TIFF sends star-studden Toronto Ritz-Carlton hotel to the front of the line

Four Seasons' loss is the Ritz-Carlton's gain.

Not only did Yorkville in general get hammered when the Toronto International Film Festival pulled up stakes for the Lightbox down in the Entertainment District, so did the area's hotels. The Four Seasons, which, in fairness, has seen better days and is being replaced with a new one down the road, is no longer at the epicentre of the kissy-kissy set. Ditto for the Hyatt at University and Bloor and its famous rooftop lounge; still one of the great places for a drink in this city.

A story in USA Today's Travel section, which quotes a piece in something called TheWrap.com out of Hollywood, says the recently opened Ritz-Carlton on Wellington is stealing the show.

Apparently George Clooney and Glenn Close and Ryan Gosling have been dashing about the lobby of late, watched by legions of fans no doubt.

Writing at TheWrap.com, reporter Sharon Waxman started a recent story with the words, "It’s midnight in Toronto and there’s a whole new power landscape on the back patio of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. It never used to be here, but all of a sudden it’s the place where Glenn Close is snuggling up to her daughter at the post-premiere of her movie, “Albert Nobbs,” with director Rodrigo Garcia.

Outside, the entire senior management of Summit Entertainment – Robbie Friedman, Patrick Wachsberger, Erik Feig et al – is having a drink but there’s no tables left so they have to stand."

Aw, poor babies.

Just for fun, I went on the Ritz-Carlton website and seemingly found a room for tonight for $650. It sounds like a lot, but if you're a big movie fan it might be worth it.

Anyway, it's fun to watch things shift around. Which is the point of cities, really. Neighborhoods rise up from nowhere like Yorkville and become ultra-chic, then grow into middle age and watch the trendy types flock to more exciting bars and restaurants.

Not that Yorkville is doing all that badly. Reports indicate the stars aren't around, but I was at Hemingway's a couple weeks ago and the place was hopping. I'm sure the restaurants will survive, too. Maybe they could drop their prices a little, too? Nah, never happen...

 

No Sex for New Zealanders, Florida travel jump, What was Depardieu thinking?

Couple short things for today that caught my attention between painting my fences in the backyard...

First, why is the guy from New Zealand Telecom apologizing for a clever campaign surrounding the coming Rugby World Cup? In an item I spotted on TravelMole, it seems that Telecom Corp had planned to launch an ad campaign next week that featured such slogans as "abstain for the game," a fake plea to garner support for the All-Blacks during next month's tourney, which will go on for several weeks.

The New Zealand Herald did a poll and found eight per cent of folks supported the idea, which is higher than I would've thought. Apparently it was an on-line poll as 92 per cent of folks hit a button that said, "No, are you kidding?"

New Zealand Prime MInister John Key called it a waste of money and Telecom chief Alan Gourdie admitted that the company had misread the public mood (missed it by that much, you might say). He announced the campaign was cancelled and apologized for any offence it caused.

A marketing person in New Zealand told the NZ Herald the campaign was "a bloody embarrassment. The rest of the world will take the piss out of us. This will be much better sport than the rugby. It's inexplicable."

Offence? My God, people, get a life. I would've expected the Kiwis to handle things, so to speak, with a bit more humour. Agence France Presse reported that fans of the South African Springboks team posted an item on the Internet to say they were "just happy for the sheep."

Ouch.

AND I THOUGHT OVERHEAD BIN HOGS WERE BAD...

We often complain about people engaging in poor behaviour on an airplane; lowering their seats at supersonic speed, hogging overhead bins, jumping up and dialing their cellphones when the plane has barely hit the tarmac. Yeah, you know who you are.

But now comes something a lot worse. A lot worse. It seems actor Gerard Depardieu has admitted to sitting on a CityJet flight from Paris and, wait for it, peeing into a bottle.

The flight is said to have not reached the runway as it prepared for takeoff, and Depardieu apparently couldn't wait. Not to gross anyone out, but it seems his aim wasn't quite true and some liquid spilled onto the carpeting of the plane.

Yuck.

