Travel

Oahu is Hawaii’s “gathering place” for good reasons which also make it the ideal four-night vacation destination for families who get bored spending an entire vacation inside a resort.

Having attended high school in Honolulu and lived in Waikiki, I have feelings for Honolulu and Oahu. Over the years I’ve returned a half dozen times and have visited some of the outer islands. But when I spend the time and money to visit Hawaii, my first choice is always Oahu — not Oahu the way most visitors experience it, but Oahu as experienced by a kamaaina — that’s Hawaiian for old-timer.

Oahu offers a richer plate of experiences than any of the outer islands, partly because it houses a city of nearly a million, including the lively Waikiki district, partly because it has a unique combination of street life, geographical features and climate the other islands can’t match. I know some people like to “get away from tourists” and end up spending their whole vacation holed up in Maui or Kauai. But take my word for it, Oahu is where the action is.

When I contemplate a Hawaii trip a long list of activities come to mind — gorging at Zippy’s, hiking through a rain forest to deep pools fed by a waterfall, enjoying the lonesome crystal waters and spectacular vistas of the windward coast, soaking up the atmosphere at old Haleiwa, body surfing on the North Shore, snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, seeing the Society of Seven at the Outrigger, joining the human river coursing through Kalakaua and Kuhio, exploring the colorful Asian eateries popping up all over Waikiki, dining at the hip new restaurants reinvigorating the old Chinatown section of downtown Honolulu, hiking out to the beautifully desolate beach at Kaena Point, and cruising around the island and through its rugged lush mountains.

The only way to work in the activities on that list is to rent a car, preferably an SUV, book a Waikiki hotel and a flight that gets into Honolulu by the early afternoon of Day 1 and flies out late evening of Day 5. That way you can fit five full day’s worth of activities into a four-night stay. This kind of a custom driving stay to Oahu is costlier than a tour package, but not too much more if you plan in advance and shop around for deals on air fare, car rental and hotel.

We took our latest Hawaii trip during spring break in mid-March. By booking early, we got a great deal on Hawaiian Airlines which flies the Airbus A330-200s with spacious, accessible 2-4-2 seating in economy class. Our fare limited us to a single carry-on suitcase each, plus a “personal item”, meaning a purse or a backpack. A $25 additional charge would have applied for each checked suitcase but — being practical travelers who didn’t expect a dinner invitation from the governor while in town — we had no trouble fitting the minimal wardrobe needed for a five-day Hawaii stay into a small carry-on suitcase.

Board your flight wearing running shoes (which you will need for hiking as well as to keep your feet warm during the flight, especially the one back) and carry a pair of comfy but durable sandals in your suitcase. Skip dress shoes. Wear a light windbreaker for those all-too-common showers or squalls, as well as to help you get some sleep on the redeye back. Pack six tee shirts, one for each additional day plus two more to change into. You will only need two pairs of socks. Wear a pair of long pants on the flight and carry two pairs of shorts plus, of course, your swim trunks. A pair of nice sweat pants and a long-sleeve shirt for sleepwear also come in handy. Don’t worry about gear for snorkeling or other activities. Quality equipment can be easily rented at very competitive rates.

The nice thing about Hawaiian’s A330-200s are the roomy overhead storage compartments that dispense with the need to scramble for storage space. Unlike many planes, the overhead bins can store three carry-on suitcases vertically above each pair of center-row seats. That third slot comes in handy because the overhead bins above the pair of window-row seats are shallow and can only hold one small suitcase sideways plus a backpack. You can also put a backpack or a small overnight bag under the seat in front of you.

Our Hawaiian flight left the gate at LAX at 10:35 a.m. on Saturday and arrived in Honolulu at around 1:10 p.m. local time (3 hours earlier than PDT) after a 5 1/2-hour flight. Getting there takes about 55 minutes longer than flying back because of the jet stream at the cruising altitude of around 40,000 feet. The resulting headwind varies by latitude. Flying in the westerly direction to Honolulu the headwind blows at around 70 mph at 32-degree N. latitude (Los Angeles) and weakens to 9 mph at 21-degree N. latitude (Honolulu).

The sense of having arrived in Hawaii hits you profoundly the moment you walk out into the open-air walkway for the long trek to the main terminal for the shuttle to the car rental facility. The temperature, humidity and constant cooling breeze in Oahu combine to make you feel as though Mother Nature is caressing you. If not for our compunctions about propriety, natives and visitors alike would happily go naked.

After about a two-minute wait on the center island in front of the terminal, the Dollar shuttle bus arrived for a four-minute ride to its bustling lot and outdoor rental counter. We had booked a Ford Escape or equivalent at the special rate of $35 per day but were told by the harried counter lady that no more Escapes were available. She suggested a few alternatives that sounded stodgier. They didn’t appeal to me, I told her. After some minutes of checking with staffers processing returns, she said a Jeep Wrangler was being washed. Fifteen minutes later we were delighted to drive away in a Wrangler Sport Edition with oversize wheels and a soft top that normally goes for $65 per day. Its rugged look and feel and arrogantly high seating instantly transformed us into adventurers in paradise.

For Angelenos used to endless gray freeway drives, Oahu’s scale is delightfully reduced. The entire island would fit inside Los Angeles County with room to spare. The drive from Honolulu International to Waikiki is only about five miles. After barely two miles on the H1 freeway we exited on Nimitz Highway, the main coastal surface road that takes you efficiently along the southern edge of Honolulu into Waikiki.

