Travel

If you need another reason to stomp around the Texas Hill Country, the state's winemaking industry has just the ticket.

The Texas Hill Country Wine Trail, a collection of 22 wineries dotted throughout the central region of the state, is scheduled to host events beginning in February and continuing through December.

A wine trail map, detailing locations of each winery, is available at the Fredericksburg Visitor Information Center at 302 E. Austin St. Trail event participation does require a ticket (except for the Wine and Wildflower Trail), and early registration is recommended.

WINE LOVER'S TRAIL (Feb. 8-10 and Feb. 15-17): Celebrate the month of romance traversing the Hill Country with the one you love. During these two special weekends, wineries will feature new release tastings, chocolate pairings and other special events. Special registration tickets are available for $35 per couple and include wine flight trio's or a featured taste at each winery.

WINE AND WILDFLOWER TRAIL (April 4-6 and April 11-13): The hills come alive with Texas bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush during spring's annual wildflower profusion. Wine enthusiasts can enjoy vineyard tours, picnics, music and much more while drinking up the spectacular seasonal scenery. There is no charge for this trail event and tickets aren't required.

HARVEST WINE TRAIL (Aug. 1-3 and Aug. 8-10): From vine to wine, visitors can learn more about the grape as it makes it ultimate way to bottle. During the harvest celebration, visitors can smell the aroma of freshly picked vineyards, participate in grape stomps, tastings and more. Register online for $30 per person and enjoy a taste or tasting at each winery.

TEXAS WINE MONTH WINE TRAIL (Oct. 1-31): October is Texas Wine Month and to honor this special time of the year, a wine trail passport is available for purchase. Collect stamps with 12 or more wineries and become eligible for special prize drawings. Kick-off weekend is Oct. 3-5. Passport registration is strongly encouraged due to popularity of this event.

HOLIDAY WINE TRAIL (Dec. 5-7 and Dec. 12-14): Each year the wineries offer a commemorative holiday ornament that can be collected to adorn a grapevine wreath (with purchase). Pre-registration is strongly encouraged due to the popularity of this event.

For more information about these events, the Texas Hill Country Wine Trail or to receive a new Texas Hill Country Wine Trail map, consumers can call the Fredericksburg Convention and Visitor Bureau at 888/997-3600 (toll-free in the United States) or visit www.fredericksburg-texas.com or www.texaswinetrail.com.

NEW YORK - Celebrity chef Todd English, whose food is served on airplanes, cruise ships and in hotels, says his name struck a positive chord with Queen Elizabeth II.

English met the queen at the 2004 christening of the Queen Mary 2 in Southampton, England. English has restaurants that bear his name on board the QM2 and also on Cunard's newest ship, the Queen Victoria.

"She's very cute," English recalled of his meeting with the queen. "She's a nice little old lady. When we met, she said, 'Oh Todd English! I like your name."'

English reminisced about the queen while greeting visitors to his restaurant aboard the Queen Victoria, while it made a port call in New York City Jan. 13.

"I'm here to tweak things," he said.

English said he strives to make dining at his restaurants at sea "an experience like you're walking down the streets of Manhattan and you happen across a restaurant." His shipboard eateries offer everything from tapas at the bar and other light fare to five-course meals. He said seafood offerings vary in part depending on the ships' itineraries and what's available in port - for example Dover sole in England, snapper and grouper in Florida.

He also said he insists on bringing his own music into the restaurants at sea. "We give them CDs we've burned - jazzy, clubby jazzy music."

English's 19 restaurants include Bluezoo at the Disney World Dolphin Resort, and Olives, with locations in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen, Colo., and the W Hotel at Union Square in New York City among others. He also created an in-flight menu for Delta Airlines, with items that sell for $4-$9.

The Queen Victoria ship was in New York for a historic rendezvous with Cunard's other Queen ships, the Queen Elizabeth 2 and the Queen Mary 2. Thousands of New Yorkers stood along the waterfront of Lower Manhattan to watch the three grand ships line up in front of the Statue of Liberty amid fireworks.

