I had been to travel writing conferences, and book festivals, but until this past weekend I had never been to a travel writing festival.

It seemed about time that travel writing got its own celebration. And a wonderful celebration it was. (Put on for the first time, and pulled off with great elan, by Jackie Dutton of the University of Melbourne.)

Of course I'm biased, since I participated. I gave a talk at the start, which unfortunately caused me to miss Elaine Lewis's session about her time running an Australian bookstore in Paris (which she charmingly records in her book Left Bank Waltz).

Someone questioned my remark about the declining popularity of travel books, noting that in Australia they are doing very well. I had noticed that, actually, on my visits to Melbourne bookstores. I told him that in the big chain bookstores in the States, the shelves of travel narratives had gotten smaller over the last few years. And -- though I didn't say this -- we don't have travel writing festivals.

In the afternoon I caught Angus McDonald's slide show of Indian hill trains. His stunning photographs -- accompanied by classical Indian music -- beautifully transported his audience to the subcontinent.

Since Melbourne is the home of Lonely Planet, three of their authors conducted a lively conversation on the workings of guidebook writers.

Sunday I taught a four-hour workshop, which made me miss more interesting authors: Arnold Zable, Josiane Behmoiras (on a subject dear to my heart: slow travel), Robert Dessaix. But my students were fascinating in their own right, revealing, in brief asides, travel experiences that humbled my modest exploits. (One woman casually mentioned a few years spent in Ethiopia.) I once wrote a column calling the Germans the "world's best travelers" but I may have to change that to the Australians. (I haven't heard of any travel writing festivals in Germany.)

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I've been told by authoritative sources that I don't need to leave Melbourne to find wildlife.

I'm staying in Carlton, about a fifteen minute walk from downtown, and apparently in the park in front of my hotel you can see possums at night. Flynig foxes prefer Lincoln Square, a few blocks away. And all sorts of exotic birds can be seen in the botanical gardens.

I found some exotic potato chips in the local 7-Eleven, with flavors like Lime & Black Pepper, Sweet Chilli and Sour Cream, Honey-Baked Ham, and Tzatziki.

The Australian dollar is about equal to the U.S. dollar, which makes things convenient but not very cheap. I paid $34 yesterday for the Lonely Planet guide to Melbourne -- one of their slender city guides -- and, at that price, will read every page.

Carrying the precious guide back to my hotel I passed a woman in a hijab who was pushing a stroller with both her hands and talking on her cell phone at the same time, the phone conveniently held on her cheek by her tight head scarf.

At the entrance to the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne I found the Toothpick Cafe, which had a nice selection of hot and cold foods, plus two types of gluten-free cookies.

This morning I woke up at 5 a.m. and the possums suddenly made sense, as Melbourne, I remembered, is Dame Edna's hometown.

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"Do you know where I can get a good meat pie?"

The man at the information desk of the State Library of Victoria looked a bit surprised. I had wandered around the magnificent building -- marveling at the great domed reading room, with its warm rays of wooden desks spreading out from the center, illuminated here and there by elegant green banker's lamps -- and now was hungry. And I have a thing about starting my visit to a place with local fare.


The man thought a while, asked his assistant, and eventually they sent me to a little food court in the bottom of the building next door, where I had a nice pie of steak, bacon and cheese.

Afterwards, I wandered up Little Bourke Street, and then down Bourke Street, marveling anew at the range of restaurants. The first street turned into a little Chinatown with traditional Chinese restaurants -- a water tank in one displayed the largest crabs I have ever seen, sort of like footballs with legs -- and more modern bistrots, like the Post-Mao Cafe.

Bourke Street had some wonderful looking Indian restaurants, full of Indian office workers and the smell of curry. Pelligrino's Bar was a narrow room with people squeezed at the bar wolfing down plates of pasta. Back on Swanston Street I passed a Chinese dumpling place directly across from a Vietnamese noodle house.

Something tells me I'm going to go easy on the meat pies.

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The nice thing about the barebones U.S airlines is that they make flying foreign airlines seem luxurious.

Stepping off my American Airlines flight at LAX and boarding Qantas was a bit like moving from coach to first class, even though -- in row 46 - I was far from the front. I showed my boarding pass and was directed to the back by a flight attendant who addressed me as "Mr. Swick."

Once in the air we were fed dinner -- a choice of seared salmon with snow peas or chicken with orzo salad. Before going to sleep, we were each handed a little bag containing a bottle of water, a dried fruit snack, oatmeal cookies, and M&Ms. To help us through the night.


I slept, talked to my seatmate -- a Qantas mechanic flying back to Adelaide -- and caught up on movies: Smart People, The Band's Visit, Charlie Wilson's War -- shown on the screen embedded in the back of the seat in front of me."

