France French Life French Provinces Hotels & Lodging Paris Restaurants Shopping Travel Trip Planning Writing & Books: France French Life French Provinces Hotels & Lodging Paris Restaurants Shopping Travel Trip Planning Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on The Riches of Paris and The Riches of France Now eBooks
The Riches of Paris and The Riches of France Now eBooks
The Riches of Paris: A Shopping and Touring Guide
If you’re headed to Paris soon or are just an armchair traveler that enjoys curling up with your eBook, may I recommend my books, The Riches of Paris: A Shopping and Touring Guide and The Riches of France: A Shopping and Touring Guide to the French Provinces. They’re perfect for Francophiles interested in knowing more about the places they’re discovering.
The eBook versions of my classic guidebooks come just in time for spring/summer travels to the French capital and the provinces of France. How handy it is to pull them up on your mobile device or eBook reader to find out about the most interesting places and products to savor.
Aspen Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding: Aspen Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding
by maribeth
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Closing the Ski Season in Aspen
Relaaax…It’s Aspen
Smooth, silky, soothing, sultry, relaxing—that’s Aspen. And that’s how my ski season ended this year, and it was lovely. Just what I needed, too.
All kinds of celebrating from pond skimming in bikinis to dancing in ski boots typically take place on closing day at most ski resorts. Skiers and boarders in fun and crazy outfits cut loose as a way of toasting the end of a long ski season marked by few or many turns and often lots of hard work (in the case of those that work in ski towns). I celebrated Telluride’s closing day a month ago and enjoyed closing week festivities on the Front Range mid-April, so I had my share of end-of-the-season partying.
With the closing of its four mountains (Aspen Mountain, Buttermilk, Highlands and Snowmass), Aspen has certainly seen a lot of colorful merrymaking these past weeks. So it wasn’t surprising that this bonus weekend of skiing on Ajax was marked by a bunch of folks—mostly locals—primarily interested in cruising the slopes of their beloved mountain for the last time. Sure there was a smattering of tutus, tiger costumes and wacky wigs along with a vibrant assortment of flowered shirts and shorts, yet the scene was pretty tame. The emphasis was on the skiing; in this case beneath azure blue skies on what were surely the warmest days of the year thus far. (It hit 70 degrees in the town of Aspen on Sunday.) more »
Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping Spas The Southwest: Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Santa Fe Shopping Spas The Southwest
by maribeth
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Two Brief Stays in Santa Fe
The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assis in Santa Fe, New Mexico
My boyfriend, Steve, and I have managed to visit Santa Fe, New Mexico—an almost six-hour drive from Telluride, Colorado—twice within the past year and a half and we’re already plotting our next trip. (That one will surely include exploring the ski mountain.) Each trip was short—only two nights a piece—and we didn’t even step foot in one of Santa Fe’s amazing museums, but still, we felt far from cheated. For us, it has been enough to just chill and breathe in the heartwarming, southwestern ambiance for which this town is known. Just like going to Paris and whiling away time in a corner café instead of scouring the Louvre, in Santa Fe during both stays we just strolled around and admired the beauty of this magnificent city, the oldest incorporated state capital within the United States.
Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel: Art & Culture Hotels & Lodging New Mexico Restaurants Shopping The Southwest Travel
by maribeth
3 comments
For Off-Season and Year-Round Enchantment: Taos, New Mexico
Contemplating Nature’s Beauty at Hacienda del Sol in Taos, New Mexico
Ahhh-hhh, off-season. Anyone that has lived in a resort town knows the true meaning of off-season. Whether it occurs in the winter or summer, spring or fall, this lull in peak travel times provides a much-needed respite from the busy-ness of high season. In Telluride, Colorado it means tons of available parking spaces, no lines at the Post Office or grocery store and a certain quietude akin to a ghost town, something that delights some and bores the heck out of others.
Most don’t mind this downturn of activity, since many take advantage of our seasonal slowdown (during the spring and fall) to go off and seek fun for themselves elsewhere. Since the mountain closed two weeks ago, we’re in the throws of off-season now, also referred to as shoulder season and in the case of the spring off-season, mud season.
Many people take off for exotic locales for as many as six weeks travel; others find their bliss within a two- to six-hour drive from our southwestern Colorado mountain town. Indeed, we’re located just a few hours away from some of the best recreation around in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, all sunny and warm destinations this time of year where spring arrives with the intensity of the desert sun.
