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In Transit Blog: On Yelp, Reviews With a Side of Bookings

Written By Unknown on Senin, 27 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Yelp, the online user-review and ratings site of everything from restaurants to spas to churches, is entering the hotel-booking game.

On Tuesday, it announced a partnership with Hipmunk, a travel search engine that lets people browse flights and hotels by a combination of factors like pricing, layover duration and amenities. Hipmunk, already in partnerships with direct-booking sites like Getaroom and Hotels.com, now supports a small number of hotels on Yelp. Users will now be able to book hotel rooms through it, without ever leaving Yelp's site.

Rachel Walker, a Yelp spokeswoman, would not specify the number of hotels this includes, though she said it was small. She added that the this is just a first step.

"Once we we feel confident that our users are happy with the experience," she said, "we'll add more listings and eventually roll out booking functionality to tens of thousands of hotels."

Yelp began its foray into bookings in 2013, forging partnerships with companies like Delivery.com and Booker that have allowed it to process transactions for food delivery and spa appointments.

But other online companies are also increasing their booking capabilities. Thanks to its acquisition of La Fourchette, the user-review site TripAdvisor now accepts restaurant reservations. And earlier this year Priceline, which already books flights and hotels, bought the reservations site OpenTable, aiming to add restaurants to its offerings.

And another sign that the worlds of user-reviewed listings, bookings and online deals are increasingly colliding: Now Groupon is heading into Yelp's territory. On Wednesday it announced the launch of Pages, an online directory of individual businesses that will include user reviews.

 


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In Transit Blog: Dinner, a Movie and a Flight Out of Minneapolis

Photo Rendering of the screening room at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.Credit Architectural Alliance

At the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a layover means more than just a long wait between flights. The airport has transformed its C Concourse into an "arts corridor," culminating next month with the opening of a screening room.

The lounge will include modular and cinema-style seating with multiple high-definition screens; rotating programs highlighting local filmmakers; and a collapsible stage for lectures or small performances.

"It's all about trying to create a corridor, a first gateway" to the city's arts and culture, said Robyne Robinson, the arts and culture director of the Airport Foundation MSP. "We want to make sure that when people get ofthe plane, they know there's a place they can go to and get to know us and get onto their flight and have a better understanding of what Minneapolis is, so that the next time they come through, they'll want to see some film, see some art."

Minneapolis's new screening room is not the first time an airport has offered films for its passengers, but it's the first of its kind in the United States, the Metropolitan Airports Commission's Melissa Scovronski said. Commercially run cinemas are available to passengers in Seoul's Incheon International Airport, and there's an IMAX theater in Hong Kong International Airport's Terminal 2. Changi Airport in Singapore opened the world's first in-airport theater in 1998, with a second built in 2008, officials there said. Both are free.

These opportunities for entertainment amid layovers are part of the transformation of airports, from places where people "flop down and have no sense of what's going on" to a hub for showcasing a region's people and opportunities, Ms. Robinson said. Information about films will be posted on the foundation's website, so travelers can learn more about what they're watching and even choose to arrive at the airport earlier for dinner and a movie, Ms. Robinson said.

A version of this article appears in print on 10/26/2014, on page TR3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: River Cruise: Deeper Into the Amazon.


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In Transit Blog: On Yelp, Reviews With a Side of Bookings

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 25 Oktober 2014 | 17.36

Yelp, the online user-review and ratings site of everything from restaurants to spas to churches, is entering the hotel-booking game.

On Tuesday, it announced a partnership with Hipmunk, a travel search engine that lets people browse flights and hotels by a combination of factors like pricing, layover duration and amenities. Hipmunk, already in partnerships with direct-booking sites like Getaroom and Hotels.com, now supports a small number of hotels on Yelp. Users will now be able to book hotel rooms through it, without ever leaving Yelp's site.

Rachel Walker, a Yelp spokeswoman, would not specify the number of hotels this includes, though she said it was small. She added that the this is just a first step.

"Once we we feel confident that our users are happy with the experience," she said, "we'll add more listings and eventually roll out booking functionality to tens of thousands of hotels."

Yelp began its foray into bookings in 2013, forging partnerships with companies like Delivery.com and Booker that have allowed it to process transactions for food delivery and spa appointments.

But other online companies are also increasing their booking capabilities. Thanks to its acquisition of La Fourchette, the user-review site TripAdvisor now accepts restaurant reservations. And earlier this year Priceline, which already books flights and hotels, bought the reservations site OpenTable, aiming to add restaurants to its offerings.

And another sign that the worlds of user-reviewed listings, bookings and online deals are increasingly colliding: Now Groupon is heading into Yelp's territory. On Wednesday it announced the launch of Pages, an online directory of individual businesses that will include user reviews.

 


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In Transit Blog: Getting Acrobatic at Club Med

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 24 Oktober 2014 | 17.36

Photo The Club Med in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.Credit Club Med

On the cusp of establishing its first permanent production in Mexico in November, Cirque du Soleil has announced its next act: partnering with Club Med resorts to train guests in acrobatics, theater arts and dance.

In June 2015, Club Med Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic will be the site of the partnership's first Creactive  program, including a big-top-style circus tent where guests at the all-inclusive resort can learn the kinds of tricks seen in Cirque shows, including acrobatic bungee, aerial silks, tightrope walking and double trapeze.

For the younger or less daring, the resort will offer juggling, mask painting, unicycling and percussion.

Plans also include a redesigned outdoor play space, swapping a standard basketball court, for example, with multiple hoops for improvised games.

