TRAVEL to Latin America has been on the upswing as countries there look to tourism for economic growth, and tour operators in the United States and Canada offer exotic vacations to the south. But until recently, getting around within Latin America — even in popular countries like Mexico — was a hassle often involving multiple plane changes or long bus rides over rough roads.

Now, thanks to an increase in low-cost airlines in Brazil and Mexico, which account for 60 percent of the Latin America’s air traffic, it’s getting easier to jet around.

In the last two years, at least five new low-cost carriers, including Click Mexicana, InterJet and Volaris, have started service in Mexico, according to ALTA, the Latin American Air Transport Association. And the low-cost airlines GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes, BRA and WebJet now account for more than 40 percent of Brazil’s domestic market.

Even some budget carriers from the United States have begun expanding to Latin America. Spirit Airlines started service to San Jose, Costa Rica, on April 5 and plans to serve Guatemala City from Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles starting May 10 and 11 respectively. It also has filed for service to Caracas, Venezuela, and to Lima and Chiclayo in Peru.

JetBlue, which flies to Cancún, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, hasn’t yet announced plans for other routes to Latin America, but Sebastian White, a spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the airline is “constantly evaluating new routes,” and Latin America “is certainly an attractive market.”

In Mexico, said Alex de Gunten, executive director of ALTA, “the typical joke about two years ago was that everybody and their mother was starting a low-cost carrier.” The jump in budget airlines, he said, “has meant more competition in a number of routes and translated to better deals for U.S. consumers.”

Volaris, for example, has been advertising one-way domestic fares on its Web site, www.volaris.com.mx, at prices as low as 769 Mexican pesos, or about $70 at 11 pesos to $1, between Toluca Airport, 40 miles from Mexico City, and Aguacalientes from April 16 to May 13 (for the San Marcos National Fair) and 250 pesos between Puebla and Tijuana from May 18 to June 18. Alma de México, which flies to 13 destinations in Mexico, has been advertising flights between San José del Cabo and Guadalajara for 1,324 pesos at www.alma.com.mx. And a recent search on Click Mexicana’s Web site, www.clickmx.com, for flights in May from Mexico City to tourist cities like Mérida and Zihuatanejo, turned up one-way fares from 1,085 and 1,049 pesos, with taxes and fees.

There are also new direct flights replacing connections that previously required stops or plane changes. For example, vacationers planning to sightsee in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, and then hit the sand in Cancún, used to have to stop in Mexico City. Now Click, a subsidiary of Mexicana Airlines, which advertises leather seats with 35 inches of legroom as Coach Plus, flies nonstop between Guadalajara and Cancún.

The new nonstop routes “make it very attractive to travelers coming from cities, that otherwise would require a very long trip, to come to Cancún,” said Arturo Escaip Manzur, chief executive of the Cancún Convention and Visitors Bureau, which attributes an increase in domestic travelers to new direct flights from budget airlines and plans to promote the routes in marketing campaigns. “A stop in Mexico City,” he said, “might make them choose another location.”

Ben Gritzewsky, a travel agent who specializes in Mexico at Frosch Vacations in Houston, said he tended to book with major national airlines like Aeroméxico or Mexicana because of their mileage program partnerships and ease of booking, but also noted that there were a few routes between second- and third-tier cities that the larger carriers don’t cover. “For Southern California residents,” he said, “it may be advantageous to use Avolar’s Tijuana gateway occasionally in order to fly directly into the interior.” Toluca, he added, which Volaris and InterJet both fly from, “is an alternative if you are in far west Mexico City and want to avoid the big airport or crosstown traffic.”

Like most low-cost carriers in the United States, the Latin American budget airlines are generally of the no-frills variety, offering a single class of seats, serving snacks instead of meals, and keeping costs down with low maintenance and high efficiency.

Booking can be a challenge if you don’t speak Spanish. Only a few have agreements with companies like Worldspan and Sabre, which distribute fare information to United States travel agents or familiar discount Web sites like Expedia. And since their business is primarily geared toward domestic travelers, few offer their own Web sites in English or take American Express credit cards. Volaris, which offers flights to 14 destinations in Mexico including Cancún, Los Cabos and Morelia, is one of the few that does both. Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes, which serves 49 destinations in Brazil and also flies to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Peru, also offers booking in English (www.voegol.com.br). Outside Brazil, it accepts only American Express cards or, at a ticket counter, cash.

The Latin American carriers are regulated by civil aviation authorities in their own countries. “They’ve been very strict,” said Alex de Gunten, of the Latin American Air Transport Association, in enforcing their regulations. Last month the Mexican government suspended operations of the low-cost carrier Lineas Aéreas Azteca because it failed to comply with safety, administrative and technical rules, the Associated Press reported. Azteca, which has 90 days to correct the problems, is the second low-cost carrier to be grounded by the government in the last year. Aero California was suspended last April for failing to meet safety standards. It corrected its violations and has resumed some flights.

Last fall, a Boeing 737 operated by Gol crashed in the Amazon, killing all 154 people aboard. Investigations of the crash, which is believed to have been caused by a collision with a small business jet, are continuing.

As low-cost carriers continue to take off in Latin America, they are gaining a greater share of the overall market. In the fourth quarter of 2006, Gol accounted for more than a third of the Brazilian air market. At the end of March, the company bought Varig, once Brazil’s largest airline.

But as the low-cost carriers grow, the boundaries between them and older airlines are blurring. “Gol entered the market strong and with this idea of low cost,” said Augusto Simas, managing director at Travel Place, a travel agency in Rio de Janeiro. But as the company expanded, he said, its prices went up slightly, and its competitors’ prices went down a little bit. “Now,” he said, “they’re kind of balanced.”

THE first thing to do with a tartiflette is to ease your fork through the crust of cheese. If the casserole is done right, that cut will release a whiff of milky steam infused with a suggestion of onion and garlic.

The best moment, though, comes with a perfectly proportioned forkful. A chunk of cream-soaked potato and a smoky bit of lardon will be married with a smooth coat of reblochon — cheese made from the milk of one of three breeds of French cows that march to Alps meadows in the spring and return to hay-filled barns in the winter.

The tartiflette is perhaps the most comforting dish in all of France's Haute-Savoie, and it's what led me to take a three-day tour of small villages in the region in search of what I imagined as a perfect tartiflette. The dish has the tang and satisfaction of macaroni and cheese baked until it forms a chewy crust, the pure pleasure derived from a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes and a flavor that could only come from 500 years spent perfecting cheesemaking.

I was in Annecy, the capital of the region, with my partner, Katia, visiting her cousin Nora in October. Lunch the first day was at Marc Veyrat's three-star Michelin country French temple, and as we worked our way through 15 refined courses (it now costs 338 euros, or about $465 each, at $1.38 to the euro), Nora described the best tartiflette she had ever eaten. It was made by Mr. Veyrat himself, for a little side operation he had back in the early 1990s.

“I can remember nothing else of that restaurant but the tartiflette,” she told us. That's the effect a good tartiflette can have.

The trick is the reblochon, which is sliced over the top before the dish is baked. Reblochon is a soft, washed-rind round cheese about as thick as a paperback copy of “Candide.” A good one has tang and aroma and a slightly salty quality. The bad are as bland and rubbery as cheap brie.

At its best when the cows are eating nothing but Alpine grass, the cheese got its name from 16th-century farmers who were sick of the tax on their milk. They'd milk their cows until they were about halfway done, pay the tax on that bounty and then finish the job.

They had to do something with the remaining milk to avoid charges of tax evasion. So they made cheese, the name of which comes from the word reblocher, which means to milk again. (Some tie the name to the slang term “reblessa,” which in the local dialect basically means to steal.)

To make tartiflette, the whole cheese is sliced in half horizontally and turned cut side down before the dish goes in the oven. The idea is to turn the soft, brushed rind into a crispy crust as the inside of the cheese melts into the cream and coats the potatoes.

For a road-weary traveler looking for a regional dish, tartiflette is inexpensive and accessible. No one can argue with the instant comfort that comes from a bubbling hot dish of cheese, bacon and potatoes.

In dozens of villages around Lake Annecy, people make and sell reblochon. Similarly, the region is crazy for tartiflette. It is a staple on the menus in the small city of Annecy, considered one of the oldest settlements in the Alps.

