My sentiments still stand…the names of inns and restaurants have been changed to their rightful spelling.

Very high on my list of romantic getaways is a wine country retreat. Most people have at least name recognition with the wine country of Napa Valley, Sonoma, Santa Rosa, and the contiguous valleys that go all the way up  Humboldt county — but little Walla Walla is a jewel that is less known — but no less worthy.

This town is in the wine region of Washington state and is home to more than over 100 wineries, about 80 of which are open to the public either on weekends or by appointment. The quality of the wine is superb, the scenery is stunning, and there are fine restaurants and places to stay.

Why don’t you know about it? Because unlike Napa or Sonoma, Walla Walla is not a short drive from a major city. It is about a five hour drive from Seattle or a quick one hour flight. But it isn’t something that most people will do for an afternoon or on a short mini visit to the Northwest. But if you’re in the mood for romance (or fine wine) you are really missing something.

First of all, Walla Walla is like what a California wine town must have been 40 years ago, a small turn of the century downtown that is more for locals than visitors. There are very few “tourist shops,” although there are plenty of tasting rooms and festivals. Locals will fill the fine restaurants unless you get your reservations in early (if you like truly wondrous food that you aren’t upset paying top dollar for, book Saffron as soon as you arrive). Also very good: T. Maccarones and another favorite of mine is Brasserie Four — where I am boringly attached to the yummy Mussels and Yam frites. Whitehouse-Crawford is usually very good but I have to admit I had a mediocre meal last time I was there. Olive is a new yuppified restaurant with good lattes, great lunches, picnic supplies and a very good selection of wine.

The fun and the romance however goes beyond roaming the in town tasting rooms ( I particularly like Tru for Champagne, Da Ma for very good wine with great cowboy art on the label and Rollat ). Get a car and go to the Oregon border (about ten minutes from downtown Walla Walla)  for deluxe scenery — rolling green hills in the spring, yellow in the summer and fall — and the beautiful Blue Mountains (they do have a blueish cast) in the background. Tasting wines in the informal and modestly priced (or free) rooms is intimate (be sure to make someone the designated driver though — some of these wineries pour very generously).

The Washington side of the line has some alluring tasting rooms with knock-your-socks-off wine. Bereson is a casual place with excellent wine. Nearby is Saviah, Va Piano and Waters (which has an especially pretty setup).  I buy all of their wines. Go up the hill and you see bigger operations: Pepperbridge, (known for their Merlot) and Northstar, also known for their reds.

Tertulia Cellars and Amavi have architecturally interesting rooms.  If you make a private appointment you can see Garrison Creek. This is a gorgeous winery set in acres and acres of wine grapes. Sipping their wine looking out at the Blue Mountains is about as romantic as you can get (but go early in the summer if you can. They are a small boutique producer and their wine sells fast). If you cross the Oregon border you can visit Zerba, which has a tiny log cabin on the highway, and Watermill Winery, which is right in Working Class Milton-Freewater producing a very fancy Malbec and great hard cider.

But that’s just one part of the area. There are amazing wineries on Highway 12, including one of my all time favorites, Woodward Canyon. L’Ecole is in a lovingly restored school house and is a big producer of moderate and excellent red wines. They also make two high end wines — Apogee and Perigee (delicious!)  A classy experience all around can be had at Long Shadows, a collective of six wine makers who have made a big success of their wines (they must have: the tasting room is decorated with a number of impressive Chihuly glass creations).  The wine has won all kinds of awards.

Finally, the last intense area of wineries is out by the airport. The Port of Walla Walla has built numerous small industrial type  buildings — unadorned but cheaper to rent, so that they can “incubate” young winemakers and wineries who can’t afford to do a more presentational tasting room. It is fun and efficient walking around them.

On the other side of the highway are some more excellent wineries — and some more beautiful scenery — Walla Walla Vintners, Abeja, a’Maurice, and K Vinters (who recently got a 100 on their Royal City brand and whose Syrahs are justly famed). Speaking of Abeja, that’s the place I like to stay and it wins the romance sweepstakes in any state. Two couples collaborated on putting the winery and an inn together to make a destination inn. I have been there seven or eight times, but let me warn you, you have to win the lottery (literally!) to get in there on spring barrel and other important wine weekends. They have a lottery for people on their wine list and  there are only nine rooms to be had. But what fabulous rooms they are!

This time I stayed in the summer kitchen that used to be a small farm outbuilding but now has a modern small living room and kitchen, and upstairs a big tub (two people can definitely cuddle in there), a shower and a big bed overlooking the vineyards. It is decorated beautifully with fluffy towels and quilts and big robes to make you feel well taken care of. A new room, just finished in July, is called Edison and it is a beautiful big bedroom and kitchen with an enormous window looking out into and among the trees that makes you feel like you are in a tree house. I have seen all the rooms — I would be happy to stay in any of them.