The partnership, in which Cirque du Soleil will oversee and train resort staff, expands on Club Med's 25-year tradition of offering the flying trapeze at many of its resorts.

The goal is "to bring it to another level," said Xavier Mufraggi, chief executive of Club Med North America.

Club Med plans to expand the circus arts program to another five properties within two years.


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In Transit Blog: On Vieques, a Yoga Retreat

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 23 Oktober 2014 | 17.36

Photo Tara Stiles on Vieques.Credit W Retreat & Spa

W Retreat & Spa on Vieques Island in Puerto Rico is offering Energize by Tara Stiles, the first program in the property's new Fit Retreat initiative for more health-focused getaways.

As part of Ms. Stiles's partnership with W, the high-profile New York yogi created a program for the resort where guests can practice yoga with Ms. Stiles or other teachers trained in her Strala Yoga style.

The customized three-day or five-day programs incorporate yoga sessions, outdoor activities like kayaking and snorkeling, and healthy meals, many of which were inspired by Ms. Stiles' cookbook, "Make Your Own Rules Diet," scheduled to be published next month.

Prices start at $609 nightly per person, exclusive of daily resort fee and tax.


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T Magazine: A New Short Film, Starring James Franco, From the Artist Daniel Arsham

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 21 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

The new collaboration between the two talents depicts the end of the world as they know it.

Photo
The artist Daniel Arsham (right) and the actor James Franco on set.Credit James Law

When Daniel Arsham had doomsday visions, he didn't stockpile survival gear or scurry off to the nearest bunker. Instead, the New York-based artist wrote nine short screenplays, which together form one story about life after humanity's ill-fated attempt to save the planet from ecological disaster. The "Future Relic" series crystallized when he began exhibiting casts of everyday objects made to resemble archaeological finds (eroding laptops and cellphones, for instance, made from volcanic ash and plaster). The second chapter in Arsham's saga, "Future Relic 02," features a worker played by James Franco who spends his days underground indexing and destroying objects from the civilization that was. Shot over four days in Arsham's Brooklyn studio, the project — which makes its world premiere here — is just a taste of what the Miami native plans to screen at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. As for Franco, he could easily relate to Arsham's vision. "I try to look at the world as a repository of antiquated artifacts and experiences," he says, "all of them worth preserving."

The world premiere of Daniel Arsham's film "Future Relic 02," starring James Franco.

danielarsham.com


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In Transit Blog: What’s New in the French and Swiss Alps

Written By Unknown on Senin, 20 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo Courchevel in France, part of Les Trois Vallées, where you can dive under a frozen lake.Credit Patrick Pachod

France claims the world's largest ski resorts; Switzerland claims it created winter tourism, and will celebrate 150 years of snow play in 2015.

Both countries aim to encourage Americans to visit the Alps this winter, not just for seemingly endless runs and riveting views, but for novel attractions including ice-diving, ski-jogging and suspension-bridge-hiking.

Les Trois Vallées in France, one of the largest ski areas, encompassing 380 miles of interconnected runs, recently introduced the world's highest zipline at 3,230 meters (10,597 feet), effectively a unique ski lift stringing one peak to another.

This winter it will introduce ice-diving,scuba diving below the frozen surface of Lac du Lou, and "jogging on skis," after-hours uphill hikes followed by ski runs down. In the 3 Vallées town of St.-Martin-Bellevue, novices will be able to try the winter sport of biathlon with the French Olympic medalist Vincent Jay as the instructor; participants will use air rifles for target shooting on a cross-country ski course.

Opening in December, the area's 384-room Club Med Val Thorens Sensations will offer all-inclusive stays with meals, lift passes and ski instruction from $1,399 person for seven nights.

But it's Switzerland that says itinvented winter tourism in the Alps in the Graubünden region, where in thewinter of 1894-95 visitors first came to Davos for the clean frigid air, and thehotelier Johannes Badrutt wagered English tourists that if they stayed the winter and didn't enjoy it, he would pay their way (they did, and he didn't).

Events are in the planning stages, but Alpine resorts from Andermatt to Zermatt have added new hotels, and new lifts now link the Arosa and Lenzerheide ski areas for a combined 225 kilometers (140 miles) of runs. In the ski village of Les Diablerets, a new 170-foot-long suspension bridge known as Peak Walk at the Glacier 3000 ski resort will offer access to hikers year-round at over 9,800 feetwhen it opens in November. 

A version of this article appears in print on 10/19/2014, on page TR3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Trending: What's New in the French and Swiss Alps.


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In Transit Blog: Pas de Rooms

While pirouettes and grand jetés may not get a porter to your room any faster, a little basic ballet training might improve their grace upon arrival. At least that's what JW Marriott is hoping will come of a new employee training program it has developed in partnership with the Joffrey Ballet in New York.

The hotel's Poise and Grace Program is a series of video tutorials led by the Joffrey's artistic director, Ashley Wheater. In them, Mr. Wheater demonstrates core movements and mind-sets practiced by professional dancers in order to achieve the seamless flow of a ballet sequence.

The training focuses on four areas: warming up the body, proper breathing techniques, the flow of movement and a connection with the audience. In essence, to think and act as if they were on stage- or perhaps in a Wes Anderson film.

"In ballet, we learn to foster self-confidence and to make a genuine connection with those around us, which are crucial skills for anyone in hospitality," Mr. Wheater said in an email. "Through proper technique and practice, those elements become second nature so that each person in the hotel has the foundation to approach guest interactions in a thoughtful and fluid way."

