Gadling http://www.gadling.com Gadling http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.gadling.com/media/feedlogo.gif Gadling http://www.gadling.com en-us Copyright 2013 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/<![CDATA[April In Paris At The Bagatelle]]>http://www.gadling.com/2013/04/24/april-in-paris-at-the-bagatelle/http://www.gadling.com/2013/04/24/april-in-paris-at-the-bagatelle/http://www.gadling.com/2013/04/24/april-in-paris-at-the-bagatelle/#commentsFiled under: , ,



April in Paris is about spring buds, blossoms, lovers and delicate sunshine - everyone knows that. Just because the temperatures are often in the 30s or 40s Fahrenheit, branches still barren, makes no difference at all. So it was with a light heart and step that I trekked to the western edge of town the other day to revisit one of my favorite gardens anywhere: the lavishly landscaped Parc de Bagatelle.

Edging the Bois de Boulogne and posh Neuilly, Bagatelle comes complete with ponds, grottoes, fountains, lichen-frosted statues and sexy sphinxes, a miniature chateau, orangeries, a café and restaurant, and remarkable rose and iris gardens. Peacocks feathered and of a human kind saunter along looping lanes, some draped with wisteria or clematis. The exquisite whole is tied together by more tortuous history than could fit into several of my monthly columns.

Continue reading April In Paris At The Bagatelle

April In Paris At The Bagatelle originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>bagatelleparisWed, 24 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST<![CDATA[No Bones About The Wonders Of Vézelay]]>http://www.gadling.com/2013/03/31/no-bones-about-the-wonders-of-vezelay/http://www.gadling.com/2013/03/31/no-bones-about-the-wonders-of-vezelay/http://www.gadling.com/2013/03/31/no-bones-about-the-wonders-of-vezelay/#commentsFiled under: , ,



Once upon a time, in the days of gluttonous yore - the 1980s - the celebrated Burgundian hill town of Vézelay, crowned by the Basilica of Mary Magdalene, was known as "a site of gastronomic pilgrimage." Rarely did anyone evoke Magdalene's relics or her UNESCO World Heritage Site shrine. Rarely did gastronomes notice the strangely attired pilgrims trudging up the looping, lichen-frosted lanes to venerate the longhaired, wild-woman saint.

In the 1980s, pilgrimage wasn't in fashion. Hedonism seemed the thing. The Michelin-starred hotel-restaurant in crusty Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay at the saint's feet was the shrine. Thousands offered up wallets on the altar of haute cuisine. Only zealots spoke of the moldering bones inside the basilica's gilt reliquary.

Continue reading No Bones About The Wonders Of Vézelay

No Bones About The Wonders Of Vézelay originally appeared on Gadling on Sun, 31 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>burgundyEntertainmentfranceParisPyreneesVézelayvezelaySun, 31 Mar 2013 09:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Notre Dame De Paris: 850 Years?]]>http://www.gadling.com/2013/02/28/notre-dame-de-paris-850-years/http://www.gadling.com/2013/02/28/notre-dame-de-paris-850-years/http://www.gadling.com/2013/02/28/notre-dame-de-paris-850-years/#commentsFiled under: ,



Gargoyles glare down from the towers of Notre Dame as a motorcycle speeds up a ramp and tears into the air, arcing like a flying buttress, its spinning wheels dropping inches from terrified tourists and the sculpture-encrusted façade of the world's most famous, most beloved, most reinvented and most mobbed cathedral.

The fantasy flashed through my irreverent mind as I clambered among joyous crowds seated on the temporary wooden bleachers and ramp that will face the cathedral until the end of this year. Worshippers wept and sang as cameras clicked, buzzed and whirred. Bliss and bafflement filled me.

We'd watched the carpenters build the ungainly platform, a here-today-gone-tomorrow structure so at odds with the solid pile of stone 100 feet in front of it. We'd hoped, vainly, that it would recreate the medieval maze of narrow streets that stood here until Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann wiped the slate in the mid-1800s to make the cathedral's wide, modern square.

Script large enough for a par-blind skeptic like me to read declared that Notre Dame Cathedral was 850 years old this year, 2013. I wrestled the numbers back to 1163 and smiled a Gioconda smile. You had to wonder how many of today's hallowed stones, sculpted or squared, had actually been part of this ecclesiastical flagship as it rose from 1163 to 1345, the date of its putative completion.