The innkeeper Mary is delightful, and a fine cook. Your room comes with breakfast and this July visit we had lemon soufflé pancakes one morning and a superb herb and cheese omelet the other next day. Sitting out in the garden under the trees, soft breezes rustling by us, hearing the river beneath us — it doesn’t get better than that.

If you can’t stay at Abeja, there are other charming places. Try Walla Walla Inns and Walla Faces Winery .They have lovely apartments downtown but also a few rooms right off of Highway 12 not far from the airport that has beautiful views of the hills and a pool. Girasol is also situated among wine fields very close to Pepper bridge and Northstar and is very romantic. The major hotel in the city, the Marcus Whitman, has been renovated and has a classy lobby and restaurant. If you wanted a place to stay in town so that you could eat and drink a lot and not have to drive, this would be a good choice.

During the winter Walla Walla  is a pretty sleepy (and cold) college town, but  starting in late March and going until November it comes into its own as a romantic destination. It gets hot in late spring and very hot in July and August.

The whole area is getting into the wine and food act now and two nearby towns also are quite charming and have attractions. Waitsburg has the Jimgermanbar which is renowned for its owner’s mixology, and the Whoopem-Up Café with celebrated home cooking. Dayton has a Fromagerie (a goat farm that produces cheese) with international interns and seriously good products). These places make for enjoyable excursions.

The area is growing every year. Each time I go I hear more international accents but so far, I haven’t seen the kind of buses that invade Napa on summer weekends. I hope it doesn’t come to that  (although I love Napa despite the heavy tourism and I will write about it soon in my list of the country’s most romantic places). Still, I would say see Walla Walla now — it has a casual charm that won’t last forever.

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Pepper Schwartz serves as the AARP love and relationship ambassador and is the chief relationships expert at Perfectmatch.com.

A few years ago I tromped around the Jungfrau region with friends, basing ourselves in the tidy village of Mürren that clings to a ridge above the Lauterbrunnen Valley with a front-row view of the legendary peaks the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. A year before that, with young children in tow, my father-in-law, wife, and I trekked the trails out of Grindelwald in the shadow of the Eiger. Both experiences left me wondering if it could get any better.

As everyone knows, it can always get better. These days I’m dreaming of hiking through the terraced vineyards above Lake Geneva in the Lavaux region between Lausanne and Vevey. No, this isn’t alpine hiking, and the trail I have in mind will take only half a day to complete, but the area is near the top of my list of the world’s most astoundingly beautiful places.

If you want to know the truth, I’ve been dreaming of hiking there since 2003, when I saw it for the first time. I was traveling by train after landing in Zurich with my then-five-year-old daughter, on our way to meet my wife and three-year-old who’d flown into Geneva on a different routing. After a couple of hours of speeding through the rolling countryside, through picture-perfect towns, fields, and forests, we entered a long tunnel. When we emerged, we burst into dazzling light, a whole world of blue from the sky above and the azure expanse of Lake Geneva below, tucked in by a horizon of high mountains. Both my daughter and I were stunned. The transition from dark tunnel to blue radiance was so instantaneous it felt like a blow to the chest.

And then the vineyards appeared: rolling, curving green terraces stepping down the hillsides to the lake, mile after mile, with chateaus dotting the rows of vines. Immediately I wanted to hike there, whether there were trails or not. I needed to make my way into that landscape.

Well, I still do. And will. I’ve put it on the calendar for summer 2011.

But if your 2010 plans are still forming and you have an iPhone, get the new Swiss Hike App from MySwitzerland.com and look at hike #1, Lavaux Vineyard Terraces. That’s the one, from St-Saphorin to Lutry. Or just check out their website for the same information. Maybe I’ll see you there if you wait a year.

Set to take place from June 11th to July 11th, this World Cup marks the first time that the tournament will be hosted by an African nation.

Despite concerns about infrastructure, construction, crime and controversies over forced eviction of the poor, South Africans and soccer fans alike are getting excited. Alicia Keys, The Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Shakira, and others are set to perform at the opening ceremonies and global participation in the event is unrivaled, even by the recent Beijing Summer Olympics. Soccer is truly a sport that is played in every corner of the planet.

As an urban soccer mom and surrounded by a crew of international friends, soccer players and fans, I’m definitely looking forward to the tournament. If you are headed to the event from afar, you will probably want to add on to your trip. Wine tasting in the Capelands sounds like a great balance to the hooligan soccer frenzy that Wold Cup play can inspire.

Looking to book a safari? An article in Cookie Magazine, by Sarah Verdone, offers some great suggestions for a family safari. South Africa also has some of the top surfing destinations in the world, just watch out for those Great Whites!

Whether you plan to watch some games in person or are getting ready to watch from your couch or bar stool, get in the mood by checking out all that the destination of South Africa has to offer visitors.

