Every episode is chock-full of mouthwatering regional specialties prepared by chefs all over the country. For those wanting to follow in Stanley Tucci‘s footsteps, below is an episode-by-episode guide to all the
CNN
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There’s something strange going on in this Oregon neighborhood.
Sony and vacation rental company Vacasa have teamed up to offer one courageous group of friends an exclusive three-night stay in the Ghostbusters Firehouse.
The building, recreated from the 1984 film “Ghostbusters,” is in Portland – not New York City, where the film takes place. But it’s still the perfect place from which to launch a ghost-catching business.
The three-story firehouse features all the essentials: a P.K.E. Meter, Ghost Traps, Proton Packs, an Aura Video-Analyzer and an Ecto-Containment Unit to store the evil spirits you catch. Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters’ vehicle, is even parked in the firehouse bay.
Guests can wear the famous Ghostbusters fight suits and snack on Stay Puft Marshmallows, among other creepy activities. Just try not to make eye contact with the cursed painting of “Vigo the Carpathian,” the main antagonist of 1989’s “Ghostbusters II.”
“We’re dedicated to the details, and this Ghostbusters Firehouse in Portland is no exception,” Allison Lowrie, chief marketing officer at Vacasa, told CNN.
“Every room brings a new discovery, from an interactive Ghost Containment Unit to symmetrical book stacking and walls upon walls of scientific, ghost-hunting equipment. It’s designed to be enjoyed by Ghostbusters superfans and travelers with a sense of ’80s nostalgia alike.”
The immersive experience will take place from October 28 to 31, the perfect time of year to stir up spirits.
Guests brave enough to book the three-night stay can do so on October 21 at 10 a.m. PT for a nightly rate of $19.84. That rate was chosen in honor of the year Ghostbusters debuted, Vacasa said in a news release. The experience is first-come, first-serve, so mark your calendars.
And fear not, even if you can’t stay at the firehouse, you can still check out a Matterport 360 virtual tour of the building on the rental listing.
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By Peter Devane.
He’d spent years backpacking around the world, and Japanese traveler Daisuke Kajiyama was finally ready to return home to pursue his long-held dream of opening up a guesthouse.
In 2011, Kajiyama arrived back in Japan with his Israeli partner Hila, who he met in Nepal, and the pair set about finding the perfect location for their future venture.
However, there were a couple of major stumbling blocks in their way. To start with, Kajiyama had very little money to speak of after years of globetrotting around destinations like Korea, Taiwan, India, Nepal, Guatemala, Cuba and Canada.
He also happened to have his heart set on a traditional Japanese house, typically known as kominka, which are usually passed down over generations.
“I wanted to have a traditional house in the countryside,” Kajiyama tells QT Travel, explaining that he was determined to find two houses located next to each other, so that he and Hila could live in one, while the other would be a guesthouse that they’d run together. “I had a vision.”
When he was unable to find anything that met his requirements, Kajiyama decided to shift his search to include the growing number of abandoned homes in the country.
As younger people ditch rural areas in pursuit of jobs in the city, Japan’s countryside is becoming filled with “ghost” houses, or “akiya.”
According to the Japan Policy Forum, there were 61 million houses and 52 million households in Japan in 2013, and with the country’s population expected to decline from 127 million to about 88 million by 2065, this number is likely to increase.
Kajiyama was driving around Tamatori, a small village located in the Shizuoka prefecture, between Kyoto and Tokyo, surrounded by green tea plantations and rice fields, when he came across an elderly woman farming, and decided to approach her.
“I said ‘Do you know if there are any empty houses around here?’ And she just pointed,” he recalls.
He looked over at the area that she was signaling to and spotted two neglected houses side by side – a former green tea factory and an old farmer’s home – located close to a river.
Both properties had been uninhabited for at least seven years and needed a huge amount of work. Kajiyama asked the woman to contact the owner to find out if they’d be interested in selling.
“The owner said that no one could live there, as it was abandoned,” he says. “But he didn’t say ‘no.’ Everybody was always saying ‘no.’ But he didn’t. So I felt there was a small chance.”
Kajiyama returned to visit the houses around five times, before going to visit the owner himself to negotiate an agreement that would see him use the old green tree factory as a home, and convert the farmer’s house into the guesthouse he’d always envisioned.
While he was keen to purchase both of the homes, he explains that the traditions around home ownership in Japan mean that he is unable to do so until it’s passed down to the son of the current owner.
“They said ‘if you take all the responsibility yourself, you can take it.’ So we made an agreement on paper,” he says.
Both he and Hila were aware that they had a lot of work ahead of them, but the couple, who married in 2013, were thrilled to be one step closer to having their own guesthouse in an ideal spot.
“It’s a very nice location,” says Kajiyama. “It’s close to the city, but it’s really countryside. Also people still live here and go to work [in the city].
“The house is also in front of the river, so when you go to sleep you can hear the sound of the water.”
According to Kajiyama, the process of clearing the house, which is around 90 years old, before beginning the renovation works was one of the hardest parts of the process, simply because there was so much stuff to sort through. However, he was able to repurpose some of the items.
During the first year, he spent a lot of time connecting with locals, gaining knowledge about the home, and helping the local farmers with farming for the first year or so.
Although he wasn’t hugely experienced with renovation work, he had spent some time farming and completing building while he was backpacking, and had also taken odd jobs fixing peoples homes.
He completed much of the work on the guesthouse himself, replacing the floors and adding in a toilet, which he says was a wedding present from his parents, at a cost of around $10,000.
“I’m not really a professional,” he says.” I like to do carpentry and I enjoy creating things, but I have no experience in my background.
“From my several years of backpacking, I saw so many interesting buildings, so many houses of interesting shapes and I’ve been collecting those in my brain.”
Kajiyama was determined to keep the house as authentic as possible by using traditional materials.
He saved money by collecting traditional wood from building companies who were in the process of breaking down traditional houses.
“They need to spend the money to throw it away,” he explains. “But for me, some of the stuff is like treasure. So I would go and take the material that I wanted.
“The house is a very, very old style,” he says. “So it wouldn’t look nice if I brought in more modern materials. It’s totally authentic.”
He explains that very little work had previously been done to the house, which is quite unusual for a home built so many years ago.
“It’s totally authentic,” he says. “Usually, with traditional houses, some renovations are made to the walls, because the insulation is not so strong. So you lose the style.”
He says he received some financial support from the government, which meant he was able to bring in a carpenter and also benefited from Japan’s working holiday program, which allows travelers to work in exchange for food and board, when he needed extra help.
After doing some research into Japanese guesthouse permits, he discovered that one of the simplest ways to acquire one would be to register the property as an agriculture guesthouse.
As the area is filled with bamboo forests, this seemed like a no-brainer, and Kajiyama decided to learn everything he could about bamboo farming so that he could combine the two businesses.
“This is how I started farming,” he says.
In 2014, two years after they began working on the house, the couple were finally able to welcome their first guests.
“It was a beautiful feeling,” says Kajiyama. “Of course, this was my dream. But people really appreciate that it was abandoned and I brought it back to life.”
He says that hosting guests from all over the world has helped him to stay connected to his former life as a backpacker.
“I stay in one place, but people come to me and I feel like I’m traveling,” he says. “Today, it’s Australia, tomorrow it’s the UK and next week South Africa and India.
“People come from different places and they invite me to join them for dinner, so sometimes I join someone’s family life.”
