Search results for

Sometimes Caribbean travel is about more than just a cold drink and a beach. It takes driving as far as possible (only about 40 minutes) from the tourists on the east side of the island in Nassau to find this moving piece of art, appropriately titled, “Sacred Space.” Located only a few hundred yards from the ruins of old slave quarters, and just above where the slave ships used to dock, these faceless carvings silently stare back across the ocean toward Africa. Trees that typically erode the coastline were cut down to create these powerful pillars that are still rooted in the ground.

Don’t expect to find any Beijing residents on Wangfujing Snack Street, home of spiders, scorpions, starfish and pretty much anything else that can be skewered and cooked. This is firm tourist territory, a place for visitors to test their mettle when it comes to snacking on creatures that have six or eight legs or float about in the sea. It’s almost a rite of passage, to experience foods that most locals would turn their noses up at, and one that usually ranks among the top memories of a trip to Beijing. Scorpions on a stick seem to be particularly fascinating to visitors. In fact, during the Beijing Olympics it would have been easier to make a list of the visiting journalists who didn’t write a story about them. But, and this seems to be rarely mentioned, not everything on snack street has a ‘Man v. Food’ feel. The stalls offer far more identifiable snacks. Fried dumplings. Steamed buns. Mountains of noodles. Jellied acorn and chestnut. Corn. And given the overall cleanliness of the spot, perhaps due to its high tourism profile, it is generally safe to eat here. So, don’t feel you have to stick to the scorpions. The steamed buns will do, too.

Inspired by the famous Fox Theatre—the Moorish-style movie palace turned performance venue is just across the street—Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown strikes a musical note at every turn. The experience begins at reception, where the desk resembles a drum set and a collage of show tickets from the past 30 years decorates the wall behind it. Guest rooms riff on the theme with accent wall murals that make it look like you’re either attending a concert or starring on stage, but the overall vibe is playful comfort, with pops of green on the quilts, spa-like baths with Aveda products, flat-screen TVs, and free WiFi. If you find yourself hankering for soul food, the chicken and waffles at the on-site restaurant should do the trick, but don’t pass up a drink at the black-and-white bar counter, which looks like the keys of a piano and is backed by a wine display that evokes the inner workings of a jukebox.

New Orleans’ cemeteries are part of the city’s culture as well as its landscape—and St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest and most famous. Opened in 1789 on the edge of the French Quarter, the cemetery is home to the tomb of Marie Laveau, a free woman of color who earned a reputation as the city’s most powerful voodoo queen in the 1800s. Her tomb is littered with tributes (money, alcohol, candy, trinkets) left by those who hope the queen will grant their desires from beyond the grave. In the Garden District, Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 made a cameo in several movies, including Interview with a Vampire and Double Jeopardy. Save Our Cemeteries, a non-profit dedicated to cemetery restoration and preservation, runs tours of both St. Louis No. 1 and Lafayette No. 1.

Nestled into the base of Mount Sturgeon, at the southern entrance of Grampians National Park roughly three and a half hours from Melbourne, the Royal Mail Hotel combines a bush experience with world-class food and wine. The property is a slow-paced reprieve at the site where the town of Dunkeld was first settled. Accommodations range from minimalist mountain-view rooms bedecked with furniture and light fixtures by Melbourne designer Jardan to the Mt. Sturgeon sheep station, home to a six-bedroom homestead as well as eight dog-friendly sandstone cottages with bathrooms built inside old water tanks. Gardens play a prominent role in the Royal Mail experience; the hotel has the largest kitchen garden in Australia, which supplies the restaurant with nearly all its organic produce, and a 24-acre private garden is home to many rare indigenous and non-indigenous plants. With the Grampian Mountains and their year-round waterfalls right at the hotel’s back door, the Royal Mail is also a prime base for exploring the wilderness and its native wildlife. After a day in the woods, guests can indulge in an eight-course tasting menu with matched wines from one of the top-ranked cellars in the world.

The craft beer scene is here in South Florida with the opening of the Miami Brewing Company—the region’s first craft brewery—at Schnebly Redland’s Winery in Homestead. The family-owned operation uses the tropical fruits and flavors of South Florida to make flavorful flagship and seasonal beers, including Big Rod Coconut Blonde Ale, Miami Vice IPA, and Little Havana Cafe con Leche Milk Stout. Stop in at the brewery for a craft beer tasting or pick up a to-go growler.

You’ll likely do your sunbathing and swimming on the white-sand beaches of the Grenadines, but St. Vincent’s black-sand beaches are also quite stunning. In Biabou, for example, along the windward coast south of Georgetown, you can stare for hours at frothy ocean waves crashing onto the volcanic black sand. With luck, you’ll also catch a rainbow.

French chef Eric Fraudeau spent 30 years working in three-star kitchens. When he returned to France, he opened a cooking school to share the wealth of French cuisine with visitors from across the globe. He started with market-to-table classes and was soon overrun with requests for his fun, informative, hands-on lessons. There is now an entire team at CWC, all of them professional chefs or sommeliers, offering a range of classes, from “Mother of All Sauces” to cooking with kids, wine pairings, and baking croissants or macarons. You can also opt for a gourmet food tour instead.

