Continental holidays by rail from London

A VILLA IN PROVENCE
The journey: now here’s a thing. Provence is, as anyone who’s made the mistake of driving there knows, a long way away - but, if you hop on a morning train from London, you’ll only just have time for lunch before you step off in Avignon. The journey time is just 6hr 10min, which includes a simple cross-the-platform change in Lille. Sorry if we’re being effusive, but that’s a marvel.
The fare: from £109, booked direct with Eurostar (0870 5186 186, http://www.eurostar.com/ ).
The holiday: it’s tempting to stick around in Avignon itself, wandering the superb Papal Palace and the clutch of excellent museums huddled inside the 14th-century ramparts - but we’re here for the Provençal good life, so it’s off to the hills.
Tucked away in the craggy countryside of the Dentelles de Montmirail, Les Ramiers fits the bill. It’s a smart four-bedroom place with a pool - new but traditionally built, with tiles, beams and, on the walls, some decent pieces by the artist owners.
The village of Le Barroux is nearby, with a good local restaurant and a 12th-century chateau. Les Ramiers sleeps eight comfortably, and prices start at £1,195 for a week in June, with Vintage Travel (0845 344 0433, http://www.vintagetravel.co.uk/ ).
You’ll need a car: Carrentals.co.uk will do you a couple of littlies for £134 each for a week, picked up at Avignon station. Tot it all up and eight of you have a week of gorgeousness for less than £300 each, without setting foot in an airport. Not bad.

WALKING IN THE ALPS
The journey: 7hr from St Pancras to Geneva. The 8.32am from London will see you safely into the Swiss city by 4.35pm, so you’re in the hotel with time for a snooze before dinner.
The fare: our priciest option, from £149 with RailEurope (0844 848 4070, http://www.raileurope.co.uk/ ). Or book it as part of a package - see below.
The holiday: the GR5 is the classic Alpine walking trail, a mazy old smugglers’ path that traces the French-Swiss border, past the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. It’s bare rock and snow-clad peaks high up, descending to meadows strewn with wild flowers and dozily grazing cows that are straight out of Alpine central casting - in short, the perfect landscape for a life-affirming walking holiday.
On an 11-day stroll with Headwater (01606 720199, http://www.headwater.com/ ), your luggage is transported between small, family-run hotels, leaving you free to tackle the climbs unburdened. They can be steep - much of the terrain is around the 6,500ft mark - but that’s how you get the awe-inspiring views across peaks to Lake Geneva and the Jura, and there are four rest days in case your thighs start complaining.
It’s wild: you’ll have ibex, chamois, red deer, eagles and falcons for company. Prices start at £995pp, half-board, including the train, pickup from Geneva, luggage transfers, maps and route notes.

CYCLING IN THE BLACK FOREST
The journey: we’re going right down to the southwest corner of Germany, but - thanks to the new high-speed track between Paris and Strasbourg - it’s going to take only 7hr 22min. With easy changes in Paris and Basle, the 8.32am from St Pancras will see you into Freiburg, capital of the captivating Schwarzwald, at 4.54pm, local time.
The fare: from £127, booked with RailEurope (0844 848 4070, http://www.raileurope.co.uk/ ).
The holiday: there’s history behind this one. That great Victorian Jerome K Jerome is remembered here only for Three Men in a Boat, his oft-copied travelogue of a trip along the Thames, but in Germany he’s celebrated for the later Three Men on the Bummel, about a cycling tour of the Black Forest. Of course, he went by train, and it took him, George and Harris a (highly entertaining) age to get there. It’d be a shorter book now.
In the rolling hills of the Schwarzwald itself, though, JKJ would find things much the same. The scenery is fantastic - not as high or wild as the Alps, but sweeter, subtler, greener, studded with picture-perfect Schlösser and quaint farmsteads. This was Hansel and Gretel’s home turf, and it feels like it.
True, there are quite a few ups and downs - this isn’t one for the cycle-to-the-shops crowd. For road-riders, the dedicated 233-mile Black Forest cycle route from Karlsruhe to Lörrach is a good starting point, but there are many more mazy lanes to explore. For mountain-bikers, it’s heaven, with a plethora of good trails through the thick forest.
You could easily take pot luck at the dozens of simple guesthouses scattered through the forest - our choice, though, would be a bauernhof, a real working farm with rooms. You’ll have to take the rough with the smooth - the livestock can get vocal at 5am - but for sheer authenticity, it takes some beating, and you can count on a Frühstück of epic proportions. (They start the day seriously here.) There’s a good selection at http://www.bensbauernhof.com/ , or, for a wider choice, go to http://www.bauernhofurlaub.de/ : it’s in German, but has links to home pages in English). Expect to pay £20-£40 per night for a double, B&B.
And the bike? You can bring your own, but it’s a bit of a faff. Better to rent one in Freiburg: there’s a hire shop moments from the station (Mobile; 00 49 761 292 7996), with modern road bikes from £38 a week.

Go with the flow: Madeira

We have spent the best part of an hour criss-crossing the centre of Madeira's capital, Funchal, looking for what we have been told is the café where the city's young, stylish residents hang out. Despite a series of increasingly imprecise, if helpfully given, directions ("just behind the cathedral"; "up the hill, and sort of to the right, look for some steps") that kept bringing us back to where we started, we have finally found it, and it's shut.

Starving, we slope back towards the harbour and stop at the first café we come to, in a street of identical-looking tourist restaurants. The waiter produces a menu in English listing a range of "international" dishes that you know will have none of the glamour or style that this word somehow implies. Omelette and chips it is, then.

Last night we fared better on the food, but I can't say that our quest to find young, hip Madeira was any more successful. Umberto, the dapper erect-backed manager at our hotel, had recommended Doca do Cavacas, a fish restaurant built on what felt worryingly like the edge of a cliff. "Charming", "family", "modest" were all words that could have described this simple taverna, but not hip.

There was a simple menu that offered scabbard fish every which way, including with banana and mango. (Excuse the digression but just so you know, scabbard is a local delicacy, a fish that's caught only in the deep waters off Madeira and Japan and about which very little is known. Although, after seeing them for sale in a fishmongers, I can tell you one fact: it has looks that would make the Alien feel good about himself. The scabbard countenance is not helped by the fact that its eyes pop out of its head when it is dragged up from the high-pressure, dark depths.)

The clientele at Doca do Cavacas included a local extended family; a German couple with a rotund child of about three who wandered around the restaurant forcing slice after slice of bread into his ever-expanding hamster cheeks, and four middle-aged Brits who, after a day in the spring sun, were so red they looked as though they had been stoking a steam engine all day. The men wore that fetching combo of sandals with socks. We had a lovely meal, but it wasn't the Algonquin.

