Travel

Three Reasons to Visit in December

Betsy Riley — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:00:00 GMT

First there was Bon Appétit’s feature in February, which dubbed Nashville “the coolest, tastiest city in the South.” The New York Times gushed over the town in June, causing the local alt weekly, the Nashville Scene, to bristle over excessive use of the word hipster. In October, ABC’s prime-time drama Nashville was heralded by critics as the best of TV’s fall pilots. Clearly Music City has reached a tipping point, attracting not just songwriters hoping to be discovered at the Bluebird Cafe, but young artisans, chefs, mixologists, and the media who follow them.

The last time we wrote about Nashville was May 2010, the month the Cumberland River rose twelve feet above flood level and did $2 billion worth of damage to private property. At the risk of jinxing the city again, we decided to revisit and get beyond the usual tourist spots. Here are our suggestions for a December trip.

For Couples: Discovering Indie Artisans. Nashville is like Asheville with fashion sense. There are pockets of originality scattered all over town. Marathon Village, a restored nineteenth-century motor factory, houses Antique Archaeology, a trove of Americana curated by American Pickers star Mike Wolfe, and the joint workshop of Otis James and Emil Erwin, whose handcrafted ties and leather goods were discovered by Garden & Gun when the two proprietors were still in their respective garages. Fun stops in the 12South neighborhood include Katy K Designs (vintage fringe and rhinestones) and Imogene + Willie, which stitches custom-tailored jeans on-site. (There’s no sign. Look for an orange cross on an old white gas station.) Two Old Hippies in the Gulch district is like Urban Outfitters for grown-ups. The craft cocktail movement is going strong here too. Start with No. 308, where the bar is papered with pages from Charles Bukowski novels, then head over to Holland House, where you can watch dapper bartenders and settle into its lavender-colored, decadent opulence. Above speakeasy-style Patterson House is the Catbird Seat—among Bon Appétit’s top ten new restaurants of 2012. Snag one of its thirty-two seats and watch star chefs Josh Habiger and Erik Anderson riff on regional flavors with dishes like maple thyme custard served with a strip of bacon in an eggshell.

For Girlfriend Getaways: Holiday Shopping in Green Hills. It may be sacrilegious to suggest that Atlantans leave town to shop, but Nashville offers a reprieve from seasonal Buckhead frenzy. The swanky Mall at Green Hills has top designers, including Kate Spade, Jimmy Choo, and Tory Burch. Nearby open-air Hill Center has national brands such as Billy Reid and Anthropologie plus local boutiques like H. Audrey, where Hank Williams’s granddaughter provides top labels (Helmut Lang, Rag & Bone, Raquel Allegra) to clients like Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow. But don’t overlook obscure centers, especially Greenbriar Village (Levy’s Clothier; Parnassus Books, owned by writer Ann Patchett; and kitschy classic Donut Den) and Grace’s Plaza (sparkly pink Dotted Line paper boutique, skin-care products/spa Private Edition, Corzine & Co. china). Brunch at Margot, a quaint French cafe with mismatched china and peppery cucumber-infused Bloody Marys. Stay in historic Union Station Hotel and gossip all night on the cozy sofas beneath the lobby’s stained-glass, barrel-vaulted ceiling.

For Families: Country Christmas at Opryland. With nearly 3,000 rooms, Gaylord Opryland is the largest nongaming hotel in the continental United States, and the glass-covered biodome feels more than a little like Las Vegas—down to the indoor quarter-mile boat ride around Delta Island, where you’ll float past banana trees and rushing waterfalls. Families save all year for annual trips to the Country Christmas celebration, which includes 2 million pounds of Shrek-themed ice sculptures and slides, horse-drawn carriages, a Christmas village, gingerbread workshops, dinner shows, and the Rockettes. At the four-diamond hotel’s signature Old Hickory Steakhouse, the old-school waiters are so gracious and the orchids so lush, you almost believe the streetlamps are really glowing over the Mississippi River. (Christmas packages from $225/night.)

