Picking a place to vacation can be stressful. Ironic, right? There’s so many options, literally anywhere in the world, and somehow we always find ourselves falling into a pattern of frequently traveled to locations. In the beginning of the summer, you start to see an in flux of vacation photos across social media and the most common question asked during small talk is,“Are you going anywhere this summer?”.
Where to visit and when to go? That’s a good place to start, but possibly the hardest part. Living in Pennsylvania, the summers are great because there are plenty of beaches an hour or so away that you can turn into a day trip or full vacation. Summers are also a popular time to travel, especially with kids, so any destination city will be packed with people from all over with the same idea as you.
It’s become especially popular over the last few years since they started filming Game of Thrones in the town of Dubrovnik.
This year we waited until schools were back in session to take a trip to a place that wasn’t on my radar until recently- Croatia. Some people are knowledgeable of Croatia as a vacation spot for the last decade, but it’s become especially popular over the last few years since they started filming Game of Thrones in the town of Dubrovnik. It’s still nowhere near as well known as Italy, Spain, France or Greece, but give it a few years and you’ll know at least one person who’s visited.
I knew we needed a mixture of historical sites for him, and beach time for me so we decided on Dubrovnik and Zagreb.
Croatia has a long coastline filled with tall cliffs and terracotta rooftops, multiple islands with beautiful beaches, and great historical sites to get your x of European culture and history. When breaking down where to visit in Croatia, there are three popular cities. The first two, Dubrovnik and Split on the coast and third, Zagreb which is their capital city. Based on what you want to get out of your vacation, each place has its unique benefits. When deciding where we were going to visit, I knew we needed a mixture of historical sites for him, and beach time for me so we decided on Dubrovnik and Zagreb.
There was so much to do and see in both cities, that 4 days each was barely enough. Inside Dubrovnik, you have the walls that wrap around the old town.You can spend days trying to cover and see each alleyway filled with different cafes, shops, and bars. Live music fills the streets and it’s almost impossible to pick which restaurant looks best. We ate at a ton of small places inside the walls but two really stuck out in terms of food, service and views; Dubrovnik 360 and Nautika. If I had to choose, I would say the food was better at Dubrovnik 360, but the overall experience was more memorable at Nautika. The night was made by the incredible views of the sea and walls, my drink coming out on rose pedals under a bird cage, each course being paired with a different olive oil native to a place in Croatia, and to the server being the incredibly knowledgeable about every meal, cocktail and wine on the menu. If you’ve got the time, I defiantly recommend visiting both restaurants.
If you’re looking for the best view in town, take the cable car up to the mountain top and watch the sun set over the city.
When you’re ready to relax, you can enjoy one of the many beaches in Dubrovnik or take a boat ride to any of the nearby island beaches.You can also take day trips to see the bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro, an awesome way to add two more countries to your trip. We stayed at a hotel ten minutes from Old Town named Neptun that had a great rock beach perfect for watching the sunset. If you’re looking for the best view in town, take the cable car up to the mountain top, or an Uber to save a few bucks and skip the line, and walk out on to the mountain top and watch the sun set over the city.
When you leave the coastline and head for the capital, you won’t believe how clean and colorful the city is. Take a day to walk around and explore.You’ll want to see the Dolac Market, Ban Jelacie Square, shop on Illiac Street, eat on Tkalciceva, visit the Zagreb Cathedral, and ask the locals what festivals are going on nearby.
We chose to spend one afternoon in a cooking class learning how to make some traditional Croatian cuisine. Our instructor was great and taught us how to properly prepare everything from dicing up an onion to cutting the head and scales off a fish. The class ended with learning how to make delicious fritters with skuta that were so easy and so good I’ve pulled the recipe for you.
Add another stamp in your passport and head to Bled in Slovenia for the day.
Once you’ve done everything on your list in the city, you can take a day trip to see one of the most photographed places in Croatia, the Plitvice Lakes National Park, or add another stamp in your passport and head to Bled in Slovenia. Both places will not disappoint. If you visit during the busier months, I suggest booking a private tour so you can do everything on your own schedule and spend as much time as you need in each location to make the most out of your vacation!
