Secret Hotels of Sicily

DAY 1 The entrance to Maryland's Eastern Shore is hard to miss. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a four-and-a-half-mile marvel that spans the bay's northern end, connects the state's eastern half to Annapolis and points west. There's a portion of the bridge that dips so low that my friend Kathie and I seriously think for a split second that we're about to become one with the bay. Five miles east of the bridge isHolly's Restaurant, a wood-paneled, family-run diner that's been serving locals and passersby for 52 years. I spy scrapple on the menu, and Kathie flashes a daring smile. The brown blob--a mush of cornmeal and pork scraps--arrives so sizzling hot it shakes on the plate. I look up at our waitress, dismayed. "Honey," she jokes, "your whole-wheat toast is about the healthiest thing you're going to get in this place." Refueled with grease and caffeine, we hit the road, keeping an eye out for any intriguing stops. A few miles along, we veer right onto a local street and discoverOld Wye Mill, billed as the state's oldest working mill. No other visitors are around, so we get a private tour of the one-room, 325-year-old gristmill and hear the brief history of the town that used to thrive around it. Now it's just a few houses and the stump of what was supposedly Maryland's oldest tree; lightning took it down a few years ago. Snaking south on various scenic byways, we learn that while the area's crabs are world famous, the Eastern Shore is really for the birds. Perdue trucks barrel by, hauling feed to chicken farms. All sorts of birds are constantly darting across and along the narrow roadway. Then there'sThe Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art. In an unexpected modernist building, the peculiar museum is devoted to hunters' decoys. "I like that the carvers call themselves wildlife counterfeiters," Kathie says. One exhibit re-creates the wood shop of Lem and Steve Ward, local brothers (and the museum's namesakes) who pioneered the craft as an art form in the 1930s. Another room is devoted to decoys as art. The $28,000 price tag of one hulking, abstract piece leaves me blinking. I snag a stuffed toy bird--Tufted Titmouse, the tag reads--from the gift shop. We dub him Teddy and perch him on the dashboard. Lisa, an old friend living nearby who will meet us for dinner later, tipped us off to theSalisbury Zoo. The sanctuary was created in the 1950s when folks began dropping off birds, deer, and other animals in the surrounding park. We stroll past monkeys, ocelots, and a pack of llamas soaking in a pond. A group of flamingos stand so still we think they're fake at first. Kids tromp around and squeal at a capybara, the world's largest rodent, which whistles and barks in return. Two river otters, Hurricane Katrina refugees, splash about in a pool. "Look, it's otter men!" says a young girl. "Get it? Ottoman?" Kathie and I exchange impressed looks. During its 197-year life, theWhitehaven Hotel, our B&B for the night, has housed a general store, a post office, a saloon, and a private residence. The wraparound porch looks out onto the Wicomico River and a small three-car ferry. Innkeeper Cindy Curran shows us to our cozy ground-floor room and points out the sealed door along one wall, explaining that it was used during the hotel's speakeasy days. We borrow bikes and take a quick trip around town, which consists of 30 or so houses surrounded by marshy fields. The bird theme continues atThe Red Roostrestaurant. The airy all-you-can-eat joint is a renovated chicken coop deep in the woods, decorated with tin roosters on the walls and crab-bushel-basket chandeliers. Rolls of paper towels and plastic garbage cans bookend communal tables covered in brown paper. "I almost had my wedding rehearsal dinner here," says Lisa with a laugh. "But they were closed because it wasn't crab hunting season." Stuffed on onion rings and snow crabs, Kathie and I return to Whitehaven and lie on the hotel's small dock, drinking wine and stargazing. Lodging Whitehaven Hotel2685 Whitehaven Rd., 877/809-8296, whitehavenhotel.com, from $110 Food Holly's Restaurant 108 Jackson Creek Rd., Grasonville, 410/827-8711, hollysrest.com The Red Roost 2670 Clara Rd., Whitehaven, 410/546-5443, theredroost.com, chicken-and-crab platter $18 Activities Old Wye Mill14296 Old Wye Mills Rd., 410/827-3850, $2 Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art909 S. Schumaker Dr., Salisbury, 410/742-4988, wardmuseum.org, $7 Salisbury Zoo755 S. Park Dr., 410/548-3188, salisburyzoo.org, free DAY 2 A steady drizzle greets us in the morning. As we cross the Wicomico on theWhitehaven Car Ferry, the chatty ferryman points out an osprey nest on the riverbank. We drive straight to Crisfield, at Maryland's southern tip, for the pedestrian ferry to Smith Island. After buying Smith Island Cruises tickets at the office inside the Paddlewheel Motel, we board