I had a plan for the Louvre Museum in Paris. According to the museum’s website, nearly six million people each year view some of the 35,000 works of art displayed in its 652,000+ square feet of exhibition space. Because most of these six million want to see the museum’s most famous lady, the Mona Lisa is surrounded … Read more
It didn’t have a great view. I slept on a click-clack sofa bed that was little more than an Ikea futon and the kitchen was the size of a postage stamp. But the location of my Paris vacation rental apartment more than made up for its minor shortcomings. The longer I travel, the more I … Read more
I frequently travel solo to developing countries in the remotest corners of the world without the least bit of fear, but when it came time to visit France I was totally rattled. I don’t speak a word of French, but the inability to speak the local language had never bothered me before, yet every time … Read more
Jagged chunks of crumbling slate threatened to turn my ankles as I made my way to a pillar marking the easternmost tip of Spain. Just a few miles away lay the artsy village of Cadaqués, but the vista that spread before me felt like the end of the world. Rocky fingers of land dipped into … Read more
Mercè Barceló never expected to own a hotel. At university she studied philology, which qualified her to teach English and German. For years she tutored private language students until, in 2006, her world changed forever. “My big changes came when I decided to divorce,” she explained. “I have a very open personality, as my mother. … Read more
