"While I wait for the bartender at Dukes I ponder the big question: would I rather be Miss Moneypenny or a Bond girl? It's easy to meditate on such things at Duke's Hotel."

"The city of Lucerne nestles the water--scattering around its edges and up the mountain like a slowly spreading spill."

"We follow a path abundant with draped, fading prayer flags that flap in the cool wind like colorful bird's wings. Pine trees scent the chilly air, and the faraway rhythm of rural villagers at work sounds like nature's solemn hymn."

"We’ve exchanged our car for a boat and we’re heading across rollicking seas to Skellig Michael—an immense rocket of stone that explodes amid water straight toward the sky. Just visible on its face are steps that we know lead to the remains of a centuries-old monastic settlement high above the ocean."

"Huts made from cow pies look like gingerbread houses—some are being repaired by women so concentrated in their tasks they resemble painters fretting over a canvas."

"I see an oceanscape turbulent with blues. They mottle the water like smudges, bits of sapphire, jade and rich turquoise splayed out in a frenzy of Van Gogh-like brushstrokes."

"Like a pointer finger, a rainbow as thick as a column, illuminates the sky above Castello di Vicarello."

"Being with him in the the room where he paints . . . is like being a string on Itzhak Perlman's violin or a pot in Thomas Keller's kitchen."

"Villages with colorfully painted houses seemed torn from the pages of a storybook. You’ll want to linger in them, as we do, for scones or a pint of beer. Even the narrow undulating roads, lined with hedgerows and flower-flecked meadows thrills."

"Brussels is as textured as the tapestries that put it on the Medieval map."

"A sudden herd of reindeer crosses our path like a truck running a red light."

"In bygone days hungry wolves skulked along the newly built Nevsky Prospekt like rapacious adversaries from a children's story."

"The crowd cheers. And, a royal band emits a euphonious serenade. I dismount the immense beast by ladder, snuggle my elephant’s crusty, swishing trunk and accept a well-deserved flute of champagne from a nattily clad waiter."

"The ancient city’s main square sits just behind the one-time convent (now a sleek, restored, boutique hotel), the silence is so ponderous one might think the entire staff and every guest has taken a vow of silence."

About Hotel Guanahnai: “[Its} as if Paris put on flip flops, but still donned a little black dress.”