Yet something is happening in Madeira, even if it is hard to detect on the streets of Funchal. This Portuguese island, some 1,000km from Lisbon and 600km from the coast of Morocco, has a reputation for only attracting honeymooners and retired folk (a part of the holiday market rather bluntly known as "the newly wed and the nearly dead"), but now this conservative, slow-to-change Eden is home to several chic boutique hotels.

There's the Quinta da Casa Branca, an old wine merchant's estate close to the centre of Funchal, with just 43 rooms and two suites all tucked in among the bougainvillea and date palms. And Estalagem da Ponta do Sol, a cliff-top hotel with 54 rooms - all with sea views - on the south coast of Madeira, again not far from Funchal. Or there's Choupana Hills Resort and Spa, where I am slumming it for the weekend.

Owned by a German-Madeiran family - and their only hotel to date - Choupana is built high on the hills that overshadow the bay of Funchal (take a cab to Choupana, and you are in for an invigorating surprise as your confident/reckless driver navigates a succession of daunting hairpin bends without ever allowing his foot as much as to hover over the brake pedal). It's a magical setting, especially at sunset when you can watch the lights of the city flicker on and the cruise ships drop anchor in the harbour.

Dotted along a sloping plot, upmarket Choupana has 34 bungalows with two categories of accommodation: suites and deluxe rooms with sea or garden views. The hotel, built on the site of a former scrapyard, was designed by the French architect Michel de Camaret alongside architect-decorator Didier Lefort, who is also responsible for the Meridien Bora Bora and The Datai in Malaysia. Choupana's look is part-African, part-Asian: the bungalows look like safari lodges with their high-wood ceilings, dark timber floors and exotic four-poster beds; while the main building, where you find the restaurant and spa, looks Thai with its tall, angular roof.

Choupana is a long way from old-fashioned Funchal. Why, there are even young people staying here. But when I corner the manager, Philippe Moreau, he admits it has taken a lot of hard work attracting this new crowd of style-aware travellers to Madeira. Moreau says that many people are choosing the hotel because they think it looks like a great place to relax and are often arriving with little or no idea of what Madeira will be like. For the Louis Vuitton luggage contingent Choupana, not Madeira, is the destination.

And you can see the allure. There's the glorious setting, indoor and outdoor pools, a large spa and the smart Xopana restaurant with its fusion menu that mixes Asian, African and Madeiran influences. The seafood (scallops, tuna, that pug-ugly scabbard) is just-dragged-from-the-sea fresh. Portions are bountiful: as you waddle to the pool you'll be thankful that the locals have given up on their traditional pastime of whaling.

There's a calm, discreet level of service at Choupana that makes you feel cocooned from all the bad things in the world. As we laze by the pool, someone suddenly appears with an umbrella and a few words of warning about the harsh Madeiran sun. When we return to our room there's a plate of exotic fruit and a delicious bottle of Madeira wine.

The rooms have been designed so that when you look out at the bay you feel as though you are alone on the ridge - being so steep and lavishly planted, the hotel's other bungalows are shielded from view. You only have to be here a few minutes to feel your stress levels dropping - and ours were high after a very unwise decision to drive to Gatwick airport (never believe the AA route planner when it comes to journey times). At Choupana you feel they have thought of everything.

Yet what is there to appeal to these younger, stylish travellers when they finally manage to drag themselves away from the pool? There are very few nightclubs (although many of the hotels in Funchal put on a good show in the evenings, or so I am told) nor great bars - certainly none worth making the journey to the island for. There's also little in the way of shopping unless you are in the market for embroidered linen, and no beaches - although there are lot of places where you enjoy "sea access" from the rocks.

But there are excellent walks, great gardens and subtropical wild flora (the island is known as the "floating plant pot"), and British historical links which, for generations, have attracted middle-class tourists to Madeira. And it appears that these seemingly sedate, even old-fashioned attributes, are winning over the hearts of the younger tourists heading for Madeira. The walking is also a big hit, judging by the robust footwear sported by many of Choupana's guests at breakfast.

Madeira has an extensive water-supply system of open channels that run across vast areas of the mountains and countryside, irrigating crops and supplying villages. Some of the channels, known as levadas, date back to the 15th century; many were built by slaves. There is about 2,200km of these man-made streams and alongside them run pathways that offer an incredible - and on the whole, not too tiring - way of exploring Madeira (there are several good guide books that rate each trek for its degree of difficulty).

So, after failing to have a wild night in Funchal, and despite only having packed some special non-grip training shoes, we get with the programme and do the levadas - not to be mistaken with the lambada. Well, it isn't hard: one of them crosses through the middle of Choupana (occasionally, while you are poolside with a cocktail, you look up to see a couple of stout senior citizens swaddled in Gore-tex approaching you with what can only be described as a look of reproach for your lazy, hedonistic ways).

We head for the village of Monte, a walk of about 75 minutes. We amble through forests of fragrant eucalyptus, past banks of spectacular meadow flowers and walls of ferns kept moist by the sheets of spring water running off the hills. There are waterfalls, some vertiginous drops (slightly unsettling when you have the wrong footwear), panoramas to "Oooh" over and a lot of other British couples out for a stroll.

Everyone politely, and rather comically, tries to show good manners by letting each other pass first on the narrow path: "After you", "No, after you", "No, I insist, after you."

At Monte there are several picturesque churches (the exiled Austrian Emperor Charles I died in Monte in 1922 and is buried in the Nossa Senhora church); celebrated gardens and a cable car that takes you to the centre of Funchal - so you don't have to walk back along the same route. Even a short hike like ours makes you realise how stunning this island is and that the real lure of Madeira for visitors is the landscape.

Well, after that there is no stopping us. If the senior citizens are doing it we want our names on the list, too. So when there is mention of a hotel shuttle bus to see the annual Grand Flower Parade, we are first in the queue.

Supposedly a way for children to promote world peace, in reality the parade is an excuse to march some 1,700 children, from toddlers to teenagers, either dressed as flowers, sporting flowers, or sitting on flower-decked floats through the town. The children are divided into eight groups, each with its own not very different * *theme: "Sea of Flowers", "Sea Flowers", "I'm a Flower" etc.

The parade involves dancing to really strange choices of music - high-energy disco through to the Dambusters music. But, boy, is it a display of heartbreaking innocence. There is something moving about seeing the fat girl in class dancing with glee while dressed as an orchid; or the speccy boy having the best day of his life as he mimes to his dance number. An old woman, a local, turns to look at me and I see that tears are streaming down her face. I put an arm around her shoulder; I know just how she feels.

