Don’t do mornings? Take a “Crack of noon” tour of Italy or France

by Laurel Miller on

Don’t you just despise fellow vacationers who leap out of bed at dawn’s first light, eager to get a start on the day’s activities? Do you hate trying to comprehend great works of art with a throbbing hangover? If your holidays often end up feeling about as relaxing as a day at the office, Executive Tours International has a solution.

The small, California-based luxury and customized travel company offered its first “Crack of Noon” tour of Italy last fall. It proved so popular, France has been added to the fall 2010 schedule.

This new take on organized tours features activities starting “after the civilized hour of noon” -ideal for those who don’t consider themselves “morning people.” Most days officially begin after 12 p.m., so travelers can choose to sleep in after a bit of late-night revelry, or have entire mornings to explore on their own. Limited to 24 guests each, “Crack of Noon Italy,” and “Crack of Noon France” allow travelers to explore each country, while giving them ample time to relax, recharge, and get some quality alone time.

The tours showcase the food and wine of each country. Italy includes Rome, Tuscany, and Venice, while France highlights Paris, Provence, and the French Riviera. Bookings close June 30th-be sure to set your alarm.

New York diary: six sweet scenes

by Don George on

One of the things I love about travel is the fact that no matter how well I may think I know a place, I always find some new surprises when I re-visit there. Take my trip to New York earlier this month. I’ve been to New York a couple of dozen times over the past few years, but on this last trip, I discovered new delights each day. Here are six that stood out. For those of you who know New York well, many of these will be boringly familiar – but for this out-of-towner, they were sweet slices of the city.

Restless Legs at the Lolita Bar
Early in my visit I was privileged to be one of the speakers at the mostly monthly Restless Legs reading series organized by the indefatigable David Farley. Restless Legs is a terrific idea that Farley launched in July 2008. It’s set in the Lolita Bar, which is a welcoming space with a long curving wooden bar and scattered tables, chairs and stools on the ground floor and a long, narrow meeting room, which Farley has dubbed the Restless Legs Arena, underneath. Before the reading, people congregated convivially at the bar over $3 well drinks and $5 margaritas and mojitos, then at 6:00, everyone filed downstairs and crammed into every square inch of sitting or standing space. There was a microphone at the front of the room and all in all, it was the perfect place for a reading.

The room reminded me of smoky, closet-sized jazz clubs I frequented many decades ago as a wide-eyed student making my first big-city forays (of course, in 21st century New York, the smoke was only in my mind). It also recalled descriptions I’d read of the beatnik poetry reading scene in San Francisco’s North Beach during the 1950s. The Arena is a wonderful space for people to share and celebrate a passion, in this case, a passion for travel and for writing that transports us to other places. After the reading, there was a break to go upstairs and crowd around the bar and down more libations, then we all filed back down, mojitos and Guinness in hand, for a question-and-answer session. It was a simple and magnificent evening shared with fellow travel addicts. Restless Legs at the Lolita Bar – check it out.


Central Park in winter
I arrived in New York on the day that the great blizzard of 2010 dumped two feet of snow and more on the city and surrounds. Two mornings later I went for a walk through Central Park with my daughter, who had taken the train in from grad school studies on Long Island for the Restless Legs reading. Being in the land of seeing-my-daughter-as-a-full-fledged-adult-for-the-first-time was a very new and wonderful place, but that’s not the place I want to write about here.

The other place that was new for me was Central Park in winter, snow-softened and -rounded, icy and white. One hill showed a scene straight out of Norman Rockwell: Kids in puffy oversized coats and big ear-flapped hats dragging sleds up the snow and then swooshing and whooping down, over and over again. The carriage-drawing horses snorted little white clouds and clop-clopped the pavement, a family fashioned a red-scarfed snowman in one corner and kids flung flaky snowballs in another. I have walked through Central Park in spring, summer and fall, but never surrounded by plump white boughs and snowdrifts, and it was a new place with a wintry magic all its own.

Soho House
You have to be a member of Soho House to enter its cushy confines. Or be invited by one. Luckily, a writer friend who happens to be a member invited me for lunch on a Monday, so I gained a new view of the Meatpacking District. On the noon of my visit, Soho House’s Sixth Floor, where the bar and restaurant are located, looked like a cross between an old English gentleman’s club – overstuffed leather sofas and chairs, chandeliers, the kind of place where you feel like pulling out a cigar and ordering a snifter of brandy – and a swanky cyber-café, with creative types bent intently over laptops everywhere, throughout the drawing room, around the bar and even in the dining room.