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Notre Dame De Paris: 850 Years? originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Christian ChurchGargoylesNotre DameNotre Dame de ParisParisRoman templeThu, 28 Feb 2013 15:00:00 EST<![CDATA[A Winter Wonderland In Paris? Mais Oui!]]>http://www.gadling.com/2013/01/28/a-winter-wonderland-in-paris-mais-oui/http://www.gadling.com/2013/01/28/a-winter-wonderland-in-paris-mais-oui/http://www.gadling.com/2013/01/28/a-winter-wonderland-in-paris-mais-oui/#commentsFiled under: ,


The first fat flakes clustered along my sleeve as I stood facing the Luxembourg Garden on the icy Left Bank. A grumpy street sweeper from the south side of the Sahara scattered salt and scowled. Then he looked up and batted his clotted eyelashes. Snow! In Paris? What a forgotten thrill!

Continue reading A Winter Wonderland In Paris? Mais Oui!

A Winter Wonderland In Paris? Mais Oui! originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 28 Jan 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>franceJardin du LuxembourglouvreMusée du LouvreNotre DameNotreDameParisPlace des VosgesTuileries PalaceVincent van GoghMon, 28 Jan 2013 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[In The Shadow Of Cinque Terre, Discovering The Treasures Of La Spezia]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/12/28/in-the-shadow-of-cinque-terre-discovering-the-treasures-of-la-s/http://www.gadling.com/2012/12/28/in-the-shadow-of-cinque-terre-discovering-the-treasures-of-la-s/http://www.gadling.com/2012/12/28/in-the-shadow-of-cinque-terre-discovering-the-treasures-of-la-s/#commentsFiled under: ,

Will the loved-to-death, storm-martyred Cinque Terre ever see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Which tunnel? There are many, many tunnels between the wave-lashed coves and perched, pastel-painted villages of the over-subscribed, over-reported, and now brutally hobbled Cinque Terre.

Above all there's a long, dark tunnel not of love but of disdain or disregard in the mind of the global public lying between the little-loved, unsung port city of La Spezia and the tourist mecca of the Cinque Terre 5 miles north.

The latest blow to the Riviera's breathtakingly picturesque suspended villages came last September, with yet another flash flood and killer landslide.

While the world's attention was focused on Sandy, smaller but similarly devastating storms hit the eastern Italian Riviera. Four people were seriously injured. Hillsides and hiking trails slid into the hungry Mediterranean's waves. Since September, the authorities have closed not only the roller-coaster hiking trail #2 linking all five Cinque Terre villages, but also the celebrated Via dell'Amore seaside stroll between Riomaggiore and Manarola.

Continue reading In The Shadow Of Cinque Terre, Discovering The Treasures Of La Spezia

In The Shadow Of Cinque Terre, Discovering The Treasures Of La Spezia originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 28 Dec 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Bronze AgeCinque TerreGenoaItalian NavyItalian RivieraitalyLa SpeziaLa Spezia Centrale railway stationLericiManarolaParisPortovenereRiomaggioreFri, 28 Dec 2012 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Buffalo Rome: Mozzarella, Martians And Culinary Crusaders]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/11/29/buffalo-rome-mozzarella-martians-and-culinary-crusaders/http://www.gadling.com/2012/11/29/buffalo-rome-mozzarella-martians-and-culinary-crusaders/http://www.gadling.com/2012/11/29/buffalo-rome-mozzarella-martians-and-culinary-crusaders/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



I was staring, mesmerized, my mouth watering at a giant mozzarella. The elastic curd was submerged in a giant bowl of cold water in my favorite small, family-run specialty food store in Rome. The bowl was shaped like a huge puckered blossom. It sat atop a glinting counter at E. Volpetti & C. on Via Marmorata near the Pyramid of Cestius in the Testaccio neighborhood in southern-central Rome.

The archetypal Aladdin's Cavern of gastronomy, Volpetti is a place of secular pilgrimage for savvy foodies but also for normal, food-loving, unpretentious Romans.

Dozens of hams were displayed in cubby-holes, the archives of porcine paradise waiting to be sliced to order by bona fide prosciutto experts. Jowl bacon and smoked pancetta dangled like headhunters' trophies. Jars of artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and slices of eggplant towered over the human scrum at the counter. Baskets brimmed with gnarled white truffles worth their weight in silver, truffles so nose-tickling that I nearly swooned of airborne gluttony.

Continue reading Buffalo Rome: Mozzarella, Martians And Culinary Crusaders

Buffalo Rome: Mozzarella, Martians And Culinary Crusaders originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>eatalyItalian RivieraItalyParisromeThu, 29 Nov 2012 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Paris' Treasure-house Of Mysterious Medieval Marvels: The Cluny Museum]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/10/30/Paris-Cluny-Museum/http://www.gadling.com/2012/10/30/Paris-Cluny-Museum/http://www.gadling.com/2012/10/30/Paris-Cluny-Museum/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



What Do Paris, Saint James, Scallop Shells, Pilgrims And Primitive Under-Floor Heating Share With Unicorns And Abbots?