The streets are lined with senior citizen tourists, some just on Madeira for the day while their cruise liner pays a cursory visit. Others are old hands, like the wealthy widow who sat next to me on the flight to Funchal and told me that she comes to the island several times a year.

You can see why they all love the place: it feels safe, old-fashioned and reliable. And, of course, it is rather British - the link goes back to when Charles II married Catherine of Braganza and England gained trade concessions on the island. British troops were then stationed here during the Napoleonic Wars, too.

The arrival on the island of stylish boutique hotels is a good thing, but so too is the rest of the island being slightly out of step with the latest trends. In the end, it's simple things that make Madeira appealing: fresh air, having time to look at the plants, watching the ships sail past. Oh, and having a nice glass of Madeira at the end of the day (try Blandy's five-year-old Alvada that has been bottled to appeal to the kind of people who stay in hip hotels).

That doesn't mean that Madeira is standing still, or is being particularly robust about protecting its environment or way of life. Nasty-looking apartment blocks and timeshares are being built at a rapid pace. Many of the thousands of Madeirans who left to earn money in South America and South Africa (where there are said to be more people who call themselves Madeiran than there are on Madeira) are returning and bringing with them new attitudes. But for now, for the outsider, Madeira feels special. Just don't bother packing your dancing shoes.

MORE INFORMATION

Madeira Tourism (00 351 291 211 900; www.madeiratourism.org).

Ethiopia Opens Its Doors, Slowly

The rock-hewn Medhane Alem Church, in the remote mountain town of Lalibela, the late afternoon Mass was drawing to a conclusion. Barely visible through the cavernous gloom, hundreds of white-muslin-wrapped worshipers huddled beside pillars and prostrated themselves on small rugs, kissing the cold stone floor.

In the sanctuary, priests and deacons gathered around tattered Bibles written in Geez, the 2,500-year-old language still used in Ethiopian ritual, chanting prayers that echoed through the vaulted chamber.

Then the faithful turned as one toward the east, in the direction of Jerusalem. Secreted in an alcove behind a scarlet curtain, forbidden from view to all but a select group of priests and monks, lay a golden cross belonging to the revered King Lalibela, and a replica of the Holy Ark, the wooden box encased in gold that supposedly contained the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.

I had arrived in Lalibela, fortuitously, just before the Feast of the Transfiguration, Aug. 6, a key date in the Orthodox Christian calendar that commemorates Jesus’ appearance in divine form before three of his apostles on Mount Tabor. Within a few minutes, my guide had whisked me to the grandest of King Lalibela’s 11 monolithic churches, chiseled out of a single mass of reddish limestone by royal craftsmen at the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th centuries.
In the afternoon drizzle, a group of women — who were not allowed to enter the church, my guide told me in a whispered aside, because they were in the middle of their menstrual cycle — clutched prayer books and bowed repeatedly against the stone facade, strangely mirroring the davening performed by Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. It was another reminder of the deep connections between Judaism and Ethiopian Christianity, which combines belief in the Holy Trinity with some of the myths and the symbols of the Old Testament.

The churches of Lalibela, a dirt-poor mountain village that has remained essentially unchanged for a millennium, constitute the most remarkable part of what Ethiopians call “the historic tour” — a several-day circuit through ancient Christian kingdoms that flourished in the northern highlands beginning in the fourth century A.D. According to legend, Syrian monks crossed the Red Sea then and converted the Aksumite king, Ezana, from paganism to Christianity. Over the following centuries, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church spread throughout the country.
Today, it is widely believed that about half of Ethiopia’s 70 million people are Orthodox Christians (though some experts contend that Islam is now the predominant religion). In the northernmost province of Tigray, where the Orthodox religion took root, 3,500 churches cover the landscape, and the practice of Orthodoxy is nearly universal.

For decades, however, access to the historic sites, and to Ethiopia in general, has been subject to the vagaries of politics and war. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Soviet-backed Marxist dictatorship known as the Dergue, led by Haile Mengistu Mariam, sealed itself off from the West, while torturing and murdering tens of thousands of opponents and presiding over the catastrophic 1984-85 famine in which one million people died.

After months of fierce fighting, a coalition of rebel forces overthrew President Mengistu in 1991. (He fled into exile in Zimbabwe.)
Over the next seven years, foreigners — mostly humanitarian aid workers, diplomats, journalists and hardy backpackers — trickled into Ethiopia. I visited the country during this period, when I was based in Nairobi as a correspondent, and it was a rewarding but rough experience — driving along bombed-out roads past the burned remains of Soviet tanks, staying in derelict hotels devoid of running water or electricity.

The door slammed shut in 1998, when a territorial dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea erupted in a savage war that lasted for two years. The conflict, which ended with a peace deal signed in 2000, left tens of thousands of soldiers dead on both sides.

In the five relatively calm years since, tourists have returned to Ethiopia. They arrive in a nation that under President Meles Zanawi, the former leader of the guerrilla army that overthrew President Mengistu and who has been in power for 15 years, remains one of the poorest countries on earth.

In Ethiopia, the per capita income is $120 a year; tuberculosis and other contagions are rampant; and the literacy rate is just 43 percent, a sad figure considering that Ethiopia was among the first societies in sub-Saharan Africa to develop a written language.

But under President Zanawi, who has begun to show some dictatorial tendencies of his own, significant development has come to Ethiopia, including mobile phone networks, decent hotels, Internet cafes, reliable electricity, and asphalt roads — phenomena that were unheard of in the outlying provinces a decade ago.

And it is now possible to travel across Ethiopia with some degree of comfort. Abercrombie & Kent, the Kenya-based safari specialist, this month is starting a guided tour through Ethiopia’s historic Christian route: Aksum, Lalibela, Lake Tana and Gonder.

But those who want to venture on their own will discover that Ethiopia is reasonably well set up for independent exploring. They will find a proud, if bedraggled country with ruggedly beautiful landscapes and a unique sense of its identity — shaped in part, by Ethiopia’s stubborn refusal to submit to Western colonizers.

I arived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s 8,000-foot-high capital, on a cold, drizzly afternoon in early August, and flew the next morning in a 52-seat Ethiopian Airlines Fokker to Aksum in Tigray. I remembered Tigray, which I had driven through in 1993, as a bone-dry, high-altitude desert, a land of canyons and chronic food shortages. But this time, at the height of the wet season, the plateau was vibrantly green.

“God has blessed us with two years of plenty of rainfall,” I was told by my guide, Sisay Ymer, a 30-year-old former seminarian who greeted me at the airport.
As we rode into town, I could see terraced fields of teff, the Ethiopian staple — a wheatlike crop used to make the spongy Ethiopian bread, njera — extending across the rolling terrain in every direction.

