that spans the archipelago, we anchored at Cala Conneri, a small white sand cove protected by large boulders on each side. There were no other boats, and I dived into a perfectly clear turquoise sea. I first visited Sardinia as a child in the 1970s. My parents had always insisted that ''the only way to see Sardinia is by boat,'' and, indeed, they owned a gorgeous sailboat that they docked over many summers in Porto Cervo, on the northern coast of the island. I remember fondly the crystal-clear water where you could see every detail of your toes, even when waist deep in the salty sea. We would moor ourselves in deserted coves like the one in Spargi, and I would swim to the beach in the company of our three small dogs, flopping with them on the powder-soft white sand. They were my constant companions; after a number of near drownings, I was periodically harnessed to the mast along with them during the more choppy stretches. We'd all look anxiously toward the horizon as the boat would start to tilt alarmingly; my father, normally a sensible man, seemed to have an uncanny way of guiding us into storms rather than away from them. Now that I have returned as an adult to live in Italy, I am slowly reclaiming those childhood spots with my son, now almost 2 years old. Some turned bittersweet after my father died. When I revisited Sardinia and La Maddalena a few years back, I would find myself looking wistfully for our boat's name among the portside yachts (the boat was sold soon after his death in the early '80s, and in 1983 we moved full time to the United States). The mythical island was wrapped up in a memory of a man I lost too early. But my travel preferences have also changed. Along with the happy memories of swimming and exploring the coastline are the ones of being in tight quarters with a family of big personalities for months at a time (a few times my sister and I took refuge in the dinghy when parental tiffs broke out). Daytime boat rides are quite enough for me now, and I prefer the sense of control that comes with planning an itinerary that mixes time on land and sea. A hotel room at night is more comfortable for me than sleeping below deck, especially with a squirmy toddler and a seasick husband in tow. But despite its picture-perfect seaside spots, Sardinia has suffered from both overdevelopment in certain places and, in others, a lack of the sort of hotel options that appeal to me as an adult. Until recently, the only good ones were those clustered around the sparkling Costa Smeralda, where celebrities and Italian A-listers convene in August. (Many of their yachts have the kind of amenities and staff usually found at five-star hotels, which partly explains the limited choice in lodging.) But despite their great natural beauty, the island's many other parts are not well known, especially to American tourists. That is beginning to change. It's because of recent hotel openings that I have started to rediscover the island's other regions, especially in the northern, less-visited section of the island. La Maddalena Hotel and Yacht Club, where I stayed during my September visit, is a 100-room property that has taken over the island's former Boat Arsenal and caters to a clientele who, like me, wants that mix of comfort and sea access. Boat excursions can be booked during the day from the adjacent marina. They run from a vintage sailboat for 12 to a smaller motorized dinghy. The property also has plenty of land-based amenities -- a spa, a gym, two restaurants -- and a beautiful wood-deck pool area that looks out over the water. Despite a somewhat corporate vibe, it suited my purposes well. And it is a gateway into one of Italy's most naturally beautiful areas.

T MAGAZINE; Vexed in Venice

Bar hopping with a bunch of gondoliers at Christmas wasn't Joan Juliet Buck's style. When I peered over the Gothic staircase at dawn on my fourth day in Venice to see that the lobby of the Hotel Danieli was under 14 inches of water, I sent up thanks for my very first acqua alta. It meant the bar was out of commission. The bar's armchairs, stools and tables were already stacked all the way up the staircase. Our tribe began each day in the bar at 10: Peter O'Toole; his wife, Sian Phillips; her mother, known to all as Mumgee; their daughters Kate and Pat with their nanny Elizabeth; two writers in love, Harry Craig and Shana Alexander; and Joyce and Jules Buck, my parents. They and the O'Tooles had a movie company called Keep Films, and they were as inseparable in play as in work. The acqua alta receded. Just before noon the furniture was back in the bar, and, sitting with their shoes planted on wet oriental carpets, so were the beaming grown-ups. The kids, the nanny and I held back. Wasn't it kind of chilly down here? I sneezed to make my point. Kate, who was 10, was happy: she'd been allowed to walk along the concierge's desk while the water was still high. I'd gone back to bed and missed the fun. Peter and Sian's Venetian friends arrived, working-class stars of the tourist industry resting between summers: the Danieli's off-duty barman, Gastone de Cal; his pal the gondolier Gino Macropodio; their wives, parents, children and friends. There was a painter who made convincing Guardi oils, which, he swore, he never sold as the real thing. There was an aged gentleman called the Cavaliere, who was writing a cookbook about Venetian food with an exile from American wealth named Buzz Bruning, who had met his young wife, Leslie, as she chaperoned Finch College students through Italy. They lived in a house in the Sestiere di San Polo, where Buzz often cooked for the barman, the gondoliers, the Cavaliere and their families; that Christmas, he was preparing a bigger feast to include the 11 members of the Buck-O'Toole-Craig-Alexander party. The group was some 20 strong by the time we hit the cold wind on the Riva degli Schiavoni, skirted the Doge's palace and headed into the back streets with a single mission: to stand at the counters of small Venetian bars and knock back little glasses of red wine called ombrette and eat little fried and breaded things called cicchete, and then walk up and down bridges and through the gray streets to the next bar, and the next, until lunchtime, which would happen at about 3 p.m. and be an exact replica of what came before, only this time seated and with larger portions of fish. At 22, the three things I disliked most were eating, alcohol and walking. Sometimes there was a long detour through the ghetto, which was as cold as the rest of Venice and had no canals of its own. Ten years earlier, Peter and Sian had explored Venice as Peter prepared to play Shylock at Stratford. Now he was a star, but in the intervals between films and plays after ''Lawrence of Arabia,'' he and Sian came back to Venice to hide among their chosen friends. I had imagined there would be more presents and fewer plebes. Authentic, to me, was a way of tying a belt, not a way of living. I was a bad-tempered, self-conscious, fashiony 22-year-old in from Paris, and it showed. My eyebrows were plucked to a single arched line, my mouth set in a jaded moue. I wore a smock custom-made with scraps of striped cotton cinched tight over a long olive green skirt from Yves Saint Laurent and high-heeled boots that laced to the knee and hurt furiously. I smelled of patchouli, applied from a small vial when nervous, which was frequently. My coat's right lapel was covered with enamel pins advocating revolution and sexual disobedience; the rarer ones were sewn on so no one could steal them at a coat check. I knew the shock value of certain things but did not always get their meanings. I thought I was an adult, but my life had not begun. I worked as an underpaid stylist for the photographer Guy Bourdin, lived in a tiny room on the Rue du Bac, was fascinated by Chairman Mao, knew people who were making the sexual revolution, was in love with three wrong men and had a dealer who sold me just enough hashish every week to make me feel like I belonged. I imagined I was simply moonlighting as the daughter of a cigar-smoking movie producer in handmade suits who spent Christmas in Venice.