Sadly, Hila passed away from cancer in 2022. Kajiyama stresses that his beloved wife played a huge part in helping him achieve his dream of having a guesthouse and says he couldn’t have done it without her.
“We were really together,” he adds. “She created this place with me. Without her it would not have been like this.”
While the three-bedroom guesthouse, which measures around 80 square meters, has been open for around eight years, Kajiyama is still working on it, and says he has no idea when he’ll be finished.
“It’s never ending,” he admits. “I’m halfway, I feel. It is beautiful already. But it started off abandoned, so it needs more details. And I’m getting better at creating, so I need time to do it.”
He explains that he’s unable to complete work on the home while guests are there. And while the property is closed during the winter, he spends two months as a bamboo farmer and usually spends a month traveling, which doesn’t leave him much time for renovations.
“Sometimes I don’t do anything,” he admits.
Yui Valley, which offers activities such as bamboo weaving workshops, has helped to bring many travelers to the village of Tamatori over the years.
“Most of the guests come after Tokyo, and it’s such a contrast,” he says. “They are really happy to share the nature and the tradition in our house.
“Most people have dreamed of coming to Japan for a long time and they have a very short time here.
“So they have such a beautiful energy. I’m happy to host in this way and join their holiday time. It’s very special [for me].”
Kajiyama estimates that he’s spent around $40,000 on the renovation work so far, and if the feedback from guests, and locals, is anything to go by, it seems to have been money well spent.
“People appreciate what I’ve done,” he adds. “So that makes me feel special.”
As for Hiroko, the woman who pointed out the house to him over a decade ago, Kajiyama says she’s stunned at the transformation, and is amazed at how many international travelers are coming to Tamatori to stay at Yui Valley.
“She cannot believe how much more beautiful it is 1743105122,” he says. “She didn’t think it was going to be like this. So she really appreciates it. She says ‘thank you’ a lot.”
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By Mark Minnies.
The power outage that temporarily brought operations to a halt at London’s Heathrow Airport in March is just the latest major incident to spark widespread flight disruptions.
Whether it’s a fire or a technical meltdown or a weather system that wreaks havoc on schedules, here’s some advice on what to do if your flight is delayed or canceled.
As bad as it is to find out your flight has been delayed for a long time, or worse, canceled, it’s better to find out from the comfort of home or a hotel room.
“Check your flight status before you go the airport. Most of these notifications are not happening at the last minute,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of Going.com. “Save yourself the drive to the airport.”
Other tips from Keyes:
- Sign up for airlines’ free text alerts on the status of flights when you buy your ticket. Also, download your carrier’s app.
- Put your airline and flight number directly into a Google search bar to retrieve the flight status that way.
- Check the website FlightAware for larger flight trends across the country.
- Hop on waiver offers ahead of bad weather quickly. Early birds have the best choices of the remaining seats and flights.
Sometimes, the delays and cancellations happen after you’ve arrived at the airport. Heathrow is instructing travelers to stay away from the airport, but what if you’re elsewhere in the world, hoping to get to London and now stuck in departures?
Keyes said to head as fast as you can to the airline agents’ desk. “It’s going to make a difference who arrives first. It’s first-come, first-serve. Positioning yourself close to the desk can pay off,” Keyes said.
Then you might want to call up your carrier while you’re waiting. It might be faster to get through to a call center. “Whatever happens first, great,” he said.
Other tactics you can try:
- Go to a self-serve kiosk, American Airlines and United Airlines advise.
- Use social media to your advantage, the travel advice website Travel Lens suggests. Try contacting the airline via X or other platforms when calls aren’t going through.
- Try an international call center for your carrier, Keyes suggests. Calls to US domestic numbers might have longer waits.
Attitude and research matter
Whether you’re dealing with an agent in person or over the phone, how you approach things can make a big difference.
“Honey attracts more flies than vinegar,” Keyes said. “Look at this from the airline agents’ perspective. … The agent is the one who has the most ability to help you. Asking nicely and sympathetically is far more likely to get what you want than being a jerk about it.”
He had another tip when it’s your turn to talk to an agent about making new arrangements: “Come prepared to offer your own options already. Doing your own research is absolutely helpful.”
Other considerations:
- Book directly with an airline if the price is the same. If you’ve booked through a third-party site, you’ll have to deal through them when there’s a cancellation.
- Avoid layovers when booking if possible, the consumer advocacy group US PIRG suggests. The more times you stop, the more chances for something to go wrong.
- Regarding tarmac delays, airlines must provide working bathrooms the entire time, US PIRG says. “After two hours, you must have food and water. After three hours, you must be in the air or back in the airport – or the airline faces massive fines.”
Cooperation between airlines could work in your favor.
“When flights are canceled, many airlines have the option of putting you on another carrier’s flight because they have interline agreements,” Lousson Smith, product operations specialist at Going.com, told CNN Travel.
“This means, for example, if Delta is having service interruptions but American is running a flight to your destination, you may be able to get on that flight.”
Thanks to changes in frequent flyer programs over the past several years, airlines often still have flights available with miles even when demand is high during a weather event, Julian Kheel, founder and CEO of Points Path, told QT Travel in an email.
“You’ll need to be prepared to spend a lot of miles, and you may not get the best value for them. But you could save yourself some significant cash if you’re trying to evacuate away from a storm,” Kheel said.
“Most US airlines now allow you to cancel flights booked with frequent flyer miles without any fee or penalty right up until departure time. That means you can book multiple alternate flights on different airlines using your miles in case one of them ends up delayed or canceled.
“But don’t try to book alternate flights on the same airline, as duplicates can be automatically canceled. And don’t forget to cancel the remaining flights you don’t end up using so you can get your miles back.”
What do you do if it looks like you’re not going to be able to fly out until the next day and you’re not in your home city?
This depends on the specifics of your situation — in the US, for example, airlines aren’t legally required to put you up in a hotel. US-based airlines have their own individual policies that are tracked by the FAA, here.
But UK law is different — so, if you’re being impacted by the current Heathrow cancelations, you’ll likely be automatically entitled to food and drink vouchers and accommodation. You can read all the details at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)’s website.
Your canceled flight will be covered by UK law if was supposed to be departing from the UK, no matter who you were flying with.
And if your flight was supposed to be arriving in the UK, you’ll be covered by UK law as long as you were traveling on an EU or UK airline. This document from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority explains all the ins and outs of these rules.
Despite this, sometimes airlines can’t help everyone, as the CAA says, “this can happen when staff are stretched during major disruptions.” The CAA advice is to organize “reasonable care and assistance yourself, then claim the cost back later. If you end up paying for things yourself, keep every receipt and do not spend more than is reasonable.”
Other things to consider:
- Book your flight with a credit card, Smith said: “Many credit cards offer travel protections such as reimbursement if a flight cancellation forces you to get a hotel, meals, etc.”
- Consider hunkering down at the airport rather than going to and from a hotel if your flight is delayed but not canceled. A lot depends on your personal comfort level and the estimated wait time, Keyes said.
- Check whether there is a hotel room available within the airport.
- Try getting into an airport lounge if you can, where you can recharge your phone and rest more easily, the Points Guy advises.
- Make safety your No. 1 priority. If extreme weather is causing air travel disruption, trying to make the journey by road could be hazardous, Keyes warns.
