Local budget travel secrets

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Most countries and territories have their own local domestic budget secrets that don’t get a lot of press beyond their borders. To call these local travel habits secrets is to miss the point just slightly, as they’re actually widely appreciated and utilized, though by locals. In this sense, they’re the opposite of secrets, even as they remain more or less unknown to foreigners.

This post is designed to work as a companion piece to yesterday’s post, which detailed ten real budget travel tips for the keenly frugal.

1. Gîtes in France. Every region of France sees this inexpensive accommodation option in great numbers. Gîtes tend to be fully furnished apartments or houses, usually in rural locations. Owners live on site or nearby and charge typically very little for stays, which often have be made for a minimum of seven nights. Peruse the Gîtes de France web site and you’ll find many listings for incredibly low rates, like a week in the Ardèche for two for €75 ($98) found during research yesterday. Here’s some simple division: $98 per week for two equals $7 per person per day.

2. Ride share in Germany. Check out Mitfahrgelegenheit.de for ride share information. Many Germans get around the country via this inexpensive and convenient form of transportation, which sees riders connecting with drivers who have open seats that they want to fill. How inexpensive are ride shares? Next-day fares for rides between Leipzig and Berlin start at €5 ($6.50). See this great English-language description of the German ride share set-up. The German-language site is broken down into domestic, Europe-wide, and commuter ride share spheres. Tip: Use the UK drop down to get your information in English and then set your search to relevant locations.

3. Rural tourism in Slovenia. Slovenia’s tourist farms offer very cheap nightly accommodation. Often meals are included in the nightly rate. This official listing includes 260 tourist tourist farms across the diminutive Alpine country. Slovenia’s tourist farms can be compared to neighbor Italy’s better-known agriturismo network, though rates in Slovenia tend to be far lower. Much of Slovenia is mountainous and offers a much better value than comparable Alpine areas of Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. Kmetija Birsa, one of many tourist farms in Slovenia, offers accommodation starting at €25 ($33) per person per night.

4. Spas in South Korea. I defer to Christine Ka’aloa for her suggestion that visitors to South Korea take advantage of the local gender-segregated tradition of the jjimjilbang, or public bathhouse for a restful and budget-friendly night’s sleep. Most jjimjilbangs are open 24 hours a day, and have sleeping areas. According to Ka’aola, entrance fees start around 6000 won ($5).5. Bungalow parks in the Netherlands. Bungalow parks are typically set in rural areas. Some bungalow parks in the Netherlands are low-tech, consisting simply of a number of cottages, while others are over-the-top, with tons of facilities for children. Take a look at D-Reizen’s bungalow park section for a Dutch-language overview of bungalow park deals. One recent deal turned up during research: €92 ($121) for two people for four nights at a bungalow park in the Dutch province of Limburg. Here’s a tip for dealing with the language barrier: D-Reizen operates around 170 travel agencies throughout the Netherlands. Given the widespread English-language abilities of the Dutch, you can explore bungalow park options with a live salesperson at a travel agency.

6. Camping in the Caribbean. This generally expensive region boasts a surprisingly inexpensive (that is, often free) accommodation option: campgrounds. Puerto Rico leads the region with 17 camping sites. Some of Puerto Rico’s campsites are run by municipalities, while others are situated within territorial and national parks. The US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands are also great places to camp, with several sites per territory. In the French overseas territories of Guadeloupe and Martinique it is possible to camp at a number of campsites; always check with the local mayor’s office in these territories to obtain the proper permits. Trinidad and Tobago’s Department of Agriculture operates a number of campsites, and camping is allowed throughout Tobago.

7. Swedish ferries. Sweden’s big ferry companies regularly offer insanely cheap promotional fares for travel around the Baltic, typically to Åland, Helsinki, and Turku in Finland and to Tallinn (Estonia) and Riga (Latvia). These cruises include both same-day and overnight sailings, and are much loved by locals looking to enjoy a cheap getaway. Viking Line is currently listing “last-minute” fares from Stockholm to Åland from 19 kronor ($2.75), to Turku from 21 kronor ($3), and to Helsinki from 90 kronor ($13). Tallink-Silja is currently promoting a 100 kroner ($14) round-trip fare between Stockholm and Riga. If the prospect of trying to decipher Swedish-language websites has you flummoxed, fear not. English is widely spoken among Swedish travel industry workers, and you can stop by local ferry company offices to find out about last-minute deals.