Bad tartiflette is easy to find. The tourist-driven cafes near the medieval prison in the heart of the historic quarter of Annecy all offer versions with a small salad and sometimes a small plate of charcuterie. I ate enough bad tartiflette that halfway through my search, I threw myself across my bed like fat Elvis.

Things started looking up at Le Fréti, in the pedestrian-only section near the old prison. It had a terrific cheese cellar and three small rooms filled with the smoky smell that comes when half-moons of raclette melt in front of long electric burners.

Local fruity white wine or warm tea is the thing to drink with all the cheese dishes in the Haute-Savoie; otherwise, Nora warned, “you end up with a cheese stone in your stomach.”

We ordered some of both, and I paid about 11 euros for a bubbling tartiflette. The dish was capped with a couple of crusty bits of cheese and had fatty strips of lardon.

It was good, but I felt vaguely disappointed. This wasn't the tartiflette that the food-obsessed argue over on culinary blogs. True, it was an improvement over my grandmother's scalloped potatoes, but I knew there had to be something better.

The next day, we headed to the village of Menthon-St.-Bernard to eat tartiflette with the cows. Not literally, but pretty close.

The owners of Ferme de la Charbonnière take the idea of farmstead dining to an extreme. Want to know where all the cheese on your table came from? Just glance through the plexiglass down to the barn below, where some of the herd is most likely being milked.

The restaurant smells like a mix of broiling cheese and barnyard. An evening sitting on wooden benches and watching the cows brings the notion of terroir to a new level.

There, a tartiflette must be ordered in advance. If you don't call ahead, you can make do with a kind of do-it-yourself tartiflette called “reblochonnade.” Grumpy-looking women haul little charcoal broilers that look like toy ovens to your table, along with reblochon split into two rounds and placed on little skillets. The customer shoves the cheese under the broiler until it melts, then pours it over a boiled potato and adds some slices of soft, dense air-cured ham.

But the dish, like its sister tartiflette, suffered from cheese that was almost as bland as American Muenster.

At this point, I thought perhaps I had been wrong about the tartiflette. I was at the epicenter of tartiflette cooking, and I couldn't find a good one. Perhaps, as I had been warned, tartiflette was nothing more than a marketing ploy invented by the makers of reblochon to sell more cheese.

Then I headed up the mountain toward Montmin, a place that is not much more than a collection of small buildings, some cows and a little ski area for kids. I parked and took a short, steep hike to Col de la Forclaz, mesmerized by the view of blue Lake Annecy far below the mountain pass.

I continued through a clearing and saw a soft asphalt ramp on the edge of the mountain. A driveway to nowhere. Men and women were strapping themselves into what looked like tricked-out baby car seats and running down the ramp, parachuting to the fields far below.

An hour of watching that can make a girl hungry. Besides, the sun was going down and it was getting cold. So I hiked back to a small restaurant, Châlet la Pricaz, a gathering spot in Montmin. The owners have 50 head of Tarine cows, and make their reblochon not far from their restaurant.

Two old French women were the only other customers on that cold Sunday night. I decided to take one more shot.

“Une tartiflette, s'il vous plaît.”

Finally, it came. A brown crockery oval covered in cheese that a hot oven had transformed into a crispy lace crust. The reblochon had character and tang, and had melted into the cream just so, marrying the potatoes and bacon. I had found tartiflette nirvana, with a side of charcuterie.

I paid my 13 euros, said goodbye to the women, and drove back down the mountain. But after three days of almost nothing but cheese and potatoes, I kind of wished I'd hiked.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Le Fréti, 12, rue Ste. Claire, Annecy; (33-4) 50-51-29-52; www.le-freti.com. Open for dinner every day and for lunch on Sundays and public holidays. The tartiflette costs 11.10 euros, about $15.50 at $1.38 to the euro.

Ferme de la Charbonnière, Route de Thônes, Menthon-St.-Bernard; (33-4) 50-02-82-59. Open all year for lunch and dinner. Closed Monday. A meal of charcuterie, tartiflette, salad, cheese and coffee is 17 euros.

Châlet la Pricaz, Col de la Forclaz, Montmin; (33-4) 50-60-72-61; e-mail: lapricaz@fnac.net. Open every day in summer; closes Thursdays in April and May and Wednesday and Thursday from October through March. Tartiflette, 17 euros.

MAYBE it is the cobblestone byways that meander through Vilnius and appear more suited for horses than horsepower. Perhaps it is the unexpectedly historic architecture or the hulking castles that whisper of medieval derring-do. While modernity certainly intrudes — it would not be a European capital without its Prada and Ermenegildo Zegna stores, now would it? — somehow or other, this Lithuanian city, despite its many recent changes, often has the feel of an old-world diorama sprung to life.

Lithuania may seem little more than a crossword puzzle answer, one of the many nations that came back to life after the collapse of Communism, but like its Baltic siblings, Latvia and Estonia, it has turned its gaze and ambitions westward, and its back to Moscow. In Vilnius, you’ll find an easygoing, appealing and less expensive alternative to Paris or Prague.

Restaurants and museums proliferate in this city of 550,000, and well-established hotel chains, not to mention stylish boutique hotels, have staked their claims in recent years. Ramada and Novotel have opened in the city center, and Kempinski will soon as well. Le Meridien, a high-end hotel and conference center on the city’s outskirts, even has a golf school. At many hotels, Wi-Fi and other high-tech staples are a given.

On the streets, it is readily apparent that young people, who have little if any memories of Soviet domination, have embraced Western European mores, hence all those fashion shops. English has replaced Russian as the second language of public life, after Lithuanian.

In whatever language, people are welcoming. On a recent visit, my wife, Julie Dressner, and I chatted our way from peddler to peddler on Pilies Street in the heart of the old city. Many were selling jewelry and other items made from amber. We ended up buying a handsome fruit bowl hawked by a craftsman from an outlying village who had carved it from birch.

In the Old Town, it is not difficult to get lost among the crazy-quilt streets, and you may be thankful that you do, especially when you alight at places like St. Anne’s Church, as curious and enthralling a Gothic edifice as you will find. Go ahead, squint. The facade truly is made of exposed bricks of numerous shapes, even the spires, as if someone turned loose a master builder with a masonry Lego set.

All over Vilnius, night life is lively and unpretentious. At a D.J. bar in the Old Town called Tipo Zoro, where a cozy section in the back is furnished with vinyl bucket seats apparently yanked from old vans, a table of Lithuanians invited Julie to join them while she waited for the bathroom. Similarly cheerful residents lingered in groups in front of many spots, and were eager to strike up conversations with foreigners.

Like the nation itself, food culture has blossomed, and you can sample everything from Greek to Chinese. In search of local fare, we ended up at Forto Dvaras, a restaurant that is a bit of a Lithuanian culinary theme park. Rustic furniture, staff in national costumes and a menu laden with blini, pancakes and giant dumplings called zeppelin (my 9-year-old daughter, Danya, has something of a sour cream addiction, and she was not disappointed). California spa cuisine, it is not. But portions were tasty and sizable, and the bill for six for lunch was only the equivalent of $35.

The contemporary art scene has also taken off. The city recently established an avant-garde visual arts center named after the Lithuanian-American filmmaker and counterculture icon Jonas Mekas, a fellow traveler of Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg. The roster of private galleries seems to grow every month, taking advantage of a robust economy and a rich artistic history.

One morning, we showed up at the doorstep of a 15th-century Gothic building on town hall square that is the home of an esteemed Lithuanian painter, Kazys Varnelis. The building is also a museum, and though we didn’t have an appointment, the soft-spoken, long-haired young curator, Vidas Poskus, was soon giving us a free private tour of Mr. Varnelis’s sprawling, eclectic collection. It includes antique books and maps of Eastern Europe and elsewhere, Renaissance furniture, illustrations, paintings and sculpture.

Then there are Mr. Varnelis’s own creations, which often use geometric patterns to create optical illusions, and are sometimes described as a modernist interpretation of Lithuanian folk art. My three children found his work — which is also in the Guggenheim in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and other museums — transfixing.