Natchez Trace

Charles Bethea — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:31:00 GMT

I smelled something dead as I mounted my LeMond. The temperature was already topping 90 degrees before eleven in the morning on the outskirts of Nashville. Larry and Dianne Butler, who had shuttled me upstate from their place in Collinwood to the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace Parkway, joked that the smell was another bicyclist who had “keeled over right quick.” They poured ice from their cooler into my CamelBak and hoped they’d see me again.

I was attempting a two-day, 100-mile ride along the trace, a National Scenic Byway that wends 444 miles from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. The road has no stop signs or stop lights—only forest, farmland, creeks, antebellum homes, battlefields, and towns where you can get anything fried.

But on this July day, a high of 104 was forecast.

For nearly five decades now, Dianne, who has the matronly habit of looking over her glasses, has run a beauty parlor (“$9 for a shampoo and a set stiff as a board”) in Collinwood, where she and Larry grew up and married at age eighteen. A few years ago, Larry—who worked for Murray bicycles until the plant closed in 2005—added a handsome, air-conditioned apartment. Folks following the footsteps of bison, Native Americans, Meriwether Lewis, and Andrew Jackson stay with the Butlers and bring word of the outside world.

Now sixty-six, the Butlers are two of the kind people who operate the thirty-seven B&B-type inns along the trace, following the tradition of the original “stands” on its ancient route through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. With the help of the Natchez Trace Bed and Breakfast Reservation Service, I booked two nights with the Butlers and one at a farm in Santa Fe (pronounced “Santa Fee”), Tennessee.

After steak biscuits at the Loveless Cafe—a legendary meat-and-three since 1951 that happens to be at the trail’s end—the Butlers drove off, and I got on my bike with four liters of water, country ham and biscuits, and a few other supplies. My map showed a lunch stop and a few historical points of interest. Mostly it was just silky-smooth blacktop through a green tunnel, with no billboards or computer screens and very few cars.

I passed through oak, poplar, sycamore, gum, and pine trees and saw more beasts than bikers: turkey, rabbit, deer, and a red-tailed hawk. The trace follows a ridge and was originally a game trail, later used by Native Americans and then traders traveling to the “Old Southwest.” There was a double-arch bridge at my mile six. A beautiful creek at mile nineteen. At mile twenty-one: the Tennessee Valley divide, which in 1796 marked the line between the United States and the Chickasaw Nation.

By midafternoon I was at Creekview Farm, where a well-appointed farmhouse awaited me for the night. Dinner was all-you-can-eat at a backwoods Cajun place called Papa Boudreaux’s. The food—crawfish etouffee, gumbo, jambalaya, andouille sausage—wasn’t a far cry from Cafe Du Monde, or I was famished. Maybe both.

The next day I rode seventy miles, stopping frequently to switch soaked bandanas, relax in the shade of old tobacco barns and valley overlooks, and eat chocolate-chip cookies from the farm. I took an unintentional nap not far from the grave of Meriwether Lewis, who died on the trail (cause debated) in 1809, barely beyond my age when his life ended. I pondered my own mortality and popped a handful of Advil.

When I finally arrived back at Collinwood, Dianne handed me a Sun Drop and invited me to grill some burgers with Larry. I was already dreaming about making the trip when the leaves turn.

Photograph courtesy of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development

Charlotte, NC

Richard Thurmond — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:00:00 GMT

As I sat on the outdoor patio of the restaurant Halcyon, watching dusk settle over Charlotte’s glittering uptown, sipping a cocktail made from local moonshine, oolong tea, chai, and tamarind, I savored the challenge of writing about my adopted city.

Below my second-story perch, a just-married couple were getting their picture taken beneath Niki de Saint Phalle’s Firebird, a seventeen-foot-tall sculpture covered in thousands of tiny mirrors. Firebird was installed in late 2009 in front of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, a cantilevered jewel box designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta that opened two months later. The sculpture was an immediate icon and the exclamation point of a last gasp of breathtaking growth, before the financial crisis brought banking center Charlotte to its knees. Maybe it was the moonshine, but watching the couple start their new life called to mind Charlotte’s reboot since that week in 2008 when we lost Wachovia and Bank of America went on life support.