He had the good sense to apologize and no charges were pressed. I don't know, maybe the Screen Actors Guild has introduced mandatory drug testing and he had to provide a quick sample?

The incident caused a series of jokes. One headline said the French actor had a "oui problem," while a strangely giggling Anderson Cooper said he thought Depardieu liked to fly "Incontinental" airlines. (Incidentally, what on earth is wrong with Cooper in that tv bit? Yikes; the guy just loses it).

CityJet put out an item on Twitter (you can find them @cityjet) and talked about how they were busy mopping the floor after the incident.

It's all quite sad for Depardieu, who will never live it down. But you really do wonder what would've happened if you or I had done something like this. An accepted apology and a seat on the next plane to Dublin? I don't think so.

FLORIDA TOURISM JUMP

The Palm Beach Post reports that Florida tourism increased 7 percent this spring over last year; a bit of good news in a gloomy economic period. A report released Wednesday by Visit Florida found an estimated 21.2 million travelers visited the Sunshine State during the second quarter of 2011, including 2.2 million tourists from overseas – a 17 percent increase in that category. Canadian visits increased by 18 percent.

"Obviously we're very pleased with these numbers," said Chris Thompson, president and CEO of Visit Florida. "I think we are seeing pent up demand and people wanting to do the things they used to do before the economic problems."

ON A VERY SERIOUS NOTE

Very scary stuff in Thailand, where six people died in the lovely resort town of Chiang Mai earlier this year. The BBC is reporting that the Thai government says an investigation has "suggested a link to toxic chemical exposure."

A five-month investigation by Thai authorities with the help of the World Health Organization (WHO) followed but a report on Thailand's Department of Disease Control on Tuesday said the exact toxic agents could not be identified, the BBC report said.

"But an investigative report by a New Zealand TV station reportedly found traces of a toxic insecticide - chlorpyrifos - used to kill bedbugs in the room where (a) New Zealand tourist had stayed."

What's truly frightening is that this could happen to any of us, almost anywhere. I mean, avoiding suspect-looking street food is one thing, but who on earth suggests toxic chemicals in a hotel room?

 

 

 

 

 

Qantas's questionable programming: the female orgasm at 36,000 feet

At the risk of sounding like a Tea Party person from Ohio, I have to wonder about this.

The Daily Mail in the UK has a fun item about how Qantas has been including a TV show about female orgasms as part of its on-air entertainment programming. It's said to be a little bit on the graphic side now and then, with snippets from old porn films (hopefully vintage ones that are more like burlesque than something along the lines of Deep Throat).

The film, which was (figures) made in France, is said to be aimed at helping viewers "understand the intricacies of the female orgasm."

Qantas spokesman Luke Enright told the Daily Mail the program was the most popular on its TV channel and would continue to be screened until November.

Sounds intellectually quite interesting, and probably of considerable help to those of us heterosexual males of the married persuasion. But I don't know about showing it on an airplane, even if there's a warning given before people push the button, so to speak.

Like I said, I'm not a prude. But I really wouldn't want my six-year-old, if I had one, to be sitting next to a guy watching the show. It's one thing to be handing out pyjamas in biz class, but raincoats?

I was once on a flight and got an upgrade to business class and watched a Mexican movie that sounded racy but fine. Pretty soon there were naked bodies all over the place (well, not really, but a couple) and some fairly graphic stuff going on, and I had to close down my tv screen and point it away from other passengers for fear of being extremely embarrassed.

(I seem to recall a conversation once with a Toronto sports writer who had talked to a member of the Philadelphia Phillies back in the 1990s and how the player had said he would openly read pornographic magazines on an airplane, which is a pretty stupid and remarkably insensitive, even for someone from Philadelphia.)

Anyway, it's always interesting to get into airplane etiquette. It never ceases to amaze me how people can be so callous and forget the rules of basic decency by slamming back their seats or trimming their nails or playing obnoxiously loud video games, such as the guy two seats from me did on my way back from Jamaica last month.

