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TRUTH IN TRAVEL

DECEMBER 2017

the

Yours for

Weekend

12.17

ASIA Kyoto, Japan ............................ 10 Shanghai, China ...................... 22 Uzbekistan ............................. 56

CARIBBEAN & MEXICO Cabo San Lucas, Mexico ............ 26

CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA Placencia, Belize ...................... 24 São Paulo, Brazil ...................... 70

EUROPE Ugento, Italy ............................. 19 Paris, France ............................ 24 Antwerp, Belgium .................... 30 Bordeaux, France ..................... 82 Lisbon, Portugal ....................... 92

MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA Casablanca, Morocco ............... 10 Rwanda .................................. 32

NORTH AMERICA Park City, Utah ......................... 22

GIFT GUIDE Everything you really want this holiday season, on page 36.

T R AV E L SPECIALISTS The experts and fixers we trust to pull off any trip, anywhere, on page 46.

Street scene by the short minaret of Khiva, in Uzbekistan.

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photograph by FELIX ODELL

12.17

BEHIND THE SCENES

ASK THE EDITORS

What’s the farthest you’ve ever gone for a long weekend?

Corey Sabourin, Copy Director

At Luxury Editor Matt Hranek’s 50th birthday party at Château Cos d’Estournel in France’s Médoc region (page 82), longtime friends, collaborators, and Traveler contributing photographers Stephen Lewis, Dewey Nicks, and Oddur Thorisson (above, from left)—plus Hranek himself—all covered the three-day affair with their distinct photographic styles.

The Cover The entrance of the Château Cos d’Estournel in the Médoc region of France.

Photograph by Matt Hranek.

Mobolaji Dawodu

The novelist chronicled Uzbekistan’s storied past and dynamic present, p. 56.

The GQ Style Fashion Director dressed São Paulo’s creative class in this season’s most eclectic looks, p. 70.

What’s always in your carry-on? A pineneedle sachet my friend made for me. It feels homey. What’s your travel philosophy?

Go with an itinerary, but be prepared to change course. And once you’re there, ask people, not the Internet. What city do you love? I adore the architecture in Mexico City, especially the clean lines and gold details of the Luis Barragán House and Studio.

What would the airplane of your dreams have? A dim sum–style food cart, with dishes from Nigeria, Indonesia, Italy, the U.S., and India.

The one thing you never travel without?

Shea butter. It’s the only product I use on my skin and hair.

Favorite place to eat when you’re at home?

Chris Restaurant, a Caribbean spot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. They stay open until 5 A.M., and the food is great.

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“Medellín, Colombia. There are direct flights from New York, and it’s just one hour behind. I took the hallucinatory funicular over hillside barrios to the lush Arví nature park, then spent several hours in the newly expanded Modern Art Museum of Medellín.”

Pilar Guzmán, Editor in Chief “I went to my cousin’s wedding for a long weekend in Pirque, just outside of Santiago, Chile, and it was absolutely worth it. If you have a long enough overnight flight where you can actually sleep more than four hours, then you’re golden once you hit the ground.”

Paul Brady, Articles Editor “I once flew from New York to Paris for a two-night stay, after scoring a $297 ticket during a Delta flash sale.

I had time for oysters in Montmartre, a trip to the Louvre, and a rather decadent dinner of entrecote and red wine at Le Bouillon Chartier.”

Katherine LaGrave, Senior Digital Editor “Copenhagen, direct from JFK on Norwegian. I ate my weight in smørrebrød, strolled harborside in Nyhavn, and took a day trip to Sweden, which is a quick 30-minute train ride over the Øresund Bridge to Malmö.”

Erin Florio, Senior Editor

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Leave It to the Ombudsman Need an advocate for a travel mishap?

Email ombudsman@ cntraveler.com.

“Delta goes direct from JFK to Dakar, Senegal, twice a week. The city has an incredible music scene, with bands playing Afro-Cuban jazz in all-night clubs, and great surf beaches where locals jog and play volleyball all day long.”

From left: Matt Hranek; courtesy of Daphne Beal; courtesy of Mobolaji Dawodu

Our Men in the M doc

Daphne Beal

12.17

EDITORS’ PICKS

The Best Low-Key Meal in Kyoto Casablanca, Reconsidered

It used to be that simply checking into a Four Seasons signaled the height of luxury. Now it’s staying at eight of them on one vacation. Four Seasons Private Jet has launched these megatrips on which you zip between continents on a 757 decked out with lie-flat seats, cashmere blankets, and Bose headsets. So I, along with 50 or so other supertravelers, was off on a nine-city, 19-day food-focused itinerary called Culinary Discoveries that was designed in collaboration with Noma chef René Redzepi: We met with sushi chef Jiro Ono in Tokyo, took a Thai cooking class in Chiang Mai, and sampled street food in Mumbai. In Chianti, we visited the butcher shop Antica Macelleria Cecchini, where owner Dario Cecchini quoted Dante while grilling slabs of Chianina steak. We even went on a truffle hunt and indulged in our spoils back on the plane, shaved over grilled cheese sandwiches. Before the last stop in Paris, we took a day trip to Copenhagen and had lunch in the garden of Redzepi’s home. For us food obsessives, that was almost more impressive than the private jet. D A V I D P R I O R

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I recently spent two nights in Casablanca, a town everyone says is too gritty to love. Well, everyone’s wrong: It’s like the Los Angeles of Morocco, with sea breezes, surf, palm trees, and long rosé-soaked lunches at oceanfront cafés like La Terrazza, where the grilled sardines are the thing to get. P A U L B R A D Y

A New Favorite in Paris L’Officine Universelle Buly 1803 opened a second location on Paris’s rue de Saintonge. Of course they carry their luxe, old-school skin-care line (including the Pommade Concrète balm you always picked up at the rue Bonaparte shop), but there’s also a café serving onigiri and Japanese ice cream on elegant trays, and a driedflower shop with bouquets made of preserved daisies and ears of wheat.

YO L A N DA E D WA R D S

Clockwise from left: Katherine Bont; Imagebroker/Alamy Stock Photo; Yolanda Edwards

TIME TO REDO YOUR BUCKET LIST

“Aje Kiyacho Donguri is a serious localsonly spot—my name was the only one on the waiting list written in Roman script.

There’s an endless menu of meats at this grill-yourown offal restaurant. I went with the tripe, ox tongue, and rib eye, which I cooked to crispy perfection on my personal gas burner. The flavors were a revelation, and the unfamiliarity of it all made it even more memorable.” sebastian modak

EDITOR’S LETTER

12.17

The Pyramids at Giza, Egypt.

“Alex, I know you don’t love surprises,” said our guide, Humphrey Gumpo, “but remember we talked about keeping an open mind and an open heart?” Coming from just about anyone else, I might have run interference as he tried to get my 50-year-old big sister—who once sobbed inconsolably at her seventh birthday party when the staff at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour broke out in its (“Surprise!”) riotous rendition of “Happy Birthday”—to change her mind about an impromptu overnight stay in the otherworldly Makgadikgadi salt pans of Botswana. The three of us had been together for a week, which in travel terms is more or less binding for life. We had fallen into an easy rhythm, almost like three siblings, taking our same places at the dinner table each night and in the Land Rover. We were not, however, in sync on this plan.

Over the course of early morning game drives and campfire cocktails, we learned each other’s stories. Humphrey, a 37-year-old native Zimbabwean who has been guiding for almost 20 years, now exclusively for the high-end operator Roar Africa, is among the few wildlife specialists who have license to travel freely across borders throughout much of the continent. His sensitivity to the nuances

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Condé Nast Traveler

Pilar Guzmán, Editor in Chief @pilar_guzman

Bettmann/Getty Images

Experience Makers

of different tribes and languages in Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—as well as to those of the Americans, Australians, and Europeans he leads— is matched only by his attunement to the wildlife.

Humphrey met Alex’s gaze squarely, lingering for a couple of beats longer than most Americans are used to. “Okay, we’ll go back to the camp,” he said as he gave her arm a gentle squeeze. He had been studying her facial and body expressions and knew not to press further. I thought back to our morning drive when Humphrey made the quick call to turn the vehicle around in response to an elephant’s subtle head movement, concluding that the bull was in no mood to be followed. Back in our tent, I heard the familiar childhood sound of my sister stifling a cry in the dark from her twin bed. She wasn’t upset, she told me when I went to console her, she was crying from “the sense of relief from feeling heard and understood.”

The chemistry between travelers and guides and the way it transforms a bucket-list safari into the trip of a lifetime is, of course, the very definition of travel gestalt. Then add survival skills in the bush to the mix: The difference between those who listen for the birds’ alarm calls when a predator is near and those who don’t can mean everything.

In our annual list of our favorite Travel Specialists (page 46), we honor not only those ear-to-theground experts who can, say, score a reservation at a Noma pop-up, or organize vows at the top of an active volcano, but those who, beyond skill, experience, and access, have an unquantifiable emotional intelligence—a gift that comes to those who truly listen.

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T H E T H I N G S W E C A N ’ T S T O P TA L K I N G A B O U T

A WORK OF ART During the four-year renovation of Castello di Ugento, a 17th-century castle turned luxury hotel in southern Puglia, Baroque frescoes depicting Biblical and mythical scenes were restored, and its walled garden and orchard replanted. Page 19.

photograph by FILIPPO BA MBERGHI

CondĂŠ Nast Traveler

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BEING THERE

A GRAND REFORMATION AN ITALIAN CASTLE IS NOW WELCOMING GUESTS

In the past decade, Puglia’s masserie, the simple farm estates turned stylish hotels, have been credited with luring travelers from the region’s beaches and bringing them inland. The 17thcentury Castello di Ugento, which reopened last month, borrowed the masserie’s historic conversion concept but cranked the luxury factor up a notch. Like so many of the best small hotels, Castello di Ugento, a 40-minute drive from Lecce through olive groves and vineyards, by definition,

Clockwise from far left: The grand staircase, added at the end of the 17th century; remnants of the original tower connected to the castle; the table set for lunch with antique silverware.

photographs by FILIPPO BA MBERGHI

Condé Nast Traveler

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BEING THERE

is a labor of love—and in this case the product of a major life change. Four years ago, the former Pepsi CEO Massimo Fasanella d’Amore di Ruffano was tired of the punishing pace of international business, and decided, along with his partner, Diana Bianchi, to start a new project— reviving his family’s 374-year-old castle, which had gone unused for 33 years.

So he wrangled a team of Italian artists, architects, and craftsmen, who feverishly restored the property, replacing old carparo tufaceo stones that had been worn down over centuries of use, adding a state-of-the-art cooking school, and fixing the expansive L-shaped balcony that overlooks the castle’s eponymous town. The couple converted the space into nine minimal guest rooms with white pietra leccese walls and local ceramics (they live on-site, close enough to prepare the guests’ espresso each morning and discuss the finer points of Salento’s Baroque period with them during strolls through the walled garden).

The centerpiece of the renovations, however, is the downstairs salon’s ceiling, with 17th-century frescoes of figures and scenes from Greek mythology and the Bible whose gold cherubs and landscapes were meticulously restored by hand by a team of six who worked every day for 14 months straight. Though Massimo and Diana did exercise restraint at times, leaving the castle’s original walls untouched in parts of the same frescoed room, a deliberate contrast with the rich hues of the antique oil paintings that are hung there. Throughout, there is an unmistakable sense of place, most noticeable in the way Puglia’s clean, bright sunlight illuminates the pale blue–and–white palette, the very same one that Massimo’s ancestors used all those centuries ago.

GIA NLUCA LONGO

Minimal furniture in a salon on the first floor, or piano nobile, emphasizes the castle’s restored 17th-century frescoes.

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CHECKING IN

PARK CITY THE BEST IN THE WEST JUST GOT BETTER

Aman has earned its cultlike following not through flashy ad campaigns or loyalty reward programs (it does neither) but by zealously sticking to a pretty simple formula: insanely attentive service and clean, minimal design. After opening 30 properties in as many years, the luxe hotel brand has it down, which is why we were a little surprised by the extra-long lead time of Amanyangyun, its newest property, opening this month, 45 minutes from Shanghai’s city center. In 2009, Aman began working with Chinese philanthropist Ma Dadong to relocate 10,000 ancient camphor trees (some are over 1,000 years old!) and 50 granite-and-fir Ming and Qing dynasty homes that were in danger of being demolished. The trees and dwellings were moved 500 miles from Jiangxi Province to Shanghai, and then the homes were reassembled and restored to create 13 villas that, along with 24 new-build suites (all designed by Aussie architect Kerry Hill in earthy neutrals, with lots of bamboo), have been scattered among the replanted camphor. In true Aman fashion, there’s zero evidence of the herculean effort this all took. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you’d stumbled into a beautifully preserved village in a forest that’s been there forever, which was, after all, precisely the point. R E B E C C A M I S N E R

Putting Down Roots in Shanghai

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CANDICE R AINEY

Photograph courtesy of Aman

One of Amanyangyun’s reimagined historic homes.

You come to Park City not only because it’s easy to get there (it’s a quick 45-minute drive from Salt Lake City International) but because it’s one of the only remaining Western ski towns that doesn’t feel like it was art directed within an inch of its life with cobblestones and taxidermy. Nowhere are its alpine charms more realized than on Main Street, where the almost-antique town lift creeps over houses from the 1800s and raccoon-eyed visitors find salve for their aching quads in the form of pints and comfort food. And yet, for all the craft beer that’s poured on this strip, it’s always been tough to find a great hotel or vacation rental.

But that’s changed with Imperial House, a four-bedroom property that’s part private villa (you have exclusive use of the third and fourth floors), part luxury hotel (there are concierges and drivers at the ready) and reads midcentury mod with blond wood floors and peg-leg furniture. The Park City local Seth Adams, one of the owners, gutted the inside—it opened in 1904 as a boardinghouse for miners and operated as a hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic—but kept its Victorian bones intact. Instead of a lobby on the first floor, you’ll find Riverhorse Provisions, a general store where you can grab scrambled eggs and housemade sausage before hitting the slopes.

The property’s concierges can also pre-stock your fridge. But who wants to cook after jump turning all day?

Instead, enlist Imperial’s private chef, who will make use of that sweeping kitchen while you sprawl out in an overstuffed chair near the fireplace.

HOTEL REPORT

Placencia, the 16-mile peninsula in southeastern Belize with the Caribbean on one side and its own lagoon on the other, has been quietly entering the luxury travel game for more than a decade. It first got our attention when Francis Ford Coppola opened his 25-room Turtle Inn in 2001 (followed by his private island resort, Coral Caye, in 2016).