Easy: Paris's Cluny Museum, officially France's National Museum of the Middle Ages.

Deciphering the mysteries of this riddle is as easy as clambering up the wooden staircases of the museum and poking through the labyrinth of its cluttered rooms.

Look at the hewn stone and massive brick walls. They might be in the Roman Forum. Correct, the Cluny Museum occupies a medieval-Renaissance mansion built into the ruins of an ancient bathhouse. It's the oldest building in Paris, exuding atmosphere scented by beeswax. Once the Paris home of the fabulously rich Abbots of Cluny, for nearly 1,000 years Rome's right-hand man lived here, possibly in greater comfort than a king.

Spiral or sweeping stone staircases, mullioned windows, Gothic gables and vast salons with massive timbers and mammoth fireplaces, stained-glass windows, secret passageways and sublime keyhole views: this was the abbot's little Paris hideaway. The rest of the time he lived in an even more sumptuous residence in the town of Cluny in Burgundy.
Somewhat reduced by 19th-century modernizers and other urban vandals, the garden of the Cluny Museum once swept all the way from today's Boulevard Saint Germain to the Seine. Now it's a small, mossy enclave where fountains splash and the kinds of herbs and medicinal plants the monks once tended grow in symmetrical beds.

Cluny Abbey represented the money and ecclesiastical power of the Church of Rome. Cluny helped map out and build the pilgrimage routes of France (and other European countries). Those routes, dotted with lucrative, Cluny-run monasteries, still lead to the shrine of Saint James the Greater - alias Santiago or Saint Jacques - in Compostela. That's in Galicia, Spain.

Continue reading Paris' Treasure-house Of Mysterious Medieval Marvels: The Cluny Museum

Paris' Treasure-house Of Mysterious Medieval Marvels: The Cluny Museum originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>cluny museumClunyMuseumdavid downieDavidDowniemuseumnational museum of the middle agesNationalMuseumOfTheMiddleAgesParisTue, 30 Oct 2012 11:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Paris Water Walk: Footloose On The Canals Saint Martin And Ourcq]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/09/28/paris-water-walk-footloose-on-the-canals-saint-martin-and-ourcq/http://www.gadling.com/2012/09/28/paris-water-walk-footloose-on-the-canals-saint-martin-and-ourcq/http://www.gadling.com/2012/09/28/paris-water-walk-footloose-on-the-canals-saint-martin-and-ourcq/#commentsFiled under: , ,



You don't have to be Moses to walk on water in Paris. Even a footloose freethinker can happily skip over the flowing Canal Saint Martin and its sources, the farther-flung Canal de l'Ourcq and Bassin de la Villette.

These unsung watercourses built or expanded by Napoleons I and III enter Paris on its northeastern edge at La Villette, site of the city's former slaughterhouses. They curve torpidly across the edgy 19th, 10th, 11th and 4th arrondissements - in that order - until they reach the Seine at the Arsenal Marina.

I was tempted to write "spill" or "rush" but the fact is the canals flow slowly, through many locks. They're the antithesis of in a hurry. At the right time of day the mood along their tree-lined banks matches the go-slow pace of the water.

Missed seeing the canals up to now? That's easy. From behind Place de la République, all the way to the Place de la Bastille and the Arsenal Marina, the Canal Saint Martin runs underground. That's one reason it's easy to walk on its waters: the esplanade on top is a linear garden. The park and flanking roadways change name many times. Parts are asphalted and used twice weekly for open-air markets.

The market on Boulevard Richard Lenoir held Thursdays and Sundays happens to be Paris' best. It's one reason why, when I walk the canals end to end, I start here early on Sunday. In fact, since the new Seine-side walkways have opened on the Right Bank, I pick up the pedestrian path on the river, amble past the Arsenal, then wend my way through the market heading northeast.

For me, the serious excitement starts at the first mossy lock in a pocket-sized park under giant trees. That's where the Quai de Jemmapes and Quai de Valmy begin. You spot your first humpback bridge 100 yards along. From here to the edge of town it's an almost uninterrupted series of locks, placid, greenish water, sycamores five stories high - and cafes, nightclubs, restaurants and bobos galore.

Gallery: Paris River Walk

Continue reading Paris Water Walk: Footloose On The Canals Saint Martin And Ourcq

Paris Water Walk: Footloose On The Canals Saint Martin And Ourcq originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>david downieDavidDowniefranceparisriver walkRiverWalkFri, 28 Sep 2012 11:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Seine-Side Saunter: Retaking Paris' Riverfront]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/31/seine-side-saunter-retaking-paris-riverfront/http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/31/seine-side-saunter-retaking-paris-riverfront/http://www.gadling.com/2012/08/31/seine-side-saunter-retaking-paris-riverfront/#commentsFiled under: , ,



Before dawn the other day, I stole down to the Seine and waited in darkness until the security
guard at the construction worksite had walked upstream out of sight.