I read a couple of interesting items in USA Today Travel this week, as well, about how folks who dress up a little get more upgrades at the airline counter, and at hotels. Which makes sense. I don't mind someone wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt on a trip to the Caribbean, but I've never understood people who wear tattered, old clothes on a flight from Toronto to, say, New York or Los Angeles. You don't have to get dressed up like Don Draper or anything, but a nice pair of pants and a shirt surely isn't too much to ask.

Don't even get me started on those teenage girls who were wearing pajamas on board planes a few years ago. Arrrggggghhh.

 

 

Fabulous Jakes at Treasure Beach, Jamaica...Also Dougie - and the Pelican Bar

TREASURE BEACH, JAMAICA - Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I hadn’t made up mind on where to spend my final day in Jamaica. So, a few weeks ago I put out a note on Twitter asking for help. Sure enough, someone sent me a note and suggested I try a hotel on the south coast called Jake’s, in the community of Treasure Beach.

What a find. It’s a real, well, treasure that most definitely has a sense of place. It’s quite casual, with a small lobby area in an old wooden house and colourful furnishings. The rooms are a hodgepodge of styles; mostly stucco with wild, creative designs that use everything from conch shells to old bottles. They also have spacious patios and outdoor showers and, in some cases (mine, for one), an outdoor bath.

I had a unit called Octopussy 2 with a fabulous, Moroccan-style rooftop patio with blue and white striped chaise lounges. Old tree branches were used to create a bit of a canopy for shade over the lounges and also were stuck in the ground upright between units for a privacy screen.

I loved the outdoor rainfall shower, which gave me a great view of the ocean about 10 feet away. Ditto the bath, as I rarely bathe in an old-fashioned claw tub steps from the surging Caribbean. I was in the shower when a small boat went by a couple hundred meters off shore, and all I could do was wave.

They have a great restaurant on site and dining is either under cover or on a patio shaded by giant almond trees and bougainvillea and other tropical plants and with a nice view of the saltwater pool and the ocean. They also own the funky Jack Spratt’s next door, which serves up seafood and pizza in a place that's decorated with reggae memorabilia. I had a pizza with jerk sausage that was easily the best pie I’ve eaten outside Naples. Not too spicy but wonderful and smoky and a pretty good crust.

The woman who designed most of the resort is Sally Henzell, who was the art director for the classic Jamaican film The Harder They Come. Her late husband, Perry, who attended McGill University for two years, was the director, and her son, Jason, pretty much runs Jakes and also is building a massive sports complex nearby for the community, partly with the help of Canadian government funding (for which he is very thankful, by the way).

It’s wonderful and quiet and remote – about two hours down a mostly crummy road from Negril or two and-a-half hours from Montego Bay. There are colourful fishing villages nearby, and a couple decent beaches with ramshackle, colourful bars.

Oh, I almost forgot the legendary bar on the property, Dougie’s. It’s manned by the affable and talented Dougie, who’s been there for decades and makes a fabulous rum punch. And, thanks to some kids from Kentucky at the resort on Friday night, he knows how to dance "The Dougie." More on Jake’s to come in the pages of Star Travel, for sure.

If you’re so inclined, you can pay $20 and get a guy to take you out in a small boat for the 20-minute ride to the Pelican Bar, a famous spot made up of old driftwood and boards that sits on a reef about a kilometer from the shore, near the town of Black River. It’s a great place to stand around in the surf and suck back a Red Stripe, and you’re sure to meet some interesting folks. If nothing else, you can sign the giant Canadian flag inside or check out the Manitoba and New Brunswick license plates above the bar.

On our way out to the bar, a huge kingfish jumped out of the water and arced through the warm Caribbean air like a basketball shot. It had a good two or three-second hangtime and had to have sailed 30 yards in the air. Even our seasoned boat pilot, Captain Joseph, was hootin’ and hollerin’ about it.

I got a kick out of the drive down to Treasure Beach from Negril and from Treasure Beach back to Montego Bay, as we passed colourful posters tacked to telephone poles for India trips, exotic dance halls and beach parties. One of them read “Wet Dreams – All White Beach Party.” I never did get the bottom of the poster, but it sounded pretty crazy.