How can you find great local deals on the ground? First of all, remain flexible and receptive to whatever is especially inexpensive at the local level. Scour local newspapers for mention of cheap travel opportunities. In Europe, package holidays and budget flights are both great examples of the sorts of deals, many seasonal, that usually will not be advertised internationally.

Got a local travel “secret” not mentioned here? Right on. Add it in the comments below.

[Image of a gîte in Guadeloupe: Flickr / Toprural]

Q & A with Grantourismo round-the-world slow travel bloggers

by Meg Nesterov on

With all the holiday travel madness just beginning, sometimes it’s nice to take a breath and think about taking travel more slowly. I recently had a chance to meet up with blogger Lara Dunston and her photographer-writer husband, Terence Carter, of the round-the-world travel project and blog, Grantourismo while they were traveling through Istanbul. Lara and Terence hosted me at their fabulous terraced apartment with glasses of Turkish wine, travel chat, and views of nearby Taksim Square and the nostalgic tram.

Grantourismo is a yearlong grand tour of the globe to explore more enriching and ‘authentic’ (and they get how those words have been debated and abused by travel bloggers!) ways of traveling, which began in Dubai this February and will wrap up in Scotland in January. In order to slow down and immerse themselves in each place, they are staying in vacation rentals (rather than hotels) in one place for two weeks at a time.

Read on for more about their slow travel philosophy, tips about renting a holiday apartment, and how they found Austin’s best tacos.

What’s the essence of Grantourismo?
We’re attempting to get beneath the skin of the places we’re visiting and to inspire other travelers to do the same. We’re doing very little sightseeing and if we’re taking tours, we’re doing small group tours with expert local guides ran by sustainable companies, such as Context. Mostly we’re experiencing places through their food, markets, music, culture, fashion, street art, sport, etc, and doing things that locals do in their own towns rather than things tourists travel to their towns to do. We’re trying and buying local produce and products, and seeking out artisanal practices we can promote. We’re also highlighting ways in which travellers can give something back to the places they’re visiting, from planting trees in Costa Rica to kicking a football with kids in a favela in Rio. And we’re blogging about this every day at Grantourismo!

How did you make it a reality?
Our initial idea was 12 places around the world in 12 months, learning things like the original grand tourists did. Terence, who is a great musician and a terrific cook, wanted to work in a restaurant kitchen and learn a musical instrument while I was going to enroll in language classes and learn something different in each place. But we couldn’t figure out how to fund such a project. We were lucky in that I saw an ad from HomeAway Holiday-Rentals (the UK arm of HomeAway) looking for a travel journalist-photographer team to stay in their vacation rentals and blog about their experiences for a year. I presented Grantourismo to them, they loved it, and here we are! We’re in the 10th month of our yearlong trip, we’ve stayed in 27 properties in 18 countries, and we have a ski town and five cities to go! We’ve written 369 stories on our website – and only 27 of those have been about the properties, the rest have been about everything from winetasting to walking – and we’ve done loads of interviews with locals we’ve met, from musicians and chefs to fashion designers and bookbinders.

What’s the biggest difference about staying in an apartment vs. a hotel?
The biggest difference and best thing is that when you’re staying in a vacation rental you’re generally living in an everyday neighbourhood rather than a tourist area, which means you can meet people other than hotel cleaners and waiters. You can pop downstairs or down the road to a local café or pub that’s full of locals rather than other tourists. You can shop in local markets or supermarkets that are significantly cheaper. Sure if you’re staying in a hotel you can go and look at the markets, but your hotel mini-bar probably won’t hold much, whereas we go with a shopping list or we simply watch what the locals are buying, and we go home and cook.

