T R U T H I N T R A V E L J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
summer
the
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Contents 06/07.2016
Hike through jagged untouched mountains and past plunging waterfalls on Kauaiâs North Shore.
70 Noto BeneCondĂ© Nast Travelerâs Pilar GuzmĂĄn explores Sicilyâs timeless southeast corner.
82 Motorcycle DiaryPhotographer Renato DâAgostin hits the road, cruising from New York to Cali on his 1983 BMW bike.
86 True NorthMeredith Bryan returns to Kauaiâs remote North Shore, where locals keep Old Hawaii alive.
94 Lisbonâs New LinesAn up-and-coming group of architects and designers are modernizing Portugalâs capital.
10 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 P H O T O G R A P H B Y A D R I A N G A U T
Contents 06/07.2016
18
Editorâs Letter The enduring appeal of the great American landscape.
26
Plane Clothes Style influencer Garance Doré on flying in all-white.
24
On Location What to pack for a trip to Marthaâs Vineyard.
James FrancoWRITERâYosemite Is My Father,â in our national parks package, page 65 Whatâs the one place youâre
embarrassed to say youâve
never been? âPortugal. Part of my family comes from Madeira, and I would love to visit my ori-gins.â Favorite hotel? âChateau Marmont on Sunset. Itâs filled with ghosts and legends.â What
dish would you travel for?
âSpaghetti al pomodoro any-where in Italy.â What would the
airplane of your dreams have? âA masseuse.â When traveling,
what do you miss most from
home? âFriends.â
TALK TO US
Where are you going this year? E-mail your photos and
tips to [email protected].
THE COVER
Bound for a morning surf along Mauiâs Highway Piilani in a reproduction
1957 Porsche 356 Speedster, shot by Adrian Gaut. For more travel
inspiration, see page 42.
28
The Upgrade Mirrored aviators are this seasonâs eye candy.
30
Long Weekend Florence-based Ălvaro GonzĂĄlez heads to Positano.
Drink Outdoors For the top places to tipple alfresco this summer,
head to cntraveler.com.
cntraveler.com
FOLLOW US
@cntraveler
14 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
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Contents 06/07.2016
38
Checking In Provence and Jaipur hotels that feel like the best versions of home.
46
The Hotel Breakfast At Biarritzâs HĂŽtel du Palais, even the eggs have a kick.
106
Souvenir The little things that stay with you after a big first trip.
48
Pass It On Everybodyâs outside: alfresco dining in Rome; outdoor art in Japan.
50
Black Book How to crack our nationâs capital with the whole family.
65
Reconsidered Reflecting on our national parks as they turn 100.
42
Summer 2016 The 26 trips you can still book this season.
56
Groundbreaker Ace shows how a hotel can redefine a destination.
100
Travel Intel Olympics add-ons, the new Tate, urban vacations, a Swedish hotline.
37
Discovered In rural Sweden, the most magical garden youâve never heard of.
Renato DâAgostinPHOTOGRAPHERâMotorcycle Diary,â page 82 Whatâs the best hotel youâve
stayed in recently? âThe tepees at El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas. Theyâre incredible on a dark, starry night.â What dish,
served at which restaurant,
would you travel for? âThe antipasto misto of fish at Risto-rante Menegaldo, near Venice.â What would the airplane of
your dreams have? âTranspar-ent walls.â What is the most
memorable souvenir from your
travels? âMy photos. When I print them once back in N.Y.C., itâs like Iâm reliving my journey.â
Take Us There We want to see your holiday pics! Tag your Instagrams
each week with #Travelertuesday.
SUBSCRIBE
Visit cntraveler.com/subscribe, e-mail subscriptions@
condenasttraveler.com, or call 800-777-0700.
#travelertuesday
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 17
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Call of the Wild
@pilar_guzman
Pilar GuzmĂĄn, Editor in Chief
AS T H E C H I L D O F FO R E I G N E R S , I would look longingly in the lunchroom at other kidsâ PB&J sandwiches on white bread and tiny cans of fruit cocktail, all snug in their Snoopy or Partridge Family lunch boxes. Rolling around the bottom of a reused shopping bag was my Italian grandmotherâs interpreta-tion of an American school lunch: a condiment-free roll with a single piece of mortadella or prosciutto hanging out like an untucked shirt, and three pieces of fruit. Later in life, I would come to recognize this sandwich in cafĂ©s and tabacchi during my numerous trips to Italy. But in Southern California in the late â70s, the irreducible panino was sorely lacking in barter appeal.
Our familyâs foreignness extended to travel. While other families went to Disneyland and Hawaii, to lake houses and on camping trips together, we mainly vacationedâusually internationallyâas an extension of my motherâs work as a singer. The concept of a long road trip or campfire was anathema to my parents, as was the notion of sleepaway camp or Girl Scouts.
As a result, there was nothing more exotic to me than the idea of facing the wrong way in the waaaay back of a wood-paneled station wagon piled high with bikes and canoes en route to some campground in a state or national park. I still love the idea of the efficiency of the tent, the careful planning and minimalism of the gear and meals, the quintessential Americanness of the experience. On weekends, my dad would take us to flea markets where I would pore over shoe boxes filled with vintage postcards that said âWelcome to Yellowstoneâ or âGlacier Bay National Park.â I once picked up
an old photo album from the â60s filled with freckle-faced kids and women in pedal push-ers posing in front of gargantuan redwoods and park entrance signage. Just as Iâd cher-ished the Little House series for its evocation of endless landscapes and lessons of creative subsistence, I fetishized the squeaky-clean in-nocence of roasting marshmallows over a fire. Iâll never forget my motherâs confusion as she took her first bite of a marshmallowâit was like watching a dog eat peanut butter.
The wild frontier and all that it promises is the antithesis of âold country.â To see our beautiful open roads through the lens of Ital-ian photographer Renato DâAgostin (âMo-torcycle Diary,â page 82) is to understand the foreignness and majesty of the American landscape. âThe coast-to-coast road trip is an American rite of passage,â says DâAgostin of his two-month cross-country motorcycle journey. âItâs hard to believe it is the same country from north to south, east to west. It keeps surprising you.â And as British author Geoff Dyer writes of seeing pictures of our national parks as a boy, in our feature marking their centennial (âClose Encounters,â page 65), it âset a standard for natural beauty that seemed unsurpassable.â
Once I was old enough to drive, I took off on a road trip with a friend from Los Angeles to Eureka along Highway 1, camping and swim-ming in the Pacific. During college, friends taught me to rock climb in Yosemite, and later I drove to the Badlands and camped with a group of friends I barely knew, to prove to myself that I could. Immersion in the grandeur of these places no doubt fueled my youthful feelings of invincibility. But I was also making up for lost time, shedding my parentsâ old-country suspicions. After all, breaking with tradition and creating oneâs own is perhaps the greatest American tradition of them all.
Editorâs LetterThe inspiration behind this monthâs issue . . .
Stephen Shore, Merced River, Yosemite National Park, California, August 13, 1979. From Picturing Americaâs National Parks, published by Aperture and George Eastman Museum.
18 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
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PILAR GUZMĂNEDITOR IN CHIEF
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Yolanda EdwardsEXECUTIVE EDITOR Peter Jon Lindberg
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OPERATIONS
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20 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
The things we canât leave without
ITâS ALWAYS COCKTAIL HOUR SOMEWHERESummer getaways should be an exercise in packing light. Which is why we say arm yourself with the kind of watch that doubles as jewelry, and tuck a structured clutch into your beach bag that can go from the pool to aperitifs.
Cartier Hypnose watch, $38,100; Valentino Garavani Enchanted Wonderland clutch, $5,175.
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 23P H O T O G R A P H B Y M AT T H R A N E K
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Where+WearOn Location
T H E Q U I C K- F I R E G U I D EAquinnah and Gay Head
for the best beaches.
The Beach Plum Inn &
Restaurant, in Menemsha, for rosĂ© at sunset (the town is dry, so itâs BYOB).
Larsenâs Fish Market, in Menemsha, for crab cakes (eat them down the road on the public beach).
Mad Marthaâs, in Oak Bluffs, for two scoops of Lotsa Dough ice cream.
State Road, in West Tisbury, for chopped lobster salad and a glass of Roederer Estate Brut.
West Tisbury Farmers
Market, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
HermĂšs shirt and shorts, $1,300 and $3,775; Bally belt, $525; Rag & Bone Panama hat, $230; Salvatore Ferragamo sandals, $825; Van Cleef & Arpels Magic Alhambra earrings, $7,250; Bulgari Giardini Italiani sunglasses, $645; Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger Cones and Croisillon bracelets, $36,000 and $30,000; Dolce & Gabbana handbag, $3,695.
Marthaâs VineyardIn a summer destination thatâs ruled by vacation rentals, itâs always big news when a hotel opens its doors. This season, the design- driven Lark Hotels group rolls out two on the island: Summercamp in Oak Bluffs and The Christopher in Edgartown. Here, some packing inspiration for a clas-sic New England getaway.
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Where+WearPlane Clothes
Because I come from
an island, I grew up feeling
trapped, so now I travel
every chance I get. But you have to find a balance be-tween leaving and staying. If youâre always between two planes, itâs hard to have a connection with the people around you.
Iâm the girl who always
feels like sheâs losing her
ticket or passport.
Having a tiny bag to easily access your wallet, boarding pass, and phone is the way to go. This one is from Gucci, and like everyone, I love whatâs happening at that house right now.
Skinny pants are too tight
for traveling. These are
from Citizens of Humanity.
Theyâre comfortable and have a kind of vibe. I can do anything while wearing whiteâI just wonât drink red wine on the plane. But I donât usually get too dirty, even on photo shoots when Iâm sitting on the floor. I think my tank top is from H&M and my jacket is from a military surplus store.
I always carry a bigger bag
packed with magazines
and my mess: a huge gray cashmere scarf thatâs more like a blanket, Pomega5âs Daily Revitalizing Concen-trate to keep my skin hydrated, earphones, and ear plugsâyou have to have these. You never know if youâll be in a noisy hotel. I like vacations to be a kind of philosophical moment when I think about life, so Iâll have notebooks with me from Anthropologie or Smythson. Sometimes Iâll bring a hat or a Uniqlo hoodie, anything that makes me feel protected, like Iâm closing the door. AS TO L D TO M O L LY C R E E D E N
âI donât like traveling to a place for a day or two. I like to stay awhile.âHow the style influencer and Corsica native Garance DorĂ© pulls off all-white on airplanesâtray table mishaps be damned.
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P H O T O G R A P H B Y W E S T O N W E L L S
Eye CandyThis summer, swap
your all-black shades for these lightweight
mirrored aviatorsâthe brighter, the better.
Clockwise from top: Tiffany & Co., $390; Saint
Laurent Classic 11 Surf, $375; Cutler and Gross,
$500; Dior DiorSplit, $555; Westward Leaning
Concorde 10, $205; Prada Linea Rossa, $280.
Where+WearThe Upgrade
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Where+WearLong Weekend
Vacation on RepeatEvery July, Florence-based designer Ălvaro GonzĂĄlez sets aside 72 hours for eating, drinking, and lounging under a beach umbrella in Positano.
âThe journey to Positano is part of the adventure,â says accessories designer Ălvaro GonzĂĄlez, who, every summer, rides a train three hours to Salerno, then catches a charter boat for the 40-minute sail right to the doorstep of his hotel, the small, family-owned Il San Pietro di Positano. âItâs so beautiful to arrive by sea,â he says. âYouâre surrounded by cliffs, so it feels very isolated.â Because every minute counts on a weekend get-away, he and his husband, writer Nick Vinson, step off the boat, hand over their luggage to the hotel staff, and claim two loungers under striped umbrellas. Il San Pietroâs private beach has a bar that serves Il Chiostro, a great local beer, and a seaside restaurant called Il Carlino that makes a perfectly simple burrata dish with zucchini, mint, and garlic. Theyâll do dinner at the hotelâs Miche-lin-starred restaurant, Zass. âStay until after sunset,â GonzĂĄlez advises. âThe people-watching is fantastic, and thereâs a duo that plays traditional Neapolitan music with a mandolin and guitar.â The next night, GonzĂĄlez and Vinson may hop a five-minute water taxi to have dinner in town at Chez Black (âMake a reservation at least a week before,â he says), but theyâll do dessertâtiramisu and stracciatella gelatoâback on the ter-race at Il San Pietro. âAnd before check-ing out, we always book our weekend for the following year.â L E A H G I N S B E R G
Above: GonzĂĄlezâs handwritten pre-trip to-do list. Below, from left: Room 9 at Il San Pietro; the view of Positanoâs main beach.
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The things we canât stop talking about
Not Your Garden-Variety Garden
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 33P H O T O G R A P H B Y F E L I X O D E L L
Walk down one woodland path and youâll see birch and aspen trees hung with acrylic paintings. Head down another and youâll discover that what you thought was a huge tree is actually a sculpture âgrowingâ from a block of concrete. So it goes at ethereal, sylvan Gunillaberg, the country estate of Dutch floral artist Tage Andersen in Swedenâs rural SmĂ„land region.
Gunillaberg was not Andersenâs first botanically trippy ventureâgarden nuts have been queuing up to see his Narnia-like floral cre-ations since he opened his Copen-hagen store in 1987âbut it is by far his most ambitious. Andersen and his husband, Monz, found the seventeenth-century house set on 42 acres in 2008 and transformed it into a summer retreat/quasi-pub-lic garden thatâs open May through September. âThe former owner was almost 100 when he died,â says Monz. âHeâd all but ignored the property, which means the estate was a sort of Sleeping Beauty.â
Andersen woke the place up, turn-ing it into yet another cult pilgrim-age for green thumbs. He painted the house yellow, planted thousands of lilies, and filled the property with pots of agapanthus and pomegran-ates as well as farm animals. Getting here isnât easy (see sidebar). But the âmiddle of nowhereâ location is part of the appeal. The city, the twenty-first century, and reality, for that matter, feel very, very far away. S T E P H E N W H I T L O C K
Getting ThereTHE DRIVE
Itâs a four-hour drive from both Copenhagen and Stockholm. From Copenhagen, make it a straight shot (there isnât much to stop for). From Stockholm, itâs a proper road trip, with places worth pulling over for and great views of VĂ€ttern, one of Europeâs largest lakes, for most of the drive.
Welcome to FairylandAn enchanted garden that most Swedes have never heard of.
ALONG THE WAY
Youâll want to linger in the Ădeshög area, on the eastern shore of VĂ€ttern, halfway to Gunillaberg. Hop out at Omberg Ecopark and hike up the HjĂ€ssan promontory for an amazing view of the lake. Go for lunch at the Ombergs Turistho-tell, and carve out time to tour the lakeside mansion of Swedish writer Ellen Key, a prominent suffragette and feminist.
THE BRING-BACK
Continue south for 25 miles to the village of GrÀnna, where polkagris (red-and-white- striped peppermint stick candy) was invented.
Clockwise from top: Tage Andersen; the artistâs sculpture Aorta giganteum; a room-size chess set designed by Andersen and ceramicist Anna R. Kinman on the ground floor of the house; a small glass pavilion in the woods behind the main house.
Word of MouthDiscovered
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 37P H O T O G R A P H S B Y F E L I X O D E L L
Word of MouthChecking In
Provence hardly needs a sales pitchâfrom medieval Avignon to the port of Marseille, the country-side is a maze of hilltop villages, open-air markets, and lavender fields. Which is why itâs tempting to try to tick off every charming town, vineyard, and experience (cooking class, bike tour, both?) when youâre there. But to do so is to miss out on part of the regionâs true appealâits languid pace.
Sometimes doing next to nothing in a good hotel is the best way to experience a place.
No-Pressure Provence
Creating an escape where guests can slip into this lazy rhythm is exactly what inspired retail mogul FrĂ©dĂ©ric Biousse, founder and former CEO of Sandro Maje Claudie Pierlot (SMCP), and art dealer Guillaume Foucher to buy the Domaine de Fontenille, a wine-making estate in the south-ern Luberon, and turn it into a boutique hotel set away from Provenceâs most touristy corners.
