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Scintillating St. Martin

On St. Martin, French and Dutch cultures merge to create one of the most cosmopolitan islands in the Caribbean. The two nationalities have been living in peaceful coexistence since 1648. After a breakfast of croissants and café au laits in Marigot, walk along the winding alleys behind the harbor and soon the seaside village starts to feel like a town on the French Riviera. Boutiques, restaurants, and small markets line the streets. On Rue de la Liberte, the latest French fashions can be found. A must stop for all foodies is the Gourmet Boutique on Rue de l’Anguille, to snack on Brie and Camembert cheeses, Godiva chocolates, fresh baguettes, and the tastiest jambon (ham).  
 
Blink and you might miss the fishing village of Grand Case at the northern tip of St. Martin. This is the St. Martin of yesteryear, where ramshackle houses intermingle with more than a dozen French seafood restaurants, many overlooking the bay. Ask for an ocean view table and watch the waves roll ashore as you’re served fresh lobster or red snapper Provencal under candlelight. Dutch Sint Maarten is where everyone goes to work off their French meals. The open-air dancefloor at Cheri’s Cafe is located in Maho Bay.  Next door is Casino Royale, one of the handful of casinos on this half of the island.  
 
The French Rivera flavor extends to the Orient Express resort, La Samanna. Walk out of your two-story whitewashed villa onto Baie Longue, home to some of the finest pearly white sands in the Caribbean. If you choose the right suite, you can sun bathe atop your terrace or around a private plunge pool. Perched on a hill overlooking the curve of the beach, the restaurant is known for its collection of over 10,000 bottles of wine. Also indulge in the new spa, nestled in a quiet courtyard of palms.
 

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Tanzania Plans to Build a Highway Through the Serengeti

Here are some words of wisdom to the current Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, who just announced plans to build a highway that will slice right through the southern part of the Serengeti. “Build it and they won’t come,” as in the hundreds of thousands of Europeans and American travelers who make the trek to Tanzania each year to go on safari. Slated to be built in 2012, the 260-mile highway will connect Arusha, near Mount Kilimanjaro, with Musoma on Lake Victoria. The idiotic move will not only disrupt one of the world’s great migrations of some 1.2 million wildebeests traveling north into Kenya’s Masai Mara, but will be an easy way in and out for poachers. Make the wise move, President Kikwete, and find an alternative route.
 

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Top 5 Beaches in New England to Be Active: Sea Kayak Mile Beach, Georgetown, Maine

There are two types of New England beach lover. The first heads to his favorite stretch of sand, squeezes his towel in between the masses, layers on the lotion, and kisses away the day. The second thinks of the beach as a welcome mat to that great expanse of ocean that lies ahead—a starting point to a slew of activities like sea kayaking, surfing, or sailing.  Even if you prefer to stay on terra firma, there are New England beaches that cater to the mountain biker or walker. This week, I’m delving into my favorite beaches in New England to be active.  First up is Mile Beach in Georgetown, Maine.

Shrouded in an early morning mist, the fog recedes and you’re treated to a view of Maine’s coastline few have seen since Winslow Homer captured it on his canvases over a century ago. This is why one heads to Georgetown’s Reid State Park to sea kayak along the shores of Sheepscot Bay. The sand at Mile Beach soon gives way to the boulder strewn coastline where the Northern Atlantic pounds the rocks, spewing foam high into the air. Juniper pines, dwarfed by forceful gales, refuse to budge from the land above.  You’ll no doubt be joined by seals that pop their heads out of the water like periscopes to look around.
 

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Favorite Drives in America, Fall Foliage Road Trip Through New England

October, when the summer crowds are gone and the snow has yet to drop, is my favorite time of year to cruise around the country. This week, I’m going to delve into some of those blessed routes. First up, a fall foliage drive around New England.