You can generally get off the beaten track far easier than you can when you stay in a hotel. If you’re relying on the concierge for tips, you’re going to see other hotel guests eating at the restaurant he recommended. Then there’s the beauty of having lots of space, your own kitchen so you don’t have to eat out every meal, and a refrigerator you can fill that doesn’t have sensors going off when you open it. There might be shelves filled with books or a DVD library – in Cape Town we even had a piano, which Terence played every day! The privacy – we got tired of housekeeping ignoring DND signs, people coming to check the outrageously-priced mini-bar, and the phone always ringing with staff asking, when were we checking out, did we want a wake-up call, could they send a porter up. It became so tedious, especially as we were spending around 300 days a year in hotels on average. There are downsides to holiday rentals too of course. If something goes wrong the property owner/manager isn’t always around to fix it, whereas in a hotel, you phone the front desk to let them know the Internet isn’t working and they’ll send someone up.

What should travelers consider when renting a holiday apartment?
Location first. What kind of neighbourhood do you want to live in, how off the beaten track do you want to get, do you want to walk into the centre or are you happy to catch public transport or drive, what kind of facilities are in the area if you’re not hiring a car, and is there a supermarket, shops, restaurants, café, bars in walking distance? After that, the quality of accommodation – in the same way that people decide whether to opt for a budget hotel if they just want somewhere to lay their head, or a five-star if they want creature comforts, they need to think about how much time they intend spending at the property and the level of comfort they want. We stayed in a budget apartment in Manhattan, which was fine as we were out a lot. In Ceret, France and Sardinia, Italy we had big charming houses with terrific kitchens, which was perfect as we stayed in and cooked a lot. If it’s a family reunion or group of friends going away together and they want to enjoy meals in, then it’s important to ask detailed questions about the kitchen and facilities, as we’ve had some places that only had the bare basics, while others like our properties in Austin and Cape Town had dream kitchens.

Favorite destination/apartment?
We’ve been to some amazing places but my favourites have been Tokyo and Austin. We’d only visited Tokyo once before on a stopover, stayed in a cramped hotel and just did the tourist sights. This time we really saw how people lived by staying in an apartment, we discovered different corners of the city we didn’t know existed, and we made new friends. In Austin, it was all about the people, who must be the USA’s friendliest and coolest. We spent a lot of time seeing live music and met lots of musicians, and we also got into the food scene – locals take their food very seriously in Austin! We even hosted a dinner party there with Terence cooking up a multi-course tasting menu for our new friends. In terms of properties, I’m torn between the rustic traditional white trullo set amongst olive groves that we stayed at in Puglia where we had our own pizza oven and bikes to ride in the countryside, the penthouse in the historic centre of Mexico City, and the two houses in Costa Rica, one set in the jungle and the other on the beach, literally within splashing distance of the sea!

Funny story about one of your stays?
The funniest moments weren’t funny at the time but we look back at them and laugh now. At our the Puglia trullo we had terrible internet access. It barely worked in the house because the walls were so thick, yet internet is crucial to what we’re doing so we had to work outside, which wasn’t much fun in the rain. Terence discovered that he could get the best access in the middle of the olive grove next door; you can see him working here! The monkeys that visited us everyday in our houses in Costa Rica were also hilarious. One morning I was enjoying a rare moment reading in the sun when I saw a rare red-backed squirrel monkey run across the fence, and then another leapfrog that one, and then another join them! I quickly got up and raced into the kitchen to make sure there was no food left on the bench, turned around and there was a family of 30-40 monkeys trooping through the house. These guys are endangered, but it didn’t look like it from where I was standing in the kitchen in my bikinis and towel, trying to protect our food as the property manager had warned us that they know how to open the cupboards! The manager also told us to leave the lights on at night, because otherwise the bats will think the house is a cave. She wasn’t kidding.

How is social media playing a role in your travels?
We decided not to use guidebooks this year and rely on advice from locals, many of which we come in contact with through social media. We’ve met many locals via their blogs or Twitter. We use Twitter every day, as a research and networking tool, to make contacts ahead of our visit and get tips from people when we’re there. We’ve had some amazing advice from our followers, from restaurant recommendations to suggestions on things we should do. When we were in Cape Town, loads of tweeps said we had to do the Township Tour offered by Cape Capers and we did and they were right, it was life-changing.

