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Ending our Trip to Italy in Comfort at Rome’s Hotel Eden

Clients sometimes tell us that they’re not going to be in their hotel room that much, so you don’t have to find a luxury property for us. The problem with that reasoning is that you’re missing out on one of the finest travel experiences. Top-shelf properties provide the best service, comfort, food, and necessary down time you want especially after a long day of sightseeing. After walking miles around the large city of Rome, I can’t tell you how delighted we were to go back to our spacious room at the Hotel Eden, grab the bottle of prosecco, open our balcony doors, and watch green parrots fly back and forth to the monastery in front of us. 
 
Hotel Eden is located in a quiet part of the city, not far from the Villa Borghese Park. There’s so many superlatives about this property that I’m not sure where to start. The view from the 6th floor, where we had a gluttonous breakfast and dinner, had wraparound windows with glorious views of the city. I loved our waiters at breakfast, Marco and Francesco, who gave us a tour around the windows to all the sights below, before serving our perfectly poached eggs. They’ve been working together for 26 years at the hotel and love to tease each other. Our concierge, Anna, found us tickets at the nearby Borghese Gallery when they were sold out, and then reserved a table at an authentic lunch spot where there were no Americans, only Italian families that Sunday afternoon, dining on heavenly grilled artichokes and an antipasto plate overflowing with meats and creamy cheeses that I’ll be dreaming about back home. The mattress was so comfortable it was hard to wake up for that Caravaggio walking tour. Most importantly, it was a special moment to share with my wife after memorable days walking around Rome, coming back to our room, having a drink, and standing on our small balcony to watch the city below. Yes, the place you stay is a very important part of the travel experience. 
 

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Dream Trips 2010, Mountain Biking Bend, Oregon

Working these past 20 years primarily as an outdoors writer, it’s hard for me to admit that I’ve never been to Bend, Oregon, one of the renowned outdoor hubs in America and a mecca for serious mountain bikers. North, Middle, and South Sister Mountains rise 10,000 feet above town, forming part of the Cascade Range. Due north is Black Butte, one of the region’s many cinder cones that create a volcanic landscape unparalleled in the U.S. outside of Hawaii. I plan to bike on the Butte Loops Trail as it circles Black Butte on old logging roads that have been closed to motorized vehicles and are now part of the roads-to-trails program. Then I’m heading to the eastern part of the state to hike in the Oregon desert with my travel writing buddy, Eric Lucas.
 

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A Wonderful Week at The Basin Harbor Club

To celebrate my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday, my wife’s family headed to the Basin Harbor Club last week. And what a spectacular week it was! 127 years after Ardelia Beach started taking in summer boarders at her 225-acre working farm on the shores of Lake Champlain, the club’s fourth-generation hosts, siblings Bob and Pennie Beach, are proving that a family business can prosper over time. It helps that they have one of the premier locales on the lake, 740 acres overlooking one of the narrowest parts of Champlain. We did it all—golf, tennis, sail, sea kayak, stand-up paddleboard, swim to the trampoline, and my favorite activity of all, biking. Basin Harbor Club is based in Addison Valley, one of the most fertile parts of the state, where around every bend is a dairy farm, rolled hay, a carpet of emerald green, views of the lake, and the Adirondack and Green Mountains forming a ridge of peaks on either side of you. 

 
Basin Harbor Club is perfect for multi-generation family reunions, because everyone can do what they want during the day and meet for dinner that evening. The food was surprisingly good for a property that offers all-inclusive rates. A highlight was the lobster clambake on the shores of the lake while the sun was setting. Magical! The following day, we danced to a live band playing Nat King Cole favorites as we celebrated my 16th birthday (at least that’s what it said in the daily newsletter). Not surprisingly, many families book the same cottage for the same week the following year before they leave. No doubt, we’ll be joining them. 
 