Atlanta is ripe with farmer’s markets and the Freedom Farmer’s Market, held weekly from March to December at the Carter Center, is one of the better ones. It has less stalls than others around town, but many of the vendors come from much further away to showcase their goods. Grab a warm pastry from the Star Provisions tent and a pour over coffee from 1000 Faces Coffee of Athens to sip as you wander the stalls. Bring your own bag to take home your haul of produce. Each week a local restaurant holds a pop up tent to showcase a unique dish only available there. You may even see former president Jimmy Carter walking around!

Teuscher might be an international name with shops in 19 cities as far-flung as Shanghai and Singapore, but it’s still very much a homegrown brand. All of its chocolates are made in Zurich before being shipped out to its global stores, and its flagship shop, which occupies a 17th century half-timbered building on a narrow cobblestoned street in the Altstadt, is smaller than most living rooms (and manned by a staff of two). The chocolate to get, of course, is its iconic Champagne truffle, a Dom Perignon-infused cream and dark chocolate ganache sealed in a milk chocolate shell and dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

After making her name in Paris in the 1920s, American-born singer and actress Josephine Baker became a French citizen and, like many artists and intellectuals of the era, traveled often to Morocco, which was then a French protectorate. In the early 1940s, she stayed at a royal guest house at the invitation of the Pashah of Marrakech—a riad that, today, has been restored and re-launched in her honor as a boutique hotel named “Star.” Though just a 15-minute walk from Jemaa el-Fnaa square, the riad is hidden away in a more residential—and car-free—part of the walled old town, adding to the feeling that you’re staying in a private home.

Britain-based owners Lucie and Mike Wood, who also own three other riad hotels in town, spent over two years restoring the property to reflect a mix of traditional Moroccan craftsmanship and the Art Deco style of Baker’s heyday. Along with hand-carved plaster, beautiful lamps, and original cedar woodwork, the hotel features Baker-related memorabilia and books as well as period items sourced from auctions. Past the ground-floor plunge pool and dining area (scene of the abundant daily breakfast) are 13 individually decorated rooms and suites. The Josephine has an oversized tub, the Jazz features carved cedar doors and a fireplace, and the Chiquita sits next to the lovely rooftop terrace, where guests can enjoy views of the Atlas Mountains from their lounge chairs. Also on-site is a small hammam with a steam area and massage room, as well as a cooking school, launched in 2017. When you want to get out and explore, the hotel will provide you with a free local cell phone and GPS-enabled app to help navigate the city.

The friendly neighborhood of Rue des Martyrs is a favorite destination for buying edible souvenirs of Paris. To get started, head to No. 9, where the beautiful Chambre aux Confitures stocks endless jars of jam for your morning tartine as well as chutneys and caramel spreads and honey. Première Pression Provence bottles the sunny taste of Provence into excellent olive oils for the larder. The pastry shop Sébastien Gaudard has sweet treats for consumption now or later. Down the street at No. 30 is a honey shop, Famille Mary, which sells ultralocal honey produced by three apiaries around Paris. Order vacuum-sealed cheeses to be sent home from the extraordinary displays at Fromagerie Beillevaire. A walk along this street offers many culinary temptations—go discover some on your own.

Spain takes its food seriously. After all, it’s the country that gave birth to El Bulli and, as of 2015, has 169 Michelin-starred restaurants (11 in Madrid alone). So it comes as no surprise that a top hotel on a main boulevard in the capital should be home to one of these temples to gastronomy, the two-Michelin-starred Santceloni. But the Hotel Hesperia Madrid doesn’t content itself with just a world-class restaurant. No, this sleek retreat—decorated boldly by some of Spain’s top designers, including Pascua Ortega, Erico Navazo, and Mercedes Gonzalez López-de-Carrizosa—is devoted to the best of contemporary Spanish dining, with a total of three acclaimed restaurants and a sultry scotch bar attracting the most discerning palates in Madrileño society. In between decadent meals—and exploring the ritzy shopping and myriad sights just outside the hotel’s front door—work up an appetite at the open-air gym up on the rooftop, yet another of the Hesperia’s claims to fame.

Fontainebleau is perhaps Miami‘s most legendary hotel, dating back to the mid-20^th-century golden age of South Beach’s social scene. Opened in 1954, the hotel has seen a number of celebrities—as well as scandals—over its six decades. Frank Sinatra filmed the movie A Hole in the Head here, and the Black Tuna Gang used the hotel as a front for its drug-running activities. Fontainebleau has had several owners over the course of its existence; it closed in 2006, only to reopen again in renovated splendor two years later. Common areas have Vegas-like glitz and glam, with lots of gold accents and sparkly chandeliers (made by, of all people, Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei). The hotel’s art collection is enviable; besides Ai, there are Sol Le Witt and Damien Hirst pieces. Rooms are full of attentive design elements, too. Turquoise-and-green color schemes evoke the ocean, and high-tech amenities include 20-inch iMacs. Concerts take place at several venues on the property, including poolside and at the nightclub, and the hotel has some serious star pull. Recent concerts have featured Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Pitbull.

Dinner at The Kitchen Table is best described as a “culinary journey.” Here, the experience of lingering over seven to eight courses is limited to just 16 diners a night. Meals begin with a sunset cocktail, during which guests are encouraged to mix and mingle. Then, it’s time for artfully presented dishes made with local ingredients and homegrown produce. The dynamic menu changes often but usually includes standbys like salt-cured tuna with native greens and Creole sauce, and black salmon topped with mango chutney, saffron sauce, pickled squash, and curried popcorn. Vegetarian menus are also available.