I also marvelled at the shacks at the side of the road that have been turned into small businesses. Great names, too, like Tingling’s Market. Clive and Judith’s Beer Joint and First and Last Cook Shop.

If you don’t use up your camera’s memory card in places like this, you’re not trying.
 

Beautiful new hotel in Vancouver this week ... Winter the Dolphin Movie on way

I had a chance to tour the Rosewood Hotel Georgia in Vancouver in June while it was under reconstruction. I came away hugely impressed with the restoration work and the old-time style, combined with many new and modern elements.

Rooms are in fairly neutral shades, as is the norm these days, but with some nice, bright additions (see photo at left).

Originally opened in 1927, it was something of a revolution in terms of opulence and style for Vancouver. Over the years, such names as Ginger Rogers, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones have stayed there.

They just finished a four and-a-half year renovation, managed by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, and it's set to open July 15. Officials say the hotel has one of the world's largest private collections of Canadian art. There also are some very cool spaces, including a restored "Spanish Ballroom" and a lovely pool complex on the roof that looks wonderful.

It's located in the heart of downtown Vancouver, near many shops and close to the waterfront.

WINTER THE DOLPHIN

Thanks to Mary Haban at St. Petersburg/Clearwater tourism for filling me on the coming movie "Dolphin Tale."

I hadn't heard the story, but apparently back in 2005 a porpoise was found in a crab pot and lost its dorsal fin. it was all but certain to die, but was rescued and sent to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

A character who builds prosthetic devices, played by the wonderful Morgan Freeman in the movie, was enlisted to make a prosthetic dorsal fin for Winter.  It worked, and Winter (played by himself in the movie, by the way) lived to tell the tail tale. Apparently he also has gone through five prosthetic tails over the years.

Heart-warming stuff, although possibly a little over the top for some movie-goers....

Anyway, it comes out Sept. 23 and also has Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr. in it.

"The great thing is Winter still lives with us in Clearwater, so people can go see the movie and then come to Clearwater and see Winter in person," she said.

Haban tells me the Clearwater facility is being given a good makeover, including a new dolphin pool complex and a large expansion of the sea turtle rehabilitation facility.

Clearwater remains one of the great beaches of Florida and is, of course, hugely popular with Torontonians. The Blue Jays play their spring training games in nearby Dunedin.

 

 

 

 

A little bit of Massachusetts and a bigger bit of (scary) Morocco on tap for today

A brief session with the folks representing Massachusetts Tourism on Thursday. The state's been on a role roll for quite a while, what with all the movies featuring the state: The Fighter, The Town, Social Network, and more.

The Fighter apparently has helped turn Lowell, Mass. from an industral town in something of a tourist centre. Boston was doing fine without The Town and we suspect Cambridge does okay, even with The Social Network, but it doesn't hurt to have an aggressive state government pitching their product and reeling in Hollywood movies. Don't forget The Perfect Storm was based out of a Massachusetts fishing village, as well.

I've been to Cape Cod, Nantucket (a great place, see photo) and Boston, which I sometimes prefer to New York because it seemed more manageable in size. But it's been quite a while.

Ron D'Amico from the Connelly Partners was telling me about all the wineries (30-odd), foodie spots, fishing villages and, yes, ski hills his state has to offer. I didn't know, but apparently some of the Berkshires (which I only know about from James Taylor's song Sweet Baby James) are as high as 6,000 feet. Pretty impressive.

D'Amico said the state tourism folks are big into social media (fitting, with The Social Network, I guess) and that the Mass Insider page on Facebook has all sorts of deals, but you have to go in and say you "like" the site. They also have a Twitter handle, @visitma, and there's lots on their website,  massvacation.com (nice name).

D'Amico said the Boston Film Festival goes in early May, while there's one in Provincetown in summer and on Martha's Vineyard in September.

On a more exotic front, here's a file from Morocco from Star Travel columnist Bert Archer....

Dakhla, Morocco – We were far away from most things, in the part of Morocco referred to on many maps as Western Sahara out of respect for the separatist feelings among many of its residents. We were there for the Dakhla Festival, a cool combo of music and surfing, with a camel race tossed in for good measure.

