Food & Wine

We are fortunate to have an Air France flight available from Philadelphia to Paris. Taking advantage of the irresistible advance-purchase fares offered in May ’06, we flew Philadelphia-Bordeaux that November, from Philadelphia to Amsterdam that December and Philadelphia-Nice in March ’07. Our most recent Air France flight, to Paris, was in March ’08.

Air France’s Airbus is comfortable, clean and well equipped. The individual entertainment systems offer a variety of eye- and ear-catching choices.

by Richard Berner, San Diego, CA

On the day after Christmas 2007 we were in Brest, France, and found many of the restaurants closed for vacation. After a little searching, we found Les Caudalies (1 rue Malakoff, 29200 Brest), a 36-seat neighborhood/family restaurant.

Once we were seated, the host/waiter/owner brought the menu, written on a small chalkboard and listing four starters and five entrées.

The piéce de résistance of our October ’07 trip to INDIA was a stay at Jim’s Jungle Retreat (Village & PO Dhela, Ramnagar - 244715, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India; phone +91 5947 238038 or 238039, fax 5947 251636, www.jimsjungleretreat.com).

Opened in 2006 at the southern edge of Corbett National Park & Tiger Reserve, it’s situated far enough from the public road that you don’t hear foot traffic, horns or any sounds of civilization, only bird calls, elephants trumpeting and (if you are lucky) the roar of a tiger.

In Malta, the Marina Hotel (Tigne Sea Front, Sliema SLM15, Malta; phone 00 356 2133 6461, fax 2133 0650, www.themarinahotelsliema.com) is a family-run hotel that offers sea-view rooms, which, while not luxurious, have all you need plus wonderful views of Valletta across the bay. Ask for an upper floor to avoid street noise. We enjoyed room 305 on our 6-night visit in May ’07.

Here are recommendations from a November ’07 trip to the Campania area of ITALY.

My wife, Bonita, and I along with another couple in early 2007 booked the trip “Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords” with Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA) for January ’08. Since we all are wine lovers and enjoy Chilean wines, we also booked the pre-trip to Chile. But the pre-trip included only one winery visit, so I worked out several days on our own in Chile to visit more of the wine country.

Colombia has a reputation as a potentially dangerous destination, but I felt no uneasiness when walking around the old walled city of Cartagena for five days in January ’08.

Steve Cole, Lowell, MI

“Wow! They’ve cloned Ricardo Montalbán,” my wife, Sharon, exclaimed the first time we emerged from our hotel onto the streets of Santiago’s upscale Providencia area.

On FRANCE, December ’07-January ’08. . .