Search results for

While exploring Burano, break for a fabulous seafood lunch at Al Gato Nero. The “black cat” restaurant is the creation of Ruggero Bovo, who has been cooking up some of the tastiest fresh fish and seafood here since 1965. “I love the fish of the Venetian lagoon and the Adriatic Coast, the raw material which has fed my island for generations and which I still have the fortune of getting fresh every day,” Bovo says. Fish and seafood are the star attractions on both the appetizer and main menu selections, but there are also options for vegetarians and carnivores. The pasta here is homemade, as are the delicious desserts.

MeMeMe is one of the cutest boutiques in Cape Town and a great place to discover local, emerging designers. Not only is it a great place for finding the perfect summer dress, they stock a decent range of accessories like shoes, bags, and jewelry, also made by South African designers. Its location on Long Street makes it convenient to most downtown hotels and backpackers.

Despite the name (Noosa is a stunning surf town to the north), this confectionery is indeed based in Brisbane. Stop by to pick up some distinctively Down Under souvenirs: chocolate paired with such homegrown ingredients as Victorian strawberries, Queensland ginger and almonds from South Australia. They guarantee that the chocolate is all made within the last 72 hours.

After a 2017 renovation, Rome’s historic Hotel Eden re-emerged with an extensive face-lift. The 128-year-old hotel’s marble and gold lobby hints at the 98 opulent guest rooms that have been refreshed with gold detailing and original artwork. The new spa uses products from the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, founded in 1612. The top-floor restaurant, La Terrazza, serves Italian cuisine with views of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Overall, if you’re looking for a luxurious stay in a beautiful, 5-star hotel, this Roman hotel is hard to beat.

The most famous café in town, this historic spot oozes period charm and maintains much of its original Belle Epoque decor. The main bar is for stand-up coffees and aperitivi, but there are several cozy salons for a sit-down treat. The terrace is a great place for people-watching.

Contemporary art can sometimes be pretentious or obscure, but DHC/ART adds an edgy sense of wit, with exhibitions ranging from the visual puns of Ceal Floyer to the exuberant portraits of John Currin. 451 rue St.-Jean, (514) 849-3742.

A visit to Tokyo wouldn’t be complete without seeing the scramble of thousands of people at Shibuya Crossing, the city’s busiest intersection. It must be experienced, but also viewed from one of the nearby restaurants or cafés that overlook the space. A statue of the dog Hachiko, an Akita that famously returned to Shibuya Station daily to wait for his master long after he had died, is a popular meeting spot. Shibuya draws young Japanese with its many fashion shops and cheap eateries, while music fans come to check out the used-record shops. Coffee shops, including About Life Coffee Brewers, Fuglen, and Little Nap Stand, are good places for a rest from sightseeing.

The unofficial symbol of St. Louis, the Gateway Arch is the tallest man-made monument in the United States, rising 630 feet into the air. It sits at the center of Gateway Arch National Park, which was established in 1935 to commemorate Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a transcontinental America. In 2018, the park emerged from a five-year, $380 million renovation, which added a grassy pedestrian walkway over the interstate as well as a revamped museum with new exhibits about the construction of the arch and how the expansion of the United States affected Native American communities. Tour the new sites, then take the four-minute, vertigo-inducing tram to the top of the arch, where you can see up to 30 miles east and west on a clear day.

One of the largest urban parks in the world, Munich’s English Garden was founded in 1789, when Elector Carl Theodor ordered a public park to be built along the Isar River. Having undergone many alterations over the centuries, it now offers a slew of contemporary leisure activities. Cyclists, joggers, and rollerbladers make use of almost 50 miles of pathways, while less-active visitors head to the Japanese teahouse (opened in 1972) or one of several beer gardens (the one next to the Chinese Tower is Munich’s second largest, with seating for 7,000). Additionally, there’s a man-made lake, soccer fields, a small amphitheater, a carousel, a Greek temple, and even a popular surfing wave on the river. The park’s large meadows are ideal for picnicking, barbecuing, and sunbathing, making the English Garden one of Munich’s most popular hangouts in summer. That said, autumn is also a spectacular time to stroll the grounds and peep all the changing leaves.

While Cape Point is not, in fact, the southernmost tip of Africa—as is often claimed—it is generally accepted that the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet somewhere between here and the real tip, Cape Agulhas. Still, Cape Point is about as dramatic as you can get, with the land falling steeply away on three sides, the wind whipping around the cliffs, and the ocean churning below. The road to the point, at the end of a drive from Cape Town, goes through 20 miles of nature reserve full of baboons and antelopes. For those who don’t want to walk up to the lighthouse, there is a funicular, but to reach the point itself, you’re going to have to hike.

Willis Tower—originally known as the Sears Tower—was the world’s tallest building for 23 years until it was unseated in 1996 by the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. The 110-story skyscraper is still mighty impressive. Its “bundled tube” design by architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was originally inspired by a handful of cigarettes and the innovative bundling changed the construction of supertall, wind-resistant buildings thereafter. The tower’s height is even more thrilling when measured from the 103rd-floor windows of the Skydeck observatory and the Ledge, a glass-enclosed box which juts more than four feet out from the side of the building so that visitors can (gingerly) walk out and stand 1,353 feet above the street.

Imagine an entire jungle, summarized in a park. That’s the essence of the city’s incredible botanical garden, a 345-acre marvel (136 acres have been gardened and manicured to a fault) where visitors brush up against 10,000 plants of 1,500 separate species. Since 1908, it has served Rio as a sort of tropical guardian where the city’s greatest treasure—its nature—is gathered, studied, and even reproduced. It’s a must-do, rain or shine, and at certain seasons, sections like the orchidarium or the Queen Victoria water-lily pond really come into their own. Near the entrance, a stately alley of imperial palms has become the garden’s emblematic signature.

Centrally located on Parque de los Novios, Ouzo serves the city’s best Mediterranean dishes, including brick oven pizzas, seared octopus and roasted lamb with orzo. The chef and owner, Michael McMurdo, began his culinary career in New York City at the Michelin-starred Greek restaurant Anthos. On a visit to Colombia, however, he was charmed by Santa Marta and decided to make his home in the city, opening Ouzo in 2011. The result is a celebrated Greek restaurant in an unexpected corner of the Caribbean.

If Stockholm epitomizes cool, then the 19th-century Lydmar Hotel has somehow managed to improve upon that ideal. How many hotels give each floor its own distinctive living room—a private lounge away from the bustling lobby that buzzes with a stylish city’s most beautiful and well-connected denizens? And how often is that lobby also an art gallery, a worthy destination in itself and a gateway to rooms where the likes of Damien Hirst would feel right at home? Surely it’s rare to find a rather small hotel like this—home to three of a city’s hottest bars, including two with unobstructed waterfront views of the Royal Palace and surrounding harbor. Few are bold enough to acknowledge that the best spa in a city that celebrates wellness is located next door in another hotel, and that it would be better to get its own guests unfettered access to that luxurious haven than to try to build its own. The Lydmar is a hotel unlike any other.

Ollantaytambo’s namesake archaeological site is one of the best examples of Incan architecture in the region. It’s easy to spend a half day exploring the temples and other structures there, especially if you factor in time to hike up beyond the ruins. Meanwhile, the quaint town itself remains much as it was in Incan times, with original houses, streets, and waterways. Some buildings are open to the public, offering a fascinating glimpse into a centuries-old way of life. Most Machu Picchu–bound trains leave from the station here.