Mega-Cruise Smackdown

Great local meal... Traditional Polish fare at the Polskie Smaki (Polish Tastes) restaurant, a block from Kraków's central square. We drank tea and ate zurek and barszcz (soups), golabki (stuffed cabbage), and pierogies (Polish pot stickers) with a variety of fillings, including my favorites: sauerkraut and potatoes with cheese. Our total bill was less than $15. My favorite part... Finding the time-capsule village of log cabins where my grandparents once lived. It's called Polany and is about 100 miles southeast of Kraków, near Magura National Park and the border with Slovakia. We visited a local heritage site, the Sądecki Enthographic Park, where we learned about the daily life of the Lemko-Rusyn people more than 100 years ago. On our three-day drive through the surrounding countryside, we saw small farms, storks' nests, and beautiful wooden churches called cerkiews, some of which are 500 years old. [PHOTO] Worth every penny... Prices in Poland are so reasonable, just about everything is a bargain. But the hand-embroidered table coverings from the Kushubian Art Gallery in Gdańsk are our most treasured souvenirs. The owner's daughter, who was embroidering when we entered the shop, let us take her photo while she was holding her beautiful handiwork. [PHOTO] I also recommend the free walking tours of Kraków and its Kazimierz district, including a stop outside the newly opened Schindler's Factory museum. The college-student guides are licensed and conduct the tours just for tips. [PHOTO] Fun surprise... Seeing newlyweds having their wedding photos taken outdoors, [PHOTO] particularly in the rain at Malbork Castle. [PHOTO] We were also surprised at how very helpful and courteous people were whenever we asked for help. People took the time to try to understand our questions and point us in the right direction—even this elderly woman who was picking mushrooms in the countryside. [PHOTO] Moment when things got tense... When driving through the countryside, I decided to take a "shortcut." After we had to ford three streams to reach our destination, I realized I should have stuck to the roads shown on our map. It also reminded me that parts of Poland had suffered from severe floods the previous spring, which washed away many bridges. Lost in translation... The symbols of restrooms! Some still show only circles and triangles—like the outhouses near one of the old wooden churches we visited. [PHOTO] We later learned from our walking-tour guide in Kraków that women use restrooms marked with a circle and men use ones marked with a triangle. Total rip-off... The Wi-Fi fee at our Marriott hotel in Warsaw was steep for budget travelers like us. We avoided the fee by using the free Wi-Fi at the mall (Złote Tarasy) across the street, under a big glass bubble dome; we found that many businesses offer free Wi-Fi throughout Poland. I'm still laughing about... Running through the underground maze of tunnels at the Warsaw station during rush hour to catch a train. With suitcases in tow, we struggled to keep track of the man who was kind enough to lead us to the correct platform. Otherwise, we might have been lost forever in the labyrinth of confusing passageways. Hotel I liked... The Venetian House apartment/hotel [PHOTO] on the huge town square in Kraków (Rynek Główny 11) is brand-new, and the rooms include a small kitchen. It also had an elevator, so we didn't have to drag our luggage up the stairs! The location is superb for tourists—by the old Cloth Hall [PHOTO] and the new high-tech underground museum that details Kraków's history. We were just a few steps from the Polonia House, where we heard a passionate Polish pianist play Chopin études and mazurkas during an evening concert. Wish I'd known that... All the trains we rode actually accepted our seven-day rail pass. I could have saved a $7 fare. Unfortunately, some employees at small train stations are not familiar with the passes and may say that you need to buy a ticket. You may be better off just hopping on board with your pass, as the conductors are more knowledgeable about them.

When we launched the World's Best Packer contest in May, we expected a healthy response. But the entries were even more creative than we'd anticipated. From slide shows to videos to a Frost-inspired ode titled "The Suitcase Not Taken," each was full of smart advice for better-loaded bags. We assembled our favorite suggestions to create this handy manual. —JD Rinne TOP LAYER All-weather items like a poncho and a hat go on top, in case you need them right away. In a pinch, the poncho can also help protect your suitcase from rain. —Andrew Doukas, Portland, Maine Bring a deck of cards for entertainment on the road. Winner Larry Swingen opts for Mini Uno. Toss in a collapsible, lightweight bag to fill with souvenirs or laundry. —Velma Greene, Harpers Ferry, W.Va. MIDDLE LAYER Use your shoes as packing cubes: Stuff them with small items like socks or even a travel alarm clock. —Ilana Berner, Caesarea, Israel Save space by choosing a good-looking jewelry pouch that can pass for a purse. —Phebe Schwartz, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I BOTTOM LAYER Position heavy items near the wheels of your suitcase to keep the bag from toppling over when it's upright. —Ivana Rix, Vienna, Va. Rolled clothes are less likely to wrinkle, and they create a flat surface for layering everything else. —Inga Carmack, Port Orchard, Wash. Double-duty items are key. Bring pants that zip off into shorts, a sarong (for use as a beach towel, scarf, skirt, or cover-up), or a little black dress that can be toned up or down. —Amy Zimmer, Murrells Inlet, S.C. MEET OUR WINNER! Larry Swingen of Malta, Mont., took first place in our contest for the World's Best Packer with more than 17,000 votes. He and his wife, Barb, walked away with a six-night trip to Egypt, courtesy of Foreign Independent Tours, and a six-piece set of American Tourister luggage. Congratulations, Larry! MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Watch out for these 7 flight attendant pet peeves. Google has created a car that drives itself! Sounds cool, but will it be the end of the road trip as we know it? Check out the world's newest natural wonders.

