Jackson Square is the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, anchored by St. Louis Cathedral built in 1718, located next to the Cabildo where the Lousiana Purchase was signed. Like a French Legionnaire banded about the middle in cast iron, the balcony at Muriel’s Jackson Square restaurant overlooks the park and gardens where street performers are throughout the day telling fortunes, doing magic tricks and playing jazz trumpet and tuba.
The culinary scene in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico is steaming hot with a new sense of energy and experimentation. The factors leading up to the city’s foodie resurgence are many. The trendiness of tapas, fusion cooking, mojitos and martinis, and Latin popular culture in general have all spurred demand. And
A batch of cruise companies develop their own theme cruise inventories, which takes all kinds of work off the planner’s plate before they even pick up the phone. All your group needs to do is show up, because the entertainment’s already booked. Likewise the professional chefs, baseball players, photographers and a host of others.
Claire Jones’ title is “Aura Experience Manager” at ME Barcelona. It’s her job to create the type of vibe that young executives demand today at Sol Melia Hotel’s “experience-based” hotel in Catalonia’s capital.
In cowboy lingo, a “cutting horse” is a horse adept at walking sideways and even backwards to help ranch hands maneuver between cows to “cut” them from the herd. With a real cowboy at the reins, it can be a thing of beauty, where man and animal work together in unison with almost choreographed dexterity. It’s not quite as pretty with first-time city slickers whose typical interaction with beef involves bernaise or a nice mushroom/cab demi-glace.
“When I first came here and saw this hole, I said wow, that’s a big bastard,” informs Braun. He tells me he brought canyoning to the Americas from Europe, and once operated 22 bases for his global adventure company, including heli-skiing in Kashmir, which he had to shut down because locals kept shooting at the choppers.
In 1492, Columbus bumped into The Bahamas. He sailed south looking for land with a protected harbor and plentiful natural resources. He found that in the Dominican Republic and settled the first European outpost west of the Azores.
The Las Vegas CVA calls it Neon to Nature. Las Vegas beyond the nightlife is a galaxy of possibilities where groups can ski in the morning, ride horses in the afternoon, supper at star-chef restaurants, and then venture out into the black expanse to watch for UFO landings. Red Rock Canyon is a blast of fiery rock formations about 17 miles west of the Strip, starting with a worthwhile Bureau of Land Management visitor’s center at the entrance to explain the natural history, offer maps and discuss details of the 22 marked trails found along the route.
It is the intersection of dreams. Four corners of impossible romance and weighty history in the middle of Madrid, with two of the world’s greatest art collections and two of Europe’s finest grand hotels. And yes, one Starbucks.
There was a time when Ritz-Carlton hotel design across the brand represented a British Colonial-style stoicism. It spoke to somewhat conservative, affluent guests who valued classic, discreet service standards above all else. Times have changed.