But with two high-profile openings this year, and more in the works, we think the area is officially having a moment. Since January, the colonial-style Naïa Resort and Spa has claimed 19 acres of Placencia’s coastline and jungle with 35 standalone beach houses (convenient for snorkeling at the world’s secondlargest coral reef in the morning and hiking to Mayan temples after your grilled fish lunch).

And this month the region’s largest luxury resort, the 50-bungalow Itz’ana Resort & Residences, launches with an adults-only swimming pool, a farm-to-table spot serving Garifuna dishes like lobster in coconut broth, and sunrise yoga on a deck overlooking the sea. E L E N I G A G E

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The Facial to Fly For

Spa Le Bristol by La Prairie, one of our favorite spas at one of our favorite Parisian hotels, just opened a Tata Harper treatment room with green velvet divans, floral wallpaper, and, of course, treatments using the totally natural, nontoxic products Tata is known for.

A More Stylish River Bed

About a year after launching his boutique hotel collection, Azerai, in Laos, Aman founder Adrian Zecha is scheduled to open a second hotel, in Vietnam’s Can Tho, this month. The 60 simple ash-wood rooms have verandas that peek through the jungle toward the Mekong Delta’s Hau River, where the hotel runs sunset sampan tours.

What we like most is the spa, which does hot river stone massages under a canopy of banyan trees.

THE ROOM TO BOOK Of the new suites at Hotel Esencia, between Tulum and Playa del Carmen, we like the six that open onto Xpu-Ha beach.

The Other Waikiki

“When I visit friends in Honolulu I don’t usually hang out in Waikiki. But during a recent trip, I stayed at the new Laylow hotel there and thought it served as a much-needed reprieve from the touristpacked neighborhood.

It has a polished island vibe and an open-air restaurant where I had excellent cold brew coffee in the morning and margaritas and kalua pork egg rolls as the sun went down.”

Caleb Bennett

OTT Openings in Time for the Holidays

Four Seasons Hotel Megève, Megève, France This ski-in/ski-out resort, with wood-burning fireplaces in its suites, a ski concierge, and the new location of the beloved two Michelin–starred Le 1920, is the brand’s first Euro mountainside property and the only hotel right on the slopes of Mont d’Arbois.

The Murray, Hong Kong One of the city’s most iconic modernist buildings gets a billion-dollar makeover by Sir Norman Foster, turning it into a 336-room hotel with a swank rooftop bar and epic views of Hong Kong Park.

The Bulgari Resort & Residences, Dubai The sixth hotel from this high-end Italian jewelry house is set on Jumeirah Bay Island, a private man-made islet (sculpted in the shape of a sea horse—seriously) with its own marina, yacht club, and 18,000-square-foot spa.

The Middle House, Shanghai The fourth edition of the House collection from Swire Hotels has 111 rooms and 102 residences with traditional Chinese screens and dark-wood floors from designer Piero Lissoni.

Illustration by Jordan Higa; photograph by Tanveer Badal

The New Caribbean Hot Spot

ROA D TR I P

GO FULL CIRCLE THERE’S SO MUCH MORE TO MEXICO’S BAJA SUR THAN LOUNGING POOLSIDE IN CABO

Unless you’re a die-hard surfer or marlin fisherman, there’s never been much reason to leave your resort in Cabo San Lucas. Since the 1950s, it’s been an easy getaway, especially for West Coasters craving pool time, margaritas, and little else. Then, after hurricane Odile hit in 2014, Cabo had a reawakening. Classic properties like Rosewood’s Las Ventanas al Paraíso were renovated, and there was a surge in boutique hotel openings, like The Cape and the futuristic Mar Adentro, and in younger, hipper travelers who wanted to do more than lie in the sun. That led to more openings, this time just outside of Cabo San Lucas proper, as stylish farm hotels with excellent organic restaurants popped up in the agricultural area around San José del Cabo, miles from any beach. And earlier this year, 50 miles up the Pacific coast in Todos Santos, hotelier Liz Lambert opened the groovy Hotel San Cristóbal, which has a cool Venice Beach–meets–Austin vibe.

The best way to really see how Baja is changing is by car. Over five days, you can hit all of the above in a 300-mile loop: Start in Cabo at the tip of the peninsula, then drive up the Pacific side, across to La Paz and the nearby uninhabited island of Espíritu Santo, then back down the eastern Sea of Cortez side—a swath of desert beaches that are still largely undeveloped (at least until the Four Seasons opens next year).

Many nonstop flights from the East Coast and Midwest arrive in Cabo before lunch, which means your first stop should be for tacos. Pick

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up your rental car at the airport and drive 15 minutes south to the center of Cabo for tacos al pastor at the taqueria Las Guacamayas (it’s where the locals go), then check into The Cape, a sexy leave-the-kids-at-home hotel. Make the most of your one night here: Hit the pool, grab some Pacíficos at the rooftop bar—it’s the only one in town, and it has the best views of Cabo’s iconic Arch—and do dinner at Manta, where chef Enrique Olvera, of Cosme and Pujol fame, turns out veg-forward dishes like zucchini tostadas.

The next day, drive north on Highway 19 toward Todos Santos. On the hour-long ride, Cabo’s resort sprawl gives way to empty beaches and the rolling foothills of the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains that run down the peninsula like a spine. Surfers should turn off at the 67 kilometer marker, about 45 miles from Cabo, and follow signs to Cerritos Beach Club & Surf—at Mario Surf School, you can rent boards or arrange lessons. The waves are mellow at Cerritos, so if you’re looking for a more challenging break, head six miles north to San Pedrito. Swimmers, take note: This stretch of the Pacific is known for its pounding breaks; calmer waters can be found at the secluded Playa las Palmas, just to the north.

Hotel San Cristóbal is about 15 minutes from here and, like all of Lambert’s properties, feels perfectly of its place and seriously cool, with bright woven blankets, copal incense, and lots of mezcal. Spend a day or two at the hotel’s turquoise-tiled pool or get out and explore: Borrow a cruiser to bike into Todos Santos for fish tacos at La Copa Cocina, or rent a mountain bike to tackle the foothills’ 30 miles of trails.

The next stop is Camp Cecil, an eco-glamping retreat with eight safari-style tents on the rugged island of Espíritu Santo, one of the only places where you can snorkel with whale sharks. To get there, cut inland from Todos Santos for an hour, passing sun-baked arroyos and cardón cacti, en route to the untouristy city of La Paz. Leave your car overnight at the marina and take an hour-long panga ride to the island.

The last stretch is the most scenic. Back on Highway 1, twist south through the mountains for about an hour (make a pit stop in the tiny mining village of El Triunfo for surprisingly good wood-fired pizza at Caffe El Triunfo). If you’re feeling adventurous, turn off the highway and take Camino Cabo Este. It’s a bumpier ride, but you’ll wind through the empty Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park and the beaches along the Sea of Cortez. Arriving at Flora Farms outside of San José del Cabo marks the end of sightseeing—your final 24 hours are all about food.

Settle into your cottage before sitting down to an epic farm-to-table dinner. The next morning, go for a squash-blossom-and-cotija-cheese omelet at Acre, a neighboring farm and restaurant that just opened palapa-style tree-house accommodations. And on your way to the airport, stop for chips and salsa and one last beachfront margarita at One&Only Palmilla’s always great Agua Bar. J E N N I F E R M U R P H Y

Clockwise from top left: Marek Żuk/Alamy Stock Photo; Ana & Jerome Photography; Hollis Baley; Paola + Murray; Nick Simonite

Highways are maintained but poorly lit, so beware of stray cattle and donkeys at night. And if the car ahead of yours flashes its left turn signal, that means you’re good to pass.

Clockwise from top left: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe church in El Triunfo; a Popsicle cart at Acre; tacos at Las Guacamayas; a beach bungalow north of Todos Santos; Hotel San Cristóbal’s lobby.

Rent a jeep or other 4x4 so you can off-road to remote beaches like Playas Las Palmas. If you’re renting through an international agency like Hertz or Avis, call the local branch a few days before to confirm the model you’re getting is the one you want.

It’s dry and sunny from mid-October through June, but not unbearably hot. Go in February and you might see gray whales migrating.

map by PETER OUMANSK I

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W E L L T R AV E L E D

“I’m a Maximalist I Treat My Pockets Like an Extra Carry On.” When Alexander Gilkes lands in New York, where he lives and runs the online art auction company Paddle8, his mission is to get home as quickly as possible: “I’ll call my Uber as soon as the seat-belt release dings. I usually make it from plane to car in 15 minutes.”

That’s the skill you pick up when you fly once a week like he does, scouring art fairs in London or checking in with investors in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

ALEXANDER GILKES COFOUNDER OF PADDLE8

Travel essentials: My Master & Dynamic headphones and my Swaine Adeney briefcase in Yves Klein Blue.

Hotel short list: Dean Street Townhouse in London, the Upper House in Hong Kong, and Casa Bonay in Barcelona.

Tailors on speed dial: The incredibly dapper Patrick Johnson in New York for anything casual, and when I want to kick the formality up a notch, I see the kings of Neapolitan tailoring at Cesare Attolini.

Travel ritual: I feel a strong connection to water, so, no matter the time of year, I always go for a swim. Last Christmas, I jumped into the Med and got a round of applause from a group of Italians in thick sweaters.

AS TOLD TO ANDREA WHITTLE

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photograph by DEWEY NICKS

Grooming by Regina Harris

On his radar: Los Angeles. It’s where the cultural intelligentsia are moving to from N.Y.C. The Broad museum has been a tremendous success, and now we’re seeing the rise of great galleries like David Kordansky and amazing artists like Alex Israel and Sterling Ruby.

HOM ET OW N

AXEL’S ANTWERP WHY THIS BELGIAN CITY IS YOUR NEXT DESIGN PILGRIMAGE

Clockwise from top: Old Antwerp’s skyline; Cogels Osylei; Dries Van Noten’s flagship, Het Modepaleis.

In the five decades since Antwerp collector and designer Axel Vervoordt began selling antiques out of an alleyway of restored medieval and Renaissance houses, he’s become a stylistic pied piper to those (like Robert De Niro and Kanye West) who covet his skillful blend of earthy materials, carefully worn elegance, and Belgian understatement. Over time, homes, museums, and restaurants throughout this Flemish port city have succumbed to his eclectic vision, which he generates out of a vast showroom called Kanaal. Here, more than 14,000 objects, from ancient Egyptian busts to Le Corbusier chairs, Japanese postwar Gutai art to Vervoordt’s own linen-upholstered couches, fill room after room in a former gin distillery on the Albert Canal. Last month, the designer opened Kanaal to the public, a 180,500-square-foot enclave with three art galleries, an auditorium, an organic food market, and a bakery. Central to it all is the chance to see artworks from Vervoordt’s foundation, including installations by James Turrell and Anish Kapoor, whose At the Edge of the World colonizes one entire warehouse. His vision upholds the city’s legacy, Vervoordt says. “As a port, Antwerp has always had influences from all over.

I want it to keep on inspiring.” E M M A O ’ K E L L Y

M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp “Japanese architect Tatsuro Miki and I just renovated the museum’s library using reclaimed Belgian materials, like wooden doors. It reopened last April with a good selection of books and a permanent collection that includes Flemish artists Jan Fabre and Lili Dujourie.”

Cogels Osylei “A walk around the district of Zurenborg, with its mix of architectural styles from Jugendstil to Gothic, is a must. At least visit the main street, Cogels Osylei, with its row of palaces built between 1906 and 1914.”

Museum Plantin-Moretus “When the Plantin dynasty stopped printing books, in 1876, it left so much behind, from the letterpresses to the furniture. I love everything here, even the chimneys.”

Coccodrillo “Coccodrillo is the best shoe shop in town, stocking everyone from Antwerpers Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester to Jil Sander and Prada.”

“I always send my clients to this bookshop, which has the best selection of art, architecture, design, and fashion books in the city.”

Arte “Run by Sardinian friends, the food is natural and healthy, and the clientele young; artist Luc Tuymans and actor Matthias Schoenaerts are regulars.”

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Photographs by David De Vleeschauwer

Copyright

RWANDA REDUX SOPHY ROBERTS RETURNS TO THE ONCE OFF-LIMITS COUNTRY WHERE WILDLIFE HAS COME ROARING BACK

clockwise from left: Inside a suite at Bisate Lodge; walking the property’s grounds; a game-drive view at Akagera National Park.

32

Three years ago when I walked from my room to the campfire at Rwanda’s Ruzizi Tented Lodge, I worried about running into a hippo in the dark, jumping at the swoosh of their ridiculous, low-slung bellies in the grass. Returning to the same lodge in Akagera National Park last June, I have even more reason to be on guard. Rwanda has since been transformed into a Big Five destination with the reintroduction of lion in 2015, and, more recently, rhino.

“Big Five? Nah. This is Big Six country,” says my safari fixer, Alice Daunt, whose travel agency looks after 100-odd high-profile clients. “If you include Rwanda’s mountain gorillas, we’re talking the Big Six for the Big Spenders.”

Daunt is referring to one of the most dramatic turnaround

Condé Nast Traveler / 12.17

stories in the annals of safari land, with millions of dollars invested since 2011 in wildlife security within Akagera, overseen by the conservation NGO African Parks. (The spend includes an antipoaching helicopter, ranger training, and a pack of Belgian Malinois and Dutch shepherd tracker dogs gifted by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.) As of this writing, there has been no poaching in the park this year. I am dumbfounded. The last time I visited Rwanda, the snare pile in Akagera’s HQ reached almost to my chin. That was during the 20th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were murdered; Akagera’s long grass had for years served as a hideout for the rebel fighters, led by future president Paul Kagame.

In August, Kagame was reelected for a third term in one of the most peaceful political events in the continent’s postcolonial history (though in winning 99 percent of

Clockwise from top: Sophy Roberts (2); Wilderness Safaris/Crookes and Jackson

D I S PAT C H

D I S PAT C H

ballots, he attracted accusations of voter “harassment” from local activists as reported by Human Rights Watch and “irregularities” from the U.S. Department of State). Still, Rwanda has come to be known as the Switzerland of Africa for its measured diplomacy and verdant landscape—as well as the $1,400 per person price tag for a night at the newly opened Bisate Lodge and the $1,500 gorilla-trekking permits.