Terence learns how to make the quintessential dish of each place we visit and often asks tweeps what he should make. We’ve had great tips from food bloggers who use Twitter such as Eating Asia and Eat Mexico. We’ve ended up meeting loads of tweeps, including a bunch of New Yorkers – bloggers, writers and travelers – we met for drinks one night, including Gadling’s own Mike Barish and David Farley, while in Austin we had lunch with ‘the Taco Mafia‘ from the Taco Journalism blog and got the lowdown on Austin’s best tacos. We also use Twitter to share our own travel experiences and let people know when we have new stories on the site and we run a monthly travel blogging competition which we promote on Twitter (with very generous prizes donated by HomeAway Holiday Rentals, AFAR, Viator, Context, Trourist, and Our Explorer); the aim of that is to get other travelers to help spread our messages about the kind of traveling we’re doing.

What’s next?
As far as Grantourismo goes, we just left Istanbul (where we were delighted to meet another fascinating Gadling contributor!) and are in Budapest. After this it’s Austria for some fun in the snow, then Krakov for Christmas, Berlin for New Year’s Eve, and our last stop is Edinburgh end of January. After that? We’ve been invited to speak at an international wine tourism conference in Porto, Portugal, about Grantourismo and wine, as we’ve explored places through their wine as much as their food, doing wine courses, wine tastings, wine walks, and wine tours, and really trying to inspire people to drink local rather than imported wine. Then we’re going to write a book about Grantourismo and our year on the road, and later in the year – after we’re rested and energised – we’re going to take Grantourismo into a slightly different direction.

All photos courtesy of Terence Carter.

Beaujolais Nouveau and old: a tale of two wines and two worlds

by David Downie on

Each year on the third Thursday of November, the world awakens with two words on its parched lips: Beaujolais Nouveau. The next morning it massages its temples and sighs.

In between, 40 million bottles of zingy Beaujolais Nouveau-the quaffable new-wine-are uncorked and spill their purple contents from Anchorage to Zhengzhou. Parties bubble into life, the biggest of them held on the eve of the official launch in the unlikely, homely little French town of Beaujeu, near Lyon. Long the seat of the aristocratic Sires de Beaujeu, it’s the mothership that squeezes and sends forth this annual vinous tsunami.

Under a tent the size of a sports stadium, penguin-suited waiters hefting giant wooden buckets pour gallons of Beaujolais Nouveau into the raucous gullets of some 1,500 merrymakers. The grapey, intoxicating scent of carbonic maceration from freshly fermented gamay grape juice fills the air. Performers in silly costumes belly dance or belt out folk songs to the sound of accordions, fiddles, drums and saxophones. As the fête reaches dionysian paroxysms, fledgling members of the Compagnons du Beaujolais-in even sillier suits-are sworn into the bacchic brotherhood of Beaujolais winemakers.

Outside, fireworks and torches, the latter fashioned from grapevine stumps, light up the façades of the town’s low stone houses and its hulking medieval church. There’s dancing in the narrow main street, and gluttony, guzzling and genteel debauchery behind half-closed doors. The extravaganza-in its 22nd year running-is called the “Sarmentelles de Beaujolais” and it lasts five days, this year from Wednesday, November 17 through Sunday, November 21.


Anyone who associates France with regal history, the Enlightenment, cultural sophistication and high-brow intellectual discourse might want to think again. This mega-festival for Beaujolais Nouveau is pure populism and, given the zeitgeist, increasingly popular. French political pundits, anthropologists and peripatetic, telegenic philosophers such as André Gluxman or Bernard-Hénri Levy should consider attending.

If you don’t happen to be in Beaujeu on the 17th you must wait an extra day: Beaujolais Nouveau wine officially arrives elsewhere on November 18. It’s launched worldwide with greater precision than a smart bomb. The masterminds are the big négociants like Georges Duboeuf and the region’s giant co-op wineries. They’re responsible for the lion’s share of the 133 million bottles of wine made in the region. But even some mom-and-pop and upscale boutique wineries join in the Nouveau fun. A single word explains why: money.