In 2013, the couple started a multi-million-dollar, 18-month overhaul of the property, restoring its eighteenth-century manor house and reviving its wine production (the estate has been growing grapes since 1638) with new equipment and a modernized storeroom. They kept the sand-colored exterior and didnât alter the footprint of the house, but did a full gut renovation of the interior, creating 17 rooms and suites, each with wide-plank oak floors, olive-green walls, Provençal
furniture upholstered in beige linen, and modern artâby artists like Todd Hido and Anne-Lise Broyerâfrom the pairâs private collection or Foucherâs Parisian gallery. Then there are the expansive views of the estateâs verdant grounds, with its stands of cedar and plane trees, rose and vegetable gardens, and 86-acre vineyard (which is undergoing organic conversion). The couple also turned the vaulted cellar into an art space where they host exhibitions in collaboration with international galleries like Galerie Claude Bernard.
Itâs the kind of place that gives you permission to stay putâwhere enjoying an alfresco lunch prepared by Michelin-starred chef JĂ©rĂŽme Faure, exploring the estate by bicycle, or sipping rosĂ© in the vine-yardâs tasting room is as culturally immersive as a day-trip to nearby Aix-en-Provence. As the French say: Point trop, nâen fautâless is indeed more. L I N D S E Y T R A M U TA
From top: Patio tables at La Cuisine dâAmĂ©lie, the Domaineâs bistrot; the pool and rose garden.
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Word of MouthChecking In
Nonstop to Paradise
For those familiar with India, the name Munnu Kasliwal is synonymous with Jaipur. When the jeweler and fifth-generation owner of the cityâs famed Gem Palace died in 2012, his son Siddharth took over the business, and now Sid (as heâs known) has taken on another piece of his fatherâs legacy: the opening of 28 Kothi. The five-bed-room guesthouse, set in the quiet Civil Lines neighborhood, has a minimalist vibeânovel, but welcome in a region known for its ornate palace hotels. âEventually, you want to be treated like family, not royalty,â Sid says of Kothiâs appeal. âThatâs what I wanted to create.â
Thatâs what Munnu wanted too. Heâd hired an architect to design a house modeled on Jaipurâs mid-century Art Deco bungalows. The project paused after Munnuâs death, but a year later, Sid picked it back up, relying on trusted Gem Palace artisans and local craftspeo-pleâcarpenters and weavers among themâto add special touches like the handmade flat-weave dhurries and block-printed upholstered headboards in the rooms, and on the artist who does Gem Palaceâs miniature paintings and enamel-work for the painted palm trees on the walls. âIt was all for the love of my father,â Sid explains. âEveryone came together, and Kothi came alive.â A N D R E W S E S S A
A new boutique hotel in Jaipur thatâs (refreshingly) more like a home than a palace.
For the Love of Munnu
1135 AD
âThis restaurant serves excellent Rajasthani food atop the sixteenth- century Amber Fort. You can look out over the whole city while you eatâyou feel like youâre lost in another era.â
HAWA MAHAL BAZAAR
âFor a real Jaipur experience, every visitor should walk through the aisles of this market and try the kulfi, a sweet local ice creamâlike dessert.â
IDLI
âFrench-born designer Thierry Journo opened this clothing and home
Hit ListWhere Sid sends his friends when theyâre in town.
From top: The living roomâlike lobby of 28 Kothi; the hotelâs farm-fresh pea soup served gardenside.
furnishings boutique a quick cab ride from Gem Palace. He uses really cool fabrics in modern prints and colors.â
KASHMIR LOOM
âThis shop inside the SujĂĄn Rajmahal Pal-ace hotel is the spot for the highest-quality scarves and shawlsâmany luxury fashion brands get their cash-mere goods here.â
LAXMI MISHTHAN
BHANDAR
âEveryone who works in the jewelry market goes here for samosas and yogurt dumplings.â
NIROS
âItâs been a bustling streetside spot since 1949 and has great traditional Indian foodâ get the dried panir tikka.â
When it comes to proper high- end beach resorts in Hawaii like Mauiâs Fairmont Kea Lani or Kau-aiâs St. Regis Princeville, Oahu has lagged behind the other islands (which is why itâs often a stopover on the way to idyllic retreats else-where). But you may want to ditch
the day-killing connecting flight now that the Four Seasons has opened in Ko Olina, on Oahuâs underexposed west coastâa beau-tiful stretch of shore known for its near-empty beaches. Unlike Oahuâs other luxury hotels, most of which are crammed together
in Waikiki, the Four Seasons feels surprisingly âouter island,â set on 15 lush acres and with its own beach and three pools. And itâs only a 30-minute drive from the Honolulu airportâunless, that is, you want to take the hotelâs yacht or helicopter. J O H N W O G A N
KO O L I N A
HonoluluH A W A I I
O A H U
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Word of MouthSummer 2016
If youâre starting to resent your friendsâ exotic vacation posts right about now (why did you book that Montauk rental again?!) or still playing airfare chicken on Kayak, you can stop your FOMO bellyaching. Weâve tracked new direct flights and mined our on-the-ground experts for the hotel openings, cultural happenings, lesser-known landscapes, and emerging food and wine spots worth traveling forâand which you just might, in some cases, have to yourself. What follows is a list of still-bookable trips to earn you serious bragging rightsâfrom your own luxury tent on the Grand Canyonâs South Rim to a close-up with a leopard in Botswana. If we were in your shoes (andâokay, we might be), weâd get on it now!
1 See a Christo Installation Up Close in Italyâs Lake District For just three weeks starting on June 18, the quixotic environ-mental artist Christo will weave 753,500 square feet of yellow fabric across pine-shrouded Lake Iseo in Northern Italy to create The Floating Piers, which visitors can literally walk across. Shake off the crowds by booking LâAlbereta, a Relais & ChĂąteaux hotel set amid the regionâs vine-yards, where youâll be less than 45 minutes by car from the lake.
3 Take a Boat Safari in BotswanaThe best months for seeing the countryâs Okavango Delta are May through August, when water levels are at their highest and elephants, giraffes, leopards, and count-less birds are most active. Camps like Duba Expedition ar-range game âdrivesâ by motorboatâand are all the more luxuri-ous for being in the middle of nowhere.
4 Revisit the California CoastCarmel still has those golden beaches, forest hiking trails,
26 Ways to (Still) Go Big This Summer 2
against the dollar since 2014. A âŹ500
room used to work out to $690. Now itâs
yours for $575.
EUROPEwhere
the euro is down
Stay just about anywhere in
1 8 P E R C E N T
42 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 T Y P E B Y L A T I G R E
Word of MouthSummer 2016
and proximity to pinot and chardonnay vine-yards, but a new crop of inns like the Hotel Carmel and The Hide-away are providing welcome alternatives to the same old B&Bs.
6 Chase Sky- High Thrills in the AdirondacksWild Walk in Tupper Lake is like the High Line of the for-estâand the next best thing to being an Ewok: Itâs an elevated network of bridges and platforms that cuts through the tree-tops and connects to a four-story twig tree house and a kid-size spiderâs web.
7 Catch Zaha Hadidâs Last ShowThe Jameel Prize is one of the worldâs most prestigious awards in Islamic art and de-sign, and this yearâs selection, on view at Istanbulâs Pera Mu-seum, is the last picked under Zaha Hadid, the prizeâs late patron. Itâs also the first time
the exhibition will be shown outside Lon-donâs Victoria and Al-bert Museum.
8 Road-Trip the Old Westâand Its New Places to StayWe love Dunton Hot Springs resort in Coloradoâs San Juan Mountains, which is why weâre expecting big things from its new Telluride spin- off, Dunton Town House. (And everyone knows ski towns are at their best in the summer.) The newly opened Smith Fork Ranch, from the creative team behind leather goods brand Ghurka, is 90 minutes by car from Grand Junction but feels more re-moteâand only takes 28 guests a week. Grand Canyon Under Canvas brings safari- style tents to the hotel- starved high desert about an hour from the South Rim. Or stay mobile and book a week with Air-stream 2 Go, which rents 23- and 28-foot
chrome trailers (and the SUVs to tow them) out of Las Vegas.
11 Live Your Greek Island Fantasy Without the CrowdsFolegandros has all the great beaches, the simple but delicious taverna food, and the epic sunsets over the sea that you ex-pect from a Greek isleâwithout the disco vibe and mega yachts. Even better, high- speed ferries from Piraeus now get you there in 3 hours instead of the 11 it used to take.
12 See the Arctic Before It MeltsYou know it wonât be there forever, and so does Crystal Cruises, whose Serenity starts sailing the Northwest Passage in August. The ship travels from Anchorage to Arctic fishing villages in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland before docking in New York.
13 Get to Colombia (Finally)Nowâs the time to go: In 2014, the dollar-to-peso exchange rate was one to 1,995; today you get 2,850 pesos for a buck, an in-crease of 44 percent. Once youâre there, stay at the sleekly designed and newly opened
Four Seasons Hotel Bogota or the recently renovated Four Seasons Hotel Casa Medina BogotĂĄ, a colonial-style retreat.
15 Cycle the Spanish PyreneesThe rugged mountains and seaside towns of Basque Country are best seen in sum-mer. The weatherâs perfect, and you can tool around on locally made Orbea bikes with a Bicycle Adven-tures guide whoâll show you the best spots for pintxosâthe worldâs most Insta-grammable snacks!
16 Head to the Chicest Island in the CaribbeanEveryone forgets about St. Barts in summer, but thatâs when flights to the modish French isle run you about half as much as they would in winter. Two of the original resorts, Eden Rock and Le Guana-hani, recently under-went major face-liftsâ just get there before September, when the rainy season starts and hotels and restau-rants close down.
17 Explore a Slice of Africa (Almost) Nobody Else HasWant to truly impress your friends? A stay at the five-month-old
N E P A L
T I G E R S
Before this year, a visit to Chitwan National
Park demanded roughing it. Now you
can make the new Meghauli Serai, a Taj
Safari Lodge, your indulgent base camp.
Spot Bengal
5 10
The west coastâs Wild Atlantic Way is the worldâs longest coastal drive, rolling past surf breaks,
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TA K E A N E V E R -G E T S - O L D
I N S TA N T S U M M E R VA C AT I O N
Camden, Maine, for lobster rolls
and windjammers.
Fort Bragg, California, for foggy mornings.
Kiawah Island, South Carolina,
for seaside golf links.
Mackinaw City, Michigan,
for old-school lakeside vacation vibes.
Paso Robles, California,
for great wines minus the Napa nonsense.
St. Michaels, Maryland, for yachting and G&Ts.
Sanibel Island, Florida, for beachcombing
on kid-friendly beaches.
Shelter Island, New York,
for an alternative to the Hamptons.
Victoria, British Columbia,
for a postcard- perfect international
escape just three hours from Seattle.
in
9
C A Z E N O V E & L O Y D â S
Weâre pumped for
tour of the virtually unexplored, wildlife-filled
Make first tracks in northern
ARGENTINA
I B E R A W E T L A N D Swhere the RincĂłn del Socorro guest estancia
is the stuff of country-home fantasies.
IRELA T O U R
20 Catch a Fashion Show in . . . Scotland? Edinburghâs National Museum will unveil a $21-million expansion of ten new exhibition halls on July 8, and among the items on display will be pieces from Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, and Yves Saint Laurent. Get there on Deltaâs just-launched nonstop from JFK to Edin-burghâor hop British Airwaysâ new flight between London and the Highlands.
21 Crack Cuba with a Proâs HelpSo youâve decided to goâbut youâre intim-idated by everything planning your own trip will require: trolling Airbnb, refreshing air-line websites, e-mailing transportation compa-nies in Havana, and dialing on-the-ground cultural institutions and dance troupes to make sure your itiner-ary is legit. Skip the hassle and simply call
an expert, like Tom Popper at InsightCuba or Adam Vaught at Zi-casso, who can handle all the detailsââcause thatâs what they do.
22 Taste Cult-Favorite Wines (Without Pretense)Emerging regions are Europeâs next big thingsâand by going to the source, you can build both your cellar and your palate. The two-year-old Wine Route of Etna brings together vineyards along Sicilyâs SS120 Highway, which skirts the northern side of the mountain. Among the growers here is Frank Cornelissen, godfather of the natu-ral wine movement. Or head for Spainâs Canaries, where microclimates make for some seriously minerally wines. Our fave? The dry Malvasia whites from Lanzarote. (The islandâs vine-yards, with their rich black soil, look totally lunar.) Or seek out
25 Hit the Hawaiian Island That Has It AllMauiâs got spectacular beaches, the stateâs driest weather, top-notch surfing and hik-ing, one of the most jaw-dropping drives in the country (yes, thatâs the Piilani Highway on our cover), and some of Hawaiiâs best hotels. Now three of themâthe Fairmont Kea Lani, Royal Lahaina Resort, and Travaasa Hanaâare back after (much-needed) renos.
26 Or Just Go HugeUse every last vacation day on Abercrombie & Kentâs 23-day charter jet tour through Latin America, leaving Maui on September 6. The price? $99,500 per person.
Assyrtiko, our favorite white from the island of Santoriniâitâs bright and very high in acidâwith a salty tang since the vines basically grow in the ocean. Bonus: The wine ages well, so pick up a case when you visit Estate Argyros.
Limalimo Lodge in the Simein Mountains of Ethiopia ought to do it, particularly when you come back with stories of tracking colobus and vervet monkeys in the surrounding wilderness. It sounds like a long trip, but the brand-new Ethio-pian Airlines nonstop between Newark and Addis Ababa helps cut travel time.
19 Discover the Most Underrated Food City in the U.S.Serious eaters with a free weekend can be among the first to check Indianapolis off their list. The city has notable chefs building national profiles with innovative menus that arenât ambitiously overpriced, but youâd be forgiven for missing the news with Chicago hogging the Midwest-ern food spotlight. When you fly inâand itâs easier than ever, with nonstops from 33 citiesâhead straight to Marrow (fried tan-doori chicken; cucum-ber wakame salad) and Milktooth (killer break-fast dishes; locally roasted Tinker Coffee) for a quick orientation to the cityâs best. Then pedal your way to more finds (Black Market; Rook), using Indyâs ever-expanding bike-sharing network.
timeless pubs, and seafood stands serving caught-that-hour fish.
road trip
on a winding, sometimes white-knuckle
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O M A N
Discover the antidote to Abu Dhabiâs skyscrapers
or Dubaiâs excess:
24
The tranquil Arabian Peninsula country
will see two new Anantara hotels open this summer:
near Grand Canyonâesque Jebel Shams
on the Arabian Sea.
A L J A B A L A L A K H D A R
R E S O R T
A L B A L E E D R E S O R T
S A L A L A H
Find photos of our picks, plus more intel on making the most of your summer vacation, at cntraveler.com/summer.
Fly one of three new nonstops to
23
R E T U N E M I N D & B O D Y I N
CROATIA(at Yoga for Bad Peopleâs retreat on BraÄ)
SOUTH AFRICA(at the new Leeu Estates)
& TURKEY(at Canyon Ranchâs new coastal resort).
AUCKLANDOur summer is their winter, but itâll be
mild enough that you can
S K I M O U N T R UA P E H U I N A T- S H I R T.
Houston Air New Zealand
San Francisco United
Los Angeles American[ ]
ND
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When creative director Yolanda Edwards came back from French Basque Country, she raved about the breakfast at the Du Palaisâspecifi-cally the seasonal gem lettuces and piment dâes-pelette, that smoky pepper which makes everything, including the buffetâs perfectly soft scrambled eggs, taste bet-ter. Savor it, along with house-baked brioche, cured meats, and fruit tarts, in the dining room late into the morningâmeaning you may just skip lunch.
HĂŽtel du Palais, Biarritz
Word of MouthThe Hotel Breakfast
P H O T O G R A P H BY M AT T H R A N E K
Word of MouthPass It On
Exhibition Isle
Been There, Done That
THE WHEN AND HOW
Festival dates are July 18â September 4 and October 8â November 6. From Tokyo, itâs a four-hour train ride to Uno Port, then a 20-minute ferry to Naoshima. From there, ferry trips to the other islands are short (15 to 45 minutes) and departures frequent. A festival passport is about $46, and an all-access three-day ferry pass is $20.