Until recently, the hilly backcountry mainly lured NGOs and UN personnel looking for a self-drive weekend break from the capital, Kigali, while gorilla treks were sold as a three-night extension to East African safaris. Today you can easily spend a week on a circuit linking Volcanoes National Park (gorilla country) to Akagera (rhino country) and the southern park of Nyungwe, home to 13 different primate species. Direct flights from London on RwandAir’s new Airbus A330s cut travel time from the U.S. by saving travelers an additional stopover in Africa. And a constellation of luxury lodges is popping up: The One&Only hotel group, with resorts in Dubai, the Maldives, and Mauritius, has put its glitz into the Nyungwe Forest with the October opening of a 22-room property with a pool, spa, and yoga classes. In 2018, One&Only Gorilla’s Nest is slated to open on the edge of the primates’ habitat beside Volcanoes National Park. The following year, Singita, the queen of the South African luxury lodge scene, plans to debut Singita Kwitonda, an eight-suite, one-villa property that will also make the most of the gorilla card. And Wilderness Safaris,

HOW TO DO A WEEK IN RWANDA

Arrive in Kigali and have a juicy burger brunch next to the pool at Hôtel des Mille Collines (aka Hotel Rwanda, where during the genocide the hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, sheltered more than a thousand people). Visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial, vital to understanding the context of where you are. Drive two and a half hours to Akagera National Park, staying one night at Ruzizi Tented Lodge on the edge of Lake Ihema, then two at

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Karenge Bush Camp for your Big Five safari. Spend a full day driving to Volcanoes National Park—don’t be tempted to use a helicopter; the drive is a breathtaking lens on everyday Rwanda—and two nights at Bisate Lodge. For your gorilla trek, request to see the Susa primates if you’re fit, or the Sabyinyo group if you’d rather do a shorter hike. Finish with two nights at Virunga Lodge, for its views of Lake Burera and its reflective feel: terraced rose gardens, private parterres, and a library with a roaring fire. For my logistics, I used Daunt Travel, an agency with a strong ethical practice and a keen eye for luxury. S . R .

Photograph by Sophy Roberts

Gorillas, like this silverback, are a main attraction in Rwanda.

which operates some of Botswana’s top camps, is behind the new Bisate, where I stayed this past summer.

Bisate’s six thatched dome suites are built against a steep hillside facing the cloudringed Bisoke volcano. Rooms of emerald green and black-and-white chevrons open onto explosions of bamboo and Rwandan color. Meals are exotic salads, fish, and Asianspiced pork belly paired with South African reds. Then there are the massages, the attentive Rwandan staff, and the balcony views of the Virunga massif. A Holly wood star is about to check in as I am checking out.

I admit I’m impressed. But there’s a nagging caveat to this luxury bubble, which is part of the larger Champagne-safari trend emerging here. When only 96 gorilla permits are issued each day at $1,500 a pop, it signals that a big velvet rope is going up. Locals are unlikely to see the majestic creatures living in their own forest, leaving the animals as the preserve of the super-rich. When the three newest gorilla lodges operate at full capacity, there won’t be a lot of space for the smaller operations, those local mavericks who took on all the risk after the genocide when Rwandans needed a common purpose to help them get back on their feet.

It’s not that competition isn’t healthy. I respect the responsibility that Wilderness Safaris has exercised by sticking to just six rooms (the company could fill many more). Tourism that helps pay for conservation is a model I subscribe to, so long as the funds cascade down the system to the communities. It would be good to see these lodges operate a program in which for every gorilla permit bought clients also agree to purchase a permit for a Rwandan child. Because it is only by falling in love that the next generation will be moved to protect it.

GIFT GUIDE

This holiday season, don’t give in to your usual “I don’t need anything” false modesty.

Instead, preempt the disappointment of ironic slippers you’ll never wear and the box of shortbread cookies you thought might be jewelry and get bold with your wish list.

Christofle Iriana Double Old Fashioned glass ........................$65 Ralph Lauren Home Wentworth bottle opener ..... $75 Valextra card case .................. $255 Louis Vuitton Champs Élysées bill clip ....................................... $295 Gucci Bloom ............................ $124 Balenciaga Hotel Diamond key tag ...................................... $225 Fred Leighton pendant ................. .......................... price upon request

WHAT YOU REALLY WANT 36

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photographs by GENTL AND HYERS

Prop styling by Angharad Bailey. Glass, christofle.com; bottle opener, ralphlauren.com; card case, valextra.com; bill clip, louisvuitton.com; Bloom, macys.com; key tag, balenciaga.com; pendant, 212-288-1872

clockwise from top:

GIFT GUIDE

from far left:

The

PENDANT NECKLACE

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Brooch with chain, verdura.com; totem and chain, davidwebb.com; Serpenti, 800-285-4274; Galanterie de Cartier, 800-227-8437

Verdura Byzantine pendant brooch with chain; David Webb Totem pendant and chain; Bulgari Serpenti High Jewelry necklace; Cartier Galanterie de Cartier necklace .......... prices upon request

GIFT GUIDE

1. Smythson Soho notebook ................... $280 2. Tiffany & Co. Tread Plate ............................. $250 3. Tiffany & Co. Diamond Point ............................ $250 4. Cartier C de Cartier ......................... $215 5. Cartier Santos de Cartier .......................... $310 6. Asprey Barley 18-karat yellow gold ............. $6,100 7. Georg Jensen 334 ................................ $160

2 1

3

7

The

MONEY CLIP

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5

1: smythson.com; 2, 3: tiffany.com; 4, 5: cartier.com; 6: asprey.com; 7: georgjensen.com

6

4

GIFT GUIDE

The

COCKTAIL RING 5

6

4

3 9

8

2

1

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1. Munnu the Gem Palace ruby, emerald, and diamond 2. Verdura Raja 3. Verdura Basketweave 4. Munnu the Gem Palace ruby and diamond 5. Tiffany & Co. Extraordinary Colors 6. David Webb Peridot 7. Pomellato Ritratto 8. Sanjay Kasliwal Royal emerald 9. Cartier High Jewelry 10. Dior Fine Jewelry Miss Dior ............ prices on request

1, 4: 212-861-0606; 2, 3: verdura.com; 5: tiffany.com; 6: davidwebb.com; 7: pomellato.com; 8: 212-988-1511; 9: 800-227-8437; 10: 800-929-3467

7 10

GIFT GUIDE

Saint-Louis decanter..................... $790 Hermès carafe .......... $355 Ralph Lauren Home Montgomery bar tool set (bottle opener not shown) ................ $125 David Yurman Cable Classic bottle opener........................ $270 Ercuis cocktail picks ........ ............... $134 for set of six Christofle Iriana Double Old Fashioned glass ............................... $65 Ralph Lauren Home Montgomery coaster ............ $175 for set of four Ralph Lauren Home jigger .............................. $95 Ralph Lauren Home Dagny decanter ....... $525

The

BARWARE

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Decanter, bg.com; carafe, hermes.com; bar tool, ralphlauren.com; bottle opener, davidyurman.com; cocktail picks, scullyandscully.com; glass, christofle.com; coasters, jigger, and decanter, ralphlauren.com

clockwise from top:

2017

T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

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The more unpredictable our natural and political landscapes become, the more we feel the urge to visit places untouched by the news cycle. So, as we continue to support and keep a close watch on those areas hit hardest by a rash of hurricanes, fires, and foreignpolicy blunders, we’re craving the kind of life- and perspective-changing travel that’s made all the more magical when planned by the pros—no matter how fearless and selfsufficient we sometimes feel. Because surviving in, say, the Bolivian jungle one day and meeting with the hottest artists in Lima the next requires both grit and access—to say nothing of a network of on-the-ground know-how that you quite literally can’t live without in some places. Here are the experts, fixers, and experience makers you’ll want in your foxhole.

by PAUL BR ADY and CHR ISTINE CANTER A

Photograph by Jérôme Galland

Jordan Harvey, a South America specialist, plans treks in the Andes passing alpaca- and llama-filled pastures.

T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

Forces officers, archaeologists, chefs, and other insiders.

AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

MOROCCO

Michael Diamond Cobblestone Private Travel

His travelers meet with women’s rights NGOs in the Ourika Valley, get the best rooms at in-demand riads in Marrakech, and do tasting tours through Fès.

C E N T R A L , E A ST E R N, A N D SOU T H E R N A F R IC A

Cherri Briggs Explore, Inc.

Briggs has spent more than two decades planning trips to Africa, and her latest focus is lesser-known but awe-inspiring places like Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Zambia.

Mike Korn Heritage Tours

If you want to try dune boarding in the Sahara or see the blue-walled city of Chefchaouen, go with Korn. He’s also got great guides in Fès and Marrakech.

Michael Lorentz

OM A N

Passage to Africa

Sean Nelson

Lorentz shines at backof-beyond trips to Ethiopia and mobile safaris in Botswana, where you’ll spot meerkat, hyena, and other wildlife.

Oman Expeditions

He knows the best climbing and canyoneering routes; the most exhilarating dunebashing and quadbiking spots; and the perfect stretches of coast for surfing, diving, and sailing.

Henrietta Loyd Cazenove + Loyd

She’ll arrange art tours in Cape Town, meetings with politicos in Ethiopia, and safaris through tribal regions of Kenya.

Mango African Safaris

Sullivan knows which routes, camps, and game reserves are best suited to families, and she’s coordinated multiday walks in the Kenyan bush.

Phoebe Weinberg Greatways Travel

Weinberg can get you the best rooms (like No. 6 at Singita Lebombo Lodge or No. 1 at Vumbura Plains), plus over-the-top extras like helicopter flights above the Okavango Delta.

ASIA

including the three major pyramids and the Sphinx.

Nina Wennersten and Daniel Saperstein

Wil Smith and Karen Zulauf

ET H IOPI A

Will Jones

Deeper Africa

Journeys by Design

They take walking safaris seriously, pairing you up with leading researchers, game wardens, antipoaching teams, and guides for itineraries in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and beyond.

A native of Africa, Jones has been working in safaris since 1994, managing camps, guiding trips, and planning way-out-there expeditions into tribal villages and stretches of untouched wilderness.

Sean Nelson, an Oman specialist, knows his way around the Hajar Mountains.

EGY P T

experience in North Africa and the Middle East, and has fixers who can speak to everything from ancient ruins to contemporary politics.

ISR A EL

Susan Weissberg Wyllys Professional Travel

She knows the contemporary art scene in Jaffa and the right guides for a deep dive into Jewish history.

E A ST E R N A F R IC A

Rami Girgis

I R A N A N D T U N ISI A

Linda Friedman

Abercrombie & Kent

Jerry Sorkin

Joe Yudin

Custom Safaris

Girgis can get you private access to the entire Giza Plateau,

Iconic Journeys Worldwide

Touring Israel

Condé Nast Traveler / 12.17

He’s got decades of

Yudin can connect you with Israel Defense

Achber knows Botswana particularly well—he’s organized multiday paddles on the Selinda Spillway and game counts with zebra researchers working in the Makgadikgadi Pans.

Deborah Calmeyer Roar Africa

With her far-reaching network that includes some of the region’s savviest guides, she can get you into private homes, gardens, and art collections you can’t otherwise see.

Julian Harrison Premier Tours

He’s arranged trips with wildlife filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert, as well as with lion and rhino researchers.

BH U TA N

Brent Olson GeoEx

Olson knows where to stay (Amankora, Zhiwa Ling Heritage) and how to duck crowds, and can arrange meditation retreats with Buddhist monks.

BH U TA N, I N DI A , A N D N E PA L

Antonia “Toni” Neubauer Myths and Mountains

Her trips go way off the beaten track into villages for homestays that give you an unvarnished look at real life in the countryside.

C A M B ODI A

Andy Booth AboutAsia

Booth is particularly handy around Tonlé Sap Lake, where his

Photograph by Paola + Murray

family safaris, and she’s also expert at gorilla tracking in Rwanda.

48

Teresa Sullivan

Trufflepig

For off-the-map safaris led by researchers in places like the rarely visited Mabuasehube Game Reserve, Nolting is our guy.

She’s planned lots of multigenerational

He’s planned photography workshops in the bush, connected travelers with antipoaching teams, and coordinated a 10-day, 62-mile walking safari through raw wilderness.

SOU T H E R N A F R IC A

The Africa Adventure Company

This duo pulls off spectacular trips in Kenya (to the Segera Retreat, for example), South Africa (where they’ll arrange private wine tastings), and Tanzania (where they recommend Roving Bushtops).

AuthentEscapes

Dan Achber

Mark Nolting

Hippo Creek Safaris

Ryan Hilton

T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

guests can watch wildlife and navigate floating villages aboard a private wooden boat. He’s also figured out the best times to visit ancient complexes like Angkor Thom to avoid jostling with crowds.

C E N T R A L A SI A

Zulya Rajabova Silk Road Treasure Tours

Rajabova knows the top guides at the incredible Gur-e-Amir complex in Samarkand (a sort of Silk Road Taj Mahal) and the best hotels across the region.

C H I NA

Gerald Hatherly

Bertie and Victoria Dyer

M YA NM A R

India Beat

Tyler Dillon

The Jaipur-based couple has organized elephant-tracking trips, visits to polo matches, and gallery tours led by curators at spots like Delhi’s National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum.

Trufflepig

Jonny Bealby

He’s constructed popup hotels along remote hiking routes and planned streetfood tours. Dillon can also set up meetings with activists and officials for timely briefings on the country’s political landscape.

Wild Frontiers

Maximilian Horsley

Bealby is a logistics mastermind who has planned expeditions through the Hindu Kush and Kashmir.

Catherine Heald

Arakan Travel

Remote Lands

He takes travelers deep into the countryside for market tours, monastery visits, and encounters with hill tribes and with insiders who can contextualize the country’s ongoing internal conflicts.

Heald is at her best with multicountry Asia trips, coordinating drivers, guides, and private tours, whether you’re going to remote villages in Myanmar, the Borobudur Buddhist temple on Java, or on rain forest treks through Borneo.

I N DI A A N D PA K ISTA N

Abercrombie & Kent

I N D ON E SI A

Thanks to decades spent on the ground here (and his perfect Mandarin), Hatherly can pull off seemingly impossible access to the Forbidden City and Xi’an’s Terracotta Army site.

Diane Embree

Mei Zhang

Bali Barong Tours

Think Bali is overtouristed? She’ll guide you to spots that don’t even appear on maps and set you up at luxury hotels almost nobody’s heard about.

WildChina

JA PA N

She’s a Chinese-food expert, plotting quests for prosciuttolike ham in Yunnan and fiery mapo tofu in Chengdu. She’s also built a network of experts who add context to trips throughout the country.

Nancy Craft

T H E H I M A L AYA S

Sanjay Saxena Nomadic Expeditions

He’ll handle all that byzantine paperwork to secure trekking permits, arrange flightseeing over the Himalayas, and set up one-on-ones with scholars, philanthropists, climbers, and craftspeople.

I N DI A

Lucy Davison Banyan Tours & Travels

Davison works across the country, planning treks in mountainous Ladakh, palace tours in Jaipur, and visits to festivals in Tamil Nadu.

tours; in Vietnam, they introduce travelers to veterans of the war for a local perspective on the conflict.

