A trip to northern Italy for a wedding brought unexpected opportunity. The wedding was to be in Portofino, but we decided to go in a few days early and stay a few days after. A flight into Malpensa – Milan would bring us to areas of Northern Italy such as Piemonte and the Lake District that we had not explored. The area south east of Torino instantly came to mind as a…
A wedding took us to the Italian Riviera. Our hotel, the Santa Margherita Palace, describes itself as “a design hotel, combining the new luxury trend with Riviera traditional style, in the city center of Santa Margherita Ligure, just a few steps from the beach and harbor, 5 km from Portofino.” This is a tacit admission that Portofino is where everyone wants to be, but can’t because it is so small. And that…
What can I say about Bellagio? It rests on the promontory that juts out where the two legs of Lago Como meet. What was surprising is that it is in the foothills to the Alps. Mountains rise on all banks, severely limiting the amount of housing and shops. While not a large community, shops and hotels dot not only the shoreline, but climb up the hillside so you can look out over…
The main train station in Madrid, Estasio Puerto de la Atocha, is located near the historic center of the city. We checked into the Tryp Hotel Atocha, which is only a short distance from the train station on one of the streets that runs from the train station to the Plaza Mayor or Main Square. This location is within walking distance of the primary attractions we wanted to see in this city.…
On our recent visit to the Spanish port city we had an opportunity to eat three evening meals. Our hotel was the Sheraton Four Points on the Diagonal in the Sant Mari district. According to one taxi driver the area where the Sheraton was built had been an industrial area where all the manufacturing jobs fled to Morocco, the Philippines and Thailand. Many of the office buildings here are new and the…