Luxury Travel Advisor - August 2007 - (Page 8) EDITOR’S LETTER Relying on Strangers and New Friends E It’s vital to have a great guide with you if you have a limited amount of time to spend in a wonderful place. arlier this summer, we found ourselves in Valencia, Spain with a lot of time on our hands and no idea how to get around town. Our hotel was on the edge of the city, and because it was Sunday, all of the stores were closed and the streets were deadly quiet. But we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to experience Valencia, a city I’d heard so many wonderful things about. We needed to take action, and so we hit the streets, where, admittedly, things didn’t get any better. We walked around the block and there wasn’t even a newspaper stand in sight. But then we came upon a Metro station. It looked perfectly nice, and from out of the blue, a young mother and her child appeared and descended confidently down the steps. “We can do that,” I said to my husband. Once underground, we threw ourselves on the mercy of the ticket booth attendant, asking her where we could go for a good meal and handing her a handful of euros, trusting her to take the amount we needed for two roundtrip train passes. Following her instructions, which were given in broken English, we got on the next train, took it for four stops and ascended into the heart of the city. We were headed to Plaza de la Reina, and had to rely on only a few strangers to point us in the right direction. Siesta time was just winding down, and as we walked toward our destination, more and more people appeared on the street. We reached Plaza de la Reina, a remarkable plaza with cathedrals, churches, bell towers, shops, restaurants and Valencia oranges literally dripping from the trees in the square. We sat, enjoying a glass of wine at a sidewalk café and watching with rapt delight as the entire city emerged from its siesta, everyone, young and old, dressed to go to church. This was probably the most “European” moment of all of our travels thus far, and when we recall it now, we note how easily we could have missed it. While we were tickled at how much we had to rely on the kindness of strangers, we agreed that it’s vital to have a great guide along with us if we have just a limited amount of time in a great place. Case in Point: We recently met Linda Viviani of Viviani, Inc. on a trip to California’s Wine Country (see page 12) and found that her expertise and insider access afforded us numerous opportunities to discover a Napa Valley we would never have dreamed existed. (She is pictured below with two of the wonderful winery owners we met that day; that’s John Caldwell of Caldwell Vineyards in the left photo and Barry Waitte of Tamber Bey Estate in the right photo.) Keeping true to form, we did venture out on our own a bit on our California trip. We love Chateau St. Jean’s Chardonnay and Fumé Blanc and so we followed a map that got us to Sonoma with just a few missteps along the way. Luckily, we quickly met up with a new friend, the winery’s operations manager, Philippe Thibault (he’s pictured with me, above), who gave us a personalized run-through of Chateau St. Jean’s best vintages. Saved yet again by the kindness of strangers and the generosity of a new friend! RUTHANNE TERRERO, CTC Editorial Director rterrero@questex.com 8 LUXURY TRAVEL ADVISOR | August 2007
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.