We had two breakfasts -- the reward for stopping in Auckland -- and arrived in Melbourne a little after 9 am -- about 26 hours after I left Miami. If there are any typos in this, that's why.

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"Are you done?" I asked the man leaving the lobby computer.

"I'm out of here," he said. "I'm history. Soon moving into myth."

I'm staying at the Graduate House on the campus of the University of Melbourne (to sort of help explain that dialogue).

Though this is my second time in Australia, this is the first time I've felt that I've come to the other side of the world. It's not that planes have gotten faster. It's because nine years ago I flew straight to Cairns and the heat and humidity, the lush vegetation, were -- after 20-odd hours of sky -- right where I'd left off.

This time I arrived in wintry Melbourne. Yesterday was a lovely day -- partly sunny, in the high 50s -- but the slanting sunlight on facades, gray clouds seen through a web of leafless branches -- were things I hadn't seen in years. It is the landscape of my childhood, but one I associate with the time right after Christmas, not right after the Fourth of July.

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If you're in New York City tomorrow, stop by the South Street Seaport around 10 a.m. to see the launch of The New York City Waterfalls.

The art work, created by Olafur Eliasson, consists of four falls, all of which are on the East River and visible from the South Street Seaport. Perhaps the most dramatic is the one under the Brooklyn Bridge (artist's rendering left).

Sort of like Chicago's Cloud Gate sculpture, this is one of those art works that makes you wonder: How come nobody thought of this before?

The waterfalls will be up through Oct. 13.

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Lake Worth is to Palm Beach County what Hollywood is to Broward: an earthy, unpretentious, mildly bohemian oasis in a land of glitz. (Instead of Eastern Europeans it has Finns.)

Hania and I went up Friday and met friends, Vivian and Steve, for dinner at the Pelican Restaurant on Lake Ave. The Pelican is a typical American breakfast and lunch place that, because the owners are from the subcontinent, serves Indian food on Friday evenings (the only evenings it's open for dinner).

On our way there we passed a man walking down the avenue with a snake around his shoulders. We sat outside and munched on papadum while sipping chardonnay. More interesting characters paraded past. Across the street a young man sat on the sidewalk strumming a guitar. A horse-drawn carriage clopped down the avenue, driven by a young blond woman.

The food - curried chicken, 10-vegetable curry, curried potatoes and spinach, dal - was brought by a stocky man from Brooklyn who made sure that the naan on my plate wasn't facing the plate of Hania, the celiac. (The waitress from Michael's Genuine Food should come here for lessons.)

It was the best Indian food I've ever had at an American restaurant.

As we left, we heard someone singing Ol' Man River. We followed the music and came to a puppet theater set up on the sidewalk. Steve had told us about the theater, which usually features opera music. Tonight, it was American musicals. Children sat on the sidewalk, with their parents, watching with interest.

We wandered over to Les Beans Coffeehouse on Second Avenue where a co-worker of Vivian's sister-in-law was performing. Words painted on the front window read: "Organic Fair Trade Coffee." Inside, the singer, Guendolyn Joy, was talking to people between sets. She was a tall woman with long red hair, originally from Barcelona and now living in Boynton Beach. Then she took the small stage, with her guitar, and sang in a large, lovely voice.

When she finished, we strolled some more, passing cute cottages on postage stamp lawns, a bar with a band, a bar with a singer, a place called Havana Hideout with a cigar garden (first I'd seen) and chaise longues sitting in a row along the sidewalk as if at a pool and not the main street. No one reclined in one, though I think the next time I go to Lake Worth I will.

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Tennis writer Charles Bricker found some time - during a rain delay perhaps? - to send this quick snapshot, and helpful tip, from the French Open:

Four weeks into my European trip, one week into the French Open, three weeks before the start of Wimbledon and five weeks to go before I open the front door and Mackie and Murphy, the German shepherd terrors of the neighborhood, welcome me home with a thousand licks.

I was just thinking as I rode the No. 123 bus from Place Marcel Sembat to the tournament site this morning that one of the most important things I took on this trip was in my left pocket.

This is not a commercial for Bath and Body Works, disguised as a letter from Paris. But, hey, that’s where I bought this stuff and so naturally I’m going to give full details on where I got it as well as what it does.

It’s called “Japanese cherry blossom” and it’s an anti-bacterial moisturizing hand lotion. Heavy emphasis on “anti-bacterial.”

Let’s talk germs.

They’re everywhere, and not just in Paris. But you have to be acutely aware of them in this city because you’re not in your car, where the vast majority of lingering germs are your own. You’re on buses. You’re on the Metro. And you’re handling bread products, which are routinely handled with unprotected hands by workers in boulangeries.