It was the second last day of the fest. Ivorian reggae star Alpha Blondy was in the house, which in this case meant one of the tents set up for participants along the beach on this peninsula of sand jutting out from the very bottom of Morocco. So were any number of surfers – kite, wind and regular – taking time off from the regular circuit to take in a bit of Africa.

We were at the Hotel Doumss [http://fr-fr.facebook.com/hoteldoumss] in downtown Dakhla [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakhla,_Western_Sahara] -- a newly developing city, the beneficiary of King Mohammed VI’s nation-wide investments in tourism and culture -- and had asked organizers if we could spend a night with the big boys in Tent City. They said we could. But when our driver showed up about an hour later, she was in a panic. “Are you ready?” she asked quickly when she saw me in the lobby. I was in the middle of tweeting something or other about the city or the helicopter ride I’d just taken, and I told her I would be in a second. A second was no good. “No. Now!”

We were hustled into her car and driven, fast, out of town. Apparently, there were riots. And with every café’s TV screen turned to Al Jazeera’s coverage of what was happening in Libya, playing and replaying the few bloody close-ups they had, every one was a little nervous. Was Morocco rising against its king? Was this happening all over the country, or just in wee little Dakhla, population a little under 100,000?

She didn’t know. And now that I’d lost my hotel’s WiFi connection, I couldn’t find out.

When we got to the WiFi-less camp, the surfers were huddled around various energy drink kiosks mumbling and speculating. Our driver, a PR person for the festival, said it was probably just kids on drugs. When someone with a smartphone came up with pictures of a car on fire, it became obvious it was something more than that. But that turned out to be one of the only posts on the subject. News dried up, and even those with smartphones were in the dark.

As afternoon turned to night, I heard that all the journalists in town for the festival had been rounded up and brought to the camp. I was told it was for my own safety, but when I asked to go into town that evening to see for myself what was going on and offered to absolve them of their responsibility for my well being, they refused. The same thing happened the next day, when, after a few hours of peace (during which I made it briefly into town [http://twitter.com/#!/bertarcher/status/41968352997933056], the military barricaded part of the city, ostensibly to prevent any more violence. I went to the gate of the tent city to hop a ride into town, and was asked if I was a journalist. I said yes, and they refused to let me pass.

Now, there are worse places to be stuck. There was a tea tent, and the place was lousy with wet surfers. But the camp was on edge, the officials already formulating their defenses of the king and attacks on whomever the rioters might turn out to be in scattered conversations with surfers and journalists. Over the course of the two days, the rioters transformed from kids on drugs to the Sahrawi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahrawi_people] to foreign agitators back to kids on drugs. Spontaneous outpourings of support for the king were frequent. Still not completely clear on what was happening, the director cancelled the last day of his festival. People hung out, Blondy played to his captive audience that evening as I watched the big stage erected for the week’s concerts being dismantled in town (I’d finally managed to hitch a ride when the military had begun withdrawing that evening).

As it turned out, it was – probably – a fight between people in different neighbourhoods, possibly started by a slap in the face and fuelled by internecine disdain between Moroccans and the Sahrawi people, whom one Arab Moroccan cab driver described to me as “dark and unemployed.” It had been brewing for two days, and apparently only became a real problem when the already tense police and military intervened.

The violence turned out to be isolated, and though there remained rumours of a death and a rape, things went back to normal, and some journalists who’d been expecting to file stories on the re-birth of windsurfing as a possible sign that 90s nostalgia had truly taken hold ended up with a little personal insight into just how nervous people in Morocco are these days.

 

Vienna Philharmonic makes a rare visit to Toronto, with Atom Egoyan on hand

Star guy Adrian Brijbassi took in a performance of the amazing Vienna Philharmonic on the weekend. Here's his report.

Atom Egoyan and his wife Arsinée Khanjian were among the concertgoers treated to a rare and remarkable performance by the Vienna Philharmonic at Roy Thomson Hall on Sunday afternoon. The orchestra’s first appearance in Toronto since 2006 was also its only Canadian date on a six-city, eight-show North American tour that began on Feb. 25.