The exercises take between five and 15 minutes to perform, teaching posture, eye contact and proper breathing. They are meant to be an inspirational tool to any employee, no matter their job, Mitzi Gaskins, the global brand manager of JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, said.

"It's remarkable how seamlessly the mannerisms that come so naturally to trained dancers translate from the stage to the hotel floor," she said.


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In Transit Blog: What’s New in the French and Swiss Alps

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 19 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo Courchevel in France, part of Les Trois Vallées, where you can dive under a frozen lake.Credit Patrick Pachod

France claims the world's largest ski resorts; Switzerland claims it created winter tourism, and will celebrate 150 years of snow play in 2015.

Both countries aim to encourage Americans to visit the Alps this winter, not just for seemingly endless runs and riveting views, but for novel attractions including ice-diving, ski-jogging and suspension-bridge-hiking.

Les Trois Vallées in France, one of the largest ski areas, encompassing 380 miles of interconnected runs, recently introduced the world's highest zipline at 3,230 meters (10,597 feet), effectively a unique ski lift stringing one peak to another.

This winter it will introduce ice-diving,scuba diving below the frozen surface of Lac du Lou, and "jogging on skis," after-hours uphill hikes followed by ski runs down. In the 3 Vallées town of St.-Martin-Bellevue, novices will be able to try the winter sport of biathlon with the French Olympic medalist Vincent Jay as the instructor; participants will use air rifles for target shooting on a cross-country ski course.

Opening in December, the area's 384-room Club Med Val Thorens Sensations will offer all-inclusive stays with meals, lift passes and ski instruction from $1,399 person for seven nights.

But it's Switzerland that says itinvented winter tourism in the Alps in the Graubünden region, where in thewinter of 1894-95 visitors first came to Davos for the clean frigid air, and thehotelier Johannes Badrutt wagered English tourists that if they stayed the winter and didn't enjoy it, he would pay their way (they did, and he didn't).

Events are in the planning stages, but Alpine resorts from Andermatt to Zermatt have added new hotels, and new lifts now link the Arosa and Lenzerheide ski areas for a combined 225 kilometers (140 miles) of runs. In the ski village of Les Diablerets, a new 170-foot-long suspension bridge known as Peak Walk at the Glacier 3000 ski resort will offer access to hikers year-round at over 9,800 feetwhen it opens in November. 

A version of this article appears in print on 10/19/2014, on page TR3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Trending: What's New in the French and Swiss Alps.


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In Transit Blog: A New Bike Tour of Eastern Germany

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 18 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo Dresden, the final stop on the tour.Credit VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations

"Berlin to Dresden: Hidden Gems of Eastern Germany," a new trip for 2015 from VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations, features connections with local residents, a lesson in sauerkraut making, and wine sampling at a local vineyard. Bicycling routes follow easy terrain with optional rolling hills

Stops along the way include the landscaped gardens of Potsdam's Sanssouci Park and palace; the wetlands and waterways of the Spreewald, a Unesco biosphere reserve; and a trip to the sandstone peaks of the Bastei, in Saxon Switzerland National Park.

The tour concludes in Dresden, which travelers will explore on a walking tour.

This 10-day itinerary starts at $3,745 including international air fare. Add-ons include a pre-trip to Berlin and a post-trip to Prague.


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In Transit Blog: What’s New in the French and Swiss Alps

Photo Courchevel in France, part of Les Trois Vallées, where you can dive under a frozen lake.Credit Patrick Pachod

France claims the world's largest ski resorts; Switzerland claims it created winter tourism, and will celebrate 150 years of snow play in 2015.

Both countries aim to encourage Americans to visit the Alps this winter, not just for seemingly endless runs and riveting views, but for novel attractions including ice-diving, ski-jogging and suspension-bridge-hiking.

Les Trois Vallées in France, one of the largest ski areas, encompassing 380 miles of interconnected runs, recently introduced the world's highest zipline at 3,230 meters (10,597 feet), effectively a unique ski lift stringing one peak to another.

This winter it will introduce ice-diving,scuba diving below the frozen surface of Lac du Lou, and "jogging on skis," after-hours uphill hikes followed by ski runs down. In the 3 Vallées town of St.-Martin-Bellevue, novices will be able to try the winter sport of biathlon with the French Olympic medalist Vincent Jay as the instructor; participants will use air rifles for target shooting on a cross-country ski course.

Opening in December, the area's 384-room Club Med Val Thorens Sensations will offer all-inclusive stays with meals, lift passes and ski instruction from $1,399 person for seven nights.

But it's Switzerland that says itinvented winter tourism in the Alps in the Graubünden region, where in thewinter of 1894-95 visitors first came to Davos for the clean frigid air, and thehotelier Johannes Badrutt wagered English tourists that if they stayed the winter and didn't enjoy it, he would pay their way (they did, and he didn't).

Events are in the planning stages, but Alpine resorts from Andermatt to Zermatt have added new hotels, and new lifts now link the Arosa and Lenzerheide ski areas for a combined 225 kilometers (140 miles) of runs. In the ski village of Les Diablerets, a new 170-foot-long suspension bridge known as Peak Walk at the Glacier 3000 ski resort will offer access to hikers year-round at over 9,800 feetwhen it opens in November. 


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In Transit Blog: A High-End Tequila Tour

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 17 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo Farmers in a blue agave field in Tequila.Credit Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita

The Four Seasons Punta Mita in Mexico just put a new spin on the tequila flight experience.