Bill Russ / Visitnc.com

Turns out it hardly mattered. After years of looking outward for inspiration and validation, Charlotte finally began to take care of its own. The result is a New South metropolis full of chef-driven restaurants, public art, craft breweries, and vibrant neighborhoods. This fall Charlotte will host the Democratic National Convention. It’s our Olympic moment.

Which makes it a perfect time for Atlantans to plan a trip up I-85. Make uptown—that’s what we call our downtown, because it sounds classier—your home base. The 700-room Westin Charlotte, designed by Atlanta’s John Portman, is located two blocks each from Levine Center for the Arts, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and Bank of America Stadium. The latter is where Cam Newton will temporarily cede the spotlight to Barack Obama on September 4.

Levine Center includes Firebird, three art museums, and a theater. If you missed it in Atlanta, catch Tavis Smiley’s America I Am exhibit at The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. Highlights at the Mint Museum Uptown include Madeleine Albright’s pins (through September 23) and work by native son Romare Bearden.

On the north end of uptown is Levine Museum of the New South. The New York Times fave offers an unvarnished view of the post–Civil War South. Your kids will love trying on hats at the Belk department store and climbing into the barber’s chair.

After a day of culture, nourishment is in order. Halcyon and Harvest Moon Grille are farm-to-fork favorites, or try the hot new Spanish tapas joint Malabar.

If you want to feel like a local, head to Montford Drive. This unassuming street, about a ten-minute drive from uptown, hosts a collection of neighborhood bars and restaurants. Brothers Bruce and Kerry Moffet man the kitchen at Good Food on Montford, a delightful small-plates bistro whose name is an understatement. Order the steamed bun with five-spiced pork belly. After dinner, stroll across the street to the area’s newest hot spot, 10 Park Lanes. Four buddies recently remade this vintage bowling alley into a hip gathering place, with a full lineup of local craft beers and, yes, twelve moonshine taps. Because while Charlotte may be dressing up for company come September, we haven’t forgotten our roots.

Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Bill Addison — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:00:00 GMT

As a native marylander, I’ve crossed the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge—commonly known as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge—hundreds of times, but its majesty still amazes. The twin spans, with arching cables suspended between towers that look like giant steel rulers in the distance, curve over four miles of dark, choppy water (that’s more than twice the length of the Golden Gate Bridge). About a forty-five-minute drive from Baltimore and an hour from Washington, D.C., the bridge links Maryland’s urban, congested Western Shore to its intently rural Eastern Shore. When I was young, my family made yearly outings to Ocean City, the Eastern Shore’s sprawling resort destination along the Atlantic. These days I prefer to linger a bit more inland, meandering through the area’s small, relaxed towns and absorbing the Chesapeake’s calming beauty.

Easton, thirty miles from the Bay Bridge, makes an ideal central base for explorations. It began as a colonial community in the early 1700s, and history buffs can visit the Third Haven Meeting House, a Quaker gathering place completed in 1684 that remains in use. A wealthy populace of D.C. commuters and retirees makes Easton the Eastern Shore’s biggest haven for the arts. Galleries line the verdant streets of its small downtown, and the Academy Art Museum holds a permanent collection whose works of American artists include James A.M. Whistler and Richard Diebenkorn. My current favorite place to stay there is the Bartlett Pear Inn (rates $169 to $279 in the summer), a bed-and-breakfast with charming, colorful rooms and a fine-dining restaurant. Co-owner and chef Jordan Lloyd, an Easton native, cooked around the country—including a stint at Alpharetta’s defunct Trattoria Monaco in the mid-2000s—before opening the inn with his wife, Alice, three years ago. Lloyd skillfully incorporates local meats and vegetables (order anything with sweet corn and tomatoes) into his ever-changing menu.

If you’re in Maryland in the summer, you should of course eat at least one dinner at a crab house. At the Masthead at Pier Street Marina, a restaurant on the edge of the water in sleepy Oxford, twenty minutes from Easton, order cream of crab soup (a local tradition) and the steamed crabs served on brown butcher paper. If you’re a newbie, a server will gladly introduce you to the art of picking crabs using a paring knife and a wooden mallet. Raucous Harris Crab House, just ten minutes over the Bay Bridge, often sources the heftiest crabs; its “jumbo” or “extra-large” sizes yield the most succulent lumps of meat.