Conductor Semyon Bychkov, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, led the musicians through a stirring interpretation of three master works: Franz Schubert’s “Symphony No. 2 in B-flat Major”, Richard Wagner’s epic “Tristan and Isolde” and Bela Bartok’s sublime “The Miraculous Mandarin.”

“The Wagner was just fabulous,” said Egoyan, director of “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Ararat.” 

Khanjian, a Genie Award winner, said the entire show “was like poetry.”

Considered one of the world’s finest orchestras, the Vienna Philharmonic features the best of the best of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. Once accepted into the Philharmonic, the musicians are in for life.

The concert brought out classical music fans, including several visitors from Austria. Among them was Astrid Pockfuss of the Vienna Tourist Board, who is in town for a brief stay to promote her beautiful city. Along with the ever-present markets and coffeehouses that Vienna is famed for, Astrid says there’s a growing arts and club scene.

The Viennese are also looking forward to celebrating a couple of milestone birthdays next year. Gustav Klimt would have been 150 in 2012 and his most famous work, the oft-imitated “The Kiss”, will be the key part of a series of exhibitions looking at the artist’s work and influence on Europe’s modernist movement around the turn of the 20^th century.

The other big anniversary will be celebrated by the same group of men (and one or two women) who just wowed Toronto. The Vienna Philharmonic turns 170 in 2012 and while the musicians tour often, seeing  them in their hometown would be sweet.

And speaking of sweet, the much-loved Sachertorte made it from Vienna, thanks to the Hotel Sacher, and was served at a post-concert reception at Roy Thomson. If the music, art, culture and history of Vienna don’t convince you to go, this decadent dessert just might.

 

Top travel bargains include Mexico, Ireland...Golden Globes travel deals!

Max out your cash in Mexico. Invest in Indonesia. And get your way to Greece.

Tim Leffel, who wrote a book called The World's Cheapest Destinations: 21 Countries Where Your Money is Worth a Fortune, is echoing a point I've made in the past (and many, many others have made, of course), which is to say that so-called "trouble spots" are often some of the best travel deals around.

Leffel singles out Mexico, saying that many folks have avoided the entire country because of drug and crime issues along the border. Not to cover up the country's troubles, but avoiding Cancun because of problems in Tijuana is kinda like skipping Seattle because of gang trouble in Reno, Nevada.

There have been isolated problems in tourist areas, but the point Leffel is making is that there are great bargains to be had in Cancun or Cabo San Lucas. Probably Cozumel and Mazatlan, too. "There are so many rooms they are trying to fill, so every week there are unbelievable deals." Look for interior cities, too, he says. www.visitmexico.com

Also on Leffel's list:

NEPAL - "fascinating cultural tours out of Kathmandu...(with) fully outfitted whitewater rafting trips...at less than $50 a day." www.welcomenepal.com

 

GREECE - The protests and strikes, compounded with the recession that has cut the number of European visitors, means there's excess capacity now, USA Today reports in a story on Leffel's advice. He's quoted as saying that Greece is "hurting for business and rolling out the discounts." www.visitgreece.gr

INDONESIA - "It's a whole chain of islands and it's got everything; beaches, diving, mountains and culture." http://www.indonesia.travel/

HONDURAS - "First-class diving and Mayay ruins," Leffel says. www.letsgohonduras.com

HUNGARY - "All the charm of its western neighbors at lower costs." They haven't adopted the Euro, and the currency has dropped against the American dollar. Leffel suggests skipping Budapest and trying cheaper digs in Hungary's wine country. www.gotohungary.com

ETHIOPIA - "Incredible ruins and scenery" and a currency that dropped nearly 30 per cent against the U.S. dollar in 2010. www.tourismethiopia.org

THE USA - Leffel says to look for deals in cities hit by a drop in convention business, such as Orlando and Las Vegas. Good advice, for sure, in places that normally have pretty competitive rates. Good for Canadians, too, given the fact our dollar IS ABOVE PAR AGAINST THE AMERICAN GREENBACK, and how often do we get to say that? www.discoveramerica.com