It’s Kosher in Rome’s Ghetto

The Ghetto period ended in 1870, and in the decades that followed, its ramshackle buildings were torn down and most of the Jews in Rome resettled elsewhere. Only a few hundred Jews remain living in the zone, but the area retains its cultural significance, and today it remains at the heart of Jewish life, home to two synagogues, three Jewish schools and a Jewish museum. Now, a growing number of kosher restaurants have sprung up on and around Via del Portico d’Ottavia, the main street in the Ghetto, with menus that have moved beyond fried artichokes and stuffed zucchini flowers. Among them is Ba Ghetto Milky (Via del Portico di Ottavia 2a; 39-06-6830-00-77; kosherinrome.com), a dairy kosher restaurant on the main street opened last December by Amit and Ilan Dabush, the sons of Tripoli Jews. The Dabush family escaped from Libya in 1967 and went to Israel before settling in Rome. The menu reflects their North African, Middle Eastern and Italian roots, and specialties like couscous, falafel and hummus share the page with Roman Jewish specialties like spaghetti with mullet roe and chicory. The Ghetto’s cuisine is inspired by the New World at Mamà Kosher Food (Via Portico d’Ottavia 14; 39-339-847-2084), where burgers and roast beef sandwiches are the signature dishes. Marco Spizzichino and Massimo Di Veroli, cousins, opened Mamà a year ago to fill what they saw as a void in the neighborhood’s offerings. “I worked in food service for eight years before opening this place,” Mr. Di Veroli said. “We thought people needed quick food that felt homemade, not like regular fast food.” Mr. Spizzichino said everything there was made to order. “Since most observant Jewish visitors stay in or near the Ghetto, we started offering Shabbat meals for them to reserve and take away,” he said. During the week, the small storefront is crowded with business people, students from Jewish schools and religious and secular tourists, all of whom stand around Mamà’s high communal tables for its popular hot sandwiches. There is an American influence, too, at the Ghetto’s newest kosher business. Il Mondo di Laura (Via della Reginella 8; 39-06-6880-6129; mondodilaura.com) sells parve cookies and baked goods, including brownies and carrot cake. Its owner, Laura Raccah, takes her inspiration from time spent baking in Tel Aviv, London and New York, and her tiny shop is filled with aromas familiar to all three hubs. S7heva (Via Santa Maria del Pianto 1b; 39-06-6880-1518), a cocktail bar with a patio, was opened in May 2010 by a young entrepreneur, Ilan Raccah. “I used to have a clothing shop, but with the crisis I saw that I needed to change direction,” she said. “The schools moving here brought more movement to the zone. There are parents, students, but lots of foreign visitors, too. Italians come here but there is strong international presence, as well.” Every evening except for the Sabbath, there is a happy-hour buffet offering kosher snacks like roasted, fried and marinated vegetables, falafel nuggets and pasta salad, which can be paired with cocktails or kosher wine. During the day, coffee, drinks and meals are served inside beneath exposed wooden beams or on a patio with an uninterrupted view down the main street.

Restaurant Review: Little Bird in Portland, Ore.

Little Bird is the second Portland restaurant from Gabriel Rucker, the 2011 winner of the James Beard Rising Star Chef Award for the best chef aged 30 or younger. Mr. Rucker won fans and accolades with his first restaurant, Le Pigeon, where he was known for daring French-inflected dishes that often involved tongue or sweetbreads. He shifted his focus slightly before opening Little Bird in December 2010. “Le Pigeon is about whatever I want, whatever is in my head,” he said. “Little Bird is more accessible for the everyday diner.” In the well-lighted dining room, which seats 70 comfortably, the ceiling is a shiny pressed tin, and lace curtains hang in the windows. Standards like soups and salads are served all the time, and so is the coveted Le Pigeon burger — a juicy patty topped with a mound of shaved iceberg and pickled and grilled onions that Mr. Rucker sells in limited quantities at his first restaurant. Erik Van Kley, the longtime sous-chef at Le Pigeon, heads the kitchen at Little Bird, with Mr. Rucker pitching in a few times a week. Mr. Van Kley makes his mark via smoked trout gougères with lemon-caraway dressing; roasted pork shoulder paired with sherried onions and topped with a crispy egg; and a sinfully rich cauliflower crepe with caramelized onions and Mornay sauce. And for dessert, the pastry chef, Lauren Fortgang, trots out conventional apple tarte Tatin alongside creations like a mascarpone ice cream sandwich paired with roasted figs. “The flavors, the techniques and the style of the food that we like is all here,” Mr. Rucker said. “It’s just a little bit simpler.” Little Bird, 219 SW Sixth Avenue, Portland, Ore.; (503) 688-5952; littlebirdbistro.com. An average meal for two, without drinks or tip, is about $80

