The North Pole is a lot closer than you might think, thanks to these magical holiday train rides based on the popular movie and book Polar Express.

'Tis the season for holiday-themed train rides. Put on your pajamas and get ready for caroling, hot chocolate, and perhaps a visit from the jolly white-bearded big guy himself. All aboard!

Grand Canyon Railway
Depart from Williams, Ariz., en route to the "North Pole" (somewhere near the Grand Canyon's South Rim, actually), with cookies and a visit from Santa along the way. Tickets for kids ages 2 to 15 are $14 Sunday through Thursday in November and January, and $19 on Fridays and Saturdays for those months and all of December. Adult tickets are always $29. Hotel packages are available.

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Colo.
Rides are offered through December 28, and the hot chocolate and whipped cream is served in a special take-home souvenir mug. A holiday song book is yours to keep too. Tickets are priced from $18 to $44 for kids (depending on date and style of seat), and $28 to $54 for adults.

Great Smoky Mountain Railroad, N.C.
Special Polar Express departures take off regularly through the holiday season, with tickets starting at $26 for kids ages 2 to 12, and $38 ages 13 and up. Rates are a bit higher on the peak days right around Christmas. Prices include admission to Smoky Mountain Train Museum in Bryson City, N.C., where the Polar Express departs.

Texas State Railroad
Roughly two-and-a-half hours from Dallas and three hours from Houston, the Texas State Railroad chugs through piney wilderness, with special Polar Express departures most days in November and December. Caroling and hot chocolate en route, and pajama-wearing is most definitely encouraged. Tickets from $19 for kids ages 2 to 11, $38 12 and up.

Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co.
Rolling out of Portland, this Polar Express eases slowly past brilliant holiday light displays along the way to pick up Santa, who doles out bells to kids (only to ones who truly believe, of course).

Galileo left a lot to posterity: The telescope, the laws of motion, and our understanding of the nature of planets and their satellites all owe some debt to his genius. But if you want still more from Galileo, now there's more.

In 1737, while Galileo's body was being prepared for a move to Florence's Basilica of Santa Croce, various anatomical relics were pried from the corpse. The New York Times reported that "enthusiastic admirers" made off most notably with a few of the astronomer's fingers. (I hope my admirers are less enthusiastic, when the time comes.)

One withered finger, a ghastly-looking thing that bears more resemblance to a twig than to a proper digit, eventually found its way into a display at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence. Other body parts went missing, but were recently recovered after a collector purchased them at auction and subsequently verified their authenticity.

So Galileo's long-lost thumb, finger, and tooth will join the museum's collection in the near future. For those of you counting at home, that will unite three of the scientist's fingers, all from his right hand. I can find no definitive news on the condition of the newly recovered body parts.

Last winter, we pointed you to Fauchon as a fabulous place to buy food gifts. It's a great place to pick up a darling little pot of confit de lait (€2/$3), some chocolate bars, or other affordable luxuries that will make it on the plane ride home.

The shop has now unveiled its latest souvenir item: an éclair emblazoned with the sultry image of '60s siren Brigitte Bardot.

Using an innovative printing technique on the chocolate shell, this pastry is part of a series called Hommage, which aims to put the country's cultural heritage in your mouth. They've even got backing for their efforts from the French Cultural Ministry.

Something tells us that people are going to line up for the chance to let Brigitte—dressed in a towel and flavored with rose—dissolve slowly in their mouths (€6/$9).

Fauchon, 30 place Madeleine, 8th arrondissement

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Romantic Paris restaurants

Shakespeare & Company, the legendary left-bank English-language bookshop, has long been a magnet for literary talent. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and George Orwell all frequented the store. So did the sultry Anaïs Nin, along with her lover Henry Miller who described the place as "a wonderland of books." The shop even published James Joyce's Ulysses when no publisher would touch it.

New portraits of these and seven other Lost and Beat Generation writers were recently unveiled at Shakespeare & Company, thanks to the pen of a young English artist and blogger who calls herself Badaude. Her series winds up the very narrow staircase leading to a library where customers can sit and read for free. This is the same space where, after hours, young writers can sleep in exchange for work.

To read more about the inspiration behind these portraits, check out Bomb magazine's recent interview with artist Badaude/Joanna Walsh. And for more information about Shakespeare & Company, including free English-language events like the one we described here, check their site.
Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 5th arrondissement, 011-33/1-43-25-40-93.

Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving when Americans shop 'til they drop—is just a week away. The following two travel sites are throwing sales, too.

Shell Vacations is holding a Black Friday sale on 26 resorts in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, with up to 50 percent off nightly rates. Get rooms from $49 per night at the Peacock Suites in Anaheim, Calif. (a 40 percent off savings off standard rates), starting at $60 per night at the Desert Rose Resort in Las Vegas (a 30 percent off savings), and beginning at $99 per night at the Vino Bello Resort in Napa Valley (a 40 percent off savings). Sale starts Friday, Nov. 27.

Travelocity is running specials through Monday, Nov. 30. Get $75 off a four-night Colorado ski vacation, for travel through Dec. 31, 2009. Or take a tropical getaway to Mexico, Costa Rica, or the Caribbean and receive 40 percent off at Marriott hotels (travel Jan. 1-Apr. 30, 2010). Or, book a three-night stay or longer and get a $50 American Express Reward card, for travel by Dec. 15. (You need to book with an American Express card for this last one.)

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Ask Trip Coach: Holiday Travel Survival Tips

Airport delays can certainly dampen the festive mood. By dorking out with some airport data, you can play the numbers to decrease your chances of delays and cancellations.

There is no way to completely avoid airport delays. No one could have predicted yesterday's mess due to an FAA computer glitch, for instance. But you can increase your chances for smooth, speedy travel by avoiding connections at airports that are historically likely to experience big delays.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics allows you to glance over the percentages of flights that have been delayed, cancelled, or on-time at every U.S. airport over the past ten years. What's more, because the winter holidays are sort of all-bets-off times to travel, when airports see more traffic and delays may be more likely, the BTS's holiday-specific airport data is especially helpful.

For our Ask Trip Coach story on holiday travel, we used the BTS's Winter Holiday Flight Delays filter to find out which hubs had the best (and worst) on-time percentages over the last three years, and not just at any time of year but specifically during the period just before Christmas lasting until just after New Year's. You can also filter the BTS's data by other holidays, including Thanksgiving and Easter, to give you a sense of your chances for a delay-free travel experience.

Is the data perfect? Does it guarantee you won't be delayed? No, and no. But it does give you some background that'll help you make a smart bet.

There is also tons of data that we didn't have the space for to incorporate into our Ask Trip Coach story. One particularly interesting set of data involves cancellations during the winter holidays. Like you'd imagine, by and large airports in northerly snowy climates are far more likely to have cancellations than airports in the South. Over the past three years worth of winter holidays, Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and New Orleans have each had to cancel around 1 percent of flights, whereas the overall nationwide average is a bit over 3 percent, and Chicago O'Hare and Denver have cancelled about 7 percent of flights.

Any excuse for a party! The third Thursday of every November is the day that producers of Beaujolais Noveau release the year's vintage.

It used to be a cheap treat: a light, fruity, best-of-its-kind red, delivered straight from the wineries.

But the cost of shipping it over to the U.S. on a rush status, plus the unfavorable buying power of the U.S. dollar versus the euro, has hiked the price of beaujolais nouveau by more than 30 percent since 2003, as the Seattle Weekly points out.

Personally, that won't stop me from getting a bottle tonight, but if you only want to read about the event, you can "rewind" and read our coverage of beaujolais noveau last year: "C'est Arrivé!": The Bojo is upon us."

Here's a roundup of 12 cool new exhibits at family-friendly, very interactive museums around the country.

Scholastic Parent & Child put together quite a handy list, and all of the exhibits can be enjoyed by your little ones at least through early January. Every parent knows that children's museums can be sanity-savers, especially during the hectic winter holidays, when playing outside just isn't an option and you're sick of being stuck in a house packed to the gills with relatives. A sample of what's new around the country:

Forts! You get to design and build your own hideout at the Chicago Children's Museum.

Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion. A display of 40 life-size, fully operational machines designed by the Renaissance master, which kids can touch and see how they work for themselves, at the Grand Rapids Public Museum, in Michigan.

Exploring Trees Inside and Out. Sounds like something of a dry lecture, but get this: With the help of a green screen, kids get to fly like birds (virtually) over the tops of trees. At the Boston Children's Museum.

Wherever your family is traveling this holiday season, there's probably an easy afternoon's worth of entertainment via a children's museum not too far away. To locate one, check out ChildrensMuseums.org.

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Q&A with Debbie Dubrow of DeliciousBaby

Take a look at this... (The "mayday, mayday" starts at minute 1.)

