By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS When a company that owns more than 100 bars and nightclubs across Mexico decides to open its first restaurant, you couldn’t really blame it if the menu started off a little hit-or-miss. But at La Bikini, which (as might well be expected from a corporation that specializes in bars and drinking) bills itself as the “Cathedral of
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By RICH GRANT WELLINGTON – The Lonely Planet travel guide books once called Wellington the “coolest capital city in the world,” an accolade the town loved so much, they made it their official slogan. And why not? New Zealand’s capital city is a pretty cool place, and the 300,000 people who live here know it. More than a quarter of
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BY RICH GRANT They say that no one buildings cities like Prague anymore, but that’s not quite true. Most of the gorgeous baroque, “Old Europe” city you see in the heart of Dresden, Germany, today is brand new, even though it appears to look centuries old. From medieval-looking back alleys to grand cathedrals, from an impressive baroque opera house to
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Most neuroscientists will tell you that there are just four stages of sleep, but at a new Fantasy Lab interactive adventure in Mexico City’s Plaza Metrópoli Shopping Mall in Colonia San Pedro de los Pinos, guests are invited to explore eight different stages of dreaming that go way beyond any visions your mind might conjure during its
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS An estimated 800,000 visitors — about 20 percent of whom will be international tourists — are expected to attend the 2020 carnival festival in the Yucatan capital of Mérida, said the city’s director of economic development and tourism, Eduardo Seijo Solis, during a press conference on Monday, Jan. 20. Headlining the festival will be the internationally acclaimed
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By RICH GRANT With 25 million visitors a year, New York’s Central Park is the most popular green space in the United States – and the most recognizable. More than 200 films have been shot here. From romantic “Annie Hall” to blood-ridden “Death Wish,” from tender “Love Story” to brutal “Fatal Attraction,” Central Park is one of the biggest Hollywood
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BY RICH GRANT If Golden, Colorado, had put together just a little more money in 1869, it would have become the most famous city in the Rocky Mountains. The town was in a race against Denver to build Colorado’s first railroad. Golden was the capital of the Colorado Territory; Denver was an upstart – a frontier town of saloons and
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By RICH GRANT People who have never been to Indianapolis and assume it is just another dying, dull, rust- and corn-belt Midwest city could not be more mistaken. Indy is amazingly sophisticated, and getting better by the day. Indy’s very walkable downtown is green (with 350 acres of parks, rivers, tree-lined boulevards and canals), European (with impressive monuments and murals),
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS Tlalpujahua, a little mountain town on the northeast end of the Mexican state of Michoacán, just two and a half hours outside Mexico City, didn’t start off to be a Christmas village. In fact, when it was first founded by Spanish settlers back in 1560, it was primarily a mining town, home to the Dos Estrellas mine,
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By RICH GRANT It is forever Christmas at McKonkey’s Ferry Inn. The dining room in this lovely tavern, located on the banks of the Delaware River, 42 miles upstream from Philadelphia, is always decorated as it would have been on Christmas night, 1776, when George Washington had dinner here. As Washington dined, 2,400 of his men assembled outside along the
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