The resort is offering the "Ultimate Tequila Tour" as a daylong immersion for lovers of the distilled blue agave spirit.

The nine-hour tour begins with a private helicopter ride from the resort to the town of Tequila, where guests tour the family-run José Cuervo distillery, a Unesco World Heritage site.

The first stop is the agave fields studded with more than 25,000 maturing blue agave plants, where a sommelier explains the process of jima (harvesting) and the growth cycle. Guests will be able to plant their own agave plant.

That is followed by a tour of La Rojeña, said to be the world's oldest distillery (established in 1795 at the time of the Spanish conquest), where a sommelier will discuss the varieties of tequila found onsite and take guests on a tour of the underground cellar to taste sips from a barrel.

At the distillery's cava (reserve vault) guests will be able to label and take home a Reserva de la Familia bottle in a wooden box painted by a Mexican artist.

Also included is a multi-course lunch at the distillery's hacienda, with live mariachi music. In the afternoon guests return to the cava for an information session on the blending process; each participant will help create a personal blend to take with them.

"The idea is to create a holistic and historical indoctrination of the region," said the general manager of Four Seasons Punta Mita, John O'Sullivan. "This is an opportunity to do something indigenously Mexican," he said.

Rates start from $20,000 per couple; Thomas Citterio, director of marketing at the property, said a substantial part of the price tag comes from the helicopter ride.

Reservations can be made with the concierge at the Four Seasons Punta Mita.


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In Transit Blog: A High-End Tequila Tour

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 16 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo Farmers in a blue agave field in Tequila.Credit Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita

The Four Seasons Punta Mita in Mexico just put a new spin on the tequila flight experience.

The resort is offering the "Ultimate Tequila Tour" as a daylong immersion for lovers of the distilled blue agave spirit.

The nine-hour tour begins with a private helicopter ride from the resort to the town of Tequila, where guests tour the family-run José Cuervo distillery, a Unesco World Heritage site.

The first stop is the agave fields studded with more than 25,000 maturing blue agave plants, where a sommelier explains the process of jima (harvesting) and the growth cycle. Guests will be able to plant their own agave plant.

That is followed by a tour of La Rojeña, said to be the world's oldest distillery (established in 1795 at the time of the Spanish conquest), where a sommelier will discuss the varieties of tequila found onsite and take guests on a tour of the underground cellar to taste sips from a barrel.

At the distillery's cava (reserve vault) guests will be able to label and take home a Reserva de la Familia bottle in a wooden box painted by a Mexican artist.

Also included is a multi-course lunch at the distillery's hacienda, with live mariachi music. In the afternoon guests return to the cava for an information session on the blending process; each participant will help create a personal blend to take with them.

"The idea is to create a holistic and historical indoctrination of the region," said the general manager of Four Seasons Punta Mita, John O'Sullivan. "This is an opportunity to do something indigenously Mexican," he said.

Rates start from $20,000 per couple; Thomas Citterio, director of marketing at the property, said a substantial part of the price tag comes from the helicopter ride.

Reservations can be made with the concierge at the Four Seasons Punta Mita.


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T Magazine: Strolling Along East London’s Fournier Street

A walk down a narrow passageway in the Spitalfields district, where 17th-century Huguenots meet immigrant laborers and contemporary artists — and time seems to misbehave.

Photo
The artists George Passmore and Gilbert Proesch, known as Gilbert & George, on Fournier Street, where they have lived for almost 50 years.Credit Jooney Woodward

In "The London Nobody Knows," a documentary made in 1967 and presented by the Hollywood actor James Mason, several minutes are given over to Fournier Street, a short, battered row of old merchants' houses in the district of Spitalfields in East London. A long sequence shows tramps drinking whisky and a purple liquid (denatured alcohol) from glass bottles, and fighting chaotically outside a defunct synagogue.

Wearing a tie and tweed cap, the aging British movie star cuts an elegant, elegiac figure in the slum. The place was on its knees. By the mid-1960s, most of old Spitalfields had been gutted and turned into sweatshops for Bangladeshi garment workers, the last in a succession of poor immigrants and refugees going back to French Huguenots in the 17th century who had come to the neighborhood to work with cloth. No one lived there by choice. Two art students were renting the floor of a house on Fournier Street for 16 pounds a month — the cheapest rooms they could find in London. At night, the drunks hollered up at them in the dark. George Passmore looked out in disbelief as the film crew wandered past. "You probably think I'm mad," he said to Gilbert Proesch, his fellow student and collaborator, "but I think James Mason just walked past the window."

That was a long time ago. Gilbert & George, who practice as a single artist, are in their 70s now, and famous around the world. Fournier Street, where they own two townhouses and a run of studios behind, is also changed. When I visited on a recent summer afternoon, the street looked immaculate, a postcard of competing restorations: intricate doorways, smart brickwork and weatherboarded attics. (Houses worth £4,000 in the 1960s fetch £2.5 million these days.) There was a low buzz of neighborly expectation in the air. The artists' latest show was opening that evening at the White Cube gallery in Bermondsey and half the street seemed to be going.

