Personal style in Barcelona reflects the city’s modernist architecture: playful, sometimes colorful, and daring. There’s little focus on logos and labels and more on line, organic shapes, and playing colors off of one another.

A mustard-yellow velvet jacket adds a pop of color. The skirt is also interesting, pleated and slightly deconstructed. Continue reading…

Cocktail trends come and cocktail trends go, and sometimes they even come back again before you even know they went. According to today’s Times, rum is on the up and up, meanwhile, it seems like just yesterday that tiki bar Waikiki Wally’s opened, then closed, in the East Village.

But you really don’t realize how ridiculous cocktail trends are until you see them at work in another culture. In Barcelona right now, the coolest possible drink to order is not something involving bitters, chartreuse, absinthe, or even rye, it’s a good ol’ gin and tonic, pronounced “GIN TOH-neek.” That’s right Mom and Dad: Your taste in drinks is big in Barcelona. Continue reading…

For such a small town (pop. about 6,500), Chatham, Cape Cod has a lot going for it food-wise. Not only are there good restaurants, but there are excellent take-out shops, from the humble to the gourmet, that will free you from the kitchen on vacation.

Chatham Cheese Company * Wequaussett Outer Bar & Grille * The Cape Sea Grille * Nantucket Wild Gourmet & Smokehouse * Marion’s Pie Shop * Marine Cuisine

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Cape Cod: land of baseball caps, Red Sox fans, microbrews on tap, and really good seafood. Marie Fromage and I found a lot of all the above on a recent trip to Chatham, Massachusetts. Located on the “elbow” of Cape Cod, Chatham was home to the Nauset Indians and settled by the English in 1665. Much of the town is a historic district, and there are still a lot of (slightly spooky) 18th century houses in town.

One of the most popular restaurants there, the Chatham Squire, feels like it’s stuck in a time warp of its own, though this one may be closer to the Caddyshack-esque golden years of the ‘80s, much like Bertha’s Mussels of Baltimore. Vanity plates and old wooden signs line the walls, the game is on TV, and the beer starts flowing at lunchtime and doesn’t stop until close at 1am. There’s a restaurant dining room here, but the place to be is the bar, which operates like a town lunch counter for tourists and locals alike. Continue reading…

Even if you arrived on the island of Martha’s Vineyard stark naked, you could acquire all the necessary clothes in no time—the shopping here is that perfectly tailored to the experience. Many of our favorite stores there are not online yet, but the clothing and shoe brands are. Here are four looks to get you through the weekend.

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Edgartown in Martha’s Vineyard is a preppy shopper’s paradise. You can find everything from basics (Lacoste shirts) to frills (Milly dresses). Unlike in East Hampton, where your only choice is to go the designer route at pricey boutiques like Catherine Malandrino or stick to plain old J. Crew, in Martha’s Vineyard, you can find cute, chic clothing and accessories at a reasonable price point. There was so much we couldn’t hit it all, but here’s a round up of some of the best stores for clothing and gifts.

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As will become clear from this article, we didn’t make it out of Edgartown during our entire three-day stay on Martha’s Vineyard. (We did the preppy version of this weekend’s NYT tour.) While the picturesque Victorian town of Oak Bluffs is definitely worth visiting, there’s enough dining in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard to fill a long weekend’s worth of meals, if you don’t mind ending up at the same bar every night. Best of all, you can walk everywhere.

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Dining out in a seaside town can be a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have access to the freshest seafood around; on the other, nearly anyone can put up a sign like “Best Lobster Rolls!” and tourists won’t be any the wiser.

Fortunately, Martha’s Vineyard has a large year-round population of about 15,000, slightly larger than Nantucket and more than enough to sustain a restaurant that wants to go above and beyond tourist fare. And many summer people, like our generous hosts, captains of the S.S. Sapphire, have been coming to this idyllic spot for decades. Word gets around fast when there’s a good restaurant in town – or when something new is not worth the hype.

Alchemy in Edgartown is a French-style bistro in traditional New England clothing – muted colors, wainscoting, ivy topiaries. The only thing old-school about the food, however, is the local ingredients like scallops, peas, and oysters, which are just the starting point for the culinary wizardry that ensues. Continue reading…

Even though Bermuda isn’t in the Caribbean, many people traveling here seem to lump it in with laissez-faire St. Barth’s, laid-back Jamaica, or some other place where it doesn’t matter what you wear, as long as you are (mostly) clothed. Wrong! There are distinct dress codes on the island, so please don’t embarrass your fellow Americans by wearing a cut-off Giants tank top – anywhere.

Some principle tenets: 1) T-shirts are for children/teenagers. 2) Golf/polo shirts are for sports, the beach or lunch at someplace sporty. 3) Denim is not allowed in many restaurants and clubs in Bermuda. 4) A “casual dinner” means a pretty top and capri pants for women, a button-down shirt and Bermuda shorts for men. 5) Anything other than “casual” means a dress/sports coat. 6) Color, color, and more color. 7) Prints, especially sea-creature prints. 8 Black = winter. 9) Gold jewelry, preferably real. 10) Expensive sunglasses, handbags and shoes are under-appreciated, impractical and therefore unnecessary. 11) Shorts are always appropriate for men in every social situation, no matter how formal.

Alas, Bermuda’s dress code is anything but laissez-faire, but here’s a survival guide, after the jump. Continue reading…

It may hard to believe in this era of shuffling shoeless through airport security monitors, but in the ‘30s-‘60s, one of the most glamorous things about going to Bermuda was getting there. Starting with the luxury cruise ship the Queen of Bermuda, which made its maiden journey in 1933, the voyage to these far flung tiny islands in the Atlantic was pretty posh. As air travel became more common, one of the biggest brands to promote Bermuda was Pan Am, which featured idyllic, stylized images of the island in its posters.

One thing that strikes you as soon as you step into the lobby of this new hotel in Bermuda, Tucker’s Point, is the pure glamour of it all. The wide marble corridors, high ceilings, graceful outdoor corridors, infinity pool and gorgeous views seem almost over the top on an island known more for British restraint. But when you learn that the executive director is Edward Trippe, son of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, it all begins to make sense. An appreciation for big, American-style glamour must run in the family. Continue reading…