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Video of the Miracle on the Hudson

An FAA computer glitch early this morning crippled the flow of flight plans to air traffic controllers. The computer system failed at both of its locations, Atlanta and Salt Lake City, and for the second time in 15 months.

The glitch has been resolved, as reported by Today in the Sky and other media outlets, but it will likely take several hours to process the backlog of flights. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association issued a statement and notes that "airport efficiency is being cut by at least half at places like New York-JFK."

The FAA's flight status map confirms that delays are worst along the East Coast, as does FlightStats.com.

The NYT reports that AirTran Airways has announced that passengers with tickets for Thursday could re-book without charge, as is often done when there are storms.

Be sure to check with your airline before heading off to the airport!

USA3000, the quasi-charter flight operation that sells directly to the public, offers a sale to warm destinations for travel during winter's coldest days.

A sampling of the routes on sale (one-way fares, taxes and fees extra):

St. Louis to Ft. Myers, Florida: $69.99

Chicago to Cancun, Mexico: $99.99

Cleveland to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic: $99.99

Chicago to Montego Bay, Jamaica: $129.99

Detroit to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico: $139.99

Yes, these fares are being offered for departures in December, January, and beyond, but availability is limited. Finding the lowest "starting at" prices can be a challenge but not impossible. On the Chicago-Cancun route, for example, we were able to find several dates available at $99.99 each for departures in January. If the cheapest price isn't available, the next best price doesn't cost all that much more: Again on the Chicago-Cancun scenario, there were plenty of dates offered at a rate of $129.99 each way, which is still pretty good.

For more details, a list of sale routes, and bookings, check out USA3000's website.

Never heard of USA3000? Not long ago, we profiled the airline, along with a handful of other small interesting upstart carriers, in our story, "Flying Under the Radar."

Investigate the London movie-set locations tied to the action-mystery Sherlock Holmes (which hits screens on Christmas Day). The national tourism promotion board VisitBritain has created a website that has a do-it-yourself guide to touring Holmes' city.

Stops include the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at 221B Baker St. ($6), the spot made famous by the novels by Arthur Conan Doyle.

[via L.A. Times' Daily Travel & Deals Blog]

I recently tested the Fujifilm Instax Mini 7S, which debuted this fall for $96.

The camera may be a good substitute for people who thought that instant film was dead. (Polaroid film disappeared from store shelves earlier this year after production ended.)

The new camera's instant film is sold in a twin pack, with 20 photos costing $20. The images are smaller than Polaroids, too: Each print is about the size of a credit card.

While testing the camera on a recent trip to San Francisco, I found that the price of the film forced me to be more selective about my photography. Rather than shooting off 10 frames of the same thing, I was aware that each click was essentially a buck.

Back in May, we told you how Orbitz had extended its popular Price Assurance program for airfares to hotel bookings, offering automatic reimbursements. If someone else on Orbitz scores a better rate for the same room on the same travel date for less than what you paid, you automatically get a check for the difference (up to $500). No paperwork or other action by you required.

Now Orbitz is enhancing its offer with a low price guarantee. Besides the automatic rebate, you'll automatically recieve a promotion code redeemable for $50 off your next hotel or vacation package reservation. The online travel agency is also eliminating the 24-hour window to file a claim and giving the customer all the way until the property's cancellations fees apply to cash in.

Kudos to Orbitz for upping the ante on behalf of travelers. Visit price.orbitz.com to get the skinny.

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Get Money Back!
Say so long to overpaying. More and more websites are putting money back in your pocket if a fare drops after you've booked.

Hotels: Orbitz "tellin' it straight" with prices; drops booking fee, too

"Paying A Bit Extra Each Flight Eases Guilt, But Not Emissions" is the headline of an odd front-page New York Times article this morning.

The "news" is that a tiny British home rental company, Responsible Travel, stopped selling carbon offsets for air travel. A month ago. Because the offsets "are distracting people from flying less."

The Times uses that "news" as an excuse to talk about offsets, which promise to make up for your share of carbon dioxide that planes, trains, and automobiles spew out during your travels.

Budget Travel recently took a crack at answering the question "Are Carbon Offsets Worth It?" and—I realize I'm biased here, but—we offered clear, easy to understand info.

We also shared some first-person stories of how different travelers felt about buying an offset for the first time. And we explained how a few well regarded companies spend the offset money to help the environment.