Boston Globe: Travel

Call it a quest for powder or the joy of isolation. Maybe it’s a way to save a buck or escape the increasingly relentless noise at most big resorts.

I steadied myself with outstretched arms against the rock face in front of me and eased out onto the unstable ridge. If I made it, this barren stretch of boulders would funnel me into one of Stowe Mountain Resort’s best unmarked glades.

This winter, experience the chills, thrills, snow, and ice from a different perspective. Savor the possibilities of a culinary snowsports tour in Italy. Conquer any fear of steep and deep with a specialty ski or snowboard program.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Sometimes the most powerful form of commemoration is to preserve the place where the event happened.

Destinations: French Food Festival in Louisiana; Harvest on the Harbor in Portland, Maine; Caribbean Rum & Beer Festival in Barbados; Cornucopia Food and Wine Festival in Whistler, British Columbia; Beaujolais and Beyond Wine Festival in Dallas

When fall arrives the air gets crisp and visions of pumpkins, apples, and hayrides replace those of bathing suits and beaches. Here’s a baker’s dozen list of festivals in New England featuring tractor pulls and Ferris wheels, farm animals and petting zoos, traditional crafts and contemporary music, plus wine, oysters, garlic, cream puffs, beer, cidar, and more.

A shimmering expanse of sand spreads out before you - 45 acres in all. Wind-carved ledges and dunes create an undulating effect. The desert is dotted with trees buried so deep only their tops are visible.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

Cultural destinations column, which this particular Sunday sends readers to London, for Degas and dance at the Royal Academy; Hamburg, for photographs of Paris at the Deichtorhallen’s House of Photography; New York, for De Kooning at the Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles, for two shows on LA art, at the Getty; Cambridge, England, for Vermeer, at the Fitwilliam; and Paris, for Rodin’s drawings, at the Rodin Museum.

Three weeks in Nepal. Thirty years ago they had hiked the celebrated but populated Annapurna Circuit, staying in teahouses. “This time our requirements were that the route was off the beaten track and we would see no other tourists.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

As Harvey Cushing saw it, every brain tells a story. In a serene, wood-paneled space two stories underground in the Cushing/Whitney Library of Yale School of Medicine, more than 400 brains, all collected in autopsies by this pioneering neurosurgeon between 1902 and 1932, float like placid sea creatures in jars of amber liquid.