What takes 2,250 pounds of icing, 415 pounds of dough and 17 pounds of candy corns? That would be Gingerbread Lane, and you can find 152 houses along this most coveted address at the New York Hall of Science (aka NYSci) in Queens, NY. We visited for the first time this past Saturday, and it […]

One of the toughest decisions when traveling is how much time to spend relaxing and how much time to spend sightseeing. Cramming in too many activities can leave you without a real appreciation of the destination, but seeing too little can leave you unsatisfied. As someone who typically errs on the side of doing too […]

We had fallen totally in love with Annecy, France, but we were beholden to a strict itinerary (designed by moi). So after lunch on our second day there, we reluctantly departed from this gorgeous Alpine Venetia and set off south to Avignon. This had been a last-minute addition to the itinerary when we decided that we wanted to break up the six-hour drive from Annecy to Antibes, where we would spend three nights.

Sometimes as a travel blogger, I must ask myself difficult questions that have no ready answer. Most recently, I had to ask: Do I prefer how the famous Palais de l’Isle in Annecy, France, looks during the night or during the day? An equally important question may be: what is the Palais de l’Isle, the […]

I love museums, and I have a memory from a couple of years ago (in my pre-blogging existence) of reading a travel magazine (have Googled this article to no avail) and seeing beautiful photos of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. I can recall thinking, I’d really love to go there. I can remember feeling puzzled why something called the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art was in Denmark. And then, upon realizing that this museum is not even located in Copenhagen, I dejectedly thought to myself, I’ll probably never get to go. Well, I got to go! And it was fantastic!

Did you know that Sweden has its own version of Stonehenge? Neither did I until shortly before I visited this mysterious Megalithic monument called Ales Stenar (which translates to Ale’s Stones) in Kåseberga, Sweden. For our second day of sightseeing in Skane, Elisabeth told us we were going to Ales Stenar, a historic site that’s like Stonehenge. I was instantly intrigued. I’ve never been to Stonehenge, but I’ve always wanted to go. A Swedish Stonehenge sounded pretty good to me. After an amazing lunch at Olof Viktors in Glemminge and then we were off an uphill trek to Ales Stenar.

Glimmingehus looks rather imposing; a big stone box just sitting on the vast fields of Skane, Sweden.Whether this well-preserved Medieval structure should be called a castle or a fortress is up for debate: it was was meant as a fortress rather than a residence, although it’s not believed that there was ever a battle there. Another source of debate is whether we should be calling the castle/fortress Swedish or Danish because this region was part of Denmark when it was built from 1499-1506. But what’s not up for debate is that how family-friendly this attraction is. In a small outer building across from the castle/fortess is a playroom full of blocks!

Nature and art lovers, unite! No need to make the difficult choice between spending time outside or looking at art when it comes to Storm King Art Center in New Windsor, NY, a sprawling sculpture park in the beautiful Hudson Valley. There actually is an indoor museum here, but I was too busy trying to cover as much of the 80 acres of rolling hills as I can, seeing works from Alexander Calder, Sol LeWitt, Maya Lin and more.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a wonderful place to visit any time, but attending a party there afterhours on World Malbec Day was truly special. On April 17, Wines of Argentina celebrated World Malbec Day with a walk-around tasting at the Charles Engelhard Court in the American Wing of the Museum. Not only was the setting spectacular, but there were tango dancers and live music. The Argentines know how to throw a party!

The Alcazar of Seville is the kind of place where you want to linger… In fact, even the Spanish royal family wants to linger there and stays there occasionally as its one of their official residences, and it’s the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe. We lingered so long that the weather had […]