Esprit Travel & Tours

She helps open doors to artists, chefs, craftspeople, musicians, Shinto priests, and Buddhist abbots.

SOU T H E A ST A SI A

April Cole and Andrea Ross

FI J I A N D PA PUA N EW GU I N E A

AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC

G. W. “Sandy” Ferguson Asia Desk

He can make intros to artists in Thailand, conservationists in Siem Reap, archaeologists in Angkor, and monks in Luang Prabang.

Destination World

She’s the ultimate goto in the region for scuba diving, waterview villas, and off-the-grid hiking.

N EW Z E A L A N D

Donna Thomas New Zealand Travel

AUST R A L I A

Kluska’s roster of winemakers, fashion insiders, and Olympic medalists adds nextlevel insights to trips.

She plans hikes with the best guide in the Papamoa Hills, evenings with Maori elders, and wine tastings at the country’s top vineyards.

Pedro O’Connor

Trevor Thomas

Drew Kluska The Tailor

Epic Private Journeys

He’s planned private-jet adventures that hopscotch the country and led scuba divers to the Great Barrier Reef.

Stuart Rigg

V I ET NA M

Southern Crossings

Journeys Within Tour Company

Nathan Lane

This pair is wellconnected across the region: In Cambodia, they can make your Angkor Wat excursion pop; in Thailand, they arrange street-food

Lane is a pro at pulling together cycling trips through villages in the Red River Delta, Vespa tours in Saigon, and sails off the coast of Hoi An.

Go behind the scenes at some of Australia’s most famous vineyards, charter yachts to the Great Barrier Reef, and explore the wild, raw Northern Territory with Rigg’s help.

Butterfield & Robinson

Lynette Wilson

T H E M A L DI V E S

Southern Crossings

Thomas scours his home country for new lodges, camps, and villas (like the suites at Mahu Whenua), and adventures like boating through fjords.

SOU T H PAC I FIC ISL A N DS

Kleon Howe The Art of Travel

Howe knows every inch of the islands: which resorts are worth booking (Vahine Island and the Hotel Kia Ora), which Saturday farmers’ market is worth a detour (Avarua’s), and which windsurfing spots have the best breeze (he likes the Aitutaki lagoon).

Lindsey Wallace Linara Travel

He knows which resorts have the best service and which offer the quickest access to snorkeling in the United Nations–protected Hanifaru Bay. He also knows Mauritius and the Seychelles.

MONG OL I A

Jalsa Urubshurow Nomadic Expeditions

He’ll get you riding horses, watching traditional wrestling and archery, shooting incredible photos in the Gobi Desert, and touring the highlights of Mongolia’s rapidly modernizing capital.

“THIS SEASON WE’RE DOING THE FIRST-EVER YACHTBASED HELI-SKIING TO ANTARCTICA’S INNER PEAKS. WE ACTUALLY CHARTERED TWO VESSELS, SO TWO HELICOPTERS CAN TRAVEL WITH THE MOTHER SHIP.” Tim Soper, expedition ships specialist

CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA

A RGE N T I NA

Maita Barrenechea Mai 10

She was among the first to offer fly-fishing trips to Patagonia and to open estancias to guests for horseback riding. She’s still our go-to for both.

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T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

A RGE N T I NA , C H I L E , A N D COLOM BI A

Kathleen Sheridan McCabe World Travel

Harry Hastings Plan South America

Hastings has intel on top-notch estancias and can connect you with all sorts of interesting locals, from emerald miners to rock-star chefs.

“I HAD A CLIENT, A PRO CRICKET UMPIRE, WHO WANTED TO CALL A GAME AT THE FAMOUS NEWLANDS STADIUM IN CAPE TOWN. I ARRANGED IT—AND DINNER WITH SOUTH AFRICA’S NATIONAL CRICKET TEAM.”

A RGE N T I NA , C H I L E , A N D PE RU

Jordan Harvey Knowmad Adventures

He’s scoured the whole of Chile, scrambled all over Machu Picchu, and searched the cities and pampas of Argentina to find the top hikes and best hotels.

Deborah Calmeyer, Southern Africa specialist

CHILE

Brian Pearson

B OL I V I A A N D PE RU

Upscape

Marisol Mosquera

He knows the top boutique hotels (like Casa Bouchon), the Sno-Cat guides who’ll have you skiing chutes, and the cycling routes for riders of all fitness levels.

Aracari

She taps insiders like museum curators, chefs (like Pedro Miguel Schiaffino of Lima’s Malabar), and even jungle-survival experts for her trips.

EUROPE

Pascale Bernasse French Wine Explorers

COLOM BI A

C E N T R A L EU ROPE

Boris Seckovic

Gwen Kozlowski

BR A Z I L

Amakuna

Martin Frankenberg

Exeter International

Seckovic can make it all happen: street-art tours through Medellín’s once-dangerous comunas, dark-roast tasting at a coffee farm, or a visit to lesser-known villages like Mompós.

Paul Irvine

COSTA R IC A

Kozlowski can score tours of the Spanish Riding School, open doors to crafts workshops in the Czech Republic, or plan multiday tasting trips to family-owned wineries in the Wachau Valley.

Irene Edwards

Dehouche

Ellison Poe

GreenSpot Travel

He’s planned exclusive workshops with a local fashion designer, cooking classes with chef Felipe Bronze of Oro, art tours, jaguar tracking, and samba dancing lessons.

Poe Travel

She can pull off helicopter flights over volcanoes or a day at a sloth sanctuary.

She’ll arrange for the best tables at underthe-radar restaurants in Vienna and private tours of legendary Habsburg palaces.

Jill Siegel

He’s clutch when it comes to multicountry trips that combine running rapids with relaxing at retreats like Nekupe.

Matueté

Frankenberg is dialed in with incredible villas, Amazon River charter yachts, and expeditions to the dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park.

South American Escapes

If you want the best seats at the Carnaval parade, a trip up the Amazon in search of pink dolphins, or a yacht charter off the coast of Paraty, Siegel can hook you up.

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COSTA R IC A , N IC A R AGUA , A N D PA NA M A

Pierre Gedeon Nicaragua Adventures

ECUA D OR A N D PE RU

Tom Damon Southwind Adventures

His focus is active travel with guides like the grandson of one of the Peruvians who took Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu.

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knowledge and an extensive network of personal contacts who open their homes to his guests.

C ROAT I A

Wanda S. Radetti VisitCroatia.com

Tap Radetti for the latest intel on the best hotels (like the Lešić Dimitri Palace), wineries, restaurants, and yacht charters along the Adriatic Coast.

F R A NC E

Anthony Bay Anthony Bay Is Europe

He has extraordinary historical and regional

She’s got the connections and clout to get the most exclusive tours of legendary estates, often from family members whose names are on the bottles.

GE R M A N Y

Marion Harbison Brownell Travel

Harbison will take you to normally overlooked (but supremely stunning) castles and coordinate fascinating tours of centuries-old abbeys and wineries.

GR EEC E

Mina Agnos Travel2Greece by Travelive

Her on-the-ground ops team can handle complex multi-island itineraries with private boat and helicopter transfers to spots like Ios and Koufonisia.

Ronnie Liadis Liadis Travel

She’s secured access to otherwise offlimits ancient sites and wineries that aren’t open to the public, and chartered boats around Santorini.

Leftheris Papageorgiou Hellenic Adventures

Go behind the scenes at artists’ studios and archaeological digs with Papageorgiou.

He’ll even set up chats with experts on contemporary Greek politics (if geeking out is your thing).

Christos Stergiou TrueTrips

Stergiou can pull off private, after-hours access to museums, organize catamaran trips around the Cyclades, and find quality hotel rooms, even in high season.

IC E L A N D

Chris Gordon Icepedition

He’s the guy to call if you want to kayak among icebergs, go horseback riding on an Arctic Ocean beach, or spend the night under the Aurora Borealis.

IR ELAND

Geraldine Murtagh Elegant Ireland

She has an insane Rolodex—dukes and duchesses, historians, politicians, mountain climbers, artists—all of whom look after her travelers. She also has a can’t-find-it-anywhere-else roster of amazing castles and estates for rent.

Sheridan knows the top castle hotels and countryside manors (like Sheen Falls and Ballyfin), and has clued-in guides who lead seaside hikes, fishing trips, and horseback rides.

I TA LY

Brian Dore and Maria Gabriella Landers CIU Travel

They’ve arranged a prime viewing spot for the iconic Palio race, the best rooms at small-but-lovely Sicilian inns, and tours of privately owned Palladian villas that aren’t normally open to visitors.

Andrea Grisdale IC Bellagio

She has behindthe-scenes access at fashion houses (like Gucci and Zegna) and iconic sites like the Vatican and the Uffizi, where she’ll make sure you never wait in line.

Adamarie King Connoisseur’s Travel

She’ll have you baking alongside locals in Sicily, touring private art collections, visiting ceramicists and furniture makers, or sailing the Venetian Lagoon.

Gary Portuesi Authentic Italy

He’s our go-to for tooling through Parma and Modena to sample Parmigiano-Reggiano, balsamic vinegar, and prosciutto; flying from Rome to Capri for lunch (back in time for dinner); or having a private picnic on the Sicilian island of Mozia.

Rudston Steward Trufflepig

He’s sussed out amazing food (and places to stay) in lesser-known corners of Italy, like the Aeolian Islands, Tuscany’s Monte Amiata, and towns like Matera in Basilicata.

T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

David Tobin

T H E U N I T E D K I NGD OM

Dream Escape

Nicola Butler

The Travel Society

Tobin’s an ace at getting inside private castles and estates, and he’s well connected with all the top guides in the Highlands.

NoteWorthy

She’s got major pull at all the top hotels, and she’ll score tables at the country’s best restaurants, like De Kas and Librije’s Zusje.

PORT UG A L

Gonçalo Correia Tours for You

He’s arranged dinner with a former president of Portugal, a private concert with one of the country’s top fado singers, and cocktails at the studio of artist João Figueiredo.

PORT UG A L A N D SPA I N

Virginia Irurita Made for Spain & Portugal

Irurita has thrilled clients with coastal hikes along the cliffs near Sagres, access to members-only clubs in Porto, and private flamenco shows and wine tastings.

RUS SI A A N D E A ST E R N EU ROPE

Greg Tepper Exeter International

Whether you want to tour the Kremlin or get behind the curtain at St. Petersburg’s Vaganova Ballet Academy, where both Balanchine and Baryshnikov danced, he’s got you covered.

SC A N DI NAV I A

Jan Sortland Norwegian Adventures

Sortland plans climbing expeditions, glacier treks, sea kayaking, and even dogsledding adventures.

SCOT L A N D

Camilla Davidson NoteWorthy

She’s plugged in to Scotland’s sizzling food scene and has contacts at the best distilleries, world-famous golf links, and even private hunting estates.

SPA I N

Sebastian Lapostol Trufflepig

He’s got friends in the right places: mycologists who lead truffle hunts near Barcelona, flamenco musicians in Jerez de la Frontera, and field biologists who know all the great birding spots.

Ally Lewing Heritage Tours

With Lewing, you’ll see some of Spain’s most popular sights, including the Mezquita in Córdoba and Seville’s Alcázar, after hours on private tours.

SWITZERLAND

Jack Shaw

Jonathan Epstein Celebrated Experiences

Epstein knows which of The Torridon’s rooms have the best lake views, and how to score upgrades at Gleneagles, and can sneak you into the top hotels in Edinburgh and London, even at peak times.

Jane McCrum In Any Event Tours

McCrum can book you a stay at castles and palatial country homes, so you can live like an aristocrat, if only for your trip.

NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

BE R MU DA

Vicky McGlynn Travelong of Summit

A M E R IC A N NAT IONA L PA R K S

Marty Behr National Parks Revealed

Behr has arranged Monument Valley hikes, flight-seeing over San Francisco Bay, and hikes to untrammeled corners of classics like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.

A M E R IC A N W E ST

Caroline Bach Wood Caroline Travel

She’s been visiting the island since childhood, and can often get travelers access to private clubs, or even parliament, in addition to the best rooms at hotels like the Loren at Pink Beach.

C A L I FOR N I A W I N E COU N T RY

Ania Gatto Wine Country Concierge

She’s pulled off after-hours tastings at top wineries, opened doors to invitation-only cellars, and has the scoop on what’s reopened after this fall’s fires.

Whether you want to shoot photos in Utah’s slot canyons,

Epic Europe

Shaw knows the top ski instructors and heli guides, plans highaltitude hikes with stays at mountain refugios, and has contacts at luxe watchmakers (in case you need a new piece).

TUR KEY

Karen Fedorko Sefer Sea Song Tours

Fedorko Sefer will get you into historical sites before they open to the public, book the very best hotel rooms, and get you aboard some of Turkey’s top charter yachts.

Earl Starkey Protravel International

Starkey can pull off a private visit to the Hagia Sophia, organize dinner at the Ephesus archaeological site, and introduce you to fixers like Riza Yenice, the kind of person you’re happy spending a week with.

For more on the incredible experiences these specialists can deliver, and for their contact info, visit cntraveler.com/ travel-specialists.

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She’s one of the most connected people in the country, whether you want to meet CBEs, score courtside Wimbledon seats, or get into otherwise closed museums.

ride horses with legit cowboys, or just shack up in a Pacific-side hotel, she’ll plan it all.

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Linda Friedman, an Eastern Africa specialist, can take you gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

C A NA DA

Marc Télio Entrée Destinations

He’s got logistics experts across the country to make sure ski vacations, road trips, paddling expeditions, and wildlife watching all go off without a hitch.

He also knows Alaska.

CU BA

Alison Coelho InsightCuba

Coelho has longestablished contacts at Cuba’s government ministries, and she can hook you up with rooms at the most desirable hotels—a necessity in a country with limited options.

Michael Sykes Cuba Cultural Travel

Sykes connects travelers with fascinating locals, like Cristina Escobar Domínguez, a journalist and

Photograph by Christopher Churchill

T H E N ET H E R L A N DS

Harmina Mulder

T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

broadcaster, and Victor Marín, an architectural historian.

private gardens, wine tastings, and biking tours.

M E X ICO

E X PE DI T ION SH I PS

Zachary Rabinor

Sharon Keating

Journey Mexico

Polar Cruises

He’ll coordinate tours with celebrated chefs, devise a multiday hike through the Copper Canyon area (with luxe camps along the way), or get you surfing on beaches you’ll have all to yourself.

She’s booked travelers on ships sailing Russia’s far east; around Spitsbergen, Norway; and to the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica.