Travel insurance and receipts
Consider buying travel insurance, advised Airport Parking Reservations in an email to QT Travel.
It said “most travel insurance policies provide additional cover for travel uncertainty. Additional [coverage] usually becomes applicable if your flight is postponed by more than 12 hours due to a strike, adverse weather or a mechanical breakdown.”
The site also advises that you keep any receipts of airport purchases. You can try to get the money back from the airline later.
Airlines in the United States are now required to give passengers cash refunds if their flight is significantly delayed or canceled, even if that person does not explicitly ask for a refund.
The Department of Transportation says the final federal rule requiring that airlines dole out refunds — not vouchers — went into effect on October 28, 2024. Find out the details here.
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By Norma V. Hansen.
Lisbon is in the midst of a renaissance. The latest European capital of cool’s affordable rents, great nightlife and gorgeous streets – which wind high into the hills from the River Tagus – have seen younger travelers arrive in their droves in recent years, enjoying extended stays thanks to dedicated “digital nomad” visas.
As a result, the city has taken on a youthful, multicultural and international vibe, helping to pull in tourists from around the globe in the process.
It isn’t just those looking to live and work here that are driving this change, though.
Walk the streets of Portugal’s buzzing capital and it’s impossible to escape the sense of confidence around the place.
Locals have truly begun embracing their Portuguese identity, unashamedly showcasing the best of traditional food and culture, from delicious pastel de nata pastry in the Belem district to the aching sounds of Fado singing in Alfama.
It all goes to make up what Lisbon citizens call “alma” or soul, something that’s utterly unique to this wonderful place.
Visitors can see this on special nights such as June 13’s The Feast of St Anthony, perhaps the biggest night in the Lisbon calendar, when locals celebrate their patron saint with long processions that go on late into the night, preceded by epic meals of sardines and local wine in the streets.
But “alma” goes beyond just one night.
Come here at any time of the year and there’s a feeling that life is to be lived in public. That might be on the bohemian streets of the Bairro Alto neighborhood, where restaurants spill out onto narrow lanes. Or at ultra hip spots like Park, a bar atop a multi-story parking lot that has become a byword for hipster cool, not to mention incredible views. Everyone is welcome and the atmosphere remains vibrant well into the early hours.
Discovering another side to Portuguese Fado
“Alma” isn’t just about hanging out with friends or enjoying languid meals outdoors, however. It’s also found in traditional music, especially Fado.
Marrying poetry and singing and born on the streets of Lisbon’s beautiful Alfama and Mouraria neighborhoods, it is more than simply an expression of sadness and melancholy. It is rather, explains Fado singer Gisela João, an expression of Portuguese intensity and tradition.
“I think Fado, it’s the most true… as we can be expressing the personality of [the] Portuguese country, Portuguese people,” she says while walking Alfama’s streets.
João is not the archetypal Fado singer of old. She does not wear a black dress and she is also younger than most stereotypical Fado singers too.
“Why should I dress as a girl that grew up in the ’40s and ‘50s?” she asks. “It’s not who I am.”
She is, though, very much steeped in the music’s history.
“I moved here because I came to sing in a Fado restaurant,” she says. “In this street, for example, I remember that you would walk on the street and you would listen: Fado going out of the windows like here, one singing here, another one here… It was like you were in the middle of Fado.”
She is also keen to debunk the idea that sadness is what defines Fado.
“For me, [Fado] is about poetry and the poem for me, a really nice poem, is a poem that can talk about [the] life of everyone… when I sing it is when I feel that I can express myself.”
This is evident in João’s beautiful voice, which echoes around the neighborhood. It is a sound that is quintessentially Portuguese.
“We are really intense people,” she says, laughing. “We care a lot. You come to Portugal and it’s really normal that you meet someone and that person immediately invites you to go to the house, to have dinner, to be with the friends and the family and organize a big party just to receive you… We are dramatic!”
Exploring Lisbon’s connection to the sea
Lisbon can feel as if it’s half on land and half at sea, with the wide sweep of the River Tagus leading out to the vast Atlantic. This, after all, is a country that remains fiercely proud of its 500 years of seafaring history.
Lisbon’s famous Padrão dos Descobrimentos, Monument of the Discoveries, which stands in the Belem neighborhood on the banks of the Tagus, pays tribute to the country’s great explorers.
Henry the Navigator is depicted alongside historic figures including Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, a tribute to Lisbon’s place at the heart of maritime discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Ricardo Diniz, an intrepid solo sailor turned corporate coach, is continuing this long tradition, bringing the past into the present day.
“We’re very proud of our past. We achieved something incredible over 500 years ago, and we are reminded about this every single day,” he says, pointing from the deck of his boat out across the water.
“We are on the ocean. We have this incredible river.” When he returns after long journeys out to sea, he says his pride swells as Lisbon comes into view.
Diniz says that while the water is key to Lisbon’s traditions as well as its present and future as a modern city, the changes in recent years have been driven by people from outside talking about just how great this place is.
“In the last five years, especially, many people who come from abroad to Lisbon are surprised at what they find,” he says. “I think they are the true ambassadors of our city and our country, people from abroad talking beautifully about Portugal.”
The chef who championed Portuguese fine dining
Speak with the locals here and it won’t be long before they remind you of the great explorers and the Age of Discovery some 500 years ago. However, there wasn’t always much to be said about its more modern past. Much of that has changed in the last 20 years, though, as that sense of confidence has come to be felt across the city with Lisbon’s resurgence as a tourist destination and a place to work and play.
That’s particularly clear in Lisbon’s food scene.
Acclaimed chef Jose Avillez has championed Portuguese fine dining for years. Fifteen years ago he began introducing that most humble of local dishes, the sardine, to his high end restaurant.
They are, he says, “… very, very special, because it’s something that we have only three, four months, a year, maximum.
“When Portuguese [people] arrive at a contemporary Portuguese restaurant… he expects to have modern food, but to have the soul of Portuguese food. So we have a lot of respect for the sardines.”
You can’t avoid coming back to that sense of soul when in Lisbon. It is, explains Avillez, all about a respect for tradition while bringing dishes into the future.
“I would say that Portuguese cuisine that is transmitted from grandmothers to granddaughters, from mothers to daughters is the art of bringing the flavors with simplicity, with love. [That] is what we try to do, even if you do it very creatively with a lot of creativity – if it’s fine dining, it’s a two-Michelin star, whatever, what you need to bring to your guests is something delicious. And, I will say 90% of the time, quite simple.”
That’s certainly true of Avillez’s cuisine, from his simple sardine recipes to his delicious steak.
And, of course, no meal in Lisbon would be complete without a famous pastel de nata, the custard tart which comes from Belem. These small treats have gone global in recent years, but they taste at their very best right here in this brilliant city.
Lisbon’s renaissance is something to behold, especially with something so delicious to hand. A place that has changed in so many ways in the 21st century, but has managed to stay true to its roots, its past and its fascinating history.
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Editor’s Word: All-new episodes of “Stanley Tucci: Looking for Italy” Sundays, at 9 p.m. ET solely on CNN. Signal as much as CNN Journey’s Unlocking Italy e-newsletter for extra.
CNN
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It’s tremendous sturdy, fennel-flavored, as clear as water – and in lots of households throughout Sardinia it’s nonetheless produced illegally.
Filu ‘e ferru, or “iron wire,” is an outdated drink with a harmful previous and an alcohol focus of as much as 45% that knocks out even these with a excessive tolerance.