Like some of his compatriots, Mr. Varnelis, 90, went into exile in the United States after World War II and returned to Lithuania only in the 1990s. “He wanted to come back for emotional reasons — homesickness and patriotism,” Mr. Poskus told us. “It was important for him to donate his collection to his people.”

If Mr. Varnelis symbolizes the revival here, shards of the nation’s mournful past exist as well, and it is worth acknowledging them. At the National Museum, a grim current exhibit describes the exiling of Lithuanians to Siberian gulags and other repressive measures carried out by Stalin and his successors after Moscow invaded and turned independent Lithuania into a vassal Soviet republic. Not far away is the Museum of Genocide Victims, known as the K.G.B. museum, in a former prison where the Soviet secret police once imprisoned, tortured and killed Lithuanian nationalists, dissidents and others. The cells are intact, and you can walk them.

A century ago, Julie’s great-grandfather emigrated to New York from the Jewish quarter of Vilnius, at the time one of the world’s most vibrant Jewish communities, later decimated by the Nazis. He recalled in unpublished memoirs that after he arrived in Vilnius on his own as a teenager to attend yeshiva, the sense of kinship among Jews was so deep that an informal network made sure he and other poor students did not go hungry. “Every night, those who could afford to invited a boy to his home,” he wrote.

Before our trip, we read his memoirs, and we wondered: was anything left?

So we wandered the site of the former Jewish quarter, spotting only a few instances of Jewish stars and Hebrew writing chiseled into buildings, then feeling a little more hopeful when we reached the restored synagogue on Pylimo Street, one of the few Jewish institutions to survive the war.

After visiting the city’s Holocaust museum, in a small green cottage set back from a main road, and viewing maps and photographs of the two ghettos where Jews were detained, we realized how little the footprint of the city had changed. In some places, what now look like quaint gates were once covered with barbed wire.

Relying extensively on witness testimony and original documents, the museum offers a timeline of the Jewish community’s ascent and destruction in Vilnius. Larger Holocaust museums may present comparable exhibits, but to gaze upon them here, after walking those very same streets, is especially affecting.

While we tried to shield our children from some of the more graphic museum exhibits on Nazi and Soviet atrocities, plenty in Vilnius engaged them. One afternoon we hiked up a cobblestone path to the Higher Castle Museum. First constructed in the 13th century, the castle offers lovely views of the city from its open-air roof, as well as exhibits of medieval weaponry. (If you don’t want to walk up the hill, you can ride a funicular.)

Another walk brought us to the Gates of Dawn, a bulwark that blocks a narrow road. Once part of the city’s original fortifications, it was later transformed into a small chapel containing a venerated icon that has long drawn pilgrims, including Pope John Paul II. On Cathedral Square, the city’s main cathedral, which has several chapels and bell towers, is another prominent attraction.

In fact, the Old Town has an alluring mishmash of architecture — from Gothic to neo-Classical and more — and locals say Vilnius has one of the world’s largest assortments of Baroque buildings. Whatever the style, the place sure is nice to gaze upon, whether you are lugging around an architectural tome or, as we did, simply enjoying going astray among the narrow streets.

VISITOR INFORMATION

HOW TO GET THERE

Travelers from North America typically have to make a stop in Europe to reach Vilnius. Air Baltic (www.airbaltic.com) often has some of the cheapest fares, as low as 150 euros round trip to Vilnius from major cities in Europe.

WHERE TO STAY

Although Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the currency used is generally the lita. Hotel prices, however, are often quoted in euros.

Mabre Residence Hotel, 13 Maironio Street; (370-5) 212-2087; www.mabre.lt. On the outskirts of the old city, it is in a restored former monastery and has a private sauna with a small pool that you can rent to give yourself a true Eastern European experience. Rooms from 120 euros ($165.60 at $1.38 to the euro).

Shakespeare Boutique Hotel, 8/8 Bernardinu Street; (370-5) 266-5885; www.shakespeare.lt. Another quaint hotel in the old city, with rooms whose designs and decorations are inspired by you-know-who. Rates from 105 euros.

Ramada Vilnius, 2 Subaciaus Street, (370-5) 255-3355; www.ramadavilnius.lt and Novotel, 16 Gedimino Avenue, (370-5) 266-6200, are two new luxury hotels in the city center. Rates start at around 100 euros.

WHERE TO EAT AND WHAT TO DO

Forto Dvaras, 16 Pilies Street, (370-5) 261-1070; www.fortodvaras.lt. Typical Lithuanian food, heavy on the quaint atmosphere and sour cream, light on the wallet. Dinner for two is about 70 litas ($27 at 2.6 litas to the dollar).

Kazys Varnelis House Museum, 26 Didzioji Street, (370-5) 279-1644. Works painted and collected by the artist Kazys Varnelis, viewable by appointment only. Admission is free.

Admission to the following museums is 8 litas or less, depending on age and student status.

Higher Castle Museum, 5 Arsenalo Street; (370-5) 261-7453. Views of the city, along with military exhibits.

Holocaust Museum, 12 Pamenkalnio Street; (370-5) 262-0730. A small, deeply affecting museum on the massacre of the nation’s Jews.

Museum of Genocide Victims, 2A Auku Street; (370-5) 266-3282; http://www.genocid.lt/muziejus/en/. A history of Communist oppression.

National Museum, 1 Arsenalo Street; (370-5) 262-9426; www.lnm.lt. An overview of Lithuanian culture and art.

JUST what were we thinking, tackling an eight-and-a-half-mile hiking trail with a mostly hearty 6-year-old and a 25-pound 2-year-old (whose weight magically doubles when he’s napping)? Well, we were thinking that the calendar said spring — despite the season’s early chill, rain and snow — and that our hiking boots were begging to be taken for a walk.

So with a bit of dread (and a loaf of homemade chocolate zucchini bread), four adults — somehow outnumbered by the two children — took off late last month on the engaging Castle Point and Upper Awosting carriageways in Minnewaska State Park Preserve, about 90 miles north of New York City. As we shivered and sidestepped some shaded patches of snow, we marveled at how much colder it was up there than where we’d started out from, the funky university town of New Paltz, about 10 miles east of the park.

We’d been tantalized by the park’s longer trails when we had hiked around Lake Minnewaska twice before. The carriageways go on for miles, to spots with names like Gertrude’s Nose and Coxing Kill, and we hadn’t had the time to follow them then. Now we had the whole day, and plenty of ambition.

We started from the main parking lot, four-tenths of a mile uphill from the entrance, and walked toward Lake Minnewaska, following red trail blazes downhill and to the right. At the bottom of the hill, ice still covered the swimming hole (and the rest of the lake), but we remembered it being inviting during previous warmer visits. Swimming is allowed from mid-June through Labor Day weekend.

We then followed the blue trail, the Castle Point Carriage Road, and without much huffing or puffing we arrived on a ridge of quartzite cliffs that overlook the Hudson and Wallkill Valleys. The stone is 95 percent quartz, and its boxy outcroppings resemble a Cubist painter’s rendition of the Michelin Man.

These gravel roads were built for the horses and carriages of hotel guests in the late 1800s when the Cliff House and the Wildmere hotels drew visitors from Manhattan, and are great for four-across conversational hiking, cross-country skiing, horseback riding and mountain biking.

The view from the top of the world, we can report, is stunning. And the panoramas start early.

The prospect across the Palmaghatt Gorge was the geological equivalent of exhilaration, enhanced by the clear air and bright sun. Turkey vultures stirred the space between us and Patterson’s Pellet, a large boulder left behind on the opposite cliffs by glaciers. (It’s either that or a misdelivered art installation meant for the Storm King Art Center, the outdoor sculpture collection a few exits south on the New York State Thruway.)

We heard chickadees and saw juncos, but, depending on the season, birders can also spot black-and-white warblers, ruffed grouse and towhees, as well as downy woodpeckers and nuthatches.

THE 30 miles of carriage roads and 25 miles of footpaths in Minnewaska State Park Preserve provide hikes that are easy, hard and in between, with intimate views of four “sky lakes” in glacial basins and rock formations that attract rock climbers worldwide. An average of 250,000 people visit the park annually, some in winter, when 20 miles of carriageways are groomed for cross-country skiing.

The preserve is roughly 20,000 acres and was partly created by combining the two hotel properties. The parkland was assembled in sections, starting in 1970, and opened in 1972. The larger portion was added in 1987. The surrounding area was known for producing hand-cut millstones back in the 1800s.