I might as well begin with the bread shops, since I seem to be in one every day. I’m a croissant addict. Sure, I’ll admit it, but I’m smart enough to have weaned myself away from consuming too many croissants which are made with prodigious amounts of butter and am now taking one or two croissant nature (“kwah-sahn nah-choor”), which, as the name suggests, have very little butter, if any at all. I can’t really tell the difference. It’s like Coke and Pepsi. It’s all the same to me.

There are a growing number of upscale breaderies in this city where workers use tongs or plastic gloves in handling your food. But most boulangeries are small neighborhood shops where hygiene is some governmental nuisance. You have to swallow hard, even before taking a bite, when you shop there.

“Bonjour. Deux croissants natures, s'il vous plait.” The person behind the counter, who has just handled someone’s germ-ridden Euros is now picking up your croissants with a bare hand.

You hand over the money (1.80 Euro) and walk away wondering whether you’ll have hepatitis by evening. So far, so good though. I’m still feeling OK. But there’s a germ out there with my name on it. I know it, just waiting for me.

There are five streets that angle off Place Marcel Sembat, like spokes on a wheel. I cross two streets, the smell of fried chicken wafting out the door of the KFC, and wait for the No. 123. I’m in luck. It’s here quickly and I climb aboard, flashing my carte orange – the one-week pass to unlimited rides on the buses and trains that negotiate Paris.

No seats, of course, but that’s fine because part of the pleasure is just standing there watching the French parade. Little old ladies gingerly pick their way through the thicket of standing customers until some kind soul offers them seats. And the school children, well-behaved and happy little buggers, off to the elementary school just two stops from the tennis grounds. Friends meeting on the bus and shaking hands or kissing cheeks.

The buses rock and hang corners, so you have to get a good grip on the metal poles or overhead grips, knowing that hundreds of people have gripped the same poles or grasped the same grips.

This is where Japanese cherry blossom comes in. As soon as I’m off the bus, I squeeze a little lotion into my palms and spread it liberally on hands and face.

I know you’re out there, germs. But you’re not going to get me.

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Every morning now I wake up to Paris.

Or at least a small part of it: Roland Garros, where the French Open is taking place. Thanks to the Tennis Channel I can choose which of five courts I want to watch. Or if I prefer I can watch all of them, in reduced size, at the same time. With a pain au chocolat from Croissan'time, this is as good as it gets without actually being there.

Yesterday morning I was watching Maria Sharapova and realized that she looks a bit like Samantha Jones. I got to wondering if I could make a reasonably close match of a foursome, and sure enough: Ana Ivanovich is a pretty good Charlotte York, Elena Dementieva a somewhat softer Carrie Bradshaw, and Svetlana Kuznetsova a decent Miranda Hobbes. And then it occurred to me: You could get them to travel to world capitals playing doubles matches and bill them "Sets in the City."

I should be in marketing.

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I went down Tuesday night to hear my friends Leonard Nash and Lynne Barrett read at a furniture store called Open Doors. Banners proclaiming MiMo Historic District hung from lamposts on Biscayne Boulevard.

Inside the store a couple dozen people chatted, armed with toothpicks. Lynne was up first, and said that she always looks at chairs from the perspective of how comfortable they would be to read in, so for her, literature and furniture have always been linked. "And," she added, "they both end in "ture."

I returned last night for a Wolf Pack tour sponsored by the Wolfsonian. The museum always sends me interesting press releases of its activities, and I decided finally to check one out.

The pack gathered at a place called Upper East Side Garden, about three doors down from Open Doors. It was a tranquil space shaded by two towering oak trees.

Peter gave me a tour of the mini-golf course in the back. Each hole, he explained, was designed by a different artist. They incorporated elements both bizarre and mundanely bizarre, like the sign that read "Keep Off the Grass." One was a black-light hole designed, Peter said, by the TM sisters.

Back in the main garden, the 1947 noir film The Lady from Shanghai played on a screen against the south wall. Circular black-and-white cushions dotted the ground. So complementing the mini-golf was a sort of mini drive-in.

The film was eventually replaced by architectural slides, accompanied by a talk by local architect Dean Lewis. After which we walked down to 69th Street for dinner at Uva 69, which describes itself as "part Barcelona bistro, part urban wine bar."

As a group, we too were not so easy to define. Mostly Miamians, but a couple Browardians. There was a woman from the Wolfsonian, as well as a planner, a social worker, a retired physician, a magazine editor and a money manager. We pushed small tables together to make one grand piece of furniture that soon filled with delicious food and buzzed with spirited conversation.

One more enjoyable night on the Upper East Side.

