Currently airing on Canadian television,

For travelers eager to sightsee in Rome, a city awash with history, many surprises await inside the walls of one of its greatest attractions: Vatican City and its museums.

Some 1,400 rooms of treasures make the Vatican Museums complex the largest in the world. But, of course, most visitors come for one thing: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508.

One little-known fact about this grand Michelangelo work, populated by more than 300 figures and, most famously, recreating The Last Judgment, is that it was painted over an earlier painting of a starry sky.

Although most crane their necks to look up at the detailed frescoes from the center of the room, the ceiling was actually meant to be viewed from a different perspective. If you stand in front of the closed door opposite the main tourist entrance door used today, you’ll get the eyeful that Michelangelo intended.

Photos courtesy of Museum Secrets

Another secret about the ceiling is how Michelangelo maintained depth on the curved surfaces of the chapel’s ceiling and walls. Many believe that his genius as a sculptor actually aided him as he sought to master a new medium, that of painting on plaster.

To see the brush strokes and detail of the resulting frescoes at the Sistine Chapel, consider toting a good pair of binoculars to get a more intimate impression of the works. If you look really hard, you might notice what two John Hopkins neurosurgeons did when they studied a portion ceiling known as “Separation of Light From Darkness.”

They thought that the neck of God appeared to contain a depiction of the human brainstem. Did they just see something they wanted to see? Or did the artist really plant a hidden message?

Those binoculars will also serve you well as you move beyond the Sistine Chapel and into the four Raphael stanze (rooms), where you can view the precision masterworks of Raphael and Botticelli.

Star-gazers should make a stop at the Pinacoteca gallery, which houses more than 400 gems of Italian art by Bernini, Caravaggio, Giotto, and Leonardo da Vinci, some of which depict the heavens. Several paintings by Donato Creti, for example, were commissioned to convince the Pope in the early 18th Century to support the creation of an astronomical observatory at the Vatican. It seemed to work, because the first Vatican Observatory (another great site of interest) was built soon after.

The endless rooms of the Vatican Museum hide many more secrets, of course. They involve, for a start, a canoe, a mummy, and a whole lot of fig leaves . . .

A Week at the Airport by Alain de Botton. Last summer, de Botton, the author of The Art of Travel, grabbed headlines around the world when he accepted an invitation from British Airways to set up camp at London’s Heathrow Airport for a week and see what ensued. De Botton wandered the terminal, from baggage claim to hangars, night and day, and this book provides plenty of glimpses of a complex and mysterious world. Its best parts come, not unexpectedly given the author, from the philosophical musings that his stint provoked. — JG

TO BUY: A Week at the Airport (Vintage International Original)

Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It’s not a travel book exactly, but this volume by the James Beard Award-winning author is sure to transport you to a delectable culinary place. Greenspan, who lives part-time in Paris and has collaborated with the likes of the late Julia Child and pastry maestro Pierre Herme, shares a range of recipes today’s French chefs are preparing —  or as she puts it: “a mix of old and new, traditional and exotic, store-bought and homemade, simple and complex.” – RD

TO BUY: Around My French Table: More than 300 Recipes from My Homes to Yours

Contact!: A Book of Encounters by Jan Morris. One of the world’s best travel writers — famous for her detailed narratives and close takes on specific destinations — serves up something different this time ’round. Here, in entries just a few paragraphs long, she turns her keen eye to the characters she’s encountered along the way. A favorite: her pleasure at so aptly summarizing a woman dining alone in Stockholm as the likely embodiment of all things Swedish. “She seemed to express all that I expected of Stockholm, and when I at last engaged her in conversation, and boldly asked her what she did for a living, I could almost have hugged her in gratitude. ‘I am a juvenile social welfare worker,’ she replied.”— JG

TO BUY: Contact!: A Book of Encounters

Destroy This Memory by Richard Misrach and Detroit Disassembled by Andrew Moore. This team of photography books make a provocative gift set for the thoughtful urban traveler. The former offers a searing, but often amusing, look at New Orleans. Taken in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the images steer far clear of pastel houses and prancing musicians and instead focus on the graffiti that was scrawled at the destroyed houses left behind in the wake of the hurricane. The latter zooms its lenses on a different kind of destruction: the decay that’s overcome Detroit due to years of neglect and disinvestment. From Art Deco skyscrapers sprouting weeds to bizarrely beautiful theater lobbies turned into Gothic horror chambers, the images here are bound to anger anyone who cares about cities. — JG