Stephanie Schneiderman

He’s got access to nuclear-powered icebreakers in Russia (for real) and luxury yachts that do private charters to Antarctica, and he’s pulled off hot-air ballooning over icebergs, spectacular wildlife watching, and trips led by worldclass photographers.

Tia Stephanie Tours

Many of her itineraries focus on traditional handmade crafts, textile design, and folk art. She can also hook you up with cooking classes and visits to mezcal distilleries.

PAC I FIC NORT H W E ST

Sheri Doyle Pacific Northwest Journeys

The go-to for wildlife expeditions, boat charters, impossibleto-get hotel and restaurant reservations, and road-trip advice in the U.S. as well as British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies.

CRUISES

EU ROPE A N BA RGE C RU ISE S

Thomas Lennartz Quark Expeditions

Ashton Palmer ExpeditionTrips

A former expedition leader, Palmer specializes in small-ship cruises aboard some of the world’s top vessels to the polar regions, as well as the Galápagos.

Todd Smith

Haven In

Angela Turen Churchill & Turen

She gets travelers on lines like Regent or Silversea stateroom upgrades, spa treatments, and perks like free drinks that seem to magically appear.

YAC H T C H A RT E R S

He’s taken travelers to climate research stations in Antarctica, through the Northwest Passage, and on cultural immersion trips to places like Papua New Guinea.

L A RGE SH I PS

Linda Allen Cruises by Linda

Allen has major clout with lines including Celebrity, Norwegian,

Tom Baker CruiseCenter

Baker’s got a lock on the best rooms on big ships, and he’s an expert at planning over-the-top pre- and post-sail tours, like a walk through the Vatican cloisters during a Med cruise.

R I V E R C RU ISE S

Richard Bruce Turen Churchill & Turen

Turen is a master at crafting in-depth tours of ports like Prague, calling on a network of journalists, expats, and other insiders who offer greater context beyond rote historical facts. He also knows oceangoing lines, like Crystal and Regent Seven Seas.

SM A L L SH I PS

Leslie Fambrini Personalized Travel Consultants

Fambrini has major pull with luxury lines, including Crystal, Paul Gauguin, Silversea, and Windstar.

Gail Boisclair Perfectly Paris

She has nearly 20 years of experience renting gorgeous flats in Montmartre and its surrounding arrondissements.

Nick Westwood

Ocean Voyages

Red Savannah

If it floats, Crowley can figure a way to charter it, whether you need a phinisi in Indonesia, a catamaran in Raiatea, or a sloop in the Lesser Antilles.

He’s the one to call for homes along the Côte d’Azur, as well as in France’s unsung corners, like Cap Ferret, the coastal retreat near Bordeaux.

F R A NC E , I TA LY, A N D SPA I N

Cédric Reversade and Paul-Maxime Koskas

VILLAS

Unique Properties & Events

C A LIFOR NI A W INE COU NTRY

BeautifulPlaces

Seabourn, and Viking.

She knows which staterooms have the best views (and the least noise), and she can often secure free upgrades and other extra perks.

Berman is best known for fully serviced Paris rentals that come with stocked fridges, fresh flowers, and a driver on call. Her firm has recently added homes in Versailles and Provence, too.

Mary T. Crowley

She’s based in Sonoma, which means she’s got on-the-ground intel about what’s open and what’s not after the fires this fall. She also has first dibs on the region’s top homes, not to mention impossible reservations and private wine tastings.

EYOS Expeditions

Sack will pair you with the right charter, and her bespoke excursions are second to none: truffle hunts in Burgundy, visits to

Because of her relationships at Crystal, Regent, Seabourn, and Viking, she can finesse excursions (mini safaris, private Great Wall tours) you couldn’t otherwise arrange.

His trips to Alaska and the Galápagos are aboard small ships and charter yachts like the National Geographic Orion or the Sea Wolf, a historic wooden minesweeper.

Tim Soper

The Barge Lady

Erica Berman

Liza Graves

Frontiers International Travel

Ellen Sack

Gerald Hatherly, China specialist

F R A NC E

Tully Luxury Travel

AdventureSmith Explorations

Jill Jergel

She can get you cabins on intimate vessels, as well as the top ships that bigger river cruise lines operate throughout Europe.

“CHINA’S EXPANDING NETWORK OF BULLET TRAINS IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT CHANGE. IT OPENS UP SO MANY AREAS, AND I THINK THE BUSINESS CLASS IS THE MOST COMFORTABLE WAY TO TRAVEL THE COUNTRY.”

Mary Jean Tully

T H E C A R I BBE A N

Tim Roney

They’ve recently added new properties in Formentera and Pantelleria, as well as yoga retreats to homes in Mallorca and Umbria; they can also charter yachts.

F R A NC E , SPA I N, A N D T H E U N I T E D K I NGD OM

Adam Coats Red Savannah

Coats personally inspects every one of his villas, including that 300-acre estate on Menorca with its own private cove and those stately Cotswolds manors where the only neighbors are sheep.

LaCure

GR EEC E

Roney leans on 35 years of experience when he recommends homes (and entire private islands) across the region, in places like Barbados, Jamaica, and the many countries that are back up and running after this year’s hurricanes.

Ileana von Hirsch Five Star Greece

She knows Mykonos and Santorini, of course, but von Hirsch is more keen on less-visited Corfu, where some homes have spectacular pools, and the Ionian islands.

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T R AV E L S P E C I A L I S T S

H AWA I I

ST. BA RTS

Ryne Holliday

Peg Walsh

Hawaii Hideaways

St. Barth Properties

Holliday has listings across the major islands, including plenty of beachfront homes with killer views and rural retreats, like one situated between two waterfalls.

I TA LY

Walsh has the latest on what’s available in St. Barts right now—homes ranging from surprisingly reasonable to completely over-thetop—and those that will be restored in the coming months.

Countess Simonetta Brandolini d’Adda

ST. M A RT I N A N D SI N T M A A RT E N

The Best in Italy

Sonja van der Drift

Her portfolio includes private estates and opulent, historic villas; she’ll also coordinate wine tastings, lavish lunches, and curatorled gallery tours.

BlueOceanVillas

She’s got properties on both sides of the island, and she’s able to help you navigate a post–Hurricane Irma trip this winter.

Chiara Guidi

SOU T H A M ER IC A

Red Savannah

Luisa Ladron de Guevara

Originally from Florence, Guidi is particularly strong in Central Italy, with homes in the Maremma as well as offerings in Umbrian villages like Bevagna and Montefalco.

Patrice Salezze Papavero Villa Rentals

She’s got properties across the country and a network of guides, some of whom she’s worked with for 15 years, who can arrange wine tastings, bike trips, or in-depth museum tours.

Oasis Collections

Her properties in cities including Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro have all the amenities you’d expect and also come with passes to nearby gyms, private clubs, and a local concierge who can help plan tours or snag restaurant reservations.

SOU T H E A ST A SI A

Melissa Matthews Red Savannah

Matthews for private homes (plus local staff). She knows properties in Cambodia and Vietnam, too.

a private palace in Jaipur, a castle in Northern Ireland, and some of Italy’s most stunning luxury hotels.

Ethiopia, India, and the United Arab Emirates.

SPA I N

DIS N EY

Mary Vaira

Michelle Allen

El Sol Villas

Travel Magic

She’s got access to the chicest villas and apartments, plus hyperlocal tours, like an up-close look at the production of jamón Ibérico.

You could try to figure out the best ways to beat the crowds, skip lines, book the right restaurants, and tackle all the ancillary Disney logistics. Or you could just tap Allen, who’s got it all on lock.

One of the original points hackers, Leff has a handle on the ins and outs of every program and how to maximize your miles to get into one of Etihad’s in-air “suites,” or how to upgrade to business-class seats for next to nothing.

T H E U N I T E D K I NGD OM AND IRELAND

Andrew Loyd Loyd & Townsend Rose

A one-time butler, he organizes not just rental estates but also activities like sporting-clay shooting, croquet, garden tours, falconry, Scottish folk dancing, and private tours of distilleries.

WOR L DW I DE

Marina Gratsos Carpe Diem Luxury Travel

For when you absolutely have to have that 12th-century castle or a private island of your own, the wellconnected Gratsos is the person to call.

If you’ve already done every Bali resort, tap

SPECIAL INTEREST

A I R L I N E A S SISTA NC E

Brett Snyder Cranky Concierge

Snyder’s able to suggest the ideal airline for any given route, and his team monitors flights in real time to provide updates on gate changes and delays. They’ll also rebook you in a flash.

DE ST I NAT ION C E L E BR AT IONS

Jack S. Ezon Ovation Vacations

Ezon has tight relationships with hotels— meaning he can often snag upgraded rooms or other perks—and he’s planned parties on Necker Island and even a 350-person wedding at Versailles.

DE ST I NAT ION W E DDI NG S

Harlan deBell and Kara Bebell The Travel Siblings

They’ve organized weddings and receptions at incredible venues, like

Mara Solomon Homebase Abroad

Solomon has access to some of Italy’s most luxurious estates, many of which are ideal for big groups or destination celebrations, like birthdays or weddings, and a concierge team to arrange Ferrari test drives or opera tickets.

N EW Z E A L A N D

Jacqui Spice Touch of Spice

Her portfolio includes sprawling countryside retreats, private islands, and other escapes, plus all sorts of staff—private drivers, yoga teachers, chefs—to help round out your trip.

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“IN TUSCANY’S VAL D’ORCIA, WHERE EVERYONE VISITS THE SAME PECORINO MAKER IN PIENZA, I INSTEAD SEND CLIENTS TO THE VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN CASTELLO DI POTENTINO TO SEE MY CHEESE-MAKING FRIENDS FRANCESCA AND LORENZO.” Rudston Steward, Italy specialist

M I L E S A N D POI N TS

Gary Leff Book Your Award

OV E R-T H E-TOP T R I PS

Kate Doty

FA M I LY T R AV E L

GeoEx

Kay Merrill

Doty knows which airstrips can accommodate your private jet, how to score access to top diplomats, and the best ways to see backof-beyond spots like Chad, the D.R.C., or Indonesia’s out islands.

Are We There Yet? Family Adventures

Merrill is a pro at keeping families with older children happy, running guided hikes on the Camino de Santiago, surfing expeditions to Peru, or polo-playing adventures in Argentina.

Leslie Overton Passported

Overton specializes in immersive cultural experiences, like cooking classes, dance or music lessons, weaving or pottery classes, in Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Kathy Obbish Custom Safaris & Explorations

She plans incredible wildlife-focused trips in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, as well as adventure-minded itineraries in places like Australia’s Outback and the Canadian Rockies.

SCU BA DI V I NG

FLY-FISH I NG

Meg Austin

Mollie Fitzgerald

The Travel Society

Frontiers International Travel

She’s been planning adventure trips for more than 30 years, and she knows every cave, reef, and wreck— plus quality hotels in every port for when you’re done diving for the day.

She’s got exclusive access to some of the world’s finest fishing, in places like Bhutan and Russia, and knows all the best spots to cast in New Zealand, Scotland, the U.S., and pretty much everywhere else.

LGBTQ T R I PS

David Rubin DavidTravel

A rock star when it comes to destination celebrations or milestone birthdays, he’s got a global network that’s pulled off dream trips for guests in places like Egypt,

WINE

Larry Martin Food & Wine Trails

Martin has spent his whole life in Sonoma County, which is still recovering from devastating fires, and he’s got close contacts at every big-time wine producer in California.

He can also take you deep into on-the-cusp regions in Croatia, Germany, or Slovenia.

THE TILED CITIES AND VAST DESERTS OF THIS CENTRAL ASIAN COUNTRY, ONCE AT THE CROSSROADS OF CIVILIZATION, ARE NOW THRILLINGLY SUSPENDED BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE by

Daphne Beal

photographs by Felix

Odell

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L

late one spring evening, after my first day in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, I walk into Tarona restaurant on a quiet side street, restless with a growing concern after sightseeing. It has been a good day touring turquoise-domed mosques and the Chorsu Bazaar with my guide, Aziz Rakhmatov, but my vague agitation finally defines itself with the restaurant’s pretty, if staged, interior. Silk-embroidered tapestries and shelves of teapots and clay urns adorn the high stucco walls; aside from us, the only other guests are a long table of Germans with a local guide in a rock-star shag. Are we stuck in a tourist trap? Maybe I should cut and run, I think, forge my own path.

Suddenly, Aziz erupts in giddy delight, pointing excitedly to a man with wavy gray hair and a matching mustache eating at the back of the restaurant.

“He is one of our most famous musicians, a member of Yalla, Uzbekistan’s Beatles!” he practically shouts, and darts over to pay his enthusiastic respects.

By the time we begin to eat our fresh tomato salads, the musician, Ibragim Aliev, is at the front of the room singing lustily, with high-spirited, wedding-level backup from a laptop, and clicking out elaborate rhythms with his signature instrument, a qayroc—traditionally Central Asian and made of a pair of flat, oval stones that sound like a mineral castanet. I suspect Aziz has arranged this performance, but after a couple of minutes it doesn’t matter. I’m on my feet and dancing with the rest of the restaurant, led by Aliev’s sister, who, dressed entirely in orange and coral with white slingback wedges and a black bouffant, seems to have stepped out of a 1962 Kodachrome, and is schooling the foreigners in movements that include a kind of full-body undulation, with a graceful widening and lifting of the arms. The music, a rollicking combination of Uzbek- and Soviet-style ’80s pop rock, is infectious. Between songs, Aliev’s sister confides, “It is a magical instrument. It makes people crazy all over the world.”

If, before I left for Uzbekistan, you’d asked me whether I thought I would get up and dance in a restaurant—and later in the street and in a yurt in the

PREVIOUS SPREAD: THE 14TH-CENTURY SHAH-I-ZINDA NECROPOLIS IN SAMARK AND, BUILT BY EMIR TIMUR. OPPOSITE: A STREET SCENE IN KHIVA.

desert—I would have answered, “No, why?” And yet, now out of breath and with my ears buzzing, I’m reminded of the uncanny and disorienting power of a foreign place to sometimes compel you to act in ways you never would at home.

Uzbekistan is about as foreign as it gets. I’d gathered a handful of scant impressions of it over the years—my Russian teacher in the early ’90s was from Tashkent and was glad to have relinquished its hardships, and in recent years I’d started coveting Uzbek textiles like ikat (a blurred zigzag dyed cloth) and suzani (silk embroidery of geometric and natural motifs)—but it was hardly a complete picture of the place.

