Most visitors to Paris go with a list of recommended restaurants, but I thought ITN readers would like a list of wonderful wine bars, part of the true Parisian experience. I visited all of the wine bars listed below from January to September 2009, most several times.

Reporting on the prices is somewhat of a problem. For years, the tax on restaurant meals was 18.6% while the tax on fast food was just over 5%, which led to riots in the streets, literally, with chefs in white toques...

I went off on Sept. 22, 2009, with my new luggage, an Eagle Creek Tarmac 22, expecting the carry-on piece to stay with me throughout my trip to Edinburgh and England. I travel light and never check my bag.

On the very first flight, aboard a United Skywest Airlines plane, the overhead could not accommodate my carry-on. The crew had to remove my luggage and utilized their “à la carte” service, meaning the bag would be made available to me on the tarmac upon arrival. The very same thing...

My wife, JoAnn, and I have taken many cruises but never one on any of Europe’s rivers, so when we saw that Uniworld (Los Angeles, CA; 800/733-7820) had introduced the 160-passenger River Beatrice in March ’09, with 7-night cruises along the Danube, we decided to go.

Our primary reason was it was a new ship which called at three favorite cities we hadn’t seen in years: Budapest, Vienna and Salzburg. In addition, the River Beatrice visited Bratislava in Slovakia; Melk, Dürnstein and...