TO BUY: Destroy This Memory, Detroit Disassembled

In Motion: The Experience of Travel by Tony Hiss. New Yorker writer follows up his look at the places in which we choose to live (The Experience of Place) with an examination of what he calls “Deep Travel.” It’s an often-dense book, but a certain kind of reader will walk away feeling challenged and ready to face travel with a new mindset. That, or they’ll finally get around to digging into that tattered copy of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, a novel that Hiss turns to for his own inspiration. — JG

TO BUY: In Motion: The Experience of Travel

Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World by Sam Howe Verhovek. Where would we global roamers be without jet travel? Probably sitting on a deck chair in the middle of the Atlantic waiting for our ship to come in. As quaint as that may seem, it’s been just over 50 years since the first commercial jets began to regularly cross the Atlantic. Sam Howe Verhovek, a former national correspondent for The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, chronicles the competition between Britain’s de Havilland and a then little-known U.S. company called Boeing to add speed and ease to commercial flights –– and transform the very idea of travel. – RD

TO BUY: Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World

Louis Vuitton: 100 Legendary Trunks by Pierre Leonforte and Erick Pujalet-Plaa. Forget this torturous age of plane travel and find yourself back in an age where although things moved slowly, they did so with the utmost grace and elegance. This illustration-laden treasure offers peaks at the carrying cases of everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Karl Lagerfeld. — JG

TO BUY: Louis Vuitton: 100 Legendary Trunks

Pins on a Map: A Family’s Yearlong Journey Around the World by David Boesch. Several years ago, physician David Boesch and his wife, Jill, with their three children under the age of 13, set off on a life-changing adventure around the world. The Boesch family over the course of 345 days logged six continents and 17 countries, including stops in Turkey, India, Japan, Australia and Africa’s Serengeti. Here, Boesch offers a wealth of travel tales, as well as practical tips for other families considering such an experience. – RD

TO BUY: Pins on a Map: A Family’s Yearlong Journey Around the World

Taschen’s Berlin: Hotel, Restaurants and Shops by Angelika Taschen. Following on the heels of New York, London, and Paris, this latest photo extravaganza delves into the sumptuous store windows and hotel lobbies of a city that’s become synonymous with urban revitalization and ultra-hip nightlife. — JG

TO BUY: TASCHEN’s Berlin

A cooking demonstration in the Sicilian capital of Palermo; photos by Donna Connor

With the mega best-seller Eat Pray Love hitting the big screen, The City Traveler asked its correspondents to share their memories of exploring the countries that forever changed the life of author Elizabeth Gilbert.

Here are snippets from their journeys to Italy (“Eat”), India (“Pray”) and Indonesia (“Love”).

Photographer Donna Connor also shares her evocative images from a recent trip to Sicily and Italy’s Aeolian Islands.

Jumping Off the Cliff (Again)

In Ravello, Italy, my husband surprised me with a fully orchestrated renewal of our vows at the Hotel Caruso, which teeters on a cliff. We drank oodles of champagne and listened as a shaman of sorts read us poetry, words that competed only with the slapping sound of the sea.

–– Becca Hensley

Marcello, Was That You?!

As a 19-year-old, in Italy for the first time, I barely stepped down from the train in Milano when I was pinched you-know-where. I whirled around expecting Marcello Mastroianni. Alas, it was a little, old man who probably had been greeting naive young American girls for almost a century.

–– Stacia Friedman

The (still-active) volcano on the island of Stromboli.

In Lucrezia Borgia’s Steps

In Ferrara, one of Italy’s most musical –– and car-free –– cities, the thrill was biking up through the center and turning on to a dirt path that circled the outside of the Renaissance walls; and coming back in through the gate the infamous Lucrezia Borgia used in the late 1500s.