People were building websites, negotiating screenplays, dissecting books — the very molecules in the air seemed to be tapping laptops. And yet somehow a kind of Old World sheen and calm reigned in the high-ceilinged, converted warehouse setting, with light pouring in over 9th Avenue, chandeliers sparkling and crystal gleaming. The lunch was delicious – we both had what my friend called the “glam chicken sandwich,” a marinated chicken breast with avocado and a piquant mustard on some kind of artisanal bread – but it was the setting that really made the visit for me, so beautifully New York, in its energy and its exclusivity. The annual membership fee is $1,800, but you can always try to find a member to befriend.

The Breslin Bar and Dining Room
On my next to last day in the city, I met a veteran guidebook writer at a place she picked – the Breslin Bar and Dining Room in the Flatiron’s Ace Hotel. When I walked into the lobby, I thought I’d wandered into the NYU library or a computer convention by mistake. Literally every available sitting space was taken by someone with a laptop open; no one was talking, everyone was reading or typing. Digitally disoriented, it took me a while to locate the entrance to the Breslin on the left side of the lobby.

When I did find it and wandered in, I was benumbed and bar-wildered. The place was packed nose to tail with people bellying up to the bar and spilling over, onto and around countertops. My friend had managed to secure one counter and I ordered the $8 Brooklyn IPA East Indian Pale Ale and we yelled at each other for a while. The ale was tasty and everyone around us seemed to be having a frenetically good time. We didn’t try any of the restaurant’s famous meat-centric menu, but we did order chips — and were momentarily flummoxed when instead of the platter of still sizzling thin treats we’d envisioned, the waitress plopped down a plastic bag holding a dozen pre-packaged crisps. What was sweet about the Breslin was simply that it was such a scene. There was a raucous, rowdy, “It”-spot energy to the place – a perfect whiff of eau de courant for this visitor.

Basta Pasta
By a complicated suite of serendipities, I ended up meeting with a longtime friend and part-time New Yorker and his wife. I’d thought he was in India; they’d thought I was in California. And suddenly there we all were, on the sidewalk outside the Ace Hotel. To celebrate this unexpected reunion, they took me to their favorite Flatiron neighborhood restaurant, Basta Pasta. The moment we walked in, I loved the place. There was a joyous buzz and delicious scent in the air, the buzz emanating from the 50 or so satisfied diners at 18 tables, the scent from the open kitchen directly in front of us when we walked in.

My friends described Basta Pasta as an Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant, a concept that might seem strange until you take your first bite of spaghetti with tobiko fish roe and shiso and realize this is one of those intercultural marriages that make the world a better place. For openers, the fresh fish carpaccio was light and delicious and the cartoccio di funghi misti — three kinds of mushrooms baked inside sealed cooking paper with thyme, garlic and olive oil — was ambrosial. For dessert, I’d suggest the Vulcano, a luscious lava pool of melting chocolate inside warm cocoa sponge cake with vanilla gelato and fresh fruit. The service by our Japanese waitress was at once warm and efficient, and the atmosphere was infectiously exuberant, with anniversary and birthday celebrations and general goodwill all around. All in all, Basta Pasta was, in a word, oishissimo!

Idlewild Books
My very last stop before catching a taxi to JFK was, appropriately enough, Idlewild travel bookstore – whose name pays homage to the original New York International Airport (its name was changed from Idlewild to JFK in 1963). My favorite travel bookstore in the world is the incomparable Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, but Idlewild comes as close to that icon as any bookstore I’ve found. A pleasantly airy and expansive space, Idlewild has hundreds of intriguing travel lit titles, from the latest Jan Morris and Paul Theroux to classics like Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, and hard-to-find books like The Travels of Marco Polo and Miguel Covarrubias’s Island of Bali. It’s an exceedingly intelligent and stimulating collection, organized geographically, and a half-hour there will surely stoke your wanderlust. Since opening in 2008, the store has also become a favored spot for book events and classes, from travel writing and journaling to foreign languages. I wish I’d had more time to browse – but I’ll be back in June, and I’ll make sure to land at Idlewild then.

So, here’s a very personal serving of six sweet scenes. I’d love to hear your New York favorites too, so I can start a list of serendipities for my June return.

Advice you can actually use about clubbing alone on a trip

by Annie Scott on

Going out to the clubs at night is an important part of experiencing a new city. For many of us, mingling with the locals over drinks is one of our favorite travel activities. There’s a lot of finger-shaking, old-fashioned advice for staying safe out there, but here are some real tips you can actually use, even if you’re alone, which can actually increase your fun-times.

Make and take a buddy – if you can.

A buddy is not always possible. I travel alone a lot, but it doesn’t preclude me from going out at night. Always ask your hotel reception (and your taxi driver, and anyone who will listen to you) if there are areas you should avoid at night alone, and how late is really too late to be out. Make a friend during the day if you can, as you can meet up with them at night, but if it doesn’t happen? It’s okay. Stick close to your hotel and/or call taxis (don’t just wander around outside trying to flag a cab).

