I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve been on a Travel + Leisure photo shoot. But I was heading to Milan—and then Rome and Sicily—the week that an old friend, Piedmontese photographer Oberto Gili, would be photographing Florence for the magazine. This, combined with the enduring allure of that city for a onetime art history major, made a detour irresistible. So I joined T+L’s fashion director, Mimi Lombardo, and the crew for a mad dash around the Tuscan capital—if you’ve ever seen a 1930’s Busby Berkeley movie, you may have some idea of the level of production that goes into a T+L shoot involving fashion. I slipped off to a museum or two when I had a spare moment, but otherwise I was in famiglia, including at meals. The restaurants were taken straight from the source—London-based writer Maria Shollenbarger’s “Best New Hotspots in Florence, Italy;” my top plates: steak tartare with Tuscan beef at Ora d’Aria, and pasta with cacio e pepe at Zeb.
Once again this month, as we have done every fall for the past 15 years, we beam a spotlight on Style & Culture, from a curated selection of upcoming exhibitions, performances, and attractions to some of the favorite destinations of the fashion- and art-obsessed. We head to the laid-back new “it” hotel on Nevis with New York Times reporter Guy Trebay and to that ever so SoCal beach community with Kate Betts for a “Malibu, California Beach Getaway.” Master shopper Lynn Yaeger leads us on a whirlwind tour of Asia’s mod retail mecca, Seoul.
At the other end of the world, both figuratively and geographically, the Greenbrier in West Virginia serves as a backdrop for fall’s colorfully classic looks and as the subject of writer Aimee Lee Ball’s appreciation. Also this month, we trail Adam Sachs to Göteborg, Sweden, with local chef (by way of Ethiopia) Marcus Samuelsson, whose Red Rooster, in Harlem, has moved the gravitational center of New York trendsetters far uptown, and hear the true confessions of a disastrous packer from T+L’s very own “Man in a Suitcase,” Peter Jon Lindberg. If you, like me, are a would-be photographer, or better, you will find some useful advice on equipment and technique in “Best Digital Cameras for Travel,” “Digital Scrapbooking,” “Digital Video 101,” and “T+L’s Photography Tips.”
And finally, not to forget the people who help guide many of us where we want to go, we offer the latest edition of T+L’s annual A-List, a compendium of 137 top travel experts, all carefully vetted by our editors. As always, making your trips as interesting and rewarding as they can be is our mission.
Travel + Leisure Global Bazaar
September 17–18, 2011
Park Avenue Armory, New York City
Eat, shop, and make your way from Manhattan to Cape Town and beyond at our two-day Global Bazaar. For more information go to TLGlobalBazaar.com. Get your tickets at Ticketmaster.com now!
Download Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards 2011 for iPad® at TravelandLeisure.com/ipad.
Where to Find Me
E-Mail:nancytravelandleisure@aexp.com
Twitter:@nnovogro