Slow Europe

One of the things that I love in France, Germany and Switzerland is the bread! A basket of perfect croissants in the morning at a cafe in France, a bakery with at least ten types of fresh baked bread in Germany, the wonderful whole wheat breads served for breakfast in a tea room in Switzerland.

We have great quality bread in North America too - it is not all Wonder Bread here! In Santa Fe, Sage Bakehouse produces artisanal, organic bread.

Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan St Bakery in New York City, makes good European-style bread. You can purchase it at their store and other NYC locations. A couple of years ago, he published his recipe for No-Knead Bread on his website. A version of his recipe was printed in the New York Times in November 2006 - No-Knead Bread - and (it seems like) everyone in the US started making this bread.

My friend Chris (Slow Travel moderator) posted about it in the Food Forum on the Slow Travel Forums and many Slow Travelers started making bread and experimenting with the recipe (the Food Forum is for paid members only - they have a lively exchange of recipes). I missed all this because I did not read the food forum; I assumed they were always talking about meat, sugar and wine - which I am not interested in. Boy, was I wrong - my apologies to the Food Forum Followers!!

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I love the “travel dancing” videos by Matt Harding. The first one came out in 2004 and word of it instantly spread through the travel communities. I watched it over and over. He expresses perfectly the joy of travel, the joy of life. Since that first video he has done two more. The most recent video, “Dancing”, is almost at 5 million views today on YouTube.

It will probably hit 5 millions views soon because there was a good article about him today in the New York Times. A Private Dance? Four Million Web Fans Say No, New York Times, Charles McGrath, July 8, 2008.

See all his videos - Matt Harding on YouTube.

More information on his website - Where the Hell is Matt? - which is down today, probably because 20 million of us just read the New York Times article and clicked on his website link.

Way to go Matt!! Keep dancing!!

David from Hotel Bandolero, who wrote Destination Guide: The Genal Valley in Southern Spain, sent me more photos of the Genal Valley. They are posted on Slow Europe Photos - Photos of the Genal Valley, southern Spain.

During the last few years of running the Slow Travel community I talked to many journalists and was mentioned in many magazines and newspapers. Pretty thrilling for someone whose name had never been in print until she was in her late 40s. If you look at my media scrapbook, you see it all fades away last year, after Internet Brands took over the SlowTrav site. My 15 minutes were over. Oh well.

But wait, either a new 15 minutes, or a few leftover seconds from the last 15 minutes! Last week I was contacted by Sunset magazine to be interviewed about Slow Travel in Santa Fe and the Southwest. After years of talking about vacation rentals in Europe and travel in Europe, it was refreshing to talk about Santa Fe and the Southwest.

It was a long interview about how to do Slow Travel in the southwest and some of our favorite places, plus some “insider’s” tips to Santa Fe, but it will all be edited down to a short article - with a photo! They sent out a local photographer - Jen Judge, a brilliant travel photographer. Back in 2003, when there was an article about Steve and I (and Slow Travel) in the Albuquerque Journal, they sent a photographer. He took a couple of snaps of us outside and a couple of me at my desk. That was it.

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Europeans have been staying in vacation rentals throughout Europe for decades. Renting a fully equipped cottage or apartment on a farm or in a town, for a week at a time, is a popular type of European holiday. Why not travel in Europe the way the Europeans do and stay in a vacation rental?

Then take it one step further and use the local vacation rental agencies that Europeans use. Over the next few months, I am going to profile some Europe-based vacation rental agencies (and a few great North America-based ones) that offer good service and give good value for money.

When I created the Slow Travel website and community I used the term “slow travel” to mean staying in vacation rentals, a week at a time, to experience a place in depth. My new website, Slow Europe, focuses on European vacation rentals: what to expect, how to find them, booking procedures, good places to visit in Europe. As I work through my list of favorite agencies and resources for finding European vacation rentals to create the Slow Europe site, I am writing about European travel and profiling some vacation rental agencies on this blog.

Interhome, Vacation Rentals and Villas in Europe 

The “Vacation Like a European” series starts with one of the oldest and largest vacation rental agencies based in Europe - Interhome. I met Claudio Loretz, Vanessa Montgomery and Ivona Davidson from the US offices of Interhome in April, at the Atlanta Vacation Home Expo. They had a booth across from our Slow Travel booth. For years I have seen their local offices when traveling in Europe, read their catalogs and looked at their website. I was pleased to meet their US representatives.

The CEO of Interhome, Simon Lehmann, was part of a panel discussion at the travel show and I found it interesting to see the difference in attitudes between the American vacation rental agencies and Interhome. The American agencies represent high end villas in the Caribbean and Europe and are selling to wealthy travelers. Interhome sells to a variety of travelers, from the budget traveler to the luxury traveler.

Many Americans think that vacation rentals in Europe are large, expensive, staffed villas that an average American traveler could not afford. This is not the case. Vacation rentals in Europe are inexpensive when compared per person/per day to hotels. They offer American travelers good European travel experiences at the level of luxury they choose. Luxury villas, some with staff, are available, but there are many moderate and budget priced vacation rentals to choose from.

