Tag Archives: Europe

Italian Home Tours: “Villa Agave – Positano” (Video)

Video August 5, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Nestled on the rocky cliffs of Positano, this 170-sqm seafront villa offers two bedrooms with terraces and a beautiful view over the historic center of Positano, the Fornillo beach and Li Galli archipelago. Through a 400-step staircase, or via an elevator, one can easily reach the underlying sea. The villa also boasts a private parking spot, a unique and sought feature in Positano.

Positano is a cliffside village on southern Italy’s Amalfi Coast. It’s a well-known holiday destination with a pebble beachfront and steep, narrow streets lined with boutiques and cafes. Its Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta features a majolica-tiled dome and a 13th-century Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary. The Sentiero degli Dei hiking trail links Positano to other coastal towns.

Adventure, Books, Photography, Travel

New Travel Books: “New York Times Explorer – 100 Trips Around The World”

August 4, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

NYT Explorer. 100 Trips Around the World takes travel beyond the obvious with adventures in exotic places and new perspectives in familiar ones, all based on the distinguished travel journalism of The New York Times. Each journey features a first-person narrative and postcard-perfect photography, capturing the unique personality of the destination—as well as practical information to help get you on your way.

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Whether it’s a culinary adventure in vibrant Mexico City, an historic and meditative train ride through Siberia, or a solo trip to Paris, get your bucket lists ready and share in the discoveries of Explorer a collection of 100 dream destinations—four volumes’ worth of adventures in one—from the Travel pages of The New York Times.

The Times writers offer guidance, from the personal to the practical, along with a wealth of color photographs that capture the catch-your-breath awe of each destination. Motor past pink sands and bougainvillea in Bermuda with Andrew McCarthy, follow Virginia Woolf’s footsteps through the English countryside with Francine Prose, or dare to pilot a boat through the Venice lagoon with Tony Perrottet.

The editor

Barbara Ireland edits the 36 Hours, Explorer, and forthcoming Cultured Traveler series of travel books in collaboration with The New York Times and TASCHEN. A writer and editor based in upstate New York, she is a former deputy Travel editor and deputy Op-Ed page editor at The New York Times. She is a graduate of Cornell University and was a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University.

New Photography Books: “Paris Chic” (Assouline)

August 3, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Paris is the city of chic—and as such, its innate style shines throughout the city, even in the simplest spaces. Quaint bistros, picturesque alleyways, artists’ studios and unique characters are elevated to a modern-day genre painting when set in Paris. From skateboarders to antiquarians, this volume is a glimpse into Parisian life, as if peering over the edge of the balcony at your own pied-a-terre.

Collaboratively, author Alexandra Senes and photographer Oliver Pilcher open the doors to some of the most sophisticated homes in Paris, sharing an intimate portrait of various families. The quiet, daily moments of Parisian life are eternalized through Pilcher’s lens. Monuments don’t make a city; the people do.

Authors

Born in Scotland, Oliver Pilcher studied sculpture at the Edinburgh College of Art before embarking on a photographic career that has taken him all around the world and given him the opportunity to shoot for some of the world’s finest brands. Oliver has been a contributing photographer at Condé Nast Traveler for over ten years. He currently divides his time between New York and Costa Rica with his wife, Abigail and their four children, Andalucia, Bianca, Constantina, and Herbie.

Alexandra Senes is a citizen of the world, as she feels at home anywhere; a real asteroid with no jet lag. Senes spent her childhood in her native Senegal after which she moved to New York and then Paris. She worked as a journalist for over 20 years, including 8 years as the founder and editor-in-chief of Jalouse Magazine. In 2015, Senes started her journey with Kilometre, a brand that makes our imaginations go wild, drifting into far-off and unexplored places-shirts and home goods adorned with hand embroidery inspired by up-and-coming travel destinations.

New Travel & Wine Videos: “Burgundy & Champagne” Vineyards In France (2020)

Video August 3, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Filmed and Edited by: Matteo Bertoli

Burgundy is a historical region in east-central France. It’s famous for its Burgundy wines as well as pinot noirs and Chardonnay, Chablis and Beaujolais. The area is crisscrossed by a network of canals and studded with grand châteaux, some now luxury hotels. The capital, Dijon, of mustard fame, is home to the imposing Palace of the Dukes, where the distinguished Musée des Beaux-Arts was established in 1787.