Careful who you befriend.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to get laid in every city you travel to … I don’t know how to help you. That is some dangerous business, even if you’re in your own state and trolling the suburbs. I would advise travelers to consider “hooking up” a big risk, and not a wise one to take on a night out in a strange city. If you’re going to make new friends, it’s safest to meet them during the day, then meet up with them at night. Added bonus: they’ll be able to recommend a cool place to go and keep you from wasting your evening somewhere that sucks.

Now, if you befriend Dr. Jekyll during the day, and at night they turn into Mr. Hyde, remember that you don’t owe them anything, and get the heck out of the situation.

If you’re out on your own and trying to meet new friends at the bar, don’t be looking to hook up with the hottest thing you see. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment or even danger. Look for people in your age group, who dress like you and are laughing and having a good time. It may be tempting (or less intimidating) to approach someone who’s all alone, but it’s much safer to go talk to a group of people; serial killers don’t usually travel in groups of friends who are laughing their heads off and having fun.If they don’t speak any English and you don’t speak any [language], be careful.

If you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language and they don’t speak any English, you probably shouldn’t go out without a bilingual buddy. Fortunately, most countries where one would go clubbing have a fairly developed English-speaking population. Just be careful, and listen to your gut. If you think the people with whom you’re speaking English are muttering bad things about you to each other in their own language, they may well be — and if they’re not, it’s rude of them to behave that way. Move on.

Plan the end of your night in advance.

Enjoying the thrill of the evening and letting the night take you wherever it may is a romantic idea, but it can be dangerous. Decide in advance which part of town you’re going to end up in and how you can get a cab from there. Furthermore, decide what time you’re going to turn in — lest you should stay out too late, spend all your money and ruin your sightseeing the next day. Going out with no plan is like wandering down a dark alley with no idea whether it has an outlet at the other end. Don’t do it — it’s not just dangerous, it’s also likely to be way less fun.

Put these numbers in your phone.

Even if you don’t want the roaming charges, etc., put these numbers in your phone in case of emergency:
1. Your hotel — and put the address in there, too.
2. Local taxi service.
3. Police.
4. 202-501-4444 (country code 01), the US Department of State Emergency Assistance to Americans in Foreign Countries line.

Now have fun, and click here for Five sexy ways to carry your valuables safely.

Death of a dive bar: Mike’s Place in Tucson, Arizona

by Sean McLachlan on

Your first dive bar is like your first love; you never forget it.

When I started college at the University of Arizona in Tucson back in 1989 I discovered Mike’s Place near the corner of Park and University next to campus. It didn’t look like much with its grotty interior, the smell of hot grease wafting from the kitchen, and mix of locals and students. But it did have two things going for it–the bartenders didn’t card much and there was a spacious patio where you could watch the sunset over the Tucson Mountains.

I spent a lot of time on that patio. The Cliffhangers, the U of A rock climbing club of which I was a member, gathered there at least once a week. We’d drink pitchers of Pabst Blue Ribbon or, if we were feeling flush, Sam Adams, and plan our next expedition.

The food wasn’t too bad if you were an undiscerning 19 year-old with no ability to cook for yourself. I usually ordered the hot wings. The owners claimed they made the hottest in town and while that’s debatable they certainly had some fire in them. My friend Chainsaw worked there and I once challenged him to cook me up a dozen wings I couldn’t eat. To this day I don’t know what the hell he put in them. He hurt me, but I won.

Then there were the nickel beers with Sunday breakfast, the slop bucket of extra PBR that turned Chainsaw off of drinking forever, and the guy who threatened to kill me with a nonexistent gun. Good times! Good times!It’s the patio and people I remember most. Fresh-faced college kids who couldn’t handle their beer got leered at by middle-aged drunks, while bikers guzzled gallons and kept to themselves. And in the midst of it all sat the Cliffhangers, partying late into the warm desert night but always getting up at dawn on Saturday to go climbing on Mt. Lemmon.

Mike’s Place has been gone for years. In the name of “development” the university built a parking garage next to it and a Marriott soon opened up. These blocked the view of the sunset and killed the main reason people gathered there. The bar shut its doors shortly after that.

The corner of Park and University looks different now. All the old places are gone and the buildings have been torn down and replaced with modern, clean, strip-mall suburbia. What used to be a tattered but living neighborhood now looks like just about everywhere else.

