TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

Not even a month has passed since Georges Roudanez returned from a

European vacation, and the Newport Beach resident already has next year’s

trip planned out.

In February, he and his 12-year-old son, Marc, will head for the

Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The tickets are bought, the car is

rented, the hotel booked. Roudanez is just that kind of dad.

“I wish I could come back as my son,” joked Roudanez, 50. “I take my

boy every year on what I think is an important trip.”

The father-son duo just completed their mission for this year in

France and Austria. For three weeks in August, they landmark-hopped their

way through both countries before hiking four days through the Alps.

“I’ve traveled all over the world,” said Roudanez, a management

consultant. “The Himalayas, Nepal, but the most beautiful setting I’ve

ever seen in my lifetime is in this area of France.”

He added that when they hiked into the Chamonix Valley and onto Mont

Blanc -- the highest mountain in Europe, at more than 14,000 feet -- the

pair saw into Italy, Switzerland and France from the same single point.

In Paris, the travelers visited the Louvre, Champs Elysees, L’arc de

Triomphe and, of course, a locally famed ice cream parlor called

Bertillons.

“They make their own ice cream, and it’s a pretty well-known night

spot,” Roudanez said. “Where most people would go for cocktails, they go

for ice cream sundaes.”

Marc had a vanilla ice cream sundae on a crepe. Roudanez had the

all-American banana split.

“We were perpetually together for three weeks,” the father said. “All

day, every day.”

In Austria , the pair stayed at a boathouse near a mountain that

dipped “majestically” into a lake. They water-skiied, hiked up the

mountains and Marc made friends with the little kids who ran about town

at all hours.

The food interested the boy.

“They’ve got different kinds of food,” he said. “They didn’t have

hamburgers. I liked the food, but I didn’t like some of the vegetable

dishes.”

So when he landed at Los Angeles International Airport, Marc headed

straight for the terminal’s Ruby’s Diner.

“He had a Ruby’s turkey burger on American cheese, fries and a vanilla

milkshake,” Roudanez said. “He ran right in.”

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to Travel Tales, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.