theTwister, a high-speed boat manned by Captain Alan Tyler. He looks like a Love Boat extra: deep tan, spotless white shirt, short shorts, and Top-Siders. (We learn later that the locals take a cheaper postal ferry from the municipal dock; $20 round-trip tickets are sold on the boat.) A thunderstorm creates havoc during the 45-minute ride. After landing, we rush into the closest building, the Bayside Inn Restaurant, which is owned by the same Tyler family that produced the boat captain. Watching the downpour from the screened porch, we eat Captain Tyler crab cake sandwiches. I can't resist the Smith Island cake, made of 10 or so thin layers of plain yellow cake with icing sandwiched between them. I pick coconut; Kathie goes for chocolate. A woman nearby with her own slice reads my mind and says, "Just heavenly." Made up of several clustered isles and named for colonial landowner Henry Smith, the island is four-and-a-half square miles total. It's the bay's only populated island (other than those accessible by bridge); at last count, the census was 364. Most locals get around the island by bike or golf cart, though there are a few cars--several of which don't bother with license plates. A break in the rain leaves us about an hour to explore the main town, Ewell. We hoof it along the narrow gravel roads, through swarms of nipping flies and past a few dilapidated homes. A family of ducks wades in a small rainwater pond in someone's front yard. In the Smith Island Center, we watch a 20-minute video outlining island history. After hearing that the area's distinctive accent, an Elizabethan-tinged twang, is the result of its isolation, I realize that back on the ferry, when Captain Tyler was telling us to look off the boat's "sad," he was really saying "side." Returning to the mainland, we reach the town of Princess Anne just before dinner. The Eastern Shore is dotted with quaint B&Bs, but none matchThe Alexander House Booklovers' Bed & Breakfastfor originality. Elizabeth Alexander, a former journalist and teacher, chose the works and time periods of Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Langston Hughes, respectively, as the decorating theme for three bedrooms. Our room, the Hughes, is done with deco-style furniture, a tan-and-black color scheme, and Harlem Renaissance photos. The Hughes poem in an old typewriter is a nice touch. The Mark Twain Reading Room hosts a library with cushy seats. Elizabeth serves a homemade breakfast, as well as afternoon tea, in the cheery Caf? Colette. Transportation Whitehaven Car Ferry410/543-2765, free Smith Island CruisesCrisfield, 410/425-2771, smithislandcruises.com, $24 round trip Lodging Alexander House30535 Linden Ave., Princess Anne, 410/651-5195, bookloversbnb.com, from $85 Food Bayside Inn Restaurant4065 Smith Island Rd., Ewell, 410/425-2771, cake $3 Activities Smith Island Center20846 Caleb Jones Rd., Ewell, 410/425-3351, $2 DAY 3 Because of its adorable Victorian homes, tiny blocks, and brick sidewalks, Princess Anne is sometimes called the Williamsburg of the Eastern Shore. The main architectural attraction is theTeackle Mansion, a pink-brick Federal-style behemoth appropriately situated on Mansion Street. "I wonder what the street was called before the mansion came," I say to Kathie. We called ahead to set up an appointment (it's not the kind of place where you can just show up). A volunteer shows us antique furniture and tells us about the ongoing renovation. In every room we visit, the guide points out where the kooky owner, Littleton Dennis Teackle, added fake windows and doorways to ensure that the house appeared to be perfectly symmetrical. With a picnic lunch from the grocery store, we drive to our next destination:Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, a marshy preserve covering more than 27,000 acres. Getting there takes us on another car ferry and miles of back roads, past soggy countryside and the occasional fisherman. The town names on our map of scenic byways often turn out to be nothing more than four-way stops connecting wilderness to wilderness. At the beginning of the refuge's three-and-a-half-mile nature drive, visitors drop $3 in a posted box. A map I snag at the gate tells us to look for deer, squirrels, and birds--bald eagles if we're lucky. The rainy weather, however, seems to have driven the wildlife into hiding. Nevertheless, there's plenty of beautiful marshland and forest. We picnic outside the visitors center, and head inside to watch a live camera feed of an eagle's nest and check out dioramas of area animals. A brochure we pick up at the wildlife refuge directs us next to Cambridge, a waterfront town about 12 miles to the north. We park on Race Street, the main drag, to explore the antique and curio shops.  