The stingy soils on the glacier-scoured rock here provide footholds for pitch pines. And keep an eye out for “chatter marks,” arcing dents left behind by boulders, as glacial ice bumped them along the bedrock. Given that we were stopping about every 10 minutes to bribe the 6-year-old with treats, there was plenty of opportunity to look for chatter marks.

Along the way we saw the Rondout Reservoir, which provides New York City with water. And there were many ledges along the trail with natural human-scale back rests and some glacier-scoured stone that made ideal picnic table, provided we kept a careful eye on the children and one adult photographer, making sure they didn’t lurch too close to eternity.

Why would anyone choose to be anywhere but here on a sunny weekend day, I wondered, thinking of the full parking lots of the region’s malls that we (thankfully) couldn’t see from up here — the valley below seemed beautifully empty of overdevelopment.

Looking across the park’s gorges from one cliff top to another reminded me of looking across Lower Broadway from one office to another, wondering what sort of activities took place across the air from me. The flat-topped cliffs looked deceptively close, though they would likely have taken us hours to reach.

At 1.2 miles in, we hit Kempton Ledge, and at about three and a half miles, Castle Point, just a 900-foot gain in elevation from Lake Minnewaska, and the park’s tallest point, at about 2,200 feet. There are no castles there, and no solid memory as to how it got its name, but it is certainly a regal spot, looking across the mile-wide gorge and, on a clear day, all the way to High Point in New Jersey.

On the way, we peered into vernal pools, which appear only in the spring. Since they cannot support fish, they provide a safe nursery for frogs and salamanders, but it was too early to see any eggs.

We headed down from the cliffs, passing under Battlement Terrace, crossing through an entirely new ecosystem (taller trees! soil! mountain laurels! hemlocks!). We hit the Upper Awosting Carriageway, which led us to distant and cliff-side views of Lake Awosting, the largest of the park’s sky lakes. Near the path to the left that went to the lake, we lingered by a large rock wall that dripped with icicles and with maroon and green mosses.

We passed hikers with dogs (six-foot leashes are required but were not much in evidence) and baby joggers.

Around Mile 7, we were serenaded by a duet of a mosquito-like 6-year-old asking “how much longer” and the basso continuo of a deep-voiced 2-year-old, who has taken to repeating that he is “drinky” when he wants water. But the final descent back to the lake was peaceful, thanks to that patron saint of parents who invented Tootsie Rolls and 20 Questions.

In our two previous visits, the red trail around Like Minnewaska, a two-mile hike with just a taste of cliff views, was delightful. The trail moseys through woods and has views from the remaining gazebo of a dozen that used to charm visitors to the Cliff House. Most other hikes in the preserve branch from this trail.

On the drive south from the park, we saw rock climbers scaling the cliffs along the highway, their bright shirts like early blooms on the cold rock faces. The Shawangunk Mountains have 500 routes on 300-foot quartzite cliffs.

We had worked up a mountain man’s appetite, and were well fed at the Mountain Brauhaus, back at the intersection where Route 299 ends at Routes 44 and 55. The Brauhaus has fancier entrees than you might expect from a roadhouse that is more than 50 years old — macadamia-encrusted Alaskan halibut with puréed mango sauce ($24), for example, though the children somehow managed not to like their grilled cheese sandwiches. The range of beer on tap was impressive — try the Spaten Oktoberfest ($3.75 for an 11-ounce mug) or the Franziskaner Hefe-Weiss, an unfiltered wheat beer, in a big fluted glass with a slice of lemon for $5.75..

And after our meal, as we tugged off our hiking boots and buckled everyone into the car, we decided that Minnewaska had been about the prettiest hike we’d ever done on the East Coast.

VISITOR INFORMATION

MINNEWASKA STATE PARK PRESERVE is about 90 miles north of New York City, in Ulster County. Take the New York State Thruway North to Exit 18 toward New Paltz, following Main Street (Route 299 West) through town, across the Wallkill River, to the end. Take a right on Routes 44 and 55, and follow signs to the park. The park opens at 9 a.m. year-round; closing times vary from 5 to 9 p.m., depending on the time of year. Admission is $6 a car. Information: (845) 256-0579; www.nysparks.state.ny.us/parks.

The Mountain Brauhaus restaurant sits at the junction of Routes 44/55 and 299 in Gardiner; (845) 255-9766.

If you want to make a weekend of the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, there is a range of places to stay. The Mohonk Mountain House (1000 Mountain Rest Road, New Paltz; 800-772-6646; www.mohonk.com) has rooms starting at $445 a night, double occupancy, and includes three meals and most recreational activities (and its own array of hiking trails). The six-year-old Minnewaska Lodge (3116 Route 44/55, Gardiner; 845-255-1110; www.minnewaskalodge.com) sits at the base of the Shawangunk cliffs, and rooms start at $209 on weekend nights May through October. The four-year-old Super 8 Motel of Highland (3423 U.S. Highway 9W, Highland, 845-691-6888; www.super8.com) is six miles east of New Paltz and has rooms for $80 a night on weekends.

UNRESTED and unshowered, I arrived at Luton Airport, in suburban London, around 5 a.m., and did not expect my situation to improve. I’d been up all night, wandering around London with friends, and now I was about to fly to Morocco on an airline whose reputation for rock-bottom prices was surpassed only by its reputation for rock-bottom service. Bleary-eyed, I slapped my passport on the check-in counter, picked up the boarding pass (no assigned seating, of course), and began the long, long march to my gate.

Normally, I would have shrugged off the looming discomfort as I did the attendant’s warning about my overweight baggage. But I was halfway through a weeklong jaunt around Europe, traveling solely via low-cost carriers, the budget airlines that have multiplied across the Continent like unnecessary E.U. regulations, and the perpetual motion was getting to me. Where had I just been? Where was I going? I wasn’t really sure anymore — all I knew was that getting there wouldn’t cost much more than my sanity.

Every country or region has at least one budget airline: easyJet and RyanAir, the pioneers in this industry, operate out of the Britain and Ireland, while Air Berlin and HLX ferry the shallow-pocketed in and out of Germany. Spain has Vueling, Scandinavia has Sterling, and Italy has a host of tiny carriers that focus on random, disparate cities — Evolavia, for example, flies between Ancona, Paris and Moscow.

What unites these small airlines is a devotion to cheap fares. Flights routinely are less than 20 euros (about $27 at $1.36 to the euro), and can even drop to the low, low price of ... zero. How can the airlines afford that? By cutting out frills and tacking on fees. Fuel surcharges, airport taxes, excess-baggage fees and the ever-popular miscellaneous charges help make up for the seemingly unprofitable ticket prices.

Despite this sneakiness, these airlines remain the best way to bounce around the increasingly borderless superstate known as Europe — faster than railroads, more comfortable than a bus (if you’re lucky), and far cheaper than the major carriers.

This winter, I set out to test the network. The plan: seven flights in seven days, mixing established and off-the-beaten-path destinations, staying in modest hotels and never taking the same airline twice. Along the way, I would even try to enjoy myself wherever I landed.

At first, mapping out a route late last November drove me crazy. Not all budget airlines fly every route every day, and plugging schedules into Web sites took hours. Then I discovered Flylc.com, a booking engine that streamlines the process. Its page shows three columns: the first contains a list of every airport in Europe; click one and the second column displays every destination you can reach from there, while the third shows which airlines fly that route. One more click brings up a timetable showing every flight from, say, Dublin to Bratislava on SkyEurope. Neat!

Soon I had a drawn a viable route around Europe. From Geneva — a central location served by many budget airlines — I’d fly to Prague, then to Copenhagen, London, Fez (Morocco is around Europe, right?), Paris and Budapest, and back to Geneva. At each stop, I’d have a day, more or less, to get oriented before rushing off to the next far-flung city. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And so, early one January Monday in Geneva, I checked into Flybaboo Flight 75. Founded in 2003, the improbably named airline generally ferries passengers to warmer climes — the French Riviera, Ibiza, Sardinia — but for a mere 10 Swiss francs (about $8 at $1.24 Swiss francs to the U.S. dollar, but the equivalent of $59 with taxes), it also goes to Prague. As I walked to the farthest reaches of the airport, where Flybaboo’s gates lay, I wondered what I was getting into.