In Zurich West, Feeding the Hip and the Hungry

Now the area has emerged as the city’s latest culinary hotbed, with serious new restaurants, interesting bars and Zurich’s first permanent covered food market. Their openings are fueled by rapid construction and new infrastructure, including 1.86 miles of tram tracks that made their debut in the district last month, making it easier to hop among the city’s most thrilling spots to eat and drink. Among the restaurants is Clouds (Maagplatz 5; 41-44-404-30-00; clouds.ch), an ambitious spot that opened in December with floor-to-ceiling windows atop the Prime Tower, a 36-story building that not only punctures the city’s low-slung skyline, but also ranks as Switzerland’s tallest. “Zurich changes all the time, and we’re part of the new Zurich,” said Magnasch Joos, Clouds’ general manager. On a weekday at noon in early January, diners savored delicate raviolone stuffed with buffalo ricotta and a perfectly runny egg (22 Swiss francs, about the same in U.S. dollars) and sautéed pike-perch with smoked-almond-crusted potatoes (46 francs) against a stunning backdrop of Lake Zurich. A layer of fog hovered over the water, with the snow-capped Glarus Alps beyond. A young crowd congregates below at the Hotel Rivington & Sons (Hardstrasse 201; 41-43-366-90-82; hotelrivingtonandsons.ch). The drinking establishment opened in October with one of the city’s quirkiest bottle collections, including spicy ginger wines from Scotland. But the scene-stealer is the painstakingly recreated speakeasy-style décor. The 80-year-old wooden bar, chicken-wire glass and six tons of white subway tiles were shipped from New York City to Hamburg, Germany, then trucked into Zurich, said Emil Looser, an owner. A block away, the 1,640-foot-long Im Viadukt (im-viadukt.ch), with 50 vendors, cuts a striking swath through the neighborhood; it opened in 2010 beneath century-old stone railway arches. Its intimate Restaurant Viadukt (Viaduktstrasse 69/71; 41-43-204-18-99; restaurant-viadukt.ch) operates with a civic mission, combining a youth job training program with live bands and a modern menu of dishes like meltingly tender boiled beef and sphered turnips and carrots, served with a horseradish-fig sauce (29 francs). At the complex’s heart is its covered market, which is anchored by another restaurant, the more casual Restaurant Markthalle (Limmatstrasse 231; 41-44-201-00-60; restaurant-markthalle.ch), where creative types and dot-comers dine on homey meat-centric dishes. Those include the restaurant’s signature veal meatballs that, on a visit in December, were luscious and still light-pink on the inside (19.50 francs). A communal ethos pervades the restaurant. Its lengthy wine collection, supplied by the wine shop Südhang (Limmatstrasse 231; 41-44-262-48-48; suedhang.com), located one arch over, includes small-production bottlings made from grapes grown around Lake Zurich. Its raw milk cheeses come from the cheese shop Tritt-Käse (Limmatstrasse 231; 41-43-366-87-88; tritt.ch), tucked under another nearby arch. A few blocks away on vibrant Josefstrasse is the Senior Design Factory (Josefstrasse 146; 41-44-440-46-46; senior-design.ch), a bright corner restaurant opened in October by Benjamin Moser and Debora Biffi, two young art school graduates whose entrepreneurial efforts epitomize Zurich West’s evolution. They already have a design shop farther down Josefstrasse. And now, in a space accented with a knitted light installation, the duo serve updated comfort dishes that Mr. Moser said are inspired by recipes handed down through the generations, like a creamy leek quiche topped with bright purple rutabaga strips; it is paired with a radicchio-mâche salad (17.50 francs). “People are more welcoming of new projects in Zurich West,” he said. “There are a lot of ateliers, a lot of design shops and a lot of restaurants. It’s the city’s melting pot.”

Hotel Review: St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London

A glamorous train station hotel with a split-personality, where rooms start at £180, or $275 at $1.53 to the pound. BASICS The St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel brings some majesty and style to the fustiest category of accommodations, the train station hotel. The original Midland Grand Hotel opened in 1873 and was shuttered in 1935; today, the vast Gothic facade of rebuilt spires and cleaned-up brickwork towers over the London terminus for the Eurostar high-speed trains. The hotel is really two hotels that share a lobby. In front you’ll find the Chambers, an imposing edifice with arched windows and cast-iron columns; it feels like a castle, with a sweeping staircase that leads up to 38 rooms with high ceilings and sumptuous architectural details. In the back there is Barlow House, a modern wing with 207 characterless rooms. The prices tell the story. Rooms in the Chambers run from £325 to £10,000, while in Barlow House they are £199 to £285, plus tax. The division is as stark as that of a plane: First Class up front, Economy Plus behind. Understandably, the photogenic hallways and rooms in the Chambers get all the attention. (It’s a favorite for fashion shoots.) But it’s jarring to be led from the buzzing lobby with a Victorian-era glass roof into a wing that has the studiously bland feel of a high-end corporate hotel. After all, it is a Marriott property. LOCATION The hotel and train station are on the northern edge of Central London — the British Library is across the street, and Bloomsbury is within walking distance — but it’s a somewhat remote location in this sprawling city. If you plan to see the sights, shop or eat, you’ll need to take public transport or hop in a cab. THE ROOM My £235 room (plus a £45 tax) was in the monotonous new wing (beige walls, whisper-quiet air circulation) that runs along the side of the train station. In fact, my room looked directly onto the steeply sloped roof of the train shed, so that the only thing visible was a wall of gray tiles so repetitive and mesmerizing it felt like an art installation. (Later, I was told that for another £50 I could have a view of the British Library — and a heavily trafficked street.) The room itself was comfortable if boxy, with a king-size bed facing a big flat-screen TV. THE BATHROOM Small and streamlined. Radiant heat warmed the stone floor; the water pressure in the shower stall (no tub) was good. AMENITIES There’s tea in the lobby; drinks and smartened-up pub fare at the Booking Office (named for the ticket office it once was); fine dining at Gilbert Scott, named after the renowned architect of the hotel; and free cocktails at the Chambers Club, the private club accessible to all guests in the Chambers and in the pricier rooms in Barlow House. A spa and gym with a tiled pool are in the grotto-like basement of the historic wing. Wi-Fi is £20 a day (the train station offers it free). ROOM SERVICE The Booking Office provides room service. But who wants to eat in a sterile room? Especially if you can hop down to the magnificent restaurant itself, which feels as if a nightclub took over a dining hall at Cambridge. BOTTOM LINE Rarely is a hotel so fashionable and so characterless at the same time: spring for a room in the Chambers and you could only be in glamorous London, but stay in Barlow House and you could be in any newly built hotel in the world. St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, Euston Road, London NW1; (44-20) 7841- 3540; marriott.com/london.