Vaulting with the agility of a middle-aged guy with bad knees, I strode down the newly laid cobbled walkway below the Pont de Sully. The site is part of an ambitious project to slow or banish cars from Paris, and welcome walkers to the Seine while revitalizing the river's UNESCO World Heritage Site banks.

I danced a silent, gleeful jig of victory; the river would soon be ours again!

Soon: In September 2012 the one-mile stretch of walkway on the Right Bank between the Canal Saint Martin and city hall is slated to be finished. In spring 2013 an even longer stretch on the Left Bank near the Musée d'Orsay will be ours. Add them to the existing Seine-side pedestrian areas and by summer of 2013 we will be able to walk across town on either bank following the river almost entirely unmolested by automobiles.

Continue reading Seine-Side Saunter: Retaking Paris' Riverfront

Seine-Side Saunter: Retaking Paris' Riverfront originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>david downieDavidDowniefranceparisFri, 31 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Lost And Found In The Ancient Gallic Citadels Of Burgundy]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/07/24/lost-and-found-in-the-ancient-gallic-citadels-of-burgundy/http://www.gadling.com/2012/07/24/lost-and-found-in-the-ancient-gallic-citadels-of-burgundy/http://www.gadling.com/2012/07/24/lost-and-found-in-the-ancient-gallic-citadels-of-burgundy/#commentsFiled under: ,



Dateline: Bibracte, Gaul (i.e., France):

Water squirts from seven sacred springs. Towering trees sway. The placid view from leafy Bibracte takes in forests, pastures, lakes, stone-built villages and distant cloud-snagging mountaintops. Somnolence seems guaranteed. But wait: the sweeping prospects pulse with 2,000+ years of bloody history, mystery and bizarre, only-in-France nationalistic lore.

Bibracte? You won't find it on a map, not a current map anyhow. Bibracte is the most celebrated "lost city" of the Celts, the pre-Roman inhabitants of Gaul. Here, somewhere beneath the contorted beech trees, Julius Caesar dictated the perennial bestseller The Conquest of Gaul, etched into tablets in the year 52 B.C.

Bibracte is also where the valiant Gallic warrior Vercingétorix rallied the Celtic tribes of Gaul to face Caesar nearby at Alésia. That's the other celebrated lost city of Gaul's green heartland. "Lost" is the operative word. Caesar drubbed the Celts, marched Vercingétorix to Rome, and imprisoned then murdered him before cheering crowds. End of story? No. This is Gaul, meaning France. The past lives on. And on.

A riot of evocative rubble and vegetation, the remains of Bibracte spread atop Mount Beuvray. Happily you can geo-locate this handsome hill: at 2,500 feet it is one of the highest in Burgundy, sited in an unsung region west of France's finest vineyards in the Côte d'Or.

Granted, neither Bibracte nor Alésia is really lost these days: during the reign of President Francois Mitterrand, the Museum of Celtic Civilization was built on the flanks of Mount Beuvray. This year the spanking new MuséoParc Alésia has opened to crowds of spear-shaking young defeatists. The pair of government-subsidized memorials is linked by an official hiking trail and many roller-coaster meandering two-lane roads on which contemporary Gallic road warriors pilot their turbo-charged diesel chariots.

Continue reading Lost And Found In The Ancient Gallic Citadels Of Burgundy

Lost And Found In The Ancient Gallic Citadels Of Burgundy originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>BibracteburgundygaulTue, 24 Jul 2012 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Letter From Lilliputia: Small Is Beautiful In Paris]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/28/letter-from-lilliputia-small-is-beautiful-in-paris/http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/28/letter-from-lilliputia-small-is-beautiful-in-paris/http://www.gadling.com/2012/06/28/letter-from-lilliputia-small-is-beautiful-in-paris/#commentsFiled under: ,

It started on our flight back to Paris from New York: our seats had been put through the drier. They were too small to hold our newly fleshly forms. After a month in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City we had expanded our views - and backsides. Well, I had. My wife doesn't thicken. Her DNA descends from termites.

The Paris taxi seemed luxurious after the battered Yellow Cabs of Manhattan. But it was shoebox-sized: half our luggage rode on our laps. We nudged bumper-to-baby-bumper down uncannily smooth surfaces into the groomed, green perfection of central Paris.

How quaint and prosperous and picturesque the tidy spider's web of tree-lined streets with toy houses along them! The Eiffel Tower was slim and naked: it wore no cladding. Back home it might be demolished as pornographic. The Seine seemed a trout stream compared to the Hudson or Sacramento. And what were all those arched bridges built of stone? Surely steel and cement were superior?