But just two miles from the freeway exit, on the southeastern edge of downtown Honolulu, we made a left into the Zippy’s at 666 Nimitz Highway. Zippy’s is the Islands’ ubiquitous fast-food/family restaurant chain. It offers Asian dishes like teriyaki, saimin, Korean barbecue, katsu and mahi mahi along with American staples like chili, hamburgers, pastrami and spaghetti. Whatever plate you order comes with a scoop of rice and a scoop of macaroni salad.

The chain has added a bakery annex called Napoleon’s which offers some Asian-flavored pastries (red bean buns, for example) as well as typical American-style donuts, buns and tarts. When I was going to Honolulu’s McKinley High, the Zippy’s on King Street used to be a favorite after-school snack stop. Over the years I’ve stopped eating most of the dishes I loved as a teen, but the restaurant exerts a powerful sentimental pull, making at least one Zippy’s stop mandatory per Hawaii trip.

Chungmuro, a street in downtown Seoul a half mile east of Myeong-dong, will become a Korean pop culture theme street under a $20 million project announced by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The street will be remodeled after Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame and Hong Kong’s Star Street.

Chungmuro has been associated with the film industry since 1907 when it became the site of Korea’s first movie theater. It was considered home to the Korean film industry until the past decade when most of it migrated to the newer, more upscale Gangnam district south of the Han River.

Plans call for the entire 800 meter (1/2 mile) length of the street to be lined with stars’ name plates, hand prints, movie posters, memorabilia collections and several exhibition and experience spaces. By combining hi-tech capabilities with cultural history, the Ministry hopes to turn Chumgmuro into an immersion experience into the Korean Wave and not merely a backdrop for tourist snapshots.

The plans also call for transforming the surrounding neighborhood — which has fallen into slow decline — into a revitalized mecca for publishing and popular culture. An agreement with the owner of Myungbo Art Hall calls for the 23,000-square-foot theater to be converted into a “Korean Wave experience center” that will house a museum, bookstore, cafe and shops. Other venues like the Dongguk University Media Center and the Freedom Center on Namsan will also be included as stops on the Chungmuro Korean Wave theme street. Nearby Korea House in Pil-dong, which has long been a mandatory stop for foreign dignitaries, will be spruced up and repositioned as the venue for Korean cuisine and traditional culture for Chungmuro visitors.

The Ministry had also considered COEX, a large-scale modern convention center in Gangnam, for the project. It chose Chungmuro because it is less than a mile from other major tourist attractions like the vibrant Myeong-dong fashion district, lush Namsan Park and the Cheonggye Stream public space.

“Chungmuro has the cultural assets of film and song, while Myeong-dong is the heart of shopping and design,” said a Ministry official. The Chungmuro neighborhood also has other cultural venues like the Namsangol Hanok Village and the National Theater of Korea. The Daehan Theater has been a Seoul landmark since 1955. Today it is a 9-story entertainment complex with eight screens, an extensive food court and a rooftop cafe.

About $4.5 mil. is slated to be spent on construction next year. The project is scheduled for completion in 2014.

From flapper costumes to swing dance contests and whiskey-soaked cocktails, Atlantic City is going retro, embracing the Roaring ’20s in a big way.

It’s a new strategy to attract new business by invoking the round-the-clock party vibe of a bygone era and cashing in on nationwide interest in the hit HBO show “Boardwalk Empire” about Prohibition-era Atlantic City.

Casinos are dressing workers in period costumes, serving drinks from the speakeasy era, teaching jazz and swing tunes to entertainers and sponsoring dance contests like the Lindy, the Charleston and the Shimmy.

Resorts Casino Hotel, whose hotel was built in the 1920s, re-branded itself in a Roaring ’20s theme. Caesars and Bally’s Atlantic City held ’20s-themed events, and their parent company is considering sponsoring a “Boardwalk Empire” tour of Atlantic City, featuring the real-life spots where political and rackets boss Enoch “Nucky” Johnson held court and partook liberally of the shore town’s vices — most of which he controlled, as well.

For 30 years, until he was finally sent to prison in 1941 for tax evasion, Johnson dominated Atlantic City, then one of the nation’s leading resorts. He controlled not only the Republican political machine that had a stranglehold on government, but also made sure illegal liquor, prostitution and gambling operations flourished under the protection of paid-off officials.

“If you came to Atlantic City back then, it was non-stop partying and entertainment and fun,” said Dennis Gomes, the new co-owner of Resorts, who hit on the Roaring ’20s theme last summer, before the purchase even became final. “It was a major party environment, a backlash against Victorian conservatism. It was a fun time.”

And a time people want to return to, it seems.

“Things were rockin’ down here,” said Don Marrandino, eastern regional president of Caesars Entertainment, which owns Caesars, Bally’s and two other Atlantic City casinos. “We need to get that back.”

Indeed, they do. Atlantic City has been taking a beating the past four years, ever since the first casinos opened in the Philadelphia suburbs in November 2006. Since then, the nation’s second-largest gambling market has lost nearly a third of its business, falling from $5.2 billion in casino revenue in 2006 to $3.6 billion last year.

And the competition keeps coming. Pennsylvania and Delaware casinos started offering table games last summer, competing even more directly with Atlantic City. Maryland opened its first casino last fall, and a new casino is to open at New York City’s Aqueduct Racetrack this spring, which will siphon off even more of Atlantic City’s customer base.