In Bustling Vietnam, a Rare and (still untrammeled) Escape

It was somewhere near a street market selling the island’s signature products (black pepper, fish sauce and saltwater pearls) that we took a wrong turn and ended up looping back toward Phu Quoc National Park, whose forests, mountains and beaches cover roughly 70 percent of the 222-square-mile island. There, on a rough stretch of highway, the Honda slid from beneath me and I ended up sprawled on the side of the road with a deep gash in my knee. I shakily drove 16 miles back to the hospital in the town of Duong Dong, where I received three stitches. Determined to stay on course for the day, I then climbed back onto the Honda. I simply could not allow myself to be laid up on Phu Quoc, where the ocean is myriad shades of green, and densely forested mountains slope down to white sand beaches. Caleb and I had arrived from Ho Chi Minh City the day before, on an hourlong flight packed with tourists, most of them looking for tranquillity after whirlwind tours of Vietnam. The single-runway airport where we landed will soon be dwarfed by an international terminal being built on the east side of the island. When it is finished, Phu Quoc will be flooded with visitors eager for a taste of what some say is the next Phuket. But for now, with over 50 hotels and a plethora of spas, markets, beachside bars and restaurants, Phu Quoc has all the creature comforts of a luxurious getaway at relatively inexpensive prices. Most of the resorts are on Long Beach and Ong Lang Beach on the island’s west side, which is indented with hidden coves buffered by black volcanic rock. Offshore, coral reefs sheltered by sandbars await divers and snorkelers. Phu Quoc has only recently become a tourist destination. A sleepy outpost of fishing villages until the end of the 20th century, the island was the subject of numerous border disputes between Cambodia and Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, Coconut Tree Prison was used by the United States as a detention camp for North Vietnamese soldiers. Today, the penitentiary is a historical site and all international conflicts are over. The island’s hopes rest with tourism: By 2020, Phu Quoc, population 90,000, is expected to attract three million visitors a year. The island, one hopes, won’t sacrifice its unexpected charms. Any turn on a road can lead to an encounter with tradition: a group of girls dressed in white school gowns, riding their bikes home for lunch; a cemetery full of tiny pagodas, partly hidden in fields of golden grass; fishermen lounging beneath palm trees beside their turquoise and red boats. THE doctor at Duong Dong allowed me to ride my motorcycle, but he forbade me from swimming. Fortunately, I had spent the previous day exploring the waters off the northern tip of the island on a trip arranged by the concierge at Mango Bay, an eco-resort near Ong Lang Beach. For hours, Caleb and I had snorkeled above coral reefs teeming with rainbow fish, snappers and sea urchins, breaking only to have lunch beneath the canopied shelter of a fishing boat that Conrad, our young South African guide, had anchored off a deserted strip of sand. “The Russians are coming,” Conrad had told us, as we lingered over grilled squid, spring rolls, shredded mango salad and Phu Quoc’s signature fish sauce, which is the island’s main export. “And money talks,” he said, referring to a rumored new port that would accommodate the mega-yachts of Russian oligarchs. In Phu Quoc’s schools, he said, the first language children learn is Vietnamese, the second is English and the third is Russian, a reflection of the increasing number of well-off Slavic tourists drawn to the island. As we ate, we watched a group of Vietnamese in neon-orange life jackets bob away from the boat they had just arrived on, only to be retrieved, screaming with laughter, by a dinghy. Eventually, a few brave pioneers from the group paddled to the shallows of the reef and stood on the coral, watching us impassively. “Not a single one of them can swim, not even the crew,” Conrad said. At the time, the observation was amusing. Little did I know that the next day, I would be similarly handicapped. Despite the doctor’s warning not to swim, Caleb and I were determined to get to Sao Beach, even if it meant just sitting in the sand. I tremulously drove my motorbike, with its newly smashed rearview mirror, a bit unnerved by the motorists honking their horns and zooming past me.

Niseko, Japan’s Own St. Moritz

Earlier that day I had been communing with the snow in a more conventional way, skiing my way through deep blankets of powder on Mount Annupuri in Niseko. The network of ski areas around the small resort village of Hirafu on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, see almost constant snowfall from December to April, a type of “Champagne powder,” as aficionados call it, that is a result of low pressure systems over northeast Hokkaido meeting high pressure systems over northwest Siberia. The winds from Siberia pick up moisture from the Sea of Japan, and the resulting bands of clouds dump huge amounts of snow when they reach the mountains. The 2010-11 ski season ran 165 days, Nov. 29 to May 12, and many days saw fresh snow fall. The beginning of this season could break the 50-year record, with 16.7 feet in December, the most since 1964. “Sometimes the snowflakes here are large enough to cast shadows,” said Pam Marks, a transplanted Canadian ski instructor who took me out on the mountain, adding that the skiing and snowboarding on even the regular slopes compare with world-class backcountry experiences she’s had in North America. The landscape is breathtaking. While the beauty of the Alps and the Rockies is intense and dramatic, these slopes are subtle and somehow mystical. Even the way the snow falls, constant and gentle, creates a particular kind of quiet; as I made my way down the mountain, I couldn’t even hear the sound of my skis in the powder. Bare birch branches peeked out of the ghostly white mountains. This sparsely suggestive backdrop, and the meditative onsen (natural Japanese hot springs), can turn any skier into a haiku poet. Niseko was coined the “St. Moritz of the Orient” by insiders in the 1960s, but the area still remained seriously under the radar until the ’90s, when it became the preferred playground for Australian snowboarders tipped off to the powder. Now, despite avid interest from well-heeled Asian skiers who arrive from places like Singapore and Hong Kong at Hokkaido’s new international airport, New Chitose, there are no waits for lifts even during holidays, and the resorts remain authentically Japanese. I visited in early February of last year, about a month before the huge earthquake hit the eastern coast of the country, setting off a tsunami and the nuclear plant crisis at Fukushima. Thankfully, Niseko remained largely unaffected (the mountain area is more than 500 miles northwest of the site), though local hotel and condo owners in the area did host refugees from areas closer to Fukushima last summer. Local business owners say that the tourism market here is holding up this season despite travelers’ initial wariness of returning to Japan after Fukushima. C. J. Wysocki, a Hong Kong lawyer who developed a complex of luxury condominiums here, said that holds particularly true for Asian visitors. He has seen a “a huge uptick in the last few weeks after it became clear that the snow was going to be epic this year.” Mr. Wysocki discovered the area on a company ski trip and pointed out that it holds a unique appeal for anyone who wants to “go from Hong Kong to skiing in about six hours (end to end) with no jet lag, and even less time from Beijing or Shanghai.” The two- to five-bedroom units in the complex, which is called Suiboku, are privately owned but can be rented like hotel suites. Custom open kitchens, stunning views of Mount Yotei (the perfectly symmetrical dormant volcano that provides the resort’s backdrop), heated repurposed wood floors, antique Buddhas, and tubs big enough for a whole family that look onto the snowy slopes, make each apartment feel luxurious but not over the top. OTHER high-end properties are creeping in as well. The Greenleaf resort, part of the Singapore-based YTL group, where I stayed, was revamped in late 2010 by Alexandra Champalimaud, a New York-based interior designer, with a fashionable lobby bar featuring cowhide armchairs and murals by a local artist, Emi Shiratori. Despite being more than 15 minutes from the main village, its outdoor onsen, where I retired après ski every day, and easy slope access made it a well-priced option. Next up is new development of Shiki, a 78-unit project scheduled to be completed by a Malaysian group next season, and a much-anticipated Christina Ong hotel expected to open in the next few years. There is also a formidable food scene here. The Niseko area benefits from particularly rich and diverse local produce and seafood, not to mention general Japanese precision and quality. Though the area is far to the north of Fukushima, the local chefs are still vigilant about food quality in light of the disaster, relying on both their own testing and continuing inspections by government and private companies. James Gallagher, the owner of Ezo Seafoods, a tiny restaurant and raw bar on a side street in Hirafu, where I ate briny, buttery oysters and snow crab legs, said that the safety issue is something restaurant owners are aware of, but luckily the damage has been limited, both in terms of actual physical contamination and consumer psychological reactions. “Probably 1 in 10 overseas customers raise the issue,” he said, “but those who have made their way into the doors of a seafood restaurant — many of them regular seasonal customers — have already made up their mind that it is safe to consume.” Mr. Gallagher has been monitoring everything that comes from Japanese waters and hasn’t discovered anything out of the ordinary near Hokkaido, thanks, he believes, to the fact that currents in the region move to the south. To reassure customers he changed the restaurant’s tagline from “Hokkaido Seafood” to “Fine Hokkaido and World Seafood,” incorporating Alaskan king red crab and Thai shrimp and tuna from the South Pacific when necessary; he has also added more vegetarian options. Katherine Bont, who runs the Sekka restaurant group with her husband, the chef Kim Wejendorp, said they had always relied on local ingredients, from “white asparagus grown in Kyowa-cho under the snow in the winter months” to “sausages and bacon from farmers who smoke them in their fireplace during the winter” to seven types of jam just from the fruit foraged in the summer. They also serve Yoshino salmon, roe and monkfish liver pâté from the coastal town of Suttsu along with cheese and dairy products from farms less than 15 minutes away. This year, she said, “We are keeping our stance on using as much Hokkaido produce as we possibly can, and if for some reason items are not available within our area, we are then making the decision to source overseas.”

