Here are a few pics of Grasse on that summer morning… A little about Fragonard. It’s not just a luxury French perfume. It’s a French treasure. Eugene Fuchs, a former Parisien notary with a fondness for fragrance founded the company in 1926 in one of the oldest factories in Grasse. Perfume as Art Monsieur Fuchs named his now legendary firm after the local painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard, whose father was a …
The three Aran Islands lie across the waters of Galway Bay on Ireland’s west coast. Sometimes called “the Islands of Saints & Scholars” they are a hallmark of Celtic culture not only for their stunning geological formations but because of their linguistic and cultural heritage. I fell in love with the Islands on a recent trip to the Cliffs of Moher, another stop on my tour of the Republic of …
The French know jewelry. With an historical pedigree from Cartier · Chaumet · Boucheron · Chanel · Dior · De Grace · Breguet, yessir, France has a lock on luxury baubles. On a recent Louvre excursion I spent time in rapt appreciation of the magisterial collection of Crown Jewels enthroned in three showcases in the 17th century gallery of Apollo. From the crown of Louis XV to the Le Régent …
Neve Tzedek, my favorite little neighborhood in Tel Aviv. Got off the bus solo and wandered around Tel Aviv’s first and oldest neighborhood away from the “balagan”, the chaos of city life. A tangle of narrow streets and limitless eclectic portraits, the “artsy section” and oldest of the city with a rich, cultural history. Neve Tzedek was established in 1887, over 20 years before the City of Tel Aviv was …
On my last trip to East Africa, another of my female traveling companions and I were the fortunate guests of a Masai Village at the base of the Ngong Hills in the Masai Mara region of Kenya. This nomadic, warrior tribe which once held vast swathes of pre colonial Kenya, still retain many of their traditions as they live largely unaffected by modern day civilization, in areas surrounding Masai Mara. …
I’m always asked if I liked Vietnam so for the record, yes, I LOVED visiting Vietnam. Even though my trip coincided with the moment that Covid was silently enveloping the world in March of 2020, I was experiencing my first solo trip to Southeast Asia with a tour group whittled from its original twenty-four to just eight intrepid travelers, I loved the adventure. Is Vietnam safe for a solo, senior …