I’ve had the opportunity to ring the bells at the Church of St. Anne Shandon in Cork, Ireland, and at the Church of the Assumption on an island in Lake Bled, Slovenia. But, for the most part, my experiences with bell towers have been restricted to admiring their vertical beauty and listening to their heavenly music, and that’s rewarding enough. No matter their purpose, from cheerful chimes on college campuses to somber tolling marking a funeral, bell towers make for striking exclamation points in a cityscape. Read about the top five bell towers >
Tag Archives: Portugal
Porto’s Vogue Café Defines Taste—and Tastiness
I had been enjoying a generous breakfast spread at Infante Sagres, a luxury hotel in the heart of Porto, every morning for a week at the hotel’s Vogue Café. On my last night in town, I returned to the swanky café for dinner and was rewarded with the best meal of my entire trip to Portugal. Read about it >
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Hell on Earth
It’s as hot as hell. People from Arizona to Austin to Athens have all been saying it this summer. Again. Climate change has been setting our world on fire for years, and comparisons to that underworld of eternal heat and suffering are getting more and more realistic. But what of that actual place reserved, if you believe it, for unrepentant sinners? No one knows what it looks like (even if you visit Hell on Grand Cayman). But artists have imagined Hell in the most terrifying ways for centuries—and they’re enough to, well, scare the hell out of you while you’re still here on Earth. Read about the top five depictions of Hell >
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Dinner With a South American Connection in Porto, Portugal
Freedom Square in the heart of Porto, Portugal, is bustling all day. At night, some of the city’s grandest buildings take on new life when illuminated in flattering white lights. One of them, Hotel Aliados, houses Guarany Café, a nearly century-old café and restaurant that acknowledges the South American Guarani Indians in a nod to Portugal’s colonization of Brazil that resulted in the smaller country’s coffee culture. It’s the perfect place to sit outdoors and enjoy both the view and a wonderful meal served by waiters who take their job very seriously. Read about it >
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A Temporary Life of Luxury in Porto
If you’re going to splurge on a place to stay in Porto, Portugal, then you’d be wise to choose Infante Sagres. For more than 70 years, this elegant fixture in the city’s accommodations has been providing five-star service to everyone from Bob Dylan to the queen of the Netherlands, and now me. Combining polished elegance, Old World attention to detail and contemporary comforts, outstanding service, and an enviable location, Infante Sagres practically guarantees you a highly memorable stay. Read about it >
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Elevador Elevates the Dining Experience in Lisbon
Along a black-and-white–stone pedestrian street, just a few blocks from the handy, if always crowded, Santa Justa Lift that whisks you between the upper and lower parts of Lisbon, Portugal, I found the aptly named Elevador. With live fado music in the background, the setting is perfect for a wonderful meal in Baixa, the city’s historic heart and commercial center. Read about it >
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Dinner With the Sailor
Directly across the street from my excellent hotel in Porto, Infante Sagres, a cluster of restaurants faces the odd tunnel that swallows up vehicular traffic in the middle of a square. They’re extremely popular, to the point where it was difficult to score a table. So I bumped up my dinner time earlier than the usual Portuguese tradition and took a seat at O Marinheiro, which translates as “the sailor.” Read about it >
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Bed and Dinner in Lisbon
In the popular Baixa neighborhood of Lisbon, Portugal, menus come in up to 12 languages and staff try to lure you into the touristy restaurants as you walk by. Fortunately, Taberna 132 wasn’t as aggressive, and the outdoor seating was inviting. It also just happened to be on the ground floor of my accommodations, Behotelisboa, and after a full day of exploring this exhaustingly hilly city, the thought of just retiring upstairs for the night after dinner made it even more appealing. Read about it >
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Bodies of Work
If you feel like the weight of the world is sometimes pressing down on you, imagine if an actual building were doing the same thing. Since the sixth century BC in ancient Greece, stone women have been supporting entablatures on their heads; their male counterparts came along a little later, in the Greek cities in Sicily and southern Italy. These caryatids and atlantids not only served a practical function, as a column or pillar to support the weight of a structure, but they also added impressive panache. Read about the top five atlantids and caryatids >
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How Great Thou Arch
They seem simple: vertical curved structures that span an open space and may, or may not, support weight above it. Of course, arches are much more complicated than that, a complex balance of compression, stress, thrust, bracings, and transference. The Mesopotamians got the jump on them four thousand years ago, but it was the Romans who used them systematically in a wide range of structures, leading eventually to a worldwide adaptation of this most beautiful form. Read about the top five arches >
Stephen Travels 