“Where is it, anyway?” my friends asked. East and slightly north of Turkey, across the Caspian Sea, and landlocked by all the other “Stans,” the Central Asian republics that had been part of the USSR—clockwise from top, Kazakh-, Kyrgyz-, Tajiki-, and Turkmeni-, with a short southern border touching Afghanistan. As my preparations ramped up, I could tell them more, like the fact that it’s the most populous of the Stans, at 32 million, and that it is both 80 percent Muslim and, at least in name, a democracy. Made up largely of semiarid desert and steppes, the country also encompasses mountains, fertile valleys, lakes, and major rivers.

Perhaps because Stalin drew its borders somewhat arbitrarily, as he did throughout Central

Condé Nast Traveler / 12.17

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BELOW: THE YURT ENCAMPMENT AT AYAZ K ALA FORT IN THE ELLIK KALA AREA OF KARAKALPAKSTAN. OPPOSITE: THE BIBI KHANUM MOSQUE IN SAMARK AND.

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Asia after the Red Army barreled through, then cloaked it far behind the Iron Curtain, Uzbekistan has remained a place few people in the West know much about. But this area, by whatever name or shape, has a history thousands of years old: conquered by Alexander the Great; terrorized and then ruled by Genghis Khan; and positioned at the heart of the Silk Road, where it grew wealthy hosting and trading with caravans of camels carrying everything from paper, glass, gunpowder, and cinnamon to hunting dogs, honey, and slaves—not to mention ideas and religions—between China and Rome. The author of One Thousand and One Nights placed Scheherazade to tell her tales and Aladdin to find his magic lamp in the Uzbek city of Samarkand. After Islam arrived in the eighth century and the Mongolians came and went, the 14th century gave rise to a far-reaching empire, which dissolved into separate Islamic kingdoms, called khanates and emirates, and eventually yielded to 67 years of Soviet rule before the country’s independence in 1991. A Soviet vibe still lingers not only in the music and bland urban architecture but in government requirements like a chit proving you spent the night in a hotel and having to state your intended stops in your visa application—which may also explain why those foreigners who do go wind up sticking to a well-worn tourist circuit.

But the 2,500-year-old city of Bukhara, where I find myself two mornings later, feels like it was entirely leapfrogged by the Russians. In front of the massive and ornately tiled Kalon, or great mosque—built in the 16th century on the site where Genghis Khan destroyed the previous one and slaughtered some 300,000 men three centuries earlier—boys practice on handheld drums. We have zoomed west to Bukhara from Tashkent on a modern train in just over four hours to make the Silk and Spices Festival. Although the name is emblazoned on banners in English all over town, as we walk to the plaza by the Ark (or citadel), I find not tourists but thousands of Uzbeks gathered from all over the country. They are dressed according to their region, in every color and ikat print, with brocade and velvet trimming, in tunics and long skirts, jackets and loose trousers, and headwear ranging from close-fitting caps, called doppis, to taller, rounder ones that remind me of cakes. Some dance and sing as they form a parade alongside huge humanlike puppets and at least one misbehaving Bactrian camel—the two-humped variety indigenous to this area, which was called Bactria in the sixth century B . C . There is a jubilant feeling in the air, as parade participants—who far outnumber spectators— reclaim traditions tamped down not so long ago.

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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: A BACTRIAN CAMEL; TYPICAL UZBEK CER AMICS IN THE BUKHAR A BAZAAR; A VENDOR AT CENTR AL BAZAAR, SAMARK AND; ROUND UZBEK BREAD; BOYS PLAYING DRUMS IN BUKHAR A IN FRONT OF THE MIR-I-AR AB MADR ASSA.

ABOVE: REGISTAN SQUARE IN SAMARK AND. OPPOSITE: ANTIQUE ROBES IN A SHOP IN KHIVA.

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A

fter an iced coffee at the decidedly modern Café Wishbone, and an interview and photo for a local paper (as a visitor from the West, it turns out, I am notable and anomalous), I meander the old city, often under deliciously shady clay-brick domes dating to medieval times. The streets and bazaars are filled with groups that have scattered throughout the area to play and perform, and I am invited, over and over, in a kind but insistent way, to dance. Twirled and passed from person to person, I’m taught the gestures for “this is the way to my heart” (three taps up the left arm and then a toss to the sky) and the pulsing heartbeat (two hooked index fingers undulating before one’s chest).

Though a friend of a friend who did her Ph.D. work here had told me the Uzbeks were hospitable people, I wasn’t sure what that would mean, not least of all because in English the word has a kind of canned quality. But from the moment I landed I have been welcomed, embraced, and invited to people’s homes. It didn’t occur to me as an American traveling in a Muslim country in such a politically fraught age that I would get this kind of charmed attention, and I find myself laughing and dancing to the music with its echoes of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and China. This is the crossroads of the world, after all.

Nor did I expect the range of styles I find both here and in Tashkent. I’d carefully packed

My itinerary was excellently organized by U.S.-based Silk Road Treasure Tours.

The owner, Bukhara native Zulya Rajabova, arranged for my guide and drivers. (I do recommend a guide to negotiate the sometimes tricky transportation logistics and for special access to cultural sites.)

Tashkent is a haul—getting there takes around 15 hours in the air from New York on Turkish Airlines via Istanbul; Uzbekistan Airways, however, has a shorter flight from New York with a brief stopover in Riga. The best time to visit is May to November, though summer temperatures can top 100.

The hotels we stayed in were always comfortable, if not luxurious. In Tashkent, the City Palace Hotel is a modern tower with pretty tiled swimming pools and a lavish breakfast. In Bukhara, the Devon Begi was a good, small hotel in the old city, which made walking everywhere easy.

The Hotel Grand Samarkand Superior was clean and well-done. But my favorites came at the end of our trip: the Ayaz-Qala Yurt Camp, tents decorated with colorful tapestries, and the lovely Orient Star Khiva, a 19th-century madrassa where rooms were retrofitted with AC, bathrooms, and balconies. D . B .

Map by Peter Oumanski

PLANNING YOUR TRIP

OPPOSITE: A SCENE FROM SAMARK AND’S SHAH-I-ZINDA NECROPOLIS. RIGHT: TURQUOISE DOMES IN SAMARK AND.

several long skirts and long-sleeved blouses, only to discover I can wear whatever I want. A group of college girls are dressed in T-shirts, jeans, and baseball caps. At Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent, many of the women vendors wear gauzy scarves affixed over high buns, I Dream of Jeannie style, and long cotton dresses with empire waists. There aren’t a lot of short skirts, but there isn’t a single burka either. The Soviets outlawed them.

In fact, Aziz tells me that the government is concerned a fundamentalist strain might take hold, and so only older men are allowed full beards.

Police have been known to question young men on the street with facial hair, a dictum that bears an undeniably authoritarian mark. But this combined with the fact that only 17 percent of Muslims are practicing means that what is evident (all around me, at least) is a more casual, secular strain of Islam than the version that gets regular play in the Western media. Religious coexistence has a history here, too. Earlier, Aziz pointed out where Christian crosses and Jewish stars appear in the tile work of many mosques and madrassas. It’s a fact that speaks to an earlier time when the three great religions shared a cordiality along the Silk Road and even after its demise, when Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route.

In the afternoon, we visit craftspeople in the cool, high-ceilinged indoor bazaars. At his loom, Rasul Mirzaahmedov tells me UNESCO has funded his writing of two books on his weaving and offhandedly mentions that in 2008 Oscar de la Renta used his ikat for a collection.

All his dyes are natural, from pomegranate, madder root, onion, saffron, and walnut, and when I ask if he feels any pressure to use synthetic dyes to keep up with demand, he looks perplexed and says, “We are not a fábrica. We are a workshop.”

Whether I am at the blacksmith’s shop, where knives and scissors are made in the forge, the suzani maker, who stitches colorful patterns in a frame, the miniature painter’s workshop, where artists use the tiniest of brushes, or a ceramicist’s stall, I am told repeatedly, and almost apologetically, by each craftsman that his family hasn’t been at this work very long, “only six generations,” which inevitably makes me smile. All I can think is, If you only knew how fast things change where I come from. This almost unselfconscious dedication to craft also differs, I find, from the capital-A artisanship that has lately seized hold in the West. There is a kind of unstudied humility, even workaday demeanor, in the people creating here, a dedication to the designs and their elaborateness, as if they aren’t entirely aware of how unusual it is.

This is not to say that Abdullo Narzullaev, surrounded by his vividly painted plates and bowls, does not hand me a flier describing his work with a picture of Hillary Clinton in his ceramics shop, but of more interest to him is how his four-year-old granddaughter has been clamoring to use the wheel even though women traditionally are only allowed to paint designs. Salimjo Ikramov, the blacksmith, does have a yellowed, framed copy of a New York Times article about the family business, but he wants to talk about titanium versus Damascus steel, and how he is now apprenticing his seven-year-old grandson after school before he is too old to learn.

Encountering this making of beauty in shop after shop has an intoxicating effect, or perhaps it is a detoxifying effect, a kind of antivenom to the mindless kitsch that fills our big-box stores at home.

I

f bukhara, in the shady lanes of the ancient city, is marked by an abundance of music and crafts, Samarkand, where the Afrosiyob express train (imported from Spain in 2011) delivers us in under three hours, is at first glance bland as we cruise the wide, tree-lined avenues past concrete-and-glass buildings. The city is at least 2,500 years old, but it’s not until I’m delivered at dusk to the Registan that history starts pulsing. A public square of epic size and beauty, the Registan (which means “Sandy Place”) is lined on three sides by giant and painstakingly tiled madrassas—a.k.a. Islamic colleges— built in the 15th and 17th centuries. Prior to that the square was for artisans, announcements, executions, and sand.

The other defining feature of the city, besides ancient architecture of enormous scale and copious detail, is that it is imbued with stories: not just fictional stories of Scheherazade and Aladdin, with their supernatural tilt, but stories based in fact, many of them centered around Emir (king) Timur, a 14th-century ruler whose empire stretched from Delhi to Constantinople.

He was a descendant of Genghis Khan on his mother’s side, and his own descendants would take Islam south and west to found India’s Mughal empire and later to build the Taj Mahal. And yet, I’d never heard of him.

I find Timur to be an intriguing contradiction. Though responsible for the deaths of millions, he was multilingual, an expert chess player, and also passionate about architecture. As we pass through the shimmering blue and

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OPPOSITE: BOYS PLAYING AT THE TIM-ABDULLAKHAN SILK CENTER IN BUKHAR A.

turquoise mosques and mausoleums that were once part of his empire, Aziz tells stories of the emir’s life, such as the one about Bibi Khanoum’s mosque. Of his 18 wives, she was Timur’s great love, a Chinese princess who couldn’t have children. He built the mosque for her, but its construction was interrupted by the Persian architect who fell in love with her, who may or may not have been thrown from a tower. As Aziz puts it, “We are still gossiping about it.” Timur’s name remains a household one, and history bubbles up around us, casting its mist in the modern era.

That evening, we arrive at the gate of a local family’s home for dinner, suggested by Hero, our driver, after I’d protested the over-airconditioned and mirrored restaurant the night before, pressing for local fare and ambiance. I’m nervous about sitting in someone’s kitchen, being served by strangers under financial duress, but then we enter a lush garden with a cherry tree dripping with ripe fruit. The table is replete with salads, fresh fruits, fried appetizers, nuts, and green tea, all served on pakhta gul china, the royal blue– and–white pattern found at almost every meal.

Its design is based on the cotton ball, which has been harvested here for centuries, but especially since the 1860s, when Russia lost its supply from the American South and turned to Central Asia.

Zanifa, the chef, is an accountant by training. She greets us and disappears as her boys serve dimlama, a tender beef stew. Only after dark, when she has broken the Ramadan fast, does she come sit with us and her mother, a very lively 80-year-old and a former biologist. Everything is unexpected in this scenario: the multitalented women, the deliciousness of the food made by a fasting chef, and the vitality of the matriarch, who in Uzbek wishes me “a long life, to have children, and be rich.”

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This unexpectedness carries me forward, to the city of Nukus, where an artist named Igor Savitsky set up a museum of thousands of Russian avant-garde paintings in the desert, partly funded by the Soviet government that later condemned it. In the jewel-box city of Khiva, I learn that a local ninth-century mathematician named Al-Khorezmi invented both algebra and another still useful concept named after him that in Europe became “algorithmi.”

One afternoon, in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan where the Kyzyl Kum Desert unfurls, I am thrown back to an even earlier time as we drive into an area known as Ellik Kala, or “Fifty Forts.” The clay forts are scattered across the landscape and date to the fourth century B . C . , when the region was a fertile basin. Pre-Soviet, pre-Mongol, pre-Islam, the civilization that was here remains something of a mystery, though it likely was Zoroastrian, the monotheistic Persian religion founded in the sixth century B . C . The scant number of relics that were here have long since vanished to Russia and Tashkent, and the forts that appear as vast shapes on hilltops remind me of nothing so much as colossal sandcastles softened with the wear of the ages, evoking an almost geologic sense of time and one’s place in it.

Our yurt encampment—a hotel, as most people live in towns now—is on a hill that is home to Ayaz Kala, the windy fort. It is cohabited by a tour group of Australians and Germans, and Rano, the proprietress—every bit a woman of the steppes, with her chiseled Mongolian features, long flowered blouse over trousers, and black velvet slippers—is busy overseeing the reinstallation of a red-framed yurt that blew away in a windstorm the week before.

One gentle camel, knobby-kneed and shedding chunks of golden fur, is probing his rubbery nose into an open window of a ’70s Soviet Army truck.

At dusk it’s time to hike to the top of the hill where the ancient fort sprawls—archways, tunnels, and battlements with a wide-open space in the middle. As the tan walls glow in the falling light, I can’t help but play with my shadow, cast 50 feet out on the ground below. Of course, as an American, I know I am especially susceptible to the magic of ancient things. But the fact that there are no other tourists, no placards, paths, or even graffiti, makes this moment exceptional. I walk through a passageway that turns and opens onto the desert where a fuzzy silhouette of a town is visible in the far distance; how far I couldn’t tell you. Back at the camp, when Aziz produces a bottle of Uzbek “champagne,” warm but delicious, to sip with the sunset over the grassy desert, it seems just right. There is something exhilarating about having made it so far from home and feeling so entirely oneself.

When it’s time for bed—after having danced once again to live musicians, with a performer dressed in glittering white who circled the tent shaking her hands—I pause at the doorway of my yurt to look out at the vast canopy of night sky. Then, as I’d been instructed by a local earlier that day, I cross the threshold with my right foot first, so that I can make a wish.