I had been to the same spot last summer for an epic 50th Russian Dacha birthday party, where many guests camped and a Russian BBQ ensued with a zip line, trampoline, bubbles, pool, jacuzzi and pogo-sticks for the big and little kids and of course shots of vodka and blinis for the hearty adults. This time it was for a five-year-old’s party, the daughter of my friends, the innkeepers.

Healdsburg lies at the crossroads of three of California’s most famous wine growing appellations: Dry Creek Valley, Alexander Valley and the Russian River Valley. It is surrounded by more than 60 wineries and is a favorite Sonoma Wine Country destination.

It was a surprise when I realized my son’s week at “Farm School” would be just down the road from the B & B. Deergnaw, as it is called, is an estate owned by the founders of my son’s small school in San Francisco. Synergy School 4th-8th grade students are lucky to spend a week in the spring at Deergnaw studying botany, gardening, fishing, writing poetry in the forest, hiking, camping, swimming, kayaking and learning about nature as an integral part of the curriculum. They all return in the autumn for Harvest Day. I have been looking forward to this since Sasha was a wee kindergartner. Parents told me it was a peak Synergy experience and since I love all of the above I was keen to help out, as were many other parents.  At any given time there were at least 8-10 parents and three teachers for 21 kids! I include all this seemingly random information because the experience was just so amazing, something every kid should experience.

I taught poetry writing one day, yoga the next and was a raft monitor in the afternoons. The location was just so stunning. I had been to a camp with my 4-8th grades in the 70’s outside NYC, but it was truly a camp: wooden bunks, sulphur-smelling water and lots of campfires. Alas, this time we couldn’t have a campfire because of our terrible drought and the advice/insistence of a 4th grade firefighter mom.

I was in awe of the beautiful property. We all camped, cooked and gathered outdoors, but the Deergnaw home, compound, estate whatever you want to call it, was right out of a Sunset Magazine spread, but not too precious—just perfect.  Built on more than 250 acres, Deergnaw is now an olive oil producing olive grove and one can buy their oil online and at local Farmer’s Markets.

The owners were not only gracious hosts but involved in the day to day schedule of Farm School. The parents helped with everything from cooking to tick removal. All the kids were obliged to do most of the work, including all the recycling, mulching and weighing the garbage to compare refuse production from year to year. Parents had moments to enjoy the surroundings. One dad took a killer mountain bike excursion, some fished in the pond. I hunkered down in a cushy hammock to read voraciously for an hour or so and squeezed in my own yoga practice on a beautiful deck overlooking a glorious garden.

We danced around a maypole, ate strawberries, cream and brown sugar and took a night hike to a spring. Each kid hiked alone in the dark, a sort of rite of passage/nature experience/empowerment exercise. I was only able to go for two days but look forward to future Farm School experiences and further exploring the Healdsburg area.

I do understand why a first time visitor would want that photo in front of the Eiffel Tower or to say they had been to the Louvre. However, if you sprinkle in a few smaller, lesser known museums you will get a flavor of a neighborhood and a taste of Paris that you won’t find at the famous hotspots.

My all time favorite is the Rodin Museum. Located where the Master once lived and worked, it is a respite from the hustle and bustle of Paris life. When I was a student I used to go to the gardens to study. I loved to wander, grab a coffee and be surrounded by the sculptures. One gray day, there was a small boy with a toy fishing pole, fishing into a puddle, with stunning works of art in the background. I took a picture of the moment and wish I could find it now for this post.

At the time, visits fed my growing fascination with the tortured life of Camille Claudel, the lover, muse and many would say the woman responsible for a number of Auguste Rodin’s masterpieces. If you plan to visit the special spot I recommend renting the 1988 film Camille Claudel starring Isabelle Adjani and Gerard Depardieu.

A visit to the Picasso Museum in the Marais District reignited my interest in the artist. It is in a multistory mansion and the collection chronicles the life and artistic periods of the famous Spanish painter, sculptor and Don Juan who called Paris home for much of his life.

Another favorite of mine is the Museum of Montmartre. I was drawn to it because it was within walking distance of my friend’s apartment and in part because of a fascination with the culture of Absinthe. In Paris, the charm of small museums is often the edifice itself. This 17th century building oozes with history: the rickety stairs and garrets, the pre-historic bathroom setup in the basement and the picturesque garden. The rooms are truly alive and full of colorful characters who tell the tale of this famous/infamous quarter. Make sure to take the audio tour, normally I hate those things but this one really illuminates the experience.

My favorite part of the museum, (besides the great collection of documents, art, furniture and memorabilia from the storied neighborhood) is the grape vineyard that is adjacent to the museum and visible from the windows and garden. It is so anachronistic to see an ancient vineyard in the middle of the pulsing city. Apparently, each year the wine is bottled and auctioned for charity so it would be hard to get a taste.