Belém, Lisbon. October, 2009

Waiting in line. Who likes that? Especially when you’re on vacation. I still remember the long lines during Christmas week 2005 in Paris. Everywhere: to get into the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Musée d’Orsay. Non, merci. I’m happy to have already visited the first two many years ago. And the third? Well, I went back 30 minutes before closing, asked just to visit the gift shop, and was shown a side door that led to...the entire museum! I decided to just pick one painting (Manet’s Olympia) and spend my half hour with it. A recent visit to Rome found a line easily a mile long waiting to get into the Vatican Museums on the last Sunday of the month when it’s free. How free is it when you spend hours waiting on line? Above, the relatively short line to get into the Pastéis de Belém, the storied pastry shop in an outlying Lisbon neighborhood that claims to be the inventor of the pastel de nata. “Loucura” (madness), I said to the saleswoman. “Sempre” (always), her answer. Worth the wait.

Cefalù, Sicily. May, 1988

I love this corner clock (can you see it?) in the seaside town of Cefalù. It’s 3:12 on September 18 at one angle, 22:27 on March 28 at another. Ah, Italy, Sicily. The land of dolce far niente. I remember when I needed a new battery for my watch and went into a jeweler’s store in Siracusa. At first, a limited vocabulary made my request rather a strange one (campanile, alas, means belltower not wristwatch.) And when I finally made myself clear, the watchman went to work. Searching for the right-sized battery and coming up with nothing, he handed my powerless watch back to me and cheerfully said, “Time has stopped for you in Siracusa.” If only.

Blue Mosque, Istanbul. June, 2007

The Blue Mosque (so called because of the color that radiates from the extensive tilework within) is one of Istanbul’s top tourist attractions. Consequently there are tour buses lined up outside, visitors aplenty at the entrance, and inside...well, it’s hard to distinguish the sauntering crowds from those at the Grand Bazaar. The mosque is also still a functioning house of worship and a large section of its interior is, admirably, roped off to keep away the throng. You must remove your shoes before entering. Sleeveless tops and shorts are no-nos. (There are shawls available for use at the entrance.) Disturbing flash photos are discouraged. And while admission is free, there are groups from the community soliciting donations at the exit. A beautiful and important building, yes. But I'm glad I didn't bypass many other smaller mosques nearby that seemed all the more beautiful for being almost empty except for those few faithful engaged in daily prayer.

Ruth's Chris Steak House, Boston Restaurant Week. March, 2011

Our second try at a Restaurant Week dinner was more successful than our first. Probably because we’d already been to the establishment, the punctuationally challenged Ruth’s Chris Steak House, once before. We’d taken our friend James to this swank eaterie housed in Boston’s Old City Hall for a birthday dinner a few years ago, had the absolute best steak of a lifetime (a medium-rare rib-eye, no garnishes, just the meat on a plate, $40) and then swallowed the $180+ bill for three salads, three steaks, three sides, no drinks. A perfect candidate for a return visit at Resto Week’s promotional three-courses for $33.11. This time: a dollhouse portion of the savory crab and corn chowder, a very good NY strip steak (itself $45 on the regular menu!) done medium-rare (“pink inside with a warm red center,” explained our server) offered with sides of garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach, and warm bread pudding with whiskey sauce (tautology if you ask me.) Our server explained that Ruth’s Chris (say it five times fast) has its meat specially bred for its restaurants, corn- and grass-fed cattle, “wet aged” (described to us as a kind of brining) for tenderness and flavor. It seems to work as the steaks were very good all around. And mercifully more economical than those of our last visit.

West Hollywood, CA. October, 2007

A few years ago, when Harvard University employees were negotiating their contract in the face of the administration’s insistence upon the “honor” of working at Harvard, one of the slogans the union invoked was “You can’t eat prestige.” I thought of this recently when I came across this photo from the Mondrian hotel. Lots of precious design moments (like this subtle stencil on the wall behind the bed), lots of cool people fashionably dressed, a pool deck where photos were forbidden and (I have to admit) a great restaurant, Asia de Cuba. But I sensed an attitude at work, an implication of the “honor” of staying there. A week or so after we’d returned home, several members of our party checked their credit-card accounts and noticed that the hotel had added numerous extra charges to their bills. Yes, it was all corrected after a few phonecalls, but still.... You can’t eat prestige. And who wants to anyway?

Cliffside Park, NJ. October, 2007

I always get excited when I learn that friends of mine are about to make a first trip to one of my favorite places. One morning, for example, a photo appeared on Facebook: my wonderful friend Mike in Lisbon, within a block of my hotel, in MY neighborhood of that fabled city. How I wished I could have been there with him. And then I learn two other friends are leaving for Istanbul. Envious? Not a bit. Happy for them all. Looking forward to hearing from them later about how much they now love the places that I love. For my friends en route to Istanbul: I suggested that when they return, we all go to a nearby Turkish restaurant and exchange stories over, well, something like this adana kebab (served by Dayi’nin Yeri restaurant at Nick’s 60th birthday party.) Adana kebab, for those who have not experienced this particular slice of heaven, is a minced-meat kebab, made from ground lamb (traditionally a male lamb) and lamb’s tail fat, salt and sweet red pepper, molded onto a long flat skewer and grilled over charcoal. It’s usually served, both here and in Turkey, cut in half lengthwise (to accommodate the plate) over flatbread or rice to soak up the juices, along with a grilled tomato and a grilled long green (hot) pepper, and sometimes with a julienned salad of onion mixed with parsley and sumac. Mmmmm.

Punta Gorda, Cienfuegos, Cuba. February, 2012

The most beautiful section of the Caribbean port town of Cienfuegos extends as a peninsula out into the bay, ending in a lovely neighborhood called Punta Gorda. After lunch at the waterside Club Cienfuegos there, we walked around the docks and wound up here at the Palacio de Valle. Originally built in the early 1900s as the home of a wealthy sugar merchant, the Spanish-Moorish-Venetian fantasy later became a casino and pleasure palace (during the American gangster period) and now houses a post-Revolution upscale restaurant on its shadowy and cool first floor, a luxe cocktail lounge on its roof and in its dreamlike gardens. Fleeing a somewhat macabre songstress perched by the lobby’s out-of-tune piano (she called herself the Queen of Cuban Soul), we found this extravagant balcony. The archway, the filigree, the colors. All begged a photo.