Rosa Maria Scrugli was barely 23 years outdated when in 1970 she was despatched on a piece mission to the small city of Santu Lussurgiu, set within the wild Oristano space of western Sardinia amid rocky hills and caves.
For 400 years, this place of barely 2,000 residents has been making a potent filu ‘e ferru regionally dubbed “abbardente” – a phrase deriving from Latin which fittingly means “burning water.”
The mayor – the city’s cobbler – greeted Scrugli at midday with a number of welcoming pictures, however by the point she’d downed the second, she almost collapsed, falling on prime of the mayor who was solely a bit tipsy.
“The subsequent factor I knew, somebody had dragged me away and I awoke in my lodge room with the worst hangover ever. The mayor additionally wasn’t feeling too nicely, however he was used to consuming filu ‘e ferru. It was my first time, and it was a shock,” Scrugli tells CNN.
Santu Lussurgiu is taken into account the cradle of the oldest Sardinian custom of “acquavite” – actually “vine water” in Italian, and indicating a premium alcohol distillate.
“Acquavite and abbardente are simply synonyms for filu ‘e ferru, which is a metaphor, a part of a secret code invented at a later stage to check with acquavite with the intention to escape police controls,” says Santu Lussurgiu’s solely (authorized) distiller Carlo Psiche.
It grew to become an “outlaw” drink within the nineteenth century when Italy’s royal home of Savoy launched levies on alcohol manufacturing, kick-starting an unlawful commerce that in Santu Lussurgiu continues on a mass scale.
Up till a couple of many years in the past police raids have been frequent, farmers needed to conceal bottles of their filu ‘e ferru both in some secret place at house or underground of their backyard, marking the spot with a chunk of iron. Therefore the identify “iron wire.”
In developing with such a nickname, locals may need additionally been impressed by the close by rocky mountain vary of volcanic origin known as Montiferru – the “iron hill.”
What has all the time made Santu Lussurgiu’s acquavite distinctive, versus these produced in the remainder of Sardinia, is that it’s distilled from wine, not marc, a spirit created from the residue of the skins and seeds of grapes after the wine has been extracted. It’s due to this fact not a grappa – Italy’s favourite post-meal shot.
Psiche claims his Distillerie Lussurgesi, that includes alembic copper stills used for old-style distillation processes, is the one one among the many 5 filu ‘e ferru distilleries within the wider area to make use of actual wine as an alternative of marc, or “vinacce.”
In the meantime, households within the village have been brewing filu ‘e ferru at house for the reason that late sixteenth century, after monks from the native abbey launched this potent alcoholic distillate within the space.
“At first it was used for its medical and therapeutic properties, significantly for toothache, then folks realized it was nice as booze, too,” says Psiche.
Police raids and secret alerts
Everybody within the village nonetheless secretly makes abbardente at house. None of them pay taxes on it, apart from Psiche, who runs a enterprise.
These days issues are much less dangerous than up to now. In any case, many Italians brew wine and all kinds of liqueurs at house, and authorities now not go knocking on folks’s doorways except they’ve arrange a large-scale enterprise.
Psiche remembers that up till the Sixties, when tax police patrolled the village in quest of clandestine producers, folks would hurry to cover their bottles and alembics, shouting to one another the emergency code “filu ‘e ferru.” It was like a curfew sign.
“I used to be only a child, however I bear in mind the elders describing the policemen parking their automobiles in entrance of the city corridor and wandering round searching like hounds for unlawful producers.”
Fennel seeds are added to filu ‘e ferru to melt the pungent taste, and given its intense scent, the scent of fennel oozing out from properties often helped the police monitor down criminal activity.
“There was a village messenger whose job was to announce native legal guidelines, occasions and measures by trumpet. When the abbardente raids occurred he’d use one other key to warn folks,” says Psiche.
Italians and foreigners who knew of the key filu ‘e ferru would flock to Santu Lussurgiu to purchase complete flasks of it, says Psiche, however they requested too many questions with the chance of exposing producers. So ultimately locals determined to go fully underground.
The village had some 40 distilleries by the top of the 1800s, when filu ‘e ferru had change into a preferred drink and was exported throughout Italy. Nevertheless, the distilleries have been shut within the early twentieth century and manufacturing grew to become solely “home.”
Psiche, a former mechanic, determined to recuperate the outdated village custom of acquavite 20 years in the past. His abbardente, made with contemporary native white grapes, is available in two variations, each aged for not less than 12 months.
The clear-as-water abbardente has an intense enveloping style with a slight dried fruit and almonds taste, and is diluted with water from a close-by village supply. It’s aged in metal tanks.
The amber coloured abbardente is as an alternative aged in oak barrels. The wooden maturation offers it a sweetish taste paying homage to honey and do-it-yourself bread.
Psiche’s artisan distillery options outdated distillation objects and an unique acquavite bottle from 1860. He has a number of American shoppers in Ohio and Chicago, the place many villagers migrated.
“Our village has all the time used wine as an alternative of marc as a result of the vineyards over right here are inclined to over-yield so one of the simplest ways to keep away from any waste was to make use of the wine to make abbardente,” says Psiche.
Whereas males tended to the fields, filu ‘e ferru manufacturing in Sardinia was a girls’s enterprise. Wives, daughters and grandmas grew to become consultants in distillation. At first, large pots of copper, historically for milk, have been used and sealed with flour dough to warmth the wine. Later, the women turned to copper stills.
Sardinians have a love affair with their “sizzling water,” simply as Neapolitans do with espresso.
Regardless that it’s nice as an after-dinner digestif, at any time when it’s toasting time a shot of abbardente works high-quality.
In response to Psiche, it’s additionally a drink with which to look at dying: when somebody dies it’s customary to savor a glass of filu ‘e ferru throughout the midnight wake to honor the deceased.
Filu ‘e ferru is as fiery because the Sardinians who hold making it at house, similar to their ancestors, sticking to custom. They imagine it may be drunk similar to pure water.
One girl from Santu Lussurgiu, who spoke to CNN on situation of anonymity over concern of being busted by authorities, says it’s not only for particular events: “Those that prefer it drink it at any time of the day, even at breakfast.”
Making filu ‘e ferru strictly for private consumption, she makes use of an enormous alembic belonging to her grandparents that has been within the household for the reason that Sixties.
“It takes me half a day to distil the wine, which grows on our land. Apart from fennel, I usually add absinthe,” she stated.
The girl says she has now additionally concerned her son within the day by day preparation of their do-it-yourself filu ‘e ferru – maybe an indication of fixing occasions that males like Psiche ought to play a key position in preserving the alcoholic heritage.
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A rich palette of shimmering caramel swirls, ochers, creams and pinks unfolds across the landscape like an enormous handwoven carpet. Stands of poplars line paths carved by ancient lava flows from three now extinct volcanoes, crisscrossing valleys studded with conical peribacı.
This is Cappadocia, central Turkey, famous for its whimsical “fairy chimneys,” to give peribacı their English name.
Cappadocia has an abundance of them, as well as rock churches and monasteries. The region is dotted with former farming communities with dwellings and outbuildings carved out of stone, where ordinary people lived next door to monks.
When the volcanic ash cooled down, it left behind soft porous rock called tufa. Over thousands of years the tufa was eroded and shaped by water and wind.