If you’re looking for something different don’t worry, there almost 200 other countries out there and I’m sure one of them will be a great t and an amazing new experience. Keep exploring and let us know if you’ve found your own hidden gem worth sharing!
Fritters with Skuta
INGREDIENTS
50 g (1.75 oz.) raisins 3 tbsp. of prošek (Dalmatian dessert wine) 300 g (10.5 oz.) skuta (ricotta) 50 g (1.75 oz.) sugar 2 eggs 1 orange 1 lemon 1⁄2 tsp. ground cinnamon 100 g (3.5 oz.) soft our Frying oil
PREPARATION Soak the raisins in prošek. Mix the skuta (ricotta), sugar, eggs, cinnamon and grated lemon rinds of lemon and orange. Gradually add sieved our to the mix. In the end add raisins with prošek.
Heat up the frying oil well. Use two spoons to put the dough in oil. Turn them during frying to get an even color. Remove the fried fritters with a slotted spoon and put on absorbent paper to remove the excess grease.
A preview of the summer’s most promising museum exhibits and events (for families and adults).
Right about now, the summer’s starting to lose a little bit of its glow. I mean, it’s still summer, so even the below-average days are better than February’s best effort. But the humidity’s inching up and the kiddos are already showing signs of malaise. The answer is a little deviation. Endless freedom goes from exhilarating to boring real fast. But when you pepper it with brief, unexpected episodes, they have a way of renewing everything around them—and you. Which is why the museum is our favorite Plan B year-round, but especially come the dog days. Nowhere else can you travel so far so fast. And, really, these exhibits are way more engaging than The Legend of Tarzan or Jason Bourne. —Scott Edwards
“Groundbreaking exhibit” means nothing to a child, unless, of course, there’s actual ground-breaking involved. But, in this case, they’ll never need to know that what they’re seeing and doing is enlightening them. This summer’s edition of Art Splash is being dedicated to a kid-friendly exploration of the art museum’s Creative Africa exhibit. There are tours aimed at kids as young as three—and, on two special occasions, parents with babies in tow—and an exhibit-inspired craft studio and daily storytelling.
Aside from having free run of the interactive exhibits for an extra couple of hours every Wednesday, the New Hope museum will also be hosting a series of family-minded activities. First up: “Make It Take It Craft Night.” Next week: “Picnic Night.” You bring dinner, and the museum will supply the Nina’s Waffle Bites. What kid wouldn’t jump at the chance to spend a night (part of one, at least) at a museum? Thanks to Ben Stiller, we all now know that after-hours is when all the interesting stuff happens.
This isn’t only about piquing the curiosity of some young, dormant imaginations. Yours could use some challenging, too. Start at the Michener, with Exton photographer Steve McCurry’s intimate-verging on-unsettling introduction to the humble Afghanistan that’s too often lost in the news of the latest explosion or uprising. These images—some new, some instantly identifiable—cover McCurry’s countless trips to the country over the last few decades, trips spurred by the unrest we’re familiar with, but his experiences hardly mirror the coverage.
When the Democratic National Convention ambles into town July 25, it’ll feel like the culmination of an overdrawn, overwrought process. But, of course, it won’t be. We’ll still have over three long months to wade through. Is this what democracy has always looked like? In short, yes. But, for a more interesting answer, check out Happiness, Liberty, Life?—a tongue-in-cheek play on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”—which scans the long, contentious tradition of political discord in this country and its thought-provoking, often-funny expression through the arts.
If you’ve been pulled in other directions over the last few years, A Material Legacy is an ideal reintroduction. The collection features some of the fastest-rising artists in the world—Kehinde Wiley, Anish Kapoor, Kara Walker, Sol LeWitt. Nearly every piece was made in the last 10 years, most of it in the last seven, so by the time you’re done, you can consider yourself all caught up. Fear not. There won’t be a test. The real reason to see this show is to remember why you fell in love with contemporary art. (Hint: It’s a far more inspiring way to confront the world’s issues.)