VIETNAM - Once again, somewhere where the American dollar - and presuming the Canadian with it - gained value last year. "Whether you're a backpacker looking for a $5-a-night flophouse or a high-end visitor seeking a luxury hotel, you'll find bargains here," Leffel advises. www.vietnamtourism.com

IRELAND - Economic troubles and a slew of new hotels means travel deals for 2011, Leffel advises. I made my first trip there in April of last year (see photo of right of the lovely coast of Donegal) and fell in love with the people, the scenery, the castles and the overall atmosphere. The cities also are awesome; Dublin, sure, but also Belfast in Northern Ireland with great restaurants, wonderful architecture and, yeah, a couple of nice pubs. www.discoverireland.com

UNUSUAL CRUISE DESTINATIONS? YOU CAN ADD LIBYA TO THE LIST

Here's a cruise you can write home about. Crystal Cruises, according to USA Today, is going to begin stops in Tripoli, Libya; a first for the 22-year-old company.

"The luxury line says the 1,080-passenger Crystal Serenity will visit the Libyan port of Tripoli during the vessel's 11-night "Italian Splendor" voyage from Venice to Barcelona that begins Nov. 16. The voyage also includes calls in several Italian ports including Naples, Civitavecchia (for Rome) and Livorno (for Florence) as well as Dubrovnik, Croatia," Gene Sloan wrote on the USA Today travel site.

The city was founded by the Phoenicians back in the 7th century and has some cool architecture and wonderful archaeological sites.

READY FOR SOME HOLLYWOOD? CHECK THESE L.A. BARGAINS FOR THE GOLDEN GLOBES

Yeah, it's probably hard to find a cheap hotel in LA when the Oscars are on. But apparently it's not bad for the Golden Globe Awards. CheapOair.com says they found a slew of good spots in western LA, in or near Hollywood, for reasonable prices. Among their recommendations are the W Hotel Los Angeles in Westwood Village (my former home when I was at UCLA way back when, and still a great part of LA for stargazing, a little bit of space and, wait for it, actual places to walk and shop and eat without needing a car!), for $188 a night, the Omni Los Angeles Hotel California Plaza (downtown) for $135 and the Grafton on Sunset (West Hollywood) for a very good price of $177 per night.

Downtown LA has come a long way, with plenty of good restaurants and shops and lots to do, even if you are a good half hour from the beach. West Hollywood is known as the gay capital of southern California and probably is more in line with what Canadians would want to see and experience in a trip to so-Cal, with tons of nightclubs and restaurants and funky shops and colourful characters. Like Scarlett here. I'm not saying you'll run into Scarlett Johansson, pictured here at left in a rather modest dress from the 2006 Golden Globe Awards, I do believe. But there's a chance you might see that guy who was the third dude from the left in line at the grocery store in some really horrible episode of Three And A Half Men (as opposed to the funny, intelligent, well-written episodes, I mean).

 

 

 

Good time to book spring flights...Porn/tech groups jack up Vegas hotel prices

There's a very solid recovery in the Canadian airline business these days, with very nice numbers being posted in stock reports and other documents by Air Canada, WestJet and Porter.

The talk is that Canadians aren't going to get very many deals this summer because demand has rebounded and airlines don't feel the need to do deep discounts. So it might not be a bad time to think about a spring vacation, when flights could be cheaper than when the kids are out of school.

Air Canada sent out a note this morning advising of a 30 per cent off deal for Tango and Tango Plus fares for select North American flights, with flights available until June 26 (right about the time school ends). Flights have to be booked by Jan. 10, however, so you might need to get to work right away.

AC also has its worldwide sale still on, but the sale ENDS TODAY and is valid only for flights until April 20.

I checked out a fictional flight this morning on Air Canada and found a roundtrip Toronto to Los Angeles (see photo of Santa Monica beach) flight for April 22-29 for $473. Not rock bottom, but decent. And just fyi, late April is usually a nice time out in southern California.

PORN/TECH CONFERENCES MERGE TO DRIVE UP VEGAS PRICES

Wow. Make all the jokes you want, and I will, but it's pretty scary to see what's happening in Vegas this week. USA Today reports that a room at the Riviera hotel, near the convention centre, is going for $621, while next weekend, with the plumbers or just plain old visitors like you and me hanging about, it drops all the way down to $51.

