The Jardim Botanico, one of the loveliest botanical gardens in the Western hemisphere, is a serene refuge in the bustling Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. Set between the tropical splendor of Tijuca National Park and the rugged Serra da Carioca mountain range, it’s one of Rio’s top tourist attractions. It’s a particularly attractive place to […]
The northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco offers visitors eclectic sights worth remembering. The town of Olinda has one of the best-preserved colonial neighborhoods in Latin America. The resort of Porto de Galinhas, a center of the slave trade until the 19th century, has some of the finest beaches in the country. The state capital, Recife, is renowned […]
Rio de Janeiro is known as cidade marvailhosa in Portuguese. In English, this translates into marvellous city. The appellation is richly deserved. Rio exhausts superlatives. Famous for its frothy tropical exuberance and joie de vivre, Rio is crammed into several verdant valleys and defined by the Serra da Carioca, a steep green mountain range, and […]
The history and romance of aviation are evoked at two tourist-friendly facilities in Florida — Fantasy of Flight in Polk City and the Florida Air Museum in neighboring Lakeland. Fantasy of Flight, near Disney World in Orlando, possesses the world’ largest collection of vintage aircraft and enables visitors to experience biplane and hot air balloon […]
Frederick Law Olmsted is surely one of the most illustrious landscape architects the world has ever known. His credits include Mount Royal Park in Montreal and Central Park in New York City, two of the finest municipal parks in North America. Olmsted’s genius also makes its presence felt in Bok Tower Gardens, one of the […]
There is no place like it, at least architecturally speaking. The green campus of Florida Southern College, in Lakeland, Florida, houses the largest single collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the United States. Known collectively as the Child of the Sun, these geometric structures rise organically from the earth into the rays of the sun. […]
Tucked into the lush green hills of the forested Carmel mountain range is Israel’s only artists’ village, Ein Hod. Founded almost 65 years ago by a Romanian Jewish painter, it’s a serene retreat far from the hustle and bustle of Israel’s coastal plain. A short drive from the port of Haifa, Ein Hod is a […]
Far from the bustle of Israel’s congested coastal plain is a serene place in the upper Galilee that soothes the soul. The Mount Meron Nature Reserve, two and a half hours away by car from Tel Aviv and a 10-minute drive from Safed, is one of the most picturesque rural areas in the country, tailor-made […]
Acre, a historic port in northern Israel, sits on the remnants of the world’s only fully preserved Crusader city. Visitors who spend a few hours in its old quarter, designated as a World Heritage site by the United Nations, can feast their eyes on subterranean Crusader ruins that were uncovered by archaeologists in the 1950s and […]
I could hardly believe my eyes. Tucked into a crevice deep in a craggy canyon in a desert adjacent to the Dead Sea was an incredible sight — a natural pool and a gushing waterfall. I came upon them on a hot day after a fairly strenuous hike in one of Israel’s most alluring nature […]