–– Emilie Harting

Ritual Cleanse

I was worn out and pissed off when I got to Kerala, India. But  lying on a specially made wooden table while a massage therapist applied oil with downward strokes. soon gave me a taste of what well-being could feel like. Afterward, I was scrubbed with a green lentil powder that dried into a kind of whole body masque. Later, I sat beside the infinity pool, gazing at an elephant statue and the waters beyond.

–– Jacqueline Swartz

A back street on the Italian island of Lipari.

Rude Awakening

The 5 a.m. entrepreneurial alarm clock on the three-day train ride between Delhi and Kerala has no snooze button. “Mango Juice! Cold Drinks! Chai! Coffee! Chai! Coffee!” A baby starts to cry somewhere in the second-class sleep car. The Indian countryside says good morning.

–– Josh Miller

Organically Speaking

Ubud, Indonesia is home to a bustling artisan shopping and café district, along with a handful of old school spas that rely on natural products and hands-on body work. But I didn’t expect to find an organic restaurant in the middle of a rice field a 15-minutes walk away. There I savored a lunch of grilled chicken salad, vegetarian kebabs and fried bananas –– all for about $5.

–– Beth D’Addono

A good read: Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

Cafe Hawelka in Vienna, photo by Matt Gross

Matt Gross may no longer be the official Frugal Traveler for The New York Times, but that doesn’t mean he’s abandoning his budget-conscious ways.

For Gross, whose columnist stint ended in May, travel on the cheap remains key to his having a meaningful experience on the road.

“Money insulates you from the challenge of travel,” Gross tells The City Traveler. “For me, travel is all about the challenge, a way to get out of normal, boring life and do something that tests my skills as a human being. If you have money, you can just pay to get things. If you don’t have money, you have to rely on your wits.”

Those wits served Gross well during his four-year stint as the Frugal Traveler, for which he focused on mining the most from European and other destinations where price can be an object.

Gross, who is still writing for The Times, as well as Afar and Saveur, shared how Paris, Rome and other high-end capitals also have their discount sides, and why he views budget travel as a means –– and not an end –– to a rewarding experience away from home. Here’s an edited version of a recent phone chat.

How do big cities in general rank for the penny-pinching traveler?

Big cities are a lot easier because they have public transportation almost everywhere. If you’re out in the country, and you don’t have access to a car, or a bicycle, you’re trapped.

Cities don’t necessarily all have rich inhabitants. You’re always going to find at least a few affordable places to eat and shop. Finding a place to stay can be tough. There are certainly cities that just don’t have a lot of cheap hotels, but you can find wonderful ways to stay cheaply, like CouchSurfing or renting places through Craigslist.

It can be harder to meet people in cities. You’re surrounded by tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of people, none of whom necessarily want to take an interest you. And why should they? People live in cities, so that they don’t have to know who everyone is, but it also depends on the city.

What city has surprised you with its friendliness?

Vienna –– it’s incredibly easy to meet people hanging out in cafes. I wound up getting into conversations with all kinds of people sharing a bar or coffee table. It was really easy –– I thought it would be a lot tougher to make that connection.

Matt Gross, photo by Tracy Sham

But can you still find bargains in European cities?

They all have bargains. Going to Rome and Paris, there’s great stuff you can get there that doesn’t necessarily cost a lot. There’s a bunch of really great, ambitious restaurants in Paris doing three-course meals for under 30 euros a person. That’s not an insignificant amount, but when you think about what you’re getting for that  –– well-considered, ambitious French food at often a pretty cool place –– that’s a great bargain.

At the same time, you can spend two or three euros, and have a classic jambon beurre [a sandwich of ham and butter on baguette].

In Rome, there are a ton of trattorias that have a first or second course for six or seven euros, and they’re substantial.

You have to do a little work to find them and get out of the area around the Coliseum.

Are there cities, where staying on a budget is easier, or just more pleasurable?

I’m not a very picky person –– I tend to have a good time pretty much everywhere I go. There are places where I have a great time, places where I have friends or make good friends. That has more to do with [those experiences] than how much money I spend or don’t spend. My attitude towards frugality has evolved a lot over the past few years.

How so?

Often, people see money as the goal of their trip. I have a serious disagreement with that. Saving money is a strategy for going on a trip –– for having a good time. But the point of the trip is to enjoy yourself –– that’s my goal, to find ways to amuse myself, to have an interesting experience.