EDINBURGH Two buildings in this Edinburgh graveyard were shut down because of an uncanny abundance of ghostly apparitions. Thousands of 17th-century graves lined with creepy carvings of skeletons and ghouls make Edinburgh's Greyfriars Kirkyard one of the world's most haunting cemeteries. While a stroll through these eerie environs is shivering enough for some, Greyfriars's real draw lies in two on-site structures: the prison where more than 1,000 members of the Covenanters religious movement were imprisoned in 1679, and the adjacent mausoleum where "Bloody" George Mackenzie, who oversaw their persecution, is buried. Local authorities locked both buildings in the 1990s after a wave of paranormal sightings spooked one too many people, but local writer Jan-Andrew Henderson has been permitted to lead tours of both sites, where hundreds of visitors swear they have encountered the "Mackenzie Poltergeist." 88 Candlemaker Row, 011-44/131-225-9044, blackhart.uk.com, daily tours Easter–Halloween at 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., Halloween–Easter at 8:30 p.m., $15. CAIRO Newcomers to Cairo are often surprised to find the living existing among the dead in this town set within a cemetery. Egyptians know the four-square-mile stretch of land running through densely populated Cairo as simply al-Qarafa (the cemetery), but to hundreds of thousands of locals, it is much more than that. Many of the city's poorest residents actually live inside this 1,300-year-old cemetery, creating homes, shops, and even schools next to and inside mausoleums, with faded gravestones serving as lawn ornaments. Local authorities have recently discouraged promoting the site as a tourist attraction and are blocking access to large groups and buses, but it's still possible to visit with Casual Cairo detours, an outfitter that takes no more than three people at once. But time to see this one-of-a-kind neighborhood may be running out—the Egyptian government is studying plans to relocate residents, raze the cemetery, and turn it into a public park. 011-2012-415-2726, casualcairo.com, call for prices. LONDON London's Highgate Cemetery has been the backdrop for numerous horror films. Dug into a hillside overlooking London, an imposing Victorian-era archway overgrown with shrubbery leads into a stone tunnel lined with catacombs, the darkness eventually giving way to a circle of sunlit vaults staged around a 300-year-old cedar. It's easy to see why this oldest segment of Highgate Cemetery has been used in many horror films, including Taste the Blood of Dracula and From Beyond the Grave, and it's accessible only by tours, which also visit the graveyard's newer reaches, a maze of decaying tombstones covered in dense greenery and topped by oversize statues ranging from the carved-stone grand piano above one musician's grave to the gigantic bust of Karl Marx adorning his own resting place. Swains Ln., 011-44/20-8340-1834, highgate-cemetery.org, hourly tours weekends Mar.–Oct. 11 a.m.–4 p.m., Nov.–Feb. 11 a.m.–3 p.m., weekdays Mar.–Nov. at 2 p.m., $11. BALTIMORE In Baltimore, Edgar Allan Poe's final resting place looks as if it's straight out of one of his tales. The raven-topped monument to macabre author Edgar Allan Poe is what brings most visitors to downtown Baltimore's 18th-century graveyard , but look a little closer at Westminster Burying Ground and you'll find a scene that could be pulled right from one of his eerie tales. Three years after Poe's death, much of the graveyard was paved over to make way for a Gothic church, which was built on elevated brick legs that arch over the graves. Today, tours of the property include a visit into the creepy catacombs that now hide below the church's lower level. 519 W. Fayette St., 410/706-2072, westminsterhall.org, tours Apr.–Nov.first and third Fridays at 6:30 p.m., first and third Saturdays at 10 a.m., $5. NEW ORLEANS Lafayette Cemetery in New Orleans, with its chilling collection of aboveground tombs, was the setting for Interview with the Vampire. In a city set below sea level, there is no hiding the dead underground, so in New Orleans, cemeteries are collections of aboveground tombs, a creepy novelty that attracts many visitors to these Gothic graveyards. Concerned about disrepair, local licensed guides volunteer their time to give tours of two of New Orleans's oldest graveyards, Lafayette Cemetery—setting for Interview with the Vampire—and St. Louis Cemetery No. 1—where you'll see "voodoo queen" Marie Laveau's Greek Revival tomb. All proceeds are donated to Save Our Cemeteries, a group that works to preserve and restore the city's graveyards. Lafayette, 1400 block of Washington Ave., Mon., Weds., Fri., and Sat. at 10:30 a.m., $10; St. Louis No. 1, 501 Basin St., Fri., Sat., and Sun. at 10 a.m., $12; 504/525-3377, saveourcemeteries.org. LOS ANGELES L.A.'s Hollywood Forever Cemetery seems like something you'd see in a film noir. Clad in a vintage black evening gown, dark sunglasses, and carrying a black lace parasol, Hollywood historian/tour guide Karie Bible appears to have stepped right out of a film noir movie as she leads guests through L.A.'s Hollywood Forever Cemetery. With the Paramount Studios Water Tower and Hollywood sign peaking out above the grounds, Bible tells tales of famous residents like director Cecil B. DeMille, '50s horror hostess Vampira, and rocker Johnny Ramone. 