The crowds, the traffic, the tracksuits. Before you talk yourself out of one last summer vacation, follow us on a tour of a far savvier long weekend. By Scott Edwards
Some would say that going to Atlantic City and avoiding the casinos is sacrilege. But The Chelsea, perched right on the periphery, was the ideal home base for our decidedly un-Shore-like Shore weekend.
The summer was passing us by, we realized. Sure, there’d been a wedding or a barbeque almost every weekend since May, but we hadn’t so much as split a bottle of tempranillo on the deck, let alone managed a vacation. We forged a pact, then and there, to free up a couple of days—just long enough for a change of location.
The Jersey Shore was the obvious destination. We both spent parts of our summers there growing up, my wife in and around Long Beach Island and me in Ocean City. More importantly, the drive would not undo us and the forecast was sunny. The problem was, we’d hardly be the only ones feeling that urgency. And, I’d grown weary of the Shore. It had come to mean long waits for food that I always remembered tasting better, relentless traffic and Jersey caricatures crowding the ever-diminishing beaches.
So, we made it our mission to hunt down an altogether different Shore experience, and, in the process, slip past the mobs huddled around the traditional joints. Heading to AC, then, would seem counterintuitive, I know. But The Chelsea became the cornerstone of our blueprint. It sits discreetly on the south end of the boardwalk, just beyond the last (open) casino. You won’t avoid the Rascal traffic, but you will claim a larger swath of the sand for yourself. The still-sprawling beach is an afterthought here. As proof, admission is free.
We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure. Top: The rooftop pool lounge at The Chelsea.
Everything else was icing, and we were thick with icing. Between the Miami-esque interior design and the Biggie Smalls that was humming in the lobby when we arrived, The Chelsea exudes a cool-kid vibe, but the embracing kind you find in Zac Efron movies, not the aloof, elitist variety from an actual high school. We woke to a sweeping view of a rising sun reflecting off the Atlantic from our 16th-floor room. From that height, even AC looks pure.
The Chelsea offers beach service—a pair of lounge chairs and an umbrella that’s installed for you—which sounds like a small perk, but not having to lug our own sand-caked gear immediately felt like a deep indulgence. We took advantage as soon as we could, naturally, whiling our first few hours at the edge of the lapping tide without so much as a handful of words uttered between us—or around us.
That night, we drove away from the casinos and pulled into the parking lot of a wine and spirits shop about a mile from the hotel. We entered through a barely-marked entrance on the side of the building, walked past a long bar and sat at the end of a row of 10 two-person tables. Most nights, every seat is filled, we were told, but we were two of a few.
The Iron Room at the Atlantic City Bottle Company is a tasting room of sorts. Mostly small plates are on offer, and they change practically daily. Bar fare, it is not. First off, you’re in a space within reach of a smartly curated liquor store, so trust that you’re going to drink well. We ordered from the bar, but the couple a table over—the only other diners there—told us about a small group buying its wine in the shop and sharing it among themselves the last time they were there.
The dishes came fast once we ordered: a house-made pappardelle ($9) tossed with brown butter, toasted pepitas and parmesan; tuna crudo ($14) paired with house-pickled jalapenos, golden beets and cabbage slaw; za’atar-crusted sturgeon ($17) placed atop a cold soba noodle salad seasoned with herbs, ponzu and soy. Most of it was local, and yet little of it was familiar.
Every plate was clean in five or six bites, but there were two that we lingered over, or tried to, at least: a Korean barbeque hangar steak ($15) with sweet and sour Brussels sprouts and morsels of bacon and pan-seared sockeye salmon ($20) smothered in tzatziki and served on a small pile of succotash made of snap peas and roasted corn so sweet it tasted like it was infused with sugar water.
Forget the soft-serve, we pushed ourselves over the edge with a wedge of flourless chocolate cake that sat in a pool of salted caramel.
Day 2 | Teplitzky’s, The Chelsea’s diner-style restaurant, is old-school Miami in HD. We ate breakfast in an open-air room within view of one of the hotel’s two pools. It was decorated in the fashion of what I imagine the solarium in the shared house on “The Golden Girls” looked like. I say this not as a criticism, because it’s the polar antithesis of every dimly-lit, all-you-can-eat casino buffet I’ve regretfully found myself in. And for that hour over breakfast, I managed to convince myself that we were a lot further from home than a couple of hours.
