This last June and July, my wife and I spent a month in Paris, based in a charming apartment located in the 16th arrondissement in the Passy neighborhood on the west side of the city. We dined out daily, were visited by friends, shopped like locals, and in general tried to get a feel for […]
Herewith, an unvarnished diary of the Spoiled Guest’s 12-day trip to the Maldives, via Istanbul, late last year: October 30 -31, 2024 The Turkish Airlines check-in desks at JFK Terminal 1 are unmanned when we arrive in late afternoon. (turns out they only open 4 hours before the next flight, note to self), so we […]
Last Spring, the Spoiled Guest toured several favorite spots in Europe — Paris, Lake Garda in Italy, Vienna, Saltzburg, and Munich. There follows an unvarnished, essentially verbatim diary of the trip, with an emphasis on hotels and restaurants that we hope fellow travelers will find useful and entertaining! Thurs. 5/24 Arrive Paris around 6:30 am […]
A few minutes flying time east of Florida lies the archipelago of the Bahamas, still part of the British Commonwealth, still nominally ruled by Queen Elizabeth, yet populated by the descendants of African slaves brought here by Crown Loyalists after the War of Independence, and of freed slaves who escaped to the Bahamas after the American […]
The Spoiled Guest hadn’t been to the grand old city of Boston in years, but we were recently invited there by old friends who have moved into the Millennium Tower, a monumental new residential high-rise in the center-city neighborhood called Downtown Crossing. Since the furnishing of their palatial condo, with stunning views of the Charles, […]
The month of August in New York City can be oppressive, with temperatures frequenting the nineties, high humidity, and hordes of tourists of every extraction clogging the sidewalks. But on a recent trip to Manhattan, the Spoiled Guest avoided all that by way of one wonderful small hotel, and the enduring magic of Central Park. […]
The word “picturesque” is wholly inadequate to describe the staggering beauty of Venice on a sunny afternoon in the fall, the ancient palazzi and cathedrals lining the Grand Canal, sunken streets snaking off under arched stone footbridges, the cries and songs of the gondoliers as they wend their way through the canal traffic, busy […]
What does it take to make a perfect hotel? You’d start with an enchanting location, certainly; it might be in a city, but more likely you’d want it to be dominated by nature, probably by a large body of water, perhaps with towering mountains nearby. You’d pick a site that would be a world unto itself, […]
The Wakaya Club and Spa is located on the island of Wakaya in the northeastern division of the nation of Fiji. You get there from the mainland U.S. by a 9-hour flight to Nadi (pronounced “Nandi”), then a 45-minute flight on the resort’s private plane (for which there is a fare of $300 per person). […]
Spoiled Guest 