In our absence friends who'd stayed at our apartment had exchanged our wormy furniture for dollhouse accessories. The ceilings and windows had downsized too. Our concierge, apparently by nibbling the wrong side of a mushroom, seemed the height of a child.

Forget inches: at 176 centimeters I towered over people and places! It felt wonderful. Petit was beau. How could I have forgotten why I moved here a quarter century ago?

Not only was small beautiful in Paris: old was pretty nifty too.

Continue reading Letter From Lilliputia: Small Is Beautiful In Paris

Letter From Lilliputia: Small Is Beautiful In Paris originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>culturedavid downieDavidDowniefranceparisThu, 28 Jun 2012 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Doggie Bag Heaven: A Martian Chows Down In Chicago]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/05/30/doggie-bag-heaven-a-martian-chows-down-in-chicago/http://www.gadling.com/2012/05/30/doggie-bag-heaven-a-martian-chows-down-in-chicago/http://www.gadling.com/2012/05/30/doggie-bag-heaven-a-martian-chows-down-in-chicago/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Chicago, Chicago - the city is so big and so fabulous you have to say it twice. Buildings are not just tall, they're also as broad as entire cities. Alleyways are as wide as turnpikes. People are not built for bigness: they're digitally enhanced for hugeness. Fittingly the portions on the giant plates in the vast eateries of Chicago are bigger than jumbo-size. They're mega. They're obscene.

An old-paradigm, European-size guy like me from San Francisco via Paris feels positively dwarfish in Chicago. On a recent trip, the balding pate of this European-Martian barely reached belly-button level in elevators. The Martian felt lost in a forest of fleshy Eiffel Towers.

Eiffel would never have been allowed to build an underfed, skeletal tower in Chicago. It dawned on me on our first day that Chicagoans must be unbearably hungry when in Paris.

It also became clear that extra-terrestrials seem like silly creatures in Chicago. They wear black socks with athletic shoes. They order single-shot small espressos and beg for drinks without ice. They ask for half-orders and doggy bags designed for Great Danes.

Martians also feel an extra-large burden of gluttonous guilt when eating out in Chicago. There is no way normal humans can finish a dish in the Windy City, which should be renamed.

San Francisco columnist Herb Caen once quipped that SF circa 1910 might well have been "the City That Knows How": by the 1970s it was "the City That Knows Chow."

Continue reading Doggie Bag Heaven: A Martian Chows Down In Chicago

Doggie Bag Heaven: A Martian Chows Down In Chicago originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 30 May 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>chicagodavid downieDavidDowniedrinkfoodWed, 30 May 2012 12:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Miracle In Milan 2012: Italy's Muscular Metropolis Goes Global]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/04/18/miracle-in-milan-2012-italy-s-muscular-metropolis-goes-global/http://www.gadling.com/2012/04/18/miracle-in-milan-2012-italy-s-muscular-metropolis-goes-global/http://www.gadling.com/2012/04/18/miracle-in-milan-2012-italy-s-muscular-metropolis-goes-global/#commentsFiled under: , ,

Rome stands for romance, history, art, architecture and fab food. Florence is for culture; Venice is for moody beauty and atmosphere.

What about Milan?

Milan is where the technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti comes from, the little gray man whose job is to save Italy from bankruptcy. Bankruptcy seems unlikely: in the midst of this unending "recession," Italy prospers and Milan is booming.

Muscular Milan is Italy's biggest city, the source of a third of this fabulously rich nation's income, the location of most of Italy's high tech and heavy industries, the capital of the country's fashion, business, finance and banking.

Milan is also an experiment in globalization, Italian style. It is pioneering a new brand of tourism-friendly Dolce Vita. This may be bittersweet but it looks like a way forward for aging, debt-plagued Italy.

Kaleidoscopic armies of immigrants are pouring in, opening shops and providing services, cooking, cleaning, doctoring and melding with the locals. Colorful disorder - homelessness and shantytowns included - is repainting a dour town that used to be nicknamed "the moral capital of Switzerland."

Compared to the joyless workaholic city I lived in nearly 30 years ago, Milan is unrecognizable -except for the perennial streetcars, outsized cathedral and other hulking old buildings. It's not only multi-ethnic, but also animistic and chaotically alive. Much of the city center is closed to traffic now and has been re-landscaped and groomed. Café terraces spill where trucks and buses once thundered along. The prospect of frivolous enjoyment of the kind reserved for Romans now energizes the streets - especially those nearest to the center of the spider web cityscape.