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I've always loved our sports department, but especially now, as in my hour of need tennis writer Charles Bricker, in Paris early for the French Open, has sent his impressions on being back in the City of Light for the first time in a year:

"It was the sign I thought I'd never see in Paris.

Of course I knew before I arrived here Sunday afternoon that smoking was no longer permitted inside French restaurants, but it was still a bit startling to glance to my right and see the distinctive and universally understandable sign on a pillar.

Defense de Fumer! And there was a lit cigaret with a red line through it, connecting to points of a red circle. What was even better was my waiter, who a few seconds later leaned over the table next to mine and told a young American teenager, "No cellphones, please."

I don't want to hear anything more about the lack of civility in Paris. It's a sham, the big lie that has been too long perpetuated. It's very simple. Act like a boor in someone else's country, get treated like a boor.

This is my 14th trip to Paris, almost all of them combined with a work assignment to cover the French Open, which begins the final Sunday in May. But I always come early to spend time in France and decided this year to take a week in Paris before training to Antibes for a week and then taking a few days to hike in the Pyrenees before reporting to work. My philosophy? Damn the exchange rate. Repeat the good stuff and add something new every year, and I expect the Pyrenees to be a fine new experience.

I'm using a book called Paris Walks this week, which is written by a travel writer for the London Telegraph and, while it could use some refining, I'm seeing things I've never seen before. Spent Monday doing "Secret Gardens and Great Mansions," kicking off from the intersections of rue de Sevres and rue de Babylone, which is where you'll find Au Bon Marche', which easily outscores Harrad's food section for quality. The walk took five hours and a couple of foot massages, but there was the wonderful hour spent sunning, munching and reading in the little known Jardin de Catherine Laboure.

Tuesday it was up to Montmartre, but this time rather than just roaming, using the book. Began at Abbesses, took the funicular up to the Sacre Coeur, then left the turistas in the dust by circling around the back of this great church to the Montmartre neighborhoods. Three hours in Montmartre and another two at my go-to, largely unpublicized park -- parc de Butte Chaumont, just east of Montmartre.

Broke up the afternoon with a stop at a favorite small bar/restaurant, where I had a glass of bordeaux and a plate of cholesterol for 10 Euros. I won't eat cheese again until I've had five Lipitors. Seven years ago, 10 Euros was about $8.50. It's now about $15 and, even when you're damning the torpedos and the exchange rate, you think about it. Because there are so many small hotels in this city, because the Metro is so inexpensive and because you can spend as little or as much as you like to dine, I'd never considered Paris an expensive city. The exchange rate has altered that. But. . .

It's still Paris, The parks and the sidewalks are free, the weather is in the 80s and where else would you rather be?"

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When I'm feeling low (yes, even travel editors get the blues) there are two places in South Florida that can instantly cheer me up: the MacArthur Causeway, especially on a weekend when the ships are in port, and the Hollywood Broadwalk.

The Broadwalk is like a safe house away from all the posturing and pretension of South Florida. The faces you see are not sophisticated but they're real. They often have a toughness that speaks of hard lives, hard winters. And this makes the smiles all the more precious.

So if you're in need of a lift, take a stroll on the Broadwalk this Saturday. And when you're done, head over to Young Circle, where something called "an eco-diversity event" will be taking place. I'm not sure what that is, but I do know that it will include music and dance from Latin America, West Africa, Turkey and India. So you can feel uplifted AND transported.

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I got some interesting responses to my "unfriendliest cities" poll - Montreal, Prague, Memphis, Seattle. The last two surprised me, being located in the lands of "Southern hospitality" and crunchy eco-geeks. But it's always fun to puncture stereotypes.

Prague didn't surprise me - I was there shortly after the Berlin Wall came down and found the place a little glum. But Eastern Europe's tricky that way; you get no sense of the true nature of the people by walking the streets - or shopping in the markets (where years of Communism did nothing to instill a culture of customer service). You need to be invited home.

Which brings me to my unfriendliest city - Split, Croatia. I visited five years after the war with Serbia, and found a definite post-war malaise. Even the woman in the tourist office made me feel unwelcome. I hope things have improved in the last eight years.

A small street in Split. Photo credit: Stephen Crowley, New York Times

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I never put much stock in travel surveys like "the world's unfriendliest cities," and the recent one that came across my desk (OK, arrived in my inbox) is a perfect example why.

It was done by TripAdvisor and titled "the most unfriendly hosts." Apparently the 1,400 world travelers queried rated Paris #1, London #2, and Moscow #3.

At the same time, London came in at #3 for "most friendly and helpful locals." You tell me.

Seriously, what do you think are the unfriendliest cities? After I get yours I'll give you mine. We can do a survey as unreliable as anyone's.

Photo: Muhammed Muheisen, AP

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