For you, where does a little extra money go the longest way?

In general, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate a slightly more comfortable living space. CouchSurfing is more comfortable than staying in a cheap hotel. I’ve stayed in enough bad, forgettable hotels that to stay somewhere that’s functional and well-run is sometimes worth an extra $10 a night.

On a day-to-day basis, what’s worth a splurge to me is food. There’s never a situation, where spending a little bit of extra money on a good meal is a bad idea.

Are there any drawbacks to traveling on a budget?

There’s no drawback for me –– none at all –– except when I’m writing the stuff for publication. If I’m doing it for work, and not just for myself, there’s a certain amount of extra anxiety about every dollar, euro, kopek or baht I spend. Is it really justified? Are readers going to get up in arms about me paying this much for this thing? That’s the only deep anxiety I get.

Did readers get on your case about your spending?

One of the first comments I ever got was, “How dare you call yourself frugal? I did the same thing 30 years ago for 17 cents a day –– I ate grass and slept in an imaginary hammock.” Everyone has their own definition of frugal. What I always tried for was to not just to be frugal, but to get a lot of value out of what I was spending, even if I wasn’t spending the least amount of money possible.

It doesn’t take any effort to not spend money. To seek out more interesting, more complicated and occasionally more luxurious experiences was the challenge for me.

We ended up with an intriguing combination of portraiture, cityscapes and slice-of-life shots from cities around the world, as seen through the eyes (and lenses) of some very talented shooters.  Here they are:

Tourists make their way into the main lobby of the Louvre Museum in Paris. (Photo Laura Bustillos ©2009)

First Prize goes to  Laura Bustillos, a student of visual journalism at Brooks Institute in California, for her shot of the Louvre in Paris, which Bob Krist called “a great moment, original composition, and great job of seeing and execution.”

New York City at night (photo Yuanchen Liu)

Second Prize goes to Yuanchen (Ethan) Liu of Brooklyn for his night shot of the Manhattan skyline, which Bob called “very moody and evocative” and praised for its “great timing” and “wonderful use of B&W.”

Igor Mitoraj's sculpture on the main market square in Krakow, Poland. (photo Maciej Gołaszewski)

Maciej Gołaszewski of Poland earned an honorable mention for his “very atmospheric” shot of Krakow, an image that, Krist says, “proves you can make great photos in bad weather.”

Street vendor in Rajasthan, India (photo Lana Neal)

Lana Neal received an honorable mention for her vivid portrait of a street vendor in Rajasthan, India. Bob Krist called this a “well-executed, classic environmental street portrait.”

Counting money in a church gift shop in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico (photo Patricia Gajo)

And finally, Patricia Gajo, a Montreal-based freelance writer and editor, won an honorable mention for what Bob describes as a “quiet but evocative environmental portrait” and praises for its “great job of seeing and framing.”

Hearty congratulations to all our winners and many thanks to everyone who submitted their city shots. Happy travels — and keep shooting!

One grand prize winner will be featured in a photo spread in The City Traveler and receive the book Travel Photography: Documenting the World’s People and Places by Bob Krist. Second prize winner will receive Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography and publication on TCT. Three honorable mentions will each get one photo published here.

Temples of Bagan in Burma (photography © Bob Krist)

Bob Krist has a dream job. He’s paid to explore the world with his camera and the results appear in magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, and Islands. Last year, the Society of American Travel Writers named Bob “Travel Photographer of the Year” for the third time, one of many awards he’s earned over the years.

If you can’t attend one of his travel photography workshops, you can learn from him via DVD or book. Here, Krist shares a few secrets for capturing the kind of images that make him one of the most sought-after travel photographers in the business.

Your images are like paintings. Does it require thousands of dollars and decades of experience to achieve that?

No and yes. It doesn’t require a big investment but it does take practice. I use DSLR cameras a notch or two above entry level: Nikon D90s and a D300S. They both shoot high-definition video but the second D300S has a better interface and a place to plug in a mic.