Back on 50 North, we drive toThe Oxford Inn, a yellow-clapboard 1890s general-store-turned-B&B. When we arrive, the staff is busy preparing for dinner in Pope's Tavern, the fine-dining restaurant downstairs, so we go ahead and check ourselves in. Predinner, we have a glass of wine at the inn's restaurant. Co-owner Dan Zimbelman mans the bar and chats with guests about the best way to pour and serve wine while his wife, Lisa, seats diners. "We're definitely winos," jokes Dan. "My wife always says wine is her water." AtThe Masthead at Pier Street, a three-minute walk away, I get a salad and Kathie goes for crab cakes, which arrive plump and golden brown. Our table, on a large covered porch, overlooks the Tred Avon River. We drink beer and watch yet another downpour before making a wet dash back to the inn. Lodging The Oxford Inn504 S. Morris St., Oxford, 410/226-5220, oxfordinn.net, from $100 Food The Masthead104 W. Pier St., Oxford, 410/226-5171, themastheadatpierstreetmarina.com, crab cakes from $15 Activities Teackle Mansion11736 Mansion St., Princess Anne, 410/651-2238, teacklemansion.org, $4 Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge2145 Key Wallace Dr., Cambridge, 410/228-2677, fws.gov/blackwater, $3 DAY 4 Our final day is a washout--literally. At 7 A.M., Lisa knocks on our door with the news: The parking lot, and much of town, is flooded. Our rental car is parked in a foot and a half of standing water. Dan backs the car onto higher ground, and we spend an hour bailing out the interior. Surreally, a kid kayaks down the road, past two other guests who've waded to their van to retrieve some luggage. With the seats soaking wet, we drive our soggy bottoms back to Baltimore, bypassing our planned itinerary--which included Tilghman Island and St. Michaels, home of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and also The Inn at Perry Cabin, which was featured memorably in the movieWedding Crashers. As I get out of the car at the rental lot, there's still a bit of the Chesapeake sloshing around on the floorboard. While I hoped Mother Nature would play a big role during our trip, this is a tad much. We became one with the bay after all. Finding Your Way While U.S. 50 is the main route in Maryland's Eastern Shore, the area's natural beauty and historic charm are best experienced by sidetracking on the three scenic byways that crisscross the region. Expect to drive past chicken coops, small creeks and inlets, tons of fishermen, and acres upon acres of verdant marshland and forest. These roads are often narrow and windy, so take it slowly or at some point you're bound to miss the turnoffs--indicated by signs with the state flag (part of it is yellow-and-black checkerboard) and the state flower (the black-eyed Susan). Maps showing all 19 of Maryland's scenic byways can be downloaded from the State Highway Administration at sha.state.md.us.

Best Tips Ever! Send your travel tips to Tips@BudgetTravel.com, and if we publish one, you'll get a one-year subscription (or a renewal) to Budget Travel. The cleverest tips we've ever run are compiled in The Smart Traveler's Passport, a new book available at QuirkBooks.com and in bookstores. If your tip is one that we illustrate in the magazine, we'll send you a free book (along with that year's subscription)! 1. The grape escape. Here's an easy way to avoid traffic headaches when visiting wineries in Napa and Sonoma counties: Decide in advance which ones you'll check out; then start your day early at the northernmost winery and work your way south. When the wineries close up shop around 5 P.M., you'll be closer to the highway entrance than most everybody else. Bob Zasloff, Columbus, Ohio 2. Photo ready. While on vacation, I take a digital photo of our daughter each day. That way, if she gets lost, I have a picture that shows exactly what she is wearing. Stacy Walker, Terry, Miss. 3. Search out the back door. Some popular museums have other entrances besides the main one, and lines there can be much shorter. At the Louvre, for instance, there's an alternate entrance to the glass pyramid at Carrousel du Louvre on rue de Rivoli. To find these entrances, search online using the museum name and the words "alternate entrance." Susan Lore, Chesterfield, Mo. 4. Cash and carry. I keep a $100 bill folded up inside my luggage tag for emergencies. Nobody suspects that it's behind the little name-and-address card. I've even had a $100 bill sealed inside one of those laminated luggage tags (the kind made from your business card). You have to destroy the tag to access the money, but this tactic has saved me more than once when I've unexpectedly found myself out of cash. Mark Swiney, Tulsa, Okla. 5. Power central. If you forget to pack your cell phone charger, ask for one at the hotel's front desk. The clerks usually have a box of chargers for many brands, left behind by other guests, and they loan them out for free. This has worked for me twice and for my wife once. Robb Morrison, Norcross, Ga. You can find more tips in the July/August 2007 issue of Budget Travel magazine.