Then I arrived at the Flybaboo lounge — the slickest non-business-class waiting area I’d ever seen. Men in good suits sat on the red-leather banquettes, checking e-mail on complimentary iMacs. I picked up a copy of Baboo Time, a smart, stylish magazine, and read an interview with Dita Von Teese. I was in no hurry to board, because I worried that things could only get worse.

They got better. The plane was a cute twin-prop Dash 8-300, and as we sat shivering on the runway, waiting for the wings to be de-iced, the sole flight attendant — a young guy whose nice gray wool trousers and black V-neck sweater were accented by a red tie and a red nylon belt — kindly handed out blankets. A few minutes later, we took off, cruising up through the darkness to the clear sky, where the gray quilt of clouds stretched out before us, punctured by the peaks of the Jura Mountains, glowing in the first light of dawn. I gazed out the window till breakfast arrived — strong coffee and airy, just-sweet muffins — then snuggled under my blanket till we touched down, on time, in Prague.

A bus and a subway took me to the heart of Prague’s old town, where after a few wrong turns I arrived at my hotel, the Jerome House. I had a big, clean room, and I made the most of my 24 hours in the Czech capital, wandering the ancient streets and bridges, eating and drinking with friends of friends, and popping into the Kafka Museum for a peek into the life of the writer whose work is all about disorientation.

Too soon, it was back to the airport for Sterling Flight 564 to Copenhagen (7 euros, or 31 euros with taxes and fees). After Flybaboo, Sterling was a disappointment: service was efficient but impersonal, and the flight attendants wore brown pantsuits with tight brown gloves — the corporate dominatrix look. Worse, the Boeing 737-800 was filthy. The dark blue seat fabric hid ground-in grime, fingerprints smeared the windows, and the unmistakable smell of body odor lingered in the stale air. A flavorless chicken sandwich and a Diet Coke cost 8 euros. Luckily, the in-flight magazine provided distraction with an article on eco-friendly Danish fashion and an interview with Lars von Trier.

Less than an hour after we touched down, I arrived by speedy train at Copenhagen’s main station. Climbing up from the platform, I spotted an ad for my hotel that included directions. I turned right, then left, then right again — and promptly found myself nowhere near the Cab Inn. Instead, I was circling around the dark gates of Tivoli, the grand amusement park smack in the middle of downtown. The ad’s directions had seemed so clear — but where was I going?

Though the sky looked ready to pour at any minute, I pulled my MacBook from my messenger bag, found a public Wi-Fi signal and loaded the Cab Inn Web site: The hotel had moved from one side of Tivoli to the other; the train-station ad had not been updated. Fifteen minutes later I was in my room, designed to look like a ship’s cabin.

That evening, I reunited with Egil, a friend since childhood, and along with his girlfriend and his brother, we ate at Det Lille Apotek, which claims to be Copenhagen’s oldest restaurant. In the quaint little tavern, where Egil’s grandfather, the painter Asger Jorn, used to hang out, we reminisced over old times and devoured roast beef, gravy and way too many potatoes. I’d been lost; now I was found.

The sensation did not last long. The next day, Air Berlin was waiting to whisk me off to London via Berlin (31 euros, 65 euros with taxes and fees). The flight began on Air Berlin’s code-sharing partner, Fly DBA. The quarter-full 737-300 exuded shabbiness — tray tables opened crustily, and the color scheme was white and inconsistently green, with shades ranging from yellowish to kellyish to simply soupy, as in the shirts the flight attendants wore under black polyester jackets. The snacks, however, were great — breadsticks flavored with olive oil and rosemary — and as we approached Tegel Airport, we skimmed the clouds in a wide circle, the silhouette of our craft projected against the frothy white surface. Ah. ...

The next segment was on an actual Air Berlin plane, a spanking new Airbus A320 that was all computer-designed curves, with a gray color scheme that whispered sophistication. The air was so clean I could smell the high-tech filtering system, and for the first time I had a personal flat-screen, on which I watched “The King of Queens” and followed our westward progress across an ultra-detailed satellite map, all the way to Stansted, one of the London area’s four airports.

We landed around 8 p.m., and since my next flight was leaving out of Luton Airport at 6:30 a.m., a hotel room was pointless. Instead, I planned to prowl the streets all night with my friends Vincent and Weiting. Fortified with fish and chips, we set out across London from Vincent’s Bloomsbury town house, walking first to the Barbican Estate — a marvelous, messy, modernist apartment complex and arts center that is almost a town unto itself — then through the stately, lonely City and over the Thames to the Tate Modern. Maybe it was the threat of rain, but we saw no one else until we reached Waterloo Bridge, where a voluminously afro’d young woman was comforting a friend who’d had a lovers’ quarrel. They hugged and smiled for us, and at 3 a.m. we returned to Bloomsbury by cab.

Arriving at the airport tired and dirty is bad enough, but when you’re flying on RyanAir, it’s enough to make you suicidal. This was the airline friends had warned me about — not just the cheapest but the chintziest, not just no-frills but inhabiting a frill-free alternate universe. Still, when the London-Fez route is £1.39 (£38.32 with taxes and fees; $76.64 at $2 to the pound), who can complain?

I can. Boarding the 737-800, again at a distant gate, was absurd: seats on RyanAir are not assigned, and everyone made a mad dash for a good spot; all the while a flight attendant — in a blue uniform so crisp it seemed like she’d never worn it before — kept everyone out of the first six rows. They remained inexplicably empty the whole flight.

I settled in Row 7, then began to wish I’d never sat down. The cramped seats did not recline, and were made of molded blue plastic, as if they would be hosed down after the flight. Luckily, I’d been awake all night and fell instantly asleep.

RyanAir got me to Fez on time, however, and I even befriended my seatmate, a Canadian named Matt who said he was “studying terrorism” at a university in Wales. We shared a taxi to Fez’s medieval medina and spent much of the day exploring the labyrinthine marketplace together.

If I was going to get lost anywhere, I thought, it would be here, amid the high khaki walls and shadowy passageways to nowhere. Even before we entered, kids offered to guide us, warning, “La casbah est difficile!” I said I preferred difficulty — and plunged in. But though the market was enormous, with dead-end alleys and vegetable stands and near-identical knickknack vendors and swarms of schoolchildren who rioted with joy every time I pulled out my camera, I never quite lost my way. Even better, I felt comfortable — this was my kind of place, and I could have spent days or weeks drinking espresso with hash-smoking teens and stumbling upon the hidden ruins of pashas’ palaces. I left only out of exhaustion, but invited Matt to my hotel, a gracious courtyard house called the Riad Zamane, for a dinner of the best chicken tagine ever.

Next morning I was back in the air, this time on a 737-400 operated by Jet4you. My ride out of Fez, this tiny low-cost carrier — it flies between Morocco, France and Belgium with just two jets — had the highest fares (134 euros, or 144.09 euros with taxes and fees) and the oldest plane. The seats were threadbare, a chunk of my armrest was missing, and let’s not even talk about the stained fabric. The in-flight magazine was low-budget and unimaginative, and one of the French tourists on the nearly full flight was a middle-aged woman in a leopard-print top and tight black-leather Versace jeans. I closed my eyes and woke up at Paris Orly.

Ah, Paris! Now this was a place I knew well. Ever since I walked across the city one wintry night in 1994, my feet had developed an instinctual sense of the Haussmannian boulevards. I checked into my hotel, a cute, affordable Latin Quarter boutique called the Five, and headed straight for the Marais, where I found a pleasant surprise: winter sales! Virtually every store was offering deep discounts, and I took full advantage, picking up a Mandarina Duck suitcase to replace my venerable Briggs & Riley, which had lost a wheel under RyanAir’s care.

Getting to my flight the next day was a hassle. I was leaving not from Charles de Gaulle nor Orly, but from a little-known airport called Beauvais, about 50 miles north. (Colonizing third-tier airports is how many budget airlines offer such low fares.) To get to Beauvais, I took the Metro to Pont de Neuilly, wandered in a light drizzle until I found the bus depot, then rode an hour out to the airport, again befriending my seatmate, Gabriella, who like me was bound for Budapest on Wizz Air (6.99 euros, or 39.11 euros with taxes and fees).