Start on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in historic Portland, Maine. Grab an order of crispy French fries doused in truffle ketchup at Duckfat and then spend the night at Portland’s West End, a quiet residential neighborhood with many grand Victorian houses, including the Pomegranate Inn. The next morning, start your drive on Route 302 North through a web of waterways like large Sebago Lake. Soon you enter New Hampshire and pass the outlet stores in North Conway. In Glen, turn north on Route 16 and a mile later, you’ll go through a covered bridge into another era. The circular green of Jackson, ringed by inns, antique stores, and requisite white steeple, has been thriving as a resort town since the mid-nineteenth century. The allure is its proximity to Mt. Washington, the highest peak in New England. Just six miles up Route 16 is Pinkham Notch, home of the Appalachian Mountain Club and base of Mt. Washington. If you want your fall foliage drive to continue, take the Auto Road all the way to the summit. Or get out of the car and climb to Lowe’s Bald Spot, a 3,000-foot opening on Mt. Washington’s eastern slopes that rewards you with views of Mount Adams, Mount Madison and other presidential peaks. 

A right turn in Glen, New Hampshire, on Route 302 and a left turn in Bartlett onto Bear Notch Road begins your ascent the next day into the White Mountain National Forest. Eventually, you’ll reach the 34-mile Kancamagus Highway (Route 112), or “Kanc” as the locals call it, the state’s centerpiece for leaf peeping. Rising 3,000 feet, the Kanc snakes through the thick forest of the Whites. You’ll have plenty of places to stop and picnic, even take a hike as you travel west. 

Continue on Route 112 past I-93 and head south on a little known gem of a road, Route 10. The rising and falling route hugs the Connecticut River, hemmed in by farmland on either side. Patches of pumpkins, zucchini, and butternut squash line the route prior to entering the handsome village of Haverhill and its double Commons. Next up is Orford, New Hampshire, listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its seven Federal-style buildings, known as the Orford Ridge houses, constructed between 1773 and 1840.  Finally, you reach Hanover and its ivy-covered Georgian-style buildings, otherwise known as Dartmouth University.

Head west on Route 4 to reach Woodstock, Vermont. Home to one of the oldest operating country stores, a premier resort aptly named the Woodstock Inn, and the Marsh-Billings National Historic Park, Woodstock has long been a popular fall foliage destination. South of Woodstock on Route 106 is serious horse farm country where you can saddle up for a ride at places like Kedron Valley Stables. Veer right on Routes 131and 103 to reach Route 100 south. This is one of the finest stretches of country road in America—a bucolic mix of rolling farmland, covered bridges, and freshly painted churches—all in the shadows of the Green Mountains. Unfortunately, it was hammered by Hurricane Irene, so make sure to check with the state of Vermont to ensure there are no delays. You’ll pass some of the better known Vermont ski resorts like Okemo and Mt. Snow before reaching the Massachusetts border. Stretch your legs at Jamaica State Park, where a stroll along the West River leads to a waterfall. 

In Massachusetts, take Route 8 south into the industrial town of North Adams, home to Mass MoCA, the largest contemporary art museum in the country. If you can’t get enough color from the foliage, enter these converted warehouses for a splash of Sol Lewitt. For your final day’s drive, skip the Mass Pike and, instead opt for the smaller Route 2 east. This is the start of the scenic Mohawk Trail. Bordering an old Native American hiking trail through the mountains, the Mohawk Trail is a serpentine road that offers stunning lookouts onto the countryside. In Charlemont, the rapids of the Deerfield River come into view. As you get close to Boston, you’ll pass Concord, site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War, now the Minute Man National Historical Park. To return to Portland, simply take I-95 north for two hours to complete the route. This five to six-day drive is the ultimate fall foliage route!
 

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Miami’s Wynwood Walls Continues to Mesmerize

Last time I visited that street art museum they coined Wynwood Walls in Miami, I had lunch at the newly opened restaurant, Wynwood Kitchen & Bar. I remember walking inside and being blown away by the massive mural Shepard Fairey painted behind the restaurant’s bar. Just as exciting was the wonderfully whimsical and colorful work by Brazilian identical twins, Os Gêmeos, best known in Boston as the pair who created the beloved 70-by-70 feet mural of a boy in pajamas that overlooked Dewey Square for more than a year. On that first visit, I met the daughter of Tony Goldman, the real estate developer who wanted to do something special for the start of Art Basel in 2009. Goldman wanted to bring the crowd into the emerging neighborhood of Wynwood, nestled between the Design District and downtown. Much of the industry here once centered around shoe manufacturing. When that went into decline in the 1980s and ’90s, those buildings became derelict. That’s when Goldman stepped in and started to buy some of the properties, envisioning a lively arts scene. 