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., 818/517-5988, cemeterytour.com, most Saturdays at noon (check website for exact dates), $12. SAVANNAH The Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah is best known as the site for the film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. If graveyards were created by set designers, they would all look like Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, where elaborate, ivy-covered crypts are guarded by disturbingly lifelike statues, and mausoleums are laced with stained glass, all set among the mossy oak trees and blooming gardens of an 18th-century plantation on a bluff overlooking the Wilmington River. The scenic graveyard's popularity boomed after it appeared in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and many guides now offer driving tours of the 100-acre cemetery, although you'll miss the charm of wandering through its many hidden corners. Instead, follow the Bonaventure Historical Society's self-guided tour, available at the weekend-only visitors center. 330 Bonaventure Rd., 912/352-1885, bonaventurehistorical.org, free. ROME This cemetery in Rome seems to cast a spell over visitors—Percy Bysshe Shelley was so taken by its eerie beauty that he extolled its merits in a poem and was later laid to rest here. Wedged between a towering, 2,000-year-old pyramid entombing a Roman dignitary and a surviving section of the 12-mile-long brick wall built to protect ancient Rome, the Non-Catholic Cemetery is a serene oasis in the middle of this modern metropolis. One of Italy's most enchanting urban settings, the graveyard's stately cypress trees, poetic statues, and oasis-like ambiance, inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley to write, "It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." Shelley got his wish, and his grave is something of a pilgrimage for writers, many of whom, similarly enchanted, have opted to rest here themselves. The cemetery's English-language tours ensure you won't miss any of the boldface names and—in case you fall for the spell yourself—yes, it is still possible to be buried here. Via Caio Cestio 6, 011-39/06-574-1900, protestantcemetery.it, openMondays and Saturdays 9 a.m.–5p.m., Sundays 9 a.m.–1 p.m., tours $4 (by appointment only,minimum of five people). PARIS Graveyard guards have their work cut out for them at Paris's Cimetière du Père- Lachaise, where fans of the many celebrities buried here go to great lengths to pay their respects. Irish aesthete Oscar Wilde would undoubtedly be pleased to find his sphinxlike tomb at Paris'sCimetière du Père-Lachaise covered in hundreds of red-lipstick marks from admiring fans. (Graveyard guards are less amused—fats in the lipstick are causing the structure to deteriorate) Many outfitters include a brief stop at this 109-acre walled compound in Paris's northeast corner on longer city itineraries, but it's worth grabbing a self-guided tour map from the conservation office and spending a day finding the many famous graves—from Jim Morrison to Chopin—hidden among the cobblestoned paths and grassy expanses. Don't forget to pack a lunch—macabre as it may sound, Parisians love to picnic inside the cemetery, one of the city's largest green spaces. 16 rue du Repos, 011-33/1-55 25-82-10, free. BUENOS AIRES In Buenos Aires, the resting place of Eva Perón is at once opulent and melancholy. An ominous black door, guarded by a melancholy young woman carved from marble, leads into a spacious room where a single grave is topped with an ornate sculpted rose. It's just one of the many opulent mausoleums at Recoleta Cemetery; burying the dead here is a posh afterlife status symbol practiced by Buenos Aires's wealthiest families for 200 years. A trip inside is topped only by hearing the myriad stories among Recoleta's 6,000-plus temples, pyramids, and castles—in this case, the rose-topped tomb was erected to assuage a family's guilt after a young woman slipped into a coma and was buried alive. Nearby you'll find the flower-strewn grave of Eva Perón; she was buried below 27 feet of steel and cement as a precaution since political rivals had previously stolen her corpse. Calle Junín 1790, 011-54/11-4804-7040, English-language tours Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11a.m., free. WASHINGTON D.C. One of the most overlooked sections of the Arlington National Cemetery in D.C. is also the most haunting. While thousands of D.C.'s daily tourists zip across the Potomac River for quick photo ops at Arlington National Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns and the Kennedy family plot, a few venture farther from the tour bus to explore the graves of the 300,000 other people buried here. Grab your walking shoes (but not your wallet) and join DC By Foot's free, 1.5-mile walking tour, which takes visitors through lesser-seen stops inside the vast burial ground, such as the segment of the cemetery that once housed a village of freed slaves and the memorial to Confederate soldiers. 214 McNair Rd., 202/370-1830, dcbyfoot.com, tours Mar. 20–Nov. 14 onSaturdays at 10 a..m, free.

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