Continue reading Miracle In Milan 2012: Italy's Muscular Metropolis Goes Global

Miracle In Milan 2012: Italy's Muscular Metropolis Goes Global originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>cultureitalymilanstyleWed, 18 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Discovering Nonna Nina's Kitchen: minnow heaven on the Italian Riviera]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/02/27/discovering-nonna-nina-s-kitchen-minnow-heaven-on-the-italian-r/http://www.gadling.com/2012/02/27/discovering-nonna-nina-s-kitchen-minnow-heaven-on-the-italian-r/http://www.gadling.com/2012/02/27/discovering-nonna-nina-s-kitchen-minnow-heaven-on-the-italian-r/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

Just north of Portofino on the Italian Riveria, on the Genoa side of the Monte di Portofino Regional Park, is a perched hamlet called San Rocco di Camogli. This is the best place on earth to devour the marvelously flavorful minnows that come from the Gulf of Genoa, which the locals call rossetti - little red things. And little red things they are: about an inch long, thin as a thermometer, translucent, and with a little red dot near the gills. You don't just pop rossetti in your mouth whole - you fork in dozens of them at a time. And the best place to do this is on San Rocco di Camogli's single street, at the venerable restaurant La Cucina di Nonna Nina - Grandma Nina's Kitchen.

You will not find Grandma Nina in the establishment: she left her corporeal essence behind some years ago, and never set foot in the place anyway. She also left behind many delicious regional recipes from yesteryear, recipes transformed into exquisitely delectable dishes by the elusive, retiring, shy Paolo Delpian and his wife, Rosalia, Grandma Nina's natural heirs.

Paolo says little and works a lot: he's not a super chef and doesn't like "super" anything, including wine. He's an excellent cook who makes everything from scratch, fresh, using local ingredients. Rosalia runs the show. A bona fide grandmother, she doesn't look the part. She's fashionably turned out and has little of the plump, flour-dusted Italian nonna of yesteryear. The restaurant and its food reflect the owners' personalities: quiet, discreet, tastefully simple.

Tasteful simplicity is the root of the best Italian cooking. Paolo gets his minnows squirming fresh - they're too small to flip. They're fished along the jagged coast below the restaurant - whose dining room is blissfully unequipped with a distracting panoramic view. Into boiling water go the minnows, and mere seconds later, they're slid onto a warm plate, then onto your table and into your watering mouth. Purists eat them this way, naked. Others dribble their minnows with the lightest, fruitiest local Ligurian olive oil: full-bodied oil would spoil the delicate flavor. A minnow-sized pinch of salt is also allowed. And then: piscine heaven.

Continue reading Discovering Nonna Nina's Kitchen: minnow heaven on the Italian Riviera

Discovering Nonna Nina's Kitchen: minnow heaven on the Italian Riviera originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>david downieDavidDowniefishfoodgastronomyitalian rivieraItalianRivieraitalyminnowMon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Paris postcard: Savoring the subversively seductive splendors of the Marais]]>http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/31/paris-postcard-savoring-the-subversively-seductive-splendors-of/http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/31/paris-postcard-savoring-the-subversively-seductive-splendors-of/http://www.gadling.com/2012/01/31/paris-postcard-savoring-the-subversively-seductive-splendors-of/#commentsFiled under: , , , ,



French star architect Jean Nouvel once gave me a ride home from his studio in Paris' edgy 11th arrondissement. I chuckled to discover that the guru of transparency, glass and steel lives around the corner from me in a 1600s building on the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, the spinal column of the Marais. Old is better?

I was amused but not surprised: after 40 years of blanket gentrification the Marais has reportedly become theplace to live for a mix of fashion designers, artists, architects, auctioneers and other professionals-plus droves of bobos, meaning bohemian bourgeois. It's so desirable that it's practically unlivable.

Luckily you don't have to move here to enjoy the Marais: wandering its patchwork of streets from the 1500s-1800s is still a magical experience.

For one thing, super-rich celebs and bobos aren't the only ones drawn here. Trawl the gay district around Rue Vieille du Temple, the Rue des Rosiers Jewish neighborhood, or the Place des Vosges-the Marais' centerpiece square-and you'll discover a global festival of hip hedonism.

What's the attraction? The Marais' storied streets spread on the Right Bank between Beaubourg (the Pompidou Center) and the Bastille, the Seine, and the dowdy Place de la République. They're home to enough boutiques, museums, art galleries, trendy restaurants and cafés stuffed into landmark townhouses to defeat even those born to shop (the French call such people "window-lickers"). This is a safari park for people-watchers, a study in how to preserve and gentrify a unique historic neighborhood.

The penurious few who wound up here before the Marais became trendy do what we can to appreciate the hallowed atmosphere without sounding like party-poopers. Truth be told each time I step out I discover something new and wonderful in my backyard. But I always find myself at least once a day in the Place des Vosges.

