50 unforgettable trips from Susan Spano (25-50)

Italians say that Naples is real, edgy and unvarnished in the way that tourist-choked Rome and Florence are not. At almost every turn, Naples made me think of the old courtesan Madame Hortense in “Zorba the Greek,” at once so charming and so pathetic that she constricts the heart.

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Jan. 18, 2010 7:26 PM PT

Of the glorious, never-to-be-forgotten St. Petersburg nights, the first was spent at the Great Hall of the Philharmonia on Arts Square. The building, where nobles once gathered to listen to the czar, is noted for its acoustics. It also played an important role during the German siege of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), when vodka distilleries went into the business of manufacturing Molotov cocktails, circus animals were butchered for meat and the Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great on Decembrists’ Square was covered in sandbags to protect it from military attack. At the Philharmonia in August 1942, the starving city’s spirits were raised by the debut performance of Dmitri Shostakovich‘s Seventh Symphony, also known as the “Leningrad” Symphony.

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Pictured: Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press)

Generally, in the evening, I dined up-market, though even at Baan Suan, a stunning northern Thai compound, the most expensive dish on the menu was $7. Baan Suan, about 10 miles north of town, specializes in northern Thai cuisine, including frog legs cooked in basil. Noisy croaking on the riverbanks suggested that the meat was quite local.

Darkness fell as I tucked into a plate of soft-shell crab and another of curried chicken in coconut sauce. A man rowed a boat across the river, then lighted a chain of lanterns, visual poetry to go with dinner.

>> Read more (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)