TRAVELING IN STYLE : Correspondents’ Choice : PICNIC PICKS

Five Times correspondents from around the world describe their favorite picnic spots in (or just outside) the cities they have covered.

A PICNICKER LOOKING FOR RUGGED SEASCAPES, COOL SALT breezes, hills to climb and a sense of history can find them all at Quidi Vidi (pronounced “Kiddy Viddy”) Battery, on the outskirts of St. John’s, Newfoundland. With rocky bluffs rising abruptly out of the North Atlantic, giving way to a narrow inlet that stretches back inland to a tiny harbor, these lonely heights recall the hills of coastal Ireland.

Spread your blanket on the grassy slopes overlooking the inlet, and you can spend a dreamy Celtic afternoon watching small fishing craft come and go. If it has been a cool summer, there are apt to be huge icebergs, streaked in pleasing shades of azure and green, promenading out on the Atlantic. The history-minded are free to browse in the battery (an old defense installation built by the French in 1762, later held by the British, and recently restored). In coastal Newfoundland, seafood is the obvious choice for a picnic lunch--maybe lumpfish roe to start, then local lobster claws and crab sandwiches on home-baked bread, or a pasta salad with basil and cod cheeks. For dessert, try either a baked-apple cheesecake--made with a yellow berry that grows in Newfoundland bogs--or a partridgeberry flan.