Continue reading Paris postcard: Savoring the subversively seductive splendors of the Marais

Paris postcard: Savoring the subversively seductive splendors of the Marais originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>culturedavid downieDavidDowniefrancemaraisparisTue, 31 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Christmas in Paris: 'tis the season to be feasting]]>http://www.gadling.com/2011/12/14/christmas-in-paris-tis-the-season-to-be-feasting/http://www.gadling.com/2011/12/14/christmas-in-paris-tis-the-season-to-be-feasting/http://www.gadling.com/2011/12/14/christmas-in-paris-tis-the-season-to-be-feasting/#commentsFiled under: , , ,

It's not that Paris doesn't have Nativity Scenes or Christmas trees or even Santa Claus-lookalikes called le Père Noel-Father Christmas..

It's not that Parisians don't string blinking lights, buy extravagant gifts, throw parties, ring bells, and sing "noel-noel". Isn't noel French for "Christmas?" A few French faithful even attend ceremonies, light candles, observe Advent Lent, and fold hands in drafty sanctuaries that echo in emptiness the rest of the year.

But somehow in this militantly secular republic, where freedom from religion is a religion in itself, Christmas really isn't about Christmas. Not the way "les Anglo-Saxons" seem to celebrate it.

Noel in Paris is a time for worshipping the true French cult: food and wine, la grande bouffe. It's pagan, it's druidical, it's not just pre-Revolutionary, it's possibly pre-Roman or prehistoric and thoroughly ancient Gallic, meaning totally contemporary French.

Christmas in Paris is a fattening tale of extreme Thanksgiving-like gourmandizing, gluttonizing, gobbling, gnoshing and every other imaginable variation on the theme of snarfing up and scarfing down fine edibles and nectarous potables.

Holiday food markets and an extra rasher of farmer's and neighborhood markets mushroom in squares across the land and sometimes even fill bridges that cross the Seine. The Champs-Elysées, Trocadéro, Notre-Dame, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Place de la Nation and other history-soaked sites swarm with humanity drawn like flies to rustic stands groaning with goodies from the provinces.

Continue reading Christmas in Paris: 'tis the season to be feasting

Christmas in Paris: 'tis the season to be feasting originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>chistmasdavid downieDavidDowniedrinkfoodparisWed, 14 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Paris paradox: The changelessness of change]]>http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/30/paris-paradox-the-changelessness-of-change/http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/30/paris-paradox-the-changelessness-of-change/http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/30/paris-paradox-the-changelessness-of-change/#commentsPeople who tell you they've seen and done Paris frankly don't know what they're talking about.
Sure, Paris is timeless in its way: often you feel you've stepped back centuries. Cafés from the Belle Epoque, monuments from the Middle Ages and recipes from the butter-and-cream days before the Great War-all transport you to a place where time and taste stand still, a "been there, done that" universe.

But here's one paradox of many: few cities have as varied and changing an arts and culture scene as Paris. How many towns can lay claim to hundreds of galleries and foundations, and 150 museums? Alongside their permanent collections, each mounts temporary exhibitions. Some art or history shows run for nearly a year at a time and appear-another paradox-to be permanent fixtures. When they're over you can barely believe it, especially if you didn't find time to see them.

I've lived in Paris for over 25 years and still haven't seen all its galleries, foundations and museums. Every few months they shed their skin of temporary shows. Actually the metaphor isn't accurate: the constant changing of the artistic guard is more a staggered and staggering relay race run over an eerily familiar course.

Try asking those Paris-weary friends of yours whether they've seen the latest Modernist show-meaning the magnificent collection of Gertrude, Leo and Michael Stein: "Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso... The Adventure of the Steins" at the Grand Palais?

What about the bowl-you-over Cézanne retrospective at the Luxembourg?

Continue reading Paris paradox: The changelessness of change

Paris paradox: The changelessness of change originally appeared on Gadling on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Wed, 30 Nov 2011 09:00:00 EST<![CDATA[Walking on the wild side of Paris]]>http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/22/walking-on-the-wild-side-of-paris/http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/22/walking-on-the-wild-side-of-paris/http://www.gadling.com/2011/11/22/walking-on-the-wild-side-of-paris/#commentsFiled under: , ,



The good news is Paris' kaleidoscopic, multiple-choice future is playing today not in a theater near you but in the Oberkampf, Ménilmontant and Belleville neighborhoods. That's where Algiers meets Caracas and Istanbul via Zanzibar. Despite occasional intrusions by fanatics, the inhabitants here and in Paris' many other ethnic enclaves seem to get along like traditional French peas in the pod.

Never heard of Oberkampf, Ménilmontant or Belleville? That's not surprising. Outlying, in the north-by-northeastern sector of town, they're not chic. They have no claims to fame other than as the home to Père-Lachaise Cemetery and the birthplace of Edith Piaf, the raucous crooner of "La Vie en Rose" and yesteryear's hits.