THE PIECES TO SEE
This yearâs festival includes international big-name artists like Pipilotti Rist and Olafur Eliasson, but itâs the lesser-known Japanese artists who are really worth getting to know: Yoshinori Niwaâs performance project uses psychics to summon the ghosts of 16 former Naoshima mayors; Haruyuki Uchida filled a titanium boat with seawater and hoisted it into the sky; and Sou Fujimotoâs geometric steel-mesh pavilion sits on Naoshimaâs waterfront.
WHERE TO STAY AND
WHAT (ELSE) TO DO
Book a room at the Tadao Andoâdesigned Benesse House
Museum, a museum/hotel on Naoshima. The spacious rooms look out onto the Seto Inland Sea and are decorated with works of art by Christo and Thomas Ruff. After youâre settled, take an end-of-day soak at the nearby I Love Yu onsen. Part art installa-tion, part bathhouse (and maybe your only chance to view art in the buff), itâs one in a trail of per-manent installations across the three-mile island. A DA M G R A H A M
Yayoi Kusamaâs permanent installation Pumpkin, on Naoshima.
â Summer in Rome means dining outdoors. And while Iâve stuck out the hour wait for an alfresco meal on the Via del Portico dâOttavia, a better plan is to follow the Romans 45 minutes south to hilltop Ariccia. Here, Italians fill tables around the townâs square, sharing porchetta and wild boar ragout from the local taverns. Donât worry about overdoing it on the jugs of local redâtaxis stand by to get you safely back to the city.â ERIN FLORIO, Senior Associate Editor
Art fairs emphasizing local talent may evoke images of tents filled with bad seascape paintings. But Japanâs Setouchi
Triennale, held on 14 remote islands in Japanâs Seto Inland Sea, eviscerates any bric-a- brac associations and delivers blue-chip art in a serene natural setting that you wonât find at Basel or Frieze. Setouchi started in 2010 but garnered an immediate following with the international art crowd for its site-specific pieces that speak to the islandsâ natural beauty and faded industrial heritage, like Tadao Andoâs lab-yrinth of cherry blossom trees, or Wang Wen Chihâs dome made from more than 4,000 pieces of native bamboo.
Your all-time-favorite vacation: I traveled to China in 1983 for a screen-ing of Coal Minerâs Daughter, and they had an amazing dinner for us at the emperorâs palace in Beijing. I was revel-ing in this delicious soup when someone leaned over and said, âThatâs camelâs- foot-tendon soup.â That sent a chill up my spine, but I just decided to go with it.
All-time worst vacation: When I was a teenager, a girlfriend and I got cheap tickets to Puerto Rico. I was a strawberry blond at the beach with this tawny-skinned girlâI borrowed her baby oil and got burned so badly. She returned to New York for work and left me in a Puerto Rican hospital!
Your ideal travel partner: My mother. She saved my life once. We climbed up this mountain in SĂŁo Paulo in high heelsâdonât ask me whyâand there was a wooden platform that people were hang-gliding off of. I got so close to jumping off with this one glider, but my mother grabbed me by the throat and with clenched teeth said, âNot today, Sissy. Not on my watch.â
The best thing about filming Blood-line in the Florida Keys: The seafood. I love the hogfish . . . though they really need to do something about that name.
The last monument, landmark, or
natural wonder you took a selfie in
front of: The selfies I take are with fans. Does that make me the monument, landmark, or natural wonder? I choose natural wonder. DAV I D WA LT E R S
S E TO U C H I
An Editor Recommends
Bloodline star Sissy Spacek on eating whateverâs put in front of you, being pale in Puerto Rico, and (almost) hang-gliding wearing high heels.
Osaka
Tokyo
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The Jefferson Memorial.
FO R PA R E N TS , D.C. is the city of object lessonsâfor better and worse. You come primed to help your kid decipher the signatures of the Founding Fathers on the Declaration of Independence, or to gaze together at Abraham Lincolnâs craggy profile as you piously recite the Gettysburg Addressâalong with seemingly every other family in America (who, you register in a panic, all seem to be lined up outside the National Air and Space Museum). But heyâwith so, so many museums, monuments, parks, waterfronts, and other distrac-tions to choose from, you can easily chart a crowd-free course. Just donât
try to cram too much in: We found parents and kids were happiest with no more than two scheduled stops a dayâand frequent pauses and distrac-tions to decompress. Besides, thereâs so much to do off the Mall since once-fringy neighborhoods (NoMA, H Street Corridor) are emerging as eating and shopping hubs. Take an Uber or taxi, not the Metro, to preserve legs and moods. If you miss something major (like the fall opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture), no worries. You know youâll be back. R E P O R T E D B Y
A L E X P O S T M A N A N D PAU L B R A D Y
WA S H I N GTO N , D . C .DCWord of MouthBlack Book
50 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y D E W E Y N I C K S
Word of MouthBlack Book
D . C . E S S E N T I A L S U N D E R R A T E D M U S E U M F R E D E R I C K D O U G L A S S N A T I O N A L H I S T O R I C S I T E ( R I G H T )
Cracking the Mega-MuseumsSince nearly every D.C. museum is free, popping in and out is encouraged. Plan smartly and youâll get to all the major kid draws without burning out.
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International Spy Museum
National Air and Space Museum
National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of American History
While itâs not part of the Smithsonian, this museum has original
tools of the trade like an Enigma machine
and miniature weapons, and every kid gets to adopt an alias.
It has world-famous aircraft like the
1903 Wright Flyer, Lindberghâs Spirit of St. Louis, and the back-from-
space Apollo 11 com-mand module.
This is home to the 45.52-carat Hope
Diamond, dinosaur fossils, a living
coral reef, as well as an enormous African
elephant guarding the entrance.
Itâs got big-deal arti-facts, including the flag
that inspired âThe Star-Spangled Ban-
ner,â George Washing-tonâs battle sword,
and Benjamin Frank-linâs walking stick.
The âOperation Spyâ experience lets teens
play at espionage with fictional video
surveillance and safe-cracking.
Often overlooked, NASAâs Stardust
probe is the first man-made object to
intercept a comet and return to Earth.
The gunboat Philadelphia, a
Revolutionary War ship sunk by the British on Lake
Champlain in 1776.
One of D.C.âs few paid museums, it lets
you book a timed entry up to six
months ahead of time. Hop on those
Operation Spy tickets early too.
If youâre planning to see an Imax show,
buy advance tickets at homeâand visit
before 11 A.M. or after 4 P.M. to avoid
the huge swarms of afternoon tourists.
The galleries are open until 7:30 P.M. on
most (but not all) summer nights, so have
an early dinner and come back once
crowds thin. (Confirm hours at si.edu.)
Not every museum has them, so take advantage of the
self-service lockers by the Constitution
Avenue entrance to park your stuff
while exploring.
The O. Orkin Insect Zoo on the second
floor, where the brave can handle hissing
cockroaches and see tarantula feedings.
From left: The National Museum of the American Indian; the International Spy Museum.
The Sanity-Saving Hacks We Rely On How to make the most of your time on the go.
Look for Timed EntriesPretty much the only way into landmarks like the White House and the Washington Monument is to lock in a tour (weeks!) in advance. But last- minute bookers can nab line-skipping timed entries online to the National Archives Museum and the Capitol Rotunda just a few days out.
Decode the SmithsonianIts new online Trip Planner, at si.edu/visit, helps visitors navigate hundreds of exhibits and 13 museums on and near the Mall. Punch in your interests (âAstronomy,â âDesignâ) to break down what to see and where.
Donât Blow Off the Art MuseumsThe Hirshhorn, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Phillips Collectionâwhich offers a cool art scavenger huntâare generally less kid-clogged.
Hire Your Own Guide Tour company Context can create custom family itineraries for many sights and museums (e.g., an Air and Space walk led by a NASA space camp alum), sparing you logistical legwork.
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If Theyâre Obsessed with AirplanesDrive 40 minutes west of downtown to the Steven
F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, near Dulles, where the Smithso-nian keeps an outstanding collection of historic air-craftâincluding the Enola Gay, the space shuttle Discovery, and an SR-71.
If They Heart @Ador-able_Animals on InstaThe National Zooâs baby panda, Bei Bei, will be approaching maximum cuteness this summer. The cubâand his parentsâare most active in the morning, so be there when the gates open at 8 A.M. Many visitors trek uphill from the Woodley Parkâ
Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro station, but you can avoid the hike by having your Uber drop you off at the northwest gate.
If Youâve Got a Foodie-in-the-MakingCab it to Union Market, near the once-gritty NoMa nabe, for dozens of food stalls serving empanadas and ramen. An eight-minute ride south, Eastern Market, a bustling 143-year-old food hall, has street musicians and flea market tables outdoors on weekends.
If Theyâre SneakerheadsTake the new free streetcar from Union Station down H Street Northeast to Maketto, a concept store/
restaurant where you can browse limited-edition Adidas by Raf Simons Stan Smiths or Raised by Wolves hoodies before eating family-style Cambodian/Taiwanese street food (pork steamed bao, five-spice fried chicken). If thereâs a wait for a table, play a round of indoor mini-golf at the quirky H Street
Country Club (yes, thereâs a bar) down the street.
If Theyâre Baseball FansHead for the Washington
Navy Yard, on the Anacos-tia River, where restau-rants and splashdown fountains have popped up near Nationals Park. (Same-day game tickets are easy to snag.)
Itâs Not All About HistoryThe Mall bailout plan for kids who know what theyâre into.
From left: A D.C. farmersâ market; the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.
Hotels the Whole Family Can Agree OnYouâll like the vibe and they wonât bounce off the walls.
MASON & ROOK
This new Kimpton has oversized rooms done in stylish grays, with 65-inch TVs perfect for movie nights. Suites have deep soaking tubs, too.
PARK HYATT
WASHINGTON
Itâs got sleek Shaker- inspired decor, a pool (so key!), and a top-rated restaurant, the Blue Duck Tavern, so you can send burgers upstairs while you dine Ă deux.
THE WATERGATE HOTEL
Yes, that one (above). The mid-century modern icon with the juicy backstory is now worth a stay thanks to a $125 million refurb.
WILLARD
INTERCONTINENTAL
Steeped in history and a block from the White House, itâs the grande dame where Lincoln slept before his inaugu-ration. âNuff said!
52 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
B E S T F O R T E E N S T H E N E W S E U M / P H O T O O P T H E L A P O F T H E A L B E R T E I N S T E I N M E M O R I A L / P E A C E F U L T I M E - O U T K O G O D C O U R T Y A R D , N A T I O N A L P O R T R A I T G A L L E R Y
When Youâre Ready to Say Yes to the ConeSkip the fro-yo trucks on the Mall and hit Pitango Gelato, on 7th Street Northwest. Itâs got classic flavors (nocci-ola) and not-so (carda-mom) plus outstanding Counter Culture coffee.
Sip a Dry Riesling While Your Kids Play The Art Nouveauâstyle Pavilion CafĂ© at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden has nice wines, microbrews from Virginiaâs Devils Backbone, a fountain for little ones to splash in, and itâs just across
the street from the Mall (consider bringing a soccer ballâseriously).
Get Off Your FeetIt sounds lame, but hear us out: When your over-walked feet feel like stumps, Tidal Basin
Paddle Boats is a lifesaver. For $16 you can catch a breeze out on the water and paddle (like, so slowly) for an up-close view of the Jefferson Memorial. If you need to snack up, thereâs a decent, underused cafĂ© at the Holocaust Memorial Museum (which should be seen in its own right).
Where You Can Seriously Beat the Heat On July 2, the National
Building Museum will unveil âIcebergs,â trans-forming its great hall into an underwater world of glacial ice complete with âunderseaâ grottoes and snow cone snacks.
Find Your Lunch Tribe Right on the Mall, the National Museum of the American Indianâs Mitsitam CafĂ© serves up regional native fare like South American cherry- braised beef pupusas or Great Plains buffalo chili on fry bread.
âOur secret place to go was Bishopâs
Garden, by the National
Cathedral. My kids loved to run along
the paths and stick their hands
in the pond.â
Recharging Stations Museum fatigue is a real thing. Here are a few ways to recover.
Above: The Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial.
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âMy daughters and I love getting
lost in the Hillwood Estate,
Museum & Gardens, which was once owned
by Marjorie Merriweather
Post.â
Spend the Afternoon in Georgetown With stately row houses, Old Town shops, and leafy spots for cooling off, this is a D.C. you can (finally) relax in.
2 P.M. Roam the grounds of Dumbarton Oaks, a classic George-town mansion (now a museum with a top-notch Byzantine art collection, BTW) on 16 acres of terraced gardens.
3 P.M. Walk south on Wisconsin Avenue and stop for a cone at local institution Thomas Sweet, on the corner of P Street. Continue on Wisconsin and turn left onto N Street, a staggeringly pretty row of eighteenth-century brick homes (during JFKâs presidential campaign, he and Jackie lived at 3307 N St.). Turn right onto 31st Street (past the 1858 Post Office), then left on M Street. The Old Stone House is the oldest unchanged building in D.C.; you can pop into its low- ceilinged colonial kitchen for free.
4 P.M. Cross M Street on Thomas Jefferson Streetâif you can yank your teens back from M Streetâs com-mercial seductions (Urban Outfitters, Nike)âand in a block youâll be at Lock 4 on the C&O Canal. Completed in 1850, itâs now a 185-mile-long national park. Walk along the towpath or have a pebble-flinging contest. Just beyond is Baked & Wired, whose artisanal roasts lure lines of students from Georgetown U.
5 P.M. Got time to kill before dinner? Older kids can rent kayaks at the nearby Key Bridge Boathouse. Or go early bird at the locavore magnet Farmers Fishers Bakers (owned by the North Dakota Farmers Union), near the Georgetown Waterfront Park and its fountain.
From left: Garrison; Toki Underground.
ARCHIPELAGO
U Streetâs only tiki bar rivals any youâd find on the West Coast. Try to order drinks like the mezcal-and-rum Truck Bed Funeral or the tequila-heavy Retired Stripper with a straight face.
THE DABNEY
One of the cityâs best restaurants is in an alley near Logan Cir-cle. Chef Jeremiah Langhorne grills local fish, meats, and veggies over open flames be-fore garnishing most everything with a gar-denâs worth of micro-greens and fresh herbs.
DEL CAMPO
D.C. is notoriously plagued by mediocre
steakhouses, but this Argentine-style parilla in the Penn Quarter ainât one of them. Look for playful riffs on local favor-itesâlike the beef âhalf-smokeâ hot dog topped with caviar.
SOUTHERN EFFICIENCY
Near the famed 9:30 Club concert hall, in the rapidly develop-ing Shaw neighbor-hood, this whiskey bar is heavy on locally crafted spirits like Virginia-made Catoctin Creek rye.
TOKI UNDERGROUND
Despite the name, youâll find this funky ramen-and-buns joint above The Pug, an H Street dive bar.
Parentsâ Night OutItâs a suit-and- tie town, but the dining scene here has never been more fun than it is right now. J O S Ă A N D R Ă S
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Word of MouthGroundbreaker
The lobby of the Ace Hotel New Orleans, designed by Roman and Williams.
O N A STO R M Y DAY in January, Kelly Sawdon, chief brand officer for the Ace Hotel Group, and Brad Wilson, the companyâs president, stood inside an old furniture store in New Orleans, watching a construction worker push a sander across the floor. In two months, if all went according to plan, the space would be filled with guests and curious locals. But for now, coils of wire lay on the floor, and the thick smell of paint hung in the air.
Wilson, in a white construction hat, strode across the lobby, shouting over the din. âUn-like other properties weâve worked on, this one wasnât already a hotel, so there was a lot to be done upstairs,â he said. âBut with the lobby, weâre hoping to preserve some of the original feel. The beautiful old moldings up there will stay.â He pointed. Here would be a Stump-town cafĂ©, the first south of the Mason-Dixon Line; there, a stage for visiting musicians.
The Ace New Orleans opened its doors this spring, the eighth entry from the Ace Hotel Groupâwhich, if you havenât noticed, has been on quite the tear lately. But of course youâve noticed: These days, no one can ig-nore Ace, even those who donât wish to sleep in its loftlike rooms or sip artisanally roasted espresso in its artfully weathered lobbies. The brand continues to expand at a rapid clip. In the near future, if you visit a major American cityâor just live in oneâyou might not stay in an Ace Hotel, but you may wind up in a neighborhood that Ace put on the map.