Photo
From left: Rodney Archer, a longtime resident of Fournier Street, in his back garden, from which the view has not changed since 1726; Fiona Atkins's bed-and-breakfast, the Town House.Credit Jooney Woodward

It was the first time I had been back in several years. My wife used to live on Fournier Street, in an informal colony of actors, artists and photographers. They lived in one of the largest houses, Number 27, which was rented out to them at a benevolently cheap rate by a rubber plantation executive in Malaysia named Henry Barlow who is also an expert on moths. Before then, I hadn't known what the street was called, even though I had walked it many times. Two blocks of brown and plum-colored townhouses, it is one of the city's small but indispensable thoroughfares — a blood vessel near the heart. It connects the great, and once-again expanding, financial district around Liverpool Street to the curry houses of Brick Lane and ephemera of the now fashionable East End. The monumental white spire of Christ Church Spitalfields, one of London's finest baroque churches, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, stands on the corner, inviting you into the slanting corridor behind.

And once you are inside, time misbehaves. The ordinary sequence of past, present and future doesn't seem to hold. It's not just that Fournier Street is old, although of course it is. The street was built back in the 1720s, long before the bulk of 19th-century and Victorian London was laid out, so it has subtly different proportions, an unusual, preindustrial aspect. More apparent is the accelerated passing of eras, the torrent of urban lives that has gone through such a narrow place. In their time, the 34 houses of Fournier Street have been French, Irish, Jewish, West Indian, Bangladeshi, gay, Protestant, Muslim, rich, poor, threadbare, glorious; home to atheists, artists, hedge fund managers, bookmakers, pharmacists, silk weavers, taxi companies and movie stars. Since James Mason's film, the abandoned synagogue, which was a Nonconformist chapel in the 18th and 19th centuries, has become a mosque. A sundial, dating from the 1740s, is mounted high on the wall. "Umbra sumus," reads the inscription. We are shadows.

Photo
A guest bedroom and a map of 18th-century Spitalfields, both in the Town House. Jooney WoodwardCredit

Rodney Archer, a former actor and drama teacher, has lived at Number 31 since 1979. In the hallway, he showed me the bricked-up doorway that used to connect to the house next door. The first residents of Fournier Street were Huguenots, Protestant exiles from France, and they liked to be able to move around out of sight. We went into the garden, where the edges of a 19th-century garment workshop were still visible on the bricks. I sat on a bench and looked up past grapevines and the backs of houses to the white steeple of the church rising behind. "The view there is unchanged since 1726," he said.

Mr. Archer caught the first wave of gentrifiers in Spitalfields. They were led by Mariga Guinness, the daughter of a German prince and the estranged wife of an heir to the brewing fortune. In the early 1970s, she moved into a white stucco house on nearby Elder Street, which she did up by hand and where she threw parties for politicians, musicians and property developers. Mr. Archer first came to Fournier Street around then to drink with artists; he still remembers the dark walls, the sense of a lost townscape. When his mother broke her hip and announced that she was coming to live with him, he decided that the only place they could afford a house big and interesting enough to share was here. The house they found belonged to an Indian cab stand. Some turquoise paint remains on the windowsill, a memento. "A lot of people came here because they loved the architecture," Mr. Archer told me. "I must say I was drawn by the roughness."

At the age of 40, he took a job as a manual laborer at an architectural restoration firm and learned to work with his hands. When he got up for work at 6 each morning, the lights at Gilbert & George's across the road were already on. In the garden, Mr. Archer reminisced about the neighborhood's other pioneers — like Dennis Severs, an eccentric from Escondido, Calif., who lit his house with candles and shared it with a fictional 19th-century family called the Jervises — and the gradual disappearance of the Jewish tailors and furriers, and the West Indians and the Bangladeshis who sewed in industrial workshops crammed into pine-paneled living rooms. "It's all like ghosts," he said. "For me, the street . . . is packed with people that most of the people now don't know, and never knew." Everybody knows Mr. Archer, though. The other day, hearing that he was unwell, Sandra Esquilant, the publican from the Golden Heart on Commercial Street, sent him a bowl of watercress soup from St. John Bread and Wine, a local restaurant, on a tray carried by a waiter. The artist Tracey Emin, who lives a few doors down, came by with flowers.

Photo
The old rooftops of Spitalfields as seen from Christ Church.Credit Jooney Woodward

I left Mr. Archer to get ready for the opening, and walked back up to Number 5. It used to be the Market Cafe, serving breakfast at 3 a.m. and lunch at 7 a.m. for the drivers and traders at Spitalfields vegetable market, but is now Town House, an antiques shop and cafe with rooms upstairs available to rent. Fiona Atkins bought the building in 2000 and has traced the history to the 1760s, when she believes it was owned by a partnership of Irish and Huguenot weavers. Last year, she commissioned a local artist to paint a map of the neighborhood as it was then, and has put it up in a small outbuilding, encouraging people to pin the names of families that used to live there in the 18th and 19th centuries. "I can't tell you how much people have loved it," she said. The map was bristling with pins. "They have loved it."

The Huguenots are Fournier Street's talismans, its elves. They started arriving in large numbers in London in the 1680s, and were quickly making its finest silk garments. They weaved figures from life, working in bright, steamy attics — sealed with paper to keep in the moisture — that teemed with dahlias, auriculae, tulips and caged songbirds. Over the centuries, they have become idealized artisans, known for their scholarship as well as their craft. Huguenot Spitalfields was a place of mathematics societies, of amateur historians, of entomologists and poets. It was also a place of flashy decorating, which is why the houses on Fournier Street, inside and out, are pattern books of early Georgian ornament — of red dressed bricks and curved sash windows, of monogrammed drain heads and smooth-fitting shutters. In the largest houses, the stairwells are joiner's poems of raking architrave, barley twist, corbel and column-newel. In the attics, there is always room for a loom. Long, low windows beckon in the London light.