“Oh, Wizz is the worst,” she said.

Not quite true, but Wizz, based in Poland and Hungary, was no Flybaboo. First, I had to pay an extra 35 euros for my overweight bag, now laden with 10 pounds of in-flight magazines, then the plane almost left without me. Inside, the air was overpressurized, and the flight attendants as confused as the color scheme, a mix of white and “magenta” that ranged from borscht to spilled zinfandel. At least Wizzit, the airline’s magazine, was entertaining: “The World’s Worst Food” was one cover line, and contributors included the travel editor of Wallpaper*.

Around 11 p.m. I checked into my hotel, but did not go to sleep. Instead, Bernadett, a friend of a friend, picked me up and we roamed the Hungarian capital in search of food — stacked crepes stuffed with mushrooms, tomatoes and cheese, and slathered in sour cream — and drink: Borsodi beers at Szimpla, a shabby but wonderful bar in what was once someone’s house.

The next afternoon, Bernadett and I drove up to Buda Castle, which looms gloriously over the city, and then to the airport. It was time for my final flight.

O easyJet, how I love thee! You may be a big shot, but in your Airbus A319, you treated me like a human being (for 5,950 forints, or 12,350 after taxes and fees, about $68 at 182 forints to $1). You looked the other way at my excess baggage, and though you don’t assign seats, you keep them spotless and roomy. Your flight attendants wore chic open-necked orange-and-gunmetal-gray shirts, and your in-flight magazine was professional and informative, with articles on percebes, the Spanish delicacy, and up-and-coming neighborhoods in Toulouse. “Come on,” winks your magazine, “let’s fly!” With you, baby? Anytime.

Alas, easyJet and I parted ways in Geneva. I grabbed a shuttle to NH, an airport hotel, and tried to sleep. I couldn’t. After a week of constant motion, I was buzzing with memories and inertia — I’d sampled so many places, so quickly, I wanted to revisit them all. Yet here I was at the end, in Switzerland on a desolate Sunday night. The adrenaline rush of disorientation was fading. Still, there was one ray of light: In the morning, I would be flying to Bulgaria. On Lufthansa. It was no low-cost carrier, but as I drifted off, I decided it would have to do.

WHERE TO GO ONLINE

Like all airlines, low-cost carriers often offer better prices to those who book early. Be sure to check all terms and conditions; these airlines often limit baggage and the changing of tickets after purchase.

FlyBaboo, www.flybaboo.com.

Sterling, www.sterling.dk.

Air Berlin, www.airberlin.com.

RyanAir, www.ryanair.com.

Jet4you, www.jet4you.com.

Wizz Air, www.wizzair.com.

EasyJet, www.easyjet.com.

A NEWCOMER to London has to start with the premise that very little is affordable in this city. For starters, there is the £4 subway ride that will take you one stop. And then the check for a modest restaurant meal often looks eerily similar to what you might expect in New York: except the figure is in pounds not dollars, roughly doubling the cost.

Still, London is in a buoyant mood these days, and many Londoners — count among them Russians, Middle Easterners and Asians of all kinds — seem impervious to the prices, just shrugging their shoulders, as they eat and drink at stratospheric prices.

One way to keep down the cost of eating out in London is to choose places that specialize in tapas or that feature “grazing” menus. But finding interesting food at good prices can be a quest of word-of-mouth, luck and instinct.

Tendido Cero

The least expensive of a pair of Spanish restaurants under the same ownership on Old Brompton Road in South Kensington, Tendido Cero offers a lively atmosphere and fresh tapas, including baby iron squid cooked in ink with rice for £6.50 ($13 at $2 to the pound), baby anchovies marinated in olive oil with parsley and garlic, rather heavy on the garlic (£5) and fresh green asparagus fried in olive oil and sea salt (£4.50). A recent selection of four Spanish cheeses with quince included a hard Manchego (£6.50). For a splurge, ham devotees could choose the most expensive item on the menu: 100 grams of jamon de bettota from the acorn-fed black pig (£14.50).

Friendly neighborhood people fill the black banquettes. The décor is modern: a huge vase of sunflowers at the entrance, crimson ceiling and metal shelves packed with Spanish food wares along part of one wall sets the informal tone.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese

The soul of old London and staid British food are the hallmarks of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a warren of dark wood paneled bars and dining areas spread over three floors in a 16th-century building on Fleet Street. The place seems untouched since Samuel Johnson ate in the Chop Room, a dining area at the front of the premises. A portrait of Dr. Johnson in a gold frame peers down at his old table. When we visited, the table was filled by a former British newspaper editor and a male colleague dressed in suit and tie, rapidly consuming a bottle of red wine with lunch. These patrons could afford a smarter restaurant, but even among some sophisticated Londoners, the Cheshire Cheese keeps an affectionate hold.

The food was remarkable for its 1950s character: a ham salad of two slices of thin ham, seemingly from a packet, set on iceberg lettuce and beetroot (£7.25). The poached salmon salad featured a thin piece of salmon atop a similar salad (£7.50). The fish and chips — two pieces of battered fish with a generous serving of French fries — came with “mushy peas,” meaning well-boiled green peas common in English boarding schools (£7.75). The exceedingly sweet treacle pudding is the real thing, served with hot custard (£3.95). The beer is considered about the best value of any London pub: £1.07 for a half pint of bitter ale.

Bar Shu

Sichuan cooking took a while to hit London but is now flowering at Bar Shu on Frith Street in the heart of Soho. The restaurant, spread across two floors, opened a year ago to considerable gasps from food writers in London. The dishes were too spicy, the critics said. But, if you stay away from the most expensive items and concentrate on the more modest classic dishes, the critics noted that the menu was a good value. I was told to try Bar Shu for the best green beans in town.

The dry fried green beans cooked with minced pork and ya chai, a mustard green from Sichuan (£8.50), were indeed addictively good. (And not hot.) The hot dried beef, lavishly topped with chili and Sichuan pepper, had a warning — two red pepper symbols. It lived up to its billing: a mound of tiny pieces of beef came smothered with red peppers and was screamingly hot (£8.90). Our favorite dish was the milder stir-fired calamari with Chinese chives (£12). Instead of a sweet desert, I finished with the recommended chicken soup, a mild broth with flecks of a root vegetable and silver ear fungus (£3). There is a full wine list, and wine by the glass is £4.50.

E & O

A Notting Hill outpost of some fame based on consistently delicious food, E & O has a clientele from the fashionable neighborhood and beyond. The restaurant name is an abbreviation for Eastern and Oriental, a giveaway name for the Thai-, Chinese- and Japanese-style food served in small dishes and created by an Australian-born restaurateur, Will Ricker, who owns several other successful London places. Grazing is the main idea there, so with clever choices the cost can be manageable. The coconut- and pomegranate-filled betel leaves — three of them lined up on a slender rectangular plate — were light and crisp (£5.50). The bean curd and chicken dumplings were fresh and warm (£4 to £6). The duck with watermelon and cashews was quite filling (£11), and the black cod tempura with miso aioli (£8.50) is a favorite. Leave room for the velvety sublime sorbets (£5).

The handsome square room, flooded with light and styled with banquettes, white tablecloths and dark wood, is a good place for London people watching; the bar at the front is always teeming. The wine list starts at £13 for a bottle of Italian white; wine by the glass starts at £4.50.

Alounak

A friendly neighborhood restaurant in Notting Hill, with exposed brick walls and a bread oven at the entrance, Alounak offers hearty Iranian fare and — by London standards — reasonable prices. Moreover, judging by the number of Iranians eating there, the food is authentic.

The menu features a daily special, along with a large selection of dishes that are always offered. For a starter, we gorged on feta cheese served with a generous helping of mint leaves and peeled cucumber, walnuts and red radishes. We ate on a Tuesday when chicken with sweet and sour forest berries mixed with saffron was the special (£7.20). Alongside the generous portion of chicken came a generous portion of rice. My friend chose the boneless chicken marinated in saffron and garlic, also £7.20. The most expensive dish was a mixed kebab of lamb fillet, and minced lamb (£11.10).

The faludeh desert of shredded coconut with rose water (£2.20) was a sweet ending, and tea with cardamom served in slender glasses made a perfect finale. Alounak does not serve alcohol, but a Sainsbury's supermarket nearby sells wine.