This is the reason the medieval church of Beaujeu, lovingly restored, sports several crystal chandeliers with nary a speck of dust on them. It’s also why the spruce town and region as a whole are thriving despite the recession.


The Second City


Frenchmen have long joked that France’s second city, Lyon-20 minutes south of Beaujeu-has three rivers: the Rhone, the Saone and the Beaujolais. It’s surprising that the ancient Romans, builders of Lugdunum-alias Lyon-and makers of the first Beaujolais wines, didn’t build a vinoduct from the region’s vineyards to their capacious arena. Nowadays the environmentally friendly solution would be a pipeline. The French themselves guzzle two-thirds of the wines made in the Beaujolais.

Many regions of France produce wines, but few are so densely planted with vines or so dependent on le vin for survival. Of the millions of gallons of Beaujolais bottled annually, a third is Nouveau, and two in three bottles of that come from the vineyards of the region’s southernmost portion.

The lovely limestone hills of the southern Beaujolais have given that area its name, Pays des Pierres Dorées, “Land of Golden Stones.” Strange to tell, limestone and gamay don’t make a particularly happy match-the soil of preference for gamay is the decomposed granite and clay of the region’s central and northern districts. But limestone doesn’t lower the quantity of the grapes grown.

The wine of this golden land may not be remarkable, but it’s good enough for Nouveau-and the sightseeing makes up for it.

The high-yielding grape variety and the sheer volume of wine production explain why, historically, in terms of prestige, Beaujolais is Burgundy’s poor cousin, its homely sister, a Cinderella of the vineyards. It’s also eclipsed by the big, brawny, inky, outsized Rhone Valley wines-the kinds kingpin Robert Parker loves-made in the broiling climes south of Lyon.

The upside is that Beaujolais has no posses of Rhone Rangers or Burgundy Bores. Its main peril is the kind of populism that encourages boozers who can’t tell the difference between soda pop and sludge. And this does the Beaujolais region as a whole an injustice.

For one thing, the area grows dozens of fine Beaujolais Villages appellation wines and ten excellent crus. Many of them improve with time. The premium cru districts are, from north to south, Saint Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgan, Régnié, Côte de Brouilly and Brouilly.

For another thing, the Beaujolais is wonderful even if you aren’t into drinking, Nouveau or old. While billions of people know the wine and millions taste it, few seem to realize that somewhere out there a place exists geographically, a place called the Beaujolais. It’s filled not only with happy vintners but also with non-wine-related folk who busily animate the landscape year-round.

Unless you’re an anthropologist or you actually like Beaujolais Nouveau, you might want to schedule a visit before or after Les Sarmentelles de Beaujeu and the 100 other Nouveau fêtes held in most Beaujolais villages and towns from mid to late November. You might even want to do as I did recently and skip the region’s rich valley areas entirely, sneaking up instead from the side or back, via the ballooning Monts du Beaujolais mountains that hem in the south and west.

La Montagne

Whether you approach from Lyon and the Pays des Pierres Dorées, through handsome villages with wonderfully unpronounceable names such as L’Arbresle and Le Bois d’Oignt, or drive down from Cluny via the Col du Fût d’Avenas, a mountain pass, you’ll likely be as pleasantly surprised as I was by the scenery and the feel. “Diversity” is the operative word. The contrast between what locals call “La Montagne” and the rest of the region is absolute.

La Montagne is damp, brisk, mysterious and mountainous. Ravines are cloaked by fir forests and cleft by deep river valleys, with isolated hamlets and stone-built villages fringed in moss. Knotty pine décor, wood-burning stoves and heavy woolen sweaters are de rigueur. The food-served at roadside eateries-features slow-cooked beef or pork sausages braised in wine, rustic, rich in flavor, and appropriately caloric.

Arriving too early for wine or lunch, I walked to the summit of the region’s tallest peak, Mont Saint Rigaud. Breathtaking? Rising from a few hundred feet at its base, it tops 3,000 feet. Across the Rhone Valley to the east rose the Alps and Switzerland, close enough to touch. Needless to add, I had the place to myself.