It’s easy to carve but hardens on exposure to air. Until the 1950s most of the population lived in these surreal rock formations, a tradition dating back centuries.
Now they’re one of Turkey’s most striking tourist attractions, often viewed from the air by the floating legions of hot air balloons that regularly fill the sky.
But, say locals, the real way to appreciate all this is on foot – or hoof. Here are some of the best options for exploring Cappadocia:
This archaeological treasure trove offers the chance to experience a typical rural settlement, including a look inside ancient houses, stables, kitchen, churches and monastic chambers carved out of fairy chimneys and rock faces.
Here it’s possible to imagine what Cappadocia’s fairy chimneys looked like when Orthodox Christianity was at its height during the medieval Byzantine period.
“Zelve was permanently occupied from the sixth century to the 20th century, which is something amazing,” says Tolga Uyar, a medieval art historian at nearby Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli University. That’s more than 1,400 hundred years.
Like most of the inhabited caves in Cappadocia, spaces were re-used, re-carved and transformed. Now Zelve is a model of a rock carved civilization preserved from early Christian times through to the modern Turkish Republic.
Clearly marked paths make Zelve easy to get around and give an idea of what you’re likely to come across elsewhere in the valleys.
Cappadocia’s hidden treasures
In summer, much of Cappadocia appears arid and lifeless. The plains on the approach to Ihlara Vadısı seem no different, until you peer over the edge and see the tops of the lush green trees lining the Melendiz River below.
The length of Ihlara Valley stretches along its banks, the location of a pleasant eight-mile hike beginning at Ihlara Village and ending at Selime Manastırı.
In early spring, bush nightingales warble love songs, flowers dance to the “oop oop” call of the ibibik or hoopoe bird, and the burble of water lulls you into a contemplative silence.
Like anywhere in Cappadocia there are centuries-old churches decorated with murals.
There are picnic spots or small restaurants on the banks of the river in Belisırma for lunch.
At the point where the valley opens up, the imposing Selime Monastery, believed to date from the eight or ninth century BCE, comes into view. It’s worth climbing the 300 steps to look inside.
Several walks start from Çavuşin, a village once home to a mix of Turkish Muslims and Orthodox Christian Greeks known as Rum.
Here, the huge Church of John the Baptist, dating from the fifth century, is the biggest cave church in the region.
Hikers should head up through the village to the cemetery, where a track leads to Kızılçukur. It meanders through orchards filled with apple and apricot trees and skirts fields of grapes, ripening on the vine.
There are several old churches along the way, the most famous being Üzümlü Kilise (Church of the Grapes). At Kızılçukur (Red Valley), the fairy chimneys are pinkish in color by day and take on a beautiful red hue at sunset due to iron ore in the tufa.
It’s possible to follow the track on your own, but many of the churches are either hard to find or locked. Having a Turkish speaking guide that knows who to ask for the key makes for a richer, more rewarding experience.
One such guide is Mehmet Güngör who, since 1998, has run Walking Mehmet in the small town of Göreme where he still lives in a home partly carved out of rock.
He started by chance. “One day I met a couple (of tourists) and we walked with my dog for a few hours,” he says. “At the end they gave me a tip. Then I decided to be a walking guide.”
Güngör’s been sharing knowledge about his favorite places ever since.
Over the last 25 years he’s seen locals move from farming to tourism. Cleansed of agricultural additives, the landscape has transformed with the reappearance of species of flora and fauna long thought to have vanished.
In spring, rare iris galatica bloom. The dark blue or purple petals of these flowers, highlighted with pops of yellow, spring from narrow crevices. Güngör knows where to find them, along with wild asparagus, orchids and thyme.
On your own, if you’re lucky, you might spot a tortoise hiding under a bush or an eagle hovering in the sky. With Güngör, hikers “will see churches and monasteries from the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries they won’t be able to find on their own.”
He also does full moon night walks, hikes that give the best light for photographing the valleys, or ones suitable for hot days.
Güngör loves what he does because guiding tourists through the valleys is more than a job, he says.
“Cappadocia is like no other place. It’s full of positive energy. While walking I become one with nature.”
For those that don’t want to walk, there are horse tours. Cappadocia has long been referred to as the “land of wild horses” after free-roaming animals known as yılkı.
Prior to the mechanization of agriculture, working horses on farms were turned loose in winter when the harvest was over, to roam at will. In spring, they’d be rounded up and put to work again, but once tractors replaced them permanently, they were left to fend for themselves.
The horses at Cemal Ranch are anything but wild and are well-looked after all year round.
Cemal Koksal, born and raised in the nearby town of Ortahisar, is passionate about the business he established 15 years ago with his brother and horse-breeding father.
“The peace and naturalness of horse riding in such a unique and fascinating landscape on my favorite horse helps to keep me close to nature and close to my family roots of breeding and working with horses,” he says.
Cemal Ranch runs different small group tours (maximum 14 people) suitable for beginners, even children, right through to more experienced riders. Everyone gets a short training session before any tour and helmets are obligatory.
Participants on longer tours get to sample food cooked by Koksal’s mom.
It’s the only horse trekking outfit with sunset access to Cappadocia’s Rose and Red valleys. “Looking down on all the stunning valleys as they change colors in the sunset light is magical.”
He adds: “I am the happiest on a horse and happiest riding in the beautiful valleys of Cappadocia. It’s the ultimate freedom and peacefulness”.
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For over 500 years, Michelangelo’s sculpture of David in Florence has stood unchanged, the marble icon of masculinity, and one of the world’s most famous works of art.
But as Italy emerges from the pandemic, the David has got a whole new look.
A new lighting system has revolutionized how the famous statue looks, with small details visible for the first time in its history.
“A few days ago, I noticed muscles on the body that I’d never seen before,” says Lucia Lazic, a guide who visits the Accademia Gallery most days.
“I said, ‘What on earth? How have I never seen this?’ The lighting is much better on the David.”
Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia, said in a statement that the lighting has “changed the visual perception of the artworks,” telling CNN that the David’s marble looks “whiter” and that the details are “more visible.”
The lighting – completed in September as part of works that were unveiled this week – aimed to bring the “dynamism of sunlight” into the Tribuna room where the statue is kept under a domed skylight.
LED spotlights were installed in a circle above the statue, allowing them to “completely envelop the David and leave the rest of the space in the background.”
The color of the light changes imperceptibly during the day, while the spotlights are of varying warmth, allowing visitors to get a new perspective with every step around the statue.
The new-look David is part of a wider revamp of the museum, which was Italy’s second most visited in 2019.
The Galleria dei Prigioni, or “prisoners corridor” – named after Michelangelo’s four semi-finished sculptures of prisoners of war, which share the space with two of his other works – has also had its lighting switched up, with several spotlights pointed on each sculpture.
“It used to be that the prisoners looked yellow, and David was white. Now they’re the same color,” Hollberg told CNN.
“You can now see every chisel mark on them.”
The new lighting system, which “restores the right balance of chiaroscuro and color to the works,” is also energy-efficient. Hollberg says the gallery should use around 80% less electricity than in previous years.
It’s not just the headline works that are looking different. Several of the other rooms of the gallery have had their previously beige walls painted in colors that maximize those in the paintings.
The Sala del Colosso, the gallery’s first room, is now a bright blue, while the 13th and 14th-century rooms are a pale green, chosen to bring out the gold used in most of the paintings.
And the new lighting everywhere has transformed the paintings from things tourists used to rush past en route to David, to unmissable in their own right.