In nearby Saint Michaels, a historic port town that’s popular with tourists, you can board the Skipjack Rebecca T. Ruark, a working seafood boat, for a two-hour cruise that includes an oyster-dredging demonstration. Landlubbers may prefer a slow drive or meditative hike through the 27,000-acre Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, absorbing the marshy, otherworldly flux between land and water while looking out for ospreys and, if you’re lucky, a bald eagle.

Photograph by Ralph Young

Dahlonega Spa Resort, GA

Rebecca Burns — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Every yoga practitioner quickly learns to love one posture: savasana, the flat-on-your-back, arms-and-legs-flopped-out attitude of rest that concludes every class. But despite years of yoga, I had my first savasana epiphany lying on the varnished plank floor of a lodge in rural Georgia. As rain rhythmically pinged the tin roof and trees swayed in time outside, I finally experienced the mind-emptying total relaxation that earns savasana the name “corpse pose.” What’s truly mystic is that the journey from high stress to moment of Zen came after a quick drive up GA 400 to the Blue Ridge foothills and Dahlonega Spa Resort.

Dahlonega, site of the first U.S. gold rush and home of the Military College of Georgia (aka North Georgia College & State University), seems an unlikely place to achieve enlightenment, but for nearly a decade, R&R Resorts has promoted this Southern-tinged cousin to its yoga retreat centers in Costa Rica and Tulum. Sprawling over seventy-two pristine acres, Dahlonega Spa Resort includes a wide-porched farmhouse and a cluster of wood-shingled cabins that give off the vibe of an old-time Scout camp but are in fact new additions, holding a yoga studio, spa, and secluded accommodations. You can come for a reclusive escape (no TVs or telephones in guest rooms), attend an intensive retreat (like this month’s Yoga with Heart workshop), or book one of the semistructured packages. My daughter and I scheduled a two-night “wellness getaway,” which includes meals, two yoga classes, and a spa session. (March to November all-inclusive rates for this package range from $361 to $739 per person.)

We checked into one of the private cabins before attending our first yoga class. And after that mind-altering savasana, we walked through the rain to the main building for dinner—ravenous despite a precautionary pit stop on the drive up. “There might be nothing but quinoa and wheatgrass for the next three days,” my daughter had warned. As it turned out, DSR served fresh, healthy food in abundance. The four-course dinner selections included pan-roasted pork loin, roasted chicken breast, and a vegetarian-friendly stuffed portobello mushroom, paired with selections from local vineyards. We passed up triple-chocolate mousse in favor of blueberry cobbler and blueberry sorbet.

Balance—physical and mental—is a yoga leitmotif that aptly describes the resort, where the focus on escaping modern stressors is paired with simple indulgences. Our cabin was modestly furnished but hardly monastic (assuming monks don’t buy Martha Stewart matelassé bedding). The spare decor only underscored the scenic beauty, like the stout gray rabbit taking shelter from the rain under the porch of a neighboring cabin.

The next morning we walked along a trail that wound past a creek and dipped down a steep hill, where docile black cows grazed in a startlingly green meadow. More outdoorsy types can find adventurous hikes nearby, including Amicalola Falls, the highest cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi River. Mellower travelers will appreciate tours of neighboring wineries; BlackStock Vineyards & Winery is just a mile away. We opted to laze on our cabin porch until it was time for massages, expertly performed by highly skilled staff. Later we soaked in the enormous hot tub as spring breezes rocked the towering trees around us.

Another epiphany came as we walked back to our cabin after dinner. Looking up at the inky sky, we were mesmerized by stars as bright and bold as the illustrations in an elementary school science book.

Photograph courtesy of Dahlonega Spa Resort

Rebecca Burns is Emmis Publishing's director of digital strategy.
Learn more about her | Contact her

Apalachicola, FL

Nan K. Chase — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

Dawn came so softly that I could hear a dolphin breathing, exhaling through its blowhole while swimming slowly up the Apalachicola River only a few feet away. I had just settled onto a porch chair with my coffee at the elegant Water Street Hotel & Marina, as sunrise painted the watery landscape before me: the channel deep blue, the islands of tall grass beyond it the color of wheat, the sky streaked pink and orange.

