OCTOBER

OTTOBRATA ZAFFERANESE

The annual Ottobrata Zafferanese in Catania, Sicily, is a food-loving traveler's dream: A celebration of the area's agricultural bounty in a street fair of raw ingredients held each Sunday in October in this small town near Palermo. Catania is a favorite of tourists in summer but quieter in fall and winter. If you like to cook, rent an apartmente with a kitchen because it will kill you to see all the stalls loaded with produce and not be able to take some home. For English-language material, go to www.sicilia.indettaglio.it/eng and click on "municipalities," then choose Zafferana Etnea. Or try www.ottobratazafferanese.net or go to the blog of Islander Jacquelyn LeBlanc, who alerted us to Ottobrata Zafferanese: www.alohafromsicily.blogspot.com.

— Wanda Adams

NOV.-DEC.

TREE LIGHTINGS

If you're traveling in the next few weeks, you might experience a tree lighting. New York: 7-9 p.m. Nov. 28, Rockefeller Center. Washington, D.C.: National Tree Lighting Ceremony, White House Ellipse, 6 p.m. Dec. 6; also, Capitol Christmas Tree Lighting, West Lawn, U.S. Capitol, 5 p.m. Dec. 5. Sacramento: California Capitol, Dec. 4. Louisiana: Bonfires light the way for Papa Noel along the banks of the Mississippi in Cajun country west of New Orleans on Dec. 24, (Gray Line Tour from New Orleans, 800-535-7786; www.graylinesneworleans.com/). Oh, and Honolulu City Lights? 6 p.m. Dec. 1.

MAY

LOTUS LANTERN FESTIVAL

"We light the world with lanterns, celebrating Buddha's coming to us." So it is said of the annual Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul, South Korea, each May, in honor of the birth of the Enlightened One. Events include lantern displays, street festivals, lantern floats and theatrical and performances by Buddhist priests. The celebration with everyone holding hands and singing while in a shower of pink paper blossoms falls on Jogyesa Temple precincts. Buddha's birthday is celebrated May 8 next year; the festival in Seoul goes on over several days. For information, consult a specialist in Korean travel.