Co-founded in 1999 by Seattle club owner and entrepreneur Alex Calderwood, Ace has made a play of cheeky iconoclasm and a cu-ratorial style that can border on precious (see the Portlandia sketch about the âDeuce Hotelâ and its aggressively hip check-in staff). The look is familiar by now: bespoke art on the walls, guitars in the bedrooms, upbeat mes-sages (âEverything Is Going to Be Alrightâ) emblazoned in the lobby. Love or loathe it, Aceâs house style has become so pervasive across the industry that new hotels are often
Can a hotel rebrand a neighborhood? With clairvoyant location-scouting, Ace Hotels and other industry players are redrawing the map of cities we thought we knew. By Matthew Shaer
Making a Scene
56 P H O T O G R A P H S B Y M AT T H E W W I L L I A M S
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Word of MouthGroundbreaker
described as âAce-likeââbe they indie brands such as Freehand, The Hoxton, and Mama Shelter, or the mil-lennial-ready offshoots of big-name chains, with their sassy âGo Awayâ doorknob signs and pour-over cof-fee bars. âThat emphasis on âlocal, authenticâ travel has gone mainstream,â says Greg Oates, senior editor at travel industry site Skift. For instance: âThe concierges at Marriottâs Renaissance brand are called âNavigatorsâ and provide local travel tips, and InterContinental fo-cuses on âinsiderâ or âin the know travel.â â
Y E T A S I M I TATO R S A B O U N D, Ace has distinguished itself in another way: by taking an unorthodox ap-proach to development, eschewing already-saturated locations for emerging ones. Opening a hotel is a multi-million-dollar gamble for any brand and its financial partners, so standard operating procedure is to choose locations based on the success of existing properties. But when the first Ace took root in an unremarkable patch of western Seattle, it was notable for having a club frequented by R.E.M.âs Peter Buck , and not much else. Belltown has been on the style map ever since. That first hotel, set in a former halfway house, felt more like a glorified hostel where a visiting band might crash after graduating from friendsâ couches. Their friends probably lived in Belltown too.
A similar metamorphosis occurred a decade later in the dead cen-ter of Manhattan (emphasis on dead). What we now call the NoMad district, south of Times Square, was until 2009 an in-between zone of wig wholesalers and sidewalk patchouli-hawkersâbefore Ace took over an abandoned hotel and, with its deep leather couches and communal workspaces, created the hottest lobby scene in town. (The upmarket NoMad Hotel, a block south, followed three years later.)
In 2013, Ace opened its first European outpost, in East Londonâs gritty Shoreditchâan area overserved by vintage shops and bars but underserved by design-conscious hotels. Last December, an Ace
You might not stay in an Ace Hotel, but you may wind up in a neighborhood that Ace put on the map.
â
Is East Liberty the Next Belltown?Two fringe neighborhoods have thrived post-Aceâand a third could follow suit. Watch this space, Pittsburgh. . .
SEATTLE
Opened 1999NEW YORK
Opened 2009PITTSBURGH
Opened 2015
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arrived in Pittsburghâs up-and-coming East Liberty district. The brand has repeated the trick often enough that industry watchers refer to the âAce Effect,â or the explosion of a neighborhood after a cool hotel moves in (see the maps below). Identifying those areas is something Aceâs development team has been uncannily adept at: Theyâre the place whisper-ers, the neighborhood foragers, the location scouts for a film that you and your art-student nephew will both want a cameo in.
âPeople ask if thereâs a technique to choos-ing neighborhoods, and actually there is,â Aceâs Wilson says, âbecause itâs all in the rela-tionships.â His colleague Sawdon notes that co-founder Calderwoodâs greatest gift lay in making connections; he collected friends in creative circles, from visual artists to musicians to clothing designers, and delighted in mix-ing one group with another. He approached hotel development the same wayâseeking introductions, asking questions, leaning hard on friendsâ advice. And itâs how the brand has carried on in his absence. (Calderwood died of an apparent drug overdose in 2013.) Band-ing with so many creatives and entrepreneurs when opening its hotels, Ace is never short of networks to tap. That popularity translates to power, as Ace works with real-estate develop-ers to attract like-minded retail brands, not only to the hotel but also to the surrounding streets. âWe like to keep the people who inspire us close by,â Aceâs Sawdon says. âWeâve been lucky enough to anchor all of these disparate
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retailers, record stores, and pop-ups, and that ultimately allows us to engage and collaborate with more interesting and daring people.â
Wilson offers as an example the Ace Pittsburgh, which began in 2010 as a conversation between Matthew Ciccone, a local entre-preneur, and Eric Shiner, then curator of Pittsburghâs Andy Warhol Museum. Ciccone had been active in an effort to revive East Liberty, a faded neighborhood not far from the Carnegie Mellon campus. âThe great part about it was all these beautiful pieces of architecture that remainedâchurches, storefronts, an old YMCA,â Ciccone recalls. He was hoping to get a hotel into the area. Shiner suggested he speak to his friend Calderwood, who was curious but hesitant: London was in the works, as was a hotel in downtown L.A. But Ciccone kept in touch, and in 2014, his firm teamed with the Ace principals to develop a hotelâwhich wound up occupying that former YMCA. (The Ace Pittsburgh won a spot on CondĂ© Nast Travelerâs Hot List last month.)
Investing in a fringe locale is a cultural choice as much as an eco-nomical one: a show of faith in a neighborhoodâs potential, balanced with a hunch that it wonât transform itself too much. East Liberty, Pittsburgh, is well removed from downtown and from anywhere your mother might want to be, yet its mix of old-man bars and edgy art spaces jibes well with the Ace ethos. And that stately Presbyte-rian church across the street? Now the congregants, many of them dressed to the nines, flock to the Ace hotelâs restaurant for Sunday brunch. âOur feelingâand this was something Alex was particularly good atâis that you donât want to just drop into a place and throw open the doors,â Sawdon says. âYou want to become part of the com-munity.â That notion has made the hotels gathering points in neigh-borhoods that didnât have them. Walk into any Ace outpost and youâll typically see locals meeting for drinks alongside overnight guests.
Their success has encouraged other hospitality brands to take a similar tack, putting hotels in places that might scare off mainstream developers. What Ace has done for low-profile neighborhoods, the Louisville, Kentuckyâbased 21c group has done for lower-profile cities, opening art-driven âmuseum hotelsâ in places like Louisville and Cincinnati. Four more hotels are now in the works, including one that just opened in a derelict Model T factory in Oklahoma City.
Craig Greenberg, president of 21c, wonât discount the possibility of going into established sections of major cities. âBut itâs a unique and extremely exciting and satisfying experience to open a hotel in a place like an old factory,â he says. Working on the fringes has its challenges, Greenberg stresses. âIf youâre going to an established area, itâs easier to get the required funding.â With an emerging loca-tion, investors can be cagey: Is there enough cultural infrastructure to support a hotel?
One solution, which 21c employed in Cincinnati, is the private/public partnershipâthe city teams with the brand and its investors to co-fund a hotel in order to reinvigorate an area. Greenberg points to increased foot traffic in neighborhoods where 21c has opened hotels, and to rising commercial rents, as indicators of the modelâs success.
B U T A S T H E market grows crowded with uniquely decorated hotels in transitioning neighborhoods, how long can the hipster-ho-tel bubble last? âInstead of being the eleventh Hilton-type brand downtown, you look to the fringe,â says Lauro Ferroni, senior vice presi-dent at real estate adviser JLLâs Hotels & Hos-pitality Group. âBut one limitation is there are only so many interesting sub-markets.â
For now, Ace is showing it can keep adapt-ing. In New Orleans, the Warehouse District had been farther along than East Liberty or NoMadâalready home to the National WW II Museum and five of Donald Linkâs acclaimed restaurants. A New Orleansâbased architec-ture firm was brought in, while Roman and Williams, whoâd worked on the Ace New York, collaborated on the interior design. Still, its in-dustrial patina bestows a frontier cachet. Head up to the Aceâs rooftop pool and you can gaze over the aging brick buildings that give the area its name. Beyond are the towers of the Central Business District, and beyond thatâunseen and unheard from the Aceâthe neon throb of the French Quarter.
âTo us, this location was the best of all worlds,â Sawdon says. âItâll take you 15 min-utes to walk to the Quarter. But youâre in a part of New Orleans you might not have explored, in a neighborhood we really love, and thatâs loved by the people we love.â Sure, itâs a bit off the beaten path. But thatâs the point, isnât it?
The Stumptown Coffee Roasters café at the Ace Hotel New Orleans.
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 61
Drink Wine, Eat JamĂłn, See No OneThink of Spainâs Extremaduraâa bucolic farming region backed up against Portugalâas Cortona pre Under the Tuscan Sun. Itâs the home of jamĂłn Ăberico, produces much of the worldâs best sheepâs milk cheese, and is responsible for the kind of crisp whites that are worth the three-hour drive from Madrid. Hereâs how weâre planning our next laid-backâ meaning, doing as little sightseeing as possible while eating the best food possibleâEuropean getaway.
HOME BASE
HospederĂa Convento de La Parra, a former Clarist convent thatâs now a 21-room hotel with a small swimming pool surrounded by daybeds. Its minimalist decorâwhitewashed walls, gauzy floor-to-ceiling curtains, and sheepskin rugs on terra-cotta floorsâis a welcome coun-terpoint to the dry, rugged landscape.
GETTING AROUND
Youâll definitely need a car, but to really get close to the areaâs groves of ancient olive trees and crumbling Roman ruins, get yourself on a horse. Jerebeque
Trails, in the town of Trujillo, keeps a sta-ble of Andalusian purebreds.
WHERE TO TASTE
Cerro la Barca, outside MĂ©rida, is one of the few vineyards rescuing the nearly forgotten Eva de los Santos, a slow-maturing grape that grows well in Extremaduraâs dry, hot weather.
Donât miss their Vegas Altas Blanco, an excellent un-oaked organic white.
WHERE TO EAT LIKE YOU LIVE THERE
In the town of Zafra, stop by La Mar-
quesa, housed in a centuries-old olive oil mill, for grilled meats, cheeses, and plates of beautifully marbled, acorn-fed jamĂłn. Be sure to order the risotto with Idiazabal cheese first thingâit sells out early.
THE RESERVATION TO MAKE
IN ADVANCE
At the two-Michelin-starred Atrio, chef Juan Antonio PĂ©rez relies heavily on local ingredients in his daily tasting menu, which includes dishes like frogâs legâstuffed tomatoes and truffle pĂątĂ© en croĂ»te. And then thereâs the wine cellar stocked with the worldâs best bottlesâHaut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour. E D N A I S H AY I K
Word of MouthIn the Know
Scents in the City
Geo. F. Trumper Ian Fleming favored the private, velvet-curtained booths at this over 100- year-old Mayfair institution whenever he needed a shave and a trim.
Nomad Barber LDN Miguel Gutierrez re-searched grooming trends across 30 countries before opening his East End shop in 2014.
Ruffians At this hipster-esque Covent Garden outfit, youâll be handed a stiff drink before you even make it to the retro bar-berâs chair. J O N R OT H
When the celebrated French nose Francis Kurkdjian created Mr. Burberry, the newest male fragrance from the British luxury brand, he drew inspiration from the great barbershops of London. âThe scent is about that freshness and cleanness,â says Kurkdjian. Go under the razor at any of these favorite Old Smoke es-tablishments to catch a whiff for yourself.
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Half Dome at Yosemite
National Park, California.
Close EncountersYouâve probably car-camped in one with your family, contemplated rock formations with friends in another while high as a kite, or hiked through their ancient trees and desolate peaks. Our national parks are turning 100, and today this vast network of rugged landscapes, biblical weather swings, and roving wildlife represents some of the last places where we can still come face-to-face with a vision of Amer-ica as it once was. Here, a few vocal partisans (some of them from our archives) testify to the parksâ continued power to shock and awe.
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Most of us pretty much know one version or another of how the national parks began, as if with the story of an old uncle (in this case the twenty-sixth pres-ident of the United States, The-odore Roosevelt), about whom family lore shifts slightly with each yearâs retelling. Weâve heard of how the Robust One, doing his manly things on a hunting trip out west, happened upon the caldera of Yellowstone and fell in love with it, and supported the ideaâunique at the timeâof making it a national park.
Never mind that the story is apocryphal. (Although Teddy created five national parks, Yel-lowstone pre-dated him, and it was Woodrow Wilson who signed the act creating the Na-tional Park Service in 1916.) The system now includes some 400 parks and historic sites, encom-passing over 84 million acres. Some are small (Hot Springs, Ar-kansas); others, like my favorite, Glacier National Park in Mon-tana, straddle two countries.
I took my oldest daughter on a daylong hike on the Granite Park Chalet trail in Glacier when she was six months old, toting
her in the front pack. At the chalet, I sipped teaâthe larch in the valleys far below blazing gold, the blue haze of the smoke from a far-off wildfire softening the mountains, the namesake mountaintop glaciers smaller than in the black-and-white photos from a generation ear-lier. She doesnât remember it, of course, and yet I believe also there is a deeper part of her that will always know the shape of that land underfoot as she bobbed in her sling, measuring in that manner each contour and the sound of the wind up high.
In the beginning, our parksâor the idea behind themâwas pretty much solely to serve our hungers, whether recreational (Yellowstone visitors in the late nineteenth century would sup-posedly wander out to Old Faith-ful, shove their laundry down into its sulfurous maw, then wait the 65 minutes for their steam-cleaned if malodorous clothing to be ejected into the sky) or spir-itual. (Iâm reminded of the great naturalist John Muir in Yosem-ite: âby far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter.â)
They were our parks, and we celebrated them almost as an object of wealth. Through sub-sequent generations, however, we have come to see that there is additional value beyond our original impulse to enclose these places, for they now serve as islands, gardens of refugia for our cleanest air, clearest water, and for a biological diversity which far exceeds that of pub-lic or private lands lacking such protection. Our parks house the minute, such as endangered but-terflies and delicate, carnivorous
P A S S I T D O W N
âOut on the Anhinga Trail, the only sounds you hear are the wind riffling through the saw grass and the plash of fish feeding on insects and one another and the great long-necked anhingas diving or emerging from the mahogany waters of a sluggish, seaward-moving slough. You hear a hundred frogs cheeping and croaking
and the sweet wet whistle of a red-winged blackbird. A primeval six-foot-long alligator passes silently through the deep slough to the opposite side, coasts to a stop in the shallows, and lurks, a corrugated log with eyes. An anhinga rises from the water and flies like a pterodactyl to a cluster of nearby mangrove roots and cumbrously spreads and turns its enormous wings like glistening black kites silhouetted against the noontime sun. Itâs mid-May, yesâbut what century?â
swamp-plants, and the grand: none more famous than the iconic bison and grizzly bears of Yellowstone, both of which wander that park with freedom but which are now at risk of be-ing hunted if they stray beyond the parkâs boundaries.
Today, we risk failing our legacy in other ways. We built roads and infrastructure into the parksâ interiors, encouraging people to visit themâthe parks, in that manner, serving as a kind of cultural currency to be trans-ferred, in story and memory, from grandparents to parents to children, and uniting strangers in the uncommon experience of wonder. But now these systems are defunded and crumbling, as if weâve forgotten them.
Conservation biology holds that the larger and rounder an ecosystem is, the more resilient it is against the external forces that would weaken it. Yet we are not protecting the parksâ flanks, the
S E P T E M B E R 1 9 9 4
Russell Banks on Everglades National Park, Fla.
Great Smoky Mountains
National Park
59Number of
national parks in the
National Parks System.
is the most visited.
100
R i c k B a s sAuthor of For a Little While: New
and Selected Stories
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âA few years ago, my daughter and I hiked up Mount Washburn. It was a glorious summer day, and although we had planned to climb no more than halfway, the top of the mountain beckoned. Standing at the summit, we had a tremendous sense of accomplishmentâand if the adventure had ended there, it would have been sublime.