Then, with the sun above the horizon, the whole scene burst into life. A cormorant, its iridescent dark feathers painted red-gold by the sun’s rays, surfaced from its dive with a little fish snug in its beak. A majestic osprey flew past so close to my second-story balcony that I could read the few brown spots on its snowy breast; a moment later it flew by in the opposite direction, now with a fish clasped in its talons, on its way back to a car-sized nest high up across the delta.

White herons, blue herons, green herons. Eagles and owls. Plus river otters, raccoons, bobcat, deer, and alligators, all inhabiting more than a half million acres of public wilderness—Apalachicola National Forest—so close by. During our latest trip to the remote Florida Panhandle oyster port of Apalachicola, my husband and I felt like spectators at nature’s pageant. Last fall, it had been just eighteen months since the infamous BP oil spill, but we saw no trace of ecological damage.

The historic town of Apalachicola is Florida unplugged and unglitzy, still a working port that supplies 90 percent of the state’s oyster harvest, plus shrimp, grouper, snapper, even jellyfish for Asian markets. The bounty of its waterways, where freshwater meets salt, makes the area fascinating to explore by boat. Franklin County boasts nearly twenty marinas and some fifty registered guides (inns are happy to make recommendations). Tours range from kayaking and pontoon rides up the jungle-lined Apalachicola River to oystering excursions in shallow Apalachicola Bay. Fishing options include inshore saltwater, freshwater, offshore saltwater, and surf fishing. Summer tarpon charters sometimes sell out a year in advance.

A chain of barrier islands shelters the bay from the nearby Gulf. At public parks such as St. George Island State Park, Alligator Harbor Aquatic Preserve, and Dog Island, the powdery white sand is brilliant and the surf wild. Rare flora like dwarf cypress trees and native pitcher plants, plus endangered fauna like black bears and manatees—reportedly the greatest biodiversity in the nation—draw hikers and ecotourists.

After trying other options, Saul and I now stay at Water Street, just four blocks from town along the tidal marsh. These apartments are large and luxurious, with full kitchens and screened balconies for taking in the superb river view. We love to rent bikes from the hotel and cycle around the historic district, stopping to sample oysters or admire the hundreds of nineteenth-century houses surrounded by moss-draped live oaks.

Mainly we like to eat. Apalachicola Bay is the only place in the country where wild oysters are still harvested by hand with tongs. A favorite haunt of ours, Boss Oyster, sends its own oyster boat out daily and offers the catch in dozens of configurations. Next door, Caroline’s River Dining serves up great riverside views along with middle-brow gourmet fare like soft-shell crabs Benedict on fluffy homemade biscuits. Best of all may be Up The Creek Raw Bar, walking distance from downtown like everything else in Apalachicola. It’s a jolly barn of a restaurant with a skillful locavore chef and two outdoor decks perched over the wide river—the perfect place to be when the sun goes down.

Photograph courtesy of Apalachicola Bay Chamber

Greenville, SC

Amanda Heckert — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 13:00:00 GMT

While driving through downtown Greenville, South Carolina, after a recent visit to my parents’ house nearby, my husband—who has called New York and L.A. home—turned to me and said, “I wouldn’t mind living here one day.” I was stunned to realize that I agreed with him. In the eight years since I left the Upstate, this stretch has somehow evolved into one of the Southeast’s most vibrant Main Streets.

Photograph courtesy of the Greenville CVB

Once the “textile center of the South,” Greenville’s core dwindled with outsourcing and suburban flight in the seventies. But rather than accept the inevitability of urban decay, prescient city leaders reduced driving lanes, added curbside parking, and planted saplings along the sidewalks to make the area pedestrian friendly. With the addition of a world-class (and lately expanded) Peace Center for the Performing Arts in the nineties, those early efforts finally paid off.