The challenge is to attract more business to the seaside resort, and going back 90 years in time to do it seems to be the prevailing consensus at the moment.

On Saturday night, Bally’s held a swing dance contest as part of the Roaring ’20s craze, where the contestants had to wear ’20s-era outfits.

“The music and the fashion of that era was the ultimate,” said one of the contestants, David Lochner of suburban Philadelphia. “Clothes looked much better. People got all dressed up.”

His partner, Sascha Newberg, said the dancing of that era required much more involvement than it does today.

“You meet so many different people, and everyone has their job and their role, with all the moves,” she said. “Instead of just sitting in a bar smoking, you have a real social interaction. A lot of people know nothing about this kind of music or dancing. It’s like looking at a rotary phone and hearing it ring.”

On New Year’s Eve, Resorts dressed six of its cocktail servers in flapper costumes, with black sequined headbands and feathers tucked inside, strands of pearls cascading down one side. A strolling violinist in a zoot suit greets arriving gamblers in the lobby, a singing bartender is memorizing all the top hits of the ’20s. Most of the casinos workers will don those costumes for good when Resorts has its grand re-opening around Memorial Day weekend.

When “Boardwalk Empire” debuted in September, Caesars erected a giant billboard with the show’s logo in its lobby, and it quickly became one of the most photographed spots in Atlantic City.

Bally’s painted murals of ’20s-era bathing beauties on its Boardwalk facade, and started a self-guided walking tour of “Boardwalk Empire”-related spots.

And casinos throughout the city offered food, drink and hotel promotions geared to the series, like hotel rooms (long-since sold out) for $19.20 a night, dinner and buffet specials for the same price, whiskey-based drinks straight from the show, and even old-fashioned straight-razor shaves in a barber shop chair, just like those Nucky Johnson used to enjoy.

“People dig knowing where all those characters went and what they did,” Marrandino said. “This thing is hot right now.”

Cafes mushrooming across Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi seek to create unique identities by offering everything from virtual golf to cat menageries, according to Vietnamnet.

At Ho Chi Minh City’s Café Screen Golf on Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street you can play virtual golf on over 30 Korean golf courses thanks to a giant 3D screen and a motion-detection setup that projects the trajectory of the golf ball from your swing onto an image of the course you choose. Café Screen Golf has three rooms that cost costing VND200,000-400,000 (US$10-20) an hour. Coffee starts at VND18,000 (US$ 80 cents).

L’usine on Dong Khoi Street in downtown HCMC is a French-style bistro that features paintings by contemporary artists and a selection of designer clothes from London, Paris, New York and Tokyo as well as fresh sandwiches and home-style cakes. It attracts a mostly female clientele.

Men are more likely to be found at iLounge café on Pham Ngoc Thach Street near the city center. Along with treats like chocolate iLoungue and Hawaii coconut juice starting at VND16,000 (US$ 80 cents), the café services Apple products like iPad, iPhone, and Macbook. Clients can surf the web using its wi-fi connection while sipping something at a 10% discount while their iPhone is being fixed.

Iceland Coffee across from Thong Nhat Park features classified ads for restaurants for sale along with a broker who can help you buy and sell restaurants. The café is also appealing for its unhindered view of the Dao Duy Anh-Le Duan- Dai Co Viet- Giai Phong junction and is an ideal spot for watching holiday fireworks.

Hanoi’s Ailu Café was started by a 20-year-old woman to offer cat lovers a place to bring their cats or to just pet the menagerie of stray cats assembled there. If you like one, you can adopt it. To faciliate better interface with felines, Ailu is furnished with low Japanese-style tables and floor cushions on the wood floor.

Unlike most of Japan, Hiroshima doesn’t shy from its wartime past.

This bustling port city, the target of the world’s first atomic bomb attack in 1945, made itself the main exhibit this weekend at an annual gathering of Nobel Peace Prize laureates — dedicated this year to abolishing nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima often links events it hosts to its tragic history, such as a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum earlier this year. It is bidding for the 2020 Olympics with Nagasaki — the other Japanese city hit by an atomic bomb — under a “Festival of Peace” theme.

Elsewhere in Japan, discussions of World War II are often tinged by guilt or nationalism. Tokyo’s only major museum on the war is housed within a controversial war shrine. Even Nagasaki typically takes a more subdued approach.

Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba has increasingly circumvented Japan’s national government as a global movement against nuclear arms gains momentum.

He leads “Mayors for Peace,” with 4,300 member cities worldwide, and declared his city part of the “Obamajority” after the U.S. president’s Prague speech last year in favor of denuclearization.

“We are at the position where we can proceed from the city level and galvanize this trend,” he said at the Asia-Pacific forum.

With its A-Bomb Dome, a burned-out building from the attack that has been preserved, and sprawling Peace Park at its center, the city is a symbol of the dangers of nuclear weapons.

Japanese survivors gave heart-rending testimony at the weekend gathering of Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the first time the summit was held outside Europe.

“The significance of being in Hiroshima is that we are here, where for the first time in history an atomic bomb was dropped, where hundreds of thousands of people were killed and seriously injured and maimed for life,” said Frederik Willem de Klerk, the former South African president who won a Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for his efforts to end apartheid.

Overseas visitors to Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Museum have roughly doubled over the last 10 years to about 160,000 per year.