Aksum is a town of about 47,000 that is just beginning to recover from decades of war and political turbulence. Its decrepit appearance belies its rich history. Nearly 3,000 years ago, Aksum emerged as one of the principal cities of the kingdom of Saba, a prosperous commercial state centered in Yemen that controlled the main trading routes between the Red and Mediterranean Seas.

The town’s best-known ruins date to the reign of the first Christian king, Ezana, and his successors: a field of dozens of granite obelisks, between 10 and 90 feet high, intricately carved with rune-like geometric shapes. This strange and mystical place, a cemetery for aristocrats and monarchs, is honeycombed with crypts and treasure vaults that lie several dozen feet underground.
The grandest of these stelae, 78 feet high and weighing 160 tons, was carted off to Rome by Mussolini’s invading army in 1937. But last year, after a decade of pressure by the Ethiopian government, Italy returned the stolen treasure to Aksum, touching off days of celebrations.
The stela was cut into three pieces by the Italians to make it easier to transport back to Aksum, and the three immense blocks still lie in a corner of the field, wrapped in their steel and wood shipping materials, while the cash-strapped Ethiopian government keeps delaying its plans to raise the obelisk again.

Just across from the field stands the Church of St. Mary of Zion, a vine-shrouded stone structure built in the 1600’s. The basilica replaced the original fourth-century church — believed to be sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest — which was burned down by an invading Arab army in the 10th century.

Across from the church is the building known simply as the Treasury, whose nondescript appearance hides its key role in Ethiopian Judeo-Christian mythology. Many Ethiopian believers insist that the building houses the original Ark of the Covenant — the gold-leafed wooden box encasing the actual stone tablets delivered by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. (Some Ethiopians insist that the tablets themselves are inside.)

Menelik I, believed by Ethiopian Christians to be the offspring of King Solomon and the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba, is said to have stolen the ark from the First Temple in Jerusalem and brought it to Aksum a thousand years before the birth of Christ.

No one but a single monk is allowed to see the sacred artifact — and few people are permitted to see him — though replicas, known as tabots, are brought out once a year for the Timkat celebration of Christ’s baptism on Jan. 19.

The most revered Aksumite kings were Kaleb and his son Gabremeskal (literally, Slave of the Cross), who spread Christianity from the royal court through the villages of Ethiopia in the sixth century. My guide, Sisay, who was incongruously clad in a bright red jacket and tie, black slacks and shiny black shoes — his official guide’s uniform — led me on foot up a rutted road to the ruins of Kaleb’s palace, at first glance an unimpressive pile of rubble.

Then we descended a stone staircase into a network of subterranean burial chambers, constructed of huge, finely chiseled blocks of granite, that fit together as neatly as the blocks of a Rubik’s cube.

Entering the musty vault, where the monarchs were originally buried, Sisay illuminated the passageways with a thin candle. Fifteen-hundred-year-old carvings of elephants and distinctive Aksumite crosses — formed by four delicately shaped, not-quite-touching petals — were still clearly visible on the granite walls.

Wandering through the ancient burial chamber had evidently moved Sisay deeply. With his eyes closed, swaying back and forth, candlelight flickering against his face, Sisay chanted the Lord’s Prayer in Geez.

After the hymn, we stepped back in the bright sunlight.
“Can you feel this place’s holiness?” he said. “Ethiopian Christianity was born here.”
THE next morning, Sisay woke me early and we set out from my hotel on a hike to the sixth-century Pantaleon Monastery, perched on a hilltop just outside town. King Kaleb spent the last two decades of his life in an ascetic retreat in this monastery, and his bones were eventually interred here.

It was a bright, clear morning: we walked through vibrantly green teff fields, leapt across muddy irrigation ditches, passed the domed Church of St. Michael, built about 10 years ago. We climbed a steep switchback trail hemmed in by cactuslike euphorbia trees.
The monastery, a one-story hut balanced on an outcropping with precipitous drops on all sides, was surrounded by a four-foot-wide ledge that offered panoramic views of the fertile Tigrayan plateau. Sawtoothed mountains rose to the east; to the north, obscured by mist, lay Eritrea.
A wizened, barefoot monk appeared out of nowhere and opened the olive wood door with an iron key, revealing 500-year-old tapestries, and the vault containing the bones of King Kaleb — forbidden to my secular eyes.

Aksum began to decline in the seventh century, and by the 11th century, the Aksum dynasty was gone. In the middle of the 11th century, a new Christian dynasty, the Zagwe, arose in the mountain town of Roha, which later was renamed Lalibela in honor of its most revered king.
According to myth, Lalibela received a vision from angels commanding him to chisel 11 churches out of the soft limestone hills on which the Zagwe capital was built. Over 25 years, master artisans carved both cave churches from vertical cliff faces, and monolithic churches out of bedrock. In 1960, Unesco declared the churches a protected site, citing “a remarkable coupling of engineering and unique artistic achievement.”

Lalibela had modernized since the last time I was there. A paved road, constructed in 1998, ran from a new airport terminal to the town, passing through rugged foothills, with jagged massifs in the distance soaring to 12,000 feet.

Gone were the nausea-inducing hairpin turns and perilous rock slides that I’d experienced on the old, unpaved road back in 1993. Several hotels have been built, and the main street winding through the town has been paved — or rather, covered by an uneven layer of stones and cement.

But Lalibela, with a population of about 30,000, still has the look of a destitute mountain village: round, thatched-roof mud huts, called tukuls, clinging to steep slopes; peasant farmers wrapped in homespun white cloth robes; goats and sheep that scatter frantically, bleating in distress, before the rare motorized vehicle.

In this humble setting, King Lalibela’s 900-year-old creations seem all the more extraordinary. The Medhane Alem church, a 37-foot high, red-ocher edifice, has a cavernous interior broken by dozens of finely carved columns, arches and vaults.

Inside, the rituals have remained essentially unchanged since the church was built. As the Mass ended, the scarlet curtain hiding the Holy Ark replica parted, and six priests, swathed in white satin, wearing yellow-fringed caps topped by tiny gold crosses, emerged from the alcove and headed toward the altar, which, unlike in most Roman Catholic churches, is in the center of the church. They carried urns filled with holy water and poured drops into goblets proffered by the beseeching crowd.

One priest bore a six-foot-high silver ceremonial cross; two shook sistrams, bell-like instruments; another thumped rhythmically on a large barrel drum. Two elderly blind women, their eyes milky white, swayed against a pillar, while beside them, a cross-eyed boy wiggled his head back and forth, working himself into a trancelike state.