But mountains and mountain weather have a way of changing the story, and almost as soon as we started down, dark clouds sizzling with lightning charged across the valley like an advancing army. The rain arrived first, sheets of it, and then the wind picked up, sending those sheets sideways. We joined hands and ran down the trail, counting the seconds between a flash of lightning and the sound of it, until they were the same thing. We were well above tree line, completely exposed,
running for our lives and feeling huntedâthe most primal fear. We made it, obviously, but just barely. As soon as we reached the park-ing lot and dashed into the car, a bolt of light-ning shot by overhead, entered the ground, ran up the roots of a nearby pine, and exploded out of the earth like a missile. And so, instead of leaving the mountain triumphant, we left it feeling grateful and stu-pid and humble and rightfully small in the face of the powerful, wild, spectacular indifference of the natural world.â
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Pounds of garbage hauled out of
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country at their edges, through which the wildlife and entire ecological processes flow. Gold mines, roads, clear-cuts, and livestock gnaw their way right up against the dashed-line boundar-ies of these sanctuaries.
What will the future of the parks hold? It is worth noting that the two words economical and ecological share the same Greek root. Beyond the benefits the parks offer us, there awaits a more mature perspective: the idea that beauty can exist be-yond our pronouncements of what is or isnât beautiful. And in that realization, a greater wis-dom might be made available to us. It is in the parks, and in their nearby wilderness, where we can still catch the scent and sight and sound of an older world that was beautiful back before we saw it and called it so, and which willâif we steward them carefullyâre-main so long after we each close our eyes at last.
â In the end, it may be solitude that the future will thank us forâthe kind of solitude our ancestors knew; solitude that inspired in their imaginations the creative acts which made our survival as a species possible.â
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Sue Halpern on Yellowstone National Park, Mont.
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T E R R Y T E M P E S T W I L L I A M S O N G R A N D C A N Y O N , Z I O N , C A N Y O N L A N D S , A N D A R C H E S N A T I O N A L P A R K S
134Highest
temperature recorded
in North America, in Californiaâs Death Valley.
Mesa Verde National Park
in Colorado, has over 600
ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings.
Grand Prismatic Spring in
Yellowstone National Park,
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Word of MouthReconsidered
I grew up in Palo Alto, Califor-nia, next to Silicon Valley. My parents had met in a painting class at Stanford in the 1960s, though eventually my dad gave up painting and went to Har-vard Business School. When my brother and I were born, in the late seventies, my father was re-covering from several substance addictions. He was completely clean by the time I was five, and though I was too young to recall him drunk, I do remember some of his recovery strategies.
These included weekend trips to Yosemite. The four-hour drive was always hell for my brother and me because we had to sit in the backseat. The last leg was es-pecially difficult since it wound through the mountains and made us carsick, and it was scary to think about the steep drop just beyond the small fence on the right as we climbed the moun-tain in the dark.
We always stayed at the Ah-wahnee, the old stone hotel that had inspired the designs of Kubrickâs fictional Overlook Hotel in The Shining. There was
an enormous dining room with a huge fireplace where weâd have breakfast before our long days of hiking. I always got waffles or pancakes. My dad said it was crucial fuel for our adventures.
My dad led us down trails. We went to caves; we went to the base of El Capitan, the boxy brown mountain; we went to Yosemite Falls, high and fantastical, like something out of The Lord of the Rings. There was very little talking on these walks. It was meditative. I imagined that I was an elf or a warrior, with Orcs be-hind every tree and dragons high on the mountains.
As a child I appreciated these trips, but not fully. They felt more like a matter of course, something our family just did. Still, I couldnât help but be im-pressed by how grand every-thing was, the mountains bigger than anything in my normal world, with their unfathom-able height and size foreboding death, things I could never con-tend with. I thought about the climbers who had conquered them and it made me dizzy with fear. Eventually the pull of my burgeoning social life grew stronger than the lure of hiking with my father and my brother.
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G U Y M A R T I N O N J O S H U A T R E E N A T I O N A L P A R K , C A L I F .
â Through the netting, we can see the Milky Way stretching in a symphonic arc east into high, bright space, a staggering view of the cosmos, but as we see it, fighting to sleep in Godâs own aerodynamic test tunnel, the cosmos is a huge joke of which we are the butt.â
Height in feet of Denali (formerly
Mount McKinley), in Alaskaâs Denali
National Park, the highest point in
the United States.
1,943
301
Depth in feet of Crater Lake, Oregon,
equivalent to more than 6 Statues of Liberty.
Number of endangered species
living in the national parks.
J a m e s F r a n c oActor and filmmaker
20,310
Polychrome Mountain, in Denali
National Park.
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When I was older I wrote a short story called âYosemiteâ in which I tried to paint the park as an Edenic paradise. The boy narrator is growing up, and on his final trip there he finds that the facade of Eden, and his un-derstanding of his father, are starting to crack. In the story, the two boys and their father come across candles in a cave that have been arranged in a rit-ualistic circle, and later, on the side of the road, a skeleton that looks human (things we actually found). The character based on me gets jealous of the attention the father gives to the younger
son, and recedes emotionally. Later, the father gives his sons the facts-of-life talk, initiating them into the sins of experience.
I gave the story to one of my classmates at NYU, Gabrielle Demeestere, and she adapted it into a film by the same name. She asked me to play the father character, so in December 2013 I went back to Yosemite.
When we started filming, not only did I experience a perspec-tival reversal by playing my dad opposite my younger self, but Gabby had selected the very lo-cations to film where my father had taken us: the Ahwahnee Ho-tel, Yosemite Falls, El Capitan. In the dining hall scene, I tried to drum enthusiasm into the kids, who were dreading another hike. At the waterfall scene, I had to reprimand the older boy (based on me) for picking on his brother, just as my father had done. Back at the Ahwahnee, I told the boys about the birds and the bees, and they squirmed with discomfort on the bed.
Through the eyes of the fa-ther character, I saw how much my own father had done for my brother and me. The time and energy he took to take us on those trips. The love and atten-tion heâd offered us on our hikes. But I also realized that he was healing himself.
When I think of Yosemite now, I think of my father. Walking in nature, being silent, staring in awe at the sublimity of the moun-tains were gifts he has given to me. When I need to retreat from the loud, hectic urban world that I live in most of the time, I can lose myself in those peaceful sanctuaries that my father re-vealed to me.
The best way to convey what the American national parks mean to someone from my little islandâBritainâis to see one of our own parks from the point of view of a visitor from North America. Finding herself in En-gland, a character in a story by Canadian writer Kate Pullinger notices that âthere are a few lakes, somewhere, but they are all kept in the Lake District, as if one canât allow lakes just any-where.â This makes it sound like the natural equivalent of some zoned âentertainment districtââespecially since so much of its allure (Wordsworth, the Roman-tics) is marinated in that special British preserve, âhistory.â
The American national parks offer an escape from limiting ideas of district and history.
Itâs not that they are timeless. Rather, you enter a realm of time on a vast scale. You wit-ness non-human or geological time at work as measured by the implacably slow, often incom-prehensible processes by which these marvels have been created. Itâs as if your watch recalibrates itself and starts measuring time in millennia instead of minutes.
Iâll never forget seeing the brochures sent back to me in EnglandâI was about tenâfrom an aunt who was touring the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert of Arizona. Those images of otherworldly landscapes and prehistoric light set a standard for natural beauty that seemed unsurpassable. I finally got to see these places for myself in my early thirties and experienced what has since become familiar: the ease with which the unsur-passable surpasses itself, even in the course of a single visit. The fact that the mind has been blown at Angels Landing in Zion on Tuesday does not stop it from being re-blown at Observation Point on Wednesday. Every time I go to Death Valley I find myself repeating the words of photog-rapher Edward Weston when he came in 1937: âMy God! It canât be!â But it can. We must make sure that it always will.
â This far north in the bay, the land is a mere infant, a bare, till-covered tabula rasa uncovered by glaciers less than 20 years ago.â
S I Z E D O E S M A T T E R
G e o f f D y e rAuthor of White Sands: Experiences
from the Outside World
âTo enjoy the park in summer requires submission to the idea that oneâs fellow humans are also part of nature. You learn to seize your quiet moments. Now the Grotto Falls trail was ours alone, and I was walking briskly, partly out of concern that my solitude might prove short-lived.
âJust then I heard my husband hurrying to catch up, breathing con-siderably harder than the steep trail should have warranted. He said, âKeep walking.â He was deliberately jangling his keys. He said heâd seen a small black bear ambling with her two cubs beside the trail. A little later we headed back down and there she was, the bear, coming up the path with her cubs. This was not the benign teddy my husband had described. This bear was enormous. We walkedâ very calmlyâback to the falls. The bear kept coming. Until at last we ran into a large group of hikers bab-bling with excitement: Theyâd just seen a bear and had startled it off the trail. How my heart went out to them now, how dear they suddenly lookedâmy noisy fellow humans.â
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Francine Prose on Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn.
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arrived in Noto, by chance, at the magic hour. On that cloudless sum-mer day, the limestone capital of Sicilian Baroque architecture had begun to smolder with the setting sun. Just then, as if on cue, a pair of older men in tweedy flat caps and of nearly identical diminutive stature huddled in a briefâand likely well-rehearsedâargument. In a flash, southeastern Sicily had revealed itself: the literally blinding beauty of a town square in full solar meltdown while ancient grudges played out in emphatic hand gestures and deep sighs under the long shadows of a church facade.
Earlier that day, my husband and I, along with our two young sons, decided to cut short our trip to the northeastern town of Taormina in favor of somewhere a little less raucous and touristy. From everything weâd heard, the southeastern tip of Sicily, between Syracuse and Noto in the east and Ragusa and Modica to the westâwith its concentra-tion of sleepy hilltop towns, accessible Greek ruins, and unspoiled beaches all within a 17-mile radiusâsounded like the right mix of high culture and much-needed Smashball time. A quick Internet search for a decent hotel with a pool in the countryside yielded a couple of pros-pects. The first promised to be a tasteful conversion of a seventeenth- century monastery, but when we got there it looked instead like a parched 1980s-era golf resort somewhere near Phoenix. After pulling up to the second hotel, a sprawling seaside complex with faux-gilded minarets and a colonnade of crimson flags touting the resortâs partner-ship with an upscale car brand, we never even cut the engine.
Both properties typify the regionâs fledgling high-end hospitality market, which has emerged around two categories of traveler: the European (and especially northern Italian) creative set, for whom this part of Sicily, with its caught-in-time humility, represents a kind of last frontier; and Sicilian Americans on their genealogical bucket-list trips, who often arrive to find that the islandâs battered beauty doesnât square with their Godfather-inspired old-country fantasies. In a rush to play
catch-up with more established summer playgrounds like the Amalfi and Ligurian coasts, Sicily has done what so many newly anointed destinations doâovercompensate with easy signifiers of modern luxury.
Luckily, I remembered that a friend had mentioned a newish hotel called Seven Rooms Villadorata in the heart of Noto, a UNESCO-protected, eighteenth-century Baroque masterpiece of town planning just 30 minutes southwest of Syracuse. I had enough cell reception to pull up some images as we wended our way over the dusty switch-backs off the A-18 that had taken us through hilly vineyards and arid scrubland, but not enough to get anyone on the phone. âI have a feeling about this place,â I told my husband, so we drove on.
When we arrived, I rang the bell at the stone archway outside the grand Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata, three floors of which house the hotel. We crossed a wide, sloping courtyard better suited to a horse-drawn car-riage than to our dusty teal sedan, and were met by Cristina Summa, a stylish designer and hotelier who grew up in Turin and spent childhood summers with her grandmother in Noto. For Summa, the acquisition in 2007 of the palazzoâs private apartment, and the restoration of its seven rooms, had been a lifelong dream. âWe wanted to re-create the
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The Baroque Church of San Francisco in Noto, made of local tufo limestone. Right: Sicilian raw shrimp at Taverna La Cialoma in Marzamemi.We
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idea of the Grand Tour that the rich young people of the European aristocracy took,â she later told me, of her inspiration for the hotel. âSicily was one of the stopovers where they were hosted in the noble houses to study history and art.â
Staying at Seven Rooms, which is neither a rustic agriturismo prop-erty nor a slick resort, is like spending time at the family estate of old friends. Built in 1731, near Notoâs highest point, the place feels in its formality much more French than Italian (as it turns out, the origi-nal owner had modeled it on a chĂąteau in Montpelier); Summaâs chic and pristine restoration of the 20-foot-ceilinged guest rooms, at once grand and understated in a World of Interiors sort of way, reflects the buildingâs architectural influences and Notoâs history as a cultural and intellectual hub. With a mix of antique French and Italian furnishings and linens, and a unifying palette of gray, chalk, buff, and oatmeal, Seven Rooms seamlessly blends old and newâa crisp foil to the is-landâs ancient, earthy grit.
As is the case across so much of the region, the original town was home in turn to Ancient Greeks, Romans, Normans, and Arabs be-fore falling to the Christians in A.D. 1091. When the medieval village was leveled by an earthquake in 1693 and relocated nine miles away on a hill, it was rebuilt from the ground up by the celebrated Sicilian architects Paolo Labisi, Vincenzo Sinatra, and Rosario Gagliardi.
Presiding as if with open arms and overlook-ing the distant Ionian Sea five miles away, the Stone Garden, as Noto is called, is where these urban planners first standardized the use of tufo, a honey-colored local limestone, to catch the light across the townâs three lev-els (nobility up top, clergy in the middle, and everyone else at the base). Today, you can see the full expression of their Baroque de-sign ideals throughout Notoâan optimistic pacing of gardens, squares, churches, and staircases with a fanciful mix of convex and concave facades and all manner of putti, grif-fins, and grotesque masks.
Itâs easy to cover the town on foot in a sin-gle afternoon along its two main arteries, the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the Via Cavour, which run east to west. Or if you use Noto as your base for exploring the re-gion, as we did, you can walk the streets at a languorous gelato-eating pace at the end of each day, as if you lived there. As we entered
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Clockwise from far
left: At CaffĂš Sicilia in Noto, where you can get the freshest cannoli with your espresso; almonds growing in the hills around Noto; in the Vendicari Nature Reserve, the ruins of
an eighteenth-century pier once used by tuna fishermen; La Cialoma in Marzamemi; the pool at the Country House Villadorata, a converted eighteenth-century residence in the Noto countryside.
town through the Porta Reale on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the imposing facade of San Francesco allâImmacolata Church appeared to rise from the top of an equally imposing set of steps, followed im-mediately by the Church of Santa Chiara (be sure to check out its oval interior). Outside the San Nicolo Cathedral, with its elaborate two-tiered facade and bell towers, a group of teenage girls eating ice-cream cones convulsed in exaggerated laughter while pretending not to notice the voluble boys in skinny jeans behind them. Meanwhile, a weathered, middle-aged accordionist played a sentimental tune, while his accomplice, a yellow parakeet, stood sentry on an upturned basket. Itâs both melancholic and wry, destitute yet full of beauty. You get the sense that this sceneâfigures in silhouette, backlit at the dayâs end like in an overexposed Kodachrome movieâwould have played out much the same even a century ago.
From left: Spiaggia Marianelli, a secluded beach with lagoons and empty dunes in the Vendicari Nature Reserve; a suite at Seven Rooms in the Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata.
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The Baroque refinement of Noto is always surprising against the surrounding rugged landscape.
â
bar and trattoria opens onto an unwittingly shabby-chic, sun-dappled deck by the sea. Try the sweet local shrimp, mixed seafood pasta with fresh tomatoes, and grilled octopus served on a wooden board.
Eating in Noto
Like Summa, a number of Italian mainlander transplants arenât just spending summers in Sicily, theyâre taking up residence here, lured by nostalgia for some back-to-the-land Italian ideal. As a result, a handful of charming restaurants have cropped up to serve a refined crowd.