I don’t like to carry around a big, heavy camera and I don’t need nine frames a second. Also, when I’m traveling overseas, I want to look as innocuous and anonymous as possible. When you have a gigantic professional DSLR around your neck with a giant bulb on top, you stick out. I’d rather look more like a tourista than a journalist.

How much practice does it take to start producing really good travel photos?

You don’t need the 30 years I’ve been at it, but the more you practice with a camera, the better you get. That’s the crux of the matter. People invest the machine with all this power but it’s really just a matter of learning to use it. I’ve taught a lot of workshops over the years and the main thing that stops people from getting better photographs is that they don’t know their current equipment well enough to forget about it. You can’t do that if you’re constantly upgrading.

Montmartre neighborhood in Paris (photography © Bob Krist)

It’s hard not to get caught up when they release a camera that takes twice the megapixels as yours and high-def video 30 feet underwater.

Photographers have always been susceptible to gear lust because you’re out there alone and you want to make sure your stuff competes. So we buy into a lot of the marketing hype. After digital cameras were introduced, we needed to update every time a new model was released because they were so awful in the beginning. Manufacturers had to iron out a lot of bugs. But we’ve plateaued. It’s not a mature technology but it’s an adolescent anyway. My cameras will probably suffice until I drop dead or retire. I don’t need much more.

What’s the secret to photographing cities?

One of the problems with shooting in cities is that they only have so many skyline views you can access. If you could be like Spiderman and jump from rooftop to rooftop, you could get unique images. But you can’t, so you’re often stuck in the same classic spots everyone else shoots from.

Unless you can talk your way up to the top of a building, your best bet for getting images that stand out is to shoot in nice times of the day like twilight or sunrise or to take advantage of different types of weather. You’ll get a much more memorable shot if it’s snowing hard in Salzburg than you would on a bright summer day. So I usually look for light quality. I’ll get the classic views under my belt then look for interesting details like reflections, or one stanchion of the Eiffel Tower shot with a real long lens.

Dancers in Oaxaca, Mexico, by Bob Krist

What about photographing people on the street?

Street scenes are tough because everyday life is chaotic and you’re shooting through that chaos. Every once in a while, there’s a moment where the ballet of the street comes together, but taking interesting pictures of everyday life is one the hardest categories of travel photography because it’s so mundane. I just came back from Buenos Aires where I was on assignment for National Geographic Traveler. It was early in the season so people were bundled up and there was not much going on in the streets. It was really hard to find a good shot.

How many shots should we expect to trash in order to get a winner?

People always ask me how many shots I take to get a good one and I say as many as it takes. You never ask poets how many words they write to get a good one. I tell people not to worry how many bad shots you’re taking, just don’t show them to anyone! Don’t worry about your batting average. When we were shooting film, that could get expensive and bulky but now it’s just chip space and disk space. Just keep shooting.

For the Coffeetable
Time Out The World’s Greatest Cities (Time Out Guides)
Urban fans might quibble when they discover a favorite city (Zurich, Warsaw) hasn’t made the cut, and still others may buck at the very notion of rating cities. But for the most part this book lives up to its name, and the 75 cities here, and the methods by which they were chosen, merit inclusion. Each entry is authored by a different writer who gives an accurate, detailed and personality-filled summation of their assigned city. Photos, on the other hand, are often generic — too many closeups of food, cafes, and twosomes cuddling — but images like a little yellow tram tilting toward a row of balconied, pastel-hued buildings (Lisbon), or of  straphangers jostling on a fan-cooled, banner-strewn subway car, are more than enough to want you to get traveling yourself.

New York 400: A Visual History of America’s Greatest City with Images from The Museum of the City of New York Long before it evolved into the glittering metropolis we know, New York City was a quiet port town along the Hudson River, a stepping-off point for immigrants from all over the world, an embattled and corrupt commercial center. Four centuries after Henry Hudson explored its shores for the first time, the Museum of the City of New York released this book to celebrate the city’s multi-layered, tumultuous history. Created around 500 images from the museum’s collection, New York 400 explores how slavery, prostitution, riots and Aaron Burr all shaped the Apple we know. Even born-and-bred New Yorkers will see Manhattan with new eyes.

