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INTELLIGENT TRAVEL | | 1. The Inn at Little Washington Celebrates 30 Years | | Hotel Central editor Susan O’Keefe interviews Patrick O'Connell, proprietor and chef of the acclaimed restaurant and inn, the Inn at Little Washington, two hours west of Washington D.C. The inn, which has received numerous awards, including a spot in the International Herald Tribune’s top ten list of world’s best restaurants, will celebrate it’s 30th anniversary at the end of this month. “We're becoming a self-sufficient farmstead with the recent addition of our own agricultural area that includes an orchard of Montmorency cherries—a small but full-of-flavor cherry that will be used in our jellies and clafouti dessert in the restaurant,” says O'Connell. “We're raising a colony of bees for pollination and for creating our own honey, and we'll introduce sheep and llamas that will graze in a meadow. We've developed a network of local farmers who custom-grow vegetables that aren't the size of my leg—small zucchini and eggplant that are flavorful. Paths from this area will link to the inn and cottages and allow guests to walk to the orchards and see what's growing in the herb and vegetable gardens—all featured in our dishes daily.” Read more about the inn’s new additions, like the Claiborne House, a two-bedroom hideaway with its own dining room, library, and formal garden. |
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PHOTO OF THE WEEK | | 2.Buddha of Sichuan Province | |  “I've seen many many Buddhas during my decades as a photographer in Asia," says veteran China shooter Michael Yamashita, "and this Buddha, in the city of Leshan in Sichuan Province, is the most stunning. It is the largest Buddha in the world—233 feet high—carved right out of a cliffside that drops almost sheer to a river below. The huge figure sits in a sort of alcove overlooking the river, which makes it look enthroned. Arriving by boat, I was utterly unprepared for the enormity, the scale, of the thing." A World Heritage site dating to the eighth century and positioned at the confluence of three rivers as a guardian for boatmen, the Giant Buddha of Leshan took more than 80 years to carve. Download our Photo of the Week to your desktop, or join our Intelligent Travel Flickr group for a chance at having your own photo published on our blog. |
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THE REAL DEAL | | 3. Vienna Valentine Package with Airfare from $599 | | For a heartwarming Austrian getaway, whisk the one you love to Vienna for three nights with round-trip airfare between New York City, Washington, D.C., or Chicago for $599 per person. The package includes accommodations in a double room at the Albatros Hotel, a daily breakfast buffet, and hotel service charges and taxes. The Vienna Valentine package is available for travel between February 7 and 28, and it must be booked by February 21. Similar combination land-and-air packages are available for Budapest, Hungary, and Prague, Czech Republic, at a slightly higher rate. For more details and other vacation packages, go online or call 800 790 4682. |
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AUTHENTIC SHOPPING GUIDE | | 4. Passementerie: Purely Parisian | |  “Only in Paris . . . I know of no other place on Earth where frog's legs can be turned into a delicacy, where silkworm cocoons can be spun into robes befitting the Sun King, and where something as banal as a tassel can be transformed into a masterpiece," says Traveler's shopping expert, Laura Morelli. Some of today's best artisan passementiers are clustered in the Bastille district of southeastern Paris. In the Middle Ages, this area of town was home to the furniture trade guilds: cabinet-makers, joiners, metalworkers, and specialists in inlay and marquetry. Today, though undergoing gentrification, the area retains some of the flavor of an old-fashioned working-class district, with hole-in-the-wall workshops that transport visitors light years away from the posh avenues of the rest of the Right Bank.” Read more from Laura's column and find out where in Paris you can purchase your own passementerie. |
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DRIVING TOUR | | 5. Cruise the Amalfi Coast: Sorrento to Salerno | | "The road along the Amalfi Coast is one of Italy's loveliest, but also one of its busiest, at least in summer. It is also often tortuous and hair-raising, the price for sublime views being numerous switchbacks and plunging drops to the sea, often with only flimsy-looking roadside barriers between you and oblivion," writes Tim Jepson in the National Geographic Traveler: Naples and Southern Italy guidebook. "Writer John Steinbeck and his wife Elaine Scott described a ride along the road in 1953, when they 'lay clutched in each other's arms, weeping hysterically,' as their driver guide, Signor Bassani, one hand on the wheel, blithely regaled them with tales of the region's history. Try to travel in the off-season (April-May or September-October) and avoid morning, lunchtime, and evening rush hours. Allow plenty of time to explore the smaller roads at the peninsula's westernmost tip and the mountain roads that climb from the coast. Note, too, that although the drive may seem relatively short, the many bends and switchbacks make it feel longer. The best bet is to break the drive with overnight stays or allow plenty of stops for exploration en route." To see the rest of the tour, or to buy the guidebook, click here. |
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"At noon we were all at the café. It was crowded. We were eating shrimps and drinking beer. The town was crowded. Every street was full. Big motor-cars from Biarritz and San Sebastian kept driving up and parking around the square. They brought people for the bull-fight."
—Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises |
Click here for more reads from around the world in our Ultimate Travel Library. |  | | |
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