Window or aisle? [my preference] Depends how far I'm going and how much water I'm planning to drink. The last thing I ate from a minibar? A very short can of paprika-flavored Pringles in San Jose, Costa Rica. I think it cost five dollars, but it was sort of a chips emergency. I won't leave home without.... A book that I am confident is good. Especially if I'm going somewhere without bookshops. I'm very careful to avoid the dreaded traveling-with-an-uninteresting-book situation. The best trip I've ever taken? And why? I once spent 6 months hiking around New Zealand with a friend from college. We bought a mustard yellow Austin at a car fair for NZ$800 and drove it from the northern tip of the North Island to the southern end of the South Island, fishing in every river and lake we passed. I'm sure there must have been difficult moments, but in my memory every day of that trip was magical: the huge distances, the crystalline streams, the hour or two we stood and watched fiordland penguins waddle across a beach in a rainstorm. My dream trip I wouldn't mind living for a little while in the Maldives. Or walking across Madagascar. The movie or book that inspired me to pack my bags? Strangely, perhaps, it was probably C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, which is about some children who routinely visit an imaginary realm. My mom read those books to me when I was very young, too young to understand everything, but I remember the power of Lewis' idea¿that you might be able to step through the back of a wardrobe and enter another world. The impulse that sent those kids into Narnia came from the same curiosity about distant places that sends any of us traveling, I think; the conviction that there is always something new to see, someone interesting to meet. My greatest travel pet peeve? Windows that won't open. How I deal with jetlag? I lay awake in bed feeling lost and confused and then complain a lot the next morning. If I could travel with any living person.¿ Any living person? My wife. I'll never go back to ____________ And why? Gosh, everywhere I've been lucky enough to visit or live has been fundamentally interesting in some way. Every place has its own stories, its own marvels, even places that don't necessarily strike travelers as dream destinations, like Puerto Natales, Chile, say, or Detroit, Michigan. Ultimately, the success of any trip has more to do with the heart of the traveler than with the place itself. If you're heartbroken in Indiana, you're going to be heartbroken in Fiji, too. But if you're well-fed, and dry, and curious, every place in the world is worth trying to understand. If I could be anywhere right now.¿ I'd be eating huge spoonfuls of gelato with my family in Rome's Campo dei Fiori.