But it is a delicate business, reaching back to the 18th century. There are practical difficulties. Beautiful as they are, Fournier Street's houses are flimsy constructions, many held together by surreptitious slips of steel. There is a social pressure in conservation, too. Fournier Street is a place where the houses and gardens nudge up against each another and people confide about their fragile, sloping ceilings. Not everyone wants a neighbor on the doorstep with a jar of hand-mixed paint. Keira Knightley, who bought a house on the street in 2012, reportedly sold it again in 2013. ("She passed by one day," recalled Mr. Archer, "looking rather like Virginia Woolf when she was young.")

Photo
"Triptych" by Rebecca Hind, at Christ Church Spitalfields.Credit Jooney Woodward

There are also larger questions of honesty and fairness. With a history as crowded as Fournier Street's, aesthetic decisions can become political. The long, true story of Spitalfields has been of poverty and decline, of streets thick with the damaged and the desperate. "You will find the poor weavers and their families crowded together in vile, filthy and unwholesome chambers," wrote John Thelwall, a local poet, as early as 1795. Reckoning with centuries of hard living means choosing details to enhance, but also chapters to forget, colors to paint over.

Late in the afternoon, I drank a lassi with Bidhan Goswami, who works at Number 39, the Bangladesh Welfare Association, which has provided free legal advice and lobbied on behalf of the community since 1964. It is the last trace of the Bangladeshi era on the street. Inside, filing cabinets were crammed into 18th-century fireplaces and candles rested on dead light switches. Mr. Goswami spoke of the "gentle threat, the silent threat" of gentrification and conservation erasing the less picturesque aspects of the street's working past. "Those who sacrificed themselves to make Fournier Street actually Fournier Street are being pushed out," he said. "Now, the money man will take it over." Mr. Goswami likes to listen out for the walking tours that now take tourists past his office window. "I think, Yes, I am part of the history as well."

When I used to stay on Fournier Street, I saw Gilbert & George a handful of times — giving out tea to the drunks at dawn, stepping out for walks. We only spoke once, when they told me off for littering. A few days after their show opened, we walked through Number 12 and sat in one of the studios that runs behind their two townhouses. It used to belong to their tailor Mr. Lustig — " 'Mr. Happy,' in German," said George. The name prompted a recitation of the vanished craftsmen who used to make their suits. "Then we had Mr. Chaplain," said Gilbert. "Then we had . . ." "Mr. Simons," said George, "who lived across the road." "Then we had David London." "Levenberg," completed George. "Jewish tailors from around here. . . . They all retired to play golf in Portugal."

The works in the artists' new show, "Scapegoating," depict the collision of symbols of contemporary London. Small, bomblike canisters of laughing gas, of the sort favored by clubbers; double-decker buses; women in niqabs. The artists' central and unmistakable concern is the rise of conservative Islam — and its attendant homophobia — on the streets where they have lived and worked for half a century. Gilbert & George have had their front doors kicked in. Young Muslim men interrupt their photo shoots. Spitalfields is a "holy place" now, the men say. Taxi drivers mutter their disapproval. "To which, of course, there is no reply," said George. "Horrific, don't you think?"

Photo
Clockwise from left: a mural featuring Gilbert & George in the nearby Ten Bells pub; a view of Brick Lane's restaurants and stores from Fournier Street; the facade of 37 Fournier St. Jooney WoodwardCredit

The pictures are urgent and uncomfortable. "We want our Art to bring out the Bigot from inside the Liberal," runs a slogan on the wall of the exhibition, "and conversely to bring out the Liberal from inside the Bigot." As so often in their work, Fournier Street is presented as a claustrophobic backdrop of railings, shutters and doors. "It is an amazing background," said Gilbert. "It is so enclosed, so narrow. It creates, like, an atmosphere, like going into a room." "We are not the artists to travel to Tunisia for inspiration, you know," said George.

Talking to the artists, it struck me that there was no trace of the other tensions — around change, around gentrification, around race — that I had picked up on in other conversations on Fournier Street. The artists do not want orderly history. A flat sense of time, without perspective, suits them fine. "We believe in the past, present and future being all together," said George. "We don't believe . . . in modern. We don't think there is such a thing." The Huguenots fled religious extremism. John Wilkes, of Wilkes Street, fought for a free press. Spitalfields used to be famous for its rent boys and prostitutes. Now there are conservative mullahs, and covered-up women, who disdain the way the artists live. Such vivid material, so close at hand. "It's perfect," George said. "It's ideal, isn't it?"

The artists are so well adapted to Fournier Street in part because they have never committed to any particular version of it. For Gilbert & George, people and period are just effects to play with. Their other townhouse, Number 8, which they do not live in, has been restored to historical perfection. The rooms have dull blue ceilings, brown skirting boards and austere, sparse furniture. The linseed paint took a year to dry. A single chair upholstered in deep-red velvet carried Gilbert & George's coat of arms — a pubic louse — picked out in gold. For 47 years, they have kept the same portraitist's distance from their neighbors as they have from the emotional fabric of time. Always standing at the window, never getting involved. "Not one glass of sherry," said George. I asked him why. He didn't pause. "We don't want to be contaminated," he said. "We want to be weird and normal."


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In Transit Blog: Hotel Apps Tailored to What a Guest Wants

Written By Unknown on Senin, 13 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

The first generation of hotel smartphone applications was about as useful as a flimsy shower cap: nice idea, poor execution. Now, the next iteration is proving more powerful, giving guests incentives to download them, if only for the length of their trips.