Popina

For those on a truly frugal budget, Popina tarts and quiches can be a life saver. A cash-short Indonesian friend survived London this winter by stocking up on the mushroom tarts sold on weekends at Popina's stalls at the city's farmers' markets. Popina, established by Isidora Popovic, a Serb who came to London in the early 1990s, sells savory and sweet tarts for £2.50 for an individual serving and £7.50 for one that serves four.

The pastry is made with stone-ground English flour, unsalted English butter and free-range eggs from Kent. The spring menu includes a roasted new potato tart; a potato, leek and garlic tart; and a spinach, feta and tomato tart.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Tendido Cero (174 Old Brompton Road, SW5; 44-20-7370-3685). About £30 ($60 at $2 to the pound) for two, not including wine. The wine list concentrates on wines for around £20; £4.50 by the glass. Monday to Sunday noon to midnight.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, (145 Fleet Street, EC4A; 44-20-7353-6170). About £25 for two, including beer. Monday to Friday: noon to 11 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 to 11 p.m.; Sunday: noon to 3:30 p.m.

Bar Shu (28 Frith Street, W1D; 44-20-7287-8822). About £50 for two, without wine. Daily from noon to midnight.

E & O (14 Blenheim Crescent, W11; 44-20-7229-5454). About £60 for two, without wine. Reservations are essential for dinner toward the end of the week and on the weekend. Daily from noon to midnight.

Alounak (44 Westbourne Grove, W2; 44-20-7229-0416). About £30 for two. Daily from noon to midnight.

Popina tarts are available at several farmers' markets around London on weekends. Saturdays: Pimlico Road Farmers' Market, Richmond Farmers' Market and Partridges Farmers' Market at Duke of York Square. Sundays: Queens Park Farmers' Market and Clapham Farmers' Market at Bonneville Gardens.

WHEN the 24-year-old James Baldwin arrived in Paris on Armistice Day in 1948, he came with big dreams, a little more than $40 in his pockets and no knowledge whatsoever of the French language. He discovered what he called years later “a large, inconvenient, indifferent” city still suffering from the fuel shortages and food rationing of the war.

He soon settled into the Hôtel Verneuil in the Seventh Arrondissement, a 17th-century building where the rooms were small, cheap and stone cold and guests shared a squat toilet.

“Paris hotels had never heard of central heating or hot baths or clean towels and sheets or ham and eggs; their attitude toward electricity was demonic — once they had seen what they thought of as wiring one wondered why the city had not, long ago, vanished in flame,” he later wrote in Esquire magazine. The result, he added, was that, “One soon ceased expecting to be warm in one's hotel room, and read and worked in the cafes.”

More than a half-century later, many visitors to Paris might feel a certain affinity with Baldwin as they search — often fruitlessly — for comfortable, affordable hotel lodging in this increasingly expensive city.

As The New York Times' bureau chief in Paris, I am often called upon to answer a question I have come to dread: Can you find me a small, romantic, centrally located, quiet, inexpensive hotel? The task is tougher than it sounds. The watery dollar has lost more than 30 percent of its value against the euro since July 2002. That means that a hotel room that cost $150 a night back then costs almost $200 today.

But when my husband's cousin Wayne and his wife, Bernie, called to asked the “H question” recently, I decided to stop avoiding the issue and investigate.

Certainly, a rented apartment can be more efficient and even more affordable, especially if there are children in tow. But the apartment option is only for visitors who don't mind the possible hassle of a temperamental lock, an unreliable toilet, an absent concierge or a forgotten door code. And not everyone wants the option of making coffee or washing clothes on vacation.

That's where the hotel fantasy comes in — that somewhere in Paris is that fabulous find with a marble bathroom and pressed linen sheets on a tree-lined street just a few steps from a cozy café and an efficient Métro station.

Paris offers possibilities. There are nearly 1,500 hotels (and more than 75,000 hotel rooms) in the city, a large proportion of them small and privately owned. Travelers can rely, of course, on the universally used four-star rating system, which judges features such as room and lobby size. A passable (believe-it-or-not) single room at the one-star Hôtel Esmeralda with a shared shower and toilet runs 35 euros (about $47 at $1.36 to the euro) a night; the grand suite at the new four-star Fouquet's Barrière goes for 15,000 euros ($20,400).

But ratings can deceive, particularly when it comes to the charming, the offbeat and the mildew-free.

The Hôtel d'Orsay, for example, a 41-room hotel near the Musée d'Orsay in the Seventh Arrondissement, delivers a serviceable double room that's almost too tiny to turn around in for 142 euros. But you can get more for less if you head across town to the Ninth Arrondissement. At the Hôtel Langlois, just a few steps from the Trinité church, 130 euros will get you a room that is much larger and that comes with a marble fireplace, Art Deco sculptures and 19th-century furnishings and oil paintings.

So if you look hard enough, you can find hidden bargains in Paris — comfortable lodging as low as $140, but often closer to $200 a night including the hefty occupancy tax. Rates can vary wildly, depending on the season and the availability and sometimes can be negotiated.

My recommendations are personal rather than encyclopedic, a collection in various styles and neighborhoods. None of these places is fancy. Most, but not all, have air-conditioning, which is a factor only for about four summer weeks. All are reliable, welcoming and clean — some are spotless; others less so — and have at least one special something to offer. After all, a dark and tiny room suddenly can turn comfortable and cozy when you are greeted by a manager with a funny story and walk out onto a street lined with shops that seem to have been there forever.

For visitors who want the experience of what's left of the authentic, historic Paris — the Paris with few chain clothing stores and Starbucks — head to the Hôtel Langlois. Built as a bank in 1870, it opened as a hotel 26 years later and retains the feel of its history. The carved oak pillars and alcoves, the wood-paneled wrought-iron elevator, the spiral staircase, the smell of old charm as you enter give the place the feel of an elegant old home. The hotel was the setting for “The Truth About Charlie,” Jonathan Demme's 2002 remake of “Charade.”

Room 63, like most of the others, has a fireplace and a matching bed, armoire and table and chairs. It offers views of Paris rooftops, Montmartre and Trinité, the wedding cake of a church on the corner where the Métro and neighborhood cafes are located. Room 54 has a curved built-in leather and wood couch. The bathroom of Room 44, a two-room suite, is hidden behind a carved oak Art Deco bed frame.

Ahmet Abut, the Turkish-born manager, who makes weekly visits to the city's auction houses, has filled the landings with oil paintings and sculptures. “People who come here have to love the old,” Mr. Abut said. “They have to appreciate art, and understand that at this price, we can't afford a concierge to take your bags to your room.”

Doubles start at 114 euros. The one-bedroom suites are 170 euros.

Ten minutes away on foot is the Hôtel Chopin, another, but very different, step back into Paris history. The hotel, which opened in 1846, is not on a street; it is reachable through the Passage Jouffroy, a narrow, glass-roofed, 19th-century pedestrian arcade. Designated a historical monument of Paris, it is close to the antique, art and stamp shops that surround the Drouot auction house.

The entries to the passage are rather plain and easily overlooked. But once inside, there is a world of shops where you can find old movie posters, mechanical toys, swords and canes and discounted coffee-table books on subjects as far-ranging as Islamic glass and Viennese silver. At night the passage is locked, and you need to ring the doorbell at the entry gate to be allowed in.

The Chopin is not a place to come if you have a lot of luggage and expect doorman treatment. But to enter the hotel is to feel that you have been thrown into the past. A bell tinkles when you open the door. In the lobby, Viennese waltzes play. The varnish on the parquet floor is worn. A bust of Chopin sits on an old upright piano that doesn't work. Tiny hard candies wrapped in metallic paper in pedestal bowls and bouquets of tulips and hyacinths adorn the room.

The breakfast room is done in shades of green and rose. A five-tiered tray on a table in the corner is piled high with oranges for the electric juicer.

The 36 rooms are much smaller and more basic than the Langlois's. While the rooms on floors above the glass-covered passageway are light, the ones that face the inner courtyard (particularly the ones that end in “02”) are dark.