Amid a crescendo of rhythmic clapping, ululating and chanting, the crowd spilled from the church into the open air. At that moment, thunder exploded nearby and rain fell in torrents, dousing worshipers and filling the gullies in the limestone courtyard.
“You are lucky,” my guide in this area, Berhane, told me. “You have chosen a good day to be here.”
Early the next day, I visited the Church of St. George, named after Ethiopia’s patron saint. Cut in the shape of a perfect cross, it is perhaps the most exquisite of the monolithic structures.
Descending into the encircling trench via a narrow stone staircase, I noticed, in an alcove, a grinning human skull propped atop a jumble of bones. The partly mummified legs and feet reached to the very edge of the crypt.

Deeper in the recess, other skeletons lay prostrate, yellowing skulls, femurs and tibulas intermingled with scraps of clothing. These were remains of five Orthodox Christian pilgrims, Berhane told me, who had trekked to this holy site from Alexandria in the 13th century, and had chosen to be interred in this open-air vault.

“They wanted to spend eternity gazing at the church,” he said. “They didn’t want anything to block the view.”
The next morning, I flew from Lalibela to Gonder, a bustling, ramshackle city of 250,000 in the Amhara-speaking heartland. It served as the center of Ethiopian Christianity from 1635 to 1855, at which point the capital moved to Addis Ababa.

Gonder’s most celebrated monarch, Fasilidas, constructed an elaborate stone castle — a fusion of Moorish, Portuguese, Ottoman and Moghul architectural styles — on the outskirts, and his successors added their own edifices over the following century.

The ruined castle complex, surrounded by a crumbling stone wall, contains such oddities as sauna baths and a dozen lion cages. Ethiopia’s rulers kept lions here until 1991, when the Dergue abandoned the city and left the animals to starve to death. Rebels managed to save two of them, and sent them to a zoo in Addis Ababa.

Across town from the castle complex is Gonder’s other main attraction: the Debre Birhan Selassie church, constructed in 1674. A local artist at the time covered the small interior with brightly painted frescoes, recently renovated by Unesco, that depict scenes of the life of Christ, St. George and the Dragon, Daniel in the lion’s den, the beheading of John the Baptist, and the Devil and the damned. (Unbelievers, demons, and other unsavory types were painted in one-eyed profile.) Hundreds of beatifically smiling angels adorn the ceiling, each one painted with a subtly different expression.

Gonder is also the cradle of traditional Ethiopian music, and I spent my last evening at an intimate bar called Ambasel, drinking beer and listening to a local band — a female singer, a drummer and a masinko player, whose one-stringed instrument is made of goat hide stretched taut over a box-like frame. Sewbesaw Zebene, my latest guide, translated the vocalist’s energetic Amharic song, a welcome to “the American writer” and a plea to spread the word about Ethiopia.

“Tell the world that Ethiopia is a safe place,” she sang, “The wars are over.”
Sewbesaw took a sip from his beer and told me he wasn’t so sure. That very week, he pointed out, Ethiopian troops had entered neighboring Somalia, and the radical Islamic regime that had recently taken power in Mogadishu was demanding that they leave.

“The region is so unstable, every 5 or 10 years there’s a disruption — famine, war, and now, Somalia,” he said. “It makes us fear that tourism here is not sustainable. We worry how long it will last.”

For now, at least, the ancient Christian route is open and thriving. But in this long-embattled land in the Horn of Africa, one can never plan too far in advance.

VISITOR INFORMATION
Ethiopian Airlines (800-445-2733; www.flyethiopian.com) flies four times a week from Dulles Airport near Washington to Addis Ababa, the capital, with a stop in Rome. Recently, a mid-October round trip was $1,474 online.
Ethiopian teams with Continental to fly to Addis Ababa from Newark through London. Several other airlines, including Emirates, Alitalia and Egypt Air, fly from New York to Ethiopia with a single stop.
Ethiopian’s domestic service has improved greatly over the last decade. A fleet of turboprops does a daily Addis Ababa-Gonder-Lalibela-Aksum circuit. Flights are sometimes canceled because of rough weather during the rainy season (June to September), but the service is generally reliable, and the whole circuit costs around $400. You can book domestic Ethiopian flights in the United States.
Tourist visas cost $40 for United States citizens and can be purchased on arrival at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa. See www.ethiopianembassy.org for details.
The amenities outside the capital are getting better, but they’re still pretty spartan. You’ll find a handful of decent hotels on the ancient Christian route; restaurants, except those in the best hotels, tend to be holes-in-the-wall, serving traditional Ethiopian food (typically njera and tibs, or spicy goat), spaghetti and not much else.
WHERE TO STAY
At these places, pricing can be in either dollars or birrs (it’s about 9 birrs to the dollar), but dollars are accepted.
In Addis Ababa, the Sheraton Addis (Taitu Street; 27-11-5171717; www.luxurycollection.com/addis), which opened half a dozen years ago, is the preferred destination of the upmarket tourist crowd. It has 293 rooms and suites, a sauna, 5 restaurants, 6 bars and outdoor swimming. Rooms start at $310.
The Hilton Addis Ababa (Menelik II Avenue; 251-11-5518400 or 251-11-5170000; www.hilton.com), also very central, has been my hotel of choice over the years. There’s a great Ethiopian coffee bar in the lobby, a heated pool and pleasant grounds, but this summer two elevators did not work and it seemed a bit rundown. Its 356 rooms start about $130 a night.
In Aksum, the hotel choices are minimal. The best is probably the Remhai Hotel (251-34-7753210; e-mail: remhot@telecom.net.et), a modern, concrete-block building with 74 rooms on the eastern outskirts; it has satellite television, sporadic Internet service and a decent restaurant. Doubles are $30.
The alternative is the Yeha Hotel (251-34-7752377), part of the government-owned Ghion Hotel chain (251-11-5513222; www.ghionhotel.com.et). It is a pleasant place near the stelae, with 63 rooms, a good restaurant and that necessity in rural Ethiopia, a stand-by generator. Doubles begin at $40.
In Lalibela, by far the best choice is another Ghion property, the Roha Hotel (251-33-3360009). Situated about a mile outside the center of town, it is beautifully decorated with artifacts inspired by the rock-hewn churches. The Roha has 64 rooms, a friendly staff and an excellent restaurant. It costs $40 for a double.
In Gonder, the best hotel is the Goha Hotel (251-58-1110634), another part of the Ghion chain. Set on a hilltop with magnificent views of Gonder and the mountainous countryside, it has 65 rooms and a good restaurant. Doubles are $40.
Probably the best alternative is the recently built Kapra Walia Inn (251-58-1120315). Within walking distance of downtown, it has three dozen rooms, with doubles for $27, and an Internet cafe.
Just down the street from the Kapra Walia is the similarly priced Fogera Hotel (251-58-1116673), with a dozen rooms; doubles from $25. Unlike the Kapra Walia, it serves meals, though the food is mediocre at best.
Ambasel, on Gonder’s main road, in the Piazza neighborhood, offers traditional Ethiopian music every night in an intimate setting. As long as you don’t mind being serenaded by the band, and attracting the amused attention of the rest of the clientele, the bar makes for a great evening out.
GUIDES
In Aksum, Sisay Ymer was well informed and reliable. He should be booked in advance, especially for the tourist season, from December to February, at 251-34-7751501 or by e-mail at dnsisay@yahoo.com. His rate is about $40 a day, but negotiable.
In Gonder, Sewbesaw Zebene (251-91-8770214 or 251-91-1827171; e-mail: sbsgdq@yahoo.com) charges around $100 a day.
Abercrombie & Kent (800-554-7016, www.abercrombiekent.com) offers nine-day tours, “Ethiopia: An Ancient Dynasty,” for $2,995 to $3,255 a person, double occupancy, not including air fare.
JOSHUA HAMMER, a former correspondent in Africa for Newsweek, is the author of “Yokohama Burning,” published this month by Simon & Schuster