The Queen Victoria is on its maiden world cruise, sailing in tandem with the QE2, which is on its 26th and final world cruise. The QE2 will be retired from service later this year and turned into a floating five-star hotel in Dubai.

ST. HELENA, Calif. - You can see the golden blooms of wild mustard in Napa Valley in February and March, and you can taste and celebrate the condiment at a variety of events during a two-month-long festival held in the region each year.

The 15th annual Napa Valley Mustard Festival is scheduled for Feb. 2 to March 29. The opening event, "Mustard Magic," takes place Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. The black-tie affair includes a gourmet buffet, a visual arts competition exhibit and silent auction, and a performance by trapeze artists. Tickets are $150 in advance, $175 at the door.

Other events include "Mustard, Mud & Music - A Calistoga Jazz Festival," March 8-9, in the town of Calistoga; and a March 14 awards night at Napa's Black Stallion Winery honoring "world champion mustard-makers," where you can taste original mustard recipes by Napa Valley chefs and vote for your favorite in the "People's Choice Mustard Festival Chef of the Year" contest.

A marketplace is scheduled for March 15-16 at the American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts in Napa. You can taste mustards from around the world and shop for wine, arts and crafts, and local culinary and gourmet products.

Details at http://www.mustardfestival.org or 707-938-1133.

NEW YORK (AP) - A financial analyst says that climbing U.S. unemployment may hurt demand for cruises.

Robert Simonson of William Blair & Co. said rising U.S. unemployment will likely curb Caribbean cruises because such trips are the sector's most affordable offering. Low-income consumers tend to lean toward Caribbean cruises based on pricing; but those consumers have tightened spending of late due to recession fears and other economic worries.

In early January, the Labor Department reported the nation's unemployment rate hit a two-year high of 5 percent in December.

The analyst also cautioned that unemployment, coupled with falling stock prices and housing concerns, will start to squeeze upper-income customers who book European cruises, which typically are more expensive than Caribbean cruises.

"This will likely be most noticeable among aspirational buyers of European cruises, namely those that can't afford the cruise without a significant degree of financing," he wrote in a client note.

Simonson cut his 2008 earnings estimate on Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. to $3 per share from $3.30 per share and lowered his Carnival Corp. prediction to $3.05 per share from $3.20 per share.

Here are five snowboarding getaways recommended by Future Snowboarding magazine, which promises you'll be on the slopes within 60 minutes of landing at the nearest airport. "Storm Chasers: From Plane to Powder in Under an Hour" are listed in the magazine's February issue.

They are:

-Aspen/Pitkin County Airport, Colo., from which the magazine says you can be on the lift in 10 minutes at Buttermilk. Aspen Highlands, Ajax and Snowmass are within a half-hour's drive of the airport.

-Burlington International Airport, Vt., from which the magazine says you can be on the lift in 30 minutes at Bolton Valley. Sugarbush, Stowe and Smugglers Notch are within an hour's drive of the airport.

-Reno-Tahoe International Airport, Nev., from which the magazine says you can be on the lift in 30 minutes at Mount Rose. Northstar, Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows are within an hour's drive of the airport.

-Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Wash., from which the magazine says you can be on the lift at the Summit At Snoqualmie, Alpental, in 55 minutes. Stevens Pass and Crystal Mountain are within 55 minutes of the airport.

-Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah, from which the magazine says you can be on the lift at Snowbird in 45 minutes. Brighton, Solitude, Park City and The Canyons are within an hour's drive of the airport.

NEW YORK (AP) - Fodor's Travel Publications is out with a new series of compact books called Fodor's In Focus guides.

The $10.95 pocket-size paperbacks measure just over 4 by 7 inches and are under 200 pages - perfect for tucking into a purse or for those who like to travel light.

