Travel briefs
Top 10 B&Bs
The most romantic inns for 2002, as chosen by American Historic Inns Inc., publisher of more than 2.5 million bed-and-breakfast guidebooks:
Windham Hill Inn, West Townshend, Vt.
Cuthbert House Inn B&B, Beaufort, S.C.
Rittenhouse Square B&B, Philadelphia
Cliff House Inn, Manitou Springs, Colo.
Gastonian, Savannah, Ga.
Brewery Gulch Inn, Mendocino, Calif.
Woolverton Inn, Stockton, N.J.
Columbia Gorge Hotel, Hood River, Ore.
Inn on La Loma Plaza, Taos, N.M.
Adele Turner Inn, Newport, R.I.
Steamboats return to New Orleans
New Orleans — The Delta Queen and Mississippi Queen steamboats, along with a headquarters and 300 jobs, are coming back to New Orleans.
The bankrupt American Classic Voyages sold the boats to a Chicago investment firm, Waveland Investments LLC.
The Mississippi Queen began cruising again last week and the Delta Queen will take on passengers on Aug. 26.
Cowgirl museum trots out artwork
Fort Worth, Tex. — A painting of Venus de Milo wearing a cowboy hat and gun holster is among 50 art works adorning a fence around the construction site of the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
Officials recently unveiled copies of the works that will be displayed inside the museum when it opens this summer. The museum will sell the pieces at auction in the fall.
The collection of colorful works, each on a 3-by-4-foot plywood panel, spans the 220-foot-long fence. The artists, who donated their pieces, chose various ways to depict the cowgirl spirit.
The two-story, 33,000-square-foot building in Fort Worth’s Cultural District is to open in June. It will showcase artifacts and memorabilia from more than 700 Western women, including its 158 Hall of Fame members.