A taste of travel: Europe's finest gourmet breaks

LILLE, FRANCE
Once France’s textile centre, Lille has undergone a big renewal, recognised in the fact that it is one of Europe’s Cities of Culture 2004. For fans of art deco, there are magnificent examples here, and, handily for food-lovers, several of the buildings happen to be restaurants.
One is A l’Huîtrière (3 Rue des Chats-Bossus, 00 33-3 20 55 43 41; about £55), where you reach the dining room by walking through the display of enormous lobsters, crabs and all manner of marine life in the fish shop. The surroundings are as inspiring as the food — wood panelling, hugely tall windows and glorious stained glass and tiling.
There is excellent (and cheaper — about £25) seafood at Café aux Moules (34 Rue de Béthune, 3 20 57 12 46), another art-deco classic, reputed to sell more mussels than any other restaurant in France. For pudding here, try petit quinquin (rhubarb tart and tarte flamande with vanilla cream and chicory ice cream).
You should also seek out Maison Coilliot (14 Rue de Fleurus), Lille’s only complete art- nouveau building, designed by Hector Guimard, who gave the Paris Métro its ornate arches.
Shop at Le Pain de Nos Ancêtres (26 Rue des Bouchers, 3 20 54 02 14) for traditional-recipe breads cooked in century-old wood-fired ovens. Lille is also home to the original Paul bakery (12 Rue de Paris, 3 20 55 03 60).
For local cheeses, try Philippe Olivier (3 Rue du Curé St-Etienne, 3 20 74 96 99) and Les Bons Pâturages (54 Rue Basse, 3 20 55 60 28). For deeply luxurious chocolates and cakes, head to the wonderfully old-fashioned Pâtisserie Meert (25/27 Rue Esquermoise, 3 20 57 07 44).
The package: Eurodestination (0870 744 2211, http://www.eurodestination.com/) has two nights from £321pp, including accommodation at the city’s best hotel, the Carlton, a voucher for dinner at A l’Huîtrière, and first-class return travel on Eurostar from London Waterloo.

SANLUCAR LA MAYOR, SPAIN
Ferran Adria makes a point of getting off the beaten track. His famous El Bulli restaurant is tucked away in comparative isolation outside the small town of Roses on the Costa Brava. His second venture, though, is still more obscure: the superb La Alqueria is based in Sanlucar la Mayor, an Andalusian village outside Seville notable for well, nothing much. No matter: the restaurant is based in the Hacienda Benazuza (00 34-955 703 344), a wonderful hotel that is a worthwhile destination in itself — a beautifully converted 10th-century Moorish farmhouse, with orange groves, a pool and tennis courts.
Under the aegis of Adria’s protégé, Rafa Morales, La Alqueria serves the most recent recipes from El Bulli, so expect to find culinary contrivances such as langoustine in green-tea foam sprinkled with green-tea powder; powdered foie gras; and “spaghetti” made of pure parmesan.
Between meals: take a taxi into Seville and fortify yourself with sherry at Bar Giralda (Calle Mateos Gago 1, 954 227 435), in a former Moorish bathhouse, before a visit to the world’s largest cathedral.
The package: Kirker Holidays (020 7231 3333, http://www.kirkerholidays.com/) has three days at Hacienda Benazuza from £798pp, B&B, including return flights from Heathrow or Gatwick to Seville. Regional departures from Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Bristol from £70pp extra, with SN Brussels via Brussels.


STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
This watery city (a European City of Culture in 1998) is built on 14 islands, and the very best views of it are from the Gondolen restaurant (Stadsgarden 6, 00 46-8 641 7090; £28), which looks out to the harbour, the old Gamla Stan area and the Baltic. There’s a chic, deco-ish wood-panelled bar and classic Swedish dishes such as reindeer tenderloin with creamy cabbage-and-potato terrine.
For “Euro-Latin-influenced” Swedish food, go to the minimalist Bon Lloc (Regeringsgaten 111, 8 660 6060; £26), which has earned a Michelin star for dishes such as pig’s trotters with cabbage-wrapped foie gras and lamb à la toscana with spinach and white beans. For more sustaining dishes, such as biff Rydberg (beef with fried potatoes, egg and horseradish), try Tranan (Karlbergsvagen 14, 8 300765; £15), a fashionable ex-workmen’s caff with live music.
Between meals: there’s abundant nightlife, but the coolest watering hole must be the Icebar at the Nordic Sea hotel (Vasaplan). Created by the folks from the Icehotel at Jukkasjarvi, the bar is -5C all year round, and all fittings, including the glasses, are carved from frozen water (woolly gloves and boots supplied).
The package: until January 8, Travelscene (0870 777 9987, http://www.travelscene.co.uk/) offers four nights for the price of three at the Nordic Sea. The £347pp price includes B&B at the hotel and return flights on SAS or BA from Heathrow (direct flights from Birmingham for £30 extra; Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Teesside from £100 with KLM via Amsterdam).