Visiting now, I spy lights twinkling in what has become a mature canopy of oaks and maples. Families, college kids, young professionals, and baby boomers alike throng Main Street’s mile-long corridor, ducking in and out of specialty shops: cute boutiques, a dog bakery, art galleries, the always chaotic Mast General Store, and Dark Corner Distillery, offering the Palmetto State’s first legal moonshine.

A brass quartet plays outside the Westin Poinsett, Greenville. In fact, street performances—from concert series to October zombie walks—often enliven downtown plazas. The once-condemned Poinsett, carefully restored to four-diamond, Prohibition-era elegance, bewitched even George Clooney, who made it his home while filming Leatherheads nearby.

The Reedy—whose currents powered Greenville’s early settlements and mills—buoyed the city again when Falls Park opened by its shoals in 2004. Here visitors can rent Reedy Rides bikes and hop on the Swamp Rabbit Tram Trail, a new thirteen-plus-mile greenway that runs to neighboring Greenville Zoo.

Falls Park also forms a gateway to the revived historic West End, a once-derelict landscape of warehouses and rail yards. A free trolley rolls by, taking sightseers past native “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s house museum and five-year-old Fluor Field—home to a Red Sox affiliate and a miniature Green Monster.

When hunger calls, I face a dilemma unfathomable a few years ago: too many buzzed-about, chef-driven restaurants. Greenville’s dining revival took off in the late nineties when Carl Sobocinski opened nouveau Southern Soby’s in a renovated cotton exchange. Now Soby’s has its own farm, and its owners have other hits like the Lazy Goat (with tapas such as bisteeya, a savory Moroccan pastry) and the Nose Dive gastropub. I finally settle on American Grocery Restaurant, known for sustainable seafood.

Another marvel: growing global eats. Popular downtown spots like chichi Persian Pomegranate on Main and Belgium-focused the Trappe Door, with its 150-plus beers, are a byproduct of Greenville’s influx of international firms. Michelin and BMW top that list, and the latter’s Performance Driving School draws fast-lane fans from across the nation.

My night ends at West End’s the Velo Fellow, a public house with lovely craft beers—the names of which I struggle to hear over the din of young swains in suspenders and handlebar mustaches. But to me, seeing Greenville thrive is worth a bit of noise.

Amanda Heckert is our senior editor.
Learn more about her | Follow her on Twitter | Contact her

Key West, FL

Margit Bisztray — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:00 GMT

Like the best Key West stories, this one begins at a bar. I'm at the Porch, which specializes in craft beer and catchy wines and occupies a corner of a Victorian mansion with, indeed, a grand porch. Bartender Livi Lavery (a former New York City Ballet dancer who stands like she’s about to plié) serves a typical crowd, which in this—our nation's southernmost city—means one of everyone. Today a boat mate, a stylish couple (clearly out-of-towners), and three girlfriends loudly recounting bad dates fill the L-shaped bar lit by a crystal chandelier. When a pirate impersonator enters, the full effect hits me: There's truly no place like Key West.

Photograph by Nick Doll Photography

It's not just the great bars and infinite characters; it's that the old never feels old here. This 1838 mansion, for example, was most famously home to Florida’s first health officer, Dr. J.Y. Porter, who is said to haunt it—along with some patients who succumbed to yellow fever. U.S. poet laureate Robert Frost stayed in the cottage behind it on visits between 1945 and 1960 and penned the poem "The Gift Outright" here. Of course, the town is also associated with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Jimmy Buffett.

Nearby on Duval Street—basically Key West's equivalent of New Orleans's Bourbon Street, spanning nearly the width of the island—Nine One Five restaurant has invigorated another Victorian gem. On the swooping spindle porch, contemporary chairs match the classic sky-blue shutters. Belying the white picket fence, its menu is anything but small-town or conventional. Try ahi tuna domed over lemon-miso-dressed lump crab, or Key West grouper on creamed lentils with smoked tomato butter. Upstairs at Point5 lounge, cocktails are as savvy as the hot spot’s late-night nibbles (duck confit pizza, Asian ribs). Owner Stuart Kemp crafts his own tonic from a base of Peruvian quinine.

