Is a restaurant reservation a firm commitment?

Southwest Airlines is paring 40 routes, including flights from Oakland, Calif., 8 flights from Chicago, and 7 from Baltimore. On the bright side, the airline is also adding 40 round-trip flights in markets it expects will grow this summer. In an attack on Frontier Airlines, Southwest is expanding in Denver, which will get new nonstop service to Los Angeles (LAX airport), San Jose, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Raleigh/Durham, and San Antonio. Another lucky city is Manchester, N.H., which will gain nonstop service to Fort Lauderdale. Yet another lucky city is Jacksonville, Fla., which will get nonstop service to Las Vegas. Most of the new routes open May 10, but there's a fare sale on now for the new routes, with fares are as low as $158 roundtrip. Details here. Skybus Airlines is expanding to three more destinations...Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Wilmington, Del. (near Philly); and Gary, Ind., (about 30 miles from Chicago). Find tickets at Skybus.com. For tips on booking Skybus's lowest fares, read our earlier blog post. [Skybus recently cut its service to Bellingham, Wash., and cut back on its service to Burbank, Calif.] FUN FACT OF THE DAY ABOUT BUDGET AIRLINES: Could you fly around the globe using only discount airlines, assuming that you wanted to fly around the world? Answer: Almost, but not quite, according to the website Budget Long Haul. Starting from Hawaii, you could fly WestJet to Toronto; FlyGlobespan to Manchester, England; Air Berlin to Luxor; Air Arabia to Mumbai; Jet Airways to Singapore; Tiger Airways to Darwin, Australia; and Virgin Blue to the Cook Island. But there are no discount airlines to fly you the last leg of the Pacific to Hawaii. Paging Richard Branson! (Hat tip to Vagablogging.net. )

We recently asked readers if they knew of any must-see spots, restaurants, and shops in Napa Valley, Calif. You offered a bunch of great tips! Here's a sampling (edited for space): Tom says: My wife and I have been there many times. Cakebread Cellars has a tour included with the tasting, but call to reserve a time. I am not a fan of V. Sattui Winery because it's always so crowded, like a cattle car, even though I like their wines. To avoid traffic on the roads, drive the Silverado Trail, which is less crowded and has a number of very good wineries—especially as you get further north. Smyrna says: A little known tidbit on the Napa Valley: Pacific Union College is nestled in the hills 8 miles east of St. Helena, and it owns hundreds of untouched acres. For budget accommodations only 8 miles away from St. Helena, the girls dorm offers guest rooms for less than $100/night double occupancy. See www.puc.edu for details. Sunshine Foods Market in St. Helena is great for a quick bite or picnic food. Do not miss Guini's in St. Helena on Main Street. The sandwiches are a local favorite! Say yes to Guini juice on your sandwich. Bill says: Rutherford Grill is where you'll find locals enjoying themselves and great food. Take a hike - Bale Grist Mill State Park and several city parks in Napa are terrific - eg. Skyline and West Hills. Leah says: You must eat at Redd! It's located in Yountville and well worth the money. Another must is Taylor's Refresher. Great fun to sit outside, drink shakes and eat a yummy ahi tuna burger or a super tasty blt.... Woodhouse Chocolate in St. Helen is also lovely and a good place to buy gifts for others (in addition to wine, of course!). Plus the town is super sweet and has some lovely little boutiques along the main street. They also have a nice farmer's market just behind the grade school, but not sure of the dates and it may not open until late spring. "Travelmystic" says: Check out the SF Chronicle ads for hotel/resort specials, some midweek off season deals are fantastic. Current special is a new resort on the Napa river at the Vino Bello Resort begin at $129 for a spacious studio + a botttle of wine. AAA also lists some very good specials in their magazine VIA. We often check out at the visitors center in town what B & B's are offering half off prices—especially midweek—and have stayed at some wonderful Inns. Lisa says: For a change of pace from winery tours, how about a tour of the Jelly Belly factory nearby. [In Fairfield, about 20 miles outside of Napa.] The samples are delicious and the tour is fun. The nearby Budweiser Brewery tour is less fun although the samples are generous. See the full list of tips here. EARLIER Bud Travel gets Facebooked! More than 460 people have become a friend of Bud. If you're already on Facebook, you can view his profile here.

In Rome, a new virtual tour of ancient Rome is the latest exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian, a majestic collection of saunas and gymnasiums that are roughly 1,700 years old. First, the backstory: Over the past couple of years, experts have used laser scans, satellite imagery, and ancient texts to create computer images of frescoed halls, gardens, and roads as they might have looked in the first century A.D., according to this Associated Press article. Visitors wear 3-D glasses and have the sensation of watching what it would have been like to walk down the ancient Via Flaminia. Stops include Livia's palace, the Milvian Bridge on the Tiber River, and a triumphal arch built by the Emperor Constantine. A handful of lucky visitors at any given time are given joysticks to control avatars, or cartoon representations of travelers, that appear on-screen, walking along the street. Get a small taste of the offering at the Virtual Heritage Lab website. This will the first of many such virtual tours of three dimensional simulations of ancient Rome. For example, RomeReborn1.0 is a project that will soon be made available to the public by university researchers. This digital model of the city will reproduce for tourists "on satellite-guided handsets and 3-D orientation movies in a theater to be opened near the Colosseum [images of] what the Colosseum, the Forum, the imperial palaces on the Palatine once looked like," according to this Reuters story. Virtual tours will become available over the Internet, too. For example, "a section of Livia's villa will also be uploaded in the coming weeks on the Internet-based virtual reality community called Second Life," according to the AP. [CORRECTION: This blog post originally dated the Baths of Diocletian 2,000 years old, rather than 1,700 years old. I regret the error. Thanks, Katy!] EARLIER A leap forward in noise-canceling headphones?