TURIN, ITALY
The Piedmontese capital isn’t all factories full of Fiats. Away from the industrial quarters, it’s a magnificently baroque city of arcaded streets and elegant squares. Turin’s oldest restaurant, the Ristorante del Cambio (Piazza Carignano 2, 011 543760), which opened in 1757, is suitably formal: liveried waiters will serve you traditional Piedmontese dishes, such as beef braised in Barolo wine or artichokes stewed with bone marrow and truffles, in magnificent surroundings decorated with stucco, enormous gilded mirrors and crystal chandeliers (dinner about £50 for four courses).
If you have the stamina, you could also try the city’s most glamorous restaurant, Villa Somis (Strada Val Pattonera 138, 011 661 4626, http://www.villasomis.com/): a wedding- cake of a building on the city’s outskirts, it is currently closed, but will reopen in spring.
Between meals: the market, near the Roman forum in the pretty, colonnaded city centre, is one of Italy’s best. Wander past stalls heaped with local cheeses, grissini sellers (the breadsticks were invented here and are worlds away from those plastic-wrapped restaurant numbers), and traders in ducks, geese and fish (and, in season, wild mushrooms and truffles).
Turin has more cafes than any other Italian city: drink bicerin, a chocolate-coffee combo, in Al Bicerin (Piazza della Consolata 5, 011 436 9325); eat ice cream at Fiorio (Via Po 8, 011 817 3225), known as “the cafe of aristocrats”; or try Turin’s famous hazelnut chocolates (the city is the home of Ferrero Rocher) at Stratta (Piazza San Carlo 191, 011 54 7920).
Don’t miss the National Cinema Museum (Via Montebello 20, 011 812 5658), whose spire is taller than that of Salisbury Cathedral.
The package: Magic of Italy (0870 166 0363, http://www.magictravelgroup.co.uk/) has two nights at Le Meridien Lingotto, a now-fashionable former Fiat factory with warehouse-type rooms, from £330pp including return flights from Heathrow or Gatwick to Turin (regional connections from Dublin, Glasgow, Newcastle and Plymouth from £65).


ST-REMY-DE-PROVENCE, FRANCE
This leafy market town was the birthplace of Nostradamus and also hosted Van Gogh (at the Monastère St-Paul-de-Mausole asylum, shortly before his death). Increasingly chic, it is now one of the south of France’s gourmet hot spots.
Proof that chocolate needn’t make you fat is Joel Durand, one of the world’s greatest, slimmest chocolatiers. His shop (3 Boulevard Victor Hugo, 00 33-4 90 92 38 25) produces chocs flavoured with Earl Grey tea, almonds and black olives, plus seasonal specials such as dark chocolate with ginger (from January to June), or with fresh basil (March to November).
There is plenty of other food shopping, including biscuits cooked by a food historian to old Roman, Renaissance and Arlésien recipes at Le Petit Duc (7 Boulevard Victor Hugo, 4 90 92 08 31); crystallised fruit at Lilamand Confiseur (5 Avenue Albert Schweitzer, 4 90 92 11 08); and the famous Vallée des Baux olives (so good they have their own appellation d’origine contrôlée) from the sumptuous Wednesday market.
For traditional Provençal food with a contemporary twist, try La Maison Jaune (15 Rue Carnot, 4 90 92 56 14), named after Van Gogh’s painting. Its £34 tasting menu includes rabbit confit with caramelised red peppers and fromage blanc, and kumquat confit with basil jelly and grapefruit sorbet.
Between meals: Van Gogh fans should take the road a mile out of town to visit the 18th- century Monastère St-Paul-de-Mausole (4 90 92 77 00). Just keep following the same road to lose yourself in the scenery that inspired him.
The package: Voyages Ilena (020 7924 4440, http://www.voyagesilena.co.uk/) has three nights at Le Mas des Figues, a pretty, seven-bedroom country hotel, surrounded by gardens and olive groves, just 4km outside St-Rémy, from £299 per person, B&B, based on two sharing, including return flights from Gatwick to Marseilles and car hire.

PARIS, FRANCE
Le Cinq, the restaurant at the sumptuous George V hotel (31 Avenue George V, 00 33-1 49 52 70 00), won its third Michelin star in February — putting paid to the rumours that Paris was losing its gastronomic edge. Signature dishes include roasted and smoked lobster with chestnuts, and roast pigeon with dates, lemon and cumin sauce. There is a four-course light tasting menu (£85), but treat yourself to the eight-course gourmet menu (£141) — the sommelier will suggest a wine for each course. For postprandial perfection, book a night at the hotel, which is close to all the best window-shopping and to the Champs Elysées.
Between meals: next day, recover your appetite on a guided gourmet walking tour of Paris, taking in markets, the Poilâne bakery, wine shops and a cookery demonstration. Gourmet on Tour (020 7396 5550, http://www.gourmetontour.com/) has one-day tours from £205pp.
The package: a two-night break in January at the Four Seasons Hotel George V with Paris Travel Service (0870 191 7280, http://www.paristravel.co.uk/) costs from £569pp, B&B, with return first-class travel on Eurostar from Waterloo.

SAN SEBASTIAN, SPAIN
This belle époque Basque seaside resort is deceptive: known for its great town beach (packed in summer), it forgets to shout about the number of Michelin-starred restaurants in and around its perimeter. For culinary chemistry reminiscent of Ferran Adria, head for his great friend Juan Mari Arzak’s Restaurante Arzak (Alto de Miracruz 21, 00 34- 943 278 465). Try the sautéed squid, shaped into a tulip and served with an “air” of green peppercorn, chased down by a chocolate hamburger, complete with a “bun” of dried fruit and almond “chips” (about £70 per head including wine). Akelarre (Paseo del Padre Orcolaga 56, Igueldo, 943 212 052), just outside the city centre, has great views of the Atlantic, lobster salad dressed with apple cream, and pig’s trotters with a light yoghurt mousse (about £95, including wine). There is similarly ground- breaking food at Martin Berasategui (Calle Loidi 4, Lasarte, 943 366 471), which compensates for its slightly tasteless decor with its clam risotto with wafer-thin slices of octopus (about £90 with wine).
San Sebastian’s chefs have formed a sort of round table, where they meet and discuss ideas to ensure the town remains the Basque culinary capital.
Between meals: no trip here would be complete without a visit to the Guggenheim (94 435 9080) in Bilbao, about an hour away on the A8 motorway (and en route to Bilbao airport). Just look for Jeff Koons’s enormous floral dog in front of the shiny building.
The package: Mundicolor (020 7828 6021, http://www.mundicolor.co.uk/) has two nights, B&B, at the four-star Amara Plaza hotel for £296pp, including flights from Heathrow and car hire. Regional connections from Glasgow, Jersey, Manchester and others from £58pp extra.