In Winter, Berkshires Culture Moves Indoors

Traditionally, early September brings a frosty curtain down on this fair-weather communion of art and land. The region’s snowy scenes may have inspired some notable James Taylor lyrics and the color of American literature’s most famous whale. But by midwinter, Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s former home, is open by appointment only, and Mr. Taylor’s beloved Tanglewood sees more snowshoes than Champagne flutes. Yet even in January, cultural life here thrives, at museums, theaters and music halls. And when it’s time for a little après-edification, you’ll find acres of elbow room on area slopes. Start your cultural tour in North Adams, at Mass MoCA, one of the world’s largest contemporary art museums. The structure is in itself an attraction, built on the brick bones of a centuries-old complex of factories and mills between two fast-running branches of the Hoosic River. A current exhibition plays directly on that history: “The Workers,” which runs to April 15, features 40 or so works that hew to the theme of American labor. Another exhibition will be around far longer — until 2033, in fact. The Sol LeWitt retrospective includes three radiant floors of prismatically colorful, huge drawings, which pair beautifully with window-filling vistas of the snowy foothills of Mount Greylock. Mass MoCA’s performance stages stay busy in the winter as well. Notable coming acts include the jazz vocalist Catherine Russell on Feb. 18 and the Darrah Carr Dance troupe on Jan. 21, with a free workshop that afternoon. Mass MoCA is a relative upstart compared with the grande dame of Berkshire museums, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, just 15 minutes up the road in Williamstown. Visit before Feb. 5 to catch the Rembrandt and Degas exhibition, which is making a stop between appearances at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Another much-anticipated show is “Clark Remix,” opening Feb. 12, a cutting-edge experiment in crowd-curating. Designed to make the most of the multiyear closure of several spaces in the museum, “Remix” will pack the walls of one lucky gallery with a floor-to-ceiling cascade of resident masterpieces. Starting with that jumbled configuration, visitors will then have a chance to assemble their own virtual gallery, using a tablet set up with a modified version of professional-grade curating software. “Remix” isn’t just an empty exercise in technology: two winning entries will actually be mounted by the museum. Northern Berkshire County is usually a few degrees chillier than the rest of the county, so for some relative warmth head south to Pittsfield. Long set apart from the county’s traditional summer tourist scene and hot from its 250th birthday celebrations in 2011, Pittsfield is hosting 10x10 on North, the county’s first-ever winter contemporary arts festival, Feb. 16 to 26. It will feature exactly 10 of a number of things, including short pieces by two theatrical groups, Barrington Stage and New Stage; performances by poets, tango dancers and singer-songwriters; and short films. More action can be found at the Colonial Theater, a Gilded Age treasure with a stage once graced by the Ziegfeld Follies, Will Rogers and Rachmaninoff. Reopened in 2006, the Colonial is now the heart of Pittsfield’s home-spun renaissance. Visitors come for both the magnificently restored architecture and a busy winter calendar, including performances by the Turtle Island Quartet (Feb. 17) and the Cajun masters BeauSoleil Avec Michael Ducet (Feb. 24), as well as weekly live music in the theater’s tasteful lobby. Over in Lenox, Shakespeare & Company, a favorite of the summer theater scene, never lets the floorboards cool. Tina Packer, the company’s ebullient founder, attributes her year-round approach to a childhood spent under fickle English skies, and to her first Berkshire visit, years ago on a late winter’s day. Back then, she drove past the Mount, Edith Wharton’s then-derelict estate, which later became Shakespeare & Company’s first home. “I loved it, that moment early on a cold winter evening, the light going but not gone,” Ms. Packer said.” It was absolutely bewitching.” Shakespeare & Company moved to its current location, on Kemble Street, in 2001. This season’s winter programming includes Molière’s comedy “The Learned Ladies,” which opens Feb. 3. Sadly, Wharton’s restored estate isn’t open in winter, except to cross-country skiers wise to its well-tended grounds. For year-round insight into fin-de-siècle 1-percenters, go instead to Ventfort Hall in Lenox, home to the Museum of the Gilded Age. Ventfort was completed in 1893 by Sarah Morgan (sister of J. Pierpont), and George Morgan, a distant cousin. Ventfort was built on the site of the home where Robert Gould Shaw, the Boston-born Civil War hero, honeymooned just weeks before his death. Sarah Morgan herself died just five years after Ventfort was completed, and, in 1899, George re-enacted their Valentine’s Day wedding with a different Sarah, in a blizzard so severe that almost none of the guests made it to Lenox. Wandering Ventfort’s fabulous rooms, it’s hard to imagine how close it came to demolition. The site’s rescue was assured only in 1997, as ice encroached on the parlor and the dismemberment of its interior architecture was already under way. Today, telltale blond highlights scattered throughout the original woodwork, darkened by age, testify to years of meticulous restoration. Edith Wharton set a famously small Berkshire table. Sarah Morgan, on the other hand, was — as a tour guide described her — more of a “party girl.” So Ventfort Hall’s beloved “Dancin’ at the Mansion” soirees, held the second Saturday of each month, are very much in the spirit of the old house. All the better if your visit falls on one of those crystalline Berkshire nights when the wind lifts swirling snow from the dark fields and frozen lake, scattering it against the windowpanes. Inside, there’s music and laughter and fox-trotting through the once-abandoned rooms — a perfect companion to a cold winter’s night.