“One regular visitor said, ‘Where was all this detail? We never saw it,’” Hollberg told CNN. “In one painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio you can now see all the gold dots in the [saints’] halos. Before, the beige walls flattened the gold. In another, it feels like you could pluck the pearls from the painting – before you couldn’t see them at all.
“My job is to give value and visibility to all the works. Every single work here is a masterpiece, but works die on a beige background – they need to be lifted and supported by color. I want to give them what they deserve.”
In the past, the lighting was so bad that some paintings were barely visible – like those beside the David. “Before it was all dark, you couldn’t see them – no one stopped,” said Hollberg. One time she saw a guide shining their phone torch on another painting in a bid to show it to visitors.
Tourists have already changed their behavior, she said.
“Now they stop and look. They’re not all in front of the David like before. I’ve followed groups, and they used to cut through the Sala del Colosso and never stop. Now I see that room full of visitors – it’s redistributing the crowds.”
Lazic, a guide with Elite Italian Experience, agrees: “There are more people stopping in the Sala del Colosso.”
The renovations, which started just before the pandemic and which have been rolled out this year, have finished with the revamp of the Gipsoteca. The plaster cast gallery was another rush-through place. That’s if it was open – with no open windows or air conditioning, it used to close at midday during the summer.
But now with air conditioning, powder blue walls and a new layout for the 414 plaster casts – mostly done by sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, whose works are found in the Louvre, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art – it’s a place to linger.
Hollberg says that locals are starting to appreciate the museum, too. “Before it was a space for tourists, but Florentines are rediscovering it. We got the last resisters in with a concert series.”
Dario Franceschini, Italy’s minister of culture, called the reopening of the Gipsoteca “an important step… in bringing [the Accademia] into the 21st century.”
He added: “The works across the entire building have allowed significant innovations in the systems, transforming a museum conceived in the late 19th century into a modern venue without distorting it.”
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Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s famous yellow pumpkin sculpture was reinstalled on October 4th on Naoshima island after it was swept into the sea and badly damaged during a typhoon last summer.
Local residents, students and officials gathered to celebrate the art island’s trademark sculpture as it was placed back on the pier on Naoshima Island, which is in the Seto Inland Sea. It had been there since 1994.
“Since (the pumpkin) was a symbol of Naoshima, it is great to see the same artwork installed again at the same spot. We are happy to share the joy with residents in Naoshima,” said Yukari Stenlund, a spokeswoman from Benesse Holdings, the company that manages the sculpture and the rest of the island’s art offerings, told CNN Travel.
The sculpture, which is two meters tall, 2.5 meters wide and made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was swept away into the sea and broken into three pieces in August 2021.
According to Stenlund, Kusama’s production team opted to create a brand new yellow pumpkin sculpture – while staying true to the original – after evaluating the extent of the damage.
The artist’s production team started working on a new pumpkin earlier this spring and made the sculpture’s outer shell 10% thicker than the original so it could withstand strong waves and wind in the future. In addition, a hook was embedded into its stem so it could be easily dragged to safety if another typhoon hits.
“We hope to exhibit the pumpkin as a symbol of the connection between Naoshima and the world,” Stenlund added, saying that message underpinned the 1994 “Out of Bounds” exhibition, which saw the sculpture first installed on the island.
Naoshima: Japan’s ‘art island’
Naoshima is a quiet with 3,200 residents, located in the Setouchi Sea, north of Shikoku. With three modern and contemporary art museums, it is known as an “art island,” The yellow pumpkin, which contrasts with the blue sea, has long been a popular site for Instagram photos.
The main way to access the island is a 20-minute ferry ride from Okayama city, which is 50 minutes away by bullet train from Osaka.
The pumpkin’s timing couldn’t be better. Japan opens its borders to leisure tourists on October 11, and the Setouchi Art festival runs until November 2022.
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Rachel Décoste landed in West Africa’s Republic of Benin in August 2018, anticipating an important journey of self-discovery, but not predicting the extent to which the trip would change her life.
On her first day exploring Benin, Rachel asked a passerby for directions. Two weeks later, Rachel and the stranger were engaged. Within six months, they were married.
Rachel grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of Haitian parents who’d immigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. As an adult, Rachel relocated to Washington DC for college, later working for a bipartisan tech program associated with the United States Congress.
Rachel loved this job, she loved the diversity of Washington and loved working in public service. When her US visa was up for renewal, Rachel, then in her early 40s, figured she’d work remotely for a few months before returning to DC.
But rather than working from Canada, she hatched a plan to set up her desk further afield.
Earlier that year, Rachel had submitted her DNA to an online ancestry site. Rachel had long known she was the descendent of enslaved Africans, but until she got the results, she hadn’t known where her forebears had lived. Now, she had a list of countries where she had roots: Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana and Benin.
“DNA tests for a descendant of enslaved Africans has very deep significance for us,” Rachel tells CNN Travel. “Even though it’s not a precise science, when you get the map of where your ancestors came from, it’s an emotional journey.”
Rachel arrived in Benin towards the end of her five month remote working trip. She’d already visited the other countries on her list, and her African trip was shaping up to be an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. Nevertheless, Rachel didn’t know what to expect from Benin.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I could find Benin Republic on a map before this,” she says.
She booked a room in a bed and breakfast in the port city of Cotonou, planning to stay there for two weeks – working from the B&B and exploring the country in her spare time.
Following a couple of days settling in, Rachel ventured out for the first time. She planned to visit Ouidah, once one of the most active slave trading ports in Africa. She expected this would be a moving and thought-provoking experience.
“I’m sure that one of my ancestors passed by there, just because of my DNA test,” says Rachel.
Exiting her room, Rachel searched around for the manager of her bed and breakfast – she was looking for guidance on how best to travel to Ouidah.
“She’s nowhere to be found. And then I look for the security guard, and the security guard is on break.”
Rachel figured her next best bet was asking a passerby outside, so she opened the gates and glanced around.
The first person she spotted was a man about to get on a motorcycle, parked just outside.
Rachel greeted the stranger in French – as a French Canadian, French is her first language and it’s also the official language of Benin – and politely asked him how to get to Ouidah.
“You have to go to a certain intersection downtown, where all the bush taxis are,” explained the stranger. “You find the taxi going to your destination, you pay for your seat, and then you’ll get there.”
He started passing on directions to the intersection, but then, realizing they were a bit complicated, changed his tune.
“If you want. I can bring you there, it’s about 10 minutes away,” he suggested, gesturing to his bike.
It was about 9 a.m. Rachel was wary of trusting someone she didn’t know, but she decided she was unlikely to come to harm in broad daylight. She agreed.
“I take a chance, hop on the back of his motorcycle, no helmet,” she recalls.
The motorbike-riding stranger was Honoré Orogbo, a single father and business owner in his thirties who’d lived in Cotonou all his life and just happened to be passing by that morning.
When Rachel opened the bed and breakfast door, Honoré had just finished eating some breakfast he’d grabbed from a nearby street kiosk.
From the outside, Rachel’s accommodation wasn’t obviously a B&B. Honoré says he assumed she was the owner of the house. It was only when she asked for directions that Honoré realized Rachel was a visitor.
When Rachel and Honoré arrived at the taxi rank in Cotonou city center, they realized the one heading to Ouidah was pretty empty. Honoré explained it would be some time before it departed – the driver wouldn’t leave until the taxi was full.