For 20 years I rented an office in the Ménilmontant district. My desk now overlooks the Place de la Bastille and Marais. But I'm still a regular to my old haunts: the cemetery is Paris' most atmospheric hideaway, if you ask me. And there's no better place to get a haircut, eat as if you were on the Bosporus, or pick up spiky, smelly, scary specialty foods.

Why the haircut? My barber for years was affable Monsieur David-pronounced Dah-veed-a Moroccan who wore a Star of David and a beret and ate baguette sandwiches filled with many things, from many animals, including the kind that provide ham and bacon.

Nowadays it's Mustafa or Ali who snip at the graying tufts still clinging to my scalp. Like Monsieur Daveed, when Mustafa and Ali work my head over they cut back and forth between French and other languages, their jaws moving like well-oiled scissors.

All three barbers favor Radio Nostalgie and Radio Montmartre, with tunes from Piaf's heyday. Like them she was supremely French: a foundling whose parents and grandparents were immigrants-in Piaf's case they came from the French provinces, Italy and North Africa.

Continue reading Walking on the wild side of Paris

Walking on the wild side of Paris originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>franceoberkampfparisTue, 22 Nov 2011 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[David's Discoveries: Portofino Perfect]]>http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/25/david-s-discoveries-portofino-perfect/http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/25/david-s-discoveries-portofino-perfect/http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/25/david-s-discoveries-portofino-perfect/#commentsFiled under: , ,


Portofino's horseshoe-shaped harbor and plumb-line cliffs are among the more actively gorgeous places on the Italian Riviera, as Italians call the boomerang-shaped region of northern Liguria. And Liguria is one of my favorite regions in the world for hiking, eating, dreaming and wandering.

A picture-postcard faux fishing port, Portofino is the Riviera's most glamorous time warp: the villas of the super-rich perch on pine-studded promontories jutting into the Mediterranean. Billionaires like Silvio Berlusconi spend precious leisure hours here. "Precious" is the operative word.

Five hundred years ago one irreverent overnight traveler noted that in Portofino "you were charged not only for the room but the very air you breathed."

Paying for the atmosphere is still what Portofino is all about.

But my wife Alison and I have a novel way enjoying Portofino for free. It includes some of the greatest views on the Mediterranean seaboard, plus lots of fresh air, and exercise. Naturally on either end of our "Portofino Perfect" walking experience (and even halfway along it) you can drop a few euros for a cappuccino, or spend $200 per head for a snack at a fashionable ristorante.

Continue reading David's Discoveries: Portofino Perfect

David's Discoveries: Portofino Perfect originally appeared on Gadling on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>adventure-traveldavid downieDavidDownieitalian rivieraItalianRivieraitalyportofinorivieraTue, 25 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST<![CDATA[David's Discoveries: A tale of two labyrinths: Chartres]]>http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/20/david-s-discoveries-a-tale-of-two-labyrinths-chartres/http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/20/david-s-discoveries-a-tale-of-two-labyrinths-chartres/http://www.gadling.com/2011/10/20/david-s-discoveries-a-tale-of-two-labyrinths-chartres/#commentsFiled under: , ,



Outdoors in a panoramic park behind the famous cathedral of Chartres a teenage girl skipped along the concentric pathways of a grassy labyrinth. Other kids shouted and kicked a soccer ball. Young lovers simultaneously pecked at each other and the touchpads of their handheld devices, observed by curious onlookers.

Most such onlookers in Chartres are day-trippers from nearby Paris: The capital is an hour's ride east on a commuter train.

A hundred yards away from the sunny, lively grass labyrinth, silence reigned inside the looming stone cathedral of Chartres. The cool, echoing nave was lit by glowing stained-glass windows and held aloft by flying buttresses. An unusual procession was underway. Spiritual seekers shuffled, slid or crawled along the 850-foot-long, serpentine stone pathway marked out on the floor some 800 years ago. They were following the convolutions of the "real" labyrinth, the one that has made Chartres a pilgrimage site for labyrinth-walkers worldwide.

Chartres is the Queen of European cathedrals, with acres of stained glass. It's among the world's most astonishing ecclesiastical edifices in beauty and historical value. The cathedral also has one of the tallest naves and spires anywhere and the most original, wheel-like buttresses too. Atop a gentle rise overlooking the Eure River, the site where central Chartres spreads is magical: Ancient Druids, the priests of the Gauls, met where the cathedral now stands. Or so claimed Julius Caesar.

Continue reading David's Discoveries: A tale of two labyrinths: Chartres

David's Discoveries: A tale of two labyrinths: Chartres originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>cathedralchartreschurchdavid downieDavidDowniefranceslabrynthparisThu, 20 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EST