Among those offering financial incentives, James Hotels, operating in Chicago, Miami and New York, will offer  a new app feature in November that sends push notifications of in-hotel deals such as, when a guest walks by a spa, 10 percent off spa services, or a two-for-one appetizer deal in the hotels' restaurants.

The new Aloha Guide from Starwood Hotels and Resorts Hawaii covers 11 Starwood properties on the islands and offers a range of rotating specials like a 20 percent discount on breakfast at the Moana Surfrider and $35 off a facial at the Westin Maui.

Others apps tout convenience. In August, Hyatt Hotels' mobile app added an Uber button that will appear for the duration of a stay, allowing travelers to make car reservations using the hotel as their default pickup locale.

Instead of a guidebook, a new concierge app called Keys2TheCity from the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago features city walking tours, recommended restaurants and attractions, and transportation information. The Nines in Portland, Ore., directs room service orders through its app and updates information on events happening throughout the city.

As apps become more robust, travelers can expect more deals from them. Forrester Research recently found that app spending represented 5 percent of United States online travel sales in 2013 and forecast that to rise to 9.5 percent by 2017, noting the advantage of mobile apps to reach users when they're most receptive: while traveling.

In Mexico, Rosewood Mayakoba's new app, which allows guests to request a spa appointment or restaurant reservation without leaving their pool chairs, embodies the trend: Since starting the app in May, spa bookings have increased by 25 percent.

A version of this article appears in print on 10/12/2014, on page TR3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Trending: Hotel Apps Tailored to What a Guest Wants.


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In Transit Blog: Cruise Lines to Avoid West African Coast

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 10 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Because of Ebola concerns, several cruise lines with voyages that stop along the West African coast have chosen to steer clear of the region, even, in some cases, avoiding bordering countries where no outbreak has been reported.

Holland America canceled stops at ports in Ghana, Gambia and Senegal (so far, there has been just one case reported in Senegal and none in Ghana and Gambia) during a 35-day "African Explorer" voyage on the Rotterdam planned for November and December.

Those ports have been replaced with overnight calls in Cape Town, South Africa and Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands and a stop in Tangier, Morocco. Seabourn Cruise Lines, Fred. Olsen and Regent Seven Seas have made similar changes to itineraries.

The Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Senegal have imposed a ban on tourists traveling there within 30 days of visiting a West African country. As the islands are an integral part of Fred. Olsen's voyages, the company thought it prudent to omit the West African mainland from its itineraries for the time being, Wendy Jeffreys, a spokeswoman for the cruise line, said.

Very few cruise lines actually visit the region where Ebola cases are originating, Cruise Lines International Association, of which Regent is a member, said in a statement. Nevertheless, all CLIA members have been made aware of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's travel heath notices involving West African countries, the company said.

"For many years, cruise lines have observed and questioned embarking passengers about their health before boarding a ship, including recent or current illnesses and symptoms," the statement continued. "A passenger exhibiting signs of any illness prior to boarding a ship is checked by health and medical staff who determine if the passenger will be allowed to board or declined and referred to landside medical care."

With regard to cargo ships entering United States. ports, the Coast Guard's Advance Notice of Vessel Arrival procedures require all inbound vessels to report any sick passengers aboard, as well as the last five port calls made by the ship, among other protocols, Chief Warrant Officer Chad Saylor, a Coast Guard spokesman, said.

The agency is working closely with the C.D.C., Customs and Border Protection and partners in each port, and there is certainly a "heightened awareness" throughout the organization, he said, with regard to the issues involved and making sure everyone is speaking up and reporting incidences.

In August, the Coast Guard issued a nationwide bulletin on behalf of the C.D.C., reminding all vessels of their requirement to report any passengers who had become sick or died aboard the vessel in the 15 days prior to entering a U.S. port.

Earlier this week, the Long Island Sound Coast Guard sector, which includes parts of New York State and Connecticut, issued its own statement saying that it would proactively contact ships that listed a country affected by Ebola among its last five port calls in order to determine if anyone aboard was exhibiting symptoms of the virus.


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T Magazine: 10 Transportive Travel Stories From T’s First 10 Years

T turns 10 this month. In honor of the anniversary and the T@10 Issue, out Oct. 19, this series looks back at some of the most memorable features from the magazine's first decade.

"The Face of Shanghai"

Issue: Travel, Spring 2005

Ann Marie Gardner traveled to an increasingly westernized Shanghai to offer a portrait of the Chinese city through its people.


"Into the Mystical Unreal Reality of the Faroe Islands"

Issue: Travel, Spring 2007

Stephen Metcalf journeyed to the remote Faroe Islands, situated in the North Atlantic halfway between Iceland and Norway and settled more than a thousand years ago by Vikings. Their descendants take pride in traditions passed down over generations, from sod architecture to whale hunting.


"Colombian Gold in Cartagena"

Issue: Travel, Summer 2007

With a storied history as a pirate's enclave circumscribed by massive fortifications, Cartagena was (and is) Colombia's jewel on the Caribbean. The Spanish colonial architecture, nightlife and culture have drawn a group of affluent, sun-seeking travelers to this tropical port city.


Photo
Credit Raymond Meier

"Snowbound in Japan"

Issue: Travel, Winter 2007

A three-hour train ride north from Tokyo, a hidden natural hot spring awaited on Honshu Island's far-north prefecture of Akita.