 
Tony Goldman has since died but his vision of a street arts scene in Wynwood has both survived and thrived as I was privy to last week when I introduced my wife and daughter to the neighborhood. When I first came here 5 years ago, there was a slow trickle of avid art lovers. Now it’s a must-see stop on any tour of Miami, as crowds pour in to see the ever changing walls of street art. The beauty of graffiti is that no work is permanent so the roster of artists is always evolving. Thankfully, the works of Os Gêmeos and Shepard Fairey remain. 
 
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Top 5 Adventures in Florida, Sea Kayaking the Great Calusa Blueway

This past month, temperatures in Florida have been unseasonably cold. Yet, mid-January is the time of year when the weather heats up and so does the outdoor activity. This week, I’m focusing on the Sunshine State, divulging my favorite adventures in the state. First up is sea kayaking the Great Calusa Blueway on Southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast. Whether you’re an advanced paddler or a novice, you’ll savor the sheltered bays, remote islands, and hidden beaches on this 190-mile wet and wild corridor outside of Fort Myers. Choose to spend the day kayaking around Estero Bay or spend a night camping at the tip of Pine Island just north of Captiva Island. There are also inn-to-inn options. The highlight is the abundant sealife, including sightings of manatees, dolphins, and turtles. 
 

(Photo credit Cythia Gilbert from Kayak SW Florida)

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Lausanne’s Bounty of Museums

For a city of only 140,000, Lausanne is blessed with 22 museums. Actually 23 museums if you count the archaeologist I met yesterday who opened a one-room museum devoted to the history of shoes, including her recreation of a Neolithic shoe. Home to the International Olympic Committee or IOC, Lausanne’s best known museum is the Olympic Museum, now double in size after a two-year renovation. The three-floor display first looks at the pageantry of the Olympic Games, displaying every torch used since 1896 and showcasing the elaborate structures cities created to constantly up the ante, like the Bird’s Nest Stadium built for the Beijing games. The second floor was my favorite, showing memorabilia from the games, like Jesse Owens running shoes from the ‘36 Games in Berlin, Michael Phelps swimsuit, Sergey Bubka’s pole vault, goalie Jim Craig’s jersey from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” game, Roger Federer’s racquet, Usain Bolt’s jersey, and Michael Johnson’s gold sneakers. The last floor, you can try your hand at shooting a gun in the biathlon, see the medals awarded at every Olympics (the Vancouver Winter Games medal were very stylish), and stand on the podium from the Sydney Games. 
 
There are two other museums in town that should not be missed. Collection de L’Art Brut is an art museum that rose to prominence from artist Jean Dubuffet’s wildly imaginative collection of art from outside the mainstream. Searching for purity in art, he collected naïve works, primitive works, and simply works by the insane or incarcerated. Many of the bios start the same way—said artist was abandoned by his father, raised in poverty by his mother, and ended up in a mental institution. The works are fascinating, like the whimsical paintings of the Lausanne-born artist, Aloïse, who imagined she was having an affair with an emperor. She would use rose petals, toothpaste, and crushed leaves to create her pairs of lovers. Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve would create masks entirely from shells. Other works are so detail oriented like the paintings of Augustin Lesage that it wasn’t much a stretch to think of the artist as mad. 
 
We were fortunate to be in Lausanne during their annual Night of Museums, when all the museums in town stay open until 1 am and folks crowd the streets strolling from museum to museum. We took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Fondation de l’Hermitage, a 19th-century estate on a hillside above town (not far from Coco Chanel’s and David Bowie’s former home) that specializes in 19th-century art. We toured the museum’s collection of European art, including works by Degas and Caillebotte, then entered a special exhibition on 19th-century American art, like the Hudson River School painters and the Luminists. Outside, the American theme continued as a DJ played old-school hip-hop like Grandmaster Flash and people danced. The museum was packed both inside and I was delighted to see numerous families checking out art until the wee hours of the morning. I would love my hometown of Boston to host a similar type of event! 
 

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