Virtually every table around us—young families and small groups of twentysomething hipsters—was divvying up the signature dish, The Big Teplitzky: two pancakes, French toast, three eggs, toast or a bagel, hash browns, bacon, pork roll, turkey sausage and a pot of coffee. There’s a running challenge: Double The Big Teplitzky—that’s four pounds of food, allegedly—consume it by yourself in under a half-hour, and it’s yours free. No one tried, that we saw, but lots asked about it.
After a sun-drenched few hours on a sparsely-populated beach, we hit the road and headed south on the parkway for Avalon. We had a dinner reservation at The Diving Horse, a 70-seat BYOB on buzzing Dune Drive that’s only open between Memorial and Labor days. It’s owned by Dan Clark and Ed Hackett, who are also responsible for Pub & Kitchen and Fitler Dining Room, both in Philly.
The décor is spare, way more Pottery Barn farmhouse than rental beach house—dark wood floors and matching chairs, a row of old church pews line the wall on one side of a bank of tables, small lanterns lit with Edison bulbs dot the walls every few feet.
We got there at 6:30 p.m., and by the time we were done ordering, the dining room had filled in around us. As soon as the appetizers arrived, it was obvious we were about to be clued in to what everyone else already knew.
The heirloom tomato salad ($14) with ricotta and mint sourdough croutons ruined tomatoes for me for the rest of the summer, they were that lush. My wife made subtle cooing noises with every spoonful of her Cape Cod mussels and Chesapeake clams ($13), which were served bisque-style in a light broth loaded with roasted corn, shishito peppers and Japanese herbs.
Local connections were everywhere. The ricotta was from Lambertville’s Fulper Farms. There was a Blue Moon Acres (Buckingham and Hopewell, NJ) arugula salad. And the Hudson Canyon swordfish featured mushrooms from Shibumi Farm, in Princeton.
An unmistakably mesquite-flavored Cape May sea bream ($31) followed. (We felt stupid for asking, but every table around us eventually did, too. It’s a meaty white fish, FYI.) I went for the New Jersey fluke ($34) dressed in a cucumber yogurt sauce, which came in a light sweet pepper and zucchini stew. We split plates of Jersey corn ($9) tossed with chili, lemon and olive oil—very simple, very delicious—and beautifully crisp, fried Brussels sprouts seasoned with ginger and lime.
We ate as slowly as we could, hoping it would prolong each course forever. Instead, it felt like our stay lasted about 15 minutes. We left reluctantly, gushed about the dinner the whole drive back to The Chelsea, got up the next morning and picked right back up.
Day 3 | Our last few hours, so we crammed them full: a jog into Ventnor and back along pristine, open boardwalk, a light breakfast at Teplitzky’s (relatively speaking) and a too-brief stint at the rooftop pool lounge. We had it to ourselves, which felt like a fitting conclusion to our off-the-beaten path weekend.
While my wife packed, I roamed Yelp, looking for one last score. It came in the form of an outdated but tidy hole that sits in the shadows of the casinos along Atlantic Avenue. But we weren’t coming to Pho Sydney to be seen or even, really, to be comfortable. We were there for lunch.
Bowls with the diameter of a basketball were hurried over to our corner booth, one filled with pork pho, the other with grilled chicken pho. Both were packed with tender rice noodles, crisp carrot sticks, wilted strips of lemongrass and a handful of crushed peanuts. We ate, we sighed with intoxication. Total bill: 21 bucks.
Photos courtesy The Chelsea / Dan Pearse Photographers, Inc.
[divider]Stay[/divider]
The Chelsea
111 South Chelsea Avenue, Atlantic City
thechelsea-ac.com; @TheChelsea_AC
Rooms from $139 Perks
Roof-top cabana club
10,000-square foot spa
Beach service ($15 a day)
Valet garage parking
Eat The Iron Room at the Atlantic City Bottle Company
648 N. Albany Ave., Atlantic City
acbottlecompany.com/food; @ACBottleCompany
Book the chef’s table and the tasting menu. At 65 bucks, it’s well worth it. Might as well splurge on the drink pairing, too. After all, how often are you going to have a wine and spirits shop at your disposal?
