ON THE EVENING OF March 11, 2020, I called my daughter Hallie, who was studying in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France. I told her we'd booked her a flight home; she'd have to be on the 7 a.m. bus to the Marseille airport the next morning.
"What?" she kept asking. It was 2 a.m. in France. "What's happening?" Just two weeks earlier I'd been with her in Aix. On February 29-Leap Year Day-we went to Paris. Ste.-Chapelle, the Musée d'Orsay, cafés, the Métro: all packed. I'd known things were bad in China and Italy; now, in hindsight, my wishful thinking seemed reckless.
Later I learned that Hallie's host mother, Marie-Paule, woke on the morning of March 12 to discover that her American students had all fled overnight. On our daughter's bed she found a pile of clothing and souvenirs-things Hallie thought she'd have time to ship home and a note scrawled in haste: Chère Marie-Paule, S'il vous plaît, donnez ou recyclez tout ce que vous pouvez. Merci pour tout. J'espère vous revoir bientôt. (Please donate or recycle whatever you can. Thank you for everything. I hope to see you again soon.)
Then came long months of isolation at home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Masking, testing, disinfecting groceries. Our neighbors, Amy and Jon, invited us to sit on their deck and sample wines from Domaine Montrose, in the French Languedoc region. Their son Geoffrey works at the vineyard. Hallie and I drank rosés with Jon and Amy, listening to them describe the life Geoffrey has in the south of France. Or used to have, before COVID. From this distance, sipping this wine, it was easier to imagine France in the present tense.
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Bu hikaye Travel+Leisure US dergisinin June 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
The Luxury of Silence - Grieving a dissolved marriage, Nora Walsh seeks peace and compassion at a meditation retreat in California.
My decade-long marriage to a man I deeply love had dissolved, and I had come to the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, in the secluded hills of Marin County, north of San Francisco, to steady myself. Led by the author and meditation teacher Oren Jay Sofer, the seven-day silent retreat focused on the four brahmavihāra, or Buddhist virtues: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
Family Values - Gay father and blogger Jonathan Bailey shares his proudest moments of traveling with his partner and daughters.
My partner and I grew up in families that didn't travel a lot, so we've always had a sense of wanderlust. Before we had kids, we traveled together, and it was life-changing-travel opened our minds to different ways of life.In 2000, Triton and I decided to have kids. At the time, my mom had terminal cancer, and we were all about connecting with family. We wanted to adopt, because we felt like there were so many children in the world who needed love and a good home. In 2002, my mom passed away, and Sophia was born two weeks later. We welcomed our second daughter, Ava, in 2004.
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I was at the end of a five-day journey that had begun in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Galle Fort, in southwestern Sri Lanka, and taken me across the southern tip of the island to the leopard reserve of Yala National Park. In between I had taken in the dramatic coastline of Weligama and had stopped for some beach time in Hiriketiya. Sri Lanka is a country I'm particularly fond of, so when I was asked to revisit to report this story, I seized the opportunity. Yes, I was dying to go back, but I'd had another motive for coming: I wanted to see if the island nation was ready to welcome international visitors again.
Experiences: Hands On - Single-malt whiskies and triple-cream cheeses are the stuff New York's Hudson Valley is made of.
The Hudson Valley has long drawn New York City dwellers in search of clean air, spectacular hikes, and upstate culture. Now a budding community of artisans-young farmers, bakers, vintners, distillers-is turning the region into a modern breadbasket.It is a tightly woven ecosystem that also extends to restaurants and hotels. At Tenmile Distillery, in the town of Wassaic, for example, the grain used to make whiskey comes from a farm in Tivoli, 30 miles away, while the gin and vodka it produces are served at stylish addresses like the Troutbeck (doubles from $580), a hotel in Amenia, and the restaurant Stissing House (entrées $22-$155), in Pine Plains.
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