Stick with the retro vibe at two revitalized 1950s-era motor inns. One block off Duval Street, the Blue Marlin Motel's original marquee now fronts an updated facade of muted teal, orange, and khaki, with stainless steel accents. On Duval, the Orchid Key Inn was transformed from a derelict eyesore into a plush, stylish oasis with premium beds and, in a former toolshed, the hippest little poolside bar in town, the Orchid Bar. If you prefer hotels, check out the Ocean Key Resort & Spa, with a magnificent view of the harbor.

Because it has a coral foundation (keys arise from dead reefs), the area is not known for soft sand beaches. Best bet for swimming is Fort Zachary Taylor State Park (swim shoes recommended to protect your feet).

Key West is more about soaking up the town than soaking up rays. Vintage charm meets modern style at the boutique Besame Mucho. Housed in a former cigar maker's cottage, the cute shop offers such old-fashioned sundries as letterpressed note cards, silk ribbon, and Kiehl's products. A more artsy stop is Archeo gallery, which features hand-knotted Gabbeh rugs from Iran, museum-worthy African sculptures (the sort that inspired cubism), Javanese furniture, and bead jewelry.

Always encouraging new means of expression is the Studios of Key West. Housed in a 1901 armory, the studios feature ongoing exhibits, concerts, performances, and workshops (songwriting, acting, silk-screening), all open to the public.

As the pirate impersonator breaks into magic tricks, it's time for me to go. But before I do, I raise my IPA to him, the ghosts, and a town that never shows its age.

The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation

Bill Addison — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

The Ritz-Carlton properties in Atlanta typify the cosmopolitanism that defines the hotel brand the world over. The Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead, with its honeyed wood paneling and portraits that recall John Singer Sargent, basks in clubby stateliness. The Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta, the Downtown sibling, distinguishes itself with abstract art and shiny, contemporary furniture in the lobby. (The clean-lined guest rooms of the two hotels actually look quite similar.) But their country cousin, the Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation, comes at luxury from a much more calming vantage. Seventy-five miles from Atlanta and situated on a jut of land surrounded by Lake Oconee on three sides, the resort is the closest retreat from the city to combine pastoral beauty and sumptuous trappings so seamlessly.

Photograph courtesy of The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation

Wood-beam cathedral ceilings, roaring stone fireplaces, and plush, mismatched chairs set a welcoming tone in the lodge’s entrance. Staffers employ the signature Ritz politeness: Every other sentence ends with “my pleasure.” The decor—floral patterns; duck prints; lots of golds, greens, and burgundies—in the 200-plus rooms and six lakefront cottages is formal but not stuffy.

I’m the type who values stillness in this kind of setting. With book in hand, I want to find a spot by a window with a tranquilizing view of the lake glimpsed through spindly pine trees. But really, this resort is designed for restless Type A personalities. There are almost too many available activities. The adjoining Reynolds Plantation community includes five golf courses, designed by big names like Jack Nicklaus and Rees Jones. The lodge’s 1,700-square-foot fitness center has a heated indoor pool and offers yoga and Pilates classes. In suitable weather, the hotel can arrange for canoeing, kayaking, waterskiing, fishing, pontoon rentals, horseback riding, and skeet shooting. An ice-skating rink has been set up through February 15. Five miles of walking and hiking trails wind through nearby wooded areas. (The Reynolds family, who began developing the land in the 1980s, reportedly owes lenders $157 million. Courts have appointed a third-party guardian who is seeking new investors to maintain the community’s luxe standards.)

The resort’s swank spa offers all sorts of edible-sounding experiences (a blueberry facial, a chocolate latte manicure or pedicure), but if you’re after a consummate massage, ask for Eddie Abraham, a therapist for twelve years who also teaches at the Atlanta School of Massage. In April the lodge unveiled a complete renovation of its Linger Longer Steakhouse, which had closed in August 2009 after a kitchen fire. Housed in a separate building, its rustic grandeur mirrors the main lodge. The cocktail list often features fruity contrivances, but bartenders also know how to pour a stiff old-fashioned. Tuna tartare, nicely charred bone-in rib-eyes or Kansas City strip, and a finale of Grand Marnier–white chocolate soufflé make for a solid, sleep-inducing meal—though don’t come expecting Bone’s-level quality.