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OpenSkies, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways (BA), starts service today with direct flights from New York (JFK) to Paris (Orly) - one flight a day. They plan to expand to flying from New York to several European destinations. Previously European airlines could not fly to or from the US from any country except their own. This all changed with the new Open Skies regulation (confusing, the airline has the same name as the regulation - but catchy too). My post on the Slow Travel Talk Forums (Dec 2007) has links to articles about this new legislation.

OpenSkies offers a premium 3-class service - Economy, Prem+, Biz - on fuel-efficient Boeing 757s, redesigned to reduce the standard 180 seat configuration to 82 seats. Biz (business class) has 24 seats (convert into flatbeds), Prem+ (premium economy) has 28 seats (wider seats with more recline and legroom than usually Premium Economy), Economy has 30 seats. As with all BA flights, seats are assigned at checkin (online checkin available 24 hrs ahead). The checked baggage allowance is similar: Economy passengers get 2 checked bags, Prem+ and Biz get 3.

The OpenSkies website has an overview of the features and a blog!

OpenSkies has a sale on Prem+ to Paris - $1500 plus $110 taxes return, book by July 4, travel from July 4 to August 31, return must be by August 31.

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Travel writer Susan Spano wrote a series of good articles about Rome for the Los Angeles Times. She is living in Rome and reporting from there. Today they were reprinted in our Santa Fe New Mexican. Here are the links to the original articles.

• Italy: At home in Rome - Times staffer Susan Spano finds that, minor hassles and high costs aside, Italy’s capital city is a fascinating place to settle down. By Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer. May 30, 2008
• Exploring Rome’s famous seven hills - Ancient and modern-day attractions beckon to the curious. By Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer. May 30, 2008
• 10 books and movies to prep for a trip to Rome - By Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer. May 30, 2008
• Budget travel in Rome - How to see the city without spending too much money. By Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer. May 30, 2008

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The Genal Valley of the Serranía de Ronda, Málaga, Andalusia

by David Nuyen from Hotel Bandolero,  Júzcar (Málaga), Spain

The quiet and restful Genal Valley has a history that goes back hundreds of years. It is located in La Serranía de Ronda (the Ronda Mountains) just to the south of the bustling white village of Ronda, near the Mediterranean coast in southern Spain.

The Genal Valley is sandwiched happily between two national parks, La Sierra de las Nieves and Grazalema, and it is commonly acknowledged as the greenest part of Andalusia.

The valley is divided into upper and lower sections, with the Alto Genal (upper valley) having seven pueblos blancos (white villages) while the Bajo Genal (lower valley) has eight.

Getting to the Genal Valley

There are two main roads that access the Genal Valley: 

• A369, known locally as the Ronda - Algeciras road, accesses both the lower and upper valleys.
• A397 (formerly known as A376), commonly referred to as the Ronda - San Pedro road accesses the upper valley only. Following the A397 up the mountain from the Costa del Sol town of San Pedro de Alcántara, the exit for the Alto Genal is 12km before Ronda.

The A397 is a winding mountain road with plenty of traffic, especially in the summer months. It will repay you with the fantastic views of the Spanish coast, Gibraltar and, on a clear day, the mountains of North Africa. Following the turn for the Genal Valley, you see six of the seven white villages of the upper valley.

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The American author Marlena de Blasi has written three good memoirs about living in Italy.

• A Thousand Days in Venice about meeting her husband Fernando, marrying him and moving to Venice.
• A Thousand Days in Tuscany: A Bittersweet Adventure about leaving Venice with Fernando and moving to a ramshackle farmhouse in southern Tuscany.
• The Lady in the Palazzo: At Home in Umbria about buying and renovating an apartment in an old Palazzo in Orvieto, Umbria.

Her latest book, That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story, is called a memoir, but is more of a novel about a family in a remote village in the mountains of Sicily.

Marlena de Blasi is on a book tour in the US for her latest book and stopped at Borders in Santa Fe last Sunday. Steve and I, and our friend Joan, went to see her. While I love reading her books, I always wondered what I would think of her if I ever got to meet her. Photos show her with dramatic makeup and her descriptions of herself in her books talk about her extravagant way of dressing (and all those velvet throw pillows in her house!!). I am more of a “no makeup and old blue jeans” kind of gal.

Well, I loved her! She was magnificent, captivating, enchanting. Yes, there was a lot of makeup, but she looked fabulous. Red lipstick, dark eye liner, dramatic black hair, beautiful russet jacket, big jewelry. She speaks with the most wonderful quiet, almost whispering, voice. She clearly has great passion for her life, her husband and her writing.

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I wrote my fourth blog article for the Tuscany Villas website. Read the article here: A Week in Tuscany, South of Siena. This is the last in a four part series about vacation rentals in Tuscany. It was easy to come up with a full week of day trips that kept you near your base in southern Tuscany. There is so much to see and do in that area.

The Montisi gang finished their week in Tuscany and you can read about it on their blogs:

• Jerry’s Thoughts, Musings, and Rants
• Sandi’s Whistlestop Cafe Cooking
• Palma’s  Palma’s Passions (she will be writing this week)

Summer has finally started in Santa Fe after a couple of weeks of rain and colder weather. Once again summer arrived quickly and caught me off guard. We have to start making some travel plans. Or, as it seems the rest of America is doing, we could stay home and enjoy the wonderful place where we live.