The museum’s exhibits were altered in 1991 in part because some were considered too gruesome. Items on display include preserved scar tissue from radiation victims and a set of stone steps with the outline of a man who was incinerated in the blast.

But with the increasing interest, a plan is being considered to make them more vivid again.

“There is a feeling that the exhibits became too clean,” said museum official Shoji Oseto.

Hiroshima’s most powerful message comes from the survivors of the attack, known as “hibakusha” in Japanese. Most don’t discuss their experiences openly, but those that do retell them repeatedly and have been dubbed “special communicators” by the current Japanese Cabinet.

After children gave the Nobel laureates colorful origami cranes at an opening ceremony on Friday, hibakusha Akihiro Takahashi took the stage and told how he watched friends die and made his way home through charred corpses as a schoolboy after the atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945.

Some members of the press corps were moved to tears, and the English translators at times choked up and lost the narrative.

As the survivors get older, efforts are being made to introduce them to as many audiences as possible.

“Unfortunately we don’t have much time. If we lose this opportunity, we lose a vital part of the Hiroshima legacy,” said Yoshioka Tatsuya, founder of an organization called Peace Boat that has sailed hibakusha to various ports around the world.

Within the city, memories of the devastation fade with each generation. Authorities are trying to educate children, busing students to the Peace Park each year and sending special teams of educators to schools in the region.

“In Hiroshima we are all educated about peace,” said Maria Inoue, 16, who skipped school to attend the Nobel peace conference. “This is how it should be in all of Japan.”

Today, it’s a sprawl of luxury vacation homes where Egypt’s wealthy play on the white beaches of the Mediterranean coast. But 2,000 years ago, this was a thriving Greco-Roman port city, boasting villas of merchants grown rich on the wheat and olive trade.

The ancient city, known as Leukaspis or Antiphrae, was hidden for centuries after it was nearly wiped out by a fourth century tsunami that devastated the region.

More recently, it was nearly buried under the modern resort of Marina in a development craze that turned this coast into the summer playground for Egypt’s elite.

Nearly 25 years after its discovery, Egyptian authorities are preparing to open ancient Leukaspis’ tombs, villas and city streets to visitors — a rare example of a Classical era city in a country better known for its pyramids and Pharaonic temples.

“Visitors can go to understand how people lived back then, how they built their graves, lived in villas or traded in the main agora (square),” said Ahmed Amin, the local inspector for the antiquities department. “Everyone’s heard of the resort Marina, now they will know the historic Marina.”

The history of the two Marinas is inextricably linked. When Chinese engineers began cutting into the sandy coast to build the roads for the new resort in 1986, they struck the ancient tombs and houses of a town founded in the second century B.C.

About 200 acres were set aside for archaeology, while everywhere else along the coast up sprouted holiday villages for Egyptians escaping the stifling summer heat of the interior for the Mediterranean’s cool breezes.

The ancient city yielded up its secrets in a much more gradual fashion to a team of Polish archaeologists excavating the site through the 1990s.

A portrait emerged of a prosperous port town, with up to 15,000 residents at its height, exporting grains, livestock, wine and olives to the rest of the Mediterranean.

Merchants lived in elegant two-story villas set along zigzagging streets with pillared courtyards flanked by living and prayer rooms.

Rainwater collected from roofs ran down special hollowed out pillars into channels under the floor leading to the family cisterns. Waste disappeared into a sophisticated sewer system.

Around the town center, where the two main streets intersect, was the social and economic heart of the city and there can still be found the remains of a basilica, a hall for public events that became a church after Christianity spread across the Roman Empire.

A semicircular niche lined with benches underneath a portico provided a space for town elders to discuss business before retiring to the bathhouse across the street.

Greek columns and bright limestone walls up to six feet high (2 meters) stand in some places, reflecting the sun in an electric blue sky over the dark waters of the nearby sea. Visitors will also be able to climb down the steep shafts of the rock-cut tombs to the deeply buried burial chambers of the city’s necropolis.

It is from the sea from which the city gained much of its livelihood. It began as a way station in the coastal trade between Egypt and Libya to the west. Later, it began exporting goods from its surrounding farms overseas, particularly to the island of Crete, just 300 miles (480 kilometers) away — a shorter trip than that from Egypt’s main coastal city Alexandria.

And from the sea came its end. Leukaspis was largely destroyed when a massive earthquake near Crete in 365 A.D. set off a tsunami wave that also devastated nearby Alexandria. In the ensuing centuries, tough economic times and a collapsing Roman Empire meant that most settlements along the coast disappeared.

Today, the remains of the port are lost. In the late 1990s, an artificial lagoon was built, surrounded by summer homes for top government officials.

“It was built by dynamite detonation so whatever was there I think is gone,” said Agnieszka Dobrowlska, an architect who helped excavate the ancient city with the Polish team in the 1990s.

However, Egyptian government interest in the site rose in the last few years, part of a renewed focus on developing the country’s Classical past. In 2005, Dobrowlska returned as part of a USAID project to turn ancient Marina into an open air museum for tourists.

It couldn’t have come at a better time for ancient Marina, which had long attracted covetous glances from real estate developers.

“I am quite happy it still exists, because when I was involved there were big plans to incorporate this site in a big golf course being constructed by one of these tycoons. Apparently the antiquities authorities didn’t allow it, so that’s quite good,” recalls Dobrowlska.

Redoing the site is part of a plan to bring more year-around tourism to what is now largely a summer destination for just Egyptians — perhaps with a mind to attracting European tourists currently flocking to beaches in nearby Tunisia during the winter.