Rachel was disheartened. She didn’t have time to wait around – she wanted to spend the whole day in Ouidah without feeling rushed, and to safely return to Cotonou before sundown.
Sensing her disappointment, Honoré came up with a suggestion. He had a friend in Ouidah he’d been hoping to visit – while he hadn’t been planning to go that day, he could, he had a day off.
“I’m like ‘Cool. I’ll pay for gas. Let’s go,’” recalls Rachel.
Just over an hour later, they arrived in Ouidah.
“He shows me how to get back – where the bush taxis are that I can get back that afternoon – and he shows me where the Slave Museum is. And I’m like, ‘Okay, good to go. Thanks, sir,’” recalls Rachel.
But before they were due to go their separate ways, Rachel asked Honoré if he wanted to get brunch. She wanted a bite to eat before she started her tour – and extending the invite to Honoré felt like the polite choice, he’d gone out of his way to help her, after all.
Honoré agreed, touched by the gesture. The two sat down to eat.
Rachel was aware that she was a woman traveling alone, and while Honoré had been nothing but polite and respectful, he was still a stranger, so she told him she was married.
She also didn’t share details of her job, or her life in the US. But she did explain how she was hoping to travel around Benin over the coming days. She asked Honoré if he had any friends or contacts who worked as chauffeurs or tour guides, and who might be interested in escorting her around over the next couple of days. She figured that might be easier than relying on taxis.
Honoré contacted a tour guide friend, but he was fully booked
“So I said, ‘Well, how about you? Can you be my escort? You helped me out this morning, can I just pay you to do that for three days?’” recalls Rachel.
“No, I’m not a I’m not a tour guide,” said Honoré. “I don’t know my country’s history by heart, and that’s not what I do.”
Rachel backtracked. She didn’t really need a tour guide – there would be experts at all the historical sites she planned to visit – she just needed a ride.
After a bit of back and forth, Honoré agreed to drive Rachel.
“When she insisted, I said ‘Why not?’” Honoré recalls today.
He wanted to help Rachel, Honoré says. She seemed like a “good person,” based on the way she’d approached him, the way she’d asked him questions and the way she’d invited him to brunch.
The two agreed Honoré would drive Rachel around for the next few days, starting that day in Ouidah, and Rachel would pay him for his services.
For the rest of the week, Honoré took Rachel to Benin’s most important sites.
Touring Benin was a powerful experience for Rachel. She says visiting the slave fort, inside Ouidah’s Museum of History, “is a pilgrimage that every afro-descendant should visit to remind us of the cruelty that our ancestors survived.”
“I didn’t know this before going there in person, but if Las Vegas was taking bets on the survival of enslaved Africans, the odds of my being alive today would have been slim to none,” says Rachel. “I am a walking, talking miracle. I am the ‘one percent.’ I owe it to those who didn’t make it to live my best life.”
While traveling around Benin, Rachel and Honoré talked. While Rachel still didn’t disclose many details about her personal circumstances, but she found herself opening up to Honoré about her thoughts and feelings. Honoré opened up in turn.
“First conversations were about learning about myself, my family, my situation, who I am, who I really am,” he says.
“We were very open and very candid, because we were strangers and we’ll never see each other again,” recalls Rachel.
She remembers being touched when Honoré explained that he didn’t have a new model of motorcycle because he put all his money towards his son’s education.
“He says ‘I’d rather have my kid have those opportunities than drive a fancy motorcycle.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, those are the values of my parents.’ I saw myself in those values,” says Rachel.
In one of their many conversations, Honoré mentioned his brother was a tailor. On their fourth day together, Honoré took Rachel to a market to help her buy fabric that his brother could make into a dress.
Rachel was overwhelmed by the choice – so much so that she asked Honoré to pick his favorites. He opted for two pieces of colorful, bright Ankara fabric. The third option was a white, gray, lace style, called lessi. Rachel loved it, and figured the resulting dress could be “appropriate for a baptism or some kind of special occasion.”
In one of their many conversations driving to Benin landmarks, Honoré mentioned to Rachel that he would usually travel to Lomé, the capital of the neighboring country of Togo, when he and his friends wanted a night out.
Rachel was intrigued.
“I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever come back here. This is a once in a lifetime trip where I’m getting paid while I’m working in a foreign country. I want to take advantage of every opportunity,” she remembers thinking.
“So I said, ‘Well, I have to go back to work this week. But next weekend, if you’re willing, I could get two hotel rooms and we could go to Togo together.”
The following weekend, Honoré took Rachel to a poetry slam night in Lomé, followed by a bar with live music. They stayed out all night.
“We’re dancing. It’s just pure joy,” says Rachel.
It was around this time that Rachel started to feel things shift. She felt comfortable around Honoré in a way she’d never felt before.
“We get along great. He laughs at my jokes,” she recalls thinking. “I had a bit of a meltdown a couple times – which I’m not proud of – where he didn’t freak out, because usually angry Black women scare people. But he took it all in his stride.”
Rachel even briefly met Honoré’s son.
She described the situation in an email to one of her close friends back in Ottawa.
“I think I think this person should be my husband. But am I crazy? I’ve known this guy for a week. Is that stupid? Tell me if I’m crazy,” she wrote.
Her friend wrote back: “Rachel, you are not a stupid person. You have good judgment. You are a good judge of character. If he’s the one, grab him.”
For Honoré, the trip to Togo was a turning point too.
“I think it’s that night that the lightning struck,” he says. “It was not lightning but it was a feeling of love. I think that’s where the feeling of love started.”
Rachel only had one more week in Benin before she was set to return to North America. She decided she had no time to waste.
“I told him that I really wasn’t married. And he was very happy to hear that. And we got together,” she says.
“I was kind of surprised,” says Honoré now. “I thought a woman like that would probably have a husband.”
“Next day I saw her differently,” he adds. “Not like a tourist but my soulmate. That’s how the relationship started. Step by step.”
For the remainder of Rachel’s time in Benin, Rachel and Honoré spent as much time together as they could.
On the evening of Rachel’s departure, Honoré recalls sitting with her on a beach. He was enjoying the moment, but also considering Rachel’s impending return to Canada, and what it meant for their burgeoning romance.
“We were facing the ocean. In my head, I was thinking ‘the past two weeks that I’ve spent with you, I have no regrets. We had a great time together. I was really happy to meet you.’”
The two talked about the future, and if and how they could make a long distance relationship work. They realized they were both equally committed, and so they decided to get engaged, and that Honoré would relocate to North America.
It was a big decision. They’d only known one another for a couple of weeks. And for Honoré, emigrating had never been a goal. It would be a big change for his son. But Honoré says he decided to “follow my instincts, to follow my heart.”
Meanwhile, Rachel quit her life in DC, and went back to Canada. Rachel says her friends were shocked, but supportive and happy when she told them about the whirlwind romance. Her parents were more skeptical, she says. But they came round when they met Honoré, and saw how in love he was with their daughter.
Rachel returned to Benin six months later, in January 2019, for her wedding to Honoré. She wore the dress made from the white lace fabric Honoré had picked for her in the market the summer before. It felt like fate.
Meanwhile, the couple planned a Canadian wedding celebration for the following year, navigating Honoré and his son’s immigration journey in the meantime.