The story is similar in other parts of town, with hotels that have been going for less than $100 suddenly demanding - and getting - $500 a night. But, then again, name two industries with as much oomph behind them as tech and porn, which pretty much go together when you think about how much sexual material is viewed on the web and all that.

Anyway, it's probably a bad day for booking a last-minute, weekend fling in Vegas. But if you love tech gear and want to check out the latest tablet that someone thinks will challenge the iPad, or if you enjoy gawking at women of a certain type (see photo of the porn convention at right) and if you have a friend who doesn't mind you sleeping on the couch, give it a shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calistoga, California: the anti-Napa that's part of Napa. Does that make sense?

CALISTOGA, Calif. - What a great town.

I'd known a little bit about this little town at the north end of the Napa Valley for quite some time. My great aunt lived many years in Calistoga, and I'd spent the odd part of a day in town. But I'd never spent the night until this past weekend.

I booked two nights at the Mount View Hotel, a fun spot on the main street, Lincoln Avenue (how American is that?). I had one night in a cottage room with a hot tub on the patio and the other in a balcony suite overlooking the action.

It's a great town, with wooden storefronts like an old movie set and a great mixture of trendy and traditional, with more traditional than trendy from what I could see. The apple and parsnip soup at Jole restaurant, attached to the Mount View, is terrific, as is the duck confit. Solbar at the Solage Restaurant was particularly outstanding, with an elegantly casual decor and monstrously good local food; ranging from perfectly seared bass to local lamb. The salad was quite inventive: escarole and red endive with pears, prosciutto, caramelized honey and a pear-verjus dressing. And there's an outstanding wine list, not surprisingly.

I did the tourist thing and took the ski-style tramway up the hill from the valley floor to the winery at Sterling. The wine's okay and the tram is kinda silly, but the views from the patio are perfectly wonderful as the north end of the valley is more closed-in than the southern part of Napa and you great views of forested hills and craggy hilltops.

I didn't go in, but there were hundreds of folks outside Castello di Amorosa winery, taking snapshots and gawking at the faux-Italian castle architecture. The "castle" comes complete with turrets, a drawbridge and, apparently, a torture chamber. They say it took more than a decade and many million dollars to build. I would imagine the wine is a bit of an afterthought, but I"m sure they'd disagree.

More to my liking, and thanks to T'Anne Butcher at Wine Sensory Experience (a great way to spend a couple hours learning about wine, by the way) for the tip, was Vincent Arroyo. It helped that winery worker Ted Wiebe (I hope I spelled it right!) is from WInnipeg, but I LOVED their Petite Sirah and other red wines, and they've spent all their money on the product and not on the decor, which is a good thing if you want value and not entertainment. It's well worth looking for the place, or making an appointment.

I also checked out the Old Faithful Geyser nearby, which is actually pretty decent. And I had to stop by Chateau Montelena, perhaps the most famous winery in these parts.

It's a beautiful old stone structure on a hill at the north end of the valley, complete with an Asian garden out back. But it's not a tourist trap by any means. Wine afficionados or movie fans might recall the recent flick Bottle Shock with Bill Pullman. It's the story of the famous Paris wine tasting of 1976, when French wine judges did a blind tasting of French wines with upstart California wines - and gave top prizes to the California stuff, including Chateau Montelena's 1973 chardonnay.

It set off something of a revolution in wine circles, one that's still being felt today. It's a decent if not great movie, and it's a fun place to stop and taste some wines. Be warned, however, that most of them are in the $50 and up range. It's not a bargain spot, but when you take on French burgundies and win you can't be expecting $15-$25 bottles, I guess.

Calistoga is definitely part of the Napa Valley, tucked in at the far northern end. But it feels more like funky Sonoma to me, and that's a good thing. Much less crowded than most of Napa, and much more relaxed, with food and wine that's just as compelling as the more trendy spots down the road in St. Helena or Yountville.

More to come in the pages of Star Travel.