Antiquity permeates La Montagne. The Roman road from Lyon to Autun ran through here, and along it sprang up Romanesque churches belonging to the Abbey of Cluny. In them are stunning sculpted architectural details even a freethinker will find divine. At atmospheric Avenas, a village clamped to the hillside, I discovered a 12th-century altar showing Christ in Majesty, among the finest I’ve ever seen in France.

Up the road at the pass I stopped to taste honey at Miellerie du Fût d’Avenas. There was bosky fir tree and mountain honey, piquant heather honey, tangy dandelion honey, and half a dozen others, all delicious. Honey-making, forestry, wood-working and cattle ranching are the economic mainstays-there is no wine.


The Beaujolais

Just beyond the pass, at a panoramic spot called La Terrasse-equipped with a fancy, glass-fronted restaurant, wine information center and souvenir boutique-I parked and hiked a short, ridge-top loop at 2,200 feet above sea level. Along it rise Druid rocks from pre-Roman days, and chestnut and hazelnut forests. Panels with folksy cartoon characters impart basic information about Beaujolais. I learned that Brulius, a Roman patrician, gave his name to Brouilly, now one of the great wines of the Beaujolais. Atop the Mont de Brouilly, in the distance, I could just make out an isolated chapel-a pilgrimage site for wine-makers. Closer to where I stood, Regnius, another wealthy Roman, had a villa under what are now the vineyards of Régnié.

La Montagne was right behind my back, but it already felt a million meters away.

From La Terrasse looking south into the sunny valley, what you see is a gently rolling, plump and prosperous universe of grapes, villages of sturdy granite blocks, the rushing Rhone River, plus highways and TGV high-speed railways. Scattered around are improbable New World-style, faux-hacienda wineries and ticky-tacky tract home developments, the French equivalent of Napa Valley sprawl. They have sprung up in the last few decades thanks in part to the wealth derived from Beaujolais Nouveau.

Cars and cyclists beetled up the looping two-lane highway from the valley bottom. I coasted down it and picked up the wine route to Beaujeu-which is hidden in a trough-and then to the more picturesque, hillside village of Lantignié.

At Morgon there was no there, there. But neighboring Villié-Morgon proved lively, with an outdoor market in the main square, and excellent vintage wines spurting from every crack and crevice. The most seductive sight appeared before my eyes unexpectedly: a chapel to the Madonna of the Vineyards, behind Fleurie on a sugarloaf knoll. From its porch I got an even better view than before of the Beaujolais vineyards shared by Burgundy’s southernmost Maconnais region. The two overlap.

Despite France’s ferocious secularism-espoused since the Revolution of 1789-many Vinous Virgins and Madonnas of the Vineyards were erected hereabouts in the 1860s and ’70s to protect vines from phyloxera and other blights. The Madonnas failed. But two Beaujolais native sons saved the day, discovering the secret of treating vine roots with boiling water, and grafting native varieties such as gamay and pinot noir onto phyloxera-resistant American rootstock. They saved not only local vintners but the winemaking industry of Europe.

Predating the Madonnas are an almost equal number of effigies of Bacchus, found even in holy places. They suggest that the paganism of the Romans has always been fine in France as long as it is drinkable. The cellar of the old church in Juliénas, now a wine-tasting room, is covered with scenes of bacchanalia. They seemed to me an illustration of how medieval churchmen seamlessly transmogrified the old lushes Bacchus and Dionysius into upstanding Saint Vincent, patron of winemakers-with an emphasis on the “vin” in Vincent’s name.

At Romanèche-Thorins, in the bustling bottom of the valley which I’d meant to avoid, I skipped the wild animal park-a huge tourist attraction-and hesitated before heading to the “Hameau du Vin” in the village’s former train station. This is the Beaujolais’ answer to Frontier Village or Disneyland, a theme park of wine, dreamed up by Georges Duboeuf, the négociant who helped put Beaujolais Nouveau on the world map. He too is a local hero of sorts.