Skiers, Take Heart! There Is Snow if You Know Where to Look

In Vermont, where unseasonably warm temperatures challenged snow-making in mid-December, Mad River Glen was forced to close for four days earlier this month. In the Lake Tahoe Basin, where the snowpack was 9 percent of normal on Jan. 1, Squaw Valley had just 4 of roughly 170 trails open. And resorts in Park City, Utah, have run snowmakers full blast for the last several weeks to make up for the dearth. “It’s been a crazy year because it’s been so dry for so many regions of the United States,” said Patrick Crawford, content director for Onthesnow.com, which provides reports on ski resorts around the world. “They’re all struggling.” Unseasonably warm temperatures and unusual jet stream patterns, which are sending storms to the far north and south instead of across the Great Basin, the Rocky Mountains, the mid-Atlantic states and New England, are to blame. Just a handful of places have benefited from the strange weather patterns, including New Mexico and parts of the upper Northwest, which have received unprecedented snowfall. Resorts point out that weather patterns could change quickly. Already, parts of New England seem to be turning a corner, thanks to a recent cold spell, which allowed ski resorts to power up their snow guns. For now, here is where you can find the best snow. New England Teased by a record-breaking late-October snowstorm, which buried some northern New England towns in snow and allowed resorts like Killington in Vermont to open early, ski areas faced mild temperatures in mid-December that made snow-making difficult. But a few cold days after the first of the year helped resorts make up for lost time. For the best conditions, look for resorts with aggressive snow-making. “We have been blasting our guns for a total of 52 days since opening back in October,” said Darcy Morse, a spokeswoman at Sunday River in Newry, Me., which had 15 out of 16 lifts operating last weekend and 60 of 132 trails open, compared with 89 open trails the same weekend a year ago. Some resorts are better equipped than others. Mad River Glen in Fayston, Vt., has just three snow machines. Mount Snow in West Dover, Vt., has 253 high-efficiency fan guns — the most, it says, in North America. Half of Mount Snow’s 20 lifts were open midweek in early January, as were 29 of 80 trails. Over all, about half of Vermont’s 1,200 trails were open during the first week of January, down less than 10 percent compared with a year earlier. “With 100-plus days left in the season, there’s plenty of winter to be enjoyed, and business to be recovered, yet,” Jen Butson, a spokeswoman for Ski Vermont, wrote in an e-mail. New Hampshire had 462 of 795 trails open on Jan. 5, thanks to “some nice long stretches of round-the-clock snow-making weather recently,” said Karl Stone, marketing director for Ski New Hampshire. “This means our ski areas are making all the snow they can.” Colorado The snowpack for all of Colorado was 68 percent of normal in early January, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. Vail Resorts, which owns and operates four large ski areas in Colorado as well as Northstar California in North Lake Tahoe and Heavenly on the California-Nevada border, reported that visits to its six resorts were down about 15 percent through Jan. 2 compared with the same period a year ago. And for the first time in 30 years, a lack of snow prevented Vail Ski Resort from opening its back bowls, as of Jan. 6. For the best conditions, head south to resorts like Silverton, Wolf Creek and Durango, which have benefited from the odd weather pattern and have plenty of snow, said Mr. Crawford of Onthesnow.com. Or stay east of the Continental Divide, where some Colorado resorts have benefited from low-pressure systems that spin counterclockwise and have kicked snow into Denver and to nearby resorts like Echo Mountain and Eldora Mountain Resort. Families simply looking for well-groomed trails will find plenty at major resorts like Aspen and Vail, which have invested heavily in snow-making and continue to lure travelers with loads of wintry activities, like snow tubing and ice skating, as well as high-end shops. “Even in what has been a very, very difficult situation in terms of national snowfall, our total revenue is actually up,” said Robert A. Katz, chief executive for Vail Resorts, which reported that season-to-date lift-ticket revenue increased 0.6 percent and ski school revenue was up 0.9 percent compared with the prior season, when record snowfall was reported across its resorts.