The Diving Horse
2109 Dune Drive, Avalon, NJ
thedivinghorseavalon.com; @TheDivingHorse
With only a couple weekends left in the season, your best shot at a prime-time reservation is on a weeknight. And, with a liquor store across the street, there are no excuses for showing up empty-handed. —SE
[divider]Coming Up for Air[/divider]
The Jersey Shore has a way of forcing us back into old, familiar patterns. But what if you dared to be different? By Kendra Lee Thatcher
I wake up exactly eight minutes before my alarm goes off. It’s 5:52 a.m. I give in, toss the indulgent Frette sheets aside and spring out of bed. In an hour, I’ll be surfing!
My bikini’s still damp, but I throw it on anyway and then make a cup of oolong tea. Kristin, my sister, is still asleep, oblivious.
I open the doors to the balcony and the breeze from the bay promptly pushes into our room. The air is sweet and recognizable, comforting. It fills my lungs. I sip and stare out across the water. Aside from the ambient call of the gulls and the subtle lapping of the water, there’s complete silence. Peace, really.
Below is the Water Star Grille, where, last night, Kristin and I drank herbaceous martinis. Feeling no rush, nor agenda, we reminisced, philosophized and savored the sunset.
Ten minutes and counting. I’m pacing, so I decide to just go and be early. I grab my old linen hoodie and my aviators on my way out the door, which I close softly so it doesn’t wake Kristin.
Diane rides up on her vintage bicycle. She’s the concierge at The Reeds at Shelter Haven, the fashionable boutique hotel where we’re staying, and the woman responsible for getting me out on the water this morning. We talk for a bit about Stone Harbor. She makes it hard to resist. This town resonates with her as Lambertville, NJ, does with me, personally and aesthetically.
Before long, Matt, my guide, pulls up, our boards in the back of his SUV.
“Good morning!” he beams. “Ready?”
In the two-minute ride to the beach, I find out Matt not only crafts custom surfboards but he’s also a Bucks native.
And then there she is, Madame Atlantic. At this hour, there’s hardly anyone on the beach. We plunge in, and beneath the surface, it’s a different kind of quiet. I wipe the water from my eyes, push the hair out of my face and then we begin to paddle out beyond the break. I have to remind myself to turn around and face the shoreline because I could keep going.
Balancing on my board, every distraction fades away, and I sync with the rhythmic undulation of the ocean.
A new Connecticut restaurant with huge ambitions is betting on the lure of exclusivity.
Backman’s signature is scratch-made pasta. The menu will also heavily feature locally sourced foodstuffs.
Because we always want what we can’t have, we want a dinner reservation at The Restaurant at Spicer Mansion, a luxe inn in Mystic, Connecticut, that’s due to open Memorial Day weekend. Trouble is, unless you’re a guest, the only way you’re getting one is by invitation.
The Restaurant is aiming to restore the rapidly fading interest in fine dining by taking a run at it in a rather dramatic fashion, by recreating the finer points of yesteryear’s traditions. Think canapés and cocktails in a grand salon prior to the dinner service. From there, guests will be escorted into one of three Victorian-era dining rooms, where they’ll be seated at tables set with Italian hemstitch linens and Baccarat crystal. Tableside preparations will follow, naturally.
The six-course tasting menu ($115; add another $75 for the wine pairing) will change nightly and pull heavily from nearby farms and waters. Beyond picking herbs from Spicer’s own garden, executive chef Jennifer Backman will be working closely with the Spicer’s sister resort, Ocean House, in Rhode Island, and its on-staff food forager. Backman left another Spicer sister resort, the Weekapaug Inn, also in Rhode Island, to take this position.
And it’s a position that holds a lot of promise in the eyes of Daniel A. Hostettler, the president of Ocean House Management. He sees The Restaurant at Spicer Mansion as the east coast’s answer to Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, which is pretty widely considered the top restaurant in the country.