The series debuted in December. Books out this winter are guides to Aruba; Los Cabos, Mexico; Puerto Rico; Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. (both cities are covered in one guide); the Bahamas; and Bermuda.

The books list options for a variety of budgets and interests, including must-see sights and local secrets, along with reader recommendations from Fodors.com.

The guides start with a quick list of "Top 5" attractions. The Bermuda list recommends the side streets and maze of back alleys in the town of St. George's; the Dockyard's Maritime Museum; the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo; the Crystal Caves, and the Paget Marsh nature reserve.

Just remember that the island known for pink sand and green golf courses is not in the Caribbean - Bermuda is much farther north, about 570 miles east of North Carolina and just 700 miles south of New York City. That means the plane trip is a quick hop from cities in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, but the weather is mild, not tropical.

The Fodor's guide says high season in Bermuda is April-October, with summer temperatures as high as 90 degrees, but winter temperatures range from 55 to 70 degrees - perfect for golf and tennis but probably too cool for most visitors to be tempted to swim in the ocean.

Fodor's also recently announced a deal to deliver its content for free to mobile users with AskMeNow, a mobile search company. AskMeNow allows users to text a question or search term to A-S-K-M-E (27563) and get a response not unlike what you might find if you were searching the Internet. The Fodor's affiliation means that answers to travel-related questions may be drawn from Fodor's material.

AskMeNow does not charge for the searches, although regular message and texting rates apply. Some carriers add a charge, but users will be asked first to OK the charge before proceeding.

MILBROOK, N.Y. (AP) - If you love riding horses and you love travel, consider booking a vacation with Cross Country International, which offers equestrian vacations.

Packages offer a range of riding experiences and can accommodate all levels, from relaxed trail rides to intensive rides - including cross-country training, dressage and "hunt seat"-style rides. Guests can also choose English or Western saddle, and should expect to spend from one to more than three hours a day on horseback, depending on the package chosen.

A range of accommodations is also offered, from bed-and-breakfasts to castles, farms and four-star hotels. On some trips, accommodations change nightly as guests tour the region.

Riding vacations are offered in many locations around Europe, Central and South America and the U.S. For some trips, the company creates its own itineraries and hires the guides, but it also packages trips offered by other tour operators.

Rates vary depending on locale. A seven-day inn-to-inn riding trip in Provence offered on a variety of dates from late April through early October is $2,325 per person, double occupancy, including all meals, rides on five days, six nights of lodging, transfers from airports and train stations, and guides. (Airfare not included.)

The company, based in Milbrook, N.Y., also arranges hiking and golf vacations.

Details at http://www.equestrianvacations.com or 800-828-8768.

FLORENCE, Italy (AP) - Writer Ferenc Mate's most recent book "A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover's Dream" (Norton, $24.95) tells the story of how he and his wife turned an old Tuscan farm in to an award-winning winery.

Along the way he discovered many wonderful places to enjoy the scenery and lifestyle offered by this famed region of Italy. Here are a half-dozen of Mate's favorite "secret spots" in Tuscany:

-Between the tiny medieval hill towns of Petroio and Castelmuzio lies the countryside where "The English Patient" was filmed. This, says Mate, is "the Tuscan landscape we all know from our dreams ... dotted with olive groves, steep rows of vines and ancient farmhouses tucked into the hillsides."

-Sant'Antimo, a white 11th century abbey surrounded by hills of olives and evergreen forests, is "one of Tuscany's most dramatic sights," Mate says. "Go at dusk and stay for the Mass performed in Gregorian chant by candlelight."

-Uccellino National Park's foot trails and the town of Talamone offer spectacular views of the Tuscan coast. Mate recommends "fish baked in a salt crust at Trattoria La Grotta followed by a quiet harbor stroll."

-Sant'Angelo in Colle is a beautiful hill town with meandering streets. Nearby you'll find castles and wineries.

-Bagno Vignoni features a "hot waterfall," thermal springs and a 2,000-year-old pool carved into limestone rock.