36 Hours: Oaxaca, Mexico

Start at the culinary heart of the city, the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, which occupies an entire city block south of Aldama (between 20 de Noviembre and Cabrera), where family-run fondas — food stalls with colorful signs, long counters and short stools — sell Oaxacan staples like chicken with mole (40 pesos, or $2.90 at 13.50 pesos to the dollar) to campesinos, office workers and backpackers. Alongside the main building, a smoke-filled covered alley is lined with carne asada (grilled meat) vendors, each selling a selection of fresh cuts — thin-sliced beef or links of spicy chorizo (100 pesos per kilo). Your choice is tossed on the grill with accompaniments from the nearby vegetable stalls, where you’ll find onions and chilies to add to the fire, as well as prepared sides (12 pesos per small plate) like sliced radishes, guacamole, strips of nopal (cactus) or homemade corn tortillas. 5 p.m. 2. CULTURE HOUR Named for Mexico’s revolutionary hero, Espacio Zapata (Porfirio Díaz 509; espaciozapata.blogspot.com) brings Oaxaca’s radical street art indoors with prints of stencil designs and graffiti on canvas. It also hosts workshops, readings and music. Around the corner, in a series of high-ceilinged rooms set around a courtyard pool, the Centro Fotográfico Manuel Álvarez Bravo (M. Bravo 116; 52-951-516-9800; cfmab.blogspot.com) hosts photo exhibitions and screenings. Founded by the painter Francisco Toledo, the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (Alcalá 507; institutodeartesgraficasdeoaxaca.blogspot.com; 52-951-516-6980) has a library devoted to graphic arts. The institute’s exhibition space shows the work of influential designers like the artist and activist Rini Templeton. 7 p.m. 3. SLOW FOOD In a country where leisurely meals are the rule, La Biznaga (García Vigil 512; 52-951-516-1800; labiznaga.com.mx) goes further, billing itself a “very slow food” establishment and issuing a warning that dishes take time. But with Biznaga’s relaxed, multicolored courtyard, eclectic soundtrack and extensive list of wines by the glass, the wait is a pleasure. The menu, scrawled on large green chalkboards, includes a selection of unusual soups, like the one called La Silvestre, with mushrooms, bacon and cambray onions (36 pesos) — served with all the fixings (chopped onion, cilantro, avocado, jalapeño and lime); fried squash blossoms in poblano chili sauce (63 pesos); and shrimp with garlic, chilies and tamarind mole (206 pesos). 10 p.m. 4. BOHO NIGHT LIFE Across the street, La Zandunga (García Virgil and J. Carranza; 52-951-516-2265) is a little place painted in red and aqua and decorated with dangling light bulbs. It serves food that’s best suited to soaking up mescal and sharing among friends — doughy deep-fried empanadas (55 pesos) and molotes de plátano (fried plantain and cheese croquettes, 55 pesos). The bright, oilcloth-covered tables are perfect for lingering over an open bottle before hitting a dance floor. For that, head to Café Central (Hidalgo 302; 52-951-516-8505; cafecentraloaxaca.blogspot.com), a late-night spot with a stylized old Havana aesthetic — a stuffed marlin above the door, black-and-white tiled bar, red stage curtains — and live music or D.J.’d dance parties on weekends. Saturday 8 a.m. 5. WHOLESOME DAY TRIP For a quick breakfast, return to the market for pan de yema (sweet egg bread) and Oaxaca’s famous hot chocolate. Then, get a glimpse of the countryside with Fundación En Vía (Instituto Cultural Oaxaca; Avenida Juarez 909; 52-951-515-2424; envia.org), a local micro-finance nonprofit organization that helps rural women develop small-scale businesses. The tour functions as a cultural exchange between travelers and borrowers — often indigenous Zapotec craftspeople. The tour (650 pesos, or $50, including lunch) finances the program. For another kind of cultural immersion, try a four-hour cooking class (10 a.m.; $65) at Casa Crespo (Allende 107; 52-951-516-0918; casacrespo.com), in a converted colonial home, where you’ll learn to cook such local specialties as 17-ingredient mole de fiesta, incorporating chilies, spices and chocolate, and rose petal ice cream. 3:30 p.m. 6. CAFE CON ARTE For a house-roasted coffee and surprisingly authentic bagels, visit Café Brújula (García Vigil 409-D; 52-951-516-7255; cafebrujula.com) . First, drop by Amate Books (Alcalá 507A; 52-951-516-6960; amatebooks.com), an excellent English-language bookstore, for your requisite coffeehouse reading material. Then walk uphill to the city’s defunct aqueduct and the Instituto Oaxaqueño de las Artesanías, known as ARIPO (García Vigil 809), an emporium of crafts, including filigreed silver jewelry, etched leather bags and black pottery. 5 p.m. 7. COLORFUL CRAFTS The brilliant weavings of Oaxaca’s Teotitlán del Valle are among the most celebrated of Mexican artesanía (folk art). The Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Hidalgo 917; 52-951-501-1104; museotextildeoaxaca.org.mx) is devoted entirely to textiles. It has an excellent museum store and an in-house preservation workshop. The family-run shop Galeria Fe y Lola (5 de Mayo 408, No. 1; 52-951-524-4078) sells a gorgeous selection of wool rugs made with organic dyes. For those with a deep interest in the subject, the Oaxaca Cultural Navigator Web site (oaxacaculture.com) is a wonderful resource and sells a downloadable self-guided map ($10) of textile studios in Teotitlán del Valle. 7 p.m. 8. DINNER ‘DE AUTOR’ It has crisp white walls and waiters who are a bit too aloof, but unlike many restaurants of its kind, Pitiona (5 de Mayo 311; 52-951-514-4707; pitiona.com) avoids culinary flamboyance. Instead, it serves well-made regionally inspired dishes — like an amuse-bouche of beef tongue and bulgur meatballs with chintextle sauce (garlic, vinegar and guajillo chili), venison with yellow mole (245 pesos) and mango tacos with pear mousse (85 pesos) — that hue surprisingly close to tradition. For the full experience, go with the ever-changing six-course tasting menu (470 pesos). 9 p.m. 9. MAS MESCAL The best way to understand Mexico’s mescal tradition is to visit one of the many pelanques (mescal distilleries), like La Destilería Los Danzantes (Calle Pino Suárez s/n, Santiago Matatlán, Tlacolula; 52-951-501-1184; losdanzantes.com), outside Oaxaca City, though typically open weekdays only. In town, one-year-old La Mezcaloteca (Reforma 506; 52-951-514-0082; mezcaloteca.com) is a wonderful alternative. Run by a pair of maguey-obsessed Mexico City expats, this dark, signless speakeasy-style mescal bar feels like a library devoted to the study of Oaxaca’s prized beverage. Try uncommon varieties like the rare, wild agave tobala as part of a three-tasting flight (100 pesos). Across town, Cuish (Diaz Ordaz 712; 52-951-516-8791; mezcalcuish.net) is less studious, but equally passionate. Sunday 10 a.m. 10. BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS On an out-of-the-way stretch of residential street in the Reforma neighborhood, Casa Oaxaca Café (Jazmines 518; 52-951-502-6017; casaoaxacacafe.com), a luxurious outpost of the recently renovated and reopened downtown restaurant of the same name, is the go-to brunch spot for the city’s elite. This courtyard restaurant has wooden furniture, trees strung with vines and a bamboo canopy. Guayabera-wearing waiters float between the tables and the open kitchen delivering chilaquiles with guajillo (55 pesos), omelets with huitlacoche (corn fungus, 75 pesos) and mole empanadas (49 pesos). The fresh fruit juices and coffee are excellent. 12 p.m. 11. RETURN TO SENDER The city’s new stamp museum, Museo de Filatelia de Oaxaca (Reforma 504, 52-951- 516-8028; mufi.org.mx), is a fitting send-off. A recent exhibition featured bicycle-centric stamps from around the world, using bike rims as makeshift frames for international postal art. For a final stop, grab a nieve (snow), a generic word for frozen desserts, at another museum of sorts, the Museo de Nieves Manolo (Alcalá 706; 52-951-143-9253). Flavors include pistachio, cheese with basil and mescal (from 25 pesos). Enjoy your cone next to one of the twin fountains at Paseo Juárez, a leafy square with orange-flowered flame trees and a white oak donated by Oaxaca’s sister city, Palo Alto, Calif. IF YOU GO The year-old Diablo y La Sandia (Libres 205; 52-951-514-4095; eldiabloylasandia.com) has imaginative touches like glass-topped tables made from converted Mexican-style parillas (barbecue grills), a blue-tiled kitchen in the courtyard and a roof deck rimmed by potted plants. Five rooms, from $75. The 21 elegant, modern rooms (from $130) at the new Hotel Azul (Abasolo 313; hotelazuloaxaca.com; 52-951-501-0016) surround a stone-and-cactus courtyard and a fountain designed by one of Oaxaca’s best-known artists, Francisco Toledo.