Much still needs to be done to achieve the government’s target to open the site by mid-September, as ancient fragments of pottery still litter the ground and bones lie open in their tombs.

But if old Marina is a success then similar transformation could happen to a massive temple of Osiris just 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, where a Dominican archaeological team is searching for the burial place of the doomed Classical lovers, Anthony and Cleopatra.

“The plan is to do the same for Taposiris Magna so that tourists can visit both,” said Khaled Aboul- Hamd, antiquities director for the region.

These north coast ruins may also attract the attention of the visitors to the nearby El-Alamein battlefield and cemeteries for the World War II battle that Winston Churchill once called the turning point of the war.

In fact, there are signs the allied troops took refuge in the deep rock cut tombs of Marina, just six miles (10 kilometers) from the furthest point of the Axis advance on Alexandria.

Crouched down awaiting the onslaught of German Gen. Rommel’s famed Afrika Corps, the young British Tommies would have shared space with the rib bones and skull fragments of Marina’s inhabitants in burial chambers hidden 25 feet (8 meters) below ground.

Visitors have long come to the hilly Southern California hamlet of Ojai to get stuffed with the Pixie tangerines grown as a specialty in the area’s citrus groves.

Now they’re coming to get scrubbed with them too.

The Ojai Valley Inn and other spas across the country are cashing in on the craze for locally grown fruits and herbs by integrating them into skin treatments and massage therapies.

Customers say they like knowing they’re supporting small, local farms and appreciate the freshness of the items used.

“When they put this stuff on, I can smell fresh juice,” said Ojai Valley Inn guest Julia Pizzinat, 70, who had the 50-minute, $145 Pixie Tangerine & Pomegranate Scrub, which uses halved tangerines as applicators for a sugar-based exfoliant. “It’s not like something that’s been made in Milwaukee and sent out in crates.”

Guests’ greatest demand used to be for treatments employing exotic ingredients from far-off places, such as heavily perfumed body creams from Europe, spa managers said. But over the past few years, the local food movement firmly entrenched in the nation’s pricier restaurants has spread to spas.

Treatments using products from local farms are a niche offering, so their sales haven’t been separately tracked. But spa managers say guests are increasingly opting for such luxuries.

Atlanta-based spa consultant Mark Wuttke said demand is being driven by a desire for a unique experience tied to a spa’s location.

“People are looking for a more authentic experience,” he said. “People don’t necessarily want to have the same experience in Florida as they have in New York as they have in California as they have in Dubai.”

He cautioned, however, that spas using locally grown ingredients risk disappointing guests who expect to get the same services year-round. Most crops grow only part of the year.

“There are seasonal variations,” Wuttke said. “I can offer it today, but if you come back in six months’ time, you might not be able to have that because it’s no longer available.”

Emily Walker, who manages the Spa Hotel Healdsburg in California’s Sonoma County, said using local ingredients fits with the ethos already embraced by many wine country visitors.

One of her spa’s treatments features a salve of wine and honey from the nearby Quivara Vineyards. Another uses a massage oil made with the same locally grown Meyer lemons found on the spa restaurant’s menu.

“We sort of carried it over because the climate here in wine country is ‘farm-to-table,’” Walker said. “So now it’s ‘farm-to-spa.’”

The Aspira Spa in western Wisconsin, meanwhile, designed some of its treatments around the elderberries that grow naturally on the surrounding plains, but not in great enough quantity to make all the ointments and creams slathered on guests.

The spa had been importing elderberries from a farm in the Pacific Northwest, but recently contracted with the nearby Stoney Meadow organic farm to grow the berries, along with lavender, rosemary and other herbs, said Lola Roeh, general manager of the Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake, which houses the spa. A 65-minute Elderberry Facial there costs $190.

“In the restaurant, our pork comes from a farm that’s 10 miles away. Our beef comes from another nearby organic farm,” Roeh said. “This is really part of the whole resort.”

Stoney Meadow owner Andrea Levsen said spa sales are helping her business, which she otherwise runs on a community supported agriculture model, in which consumers pay upfront for regular shipments of produce during the growing season.

“I think it does aid the CSA mission,” Levsen said. “The mission of the CSA was to help families be healthier, to help families have access to healthier food. (The spa business) allows us to put more money into the farm here.”

At Friend’s Ranches in Ojai, which began selling Pixie tangerines to the Ojai Valley Inn this spring, the owners were surprised to find their fruit was being used in spa treatments.

“I thought it was kind of silly,” said Emily Ayala, who owns the farm with her family. “As a farmer, you’re growing food and sometimes you think it’s wasteful when people don’t use your food to eat. I didn’t know that people rub themselves with a tangerine.”

But that skepticism turned to delight when online orders for the Pixies spiked.

“It gave us another level of exposure with customers who otherwise might not have tried the tangerine,” Ayala said.

If that daydream of summertime Europe has ripened to perfection, there’s no better way to squeeze out maximum juice than a road trip. With any ground invasion of Europe the first decision, of course, is what to do with France.

Four-fifths the size of Texas, France is the unavoidably broad waistland (not wasteland, mind you) between Spain and Britain to the west and Germany, Switzerland and Italy to the east. It is the heart of any route both coming and going. So a two-week loop that doesn’t demand non-stop driving is dictated by what part of France matters to you. If it’s Paris, your northern terminus will likely be London, Amsterdam or possibly Frankfurt. If it’s the warm south, you will probably draw the line at Lyon or Geneva and focus on Provence, northern Spain and northern Italy.

