Topics Include:
Nelson Pardeiro, General Manager, Relais & Chateaux Villa Maria Cristina, Guanajuato, Mexico.
www.villamariacristina.net
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travel With Stephanie Abrams!" Radio Show discover a UNESCO World Heritage city with Nelson Pardeiro, General Manager of Relais & Chateaux Villa Maria Cristina in Guanajuato, Mexico. Even though it's December in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato is in the 70s.
Visitors to the Villa Maria Cristina can fly into the Bajio International Airport, just thirty minutes from the property. "The airport gets connections from Mexico City and other Mexican cities," says Nelson. "From the U.S., there are flights from Houston and Dallas with major airlines." Upon arrival in Guanajuato, guests can take a taxi or the hotel can make arrangements for transportation.The airport is located between Guanajuato, the capital of the state of Guanajuato, and Leon, another major city in the state.
Villa Maria Cristina combines natural beauty with high culture; Guanajuato was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO. "Many people come to the hotel just to have a retreat, because we're situated in front of the mountains," Nelson explains. "Guests love to stay here because it's quiet and beautiful. But we're only eighteen minutes from downtown. So you can combine this beautiful destination with an area of Mexico that's known for its culture."
Visitors approach the hotel by entering a small valley that surrounds the city. "When you arrive by car – and we're only three-and-a-half hours north of Mexico City if you drive – you'll find a tunnel that's five minutes from the entrance of the city," Nelson continues. "You come out of the tunnel onto a beautiful boulevard lined with old French houses." The city of Guanajuato has a long history as a silver and gold mining center; in the 17th century, the area produced over 40% of all silver and gold in the world.
Today, the city is a vibrant university town. It hosts two major events each year: the Festival Cervantino and a film festival. The Festival Cervantino, or Cervantes Festival, runs during the last three weeks of October. The city invites representatives from other cities as honored guests and has hosted parties from Barcelona, Quebec, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. The festival is a celebration of culture, with opera and theater productions. The film festival has run during the last week of July for the last 20 years. Many of the films are from Latin America, but a few come from Europe each year.
Stephanie highly recommends going to film festivals. "I've been to festivals in Montreal and Cannes, and I know there's one in Rhode Island," she says. "I also just visited the town of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic – you would never know about the place except that it has a film festival." She adds that tickets are often easier to find for smaller, local festivals. Nelson points out that Mexico is often thought of as a beach destination, when in fact it has much more to offer further inland.
Villa Maria Cristina has 13 rooms over two floors. There are plenty of patios with mosaic floors and an open design. There is a spa in the same building, which Nelson describes as "kind of a Romanesque therma." The spa has a Jacuzzi, steam bath, sauna, shower, and massage area. The mansion itself dates from 1849 and was owned by the same family until it became a hotel four years ago. The architecture is actually influenced by French style, with high ceilings, tall doorways, and wooden floors.
"Not many people know that France occupied Mexico for a period of time," Stephanie points out. "But because of that, there's a marvelous French influence in lots of Mexican architecture, food, and culture." The furnishings at Villa Maria Cristina are still provided by Roche Bobois, a French company. Electronics in the guest rooms are provided by Bang & Olufsen, while paintings and mosaics by local artists can be found in both guest rooms and common areas.
Guests can also relax in the hotel's bar, which has over 70 kinds of wine in its cellar and a chimney and fireplace for the cooler winter months. The hotel's restaurant is helmed by Chef Mauricio Navarro, who is originally from Spain but was trained in Lyon, France. "The restaurant was named one of the best in the country by Forbes magazine," says Nelson. "We have good quality, very simple, Mexican high cuisine." Although guests will enjoy fresh local produce, the emphasis is on high cuisine, not necessarily on the familiar burritos and tacos.
With only 32 seats, the dining room is quite intimate, but guests can also opt to eat in their rooms or on the patios. "At the hotel, anyone can eat in any place they wish," explains Nelson. "We have different patio areas around the house, including at the top. If you're sitting and looking at the mountains in the middle of the afternoon, you can eat right there. There's a beautiful fountain on the terrace beside the restaurant, so that's a nice spot for breakfast."
With only 13 suites, Villa Maria Cristina is small enough for family events or destination weddings. "It's the kind of place that families could come and take over," Stephanie points out. Families can also use the property as a base while exploring the region's history. "A lot of families stay a few nights and move around, because there are so many magical colonial towns nearby," Nelson explains. "San Miguel de Allende is just fifteen minutes away by car, and Dolores Hidalgo has lots of Revolution-era history." The colonial towns can also offer a slightly different experience from Guanajuato, which is geared toward cultural events, museums, and the university.
Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2625
For more information visit www.villamariacristina.net
Guests Include:
Nelson Pardeiro, General Manager, Relais & Chateaux Villa Maria Cristina, Guanajuato, Mexico.
www.villamariacristina.net
Topics Include:
Patrick O'Connell, Owner and Grand Chef Relais and Chateaux, The Inn at Little Washington, Washington, Virginia, USA.
www.theinnatlittlewashington.com
www.relaischateaux.com
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travel With Stephanie Abrams!" Radio Show welcome Patrick O'Connell, Executive Chef and Owner of The Inn at Little Washington in Washington, Virginia. The Inn is a member of Relais & Chateaux, and Patrick is its chief cook and bottle washer. He also recently compiled a two-volume book of recipes from Relais & Chateaux-member chefs from across North America.
The first volume has recipes and brief items about the properties. Some are restaurants and hotels; others are stand-alone restaurants, like Everest in Chicago, which is at the top of the Chicago Stock Exchange building. The second volume is called Chefs at Home and has recipes that can be made in any kitchen. Despite the book's length and the numerous photos, it came together in a year. "The idea had been batted around for quite a while," says Patrick, "and we had role models in our British colleagues, who used the same publisher and produced a similar book."
The Inn at Little Washington is located in Washington, Virginia, a hamlet 67 miles west of Washington, D.C. The town is in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and was originally surveyed and laid out by George Washington, before he became president. "It really hasn't changed much since then," Patrick says. "It's a wonderful little lost-in-time fantasy land. You feel as though you've gotten in a time machine and gone back 150 years. It's an opportunity for visitors to see a little bit of Americana they may feel has ceased to exist." The town is also close to Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, and the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Patrick challenged Stephanie to make a fall dinner – soup, main course, and dessert – from the Relais & Chateaux cookbook. She accepted the challenge and planned a menu of butternut bisque, poulard with root vegetables, and apple tart with cheddar cheese ice cream. "Even though I'm away most of the time, I thought of this as a homework assignment," she says. "I like to cook, but it takes time, plus you have to have all the ingredients. At first, I was unsure what a poulard is."
In fact, a poulard is similar to a roasting chicken. "My mother used to make them, but they called them capons," Patrick says. "You don't see them at the supermarket as much as you used to." Looking at the recipe, Stephanie realized it was something her mother made and called Dutch oven chicken. "So many households had Sunday roasts with veggies under the roast," Patrick adds. "They get incredibly carmelized and flavorful, and fill the house with a wonderful smell."
Stephanie did make the apple tart, but skipped the cheddar cheese ice cream. "I want to thank you for your encouragement and the simplicity of the method, because I didn't think I could turn out something that looked like it came from a French pastry shop," she says. Patrick points out that many shops use a mandoline to get the apple slices so thin, but he realized that most home kitchens aren't equipped with a mandoline. Instead, the recipe suggests using a knife.
"I always see these tarts in France, made to look like an opened rose," Stephanie continues. "I wondered how they shaped the apples that way. The trick was to simmer the apples in butter, which made them pliable." Simmering the apples also has the advantage of preventing oxidization. "The beauty is that you can do it the day before – the apples won't turn brown," Patrick says. "Then, you can slip from the table, put the tart in the oven, and it emerges browned and full of flavor at the last minute."
Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2163
For more information visit www.theinnatlittlewashington.com and www.relaischateaux.com
William Bradley, Executive Chef, Addison Restaurant, San Diego, California, USA.
www.addisondelmar.com
www.relaischateaux.com
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travel With Stephanie Abrams!" Radio Show meet another 'grand chef': William Bradley, Executive Chef at Relais & Chateaux Addison Restaurant in Del Mar, San Diego, California. (Del Mar refers to the San Diego neighborhood where the restaurant is located.) William and the Addison will be featured in the 2011 edition of the Relais & Chateaux cookbook.
The restaurant opened four years ago, so William describes it as "very new." "It comes as quite a surprise and an honor to get a nod from a prestigious organization like Relais & Chateaux after such a short time," he says. William has been at the Addison since the beginning and was very involved both in designing the kitchen and dining room and in selecting tablecloths and glassware. "The owner, Doug Manchester, has an amazing vision," explains William. "He really believes in quality. It was a dream for him and a goal for me, so we have a great working relationship."