With that, an invitation feels a lot less likely. —Scott Edwards
There’s too much to see out there to head back to that same mountain in the Poconos or resort in Riviera Maya. This winter, before the lack of daylight starts to toy with your head, get adventurous. The world’s within closer reach than you think. To prove it, we present a handful of easy escapes to exotic destinations for the cold- and warm-blooded alike. —Scott Edwards
WINTER WONDERLANDS
A picturesque night sky in wintertime Iceland.
Reykjavik, Iceland
The modern 101 Hotel.Photo credits: (101 Hotel) Courtesy Design Hotels / 101 Hotel; (Northern lights and Food & Fun Festival) Courtesy Food & Fun Festival / Sigurjon Ragnar
The Food & Fun Festival.
We know what you’re thinking: Wait, Reykjavik in winter? But the winter climate’s on par with NYC, if not even a bit more temperate. And, yeah, you’re going to see the sun for a few hours at a time, but we’re not much better off here. The reason to get to Reykjavik now is because it’s the most accessible gateway to Nordic culture, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is poised to takeover. If you tend to travel for food, and who doesn’t anymore, plan your trip around the Food & Fun Festival (foodandfun.is), March 2 through March 6. In a country obsessed with sustainability, Food & Fun is virtually a national holiday. Brash chefs from the US and Europe are paired up with the city’s most progressive restaurants and challenged to craft hyperlocal, three-course menus. (Think seafood, lots of seafood.) And just when you thought you were doomed to another month of root veggies.
[divider]Stay: [/divider]
101 Hotel is the envy Reykjavik’s booming crop of design-driven boutique hotels, and public spaces, for that matter. Housed in the former home of the Icelandic Social Democratic Party, 101 is all sleek lines, matte and gloss contrasts, monochromatic palettes and native modernist art. But the edge fades in the right places. The oak floors are heated and every room’s got a soaking tub.
Park City, Utah
Alpine Lake at Park City resort
Groomed Night Run
Downtown Park City
If you’re a serious skier, or even a frequent faller, Park City is too spectacular to pass up. For one, getting there is cake, which is rarely the case for mountain towns. More than 300 domestic flights arrive at Salt Lake International every day, and Park City’s only a 35-minute drive from there. Meaning your travel days aren’t total washes. And every hour here is a gift because there are 9,300 skiable acres to cover, including the country’s largest ski resort, Park City (parkcitymountain.com), which boasts an absurd 300-plus trails. Book a room at the Stein Eriksen Lodge (steinlodge.com), which sits mountainside at the Deer Valley Resort. Even more crucially than the prime location, its restaurant, Glitretind, is the critical darling of Park City. And the Forbes Five-Star spa is the only one in the state. When hurtling yourself down a mountain all day, you need indulgences at the end of it.
[divider]Hit or Miss[/divider]
If Park City sounds strangely familiar it’s because it also happens to be the backdrop for the Sundance Film Festival, for which all of Hollywood moves in for the week and dresses up like 19th century-frontiersmen. As you can imagine, the town can get a bit crowded then (this year’s edition will be held January 21 through Jan. 31), so you may be better off steering clear. Unless, of course, you’re a sucker for a celeb. (We mean that in the least offensive sense.) By all means, then, have at it.
Photo credit: Courtesy Visit Park City
SUMMER SANCTUARIES
Sydney, Australia
A hyperlocal spread at Gowings Bar & Grill.
A room at the eccentric QT Sydney.
When a restaurant lists an “urban forager” among its ranks, said restaurant’s commitment to local sourcing is undeniable, if not unparalleled. And when that restaurant’s housed in a überfashionable boutique hotel, well, the trip practically books itself, doesn’t it? QT Sydney (deignhotels.com/qt-sydney) is set within two of the city’s most iconic buildings. The interior is a sensory overload of original features, curated art installations, eclectic artifacts and quirky design pieces inspired by the retail and theater history of the buildings. But QT’s centerpiece is Gowings Bar & Grill. Since opening in 2012, the restaurant’s displayed a fierce loyalty to local growers and producers, which has only deepened since appointing Georgie Neal as its urban forager a few months back. The menus are overhauled monthly and now routinely feature stuff grown specifically for the restaurant, like flower-shaped Salanova lettuces and red baby cos seedlings. The brightest ingredients Sydney has to offer, and you don’t even need to leave the hotel to savor them.