Having seen plenty of Paris but not enough of Provence on a prior trip, we opted for a southern loop that would take in northern Spain, northwestern Italy and the western tip of Switzerland, along with the attendant crossing and recrossing of Provence and the Riviera.

We knew that too much time lying on even the loveliest beach or strolling that same timeless promenade once too often can be a form of torture. On the other hand, fatigue can dull the senses as a road trip nears the end of the second week. All in all, we decided to err on the side of feeling rushed and fatigued rather than rested and bored. We spaced each day’s drive to allow long lunch and afternoon stops when both energy and light are abundant. As seasoned road trippers know, many of the most memorable stops aren’t towns located at the correct intervals or boast great or even very good hotels.

We began and ended our loop in Barcelona, with nights in Montpelier, Cannes, Genoa, Geneva, Avignon, Toulouse, San Sebastian and Zaragoza. We front-loaded the two-nighters to Cannes, Genoa and Geneva on the belief that they were worthy of extended stops. We were wrong about Geneva, but more on that later.

You might also want to check out my Tips for Hassle-Free Driving in Europe.

We detected no ill will on account of our Asian faces. Even the remotest small towns and expressway service areas held only friendly natives. Asian Americans seem to comprise a high percentage of Americans traveling in Europe. Many waiters and clerks assumed that we were Americans rather than from Asia. We didn’t see many tourists from Asia but we did run across several Asian American groups, including an entire busload at the excellent Las Palomas buffet in Zaragoza, Spain.

Asian restaurants and merchants abounded in nearly every city. Near Genoa’s Via Soziglia three of the four boutiques we entered were operated by young Asians. Sushi, Chinese and Indian restaurants were commonplace, even in districts catering mostly to locals. On Barcelona’s crowded Ramblas and in Geneva’s hotel district a third of restaurants were Indian or Indian-operated. We ran across Vietnamese and Korean restaurants in the most unlikely places. Very late on a stormy Monday night in Cannes — despite our resolve to eat as native as possible — the most appealing restaurant we found open was a sleek sushi bar with a menu that included traditional Korean dishes.

At least as evidenced by eateries that abounded in our favorite destinations, the European diet is heavy on bread and starches and light on protein, veggies and calcium. By the time we left Europe our fingernails had turned brittle. We might also have been suffering from scurvy if we didn’t make a late push to order big salads as a main course at least one meal a day. Europeans skimp on greens on dinner entrees and on vegetarian pizzas, paninis and pastas.

The other problem, of course, is the overabundance of patisseries, boulangeries and gelaterias. And those starchy and sweet snacks and desserts tend to get washed down with rich coffees loaded with calcium-depleting caffeine. We eventually stayed away from the bread provided with each meal and made a point of picking up a quart of milk and fruits from a market before retiring to the hotel. At the hotel breakfast buffets we made sure to fill up on milk, yogurt, eggs, juices, fruits and veggies as preparation for a day of tourist food.

There are some compelling reasons for not driving in Europe.

The trains are clean, comfortable and efficient. The historic quarters of most European cities are within walking distance of train stations. Pricey gas, extortionate tolls and stiff parking rates make driving much more costly than in the U.S. Those accustomed to gracious U.S. roads find most European streets cramped, confusing and nerve-wracking.

But if you abhor the thought of being trapped on a rail car or tour bus for long hours, a car is the only way to see Europe. The lure of the open road is no less powerful in Europe than in the States. In some ways, it’s even more irresistible. Once you’ve driven through a few dozen American states, the next bend is less likely to yield a breathtaking scene than on a continent chock full of unfamiliar sights.

Here’s an account of our 14-Day Road Trip through Southwestern Europe

The first decision is the starting point for your loop. London, Paris, Nice, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid and Barcelona are some obvious choices. We chose Barcelona because it seemed the ideal entry point for a loop enclosing Europe’s seductive southwest. The city is served by frequent flights from a dozen North American cities. Being near the western end of the Continent, there is minimal overlap between air miles and road miles. Barcelona International Airport is ultra-modern, efficient and located barely 15 minutes southwest of the city’s throbbing heart. For a seaside city, Barcelona streets are surprisingly orthogonal and spacious, allowing a relatively painless transition from driving an SUV through suburban avenues to maneuvering a compact stick shift through tight European streets.

The next decision is the car. Barcelona International Airport offers rentals by familiar U.S. names like Hertz, Avis and Dollar. It also houses three European rental firms most Americans wouldn’t recognize. We chose Hertz and made an online reservation for a subcompact Toyota hatchback that we figured would be just big enough to carry the three of us and a couple of suitcases. One reason: European gas goes for the equivalent of about $6.50 a gallon (at $1.22 for a Euro). The more important reason was our memory of Europe’s tight alleys and parking spaces. And we opted for a stick shift. Not only did it cut the rental fee by about 15% but it saved about 10% on our fuel consumption.

After making the initial reservation, we opted to add a GPS unit (which Hertz calls NeverLost) for about $100 more. We did not regret this decision. NeverLost is far from perfect, especially in one-way city streets or near recent construction. The system is also vulnerable to fading out in long tunnels and while driving through narrow streets hemmed in by tall buildings. But on average the GPS more than paid for itself by saving us a precious 30-45 minutes per day of wrestling with road maps. But be prepared for times when you must disregard the urgings of the British-accented female voice in order to get past points of confusion. It’s a good idea to prepare at least one address for each specific destination you want to explore each day. The unit’s Points of Interest feature doesn’t kick in until you are only a few miles from a destination city.

