Currently Browsing: TRAVEL 31 articles
Tiny Tabarca’s Secret Season
For an islet known to offer hospitality to 2,000 visitors a day during the summer months, things are different just beyond the high season’s fringe in Tabarca, Spain. We were two of about 30 ferry passengers reaching port as another tour boat dropped off a few more. Despite perfectly sunny, warm weather, not many sightseers […]
Bodegas Castaño’s Casa de Cera
The final wine that accompanied our family-style farmhouse dinner in Yecla, Spain was Bodegas Castaño‘s Casa de Cera 2011. The intense fruit flavor of the family’s crown jewel was enough to win us over to a new grape varietal, monastrell. Wine aficionados might know it by its French or California moniker, Mourvedre, but it’s Spanish […]
Alicante’s Indigenous Grape: Monastrell
The first time I came across Monastrell, I only knew it as Chef María José San Román’s Michelin-starred restaurant in Alicante. Now, I realize that she was simply celebrating the best known local wine varietal by paying homage to the grape with that moniker. And if we had to find a way to learn about the grape […]
Enric Rosich’s Marvelous Macarons
Sometimes I think there must be a beacon on my head that guides me to amazing food finds when I least expect it. Like stumbling onto Enric Rosich‘s amazing, colorful, flavor-packed macaron shop in a shopping mall food court in Barcelona. Macarons? Spain? Yes to both. And I can attest that they are every bit as […]
Barcelona’s Welcome Mat
There was no specific name for the liquid that my Ecuadorian waiter, Señor Gonzalo Bravo, poured from an old nondescript bottle retrieved from the back of the restaurant at the end of my dinner. It tasted a bit like limoncello with a mysterious earthy twist. It was not a menu item, but a handcrafted after dinner drink […]
Room With a View
There are moments in life that are magical. A night sky scan of Alicante, overlooking the bay to the Castillo de Santa Barbara and the harbor below, is one such slice. And it appears every night from our balcony. Life here begins when the sun goes down and the town lights up with music, evening […]
Sending 2015 Up In Flames
Spain likes to set things aflame. The Las Fallas celebration in Valencia is probably the best known example when world-famous parade floats go up in flames every March. But our late December lunch at Paco Gandia Restaurante in Pinoso, Spain was a real demonstration of holding your hand to the fire the likes of which I had […]
Can I Go Too?
Wanna-be competitors followed the Volvo Ocean race contenders as they turned into tiny specks on the horizon and sailed out of view. I doubt there will be many that stay the course on its first leg of the competition through the Strait of Gibraltar and down to Cap Horn. But luckily, it looks like they […]
9-Months in Open Sea Extremes
From our perch overlooking the Alicante harbor, we witnessed one of the most exciting sailing events in the world: the start of the Volvo Ocean Race. With seven finely-tuned sailing yachts from around the globe, the race is a spectacle that was well worth pushing up our own Spanish start date to take it all […]
Could It Take Longer?
I still wonder if the Italian woman sitting behind us thought that “non-stop” meant she was required to take up a conversation with her German seatmate that would last the entire flight from Detroit to Frankfurt. To transport myself away from those tiny tiny seats and truly constant banter (honestly, I’m not exaggerating, just ask […]