William started cooking at age 16, when he worked as a prep cook at an Italian restaurant in southern California. "I made pasta doughs, gnocchis, puttanesca sauce," he recalls. "It was more of a summer job. But thanks to the passion of the restaurant's owner, it went from a summer job to a love affair. Being able to create a dish and express yourself through food is a truly amazing thing." Instead of going to culinary school, William did European-style apprenticeships, or stages, including working for Chef James Boyce. At 35, William was named a 'grand chef' by Relais & Chateaux.
"It's humbling to be amongst some of these tables – you have Thomas Keller and his French Laundry, Daniel Boulud, Patrick O'Connell and The Inn at Little Washington," William says. "These guys are legends!" William's own cuisine is inspired by the local organic produce of southern California. "We do a lot of seafood, shellfish, and crustaceans," he explains. "It's very light and crisp. There are so many beautiful little farms in the area, and we grow our own herbs at the Addison."
Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2626
For more information visit www.addisondelmar.com and www.relaischateaux.com
Travel Tips:
Stephanie recently watched a TV interview with writer and director Nora Ephron. "She's a very talented, very likeable woman," Stephanie says. "The interview was interesting until she got to a part about a bald spot on the top of her head. Apparently, she calls the spot 'Aruba' and finished the segment by saying 'It's Aruba...and you don't want to go there!' But why not? It's a charming destination with cobblestone streets, great shopping, beautiful weather, and great food."
As one of the windward islands, Aruba can be breezy and dry. "The good news is that there are no bugs – they can't fly around there – and the wind blows all the clouds away, so there's not much rain," Stephanie continues. "There used to be a hotel, the Aruba Beach Club, that told guests the bar would be open and free all day if it rained for more than one hour. But it is windy; they have trees called divi-divis that grow at almost a right angle. It would be a desert island, except that it's all landscaped today."
Guests Include:
Patrick O'Connell, Owner and Grand Chef Relais and Chateaux, The Inn at Little Washington, Washington, Virginia, USA.
www.theinnatlittlewashington.com
www.relaischateaux.com
William Bradley, Executive Chef, Addison Restaurant, San Diego, California, USA.
www.addisondelmar.com
www.relaischateaux.com
Topics Include:
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travel With Stephanie Abrams!" Radio Show recently returned from a trip to Eastern Europe that included a stop in Budapest, Hungary. It was Stephanie's first visit to Budapest, and she was very impressed by the city. "The buildings are gorgeous, the city is clean, and there's every kind of ethnic food you could want, including Hungarian food," she explains. "There are great hotels and lots of them, from boutique hotels to every brand name you know."
"Budapest is an amazingly fashionable city," says Stephanie. "There's a boulevard with every designer you've ever heard of - it's just like the Champs-Elysees or Rodeo Drive. In another area, the streets look like the Les Halles pedestrian area in Paris, with lots of boutiques and department stores. If you can't afford Paris, London, or Rome, you won't sacrifice anything by going to Budapest instead. You can have the same kind of historic trip and delight in the architecture and vibrancy of the city."
One advantage of Budapest is that its attractions and hotels are about one-third of the cost that they would be in other European cities. The area is also rich in history. "There's wonderful sightseeing and a marvelous Parliament, because Budapest used to be a major part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire," Stephanie explains. "There are also monuments to those lost in World War II and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Statuary and sculptures are everywhere you look."
The Danube River divides Budapest into two halves: Buda and Pest. Most of the commercial activity is on the Pest side; Buda is more residential. The two halves are connected by several bridges, including the Chain Bridge, which Stephanie describes as looking like a miniature of one of the bridges over the Thames in London or the Seine in Paris. "When you cross the Chain Bridge, whether on foot or by bike or taxi, you're faced with a big tunnel on the Buda side," says Stephanie. "It looks very much like the tunnels in Monaco. When you look up at the hillside, you see the castle district at the top and a winding road leading up to it, again similar to the palace in Monaco."
Stephanie spent a few nights at the Hotel Corinthia on the Pest side of the river. "It's an old, historic hotel that was once two buildings," she recalls. "They put a roof over the space in between and now have a big indoor atrium. There are catwalks on different floors above where you can walk from one building to another. On our first night there, all the ambassadors to Hungary from different countries were invited to a dinner at the Corinthia. We got to look down at a ten-piece orchestral group performing for the dinner."