On

Rise The SÃO PAULO’S NEXT GENERATION ARE RECLAIMING THEIR CITY BY BRINGING LIFE AND COLOR BACK TO SEVERAL LONGNEGLECTED NEIGHBORHOODS

by ALEX HAWGOOD

photographs by Andrew

Dosunmu styling by Mobolaji Dawodu 71

this spread from left:

Pringle of Scotland parka ......................................... $1,760 Victor Glemaud dress .. $450

Solid & Striped the Jamie mustard stripe rib top and bottom ........................................... $176 Dolce & Gabbana Amore earrings ......... $675 Christian Dior Judgement dress and bandanna .............................. $18,500 and $220 David Yurman Solari Coil bracelet .... $2,900

GEOVANA ROCHA, 27 MODEL at Hotel Unique “The diversity in São Paulo has led to a freedom of self-expression without fear of judgment that you don’t find elsewhere in South America.”

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Previous: Parka, pringlescotland.com; dress, net-a-porter.com

previous spread:

MARIANA LACORTE, 21 PATHOLOGIST at Vila Leopoldina

Left: Top and bottom, solidandstriped.com; earrings, select DG boutiques. Right: Dress and bandanna, Dior boutiques; Solari Coil, davidyurman.com

“São Paulo best captures the Brazilian duality of chaos and conservatism.

But there is so much culture everywhere. It means that everyone who comes here feels like they have a place and they belong.”

CAROL NOBRE, 30 PRODUCER at Vila Madalena

Versace Georgette dress and jacket ....... $2,975 and $3,425 Ashley Pittman Kaimu bangles ............................. $595

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Dress and jacket, versace.com; bangles, ashleypittman.com

“This is a day-to-night city: Paulistas are out around the clock. I’ll hang out in Ibirapuera Park all day Saturday before moving on to the bars of Vila Madalena or Rua Augusta at night— and eat well in between.”

at Vila Madalena “I think our dissatisfaction with how things were socially and politically sparked the creativity the city has now, and gave us the guts to occupy it how we wanted to. Twenty years ago there was such a divide between the suburbs and downtown.

Today we go everywhere.�

Sunglasses, christopherkane.com; jacket and skirt, fendi.com; cuff, ashleypittman.com; Three-Row, davidyurman.com; sandals, Totokaelo, N.Y.C.

IGI AYEDUN, 27 FASHION JOURNALIST

GABIE GODOY, 24 FASHION DESIGNER at Parque Minhocão “São Paulo is different than it was a decade ago. Younger people are moving in. The energy is shifting. Every time one place closes, another two open up.”

this spread from left:

Gown and sunglasses, gucci.com

Christopher Kane sunglasses .............................. $375 Fendi jacket and skirt .................... $2,400 and $1,250 Ashley Pittman cuff ................................................ $695 David Yurman Pure Form Three-Row cuff .... $1,450 Marni sandals ........................................................... $710 Gucci gown and sunglasses .......... $15,000 and $620

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DVF wrap dress, maxi skirt, and cami ...................................... $428, $368, and $198 Oscar de la Renta earrings .................. $435 Chanel vest, pant, and shoes ....................... ............................. $6,050, $2,300, and $1,150 Christopher Kane sunglasses ............ $510 David Yurman Pure Form earrings .. $850 Ashley Pittman Bila necklace ............ $645 John Hardy Modern Chain Kick cuff ............................................................... $16,500

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MARCELA THOMÉ, 22 MODEL at Beco do Batman “We are getting more cosmopolitan every year. Today you can eat Michelin-starred food and catch international shows. Or you can keep things simple and hit a small theater, then eat something local.”

Dress, maxi skirt, and cami, dvf.com; earrings, Oscar de la Renta boutiques

this spread from left:

NALLA, 21 SINGER at Centro Cultural

Vest, pant, and shoes, Chanel boutiques; sunglasses, christopherkane.com; earrings, davidyurman.com; necklace, ashleypittman.com; cuff, johnhardy.com

“This is a business city; people are always in a hurry. So all the art now being created is even more important. It acts as a great connector.

Street musicians and artists have the ability to make all those people from different walks slow down.�

ON A 70-DEGREE WINTER’S DAY IN SÃO PAULO, a young crowd in vintage tees and Common Projects sneakers sipped cafezinhos on the terrace of Mirante 9 de Julho, a café and cultural hub that occupies a formerly abandoned platform over the 9 de Julho Avenue Tunnel in São Paulo’s Bela Vista district. A model with an Afro picked at bacon doughnuts while a couple of laptop jockeys tapped away and a DJ spun hip-hop by the door. As evening fell, the after-work throngs in tailored blazers and heavy square-frame glasses flowed in from the neighboring São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), a concreteand-glass landmark designed in 1947 by the acclaimed ItalianBrazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi.

As with the transformation by locals of New York’s Lower East Side in the ’90s and Berlin’s Kreuzberg, Paulistas, as denizens are known, are reimagining their city, occupying and reshaping neglected pockets of Brazil’s 576-square-mile megalopolis that have boomed and busted over decades of development. (New York’s five boroughs, by comparison, total just 322 square miles.) “São Paulo used to be big condos and shopping malls, where people lived their lives removed from the streets,” says Facundo Guerra, a boyish-looking nightlife kingpin and developer who two years ago converted Mirante into today’s crowd magnet after it languished unused for nearly 80 years, its parkland views obscured by new freeways. (His other projects include a gay disco in an old church and a restored Art Deco jazz bar that he opened with the Brazilian culinary star Alex Atala in 2013.) “Now people are changing their relationship to money and retraining their eyes to see beauty everywhere.”

Ten years ago, Brazil seemed poised to become the largest global economic player in the region, and swarms of giddy international investors flocked in for their piece. São Paulo quickly became South America’s financial and industrial hub and the headquarters for the Latin American branches of companies like Merrill Lynch and Twitter. But growing public debt and resource mismanagement by a government with a track record of corruption led to economic collapse, leaving the city reeling. Watching policy teams from Brasília, New York, and London get so heavily involved in the aftermath ignited local pride, compelling a new generation of Paulistas to take the town back and make it their own.

“It’s like Brazil in the ’60s,” says Matheus Yehudi, a communications executive for the influential Mendes Wood DM gallery in the Jardins district. He’s referring to the artistic movement

LUANA CRUZ, 20 HOSTESS at Ibirapuera Park “I love seeing the landscape of trees and flowers against graffiti on my way to work. It makes every day special.”

initiated by mid-century renegades like the novelist João Guimarães Rosa and the architect Oscar Niemeyer, whose Bottega Veneta dress ........... communist politics challenged Brazil’s then military dicta....................................... $3,280 torship (Niemeyer later went into exile). “Only this time we Christian Louboutin Moulamax boots ...... $1,095 are reconnecting with our identity as a pushback against an excess of American and European influence,” he says.

São Paulo’s dense urban sprawl (some one-percenters actually beat the brutal commuter traffic by taking helicopters to work) can make the city as off-putting to travelers as its lush beachside sibling Rio de Janeiro is inviting. And while the Edenesque beauty of Rio seduces from the first glimpse of Guanabara Bay, São Paulo reveals itself more gradually—in hidden alleys now lined with designer boutiques, crumbling office and residential towers turned experimental-art centers, and warehouses hung with vertical gardens and filled with galleries and bars.

Take Jardins, a trendy shopping district that has lately repositioned itself as an arts and food hub. Back in 2010, partly due to safety concerns over the area’s notorious graband-go muggings, luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior retreated from its tree-lined streets to far-flung shopping-mall fortresses. But the vacancies allowed the upscale neighborhood—where the clubby Fasano hotel and Atala’s top-rated D.O.M. restaurant alone are reasons to stop by—to open its arms to edgier local tenants. Across from Mendes Wood DM on Rua da Consolação is Pair, a starkly minimalist boutique that sells monochromatic clothing, close to Epicentro, a multiuse venue with an organic market and rotating design exhibitions.

On Saturdays in Centro, the city’s once rough-and-tumble downtown, well-dressed Paulistas arrive early for brunch at Bar da Dona Onça, a home-style bistro that stocks around 30 brands of cachaça, before strolling next door to the Pivô, a cerebral 38,000-square-foot art center on three floors of Niemeyer’s 1966 Edificio Copan, to see installations by artworld pioneers like the Colombian Danilo Dueñas. The area is also home to cult spots like A Casa do Porco, a quirky swine bar from the gourmet hash slinger Jefferson Rueda that draws devotees from across the city’s social spectrum for its pork tartare and pancetta cracklings. And O Lourdes is a riotous drinking hole in a gray-walled former funeral parlor that attracts an in-the-know bohemian crowd and doesn’t pick up until 3 A.M. There is perhaps no better snapshot of São Paulo’s bubbling melting pot than the wonderfully wacky weekend scene that goes down on Paulista Avenue, the busiest thoroughfare in the city’s financial heart, still home to the country’s headquarters for the likes of Citibank and Banco Safra. Two years ago, then-mayor Fernando Haddad closed it to traffic on Sundays, and the effect has been like Rio’s Copacabana Beach poured through a cement mixer: Eight-lane roadways become a phantasmagoria of shirtless joggers, sunbathers lying on blankets dotting the asphalt, guerrilla theater, house music DJs, wrestlers wearing clown masks, prepubescent Michael Jackson impersonators, antiques vendors, and hypnotic drum circles. It may just be the most blatant example of Paulistas reclaiming turf, and a way of life, that had previously felt so out of reach.

e Dito, D.O.M.’s more casual, affordable offshoot that’s walk-in-friendly.

Order the fish of the day wrapped and roasted in a banana leaf, followed by a shot of mouth-numbing cachaça with jambu. Maní, a chic all-day spot in Jardins, has a ladies-who-lunch crowd and warm interior (raw-wood tables and fresh-cut flowers).

Meanwhile, northeast of Jardins in Vila Medeiros, the rising culinary star Rodrigo Oliveira runs Mocotó Bar & Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall with smoky flavors from Brazil’s northeast, and Esquina Mocotó, a companion restaurant right next door, beloved for its sun-dried salted beef.

you’re not staying at the park’s Palácio Tangará, pop in for afternoon tea on the hotel’s sun-flooded terrace.

The New Must-See The Minhocão is a raised freeway that cuts through Centro and is car-free on Sundays. “It’s the best place to see São Paulo’s changing identity,” says the entrepreneur Facundo Guerra. “People are no longer in their bubbles.” Buy a fresh coconut and walk the pedestrian streets gazing at the enormous vertical gardens cascading down the sides of buildings, as drones, Rollerbladers, and impromptu puppet shows whirl around you.

There’s Art All Over Town

THE SÃO PAULO ONE-SHEET

Dress, 800-845-6790; boot, christianlouboutin.com

Getting There Is Easy São Paulo is the hub for most airlines, including American, LATAM, and Copa, that fly to Brazil from the East Coast of the U.S. It makes for an easy extended layover when heading to Rio or Trancoso (both under two hours away; flights to Rio go roughly every 30 minutes). A 10-hour overnight flight from JFK gives you a full first day, with no jet lag. On the ground, the affordable and efficient 99Taxis app is Brazil’s answer to Uber.

It’s Definitely a Hotel Town It’s not hard to sleep comfortably in São Paulo. Classics like Hotel Unique, a watermelon-shaped building with a stylish pool, and the glass-walled Emiliano, both in the Jardins district, have made our Readers’ Choice Awards list for years. The six-monthold Palácio Tangará is the continent’s first from the German-owned Oetker

Collection and sits in parkland designed by famed landscaper Roberto Burle Marx, a lush escape from urban grit only a few miles from the city center. But the legendary Fasano has 60 mid-century modern– inspired rooms, an old-school lobby bar where bow-tied barmen stir up Aperol spritzes, and a glamorous Italian restaurant.

These Meals Are Worth a Flight The city’s been on foodies’ radar for a while, thanks largely to the twoMichelin-starred D.O.M. in Jardins.

This is where the celebrity chef Alex Atala, like Brazil’s own René Redzepi, translates foraged ingredients from the Amazon into fine-dining dishes.

Come on the right night (reserve a table two months out) and you may even glimpse him prepping fettuccine from pupunha hearts of palm in the open kitchen. Down the road is Dalva

São Paulo has reigned for nearly 70 years as a regional art and architecture hub, thanks to mid-century titans like Niemeyer and contemporary masters like Isay Weinfeld. On the top floor of Lina Bo Bardi’s MASP, you’ll see paintings and sculptures by hometown artists Agostinho Batista de Freitas and Marcelo Cidade. A 20-minute car ride southwest will land you in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo’s equivalent of Central Park and home to The Pinacoteca, a grand exposed-brick public art museum, and Niemeyer’s Museu Afro Brasil, with jewelry and paintings by Brazilians of African descent. For something more modern, head to Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel in Pinheiros, or Mendes Wood DM in Jardins.

It’s a Surprisingly Green City There are a huge number of parks tucked in among the city’s skyscrapers, including its largest, Ibirapuera, where you could spend a whole day museum hopping, picnicking, and biking. Hidden within the wealthy Morumbi neighborhood, southwest of Jardins, Casa de Vidro is a glass house on stilts where Lina Bo Bardi once lived, surrounded by a lush private garden planted by Bo Bardi herself. (It’s open to the public from Thursday to Saturday.) The jungly Parque Burle Marx is a stunning miniature version of the rain forest that runs the length of Brazil’s coastline, with native flora, chirping birds, and monkeys. If

Sleeping Is Optional In Brazil’s characteristic work-hard, play-harder fashion, cocktail dens and music clubs are open around the clock here. Start the night at Baretto, a discreet piano bar inside the Fasano, with live jazz and bossa nova played by musicians who’ve been performing around town for almost 20 years. Then move on to O Lourdes, a stylish, dim-lit spot to sip martinis and Manhattans that turns from jazz to DJ with dance floor as the clock strikes 3 A.M. If you’re feeling game, head to one of the city’s famed allnight roaming parties, like Mamba Negra or Carlos Capslock, which rarely occupy the same gallery twice.

The Ultimate Bring-Back “Brazilian furniture from the ’50s and ’60s is in high demand on the art market,” says Josh Wood, the New York event producer who organizes the annual star-studded amfAR gala in São Paulo. Alexandre Gabriel of Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel gallery recommends Loja Teo, a furniture store in the design district in Pinheiros, for its rare jacaranda-wood serving dishes from the 1950s. Down the road, Firma Casa sells chairs from the Campana Brothers that you can only find in Brazil. From there, it’s a 10minute car ride to Passado Composto, an antiques store that specializes in artistic tapestries from the late local master weaver Genaro de Carvalho and pieces from mid-century furniture designer Jean Gillon. A . H .