Champagne was a province in the northeast of the Kingdom of France, now best known as the Champagne wine region for the sparkling white wine that bears its name in modern-day France. The County of Champagne, descended from the early medieval kingdom of Austrasia, passed to the French crown in 1314.

Food & Drink, Travel

Top Rooftop Restaurants: The “Mirabelle”, Hotel Splendide Royal In Rome

August 3, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Set on the 7th floor of Hotel Splendide Royal – an ancient monastery turned luxury hotel by the Roberto Nardi Collection in 2001 – Mirabelle’s panoramic view goes from Villa Medici to Trinità dei Monti, all the way to St. Peter’s Basilica and the Gianicolo. As the sun sinks into the horizon, leaving an unforgettable sunset over Rome, the dining tables, suspended over the green heart of the Eternal City, come to life with a magical romanticism.

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Mirabelle is a romantic roof garden footsteps from Via Veneto where you can indulge in a menu entirely characterized by Italian produce. Executive Chef Stefano Marzetti’s creations paired with the 900 wine labels and the 360-degree panoramic views over Rome, encompassing Villa Borghese and the Eternal City’s monuments, make Mirabelle the perfect culinary and sensory experience.

Mirabelle Website

If you’re on the hunt for an exclusive roof garden, a place to enjoy aperitivo or dinner while catching up, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, Mirabelle is it. Not only will you get a stunning view of Rome, you’ll also be tasting zero kilometer food exclusively grown and produced in Italy.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Reviews

New Exhibitions: “Wilhelm Thöny – Dreaming In Times Of Crisis” (Salzburg, AT)

August 1, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The motifs of Thöny’s art are informed by the pervasive unease of the interwar years, whose apprehensions he portrayed in the grotesque and nightmarishly somber drawings he created around 1920 for his unpublished Buch der Träume (Book of Dreams). Other works, however, render serene and idyllic landscapes and urban views as well as scenes from social life.

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Wilhelm Thöny (1888 Graz, AT—1949 New York, US) was a restless cosmopolitan and indefatigable networker whose peripatetic career took him far beyond Austria’s borders. A cofounder of the Secession in his native Graz, he made friends along the way—he spent time in Munich and Paris, on the Côte d’Azur and in New York, among other places—but zealously guarded his creative independence, building an oeuvre that did not align with any of the major tendencies of the period.

The Museum der Moderne Salzburg’s first exhibition devoted to Thöny’s oeuvre since 2010 presents around two hundred works from the museum’s own collection. One highlight in the show are the (letter) illustrations in the artist’s Scrap Book from the 1930s. Observations from everyday life captured with lighthearted humor are interspersed between reflections on the increasingly oppressive political situation. It is the first time that this body of work, which is of outstanding value both for its artistic quality and as a document of its time, is shown in its entirety in Salzburg.

Website

Travel, Videos

Aerial Travel Videos: “Netherlands In 100 Seconds” – (NatGeo)

Video August 1, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Go on an overhead journey, virtually walking through the Netherlands and see the diverse landscape of this country.

International, News, Podcasts

World News Podcast: Hong Kong Elections, European Economies

Audio August 1, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Economist discusses latest news on Hong Kong postponing elections, the potential sale of popular video app Tik Tok to Microsoft, and other world news.

Travel, Videos

Travel & Driving Videos: “Black Forest & Alpine Roads” Of Germany

Video July 30, 2020 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

It is a special, almost festive feeling to travel with CURVES through Southern Germany. And there’s a good reason: The CURVES crew comes from here. Southern Germany is our home turf.

We grew up with the tang of the forests and meadows, with the feeling of sweet lake water in our hair, with slightly uneven legs due to the undulating mountainscape – and our way of thinking, which has its roots in the many generations before us: We are Bavarians, we are Swabians, we are people of the Black Forest. And we have been looking forward to this CURVES edition for a very long time. There was just no way around it.

Perhaps we should have brought our readers on this trip much earlier – it’s beautiful here. But it’s just not done. It would have been impolite, pushy and, we first had to get to know each other, anyway. Hence, it took long detours around half the world until we finally arrived in the Black Forest, in Swabia and Bavaria. Of course, that’s only half the story.