Photo
Credit Raymond Meier

"Where Art Thou?"

Issue: Travel, Summer 2009

Art for art's sake…or in this case, art for travel's sake. An eclectic group of experts shared their picks for art and culture worth the journey.


"The Royal Wee"

Issue: Travel, Spring 2009

John Wray traveled to the tiny landlocked nation of Liechtenstein — which has no airport and train service that reaches only as far as the border. There he discovered the beauty of the postage stamp, met with the country's leading (and only) falconer, and settled in for bergsteigeressen, a perfectly composed Liechtensteinian meal.


Photo
Credit Anastasia Taylor-Lind

"Confessions of a Soukaholic"

Issue: Travel, Summer 2010

Liesl Schillinger wandered through the dazzling malls and labyrinthine markets of Damascus to offer advice on how to traverse this shopper's paradise in Syria.


Photo
Credit Richard Mosse

"In Myanmar, Retracing George Orwell's Steps"

Issue: Travel, Winter 2013

Lawrence Osborne braved monsoon weather to trace the path of Orwell's Burmese past — from Yangon's crumbling British architecture to Bagan's thousand pagodas.


Photo
Credit Daniel Hennessy

"Welcome to the Integratron"

Issue: Women's Fashion, Fall 2014

In the vast Mojave Desert, a white-domed structure has become a destination for spiritual healing and musical baths. Jody Rosen investigated its strange history (it was purportedly designed by an alien) and legacy.


"In Search of the Perfect Taco"

Issue: Men's Fashion, Fall 2014

Jeff Gordinier and the Noma chef Rene Redzepi took a road trip through Mexico to deconstruct the secrets of Mexican cuisine.


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In Transit Blog: A New Culture-Focused Tour of Haiti

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 04 Oktober 2014 | 17.36

Photo A chef in Jacmel.Credit G Adventures

G Adventures, a small-group adventure travel company with a focus on sustainable travel, is introducing a tour in Haiti. The 10-day "Highlights of Haiti" trip aims to offer insight into the country's condition since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake nearly five years ago.

"It is ready for a certain type of traveler – the person who wants to get places first, that early adapter," said Jeff Russill, the vice president of innovation at G Adventures.

Highlights of this art-and-culture-heavy trip include meeting a voodoo priest and learning about the art and artifacts surrounding the religion; touring Port-au-Prince and Jacmel's art communities; traditional rum tastings; a cooking demonstration of local kasav flatbread; a visit to the Unesco World Heritage site Citadelle Laferrière; cliff diving; and cave exploring.

The company and its nonprofit, the Planeterra Foundation, worked closely with the Inter-American Development Bank in assessing Haiti's tourism potential and how tourist revenues can benefit the Haitian people.

G Adventures contracts with local suppliers, so money spent on the trip goes back to the communities, Mr. Russill said.

One day of the tour is spent visiting a nonprofit organization in Jacmel that teaches art to street children while offering them meals and shelter.

The tours, beginning in February 2015, are $2,499 per person, including on-island transportation, standard hotels and some meals.


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In Transit Blog: For Younger Travelers, Lessons in Winemaking

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 03 Oktober 2014 | 17.35

Photo The winery at Vina Vik.Credit The Winery at Vik Vineyard

Wine-themed vacations aren't usually suited for kids, but Viña Vik, a winery and spa in Millahue, Chile, is changing that with its new children's programming.

The 22-room property now has a more than dozen activities for no extra charge for 5- to 18-year-olds including a "Smell Don't Taste" course in which they learn about the winemaking process, try different grape varietals and when possible, help cut grapes off the vines in the vineyards.

Also offered are cooking classes, paintball, biking, horseback riding, games on the grounds and hikes with naturalists to learn about the native flora.

The hotel is part of Vik Retreats, properties that have always catered to families. A brand co-founder, Carrie Vik, said that she and her husband, Alex, decided to accommodate guests of all ages in Millahue because of their own travel experiences.

"We have four children and have always traveled with them, and it's something we think all parents should be able to do no matter what kind of trip they are taking," she said in a phone interview.

The rate is $1,200 a night in double occupancy, including meals, activities and wine (for the adults) with dinner.


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In Transit Blog: A River Trip in Tulip Season

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 01 Oktober 2014 | 17.36

Photo The Amadeus Silver II.Credit Amras Cruises Worldwide

Amras Cruises, a new Boston-based travel company operating cruises designed for English-speaking travelers, will offer a trip called the Tulip Serenade, a weeklong cruise through the waterways of the Netherlands and Belgium during flower season.

The trip will be the maiden voyage for Amadeus Silver II. The trips are the first time that Luftner Cruises' 10-ship Amadeus fleet has been marketed directly to North Americans.

The Luftner family, based in Austria, was instrumental in introducing modern European river cruising in the 1970s, taking passengers along the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers.

On the Tulip Serenade cruise, departing April 16, 2015, guests will visit the Keukenhof Gardens, where seven million bulbs explode with color over the course of two months, and will tour well-known museums like the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House.

Excursions through the cities of Amsterdam, Volendam, Arnhem, and Ghent are also included, as well as a look at a cheese-making facility in Edam, a stop at the world's largest collection of working windmills, and a boat cruise through Amsterdam's canals.

For the Amadeus Silver II's inaugural voyage, perks include a complimentary bottle of local sparkling wine for each cabin, $500 off international airfare per person when purchased in conjunction with the cruise, and a $200 off per person first-time traveler benefit. Cabins start at $2,950.


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