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Big Le

A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY CALLS FOR GOOD FRIENDS, A CASTLE TAKEOVER IN THE BORDEAUX COUNTRYSIDE, AND LOTS (AND LOTS) OF WINE

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: THE PARTY KICKED OFF WITH APEROL SPRITZES; MATT HR ANEK (RIGHT), ODDUR THORISSON (SECOND FROM RIGHT), AND OTHER GUESTS; CUBAN CIGARS WERE A BIRTHDAY GIFT; THE WINE CELLAR AT CHÂTEAU COS D’ESTOURNEL; THE TERR ACE OF LA CHARTREUSE; MICHEL REYBIER’S OWN WINES WERE SERVED.

Chill by

Pilar Guzmán

photographs by

Matt Hranek, Stephen Lewis, Dewey Nicks & Oddur Thorisson 83

Just before we arrived in Saint-Yzans, a hamlet in the Médoc that comprises a cluster of 19th-century limestone facades and a one-spire church, a flurry of text messages filled my phone screen with mounting urgency. Where are you? Four families had flown to Paris before taking trains to Bordeaux, renting cars at the station, and driving more than an hour north to this quiet corner of the world’s most famous wine region to celebrate our dear friend Matt Hranek’s 50th birthday. Corinne, the proprietor of a modest if perfectly overgrown stone guesthouse, Le Hourqueyre, was growing impatient, I later learned, in that downward-turned-mouth sort of way that is the province of Frenchwomen of a certain age. Food markets were closing, and she wanted to know how many children would be dining that evening.

The plan was for our kids, along with the 14-year-old twins of photographer Dewey Nicks and his wife, Stephanie, to sleep in her tidy 70-euro-a-night rooms; the adults, meanwhile, would check into the Château Cos d’Estournel wine estate, a 15-minute drive away in Saint-Estèphe.

Matt, Traveler’s luxury editor, and his wife, Yolanda Edwards, its creative director, fell in love with the area when we published a story in November 2014 on the cookbook author and TV personality Mimi Thorisson. Since then, her cavernous, stone-tiled kitchen, with its walls of copper pans and farm table piled with squash or asparagus—as captured by her husband, Oddur Thorisson, in painterly photographs for her books and Instagram—has attained cult status in the food world. After leaving Paris for the Médoc seven years ago, the Thorissons have all but taken over Saint-Yzans, running cooking workshops out of their home, where they live with their eight children and eight dogs. Matt and Yolanda were so taken by the unspoiled landscape, superior wines and food, and affordable real estate that they decided to buy and renovate a pair of row houses across the street from their friends. And so the weekend also afforded an opportunity for the couple to finally show close friends from the U.S. what they’d been enthusing about for so long.

Additionally, it was the perfect occasion to visit Cos d’Estournel’s much anticipated new residence, La Chartreuse, the only luxury property of its kind in the region. A hardworking wine-production area with few cultural

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THE 19TH-CENTURY ORIENTALIST-STYLE FACADE OF THE ESTATE, AN OUTLIER IN A REGION DOMINATED BY FRENCH BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE.

sites and even fewer hotels and holiday rentals, the Médoc, unlike the Loire or Provence, sees relatively little tourism; its most renowned wine estates, Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Latour, are closed to the public (except via hard-toscore appointment). Château Cos d’Estournel, a distinguished Bordeaux winery, was bought in 2000 by the visionary hotelier Michel Reybier as a vineyard and private estate. Recently, though, he decided to open up the property, which sleeps up to 16, to rent in its entirety. Like his other hotels—including the impeccable La Réserve in Paris and the Eden Au Lac in Zurich—La Chartreuse hews to a brand of one-of-a-kind, yet miraculously not in-your-face, luxury.

When it was time to check in, we said goodbye to our two boys, watching them as they disappeared on old beater bikes into the quiet village at dusk with the Thorisson brood as though it were the 1930s. I had some faith that they would end up at Corinne’s for dinner before dark, and my modern-day American helicopter-parent instincts mellowed just in time for cocktails at La Chartreuse.

Matt, a lifelong collector of vintage and bespoke men’s suiting, takes dressing for an occasion very seriously: black tie the first evening; blue jackets the second. Women wore dresses ranging from above-the-knee to full-length. If ever there were an excuse to dress the part, the courtyard overlooking manicured gardens and a fountain, and the towers of raw langoustines, crevettes, palourdes, bulots, and Arcachon oysters, nailed it. “The setting gave us an excuse to play château owner for 36 hours,” Matt says. The property delivers on this kind of to-the-manor-born fantasy without making its guests question whether they are using the right fork. Reybier’s stock in trade—luxe yet cozy Jacques Garcia–designed interiors that mix European antiques and Asian tapestries, Hermès ashtrays and cashmere throws that you’re actually meant to use, a there-yet-not-there staff—pulls off that elusive marriage of over-the-top and accessible. Unlike so many luxury

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: APPETIZERS OF PETROSSIAN OSETR A CAVIAR AND BLINIS; LANGOUSTINES AND ARCACHON OYSTERS; PARTY GUEST SIBYLLE KR AFT WITH HER DOG, BERTIE; THE SALON AT LA CHARTREUSE; ONE OF THE HOTEL’S EIGHT GUEST ROOMS; MIMI THORISSON (FOREGROUND) AND OTHER GUESTS; MATT IN A TUXEDO BY J. MUESER BESPOKE.

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OPPOSITE: THE DINING ROOM AT COS D’ESTOURNEL. THIS PAGE: THE GUYS IN THE LIBR ARY, FILLED WITH REYBIER’S OWN BOOK COLLECTION.

experiences in which the food, service, and presentation are heavy-handed, bordering on oppressive, here you feel like a houseguest who’s welcome to pad around in a bathrobe rather than an impostor agonizing over what shoes to wear at breakfast.

When I heard we were getting a tour of the property, I had to suppress an eye-roll, à la Paul Giamatti in Sideways, at the threat of an excruciating hour of wine-speak. The region’s serious wines, particularly the reds, can intimidate even the most rigorous enthusiasts. But the vineyard and cellar tour, led by the estate’s technical director, Dominique Arangoïts, demystified a range of vintages and blends, from the bright and intense 1989 to the full-bodied, aromatic 2000 to the “put tears in your eyes” 2005 Bordeaux set aside for us, without a word of wine jargon. “Walking through that cellar felt personal,” Matt says, “like it was ours for our short stay.”

As Arangoïts explained how the estate has revolutionized extraction, production, and distribution over its 200-year history, I was struck by the contrast between the building’s exterior, with its 19th-century limestone Orientalist facade, and its interior, a cavernous, almost 50,000-square-foot state-of-the-art distillery, as stark and modern as a Bond villain’s lair. Both the art and science of winemaking—tradition and progress—are rooted in the building’s legacy. It makes sense, as Louis Gaspard d’Estournel, who inherited Cos in 1791, was among the first to sell directly to overseas markets like India, where the wine was prized among British officers stationed there.

(As early as the 1830s, Gaspard began signing each label himself as a quiet act of rebellion against Bordeaux’s traditional network of négociants.) His forays into foreign markets surely explain his unconventional and global taste in architecture and design. And his faith in the estate’s singular terroir drove him, sometimes at great financial risk, to expand and innovate—a tradition Reybier has continued with the installation of a bleeding-edge vat room, spread over two floors, that works solely on gravity (vats are encased in glass elevators to enable pump-free extraction that better preserves the character of the fruit and terroir).

For his birthday dinner, Matt arranged for Bordelaise entrecote steak and grilled vegetables. “My theme was loosely ‘high-low,’ meaning that I wanted to show the simple way people really eat in this region within a beautiful setting, rather than the crazy layering of sauces you’d expect,” he says. But

when Matt asked for dry-aged steaks, atypical of the region, the chef broke his strict adherence to fresh beef and sourced steaks through Monsieur Pigout, the only butcher who dryages steaks in the area. “That’s the La Reserve way,” says Matt of the hotelier’s simultaneous loyalty to tradition and openness to outside influence. As Reybier puts it, “Above all, I want my guests to feel comfortable in my home.”

Over three hours of sitting in the hand-painted Chinesetoile dining room—a candlelit four-course affair with multiple wine pairings, including a magnum of 2002 Cos d’Estournel Bordeaux—I scarcely remember anyone coming or going but us. Once the birthday boy broke out the karaoke machine, opening with “You Make Me Feel So Young” followed by a rousing chorus of “Don’t Stop Believin’,” high heels came off and bow ties were loosened. We might as well have been in a dive bar for our lack of composure, but rather than having to stumble home in a cab from, say, the Lower East Side, we finished the evening curled up on a velvet sofa until 2 A.M., sipping Armagnac out of hefty cut-crystal glasses before crawling upstairs to bed. I think Gaspard would have been pleased.

Condé Nast Traveler / 12.17

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Intel

O U R T R AV E L TIPS, TRICKS, AND MISCELLANY

A GUIDE T O T R AV E L I N G B E T T E R THIS MONTH

Don’t Cancel That Caribbean Trip This year’s hurricane season was devastating, but plenty of islands were untouched and are open for business as usual. Many of the destinations that were hit are on the mend—and need visitors and their cash in order to finish rebuilding.

Go Now The storms had little or no effect on Barbados, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, which almost never see tropical storms, were also unaffected). The Florida Keys are up and running, and Art Basel Miami Beach kicks off as scheduled on December 7. You could also visit Havana or anywhere in the Dominican Republic, where recovery was fairly quick. Or take a cruise: Many lines, after assisting in relief efforts, changed their itineraries to avoid harderhit ports of call.

Go, But Know This The British Virgin Islands “had unprecedented damage,” says Sharon Flax Brutus, the B.V.I.’s director of tourism. Many hotels are still being rebuilt, but you can go by charter yacht: The Moorings will restart crewed trips on December 9.

Many islands in Turks and Caicos were pummeled, but Providenciales, where most of the major resorts are, is already back.

Go This Spring The U.S. Virgin Islands suffered major destruction.

Caneel Bay Resort is closed this winter, but many other hotels may reopen as soon as December.

St. Barts should be ready for visitors by the holidays, says Stiles Bennet of Wimco Villas, and nearby Anguilla is on a similar time line. In St. Martin, hotel and villa operators say it’ll take months to recover.

Puerto Rico, as everyone knows, was ravaged by

Hurricane Maria, but San Juan’s airport and cruise terminal are operating, beaches and roads near the city are clear, and hotels like the Condado Vanderbilt and El Convento are open and desperately need guests.

GOOD NEWS

BAD NEWS

UNBELIEVABLE NEWS

Hong Kong Airlines is now flying nonstop from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, as the 11-year-old carrier goes head-to-head with Cathay Pacific. These flights use brand-new Airbus A350 planes with sleek lie-flat business-class seats and Wi-Fi that works over the Pacific. The airline will start flights from New York and San Francisco early next year, so book that corner suite at the Upper House hotel now, and snag tables at The Chairman and Ho Lee Fook before everyone else does.

Bye-bye, Uber in London. Transport for London said it won’t renew Uber’s license to operate in the city, though the app should still be active while an appeal is pending (if you hit any snags, try alternative ride-hailing services like Blacklane and Gett, or flag down a good old-fashioned black cab). Too bad the new Crossrail, a massive $19.7 billion project linking Heathrow to the heart of London, won’t fully open until late 2018. By then, who knows, Uber may be back in action.

Denver’s Stapleton International Airport was decommissioned 22 years ago and subsequently torn down, but its iconic mid-century modern control tower remained, sitting vacant all these years.

This fall it reopens as Punch Bowl Social, a bar and restaurant with bowling alleys, Ping-Pong, karaoke, a menu of Southern-ish snacks from Top Chef’s Hugh Acheson, and plenty of local Steamworks Brewing Co. Colorado Kölsch. Gimmicky? Sure. But it’s on the way to DEN, so we’ll give it a go.

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HOW TO HAVE THE VATICAN ENTIRELY TO YOURSELF Most companies that offer “private” afterhours tours of the Vatican usually end up grouping you with about a dozen people.

By contrast, the travel specialists at the Roman Guy can pull off visits for just you (and up to three friends or family members) for absolutely uninterrupted time with Raphael’s frescoes, the Gallery of Tapestries, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling. All you have to do is book at least six months out (from $3,760).

FOR THE DIGITAL NOMAD IN YOUR LIFE The Lander Carry System Traveler is a fully waterproof backpack that’s far sleeker than your typical camping rucksack. It’s compact, but somehow super-roomy, and has a padded pocket for your tablet or laptop.

Grab one for your next trip to Yosemite—or anywhere it’s monsoon season ($175).

DECEMBER

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Map by Peter Oumanski; illustrations by Denise Nestor

IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE DAY OF THE YEAR TO FLY IN THE U.S., ACCORDING TO KAYAK.COM. PRICES ARE 46 PERCENT HIGHER THAN AVERAGE THAT DAY.

BY CONTRAST, YOU’LL PAY 27 PERCENT LESS THAN THE MEDIAN TO FLY AT THE END OF JANUARY.

CALLING ALL GEOGRAPHY NERDS The artfully designed, richly illustrated Nowherelands: An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840–1975 (Thames & Hudson) has fascinating profiles of bygone destinations and notorious backwaters like Bhopal, Biafra, Labuan, and the Tangier International Zone.

“I’m so done with pouring expensive moisturizers into tiny plastic bottles, then wasting that last bit stuck at the bottom. The luxury skin-care line Drunk Elephant has a Littles collection: seven of their top sellers, like vitamin C serum and marula oil, in travel-size containers.

Never going back.”

Lauren DeCarlo, Deputy Editor

HOW RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME ARE THESE HEADPHONES? Pair the new Google Pixel Buds with a smartphone and they’ll translate between English and 39 other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Hindi, directly into your ears. We’re living in the future, folks ($159).

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Single Issue nearest to filing date

837,732

837,534

544,347

552,884

0

0

27,674

29,319

0

0

572,021

582,203

199,558

192,566

0

0

0

0

31,961

33,041

231,519

225,607

803,540 34,192 837,732 71.19% 16,502 588,523

807,810 29,724 837,534 72.07% 16,829 599,032

820,042

824,639

71.77%

72.64%

7. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. (Signed) David Geithner, Vice President and Treasurer

Condé Nast Traveler / 12.17

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ROOM WITH A VIEW

12.17

Fernão Mendes Pinto Suite, Palácio Belmonte LISBON, PORTUGAL

Submit your #roomwithaview photo and DM @cntraveler.

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Photograph by Sivan Askayo

Lisbon has a special kind of light. It is so strong and bright early in the day, as though the sunlight is washing the air. Mornings there are my favorite time of day because everything is still. From the window of this 15th-century former palace, all you can hear are the birds and church bells. I took this photo over the Alfama district at 7:30 A.M., before the city woke up. Past the dome of the National Pantheon is the Tagus River. But the sun is so intense, you can’t even see it. S I VA N A S K A Y O