The total rental tab for two weeks, including the portable GPS unit, was quoted at $648 plus tax and gas. When we arrived red-eyed and jetlagged at Barcelona the Hertz counter clerk easily upsold us on a $120 upgrade to a BMW 318 diesel stick. We never regretted the upgrade, especially while speeding through the Alps in heavy rain at night. And on frenetic city streets the sporty handling kept driving a pleasure by adding much needed muscle to cut through swarms of aggressive European drivers and bikers, especially negotiating those ubiquitous rotaries (“roundabouts” to our NeverLost unit). And the efficient little diesel engine probably kept our €310 total fuel tab from being about 15% higher. And it was neither noisy nor air-fouling like the diesels I had come to detest in decades past.

One of the more shocking aspects of European driving are expressway tolls. Most Europeans don’t take their cars on extended road trips. Those beautifully surfaced, epically scenic expressways are being financed by the relatively small number of affluent natives and foreign visitors who drive rather than train. This fact is much apparent in the startling contrast between the big prestige cars and SUVs that zip along expressways and the comically small minis and scooters that crowd city roads. And in fairness our loop included many of the most affluent and tunnel-riddled mountainous regions of Europe: From Barcelona along the Costa Brava to the French Riviera, Monaco and into prosperous northwestern Italy, through the Italian Alps to Switzerland, down the French Alps through the heart of the ancient Roman outposts of Provence, then on to Biarritz and San Sebastian on the Basque Coast, then back across northern Spain through Pamplona and Zaragoza back to Barcelona.

We did intercity driving on 9 of our 13 1/2 days in Europe, averaging about 240 expressway miles per day. Our tolls averaged €37 (about $46) per day. On one memorable mountainous leg between Genoa and Geneva, we were forced to cough up about €88 ($107) on tolls, including an eye-popping €35 for a single 15-mile stretch on a long tunnel on the Italian side of the Alps as we approached the French border. Then there was the €40 for a windshield sticker to drive on Swiss roads. It took me a few days to understand that constantly rummaging pockets and purses for Euro coins isn’t a practical way to appease the half dozen toll booths (péage in France, peaje in Spain, caselli, in Italy) we encountered on an average day. We began using our U.S. credit cards. They were randomly rejected, however, at some unmanned toll booths in southern France and Italy, then worked fine on other booths in the same countries.

As with most U.S. toll roads, only a few of the pay booths are for drivers without automated fast-pay devices like Telepass or pre-paid cards. It’s awkward and embarrassing to pull through to an automated booth, then back up a hundred yards against oncoming traffic to sidle over to a manned booth or one equipped for currency and/or credit cards. Most longer inter-city stretches start by dispensing a time-punched ticket, then charge at the exit based on distance covered. In more densely populated regions in which the cities are closer together (the French Riviera, for example), a series of toll booths charge smaller (€0.95 – €4.50) fixed amounts on a pay-as-you-go basis. A small mound of pocket change should be kept handy for those booths since at off-peak hours you may not find any manned booths that take cards or make change.

If you are considering routing your driving trip to avoid toll roads, don’t. You will likely spend three times as long to cover the same distance. Remember you are paying thousands just to fly to Europe and thousands more for hotel rooms. That comes out to forty, fifty or more dollars per waking hour. It doesn’t make sense to torture yourself for many of those hours fighting traffic along confusing local roads. Seen in that light, tolls are a bargain. During our entire 2,000-mile loop we were able to access picturesque, even quaint, towns via expressways. If anything, the expressways will give better access to relatively unspoiled places than heavily-used local roads.

Expressway speed limits vary between 70 kph (about 45 mph, usually on winding roads with frequent fog, rain and/or wind or through construction zones) and 130 kph (about 81 mph). Generally speed limits stay between 110 and 120 kph (69 – 75 mph). Don’t be fooled by the lack of patrol cars on the expressways. Fixed and mobile cameras are used for enforcement along many stretches, especially approaching windy downhills or tunnels. Our GPS system provided speed limits and alerted us of approaching speed cameras. Unfortunately, it provided speed limits that frequently differed from those posted along the road (rendering the speed-camera alert tones frequently meaningless and annoying), subjecting us to passing by baffled and irate drivers. However, I did see the enforcement camera flash popping for two cars that passed us.

Most expressways, even in seemingly remote areas, offer commercial service areas (“Aires” in French) every 20 kilometers like clockwork. Each one has a gas station, restrooms and a coffee shop/restaurant/convenience store. A series of signs provide advance notice of upcoming service areas. Most gas stations require you to pay inside the store though advance payment is not generally required before fillups. If you are driving a diesel, make sure you pull up to a pump meant for passenger cars as some islands are equipped with larger gauge nozzles for trucks.

There are also public rest areas at somewhat longer intervals for bathroom breaks. Small turnouts at strategic intervals also let you stop to walk off drowsiness or just to enjoy the view.

Fortunately, none of these areas require you to exit the expressway with the attendant hassle of coughing up an increment of toll.

