Halloween clearly got under the skin of travel writers this weekend – there are ghostly features covering New Orleans, Wroclaw and Norway.   Necks aside, there are some good food related articles to get your teeth into, as well as reports from the world’s toughest bike race, America’s art scene and the cruise that didn’t cruise anywhere.   This week the categories are City, Escape, Outdoor/Adventure, Art and Food.

CITY

• Matthew Teller spends 48 Hours In: Tel Aviv for the Independent. “Israel’s largest city which this year is celebrating its centenary is the perfect antidote to the long, dark British winter, offering toasty temperatures, sandy beaches, classy restaurants and a generous dose of easygoing attitude.”
• In the Guardian, Paul Laity is Vampire-hunting in New Orleans – the home of Anne Rice (author of Interview with the Vampire) and not far from Clinton, the setting of HBO’s True Blood. “In truth, the long history of the city is fascinating enough without it being haunted and without a vampire lurking in every shadow; there’s plenty of genuine gothic to go around.”
• Alex Webber is in Wroclaw, Poland’s ghost town for the Guardian, “a city whose labyrinthine streets and shadowy courtyards, shrouded in Frankenstein-esque fog, could have been built with a Hammer horror set in mind.”
• “Situated at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, this capital city has a gentle, small-town charm, with a strong theater tradition, delightful new restaurants and a vibrant art scene,” writes Beth Greenfield in 36 Hours in Sacramento for the New York Times.
• Donald Morrison set off to Chongqing for the FT  “to find out why one of the world’s most populous metropolitan areas is so relatively little known, seldom visited and under-appreciated, even by the Chinese.” In Chongqing’s empathy and charm Morrison discovers that “Instead of an urban hell of crime and alienation, it is more like a reservoir of traditional values and genuine niceness.”

ESCAPE

• Lucy Ridout reveals Thailand’s islands beaches for the Independent. “Thailand has about 2,000 miles of tropical coastline, so there are hundreds of beaches and islands to choose from,” says Ridout, who recommends the best beaches for active breaks, nightlife or pure escapism.
• Claire Wrathall was invited to a shakedown (a trial run) on the Odyssey, “two nights on a yacht en route from Venice to Croatia…it sounded irresistible,” says Wrathall in the FT. Unfortunately as The latest from Yachts of Seabourn reveals, the cruise was a little shorter than anticipated.
• “Nowhere is more inspiring to me than this northern corner of Scandinavia, and nowhere is better to escape the fake blood and synthetic terrors of commercial Halloween than the ghostly fishing towns and eerie white beaches of Andøya, Norway” says author John Burnside in the Guardian. Burnside draws inspiration for his supernatural stories from the Ghosts of subarctic Norway
• Vietnam: the rewards of peace written by Tim Jepson for the Telegraph, advises travellers to “Give Saigon a day or so. Stay in the wonderful Grand Hyatt, maybe visit the famous Cu Chi tunnels; see the markets; climb the Jade Emperor Pagoda; take on the mopeds at road junctions…Then do as we do, and as the Rough Guide implores – forget the war and head out…”

OUTDOOR/ADVENTURE

• “As the chill hand of autumn tightens its grip…the Cairngorms become a mournfully magnificent location,” says Mark Rowe in the Independent. Take a hike through Neverland – the home of author JM Barrie – and a superb location for hiking.
• Susan Greenwood for the Observer highlights Six great biking adventures – from Costa Rica and Laos, to Scotland and France, these are some of the more unusual cycling expeditions.
• Paul Howard in the Observer reports from the world’s toughest bicycle race: the Tour Divide. “2,745 miles of off-road riding from Banff in Canada, down the spine of the Rocky Mountains, to the border with Mexico. Not only is it 500 miles longer than the Tour de France, the race throws up other obstacles that Lance Armstrong is unlikely to encounter – waist-deep snow, ankle-deep mud, temperatures below freezing in the mountains and above 100F in the New Mexico desert.” Mountain biking: mud, sweat and gears in the Rockies
• “If ever there were a spot in the US that could make you feel what it might have been like to be a 19th-century trapper, frontiersman, gunslinger, rancher, or Gros Ventre Indian,” writes Arnie Wilson in the FT, “it’s this remote Wyoming valley…There’s something of a lost world feel about the place.” In The elks of Jackson Hole Wilson visits the National Elk Refuge, part of Jackson Hole’s winter safari.

FOOD

• “Beijing’s dining scene is reaching an international level of sophistication,” says Jen Lin-Liu in the New York Times. Internationally owned restaurants such as Maison Boulud and Capital M reveal Continental Tastes in China’s Capital
• For the New York Times, Micheline Maynard spends two days at the Canadian branch of the Paris cooking school, its only outpost in North America. Tasting Ecstasy and Agony at Le Cordon Bleu in Ottawa demonstrates “the highs and, sadly, the lows that the professional kitchen can provoke.”
• The six best UK foodie breaks compiled by Vincent Crump in the Sunday Times, reveals six gastro getaways chosen by British chefs including Paul Rankin on Belfast and Galton Blackiston on Norfolk

ART

• Petroc Trelawny in the Telegraph enjoys Boston’s rich cultural offerings. The Museum of Fine Arts, the Athenaeum, the Symphony Hall, as well as the art collection of Mrs Gardner all make Boston America’s queen of arts
• “If you thought that tourism in the Gulf didn’t extend much farther than Dubai,” says Catherine Philp in the Times, “then His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, is planning to change that…” Abu Dhabi: the arty antidote to Dubai? reveals that Abu Dhabi’s extraordinary multibillion-dollar makeover will create a “new ‘cultural quarter’ encompassing the world’s biggest Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank Gehry, and a space-age performing arts centre by Zaha Hadid.”
• “New London is becoming as recognized for its independent art scene as for its handsome harbor,” says Laura Siciliano-Rosen in the New York Times, who highlights the best galleries In Connecticut, New London’s Growing Arts Scene

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