When construction at the Hotel Maria is completed in June, 159 chandeliers will hang from the ceilings of its 79 rooms, 38 suites and public areas. Its bar will serve 31 types of Champagne. And the renovations on its four buildings — two of which opened in December — will have included the restoration of…
High in the mountains of Oman and along its pounding shoreline, I stumbled onto an unexpected slice of heaven thanks to a friend’s recommendation. I even sprang for a few extra amenities for a mash-up of pauper meets paradise. I first visited Oman in 2018 after regularly making one- or -two-day stopovers in Abu Dhabi,…
For our last night in La Paz, Mexico, we kept it simple: A couple of cans of cold Pacifico, a bench on the malecón, the city’s waterfront promenade, and the sunset glowing orange over the shimmering silver-blue Sea of Cortez. My husband, Alex, and I had spent nearly a week taking scenic desert drives and…
In 2016, Michael McGregor was in his early 30s, living in Mexico City and hanging out with a group of local architects and musicians, when he began to paint. Inspired by the city’s vibrancy, the budding artist — an expat from Brooklyn, where he’d spent a decade making a living as a writer and D.J….
On the east side of San Jose, Calif., there is an abuela who seems to have more grandchildren than she can count. “A lot of people see me and they hug me,” Mardonia Galeana, 89, said in Spanish. “I don’t even know them, but sometimes they ask me for a blessing on the street and…
I’m from a lush land. Green abounds in the South. Our climate is so dewy, so thick, that we learn how to breathe through our skin down here. The nearly neon green kudzu, not just a romantic notion, climbs. The vines creep over our lives, over corners, around hills, down slopes, into gutters. We pulse…
Anxious ahead of a big job interview? Worried about giving a speech? First date nerves? The solution, some digital start-ups suggest, is a beta blocker, a type of medication that can slow heart rate and lower blood pressure — masking some of the physical symptoms of anxiety. Typically a trip to the doctor’s office would…
Megayachts wrestling for space in the French fishing port of St.-Tropez would find size to be of little concern in Mahón, on the Spanish island of Minorca. Six kilometers (3.7 miles) long and as much as 30 meters (98 feet) deep, Mahón’s port is one of the world’s largest and deepest natural harbors. Captured by…
When I temporarily switched from an iPhone to an Android phone last week, I was bracing for a world of hurt. I’ve owned only Apple phones ever since buying the first-generation iPhone in 2007. And, like many, I’ve bought other Apple products that pair nicely, including AirPods, an Apple Watch and an iPad. That type…
Flower pots, they are not. But Stephen Procter’s large stoneware garden vessels, some as tall as five feet and incorporating 250 pounds of clay, are nevertheless functional pottery — even without the soil and the plants. In the clay world, he said, there’s always talk about functional versus nonfunctional pottery, attempting to draw a line…