Mike’s Place lives on, though. It gave me an appreciation for a great human institution. I’ve been to many dive bars since, and have found that every culture has its equivalent. The chicharias of Peru, the backroom bars of Syria, the men-only drinking dens of India, all have something in common. They’re rough and poorly kept, places that look like nobody gives a damn about them but are truly loved by the regulars. Learning to appreciate dive bars gives you an unexpected passport to the world. Most tourists won’t go drinking in some dirty boozer where nobody speaks English but if you walk inside, grab a beer, and don’t look too closely at the food, people will recognize you for someone who enjoys the good things in life.

So thanks, Mike’s Place. All those sunsets and hot wings and drunken conversations actually helped me become a world traveler. Strange how things work out. Next month I’m off to Addis Ababa and I’ll be trying some of the local tej bet, the Ethiopian equivalent of Mike’s Place. No doubt I’ll get that old feeling of familiarity I’ve experienced in so many other dives. I wonder if I’ll find Chainsaw behind the counter cooking me up some hot wings?

The 10 Rules of Dive Bar Etiquette

by Annie Scott on

Dive bars in America are known for three basic things: cheap drinks, food that might kill you and elementary violence. There’s one in almost every town, and they are among our most-loved institutions. On your worst day, no one at The Ding Dong Lounge will judge you — and if you show up in a ball gown, no one will really care.

As much as I love fancy cocktails at, say, The Oak Bar, there’s something oddly charming about ordering a two dollar beer and a shot in a dirty, peanut-covered dive where you heard there was recently a knife fight. It’s a kind of urban adventure. That said, when you’re taking such an adventure, especially when you’re outside of your usual domain, you should observe some key rules of etiquette.

That’s right, I said etiquette. Etiquette isn’t just about salad forks and car doors, it’s about doing as the Romans do, so as not to irritate anybody or make yourself unnecessarily conspicuous. Blending in is the foundation of civilized society, even in bars where your shoes stick to the floor when you walk.

So here they are, The 10 Rules of Dive Bar Etiquette, especially for when you “ain’t from ’round these parts.”

1. Tip. Tip a dollar per drink, or two dollars if the drink is over $6. Any drink over $6 is probably a mixed drink, which means the bartender put in a little extra effort (presumably as little as possible) and has thus earned an extra buck. The tip for a drink over $12 should be $3, but if you’re at a dive bar where they’re serving drinks for over $12, your taste in dive bars sucks. Also, if you tip in coins, you’re doing it wrong.2. Don’t ask too many questions. The only appropriate question, really, is “What do you have on tap?” — and that’s only if the taps are not visible. Unless your bartender invites further conversation, tell them (don’t ask them for) your drink, then assume that their dog is dead and this is the funeral. Don’t bug them about how long the bar has been around, whether they own it, and don’t ask what kind of wine they have. They have white and red.

3. Don’t talk on the phone. If you absolutely must make or take a call, step away from the bar and head to the restroom area, where there is often the remains of a pay phone of yore. This is the only appropriate place to carry on a conversation. Nobody wants to hear your business, and when you’re on the phone next to them, they can’t help but listen and start to hate you.

4. Don’t judge the locals. Out loud. You never know who’s into knife fights.

5. If you order a round of shots, you pay. “Do you want to do a shot?” is an invitation to buy a shot for someone, not an invitation for someone to buy one for him or herself. You also must offer a toast. Even if it’s just “to drinking.”

6. Don’t touch the bar mat. The mat on the bar, as well as everything behind the bar, is sacred. The bartender will put the drink in front of you when they decide it’s time for you to drink it. If the dive is also an eating establishment, there may be a bar mat where servers pick up drinks for their tables. Don’t sit or stand there.

7. Smoking rules. You must not borrow more than one cigarette from anyone without buying them a drink. Cigarettes, to some dive bar frequenters, are worth their weight in paper money, and, when in a bind, they will smoke paper money. If you are going outside for a smoke, you must place your cocktail napkin on top of your beer, or the bartender will think you’ve left. If you see a drink with a cocktail napkin on it in front of an empty bar stool or at a bar table, you can’t sit there. Roofies are okay. (Kidding.)

8. Don’t eyeball the bartender. Unless you have official bar business like ordering a drink or a tab, eye contact with the bartender is an uncomfortable faux pas. If you don’t have someone to talk to, eyeballing the bartender looks desperate. Stare into your drink and contemplate your existence like a normal person, or ask a nearby guest about the upcoming weather (you’ll be flying or driving soon, after all).

9. Observe bathroom gender codes. No talking for men; obligatory talking for women (a simple “hi” is okay, but if you say nothing, you’re a rude outsider).

10. Keep it simple. Don’t order a complicated drink. The ingredients should be in the name of the drink (examples: gin and tonic, beer). Also, grade your drink on a Pass/Fail basis, not on complex ratios or emotional implications. If the drink is too weak, order a double next time. If the drink is too strong, let us know where that bar is.

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