Four Florida Moderns: The Architecture of Albert E. Alfonso, René González, Chad Oppenheim, and Guy Peterson Author Saxon Henry has covered interior design for The New York Times, Robb Report, Traditional Home  and Coastal Living, among others, and here she looks around her own backyard to survey the work of four contemporary architects working in what she calls “tropical modern.” Many of the projects featured are residential, making this a must for fans of urban architecture; but travelers will have the chance to come across the work of these designers, too, in places like Tampa (Alberto Alfonson’s C Terminal at the airport) and Miami (Rene Gonzalez’ renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and his award-winning Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation building).

Food Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 Extraordinary Places to Eat Around the Globe From luxuries like Japan’s sushi and Russia’s caviar to succulents like the beef of Argentina and the vintages of France, the world’s most fabulous food experiences are all here, in vivid and tantalizing color. But more than just pretty pictures, this lovely book makes for fascinating reading: telling the story of great cultures through their foods and the people who make and prepare them.

For the Nightstand
The Best American Travel Writing 2009 In this time of media consolidations and shutdowns of glossy magazines, it’s reassuring, if a bit old school, to even have a collection of superlative travel pieces in print form. For this grouping of about two dozen articles and essays, Simon Winchester, a British writer who lives in New York, has taken inspiration from his home country’s rich tradition of travel writing to select pieces that encouraged him “to go and see and feel and know for myself.” The work is mostly drawn from the usual suspects in terms of outlets (The New Yorker, The New York Times and National Geographic), and the writers are similarly well-known; they include best-selling author and humorist Calvin Trillin, Dwell founding editor in chief Karrie Jacobs and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek.

Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World In January, 2007, author and blogger Homa Sabet Tavangar and her three daughters, then aged three-and-a-half, 12 and 14, embarked on a life-changing journey: a three month-stint living in Gambia. This cross-cultural experience, as well as Tavangar’s time spent in the Middle East, South America and China, where she represented the city of Philadephia as an international development adviser, helped form the backdrop for this book. Tavangar, using a how-to format, makes a compelling case for the benefits of parents sharing the world with their children, whether through international travel, or more affordable “staycations” to local museums, ethnic restaurants  and globally-flavored festivals and events.

For the Bookshelf

Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography In the latest edition of this illustrated how-to, Richard I’Anson, a regular shooter for Lonely Planet, shares the basics of getting good shots just about anywhere. He mentions film but tips are based on digital photography, as they should be, including video. He even gets into shooting with a cell phone. One chapter is devoted to photographing people and landscapes, another to “urban environments,” including architecture, skylines, interiors and night scenes. I’Anson illustrates his points with his own images but the emphasis is on the how-to. This makes a handy guide for budding travel shooters, compact enough to bring along on your next jaunt.

Lonely Planet’s Best In Travel 2010 (General Reference) This fun, list-driven read is sure to provide plenty of travel inspirations for next year and beyond. Highlighted are Top 10 Countries, Regions and Cities, as well as quirkier picks, like “Hedonistic City Breaks,” “Vegetarian Heaven (& Hell),” and “Geek Treats Around the Globe.” Some of the Lonely Planet’s findings may seem a bit questionable –– for example, El Salvador still seems a bit risky to visit, compared to other Top 10 countries like Greece and New Zealand. But this is a minor quibble for what is otherwise an entertaining source for places already on the map and those that are less-discovered.

Christmas in Italy (e-book from Dream of Italy.com) This downloadable and free, 35-page guide is packed with practical information (holiday hotel packages, getting tickets to Midnight Mass at the Vatican), as well as fun-to-read explanations of Italian holiday traditions and, perhaps best of all, recipes for an abbondanza of classic Christmas desserts. Buon Natale!

New York City Restaurants 2010 (Michelin Red Guide) When deciding to tackle the American dining scene in 2006, this bestower of precious and prestigious stars started with only one city, New York, of course. After expanding in subsequent years to include San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles, 2010 offerings are back down to two: the Apple, and the City By the Bay. The New York guide awards the coveted three stars to just five restaurants (Daniel, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, Masa, and Per Se). But in a response to past criticism of favoring the traditional and the high falutin’, it also includes a new category, Small Plates, that highlights “establishments with a distinct style of service setting and menu.” In another nod to modern cuisine and diners, new symbols have also been created to showcase those restaurants with notable specialty cocktail or sake lists. There’s also a fairly comprehensive guide to the city’s best hotels, as well as an invaluable foldout back cover that details the hottest restaurant and hostelry openings forecast for next year.