S t andout GelatoIn the town center, a visit to the out-wardly unassuming 124-year-old
CaffĂš Sicilia, whose fourth-genera-tion co-owner, Corrado Assenza, serves almond-milk granita and cap-puccino ghiacciato (iced coffee with almond milk granita), is a must. The Ferran AdriĂ of pastry, Assenza is constantly evolving his confections, which might include hazelnut sponge cake with pumpkin puree or peach marmalade with a dusting of dark chocolate. Dessert, like the townâs architectural mix and local dialect, defies easy cultural classification, reflecting the French, Greek, Roman, Arab, and North African influences that distinguish Sicily from the rest of Italy. Our server directed us toward a lesser-known specialty: fresh buffalo mozzarella âbroken open with your hands, never with a fork,â and topped with citrusy bergamot jam.
Updated Sici l ian Cla ssicsLike the intimate space itselfâ a whitewashed canteen with barrel- vaulted ceilingsâMarco Baglieriâs dishes at Ristorante Crocifisso are a refreshing riff on Sicilian stalwarts. The unusually bright casarecce alla palermitana (pasta with sardines, fennel, and pine nuts) or fresh grilled
octopus and spaghetti with lightly sautĂ©ed shrimp and pestoâwashed down with a bottle of crisp Etna Bi-ancoâis the kind of dish you can eat every day.
Freshest CatchThe lightly breaded baked swordfish with cherry tomatoes at Ristorante Il
Cantuccio turned me into a swordfish loverâat least while I was in Sicily. Our boys devoured the homemade gnoc-chi with creamy pesto, which was topped with a dramatic heap of ricotta salata shavings.
A Minimalist ApproachAt Ristorante Manna Noto, in the Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata, the pared-back presentation of dishes like pan-seared octopus with artichokes showcases the chef âs rev-erence for local ingredients, as well
as a degree of Japanese restraint (the chef âs wife is Japanese). With a mix of mid-century decor and whimsical vintage neon signage, the restaurant presents an informal counterpoint to the hotelâs elegant design.
The Beach Situation
Within 5 to 12 miles of central Noto are some of the most secluded sandy beaches not just in Sicily but in all of Italy. The ones closest to town, Eloro-Pizzuta and Eloro, run right into the ruins of the seventh-century B.C. Greek city Eloro. A little farther south are San Lorenzo Beach and Calamosche in the Vendicari
Nature Reserve, a protected haven where flamingos, herons, and storks
In contrast to big European cities during the summer, this region of southern Italy has all the history of Rome along with the small-town breezy seaside charm of the Cinque Terre. (As many of us can attest, luring an eight-year-old through the Papal Apartments in Vatican City during an infernal August afternoon can make you never want to get on a plane with a child again.) Until you are in Noto, though, itâs hard to imagine just how close neighboring historic towns like Modica and Ragusaâand any number of An-cient Greek ruins and unspoiled beachesâare to the town center and to each other. This allows fam-ilies to achieve the summer vaca-tion trifecta of high culture, great food, and truly relaxing beach timeâand makes sightseeing, especially with little ones, feel ser-endipitous rather than onerous.
Getting to Notoâ and Beyond It
Itâs easiest if you can get a flight into Catania, just over an hour from Noto, though many international flights land in Palermo (three hours away). You will need to rent a car, which is easy enough to do at either airport. Fortunately, the main high-waysâlike the A18, which connects Catania to Syracuse and Notoâ are smoothly paved. Be sure to re-quest a car with GPS since reception can be spotty if youâre reliant on Google Maps (especially with a lim-ited data plan).
Must- S top Roadside MealIf youâre looking for a fantastic lunch on your way from Catania to Noto, I Rizzari, near Agusta in Brucoli, is a worthwhile seafood pilgrimage. The dark interior of this tiny family-run
Notes on Noto: An Insiderâs Guide
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Noto before sunset, when the streets come to life with locals on their passeggiata or doing their shopping.
Playing HouseIf youâre traveling with family or friends, consider renting the dreamy yet perfectly understated Villa Zisola for $10,200 a week. The six-bedroom estate sits amid olive, chestnut, and citrus trees and over-looks 125 acres of the Mazzei familyâs vineyard, known for its Nero dâAvola. The property, with an idyllic swim-ming pool, is ten minutes from Noto and five minutes from Eloro Beach.
Side-Trip One: Ragusa and Modica
R AGUSAAn hour northwest of Noto, the town of Ragusa was also decimated by the earthquake in 1693 and rebuilt in the Baroque style. But if Noto is all horizontal breadth, Ragusa spirals improbably atop a hill like something out of Dr. Seuss. The restored Donnafugata Castle exemplifies nineteenth- century eclecticismâneo- Venetian Gothic and neoclassical elements on a seventeenth-century structure. The trefoil arches in the loggia, man-made caves and mazes, and exotic landscaping are a wonder-ful folly. Itâs impossible to miss the Piazza Duomo, an open, palm treeâfilled reprieve from the townâs narrow alleys. Reward yourself for the climb up with lunch or a gelato.
The Ref ined TableLocated steps from the Duomo di
San Giorgio in Ragusa Ibla (the lower town), the two-Michelin-star Duomo skews a little formal. Here, chef Ciccio Sultano represents Sicilyâs new culi-nary guardâa native son who pays homage to his motherâs traditional cooking with ambitious dishes like maialino nero (black pork) di Nebrodi.
Local FlavorsHead to La Locandina for the kind of simple homemade seafood pastas that most restaurants tend to over-complicate, like the fresh taglionini with vongole (clams) and cherry to-matoes. Caravanserraglio, known for its pizza, also has a great seasonal menu of roasted vegetables and fish cooked in its wood-burning oven.
More S t andout Gelato Gelati DiVini does a memorable take on the ice-cream sandwichâthree scoops of ice cream in a brioche bun. Itâs also known for inventive flavors like Planeta RosĂ© (made with wine from a Sicilian vintner), Moscato Fan-tasia di Limone, and Fica Carube.
MODICA Just 25 minutes south of Ragusa, Modica is another shining example of Sicilian Baroque architecture, but the layers of Greek, Roman, Arab, and Norman civilization are more evident here. Modica is also the capi-tal of high-end chocolate production, which dates to the 1500s. The methodsâas well as those used to make traditional Arab and Spanish cakesâremain the same to this day at the famous Antica Dolceria
Bonajuto, run by Pierpaolo Ruta. There is one chic hotel, Casa
TalĂa, if you want to spend the night, and great restaurants.
Culinar y Time TravelAs the names suggests, Osteria dei
Sapori Perduti (âOsteria of Lost Fla-vorsâ) is known for distinctly southern Sicilian cookingâthink humbly deli-cious dishes like pasta con il macco, a brothy tagliolini with fava beans, fennel, and sage, or a classic bollito.
Take Home a Bot tleEnoteca Rappa is a tiny shop that specializes in Sicilian wines, craft beers, honey, jams, meats, and cheeses.
Side-Trip Two: Syracuse and Ortigia
If you squint, you can conjure this once-mighty city of 300,000 that at its height defeated an Athenian armada in 413 B.C. Cicero called Syra-cuse âthe greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all.â Today, it has one of the best collections of ancient ruins dating back to the eighth century B.C., including a Greek theater and a Roman amphitheater. Spend half a day at the site and the other half wandering the glorious bright-white island of Ortigia, where the Greeks, Romans, and Normans left their collective mark and where a restrained Baroque architectural style prevails. The sun-drenched, cafĂ©-strewn Piazza del Duomo feels strikingly modern in its openness. Within a small radius is the sixth- century Temple of Apollo, still largely intact, and the Piazza Archi-
mede, an homage to the native son and mathematician.
Lunch on the GoFrom a small shop with an outdoor stall, Caseificio Borderi turns out gigantic sandwiches (for less than $6) made from house-made mozza-rella and a choice of artisanal hams and salamis with chopped herbs, oil, and lemon juice. Wash them down with a local beer or Sicilian wine.
Fea st of the SensesOrtigia has a fabulous outdoor food market near the Talete parking area, open every morning but Sunday. Here, tables are piled high with the ripest tomatoes and peaches, fresh swordfish and sea urchins, and you can watch Sicilian vendors do what they do best: shout, gesticulate with big carving knives, and make sure you donât go home without something memorably delicious.
are more populous than humans and the pale aqua waters are calm and clean. One great option is to rent lounge chairs and umbrellas at the Agua Beach Resort, in San Lorenzo Noto, for just $12 a day; stay for a light lunch, like a plate of flavorful Pachino tomatoes with mozzarella.
Sun-Dappled LunchJust a ten-minute drive south of Agua Beach, you can have a proper sit-down meal in Marzamemi at the seaside Taverna La Cialoma. Order the carpaccio gamberi (raw local shrimp) or the zucchini with shrimp and any simply grilled fish.
Where Else to Stay
Seven Rooms Villadorata is the place to book so you can explore Notoâs his-toric center like a local, but for a whole different take, you might consider spending time in campagna as well.
Rural Escape Seven Rooms recently opened the Country House Villadorata, ten minutes outside town. Itâs an equally luxe property with sleek modern furnishings and a gorgeous zero- entry pool. Rooms with terraces sur-rounded by citrus, olive, and almond trees are great for decom-pressing at the end of the day.
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No American road trip looms larger in our collective consciousness than the one bound west. Last summer, Italian-born photographer Renato DâAgostin followed in
the footsteps of Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, traveling 7,439 miles on his 1983 BMW motorcycle from New York to Los Angeles, developing film
in hotel sinks along the way.
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Previous page, left: Death Valley, California, at high noon. âI think Mars is more hospitable,â says DâAgostin. Right: The Grand Canyon. This page, clockwise from top left: Holding a sun-warmed lizard; flora in southern New Mexico; soldiers from a nearby base walk some of White Sands National Monumentâs 275 square miles of desert and dunes, made of rare, blindingly bright gypsum; the iconic meander in the Colorado River called Horseshoe Bend; a working farm not far from Malibu; to DâAgostin, the headlight of his motorcycle mimicked the full moon; tourists queue at Niagara Falls; heading toward Birming-ham, Alabama, on a small highway leaving the Smoky Mountains.
âEverything changes,â DâAgostin says. âItâs hard to believe it is the same country from north to south, east to west. The landscape keeps surprising you.â
true
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he drive from Princeville down to Hanalei, on the North Shore of Kauai, is one of the better ways on this planet to spend ten minutes. Just past a sleepy one-engine fire station, Kuhio Highwayâthe islandâs only thoroughfare, which snakes along its rounded coastâveers left and descends down a bluff from Princevilleâs manicured condo developments into a lush agricultural valley of bright- emerald taro fields set against mountains so deeply, hauntingly green theyâre practically blue. (Itâs no wonder Kauai stood in for Vietnam
in 2008âs Tropic Thunder.) At the base of the hill, amid skinny palm trees, youâll find a one-lane steel-trussed bridge originally built in 1912. Cross it in the early evening, as the sun drops behind shadowy, cloud-capped peaks, and the mountains texturize, separating into lush layers of dense overgrowth, a verdant orgy of jades, limes, and chartreuse aglow in Hawaiiâs famously soft light.
S O M E T H I N G M A G I C A L happens on this drive. At the very least, you look up from your iPhone, and everyone in the car falls silent. People say they are âcalledâ to Kauaiâhereâs where that begins to sound less Bible-thumpy. My father-in-law discovered it in 1982, when a long layover in Honolulu prompted him to ask an airline employee what other island he should visit. At the airport in Lihue, on Kau-aiâs South Shore, he rented a car and started driving. A year later, heâd bought a condo in Prince ville, the North Shoreâs most devel-oped area, where thereâs a St. Regis and an 18-hole golf courseâbut no stoplights. For the next two decades, he would fly his three chil-dren to Kauai from Washington, D.C., for the summer. My husband and I still come every
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other year, if weâre lucky, staying in the house his parents purchased from novelist Haruki Murakami. Each time we drive to Hanaleiâusually to grab burritos at Patâs Taqueria, a re-liably delicious taco truck, before hitting one of the near-empty beaches outside townâwe revive a long-running fantasy of ours. Itâs the one where we pack up our belongings and ditch our hamster-wheel life in New York for a more contemplative existence out here on the most remote of the major Hawaiian is-lands, just a stoneâs throw from the date line, at the last stop before tomorrow. The details inevitably bring us back to earth, but the drive has lost none of its power.
Jim Moffat, a celebrated chef from San Francisco, actually did pull the escape hatch.
âI came here on a whim and instantly fell in love with it,â he recalls, grabbing a cold-brewed Maui-grown coffee at the counter of his new artisanal bakery in Hanalei. âI asked my girl if she wanted to raise kids on the beach, and she said yes.â The couple moved here in 2004; he opened Bar Acuda, a perpetually packed tapas restaurant, in 2005; earned a James Beard nod in 2012; and, last year, took over the townâs underwhelming coffee shop and replaced it with the Hanalei Bread Company, which sells insanely delicious $8 chai spice and coco-nut java drinks alongside homemade millet sandwich bread. Take a seat on the bakeryâs wraparound porch for some fantastic people- watchingâthis is the de facto town square, where tattooed surfers, attractive young tourist couples, oddly healthy wild chickens, and, de-pending on the day, Pierce Brosnan (who has a house here) all pass by.
Other than Moffatâs establishments, a new influx of food trucks, and a slight increase in rush-hour traffic, Hanalei has changed little in recent years. There are still no national chain stores, or buildings taller than a coconut tree (this is an actual law on Kauai), and no man who lives here
Previous page, from
left: A sunset surf at Hanalei, Kauaiâs largest bay, with two miles of beach; Wailua Falls tumbles 80 feet near the islandâs eastern shore. This page,
from left: Goatâs milk products from Kauai Kunana Dairy are sold at markets around the island; the waters off the Na Pali Coast, the site of a famous 11-mile hike; the Moeller family of Naikela Botani-cals, part of Kauaiâs growing sustainable farming movement; walking the secluded Secret Beach.
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seems to wear a shirt, ever. As night falls, the ring of exquisite beaches framing Hanalei Bay fades to near-black, lit not by high-rises but by the porch lights of a few bungalows on stilts set back in the trees (they appear unassuming but fetch millions). âSometimes itâs like liv-ing on an island in the middle of the ocean!â snorts Moffat with a shrug when an employee finds him on the porch to inform him that his restaurant and bakery have both lost power.
Delicious though his food may be, Moffat knows that no one comes to the North Shore of Kauai for a meal. Thereâs no better way to describe what one does here than the well-
worn phrase commune with nature. âItâs a heavy place,â says author and former pro volleyball player Gabby Reece, who spends half the year on Kauai with her husband, big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton, and hosts free morning workouts when sheâs in town. âThereâs not a lot of white noise or distraction, so you kind of have to deal with yourself.â This is a place where the surf is big, the rain plentiful, and the hiking legendary (many trails end at waterfalls or pristine beaches, like Hanakapiâai, the hidden slip of sand two miles into the Na Pali Coastâs famous Kalalau Trail). The North Shore is the last word in beaches, reallyâa mic drop of sand-meets-sea around every bend in the roadâand has been im-mortalized in films from South Pacific (1958) to The Descendants (2011), making the island an open secret in Hollywood. (Ben Stiller and Bette Midler own homes here, and Mark Zuckerberg recently bought about 700 acres near Kilauea, a former sugar plantation.)