Stephanie also visited Le Meridien Budapest, which holds a folkloric dinner show every Friday night. "The dinner, dancers, and singers were absolutely delightful," says Stephanie. "We met a lovely woman at the next table who spoke just enough English to communicate. She lives in a village thirty minutes outside of Budapest and used to come to Le Meridien every Friday with her husband for the show. He passed away six years ago, but she's been coming ever since and sits at the same table. It's just one of the wonderful parts of traveling that you get to have special experiences like that."
Another memorable dinner was at the InterContinental Budapest, where the chef prepared csirkepaprikas (chicken paprika) with nokedli (dumplings) and rigo jancsi (rich chocolate cake) especially for Stephanie. "I used to eat these dishes as a child because our neighbor owned the Budapest Restaurant in New York City," she explains. "The service was wonderful; we had an excellent dinner." For a change of pace, Stephanie also tried a Brazilian barbecue restaurant in the Octagon neighborhood, a shopping district named for the shape made by the streets as they merge.
After her stay at the InterContinental Budapest, Stephanie took a memorable taxi ride to board the AMLyra, the AMAWaterways vessel on which she cruised from Budapest to Munich, Germany. "The InterContinental Budapest is right on the Danube and the AMALyra was docked on the other side, almost directly across from the hotel," she explains. "In theory, you could walk, but you don't want to do that with luggage. So we took a taxi, and on the other side, our driver realized he wasn't in the right lane."
"He was hell-bent on getting through and making a right turn so he could loop around," she continues. "Meanwhile, there were five lanes of traffic - coming from both directions, from the bridge, from the tunnel, and from the roundabout. I thought we were going to be killed and shouted out something in Hungarian. I don't know what it was; it just came back to me. Later, I asked the driver what I said, turns out it was, 'Oh my God!'"
Vikki Corliss, Director of PR & Communications, InsureMyTrip.
www.insuremytrip.com
Travel Expert Stephanie Abrams and the "Travel With Stephanie Abrams!" Radio Show review a year of unforeseen circumstances with Vikki Corliss, Director of PR and Communications for InsureMyTrip. "Travel is not just about spending money, but about spending money in the right place," says Stephanie. "That's one of the reasons why I'm such a proponent of travel insurance. Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish."
"2010 has been a year of unforeseen circumstances, and at the top of the list is a series of natural disasters," says Vikki. "It started with the horrible earthquak in Haiti, which was obviously devastating to people there." From a travel insurance perspective, volunteer coverage was important. Thousands of people traveled to Haiti to provide aid or help with relief efforts and needed to be insured. "When you have an organized group, like volunteers, a lot of them are aware and knowledgeable that they should have travel insurance protection. But it's something that any group should consider, whether you're talking about a family reunion or a destination wedding."
Other disasters in 2010 include the volcanic eruption in Iceland, which disrupted travel on both sides of the Atlantic, and severe spring flooding in areas of Rhode Island, where InsureMyTrip's headquarters are located. "The floods definitely affected people who lived in Rhode Island, who may have needed to cancel trips and stay home to deal with the flooding," Vikki says. Stephanie points out that travel insurance is not just about covering situations where travelers are unable to get home or reach their final destination. "There's also the question of not being able to go on vacation because your home is under three feet of water," she says.
The summer of 2010 brought the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and an active hurricane season. "The oil spill was technically not a natural disaster, but it was a disaster all the same," says Vikki. "Folks had a lot of concerns and questions about summer beach vacations. Then, of course, the hurricane season started in June." Both Stephanie and Vikki enjoyed the chance they had to visit the National Hurrican Center in Miami, Florida, but as Vikki says, "the visit kicked off a season of great storms."
Travelers411 Community Forums - This interview's thread:
http://www.travelers411.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1442
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For more information visit www.insuremytrip.com
Fun Facts:
On a trip to Ireland in May, Stephanie noticed that the trend in women's fashion was to pair leggings or heavy tights with long, belted tunics. "It was kind of a Peter Pan look," she says. "If you have the body to support that, it looks awfully cute. We saw that fashion in the spring in Ireland, and by late fall, it had come to western Massachusetts." On Stephanie's most recent trip to Europe, she saw the same kind of outfit, with tops in a variety of fabrics. "Shops in Europe are expecting the next wave to be those thigh-high boots like Julia Roberts wore in 'Pretty Woman' - though maybe not quite as extreme. So keep your eyes open!"
Guests Include:
Vikki Corliss, Director of PR & Communications, InsureMyTrip.
www.insuremytrip.com
