As each year counts down to midnight, I nominate candidates for a travelers Hall of Fleeting Fame.

Sometimes it is an inn tucked into a snowy side lane in the heart of Vienna (Romischer Kaiser in a converted 17th century palace on Annagasse); sometimes it's a Wyoming cowboy-poet who brightened the miles outside Cody with radio verse he called "Get Along Little Doggerel."

Winners have one thing in common: each came as a joyous surprise.

The list for 2005:

Favorite Yogurt of the Year: Boots the Chemist's own brand of Greek honey yogurt, sold in the deli section of Boots pharmacies-and-more in Londonigh Street tube station. (Rhubarb fans argue the rhubarb yogurt is just as exceptional.) Whether grabbed for snack or breakfast, it saves on a restaurant budget in a pricey city.

Favorite antiquarian bookstore: The long, narrow, incredibly disheveled warren of Corran Books, across from Brown's Hotel and pub in the hamlet of Laugharne on the south coast of Wales, where Dylan Thomas lived, wrote and is buried. An Irish visitor approached a ruddy-cheeked man whom I took for the proprietor: "You must have a great collection of Dylan Thomas."

"No," the man growled. "Everyone has him. I have the others."

Best concierge: The wise, twinkly Norbert Zaucher of the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, who managed to snag the last two tickets for Rigoletto at the lakefront gem of an opera house. His whispered request: that we not tell his wife, who was keen on going and had been told they were sold out.

Best country lodge: South Fork Lodge on the Snake River near Swan Valley, Idaho. They say it is for fly fishermen, but anyone who seeks a pristine setting, elegant cuisine and stunning rustic architecture will be happy here. Previous winners in this category were Amboseli Lodge in Kenya, near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, and Lizard Island resort in Australia's Great Barrier Reef archipelago. Built by Mark Rockefeller, a nephew of conservationist Laurence Rockefeller, South Fork holds its own in such esteemed company.

Favorite city hotel: The Franklin, London. Nestled inside a row of ruddy-brick townhouses in Knightsbridge, this 46-room hotel offers comfortable drawing rooms with antique furnishings, a wood-paneled Honesty Bar, and high-ceilinged rooms that overlook a private, gated garden. The small staff is impeccable, especially a Joseph-of-all-trades, who was equally at home connecting wires for a laptop computer, stashing impossible luggage, and cooking and serving a mushroom omelet in the tiny dining room on a rainy evening when staying indoors seemed irresistibly cozy.

Most honest capital in America: By their own admission, Boise, Idaho. My wallet slipped out of a shoulder bag on a city bus. When I reported the loss, the hotel clerk said: "Do not worry. You couldn't be in a better place to lose a wallet than in Boise." At day's end, a cleaning crew found it wedged between seats. Nothing was missing.

Oddest club: The No Name Saloon on Main Street in Park City, Utah, where cowboy hats, gray ponytails and Harley-Davidson jackets prevail. A 5-foot-tall bouncer with angelic-blue eyes guards the door, looking tough customers squarely in the belt buckle and asking: "Are you a member?" If not, you join by signing a ledger (Utah rules for drinking establishments). There are no dues.

Favorite cemetery: The climbers cemetery in the Swiss village of Zermatt, where sobering granite tombstones are hung with picks and ropes to honor those who have lost their lives on the Matterhorn, whose tilted peak looms above.

Favorite European market: A tie between the crafts market in Krakow, Poland's 16th century Cloth Hall (tidy rows of shuttered, wooden stalls sell Polish amber jewelry, music boxes, costumed dolls and backgammon sets) and the covered market beside the River Ljublianica in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (Flowers, farm cheeses, field-fresh produce and the popular folk craft: beehive art, which are paintings of fables that decorated the stacked hives in the Slovenian countryside in the 18th and 19th centuries.)

Best Oompah Band: The Tyrolean group, Die Blechsteirer, that roused the breakfast room at Hotel Daniel near the train station in Graz, Austria. This set the hearty tone on trombone, accordion, guitar, tuba and horns - for a National Day parade through the Old Town.

Favorite trees: The hickory groves that grace the Blue Ridge highway as it wends through Virginia and North Carolina. The hickories should get a prize for their names alone: shagbark, pignut, mockernut - trees that reach 70 to 100 feet in height. Settlers made wagon wheels, tool handles and brooms from hickory wood which also gives tantalizing smoked flavor to barbecue.

Best Seafood Restaurant: Overlooking the North Sea and St. Andrews famous Old Course is a glass-walled building with an open kitchen and a flair for innovation. Award-winning salmon, of course, but also halibut with cabbage and pine-nut potato cakes, and cod with chorizo and sun-dried tomatoes. In no-nonsense Scottish fashion, its name is Seafood Restaurant.

Best hamburger: The hole-in-the-wall Billy's Burgers on the town square in Jackson, Wyo. This local favorite has three counters around a grill, and a choice of hamburgers or cheeseburgers. More than 50 rules are posted in ink on butcher paper: "You only get one chance to order. We are not fast-food. We only make $3 an hour so think about it." When a customer looked at the dripping half-pounder in her basket and asked for a knife or fork, the cook shook his head. "There is no ladylike way to eat a Billy's burger," he said.

After 30 years, Judith Morgan is suspending her weekly column in order to have more time for travel.

© Copley News Service

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