As always, the Hameau was crowded with French families. Initiation into the mysteries of wine comes early hereabouts. Children of all ages-from toddlers to childlike super-seniors-were having a ball. Automatons act out the Four Seasons of the winegrower, and there’s an audio-visual show with a short history of wine, from Noah’s drunkenness to the present. The displays brought to mind the Sarmentelles de Beaujolais, and I realized that one of the real miracles of the Beaujolais, performed perhaps by the region’s Madonnas, is that the reputation of the area’s fine wines remains intact despite the millions of gallons of Nouveau.

Charging back into the hills as fast as I could safely drive, it occurred to me that Don Quixote would have gone wild at Moulin-à-Vent, an appellation named for the centuries-old windmill that is the northern Beaujolais region’s greatest landmark. Moulin-à-Vent happens to be one of the best growing areas. Ironically, like several other premium appellations, part of Moulin-à-Vent is actually in Burgundy.

The windmill belongs to the Château Portier-Denys Chastel-Sauzet winery. It’s not a theme park and has been in business since the 1800s. Alas, in November, you can visit the monument only on weekends. Feeling more like Sancho Panza than Don Quixote, I consoled myself by buying a few bottles of Moulin-à-Vent and Chénas, the antithesis of Beaujolais Nouveau. They would be ready to drink, said the solicitous winemaker, looking like a cross of Bacchus and Saint Vincent, in three or four years. That seemed reasonable to me. With Beaujolais, it’s the vintage wines and antique wonders of the region that win hands down.

Photo Credits:

Beaujolais: AP
Lyon: Flickr/Romainguy
Viaduct: Flickr/Hellolapomme
Beaujolais: AFP/Getty Images

Top ten hotel rooms with a view

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Hotels aren’t the sum of travel, but the right hotel can bring magic to a journey. Friendly employees, amazing furnishings, and great locations can all make a good holiday great. And an exceptional view, above and beyond the rest, can stick in one’s memory forever. Here are ten hotels strewn around the world, each with ridiculously stunning views.

1. Shearwater Resort, Saba. Shearwater’s Cottage Rooms, which overlook the resort’s cliffside pool from an altitude of 2000 feet and sport views of the ocean and several neighboring islands (St. Eustatius, St. Kitts, and Nevis) are in a league of their own. See above for evidence. Shearwater’s owners also recommend the views from their Ocean View Suite. Cottage Rooms from $175; Ocean View Suite from $250.

2. Longitude 131, Ayers Rock Resort, Australia. The tents at Longitude 131 at Ayers Rock feature heart-stopping panoramic views of this most iconic of Australian sights. This is real fantasy territory, with rates well beyond feasibility for most. From A$4080 for two for two nights ($4095).

3. Hotel on Rivington, New York, New York. The corner king rooms at this Lower East Side outpost of extravagance have floor-to-ceiling glass walls affording astounding views of the city. Aim for a room on a higher floor. From $379.

4. Hotel de Crillon, Paris, France. Terribly exorbitant, yes–not sure that a room at this price point should ever be recommended–but the views are exquisite here. Do you best to nab a room with a view over the Place de la Concorde to the Eiffel Tower. From €630 ($875).

5. Sheraton Iguazú Resort and Spa, Iguazú Falls, Argentina. The only hotel inside the Iguazú National Park offers awe-inspiring views of the falls themselves. The Falls View rooms, all with balconies, are perfect for the view-minded. From $255.

6. Campi ya Kanzi, Mtito Andei, Kenya. Campi ya Kanzi lies in a 400 square-mile are of Maasai-run land in southern Kenya. Mount Kilimanjaro is 35 miles away from the camp site, which consists of six tented cottages and two suites. Suites run $1600 for two; single occupancy $900.

7. The Intercontinental, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Stunning Hong Kong Harbor provides the world one of its most exciting skylines, and a harbourview room at the Intercontinental is one of the best places to glimpse it. From around HK$2600 ($335).

8. The Fairmont Banff Springs, Banff, Alberta, Canada. The most iconic of Canada’s mountain lodges, the Fairmont Banff Springs is in a league of its own as far as picturesque placement is concerned. Many rooms offer extraordinary views as well. Book a valley view room (not a mountain view room) to take full advantage of the Rockies’ scenic majesty. From around C$439 ($437).