European expressway drivers universally see the left lane as a passing-only lane. If you dawdle there after passing, cars behind you will pointedly tailgate until you move back over. Even if you are intending to pass another slow truck a quarter mile ahead, you are expected to scoot back to the right lane. The car that passes you will itself immediately scoot back over, allowing you to overtake it and the truck. Apparently Europeans enjoy great sideways mobility, maybe as a way to break the monotony.

Aside from the constant nuisance of toll gates, expressway driving takes very little adjustment. In-city driving is another matter. One big reason are the rotaries that comprise many if not most intersections. Unlike the sober 4-way intersections in which cars stop, then take turns crossing and making left turns, rotaries are dynamic, harum-scarum affairs in which drivers are guided only by aggression, reflexes and survival instinct in entering and exiting the circular flows of traffic. On my earlier trip I had concluded that rotaries work based on aggression and accommodation. Take any small gap between cars as an invitation to plunge in. Then keep an eye out for anyone who might have to cut you off to exit. Once you get used to rotaries, they seem like a fun and elegant solution to the problem of intersectional traffic. And you will be able to join wholeheartedly in the annoyance reserved for those tourists who come to a dead stop at rotaries while awaiting an engraved invitation to enter.

On my most recent trip, I have noticed that some big, busy rotaries in Spain are equipped with traffic lights — which seems like a contradiction. Even so, they are marginally more efficient than the orthogonal 4-way intersections here in the States. If you miss an exit to leave a rotary, keep circling until you come back to the correct one. Do that as many times as you need while studying the jumble of arrows pointing out various destinations.

Some towns in Spain have begun using right-half-rotaries as a way of eliminating the need for left turns on major thoroughfares. Rather than making a left, turn out and around the half-rotaty to position yourself to cross the thoroughfare directly. Many French towns (Avignon, for example) seem to have dispensed with left turns entirely, requiring you to make a series of rights instead, without the benefit of half-rotaries.

The sheer number of buzzy little scooters and motorbikes swarming around you to the front of the line at every stop can be annoying and distracting at first. They are the most numerous on Italian streets, though a fair number are seen in France and Spain as well. You will soon get used to the fact that scooters expect cars to cede the front of every intersection and even to sidle over a bit to allow them to squeeze between lanes. Their smaller carbon footprints give them something like moral entitlement to preferential status.

Virtually all parking in places you are likely to visit will require payment, regardless of whether it is on the street or in a parking structure. The rates vary greatly, however. The lowest rate I recall is €1 for two hours in San Remo, Italy, during a dinner stop on the way to Genoa. The highest I paid is a staggering €5 (about $6.10) per hour at a train station in Montpelier, France where we parked as a last resort after spending an hour in search of space near its overcrowded entertainment district. Most touristy historic districts of cities like Barcelona, Torino, Lyon, Antibes, Monte Carlo or Avignon run about €1.50 – €3 per hour, with no apparent reduction for staying longer. Quite the opposite — the hourly rates sometimes get higher the longer you stay. Overnight parking at hotels can be free in some smaller towns up to €24 in big cities. Hotel parking lots often have security gates at night, requiring you either to use your room key (Novotel Cannes) or buzz the front desk (Hotel San Sebastian).

Street parking requires you to look around for the nearest timedate meters (horodateurs in France), black boxes mounted on a pole bearing a white “P” inside a blue square. Even in busy historic districts of cities like Lyon or Torino most meters don’t take credit cards or even paper Euros, only coins. Use the button with the up arrow to increase the amount of time you want to buy in 15-minute increments, then press the green button to accept. The meter tells you how much coinage to drop in. Don’t forget to take the ticket and put it on your dashboard. In some smaller towns you will not have to pay after a certain time (usually 5 or 6 p.m.) on weekdays and all day on Sundays.

Bangkok city officials say they are humbled and inspired after receiving Travel + Leisure magazine’s “Top City” award, despite recent street riots that sent tourists packing.

Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra told a news conference that the award offers a morale boost to the battered capital and called on political protesters to behave themselves. The recent political upheaval prompted dozens of international travel advisories and emptied hotels.

“What we have in our hands is very precious,” said Sukhumbhand. “We must prevent troubles and any more losses from happening in our beloved city. We should not damage it any further.”

A grenade explosion Sunday in a central Bangkok shopping area killed one person and wounded 10. Authorities have declined to speculate if it was politically related.

The No. 1 ranking in the magazine’s top 10 cities list appears in the August edition of Travel + Leisure, which was based on a poll of readers who cast votes from December to March to rate their favorite cities, islands, hotels, airlines and other categories. Nearly 16,000 readers participated. The polling stopped a few days before civil disorder erupted in Bangkok that lasted 10 weeks and ended May 19 with nearly 90 dead and 1,400 hurt.

During the chaos, several top hotels and upscale department stores closed because they were surrounded by thousands of anti-government protesters. Dozens of buildings were damaged or burned as the protests were broken up in a military crackdown.

Nationwide hotel occupancy in May — the end of tourism’s high season — was 32 percent, down 10 percent from the same period last year, said Prakit Chinamornpong, president of Thai Hotels Association.

The Bangkok governor visited New York last week to pick up the award from the magazine’s publishers and said he met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and asked for advice about New York’s post 9-11 recovery.

“‘Bad things happened, but we must move forward. We can’t stop. We must keep up the morale.’ That’s what Mayor Bloomberg told me,” he said.

New York City ranked 10th among favorite cities in the poll. Second was the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, followed by Florence, Italy; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Rome.

Bangkok also was the top city in 2008.