LYONS, FRANCE
There are so many Michelin-starred restaurants in Lyons that you can dine here for a week without visiting the same one twice. Top of the list is Paul Bocuse (40 Rue de la Plage, Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or, 00 33- 4 72 42 90 90), where dining on starters such as truffle soup and main courses like sea bass en croute with lobster mousse will set you back about £70. If that doesn’t sound indulgent enough for you, opt for the menu gourmand (£104).
Léon de Lyon (1 Rue Pléney, 4 72 10 11 12) is a master of cholesterol. Cream, butter and foie gras feature strongly on the menu, and a signature dish is suckling pig with foie gras and truffle salad (£65). More foie gras, this time in ravioli with port and truffle sauce, is served at Pierre Orsi (3 Place Kléber, 4 78 89 57 68, about £100 with wine). For more down-to-earth fare, try one of the many bouchons, such as Bouchon Chez Mounier (3 Rue des Marronniers, 4 78 37 79 26). It serves traditional lyonnais salad and pike quenelles (about £30).
Between meals: with all this eating to be done, walking off dinner is a must, and there is plenty to see — particularly in Vieux-Lyon, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Try wandering through the traboules, the little passageways linking the inner courtyards of Gothic and Renaissance houses. Food and wine shopping? In a town with such exacting gastronomic standards, you can’t go wrong.
The package: three nights in January at the central, four-star Boscolo Grand Hotel, beside the Rhône, costs from £280pp B&B, based on two sharing, with Thomson City Breaks (0870 606 1476, http://www.thomsoncities.co.uk/). Five nights for the price of four (must include a Saturday) costs £324. Prices include return flights from Heathrow to Lyons (supplements for Birmingham, £66; Manchester, £86; Edinbugh, £111).

My best market food travel

Historic or futuristic, pristine or chaotic, rural or urban, the markets here are a food lover's fantasy—as much for the spectacle as for the shopping.

Mexico City

MERCADO DE LA MERCED
Dazzlingly colorful, La Merced occupies four whole blocks and brings together food from all over Mexico. Dozens of zany piñatas dangle above the stalls as shoppers jostle past stacks of chiles, nopales (cactus paddles), blocks of queso blanco (white cheese), rainbow-colored blankets and sweet-smelling guavas (Cerrada del Rosario at Calle General Anaya).
DON'T MISS: The fragrant Mexican vanilla.

Castries, St. Lucia

CASTRIES MARKET
Bright parasols shade this raucous, century-old market offering big green breadfruit, giant avocados and the island's famous spices: star anise, nutmeg, vanilla. In case you're not interested in bois bandé (a bark used for aphrodisiac tea), there's also banana chutney, hot sauce and nifty brooms made from palm fronds (Jeremie St. and Peynier St.).
DON'T MISS: The sweet potato pudding and cow heel soup from the makeshift kitchens at the end of the market.

Birmingham, U.K.

SELFRIDGES FOOD HALL
White resin floors and exposed ductwork give the new Selfridges a futuristic look. The food—Spanish Pata Negra jamón (ham), marbled Japanese Wagyu beef, the best Scottish kippers, truffled foie gras—makes it a 21st-century shopping mecca (Upper Mall East, Bullring; 011-44-8708-377-377).
DON'T MISS: Simon Malin's Modern-British cuisine at the white-on-white Gallery restaurant.

Cork, Ireland

ENGLISH MARKET
Under the grand vaulted ceiling of this 400-year-old market, Moroccan spice blends sit next to Irish favorites like sheep's tripe boiled in milk, and drisheens (blood sausages). It's worth a trip just for the remarkable Irish farmhouse cheeses (Grand Parade between St. Patrick's St. and Oliver Plunkett St.).
DON'T MISS: The nearby Jacobs on the Mall, whose chef, Mercy Fenton, is Ireland's Alice Waters (30A South Mall; 011-353-21-425-1530).

Barcelona

MERCAT DE LA BOQUERIA
Early in the morning, Barcelona's top chefs gather at Spain's most Mediterranean market to pick up glistening shellfish, colorful game birds, pencil-thin asparagus and coveted mushrooms from the Petras stall. Boqueria even has a cooking school (Rambla at Carrer de la Petxina).
DON'T MISS: The sautéed baby squid and cava at the El Quim de la Boqueria stall

Modena, Italy

MERCATO COPERTO
There are larger markets in Italy, but this is the most picture-postcard-perfect. You'll find gorgeous peaches and figs, artful displays of fresh egg pasta and—this being Modena—the world's best aged balsamic vinegars (13 Via Albinelli).
DON'T MISS: The impeccable panini with Lambrusco at Schiavoni, a tiny market snack shop (011-39-059-243-073).

Berlin

KADEWE
With 34,000 kinds of global food products—1,200 wursts and smoked meats; 1,300 types of cheeses; 400 types of bread; 2,400 wines—the vast food hall in Berlin's glitziest department store awes with sheer statistics and variety, like ostrich eggs and exotic fruit you've never seen before (Tauentzienstr. 21—24; 011-49-30-2121-0).
DON'T MISS: The incredible selection of German Rieslings in the Weine section.

Moscow

YELISEYEVSKY
A recent $3 million makeover has returned this landmark 1901 emporium to its original czarist splendor, with crystal chandeliers and Art Nouveau stained glass. There are dozens of different caviars, imported Cognacs and prepared delicacies like Siberian meat dumplings and Georgian cheese pies (14 Tverskaya Ulitsa).
DON'T MISS: The traditional jam-filled gingerbread from the city of Tula.

Helsinki

KAUPPATORI MARKET
Bright piles of cloudberries and lingonberries, iridescent-green peas and baskets of potatoes that seem far too pretty to eat line this harborside market. In the summer, competing scents include those of innumerable lilacs, roasted meat pies and cinnamon buns (east end of Esplanadi).
DON'T MISS: The smoked-reindeer sandwiches from one of the indoor market stalls.

Manaus, Brazil

MERCADO MUNICIPAL
Imagine an 1882 wrought-iron replica of Paris's vanished Les Halles market in an eco-tourist Amazonian town. Vendors scale giant fish and hawk tropical fruit and potions for use in macumba, an Afro-Brazilian religion (Rua dos Barés 46; 011-55-92-233-0469).
DON'T MISS: The indigenous beige-and-black straw baskets.

NICE, FRANCE

COURS SALEYA
The market showcases the best of Southern France—lavender honey, violet-tipped artichokes and bright marzipan fruit—on a promenade by the sea.

ISTANBUL

BALIK PAZARI,
Set in a building fashioned after 19th-century Parisian arcades, this market features open sacks of spices and henna, briny grape leaves and tubs of silvery Black Sea mackerel (Istikâl Caddesi at Sahne Sokak, Beyoglu).