Lost in Jerusalem

In fact, of all the world’s roughly 200 nations, there was only one — besides Afghanistan and Iraq (which my wife has deemed too dangerous) — that I had absolutely zero interest in ever visiting: Israel. This surprised friends and mildly annoyed my parents, who had visited quite happily. As a Jew, especially one who travels constantly, I was expected at least to have the Jewish state on my radar, if not to be planning a pilgrimage in the very near future. Tel Aviv, they’d say, has wonderful food! But to me, a deeply secular Jew, Israel has always felt less like a country than a politically iffy burden. For decades I’d tried to put as much distance between myself and Judaism as possible, and the idea that I was supposed to feel some connection to my ostensible homeland seemed ridiculous. Give me Montenegro, Chiapas, Iran even. But Israel was like Christmas: something I’d never do. Then, last fall, my friend Theodore Ross — author of the forthcoming book “Am I a Jew?” — suggested I see Jerusalem. And suddenly feeling life calling my bluff, I booked a flight. I’d spend six December days in the holiest place on the planet and, surrounded by the Old City’s 500-year-old stone walls and legions of Christians, Jews and Muslims, I would be the lone unbeliever, walking a tightrope between belonging and individualism, observing not necessarily my faith but the faithful. The Old City itself, however, turned out to be, at least in terms of geography and architecture, exactly the kind of place where I feel comfortable. Within those 40-foot-high walls was the dense warren I’d expected, laid out with seemingly no sense of order — or perhaps an order I couldn’t yet perceive. Either way, it was a visceral pleasure to master its paths, to dart down the covered, crowded market streets, past the char-grilled lamb-kebab shop (name? “Kebab Shop,” said its chef) and then up the easily missed stairs off Habad Street to the empty roofs above the market itself, where the noise of commerce barely filtered through. I loved the feeling of worn stones slipping under my sneakers, and the astringent smell of herbs as I passed Palestinian women selling bundles of sage near Damascus Gate. The boundary between the modern and the medieval was shaky here. Cybercafes were ensconced in cavelike nooks; market stalls sold plush rams, lions and donkeys (actually Donkey, from “Shrek”); Israeli soldiers lurked with their machine guns inside ancient fortified gates. And just as fluid — to me, if not to residents — were the lines between neighborhoods. I’d turn a corner and suddenly find myself in the new construction of the Jewish Quarter, where informational plaques spelled out the history of rebuilt synagogues. Another corner, and I’d wind up in the too-quiet Armenian Quarter, whose closed-off courtyards allegedly held networks of secret streets I’d never penetrate. My own secret hideout became the Austrian Hospice, a huge, mid-19th-century guesthouse visited by everyone from Franz Joseph I to the musician Nick Cave and whose unassuming ground-floor walls you’d pass right by unless you knew it was there. My room, up on the second floor, was a comfortably large space with black-and-white checkerboard floors, simple wood furniture and highly functional Wi-Fi. From its windows I’d gaze out at church towers to the west and — almost close enough to touch — the golden Dome of the Rock, reflecting the raw sun at midday and the moon at midnight. Every time I turned my key in the hospice door and ascended from the street, I marveled at my luck: The place had been recommended by a German doctor, Christoph Geissler, whom I’d met in the shared taxi from Tel Aviv airport. (When I asked his specialty, he’d told me, grinning, “I am anesthetized!”) The Old City did present one problem: I couldn’t get out of it. Not that I couldn’t find the way, but I kept getting distracted, and happily so. I’d come to this place to wander its winding streets without benefit of map or guidebook to let me know what was where, and every discovery of a world-famous landmark stopped me in my tracks. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher? Holy cow, it was right here, mere steps from the Kebab Shop, a vast, stern emblem of Christianity, with none of that Renaissance sentimentality that turns me off churches in Western Europe. A tumult of visitors swarmed through — Poles and Spaniards and Greeks and Ukrainians. They rubbed their scarves on the Stone of Unction where Jesus’ body was said to have been prepared for burial, and they lighted candles next to the sepulcher itself before immediately snuffing them out. Why? Tradition, they explained without elaborating. Nearby lay the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, now my favorite church in the world. Built at the very end of the 19th century, it is impossibly elegant and spare, all pale gray stone arches, with almost no ornamentation aside from small, jagged, brightly colored stained-glass windows. Several times I returned to the church just to ogle its curves, and once to attend Sunday-morning services — in unfamiliar Arabic. “All the languages are in God’s light,” said Rafiq, the old man who greeted me. Translation: Even if I didn’t understand the words, the meaning would filter through.