Breckenridge Colorado Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies: Breckenridge Colorado Front Range Keystone Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies
by maribeth
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Front Range Fun: Mountain Travel Symposium, Breckenridge and Keystone
Mountain Travel Movers and Shakers AKA T-ride’s Top GMs in the Powder Line at Breck
I’m back home after a terrific week on the Front Range of Colorado where I experienced three different ski resorts, a few nice restaurants and some fun hobnobbing with the folks attending Mountain Travel Symposium (MTS), the largest and longest-running annual gathering of travel professionals in the world. The conference took place in Breckenridge, which served as an excellent base for discovering one of the biggest ski resorts of the country, neighboring ski resorts and the surrounding area. (The drive over Hoosier Pass, just outside of Breck, upon arrival and departure was especially beautiful and one that I definitely recommend.)
Now I feel like I have more of a sense of this part of our Rocky Mountain state—less than a two-hour drive from Denver. The majestic scenery and near limitless options for fun and adventure in these mountains help me to understand why so many people plan their travels around Front Range destinations. Crowds can be a big drawback, however if you go in April, you can enjoy primo spring skiing on half-empty mountains where lift lines only occur on powder days.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride Trip Planning Writing & Books: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Restaurants Shopping Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride Trip Planning Writing & Books
by maribeth
Comments Off on KOTO Fundraising: Fun and Great Giveaways
KOTO Fundraising: Fun and Great Giveaways
KOTO Radio: The Soul of Telluride, Colorado
Join me today, Thursday, March 20, A LITTLE EARLIER at about 6:20 pm (through 7pm) in Telluride, Colorado and within the outlying area and on the internet for my Travel Fun talk radio show. This will be a special live show for KOTO fundraising featuring a variety of movers and shakers from Telluride’s hospitality/tourism world. I will be giving away lots of great premiums including lodging stays, restaurant and retail gift certificates, books and even ski lift tickets in exchange for a donation to KOTO.
KOTO is a local NPR station and one of the few entirely community supported radio stations in the country. Please consider making a contribution to KOTO, so that we can keep community radio alive and well in America. That’s also a way of showing your support for Travel Fun! Please email me from my Contacts Page with your pledge or donation. Many of my Travel Fun interviews are posted on this blog as podcasts here.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Skiing & Snowboarding The Rockies
by maribeth
2 comments
Powderhorn: For Family Fun and Great Skiing at Half the Price
Major Pow Wow in Powderhorn
We’re in the throes of spring break madness here at most Colorado ski resorts and frankly I’m left wondering how a family of four does it these days. Between the price of lift tickets, lunches, instruction and overall travel expenses, a family ski vacation in Colorado can represent as much as a down payment on a house. I’m fully appreciative of the ski getaways I did with my family when I was a kid but still we went mostly to down-home ski areas in western Massachusetts and upstate New York, all a far cry from the destination resorts of the West. Mom and Dad would pack my bunch of brothers and me into the station wagon along with a picnic basket loaded with Mom’s homemade submarine sandwiches and peanut butter cookies and off we’d go for a fun day on the slopes.
Not a ski day goes by that I don’t feel a pinch of nostalgia for those simpler times, so I was especially thrilled to discover Powderhorn Mountain Resort, a terrific little ski area on the western slope of Colorado just a short drive from Grand Junction. I skied there recently with my dear friend Paula, another northeastern gal who shares the same fond memories as I about family ski trips of a more modest scale, and was delighted to discover the many charms of this little-known resort. From the parkas and pants for rent at the ski shop, to the cubbies and lockers for boots and other belongings to the sack lunch room to the enormous deck at the Sunset Grille to the lift tickets at half the price of major resorts, I loved the vibe of this place from the get-go.
Colorado Restaurants Steamboat Springs: Colorado Restaurants Steamboat Springs
by maribeth
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The Laundry: Sophisticated Dining and Sipping in Steamboat
Specialty Cocktail at The Laundry
An essential part of any ski getaway involves a great night out on the town, preferably in one of the best restaurants/bars of the mountain destination you’re visiting. I’m confident I hit the mark on a recent trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado when I spent a superlative soirée at The Laundry, a former laundry located down by the creek in town. Handsomely converted into a swanky kitchen and cocktail place where most everything is housemade, this old, brick-walled building presents an inviting scene where contemporary touches of hip lighting and rhythmic music offset a warm interior filled with wooden tables and barn siding. Much like the homemade fruit chutney served with the Mescal-cured house salmon (one of the signature dishes of this innovative restaurant) or the house-crafted smoked banana-infused bourbon, most everything here seems to be about juxtapositions.
