Page 14 - Travel Leisure - USA (February 2020)

LETTER rom e i or
FROM MY TRAVELS
I recently flew to Cannes, France,
to attend ILTM, one of the biggest
conferences in the luxury-travel
industry. My home for the week was
the Hôtel Barrière Le Majestic
(hotels barriere.com; doubles
from $217), which now feels like
a favorite friend. I obsess over the
creaminess of the scrambled eggs,
the way the hallways are strange
little mazes, and how the lobby
turns into a grand people-watching
scene after 11 p.m. One of my most
memorable meals in Cannes was
at Astoux & Brun (chezastoux.com;
entrées $25–$50), a brasserie
that dates back to 1953 whose
seafood is sublime—I always order
the sole with frites.
Then it was over to Milan, for
one night at the Bulgari Hotel Milano
(bulgarihotels.com; doubles from
$995). What I enjoy about this place
is the polished residential feel and
the subterranean spa, complete
with gold-and-emerald-tiled pool.
It immediately becomes your pool,
and your home, in one of the most
dynamic cities in the world.
12 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | F E B R U A R Y
Jacqui outside
the Bulgari
Hotel Milano.
SLANDS! I love them. I was
I born on one (specifically
Honshu, Japan, during a
typhoon); vacationed on one regularly
as a child (Kauai, on the South Shore,
in the early years of its tourism boom);
and got married on one (Ireland, on a
balmy winter’s day at Ashford Castle).
And I now live on one—Manhattan—
a place of hustle and frenetic energy
that couldn’t be any more different
from the others listed above.
And yet in all of these locales,
there’s a common thread: the thrill
I feel at seeing the water, and the sense
of being surrounded by it. No matter
where I am in the world, my heart
skips a beat when I’m on the edge of
something—along with hundreds or
thousands or millions of other people.
It changes my perspective, how I feel
about myself as a traveler and a human
being. As Joshua Jelly-Schapiro writes
in the introduction to our special
Islands section, “There’s nowhere like
an island for learning to see the world,
and our place in it, a little differently.”
2 0 2 0
Throughout this issue, our writers
build on this sentiment. Michael Joseph
Gross eats his fill of salty mussels,
discovers secluded beaches, and meets
new friends on Páros, Greece. Our
own senior editor, Lila Harron Battis,
finds joy in the nature trails and Gilded
Age history of Georgia’s Jekyll Island.
In our spotlight on what’s new and
noteworthy in the Caribbean, Bermuda,
and the Bahamas, Sara B. Franklin
drops by Vieques, Puerto Rico,
where she learns that, in the wake
of Hurricane Maria, a group of
restaurateurs, farmers, and hoteliers are
forging a path toward self-sufficiency.
They’re planning for the future.
It’s taken years for some Caribbean
businesses to rebuild after the storms
of 2017 (and now the Bahamas is
dealing with the impact of Hurricane
Dorian, in 2019). One of my all-time
favorite hotels—Little Dix Bay, a
Rosewood resort in the British Virgin
Islands whose founder was none
other than Laurance Rockefeller—
is reopening this month. I plan to
be one of the first to check in.
The equally storied Eden Rock
on St. Bart’s, where both Greta Garbo
and Howard Hughes once vacationed,
away from the prying eyes of the
paparazzi, is finally welcoming guests
after a two-year closure. Peter J. Frank
takes a fresh look at this icon, which,
to me, represents what a luxury hotel
should offer its guests: glamour and
scene and the height of discretion,
all at the same time. On islands, you
can definitely have all that. They’re
havens in their own right.
COURTESY OF KATIE BANO
@jacquigiff
Jacqui.Gifford@travelandleisure.com