While big-name resorts have proliferated on the sunnier South Shore, the North has retained a sort of outlaw anti-glamour, resisting so much as a boutique hotel. Residents have successfully blocked state plans to expand and elevate the bridge into Hanalei, which floods when it rains and bottlenecks traffic at other times, because the plans would have eased the way for tour buses and construction vehicles. As a result, Hanalei, especially, often feels like some secret Hawaii, a last bastion of undiscovered authenticity where itâs still possible to live like a local. Here you can watch Hamilton, who grew up on Kauai, catch perfectly peeling waves at the point break a few hundred yards out from the St. Regis. Or rent a board from the Hanalei Surf Company and ride some yourself at Pine Trees, the narrow beach on Hanalei Bay where local legends Andy and Bruce Irons learned to surf. Back in Princeville, you can walk down an unassuming path and find yourself swimming at
Queenâs Bath, a gleaming tidal pool carved by lava, amid fish crashed in by the waves, or waiting for a sea turtle to swim by before jumping off low cliffs into the ocean. (Donât even consider doing this unless itâs summer and the surf is calm; plenty of people have been swept out to sea here.) Later, youâll want to blow off your dinner reservation and pick up fresh ono at the fish market behind the kitschy Dolphin Restaurant, then make a picnic of it on the beach. Kauai rewards the casual and spontaneous. âSo many of the best experiences here are about getting lost,â says Aaron Moeller, 35, a Kauai-raised organic farmer and founder of Naikela Botanicals, a line of locally grown herbal teas and health powders. âInstead of having a destination, just put the wind in your hair. Check the waves at different spots, see whatâs happening today.â
To understand how the North Shore has retained its end-of-the-earth vibe, never succumbing to a Tulum-like fate, you have to know its past. As people who live here like to tell you, Kauai is the only Hawaiian island that has never been conquered, sep-arated from the others by a wide, ornery channel that thwarted King Kamehameha I, who united the other islands by force in the early nineteenth century (Kauai joined the kingdom by treaty in 1810). Its geographic remoteness has cultivated a sense of sep-arateness, with ancient inhabitants speaking a distinct dialect of Hawaiian. This history informs localsâ identity. âKauai is kind of the last bastion of fighters,â says Sheila Donnelly Theroux, a luxury publicist on Oahu (and wife of writer Paul Theroux) whose family has lived in Hawaii for four generations and who calls Kauai her favorite island. âThe peo-ple who live in Hanalei are the reason itâs so retro. I canât think of another place in Hawaii thatâs so preserved in time.â
Hanalei, especially, often feels like some secret Hawaii, a last bastion of undiscovered authenticity where itâs still possible to live like a local.
â
Like 97 percent of Kauai, the Na Pali Coast is inaccessible by road, meaning you have to hike or kayak in to enjoy its dramatic cliff faces and quiet coves.
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here were also the hurricanes. Iwa crashed through in 1982, and, a decade later, Iniki, a Category 4, devastated Kauai. The storm, etched in the minds of locals, took years to rebuild from. âWe havenât changed as quickly as we might have if weâd had a vibrant economy for the last 30 years,â says Jan TenBruggencate, a local communications consul-tant and newspaper reporter. Because Kauai lacks Maui and Oahuâs tourist infrastructure, it occasion-ally creaks under the weight of the modest crowds that come to admire it. Keâe Beach, at the trailhead
leading to the Na Pali Coast, has suffered for its famed beauty, with cars clogging the parking lots at the end of the road. Itâs one of the few genuinely crowded places on the island, which is why locals tend to avoid it in favor of beaches like Lumahai, where you can pull a car right up to the sand near a stand of ironwood pines. This is where I meet Koral McCarthy, a tanned, blue-eyed thirtysomething swimming with
her four-year-old daughter in the cold, clear river at the beachâs western edge (the ocean here is too rough for swimming). McCarthy grew up a surfer girl in Wainiha, a slip of a town just past Hanalei with a large popu-lation of native Hawaiians, one of whom is her husband. She recently opened the Ohana Shop, a stylish anti- souvenir bou-tique that preserves traditional Hawaiian craftsmanship by selling design-minded objects like hand-carved bowls and minia-ture surfboards made by one of Kauaiâs top board shapers, Bobby Allen. She represents a growing class of young North Shore en-trepreneurs who believe Kauai is special, al-most mystical, and that its culture and tight community can be preserved with conscious
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Saturday farmersâ market, which is rapturously attended by almost everyone on the North Shore and overflows with locally grown chard, bananas, juicy papayas, cacao, and coconuts with straws in them.
But few communal events are as pleasurable as drinking ginger margaritas around sunset at the St. Regis in Princeville. The hotelâs grand marble floors and dark wood paneling are delightfully out of step with the food trucks and barefoot culture of this place, and its bar terrace overlooks the east side of Hanalei Bay, giving everyone hereâtourists and locals alikeâa straight shot of the mountains and the electric-tangerine sun descending over the water. Tonight, Lyndie Irons, widow of pro surfer Andy (who passed away several years ago at age 32), her brother-in-law, Bruce Irons, and their respective chil-dren are at a table on the porch, glamorous surf royalty holding court up here in the sky as a smattering of locals paddle out to the break to catch the dayâs last waves down below. âIt never gets old,â Lyndie Irons had told me earlier in the week. âThe beauty here, we never take it for grantedâand Iâve traveled the world.â
small business. âThereâs always going to be progress,â she says. âBut this island has a way of taking care of herself. I donât think sheâll ever be overrun by anything.â
M O E L L E R I S A L S O a young business owner whoâs interested in redefining what it means to make a living here. Today, heâs walking us through his âgarden,â a wild, unkempt expanse of herbs and flowers with exotic names like Thai Red Roselle, Panama berry, and Mexican mint marigold, all of which are twice the size of any herbs youâd find at a Whole Foods. âYouâve never tasted fresh ste-via before?â he asks me, tearing off a bright-green leaf. The island still imports roughly 85 percent of its food, but Moeller and other young organic farmers are working to change that, stocking restaurant kitchens across the island with local fruit, vegetables, and meat. He got his real start on the Big Is-land, at a sustainable operation owned by a tech billionaire, before returning home to Kauai with his wife and young daughters. Here, he connected with Eric and Lyn Tay-lor, philanthropists from South Africa who had bought 130 acres of undeveloped land on which they planned to run camps for dis-advantaged youth. Moeller now farms his massive herbs on two lush, rolling acres that look like paradiseâor at least Jurassic Park, parts of which were filmed on land owned by the Taylorsâ neighbors. âKauai has the most idyllic growing conditions in the world,â Moeller says. Thatâs apparent at Hanaleiâs
Kauai VitalsT O U C H I N G D O W N You can fly nonstop to Kauaiâs Lihue Airport from nine U.S. cities, including Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
G E T T I N G A R O U N D The best way to navigate is by car. Both Dollar Rent a Car and Avis at Lihue Airport have a solid selection of all- terrain vehicles.
H O M E B A S ERentals are the way to go on the North Shore, and villa specialist Anne Pawsat-Dressler at Hawaii Hideaways has options ranging from two- to ten-bedroom (mostly beachfront) estates. For a shorter stay, consider the St. Regis on Hanalei Bay.
D O N â T H I K E I T A L O N EâTravelers donât realize how wild our landscape is,â says Sue Kanoho of the Kauai Visitors Bu-reau. âThey shouldnât navigate on their own.â Guides from Outfitters Kauai can tell you where and how to ex-plore safely.
From left: Hanalei Pier at sunset; a rooster wanders the northeast town of Kilauea; with Kauaiâs ideal growing conditions, farmers are harvesting an increasing diversity of crops on the North Shore.
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B Y J U L I A C O O K EP H O T O G R A P H S B Y M A T T H I E U S A LV A I N G
As a new generation of architects and designers
take charge, Portugalâs
ancient capital is emerging from
a long
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a recent Saturday afternoon, the broad Ribeira das Naus esplanade overflowed with Lisboans. At one end of the waterfront park, a kiosk did a brisk business in Super Bock beer and fried croquettes. Couples sat on a terraced limestone âbeachâ abutting the Tagus River, while joggers trailed dogs on a walkway above the water. Soaring wire sculptures towered over hulking stone benches, and stalky trees grew out of curious plastic planters. On landscaped lawns pitched toward the river, towels and blankets
formed a mosaic of sunbathers; behind them, blinding-white houses and terra-cotta roofs dominoed up the hillsides.
Later that evening, farther inland, a smartly dressed crowd filed into the Teatro Thalia for a violin concert, past four sphinxes guarding a neoclassical entrance of pale Lisbon limestone. The theater rose be-yond it, a tawny concrete box wrapped on the ground level in black mirrored glass. Inside, the auditorium itself was enveloped by the
on Previous page,
from left: Terra-cotta roofs near Lisbonâs harbor; the promenade in Almada, across the Tagus River from Lisbon. This page, clockwise
from above: Conceptual artist Leonel Moura designed these planters, which double as seats, for Praça do ComĂ©rcio Square; Manuel Henriques at the Lisbon Architecture Triennaleâs headquarters in Sinel de Cordes Palace; a dusty roseâcolored government building in the capital.
We are interested in breaking with the visual clichĂ© of traditional Portuguese architecture.â
â
ruins of an older structure: an irregular tumble of brick arches that surrounded the stage and the audience, like a crown held in place by reinforcing concrete.
Five years ago, none of this existed. Teatro Thaliaâs columns fronted the overgrown shell of the Count of Farroboâs private opera theater, inaugurated in 1843 and left to molder after a fire destroyed the build-ing 20 years later. Along the riverfront, trash littered the rocky coast-line. Such scenes of rot and ruin were hardly unique: The city council estimates that 12,000 of Lisbonâs buildingsâroughly 20 percentâsit in varying stages of decay.
Not for long, it would seem. In the next few years, the city will wel-come a major art, architecture, and technology museum, dozens of restored and landscaped public squares, several high-rises, a sprawl-ing new cruise terminal, and countless additional shops, studios, and cultural spaces.
The 2008 global economic crisis left Portugalâs unemployment rate among college graduates at nearly 40 percentâa potentially devastating blow for Lisbonâs burgeoning art and architecture scenes, and for a city then being touted as Europeâs next design hub. But initiatives launched in the wake of the crisis and aimed at retaining and empowering local talent have begun to bear fruit. Once-stalled building projects and ren-ovations are nearing completion. Local firms are subverting expec-tations with inventive, energetic results. Lisbonâs foretold boom may have turned out differently than expected, but itâs a boom nonetheless.
âWe are interested in breaking with the visual clichĂ© of traditional Portuguese architecture,â Diogo Lopes told me in 2014. Warm and thoughtful, the Lisbon-born architect was a partner at Barbas Lopes Arquitectos, one of two firms behind the restoration of Teatro Thalia. He was appointed chief curator of this yearâs Lisbon Architecture Tri-ennale before his recent death, at age 43, from cancer. âPortuguese architecture can be described cartoonishly as âwhite architecture,â de-liberately plain, relying on craftsmanship and heavy materials,â Lopes said. He credited the persistence of these traits to their inherent quality, utility, and ease of use. Lopesâs prescription for innovation, therefore, was to combine historic references with material experi-mentation, unorthodox thinking, persistence, and pragmatism. He had no interest in just changing the facades of otherwise traditional structures. âWeâve had to reclaim the right and the need to build this city, to intervene in the city on all its scales, not just with lightweight interventions,â he said. And Lopes was not alone. For the last decade, a loose collective of local architects, along with a few foreigners, has been pushing the ancient city into the future.
AT P R E S E N T, the skyline seems to hold as many cranes as cathedral spires. Much of the development is focused on two areas: the Tagus waterfront, in downtown Lisbon, and the suburb of Belém, which has become a culture hub. While many of these emerging structures make sly reference to the Portuguese vernacular, none of them will be remotely traditional, or deliberately plain.
One has already arrived: The new National Coach Museum, which opened in BelĂ©m last year, was designed by the Pritzker Prizeâwinning Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Two galleries, set inside a massive white box, sit atop thick concrete columns and cubes of glass and steel. Da Rochaâs spare architecture contrasts cheekily with the museumâs centuries-old contentsâvelvet-and-silk carriages painted with cherubs and angels, their Baroque lines set against thin slashes of windows. Like so much of whatâs rising in Lisbon these days, the
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museum slings Old Portugal aggressively into the twenty-first century. Across the road, the final touches are being added to the Museum for
Art, Architecture, and Technology (MAAT), a soon-to-open cultural center funded by EDP, Portugalâs electric company, and designed by English architect Amanda Leveteâs firm, AL_A. Levete has sheathed the museum in shimmery, fish-like ceramic scales, a clever reference to the tiles cladding so many of Lisbonâs buildings and a visual corrective to the hulking brick turn-of-last-century power station next door. Low and curvaceous, MAATâs form calls to mind the back of a whale, or an especially voluptuous serpent emerging from the riverbank.
Back in Lisbon, up in the hills, the PalĂĄcio Sinel de Cordes similarly slams old and new together. The eighteenth-century palazzoâwith its double-height ceilings, grand staircase, and faded muralsâserved as a primary school before it was abandoned in 2006. Six years later, the
city lent it to the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, which, in partnership with a local design firm, has been renovating the space to provide offices for an architecture magazine, a design collective, and five other startups. A second phase of renovations will install a restaurant and bookshop in time for this yearâs Triennale in October.
hat all this is happening just a few years after the economic crisis is perhaps surprisingâand much of the architectural energy rippling through Lisbon today can be credited to a remarkably progressive and design-savvy city council. Ar-chitect Manuel Salgado, who along with Vittorio Gregotti conceived the BelĂ©m Cultural Center, one of Portugalâs prized institutions, has served as deputy mayor and head of urban planning for about nine years. Under his leadership, the city has introduced tax breaks for building renova-
tions, sponsored community-oriented design projects, and offered leasing grants for small businesses. These and other policies were intended in part to keep unemployed young architects and designers from fleeing for Brazil, northern Europe, or Dubai in search of jobsâand indeed, even as the bigger firms downsized, younger firms took the bait and stayed in town.
The new generation is more open to creative integrations of disci-plinesâarchitecture and art, architecture and food, architecture and advocacy, architecture and performanceâaccording to Triennale dep-uty director Manuel Henriques. âWhen you go into a field and thereâs no jobs in what you were trained for, you adapt,â he told me. âThe con-text forces you to make connections between different subjects.â To-day, Lisbon is blooming with collaborations and cross-pollinations. Local architecture firm ArtĂ©ria teamed up with a group of activists in Mouraria, one of the cityâs poorest yet most historic neighborhoods, to renovate and restore a decrepit building. The resulting cultural space, Mouradiaâall polished concrete and bright-blue paintâhosts free DJ classes for teens and draws the neighborhoodâs young artists for wine and Saturday-night concerts on the plaza outside. Meanwhile, a team of engineers and a designer founded Fruta Feia, a cooperative thatâs significantly cut down on food waste in Lisbon. And the shop Cortiço & Netos, run by four brothers who inherited the business from their grandfather, offers a line of design goods composed of vintage tiles from demolished buildings and defunct manufacturers.
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Upriver from BelĂ©mâs museums, ambitious projects on downtown Lisbonâs waterfront are again moving forward after a recession- induced hiatus. A pair of mixed-use towers by the award-winning local firm Aires Mateus opened last year, and work continues on the new cruise terminal and a surrounding park. Last year, a city- sponsored competition put the winners in charge of renovating 31 plazas around Lisbon. And the heady list of design projectsâbe they grass-roots or starchitect-drivenâgoes on. Thereâs even a new walk-way up to the iconic Castelo de SĂŁo Jorge, making the hilltop castle wheelchair- accessible for the first time.
And yet the change is measured enough that Lisbon still looks like itself. Current architects are worldly, modern, and inventive, but Por-tuguese craftsmanship, materials, and history all remain central to their projects. Product lines like Cortiço & Netosâs recontextualize traditional materials; new buildings nod to old.
âWe have a generation of architects whoâve studied and worked abroad, yes,â Henriques said. âBut we still use a lot of traditional Portu-guese materials and techniquesâand we use them really, really well.â
Counterclockwise
from above: The Subvert Studio archi-tecture and design firmâs multidisciplinary team at a pavilion created for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Teatro Thaliaâs performance space; at the Mercado da Ribeira, which was renovated in 2014.
The new generation is more open to creative integrations of disciplines: Lisbon is blooming with collaborations and cross-pollinations.
â
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Tips, tricks, and miscellany: Our editorsâ guide to navigating the world.
B A D N E W SVirgin Americaâone of our Readersâ Choice
Awards mainstaysâis no more. Alaska Airlines is buying the carrier for $2.6 billion (plus $1.4
billion in debt), which means the beloved brand, and its mood-lit planes, will cease to exist in 2018.
U N B E L I E V A B L E N E W SWith the goal of showing âreal Swedenâ to
the world, the tourism board for the Nordic nation launched the Swedish Number. Dial 46-771-
793-336 and be connected to a random Swede to chat about, well, whatever youâd like.
The Case for Visiting the Big City Right NowâWith everyone heading to the coast, great hotels like the St. Regis in New York have more empty rooms in summer, which translates to deals for travelers,â says Century Travelâs Laura Epstein. âYouâre more likely, for example, to get a free third night during a long weekend break. And city hotel room rates are about 20 percent lower than in the peak seasons (Fashion Week, the December holidays). Be flexible with dates, if you can. If a hotel has holes, theyâre more inclined to offer you great savings for a room on those nights, so talk to them when inquiring and see what you can get.â
Brooklynâs Coney Island.