Joscelyne Miezger, a retired Swiss teacher visiting Paris with her niece, said she discovered the hotel by chance while walking through the passage on a previous trip. “It was love at first sight,” she said she looked out on the rooftops from their room, No. 305. “There's no noise, and look at the rooftops! All you need to finish the picture is a cat.”

A single room without a toilet or bath is only 61 euros, doubles with baths or showers start at 81 euros. Some rooms have mansard roofs. No. 411 is homey, with orange-colored Japanese straw wallpaper and two small, soft beds.

The same neighborhood also offers a far different hotel experience, a theme hotel opened last year called the Hôtel Amour. The 20-room hotel near the red-light district of Pigalle was once a serviceable, pay-by-the hour establishment. Now the rooms, many of them adorned with romance novels, erotic art and old photo magazines, have been painted lipstick red. There are no phones, televisions or Internet access in the rooms (said to be too distracting for lovers). But there are an iPod connection in every room and wireless Internet service in the public spaces. Doubles start at 120 euros.

The restaurant and courtyard have become hip places for young Parisians. At the corner of the one-block street is the Rue des Martyrs, a half-mile stretch of magic that includes a private gated courtyard, a steep staircase, homey restaurants, second-hand shops and two privately owned and very intellectual bookstores.

For Paris chic, cross the Seine into the Sixth and Seventh Arrondissements. There seem to be small boutique hotels on just about every street corner, many of them just on the edge of our budget limit of $200-a-night.

If you have 136 euros to spend and don't mind a tiny room, then ask for one of the five small doubles at the Hôtel Verneuil, James Baldwin's old hangout. (Larger rooms start at 163 euros.) The Verneuil oozes elegance and romance — a far different feel from Baldwin's post-war damp, heat-deprived winter there. Many of the rooms and baths have original wood beams, and all the baths are done in tawny marble.

SYLVIE DE LATTRE, the owner, has splashed the public spaces with color, adorning them with tasteful prints and eye-popping textiles. A sitting room with a black and while tiled floor and painted a soft red offers comfortable couches, an assortment of books in French and English and cocktails in the afternoon. The elevator is lined in a kilim-patterned tapestry. Breakfast is served in a vaulted stone cellar or in your room.

The rue de Verneuil is a street made for strolling, a calm architectural delight studded with small shops, art galleries and restaurants. (Try Caffé Minotti at No. 33, still good, even though it just lost its one star, or Maxoff, a reliable, if slightly overpriced Russian restaurant at No. 44.) The Seine is two short blocks away, with the Louvre on the other side of the river.

Farther west in the Seventh, on the far side of the Invalides, on your way to the Eiffel Tower is the recently-renovated Hôtel Muguet, a straightforward family-run establishment that is elegant, versatile and clean-lined — the sort of place that works as well for a single on business as for a couple on a romantic vacation.

The neighborhood may be less interesting than that of the Verneuil, but the rooms are bigger and the prices far better: 130 euros for a decent-sized double room, 100 euros for the same room for one person. Room 63 (150 euros) is flooded with light and has a glorious view of the dome of the Invalides. All rooms have flat-screen televisions, wireless Internet and small safes. A glass-roofed breakfast patio looks out onto a small garden. This is three-star ambiance at a two-star price.

For another hotel with a personal touch in the Seventh, try the Hôtel Lindbergh. Sophie Guyot has owned and run the hotel with her brother Patrice for almost 20 years. Even the hotel's lone housekeeper, Stanica Aksentijevic, has been there since then. At 98 euros, a very small double is good value, as is a room that squeezes in four for 190 euros. After all, it's around the corner from the Bon Marché department store and its enormous food hall, La Grande Épicerie.

Another neighborhood find is the Hôtel de Varenne on rue de Bourgogne. Refined, classic, quiet, this seems like the ideal place for older couples who want to spend their time visiting the Rodin Museum. Entered through a courtyard garden, it has the feel of a country house. Doubles start at 137 euros.

For cash-strapped couples who love the Marais, the Hôtel de Nice has the feel of what a Paris love nest should be. Some of the rooms have a view of the little-known Place Baudoyer with the bell tower of Saint Gervais Church in the background.

Here, middle-class bourgeois blends with out-of-fashion, slightly over-the-top decadence. Even the scent of the place evokes classic flowery perfume and French country house furniture. The hotel could use a thorough renovation and a spring cleaning, but I find the slight seediness charming. A double room is 105 euros.

On the other end of the price spectrum, in the very bourgeois, upscale 16th Arrondissement is the Hôtel Windsor Home, close to the lively commercial Passy neighborhood. The hotel's former owner was an art dealer who transformed what was once a private mansion (and the annex to Madame Claude's house of prostitution) into pure whimsy. A plant-filled courtyard opens to stairs that lead to a modern tiled reception area.

With only eight rooms, the Windsor Home is more a private home than a hotel. Every room is different. One is done in gilt paint, another entirely in red. Sculptured hands hang on the walls of another room. The bathrooms have stained-glass windows and basins with sculptured feet as bases. Doubles are 120 to 160 euros.

In the Fifth Arrondissement, not far from the Panthéon, is the reliable and wonderful Hôtel des Grandes Ecoles — if you can get into it. Featured in many guidebooks and Web sites, it is very popular and should be booked three to four months in advance. A high percentage of its clientele is American. Double room are 110 euros to 135 euros.

Truly intrepid bargain-hunters may want to head to the slightly out-of-the-way Batignolles neighborhood in the 17th Arrondissement, where you can find one of the best cheap hotels in Paris: the Hôtel Eldorado, on rue des Dames. There are no telephones or televisions in the rooms, no elevator, no air-conditioning, the bed spreads could use a washing, and 10 of the 33 rooms share toilets.

But with furnishing and art from the flea markets and the streets of India, Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa, the rooms and public spaces have a we-are-the-world feel. Half of the rooms overlook the hotel's small bamboo garden and wine bistro. Double rooms are 70 euros to 75 euros.

As for Wayne and Bernie, they stayed in the 30-room New Orient Hotel in the heart of the Eighth Arrondissement.

Close to the Parc Monceau, filled with both antique and well-worn second-hand furniture, the hotel is homey and very French. Each room is decorated differently. There is Internet service available in the rooms and in the lobby, where postcards are sold. Their room (No. 8) was small, but had a carved bed with a good mattress, an old armoire, a desk and a balcony overlooking the street.

O.K., it wasn't quite the balcony that Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex and the City” stepped out on from her suite at the Plaza Athénée — the one with the view of the Eiffel Tower that was so extraordinary that she jumped up and down in glee. But then, for 105 euros, it wasn't bad either.

THE LIST

Hôtel Langlois 63, rue Saint-Lazare; Ninth Arrondissement (33-1-4874-7824; www.hotel-langlois.com).

Hôtel Chopin, 46, passage Jouffroy; Ninth Arrondissement (33-1-4770-5810; www.hotelchopin.fr).

Hôtel Amour, 8, rue Navarin; Ninth Arrondissement (33-1-4878-3180; www.hotelamour.com).

Hôtel Verneuil, 8, rue de Verneuil; Seventh Arrondissement (33-1-4260-8214, www.hotelverneuil.com).

Hôtel Muguet, 11, rue Chevert; (33-1-4705-0593; Seventh Arrondissement www.hotelmuguet.com).

Hôtel Lindbergh, 5, rue Chomel, Seventh Arrondissement (33-1-4548-3553; www.hotellindbergh.com).

Hôtel de Varenne, 44, rue de Bourgogne; Seventh Arrondissement (33-1-4551-4555; www.varenne-hotel-paris.com).

Hôtel Eldorado, 18, rue des Dames; 17th Arrondissement (33-1-4522-3521; www.eldoradohotel.fr).

Hôtel de Nice, 42 bis, rue de Rivoli; Fourth Arrondissement (33-1-4278-5529; www.hoteldenice.com).

Hôtel Windsor Home, 3, rue Vital; 16th Arrondissement (33-1-4504-4949; www.windsorhomeparis.fr).

Hôtel des Grandes Ecoles, 75, rue Cardinal Lemoine; the Fifth Arrondissement (33-1-4326-7923; www.hotel-grandes-ecoles.com).

New Orient Hotel, 16, rue de Constantinople; Eighth Arrondissement (33-1-4522-2164; www.hotel-paris-orient.com).