#10 Last year a director from our local theatre asked me to costume her show. I hedged her off and said I needed to think about it. I ignored her emails hoping she would find someone else. A few months later I traveled from Salem, OR to Phoenix, AZ. I was bumbling around Phoenix and stopped to get a burger. As I was walking into the restaurant, there was the director and her son eating their burgers, also on spring break in Phoenix. I took it as a sign of needing to deal with her request, so we talked, I costumed her show and it was a huge success. Posted by: Lorraine | May 21, 2007 #9 We are Australians now living in Florida. In 1974 we were in a restaurant in Southern England when I heard what I thought was an Australian accent. The man was English, but had lived with Australians in Montreal in the early 1960s. We had lived in an apartment in Montreal in 1958 - the same one he occupied in 1960!!! Posted by: Jean Roberts | May 21, 2007 #8 I was in Hawaii for an annual tour with the Georgia Air National Guard, and couple of friends and I decided to take a dinner cruise. The seas were a bit rough and many of the people on the boat got seasick, so the dining room was not very crowded. As I went up to the bar to order a drink, I noticed a woman that looked somehow familiar to me. It took a minute, but it finally came to me. She had been my 11th grade English teacher in the Florida high school I went to about 16 years earlier. She had failed me too... She didn't really remember me (which is probably a good thing), but she was happy to know that I had made something of myself. Posted by: Rick | May 21, 2007 #7 I had been working as a GO at Club Med Martinique for a few months when I was chatting with a couple over dinner. After the standard questions about what it was like to be a GO, I asked them about themselves. They were on their honeymoon and lived in Yorba Linda, Ca. I asked them where and they said "Oh by the lake". My question was "Do you know the house by the fountain with the two Scotch Terriers?". They looked at each other funny and said "Ummm, yes. We take our scottie to play over to play with them!". Turns out they lived right across the street from my parents!It was a little surreal after meeting people from all over the world, to meet my parents closest neighbor... Posted by: Shawna Esarey | May 22, 2007 #6 I was in Budapest and had just been attempting to use a pay phone to call an arriving friend at our hotel. After dumping more than three euros of change into the phone and getting nowhere, I was frustrated so I gave up and decided to walk back to the hotel. As I was walking I saw a women talking on a cell phone. I looked at her and the ease of her phone with great jealousy. Suddenly I took a closer look and saw that it was Katie Callahan, an old friend from high school who I hadn't seen in almost 20 years! She practically dropped the phone in surprise. I ended up borrowing her phone to call my friend, who had also gone to high school with us and we all went out and caught up at an elegant hotel overlooking the Danube. It reminds me to always look at people when I am walking around, no matter how far away I am from home! Posted by: Cordelia Persen | May 21, 2007 #5 When I was eighteen years old and on my first trip to Paris, I was alone and riding the Metro, when a very drunk man sat down next to me and began to put his hands all over me mumbling, and I didn't understand anything that he said (he was from Corsica). I yelled at him and tried pushing him away, but he kept getting closer & closer. The young man in the seat in front of me turned around & told him that I was "his girlfriend and to leave me alone." He motioned for me to come and sit next to him (in English). When the young man looked up at me we both realized that he had been my camp counselor at a YMCA camp in Rhode Island years before. We spent the rest of the ride talking about the good times we had had years before which helped me to forgot about the "incident on the Metro." Posted by: Zipporah Sandler | May 21, 2007 #4 I was crossing the street in Toronto one evening when the policeman directing traffic gave me a strange look. It took me a second, but as I was crossing I said, "Greg?" and he nodded. Greg and I made friends at a campground in Maryland when we were about 10 to 12 years old. We only knew each other for two days, but I guess we made an impression on each other. Posted by: Jen Katz | May 18, 2007 #3 While having tea at the Ritz in London to celebrate my mother's 85th birthday we started chatting with the people at the table next to us. Recognizing the mutual American accents, we asked each other where we were from. My mom and I were living in San Diego at the time. The couple said they lived in Fresno (a city about 250 miles to the north). I mentioned that the only people I knew from Fresno were my daughter-in-law's family. I told them her father's name and they looked amazed and told me that her father, an obstetrician, had delivered all three of their children. Posted by: Kathy Stafford | May 21, 2007 #2 I had just brought our newborn home from a New Jersey hospital when I received a phone call from a friend in Australia. He called to congratulate me. I asked how he heard the news. He told me that his father was walking down the street in Bangkok, and his father had bumped into a mutual friend of ours from Germany. Our friend from Germany told his dad the news and then his dad called our Australian friend who then called me. It just amazed me that people could be discussing my happiness thousands of miles away! Posted by: Gloria | May 21, 2007 #1 My Uncle & his family were on a driving trip, visiting national parks out west. My then 10-year-old cousin enjoyed signing them in at all the visitor center guest books. At one particularly obscure park in Utah, he said, "hey dad, there was a guy with our last name here today". When my uncle checked, it was the name of his long-estranged father, whom my uncle hadn't seen since his parents divorced when he was only 3. They asked the ranger on duty when that person had been there (it was dated the same day), and the ranger said, "Oh, he left about 10 minutes before you arrived, asked for directions to Dead Horse Point." So they quickly drove there themselves, and had a family reconciliation. This was nearly 30 years ago, and it still gives me shivers! Posted by: Tammy Fine | May 21, 2007 To read some dozens of other stories from readers, click here.