The lodge crams in events during weekends in December: workshops for decorating gingerbread houses, arts and crafts classes for kids, guided “sleigh rides” (on Segway Personal Transporters) around Reynolds Plantation, multicourse meals for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. But if you come to escape the holiday hustle and bustle, you can find solace in the property’s many quiet nooks, too.

The Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation, 1 Lake Oconee Trail, Greensboro, 706-467-0600, ritzcarltonlodge.com. Rooms from $199 per night weekdays, $279 per night weekends; lakeside, two-bedroom cottages from $999 per night.

Bill Addison is our food editor and restaurant critic.
Learn more about him | Follow him on Twitter | Contact him

Flat Rock, NC

Amanda Heckert — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:00:00 GMT

My friend and I followed national park ranger Peter Goldsmith into the modest, fifties-era living room of Connemara, Pulitzer-winning poet Carl Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock, North Carolina. “Have you ever been to Biltmore?” Goldsmith asked, referring to George Vanderbilt’s Gilded Age chateau in Asheville. “This is the antithesis of that.”

Photograph of the Flat Rock Playhouse courtesy of the Flat Rock Playhouse

A similar comparison could be made between Flat Rock and Asheville—the former a little more weathered, a little less tended than its neighbor thirty miles to the north. But both towns beckoned wealthy coastal Carolinians retreating from the oppressive summer heat; Flat Rock became known as “Little Charleston of the Mountains.” Sandburg, urged by his wife, Lilian, relocated here in 1945 due to the extremes of another season—winter in Michigan.

White-columned Connemara with its 264-acre grounds was the first poet’s residence to be named a National Historic Site, in 1968, a year after Sandburg died. The $5 home tour will mesmerize logophiles: 11,000-plus books on floor-to-ceiling shelves, spines begging to be read; stacks of historic magazines (Sandburg had subscriptions to fifty); the folk-singing writer’s guitar. Periodic storytelling events keep the literary legacy alive (Christmas at Connemara is next, on December 10). And kids love petting the descendants of Lilian’s prize Chikaming dairy goats, lolling in the pastures out back.

Flat Rock eschews the airs of other Tar Heel towns popular with Atlantans. Meadows and lawns overflow with wildflowers, and anachronistic window units dot most lodges and inns. The shadows cast by towering Glassy Mountain—the top of which can be reached via a dog-friendly walking trail at Connemara—further blur Flat Rock’s place in time.

Staying at the 1852-built, Victorian Mansouri Mansion—which claims to be the oldest inn in North Carolina—corroborates the bygone mood, with its chandeliers, sweeping veranda, and Confederate portraits; a pub and cozy, Gallic-influenced restaurant cheer the place. Families may prefer the privacy afforded by Highland Lake Inn. Its resortlike campus includes storybook cottages, and afternoons can be spent paddleboating or canoeing on the lake, practicing yoga, or exploring the organic garden that supplies on-site Season’s restaurant, easily Flat Rock’s finest (yet still pretty relaxed) dining. Its abundant Sunday buffet is much heralded, but dinner, with gourmet specials such as duck cloistered in fig preserves and parsnip risotto, also entices, especially on Flat Rock Playhouse performance nights.

The playhouse, North Carolina’s state theater, celebrates its sixtieth anniversary next year, and traveling from all over the Carolinas to see musicals and plays there is a regional tradition. Its barnlike venue rests on the sprawling slab of granite for which the town is named, perfectly reflecting Flat Rock’s alluring rusticity. A few wobbly accents aside, a recent weeknight rendition of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap impressed—and was packed (mostly with retirees, who, along with artists, seem to be the burg’s bread and butter). A summer music series and a new outpost in nearby Hendersonville have sparked a younger generation’s interest.

There, pubs, jewelry and antiques shops, an old-timey soda fountain, and a top-notch family bakery, McFarlan, line Main Street. Labor Day’s annual North Carolina Apple Festival is a favorite time to visit. Pick a bushel (or grab some apple cider donuts) at Sky Top Orchard.

Amanda Heckert is our senior editor.
Learn more about her | Follow her on Twitter | Contact her