2006: The Year in Travel

12.27.06

What was your most memorable trip this year? Yangon (a.k.a. Rangoon), in Myanmar, a romantic, rain-soaked British imperial city like something out of Kipling.
Your most memorable meal (not necessarily on the same trip)? Luc Rabanel in Arles, for the hip atmosphere in an old house in the heart of town, friendly service, wonderful wine list, fair prices, and a very personal riff on southern French food.
What was the most exciting thing that happened close to home? The opening of the Musee des Arts Decoratif, which is superb, and Jean Nouvel's Musee du Quai Branly, for its intriguing architecture, as well as its collections of African, Oceanic, Asian, and Native American art. For restaurants, I'm sending everyone to Le Chateaubriad, a hip bistro in the 11th, and La Gazzetta, a cozy place near the Bastille where Swedish-born chef Petter Nilsson is doing incredibly original things with textures and ton sur ton acidity.
Did you stay in, or visit, a hotel that particularly wowed you? I fell in love with the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz all over again. The sea views are amazing, and it's so vieille France it should be declared a living landmark.
What place did you find overrated or disappointing? Hotel Fouquet's Barriere in Paris—cold, flashy, and much too expensive.
What was your worst (or funniest) travel experience? Funniest: I was recognized in the London Underground by a woman who used to sell carrots at the North End Road market when I was a student 30 years ago. Also, several Japanese secretaries and I had a laugh when the stationmaster in Krakow forgot to turn off the PA system after jacking up "That's Amore" in his control booth.

2007: RING IN THE NEW

What's going to be hot this year? With the opening of the TGV Est line to Strasbourg, eastern France is about to be rediscovered. Le Havre, in Normandy, has become a hip destination for its concentration of modernist postwar architecture; it was recently classed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. There's a fabulous restaurant there—Jean-Luc Tartarin's La Villa du Havre. Europeans are hot for Madagascar and the Cape Verde Islands off of Senegal.
What is going to be the big-deal hotel opening? The Shangri La in Paris and the Grand Hotel in Bordeaux, the latter with an over-the-top design by Jacques Garcia.
Is there a restaurant or a chef whom everyone is watching? Alain Ducasse's revamp of the Jules Verne restaurant in the Eiffel Tower.
What trips do you have planned for 2007? Phu Quoc, in Vietnam, and Transylvania, in Romania.
Where do you most want to go in the world that is still a dream away? Iran. My grandmother traveled extensively in what was then Persia when I was a boy, and her accounts of the rose-scented streets of Esfahan left me with a permanent desire to explore that country.
Where wouldn't you go even if you won an all-expense-paid first-class trip? There's nowhere I'd pass up, but Atlantic City and Crawford, Texas, are last on my list.

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