[divider]Must Do[/divider]
Surf Bondi. One of the top-five most-famous beaches in the world also happens to be the closest one to Sydney. (It’s about five miles from the hotel.) In other words, this is a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A two-hour group lesson (viator.com) will run you about 60 bucks, board and bodysuit included.
Photo credit: Courtesy Design Hotels / QT Sydney
Cartagena, Colombia
Golf-centered resorts, no matter how high-end the accommodations and how serene the setting, usually end up feeling like fraternity houses for middle-age men. Mostly because, beyond golfing, your options are limited. (Read: nonexistent.) Cartagena at Karibana (tpc.com/cartagena), a 2014 addition to the TPC circuit, is of a decidedly different breed, a better-rounded one. The course meets all the necessary criteria. It was built by Jack Nicklaus’ firm and it’s plenty picturesque. For the rest of us, there’s a beach club where you can nurse aguardiente sours under an 85-degree sun all afternoon long. If that sounds too strenuous, or monotonous, there’s a full-service spa in the works, as well as a 270-room hotel managed by Conrad, Hilton’s luxury brand. Both are expected to open in early 2017. Until then, there’s a batch of on-site rental homes available, along with a couple of neighboring hotels. We recommend the Sofitel Cartagena Santa Clara (sofitel.com/cartagena). Come here to savor the spoils of one of the rapidly dwindling off-the-grid beaches left in the world. Not to mention the ridiculously low exchange rate that goes with that.
[divider]Must Do[/divider]
Hike. It’s only natural to play up the inclination to do nothing at all in a place like this, but, then, you’d be bypassing the chance to see a corner of a country that not too much of the outside world’s been privy to in recent years. And it wouldn’t even require that much effort. Trails unwind from Karibana along the beach and the Guayepo River. Take your pick. You can’t go wrong. Everywhere you look, there’ll be something new and exotic.
Photo credit: Courtesy Cartagena at Karibana
The Weekend Getaway
Washington, DC
A brief change of scenery can work wonders on a slush-logged mindset. When it comes to a weekend getaway, you want a destination that’s easy to escape to and loaded with options once you get there. DC fits that bill to a T. The drive is an uncomplicated three hours due south. Better yet, ditch the car and ride Amtrak. Either way, the city you’ll find waiting for you on the other end bears little resemblance to the one you toured during that mess of a junior high field trip. Cranes litter the skyline and inventiveness lines the sidewalks.
Make your home base The Mayflower (themayflowerhotel.com). It’s the oldest continuously-operating hotel in DC. The glamorous lobby chandeliers hark back to an era when The Mayflower was the go-to for the inaugural ball. Your quarters, however, will be decidedly more contemporary. Last spring, the hotel finished a $20 million renovation, during which every room was completely redesigned. Behind closed doors, the only signs that this is a 91-year-old hotel are the signatures of notable guests printed on the walls: Marlene Dietrich, Norman Rockwell, FDR.
Just as meaningful as the of-the-moment touches, The Mayflower is about as central as it gets in DC. A few blocks in one direction, you’re square in the middle of the National Mall. A couple in another, and you’re in Dupont Circle, which is teeming with cafés, small restaurants and bars and smart clothing shops.
On an unseasonably warm fall weeknight, the outdoor seating at every restaurant was filled, but it was overflowing at Mission (missiondupont.com), where those fortunate to have claimed seats washed down plates of chile releno and enchiladas with cans of Tecate and pitchers of sangria. Long considered a commuter campus, it’s here in Dupont Circle that DC’s new residential movement seems to be taking root. A lot of it feels vaguely familiar, being on such intimate terms with Philly and NYC, but from the Euro-style layout of the city to the pleasing lack of homogenization there’s also plenty of fresh perspective. —SE