Like most people, I first encountered the words of David Byrne in the form of lyrics. I was standing in someone’s dorm room, listening to “More Songs About Buildings and Food.” Those songs were a revelation. I bought every Talking Heads album that came out after that.

Around the time that album made the Talking Heads famous, Byrne began riding a bike around Manhattan and, eventually, traveling with a folding version. For three decades, cycling has been his preferred mode of transportation. He’s been observing cities around the world from their bike lanes – or, more often, while dodging cars and pedestrians in the street – and has compiled those observations in a memoir titled Bicycle Diaries(Viking/Penguin).

If you’re familiar with the Talking Heads, you’ll recognize the curious and quirky mind behind these tales. Byrne is riffing on the same themes here, but in considerably more depth. He is still into art and buildings; he writes for pages on the modern buildings in Istanbul, “the triumph of both the cult of capitalism and the cult of Marxist materialism.” But he’s mostly interested in people. The book is full of chance encounters and the reflections they inspire.

Most of Bicycle Diaries has nothing to do with cycling, it just happens to be how the author gets around – and it’s important to him. (Last year, Byrne designed a series of bike racks around Brooklyn and Manhattan.) Nevertheless, Bicycle Diaries serves as a handy guide for anyone contemplating the possibility of cycling in the dozen or so cities he writes about.

David Byrne on biking…

…in New York City: “I ride my bike almost everyday here in New York…. The city has added a lot of bike lanes in recent years, and they claim they now have more than any other city in the United States. But sadly most of them are not safe enough that one can truly relax….” (If you have any doubt about this, join him on this harrowing ride through Times Square: David Byrne Bike Cam)

…in Berlin: “I ride my bike along the bike lanes here in Berlin and it all seems so civilized, pleasant, and enlightened… There are little stoplights just for the bikers, even turn signals! … If the New York City streets are wilder and funkier, than the German streets are on Prozac – civilized but slightly less exciting.”

…in Istanbul: “Ride a bike in Istanbul? Are you nuts? Yes… and no. The traffic here is pretty chaotic and there are a number of hills, but on a bike I can get around the central city…faster than one can in a car.”

…in London: “London sprawls for an old city…. As a result there can be some long and strenuous pedals. These don’t necessarily result in making a trip longer than it would be on the tube, but I sometimes arrive a little shiny.”

…in Sydney: “As a place for urban biking, Australian towns are better than most. Sydney is a bit tough—the geography and busy arteries that link the various neighborhoods are not very welcoming – but Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide I find to be more accommodating.”

…in San Francisco: “San Francisco is philosophically and politically bike-friendly, but not geographically….”

Don’t expect a run-of-the-mill travelogue from a guy who collaborates with Brian Eno and has been known to perform in a tutu. Byrne takes us to some pretty strange places, combining on-the-spot observation with conclusions reached over many years, often while cycling between performances.

He makes a convincing case for taking a folding bike along on your next trip. He also presents a compelling argument for more and better bike lanes in the U.S. In that sense, his book couldn’t be better timed.

Buy here: Bicycle Diaries

Cathleen McCarthy’s take on bicycling in her hometown of Philadelphia appears here.

Venice’s magic never ceases… it just modulates, gently, from hour to hour. Just before dawn, the city is tinged with blue and the promise of another beautiful day. By early morning, the gondolieri gather and the tourists and pigeons invade Piazza San Marco. After dark, the bands begin to play old classics on the glittering plaza and the labyrinth canals recapture the mystery and romance of centuries past. (Photography by Mike Tyler and Cathleen McCarthy) For a look at one of Venice’s newest hotels, check out JoAnn Greco’s stay at the Molino Stucky on the island of Guidecca.

• Taschen Books
• $39.95
• Buy for: Your tweedy uncle or your college-age niece embarking on her first journey overseas.
  

Buy here: Taschen’s London