The drunkards of the Web are toasting the Thirsty Traveler. Recently, his alcoholic adventures have gotten attention from a bunch of sites and blogs.

The French Government takes their country’s gourmet reputation seriously: by law, the first bottle out of France ’s vineyards each year, le Beaujolais Nouveau, can’t be uncorked until the third Thursday of November.

It must be the unseasonably early cold-snap – this weekend’s travel features skipped over the exotic destinations and adventures, in favor of hibernation-season comforts like food, wine, socializing, and luxe lodgings.

Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim museum jump-started the trend of small cities paying big-bucks for architecture to draw tourist pesos (aka the Bilbao Effect) back in 1997. Now, architourists have new cause to make the pilgrimage to northwestern Spain.