9. Explora, Torres del Paine, Chile. Gorgeous if minimalist modernism features here in the wilds of Chilean Patagonia, courtesy of famed Chilean architect Germán del Sol. Views of Macizo del Paine are drop-dead extraordinary. They’re also most definitely not cheap. Four nights will run $5840 for two.

10. La Haut Plantation, St. Lucia. The least expensive of the options here is this reasonable stunner, which has great views of St. Lucia’s famous Pitons. Even the least expensive Standard Garden rooms here boast incredible views of the Pitons. From $120 in low season.

A list like this one is of course necessarily quite subjective, and my evaluation here is designed to suggest and expose more than it is intended to lay down the law. Have a hotel view in mind that you think belongs on this list? Add it in the comments below!

(Images provided by hotels, except for the view from the Sheraton Iguazú Resort and Spa [Flickr / Tran’s World Productions] and view from the Fairmont Banff Springs [Flickr / dbaron]

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Top ten cities with best public transit systems

by Alex Robertson Textor on

These ten public transportation systems, in random rather than top-to-bottom order, are among the world’s best. The transit systems profiled here include some of the most impressively massive as well as some of the best-scaled urban transportation systems. Today’s focus is on international public transit systems; as such, the better US public transit systems (New York, Chicago, and Portland, among others) are not included.

1. Curitiba, Brazil. The capital of Brazil’s southern Paraná province has a widely emulated public transportation system consisting exclusively of buses running on dedicated lanes, all of which utilize bus shelters (see above). The system prizes simplicity. There is a single price for tickets. The network is estimated to be used by a remarkable 85% of the population.

2. Moscow, Russia. If you take the metro to work in Moscow, you don’t really have an excuse for being late. The sheer reliability and frequency of Moscow’s metro system makes it among the world’s best. The city’s metro system also features a number of ornately beautiful stations. Some stand-out stations include Mayakovskaya, Kiyevskaya, and Kropotkinskaya.

3. Vienna, Austria. Vienna’s public transportation system is a favorite for tourists in part due to its iconic red streetcars, which have become a symbol of the city. The city’s five U-Bahn (subway) lines join 30 streetcar lines and over 80 bus lines in blanketing the city with transit options.

4. Hong Kong. The public transportation system in this crowded metropolis absorbs most of its residents’ transportation needs. Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway takes the lion’s share of traffic. Fares are paid via a smart card known as an Octopus Card, which can be used to charge transactions in all sorts of non-transit venues.

5. Munich, Germany. Bavaria’s biggest city boasts a very comprehensive multi-pronged public transportation system, which consists of an U-Bahn (subway), S-Bahn (commuter rail), an inner-city tram network, and buses. Munich’s transit systems is efficient and its range is broad.6. Seoul, South Korea. The famously user-friendly public transportation system is centered on an integrated metro-bus system. It’s very contemporary throughout and extremely useable for visitors, with English language announcements and Wi-Fi access soon to be rolled out on subway trains.

7. London, United Kingdom. The Tube is pilloried by many who ride it on a daily basis, and in fact has a number of structural problems that render certain lines slow and not particularly user-friendly. At the same time, it has an awe-inspiring range. London is also well-served by buses, a light rail, and ferries for cross-Thames travel.

8. Paris, France. Parisians benefit from a multi-level public transportation system: the Métro (subway), commuter train (RER), bus, and the tram system. The most recent addition to the transportation system is a tramway covering the city’s periphery. Paris boasts an incredible density of underground stations.

9. Copenhagen, Denmark. The Danish capital’s highly regarded public transportation system includes a driverless metro network. The metro’s two lines are fully automated and run 24 hours a day. A major metro extension is due to debut in 2018. Buses and commuter trains fill in the blanks.

10. Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo’s public transportation system includes a subway network, light rail lines, and bus lines. The system features enormous numbers of riders, high-tech displays, and remarkably user-friendly features throughout. The subway system is also incredibly clean, and as such stands apart from most other well-used public transportation systems.

(Image: xander76 / Flickr)