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Not a Good Time to Be a Rhino in South Africa

South Africa officials said 333 rhinos were poached in 2010, nearly three times as many that were lost in 2009. Another five rhinos were killed in the first several weeks of 2011. The increased demand for the rhino horn as a cure for impotence in Asian countries or as a ceremonial dagger in Middle Eastern countries has fueled the latest killings. In neighboring Zimbabwe, another seven rhinos have been murdered in the past month. This is not some random shooting by locals. Zimbabwean park rangers said the poaching is so sophisticated now that the villains are using helicopters and light aircraft to land, get their treasured horn, and fly away. They are well organized and funded by big money syndicates. Equipped with night vision goggles and a slew of artillery, this new breed of poacher will be hard to stop. Expect the 21,000 rhinos in South Africa, the most of any country, to dwindle quickly if the government can’t provide the resources to do battle with these criminals.
 

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The Eureka Art Scene

They say Eureka has more artists per capita than any other place in California. A walk around town Sunday introduced me to many of the impressive local wares. My first stop was the Morris Graves Museum of Art housed in the circa 1904 Carnegie Free Library. A jazz quartet was playing to a packed crowd in the atrium as I wandered over to the Humboldt Artists Gallery to see the inviting watercolors of poppies and hydrangeas by Karen Berman, photographs of the seascape by Jim Lowry like Camel Rock, a favorite surf spot in the region. In the upstairs gallery, Corey Drieth creates mesmerizing geometric shapes of gouache on wood. From Morris Graves, I walked down to the historic Old Town waterfront district of Eureka and stopped in at the First Street Gallery. Run by Humboldt State University, the fine arts gallery features the works of students, faculty, alumni, and visiting artists. Inside, Don Gregorio Anton’s 3D Lazergraph produced intriguing faces and mist etched in glass, while Teresa Stanley’s “The Waters No. 6” was an enticing play of color and geometric patterns, all created on yupo paper. 
 
That evening I wisely chose to spend the evening at The Hotel Carter, one of four Victorians that form the Carter House Inns near the shores of Humboldt Bay. The hallways are lined with contemporary art, a sign that owner Mark Carter is a longtime supporter of the local art scene. Carter is perhaps best known as a winemaker in Napa Valley. Paired with a sublime beef tenderloin, I had the pleasure of sampling his 2006 Carter Cellars Cabernet at Retaurant 301. A perfect way to end a perfect day. 
 
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Boston’s Emerging Seaport District

Peering at the sailboats slicing through the harbor from the sixth-floor roof-deck bar of the new Envoy Hotel, it finally dawns on you that, yes, Boston really does rest on the shores of the Atlantic. For some silly reason, Boston has never taken proper advantage of its ocean setting. When the Institute of Contemporary Art opened in a gem of a building on the edge of the harbor in December 2006, publicists started to dub the evolving neighborhood the Seaport District. Yet, five years after the ICA opening, not much changed. A sea of parking lots continued to surround the ICA and wharves still lined the harbor of this industrial port.

Then, in 2013, Vertex Pharmaceuticals made the bold initiative to move the company’s global headquarters to twin 18-story buildings featuring 1.1 million square feet of research labs and office space. Other companies joined them, including Manulife Financial, Fidelity Investments, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. At last, the late Mayor Menino’s dream of a burgeoning Seaport District has taken root. Everywhere you look along the waterfront today, new condominiums and office buildings are being constructed. 
 
To read more about visiting the Boston Waterfront, including my hotel and restaurant picks, check out my latest story for Global Traveler. 
 
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Overnight Dogsled Trips with Mahoosuc Guide Service

Still don’t have plans for New Year’s Eve? Consider a 2 or 3-night getaway with Mahoosuc Guide Service to Umbagog Lake and the Mahoosuc Mountain region of Maine. You’ll have the rare chance to get lost in the wilderness without the masses during winter, breathing in the scent of pines in relative quietude, listening only to the pitter-patter of dogs’ legs running through the snow. Better yet, you get to cuddle with a team of soft-furred huskies. Mahoosuc Guide Service in Newry, Maine, made its debut 27 years ago and I’ve had the pleasure over the years to go on a dogsledding trip with them in winter and a paddling jaunt in the fall. So I can highly recommend them! Maine Registered Guides Polly Mahoney and her husband Kevin Slater lead overnight trips to Umbagog Lake on the New Hampshire border. Cost for the overnight tours start at $625 per person, including food, camping, winterized tents, and requisite doggies.  

 

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