G O O D N E W SJetBlue will add its popular business-class-style
Mint seats to more than 70 transcontinental and Caribbean daily flights in early 2017. Bring on the
fully flat seats, legit food (heirloom tomato salad, lobster risotto), and Birchbox beauty goodies.
T H E M U LT I - G E N E R AT I O N A L
S A G A S T H AT E V E R Y O N E W I L L
B E TA L K I N G A B O U T
T H I S S U M M E R
Not exactly beach reading, these
books will be fodder for your own
family reunion.
Barkskins, Annie Proulx
(Scribner)
In her first novel in over a decade,
Proulx follows the families of two
French immigrants in 1600s Quebec
through a 736-page, 300-year-spanning
epic about colonization and
deforestation.
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
(Knopf)
This buzzed-about debut from a young
Ghanaian writer tells the fate of the
descendants of two half sisters in
eighteenth-century Ghana, one raised
wealthy and the other enslaved and
shipped off to America.
The Nearly Indestructible Camera
The $279 Olympus TG-870 is waterproof, drop-proof, crush-proof, and sand-proof. In other words, itâs built to withstand most summer vacations. Plus, its 16 MP camera sensor is better than your smartphoneâs, and thanks to built-in Wi-Fi, you can easily share your photos on Instagram the second you take âem. Unless youâre underwater (getolympus.com).
$177Average cost of a five-
star hotel room last year in Panama City, which,
according to Hotels.com, is home to the worldâs most
affordable luxury hotels. The most popular five-star
property in the city is the Trump Ocean Club
International Hotel and Tower Panama.
100 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
BY
NA
TH
AN
HA
RG
ER
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y D A N I L O A G U T O L I
Don
ât G
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mpi
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alr
eady
flyi
ng a
ll th
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ay to
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iro,
flflso
why
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wo?
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e, 12
So
uth
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eric
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el In
tel
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16
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e a
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en
ture
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ins
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ere
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uâl
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ab
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rd t
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12
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ss
en
ge
r G
ad
ea
n, a
14
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ht,
fo
r a
w
ee
klo
ng
ch
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er
cru
isin
g o
ne
of
th
e w
orl
dâs
lon
ge
st
riv
ers
. Yo
uâl
l s
ee
pin
k d
olp
hin
s,
ba
rbe
cu
e o
n
sa
nd
ba
rs, a
nd
fi
sh
fo
r p
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lon
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he
wa
y. 4
hou
rs to
Man
aus
1. Ta
ckle
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Amaz
on.
5
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAROL SACHS; ADRIAN GAUT; © GARDEL BERTRAND/HEMIS/CORBIS
14
Stay
in B
razi
l
2. S
ail t
hrou
gh a
ctua
l pa
radi
se.
Bra
zil i
snât
know
n fo
r nau
tical
ex
plor
atio
n, b
ut th
ereâ
s no
be
tter
way
to d
o A
ng
ra
do
s
Re
is, t
he g
atew
ay to
roug
hly
350
sm
all i
slan
ds, t
han
by s
ea.
Hop
a fe
rry
or c
hart
er a
sa
ilboa
t and
cre
w w
ith th
e he
lp o
f a lo
cal t
rave
l spe
cial
ist
(see
âHow
to M
ake
It H
appe
nâ)
to h
it th
e be
ach
at ru
gged
ly
beau
tiful
Ilha
Gra
ndeâ
whe
re
you
can
stay
at t
he s
eclu
ded,
sh
oref
ront
Asa
lem
hot
elâ
and
othe
r uns
poile
d is
les.
3
5 m
inut
es o
r 3
hou
rs
3. M
ake
an a
rchi
tect
ural
pi
lgrim
age.
The
cou
ntry
âs c
apita
l, B
ra
sĂl
ia, i
s fil
led
with
Osc
ar
Nie
mey
erâs
mon
umen
tal,
free
-flo
win
g bu
ildin
gs, i
nclu
ding
th
e N
atio
nal C
ongr
ess
and
the
Met
ropo
litan
Cat
hedr
al.
1Ÿ h
ours
4. S
umm
er li
ke a
cel
eb.
The
upp
er-c
lass
enc
lave
of
BĂș
zio
s c
augh
t Am
eric
ansâ
at
tent
ion
in 19
64 w
hen
Brig
itte
Bar
dot f
amou
sly
stol
e aw
ay
to th
e to
wn
with
her
Bra
zilia
n bo
yfrie
nd B
ob Z
agur
y. S
ince
th
en, c
eleb
ritie
s fr
om
Mad
onna
to M
ick
have
dip
ped
thei
r toe
s in
thes
e bl
ue-g
reen
w
ater
s. If
you
hav
e da
ys to
sp
are,
rent
a v
illa;
for s
hort
er
stay
s, u
se C
asas
Bra
ncas
B
outiq
ue H
otel
& S
pa, w
hich
is
clo
se to
the
beac
hes,
as
your
hom
e ba
se.
35
min
utes
or
3 h
ours
5. D
o So
uth
Amer
icaâ
s m
amm
oth
falls
.B
ook
a ro
om a
t Bel
mon
d
Hot
el d
as C
atar
atas
âitâ
s in
side
Igu
aç
u N
ati
on
al
Pa
rk
,
so y
ouâll
hav
e th
e br
eath
-ta
king
vie
ws
and
trai
ls a
ll to
yo
urse
lf in
the
mor
ning
s
and
even
ings
, whe
n ot
her
visi
tors
are
nât a
llow
ed.
2Œ
hou
rs
6. S
ee a
min
ing
baro
nâs
impr
essi
ve a
rt c
olle
ctio
n.T
he in
door
/out
door
co
ntem
pora
ry a
rt m
useu
m
Inh
oti
m is
sur
pris
ingâ
not
just
for i
ts s
ize
(bui
ldin
gs a
nd
inst
alla
tions
are
sca
tter
ed
acro
ss 2
,50
0 lu
shly
land
- sc
aped
acr
es) b
ut a
lso
for i
ts
off-t
he-b
eate
n-pa
th lo
catio
n in
the
Bra
zilia
n co
untr
ysid
e.
The
col
lect
ion,
ow
ned
by
min
ing
mag
nate
Ber
nard
o
de M
ello
Paz
, has
art
-wor
ld
cred
, with
wor
ks b
y O
lafu
r El
iass
on a
nd A
nish
Kap
oor.
70
min
utes
+
2 h
ours
7. T
rek
a m
ind-
blow
ing
sand
scap
e.W
ith n
early
60
0 s
quar
e m
iles
of p
ristin
e w
hite
san
d du
nes,
riv
ers,
and
fres
hwat
er p
onds
, L
en
çó
is M
ar
an
he
ns
es
Na
tio
na
l P
ar
k m
akes
for
a su
rrea
l adv
entu
re. W
heth
er
you
expl
ore
by fo
ur-w
heel
-dr
ive
or k
itesu
rf b
oard
, the
ot
herw
orld
ly la
ndsc
ape
rival
s an
ythi
ng o
n th
e co
ntin
ent
(incl
udin
g th
e B
oliv
ian
salt
flats
). G
ettin
g ar
ound
take
s tim
e, s
o bu
dget
at l
east
a
wee
k. L
odge
s an
d ca
bins
are
ba
sic,
but
som
e to
ur
com
pani
es (l
ike
Mat
ueté
) pr
ovid
e th
eir o
wn
upgr
ades
. 3
Œ h
ours
+
4 h
ours
8. B
e ch
arm
ed b
y Br
azilâ
s pr
ettie
st c
olon
ial t
own.
Ever
yone
love
s th
e go
rgeo
us
low
-slu
ng s
ixte
enth
-cen
tury
to
wn
of P
ar
aty
, kno
wn
for i
ts
smal
l hot
els
in re
nova
ted
man
sion
s (a
t Cas
a Tu
rque
sa,
ever
y gu
est g
ets
a pa
ir of
H
avai
anas
on
arriv
al).
The
reâs
no
t muc
h to
do
but h
it th
e pa
lm-b
acke
d sa
ndy
beac
hes,
but a
fter
figh
ting
crow
ds
in R
io, t
hat m
ay b
e ex
actly
w
hat y
ouâre
look
ing
for.
4
5 m
inut
es o
r 4
hou
rs
9. R
elax
on
the
beac
h
with
the
beau
tiful
peo
ple.
Fash
ion
type
s an
d la
psed
hi
ppie
s ha
ve tu
rned
the
rem
ote
fishi
ng v
illag
e of
T
ra
nc
os
o in
to a
n id
yllic
, st
ylis
h es
cape
on
the
Atla
ntic
. S
tay
at th
e 11
-bun
galo
w U
xua
Cas
a H
otel
& S
pa, o
pene
d
in 2
00
9 by
form
er D
iese
l cr
eativ
e di
rect
or W
ilber
t Das
, w
ho fi
lled
it w
ith v
inta
ge
furn
ishi
ngs
and
colo
rful
art
. 1œ
hou
rs +
1œ
hou
rs
Or G
o B
eyon
d
10. P
arty
in B
ueno
s Ai
res.
Boo
k a
Park
Sui
te a
t the
Pa
laci
o D
uhau
âPar
k H
yatt
in
leaf
y R
ec
ole
ta,
have
a w
ood-
grill
ed ri
b ey
e at
Mira
nda
in
Pal
erm
o, th
en d
rink
Fern
et
and
Coc
a-C
ola
at th
e Fa
ena
until
wel
l pas
t mid
nigh
t. 3
œ h
ours
11. T
ick
Urug
uay
off y
our l
ist.
In th
e w
alka
ble
seas
ide
capi
tal
of M
on
tev
ide
o, y
ouâll
find
pa
stel
col
onia
l-er
a bu
ildin
gs
and
rest
aura
nts
like
Jaci
nto,
w
here
che
f Luc
Ăa S
oria
ser
ves
light
, veg
etab
le-c
entr
ic d
ishe
s su
ch a
s a
leek
and
pum
pkin
ta
rt. S
tay
at th
e 15
-roo
m A
lma
His
tĂłric
a B
outiq
ue H
otel
, ov
erlo
okin
g do
wnt
ownâ
s Z
abal
a S
quar
e.
3 h
ours
How
to M
ake
It H
appe
n If the idea of driving
Brazilâs famously chaotic
highways doesnât sound
like a vacation, call on
Brazil travel experts
Paul Irvine of Dehouche,
Jill Siegel of South
American Escapes, or
Martin Frankenberg of
Matueté, who can coordi-
nate drivers, guides,
and logistics. Find them
at cntraveler.com/
travel-specialists.
12. E
at a
nd d
rink
your
w
ay th
roug
h Sa
ntia
go.
With
gre
at h
otel
s (T
he
Sin
gula
r), r
esta
uran
ts (B
orag
Ăł),
and
win
e ba
rs (B
ocan
ĂĄriz
), C
hile
âs c
apita
l is
one
of S
outh
A
mer
icaâ
s be
st fo
od c
ities
. 4
Ÿ h
ours
âMos
t tra
vele
rs
say
that
a v
isit
to
Para
ty is
the
high
light
of t
heir
entir
e st
ay in
Br
azil,
â say
s tra
vel
spec
ialis
t Jill
Sie
gel.
âRai
n fo
rest
â co
vere
d m
ount
ains
fr
ame
turq
uois
e w
ater
s, a
nd th
e vi
llage
seem
s to
have
st
oppe
d in
tim
e.â
Ave
rage
cos
t of a
flig
ht
from
the
U.S
. to
Rio
th
is A
ugus
t, ac
cord
ing
to K
ayak
. For
S
epte
mbe
r trip
s, it
dr
ops
to $
754.
1,001
DOLL
ARS
9
4
J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6 / C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R 103I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P E T E R O U M A N S K I
Travel Intel
CONDà NAST TRAVELER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT © 2016 CONDà NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
VOLUME 51, NO. 6, CONDà NAST TRAVELER (ISSN 0893-9683) is published monthly (except for a combined issue in June/July) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. S.I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman Emeritus; Charles H. Townsend, Chairman; Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., President & Chief Executive Officer; David E. Geithner, Chief Financial Officer; Jill Bright, Chief Administrative Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, New York, and at additional mailing offices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.
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On a flight, I always
My favorite airport is
The first thing I do
in a hotel room is
The next city I want to visit is
7 Number of weeks in advance you should book your Labor Day airfare for the best deal, according to the flight-search site Hipmunk. This year, that means buy on July 18.
Reader Tom H. contacted British Airways multiple times about his refund, but it wasnât
until Ombudsman called that he got his money back. If youâd rather avoid the hassle, consider cut-ting your airline out of the equation entirely by using a private shipper. Luggage Forward, for example, guarantees on-time delivery of bags and is particularly handy when sending bulky items such as golf clubs, surfboards, andâyepâbikes.
Last summer, I flew to Bologna, Italy, on British Airways for a cycling vacation.
I checked my bike and gear, and when they didnât arrive on time, the airline said that it would reim-burse me for a temporary bike rental and the purchase of new cycling shoes and clothes while it tracked down my things. But when I filed my receipts for a total of $759.87, my refund request stalled. Can you help? Tom H., Squamish, B.C.
Q
A
O M B U D S M A N
Checked Please
Need help solving a travel problem? Ombudsman offers advice and mediation: E-mail [email protected].
M O R E A R T T O L O V E
Londonâs Tate Modern will open a new Herzog & de
Meuronâdesigned wing called the Switch House on
June 17, increasing the size of the museum by a massive
60 percent. Here are three tips on making the most of
a visit, from members of the Tate team.
1. Get There Early The wingâs first exhibitionâ
of twentieth-century photography collected by Sir
Elton Johnâwill draw crowds, so be there by 10 A.M.,
when the doors open. Weekdays are typically less trafficked than weekends.
2. Donât Miss This Piece Solemn Process, an abstract,
room-size, multimedia installation by Romaniaâs
Ana LupaĆ.
3. BYO Guide The new Tate app has rich
annotations on every piece in the collection and helpful
maps for navigating the museum complex.
16,000 Miles Logged Last Year
Architect Andres Soliz Paz, of the firm Escobedo Soliz, whose Weaving the Courtyard installation takes over N.Y.C.âs MoMA PS1 this summer, on the importance of airport design and a long playlist.
When my dad was 15 years old, he was a paperboy in Staten Island, New York, and entered the Young Columbus contest sponsored by the newspaper and Parade magazine. His essay won him an all-expense-paid trip to Portugal and Spain alongside 92 other paperboys from around the country. On April 15, 1965, my grandparents dropped off their son, whoâd never been farther than Washington, D.C., at JFKâs then newish TWA Terminal by Eero Saarinen. âItâs fascinating that my parents were fine with handing me off to strangers for two weeks,â my dad recalls. âAll they asked was when they had to pick me up.â On Easter Sunday he saw a bullfight in Lisbon, then he and the group were off to the beaches of Gibraltar and the Alhambra in Granada. In Madrid, the last stop, my dad snuck out after curfew. âI remember walking around the city alone. I felt so free.â He doesnât remember exactly where he picked up this castanetââmaybe at a flamenco club?ââbut he bought it, along with a silk scarf and an ashtray, for my grandmother. âThough I did bring home a souvenir for myself,â he says. âIt was a Beatles record I found in Madrid titled Dinero.â L AU R E N D E C A R L O , A R T I C L E S E D I T O R
His Longest Route
Souvenir
106 C O N D Ă N A S T T R AV E L E R / J U N E / J U LY 2 0 1 6
PR
OP
ST
YL
ING
BY
EL
IZA
BE
TH
PR
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P H O T O G R A P H B Y S T E P H E N L E W I S
Chronic Dry Eye can limit your ability to perform daily
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options are available.
It may surprise you that if youâre
experiencing any of these symptoms,
you may have Chronic Dry Eye disease:
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YOUR YOUR
DRYDRYDRYEYESEYESEYES
DONâT DONâT DONâT DENYDENYDENY
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u Sensitivity to light
u Blurry vision
u Problems wearing
contact lenses
u Watering eyes