“I took the time during the separation to start preparing myself mentally and psychologically for a big move,” recalls Honoré. “I had to think about the huge life change that was going to be ahead of me, the cultural differences. I know people who went to the Americas and it wasn’t necessarily easy.”
Honoré also prepared his child for the move.
“I explained to him that, ‘My son, we will go to a different country and we will start over together. With time, you will have new friends, you will have new cousins. You will have everything you wish for. everything that you have here you will have over there, in time.”
Honoré and his son arrived in Canada in the middle of winter.
“It was really really really cold,” he recalls. “I just didn’t understand how cold it could be outside. Because the cold of Africa is a whole different kettle of fish, than the cold in Canada.”
Still, once Honoré was kitted out with Canada-appropriate boots, coat and mittens, he started adapting to life in a new country.
Rachel and Honoré say they were over the moon to be together. The months apart waiting for Honoré’s visa approval had been long.
Honoré’s son settled in very quickly, and Rachel adapted to becoming his stepmother, a role she says she loves.
“I’m embracing the challenge and the joys of motherhood,” she says now.
“It’s not easy when you’ve been single since forever to adjust to having to share your life. But he’s a good kid.”
Today, Honoré and Rachel live in Ottawa. Rachel works as a diversity and inclusion expert, while Honoré is studying.
Rachel also recounted her experiences traveling Africa in 2018, including meeting Honoré, in an audiobook called “Year of Return: a Black Woman’s African Homecoming.”
Rachel and Honoré are also bringing up their son together, and run a business selling warm, Canada-winter-appropriate pajamas with African prints, called Woke Apparel.
The pandemic put a stop to their big Canadian wedding celebration plans, but they enjoyed a small ceremony in summer 2020.
Reflecting on their journey together, Honoré says their story makes him consider that “sometimes you shouldn’t force fate.”
He sees meeting Rachel as “destiny” but considers moving across the world to be with her as proof of the importance of trusting your gut.
“Just follow your heart,” he says. “Follow your heart with reckless abandon.”
As for Rachel, she says their love story is a reminder to her that “it’s never too late.”
“You’re not too old to just travel alone by yourself, in a country that you don’t know, where you don’t know anybody. You’re never too old to find love. You’re never too old to become a mother.
There is no expiration date on opportunity. And grab life by both hands. If I can do it. You can.”
CNN
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Hong Kong is widely considered one of the most challenging cities in the world to operate a restaurant – a roiling cauldron of changing tastes, cleaver-sharp competition and unsavory economics.
Right at the heart of its culinary world, with connections to at least half of its hottest tables, is publicist Geoffrey Wu.
Wu and his 10-year-old consultancy firm The Forks and Spoons work with some of the most decorated restaurants and bars in town, such as the two-Michelin starred TATE Dining Room and Ando, one of the most sought-after reservations in town.
“I wouldn’t say we’re better at our job than other people. I’d say we’re different,” he tells CNN Travel in The Baker and The Bottleman, a new casual bakery and natural wine bar by celebrity British chef Simon Rogan, where he’s agreed to spill some of the secrets of Hong Kong’s dining scene.
After being expelled from the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong for “skipping too many classes to play cards at McDonald’s,” Wu joined Amber, the famed French restaurant under the helm of Richard Ekkebus, as operations staff in 2005.
Over the next few years he took on various marketing roles for different companies – but always found himself back in the food and beverage industry. In 2012, he opened his F&B consultancy firm.
Wu isn’t your typical food and beverage publicist. He isn’t congenial. He’s known for occasionally yelling at clients for making a mistake, or members of the media he feels haven’t done their research.
“I am not afraid to speak up – people know that for sure. Sometimes you need a consultant who is straightforward about things that must be fixed. We aren’t here to massage your ego. We are here for the results. We are here to win,” says Wu, sounding more like a football coach than a PR professional.
“If I wanted to please everyone, I’d go sell ice cream. Luckily, most of my clients understand.”
Among these clients is Yenn Wong, founder and chief executive officer of JIA, a restaurant group behind popular award-winning Hong Kong eateries like Mono and Duddell’s.
“The Forks and Spoons understand and personalize the needs of each concept and is always staying very current with the relevant strategies to ensure we as clients get the most publicity to our target audience, which ultimately delivers positive revenue growth,” Wong tells CNN Travel.
‘The most cutthroat F&B market in the world’
One of the important duties for a F&B publicist is to be physically present at a restaurant, according to Wu. He is either tinkering with menus, sampling new dishes or simply meeting with clients.
It could be anything from translating the restaurant’s a la carte menu from Chinese into English to working with chefs on choosing dishes for a tasting menu, “so you can see what’s happening and let the staff know that you care,” says Wu.
For instance, later that day, he says he’s having a trial lunch at Bluhouse, a new casual Italian dining concept at the Rosewood Hotel in Kowloon.
“At a tasting, we’ll look at everything – taste, presentation and temperature of the food. We also look at furniture, operation flow, pricing, etc.,” he says. “No new restaurant is ever perfect, but let’s try to minimize the error.
“We have only worked with clients in Asia – Hong Kong, Macao, Maldives, etc – but I really believe that Hong Kong is the most cutthroat food and beverage market in the world.”
His claim isn’t baseless.
Getting the opening right is essential in Hong Kong due to its competitiveness.
The city is frequently named as the world’s most expensive rental location. And Hong Kong residents are some of – if not the – biggest spenders on dining out, especially pre-Covid. Food imports are extremely expensive.
According to a recent government survey, Hong Kong households spent an average of HKD60,539 (or US$7,761) on meals out and takeaway food in the year of 2019 to 2020 – Hong Kong suffered from half a year of social unrest in 2019 before the outbreak of Covid in 2020
That was about double what New York-area household spent on average on food away from home during the same year.
“It’s such a condensed market,” says Wu.
“People always talk. Hong Kong customers are also very knowledgeable. If you don’t get it right from the get-go, you have to revamp many things. The question is – will the customers give you a second chance? There are so many choices that chances are they’d go somewhere else.
“So to build a successful restaurant, it’s important to make sure the opening is a strong one. With good word of mouth then businesses will come. It’s that simple.”
Case in point: Bluhouse. It opened in June and dinner reservations are full through October and November at the time of the writing.
Hong Kong’s F&B industry has evolved rapidly in the last decade, thanks in part to the arrival of Michelin Guide in 2009 as well as the rise of social media and the local food community.
Chefs in Hong Kong have experienced a shift in their roles.
“Some 20 years ago, chefs mostly just cooked and served food,” says Wu.
“Now in 2022, there is also this thing called relationship building. Chefs have to show their faces. They have to touch the tables and to take pictures with guests. The job of a chef is much bigger than before. It all goes back to a need for human connection. Customers, media, influencers, bloggers – everyone wants to have a human connection.”
And it just makes good business sense – guests are more likely to return to a restaurant where they have established a relationship with the chef.
The problem, of course, is that chatting with diners doesn’t come naturally to all chefs. That’s where Wu comes in.
“We just encourage and encourage and encourage them,” he says.
He cites Manav Tuli of modern Indian restaurant Chaat – which is also located at the Rosewood – as a success story. Chaat opened in 2020 and won its first Michelin star two years later.
Unique dishes like Tuli’s showstopping tandoori lobster – Indian food with a Hong Kong seafood twist – and a team of knowledgeable staff which communicates the stories of the food beautifully are some of the reasons Chaat is one of Hong Kong’s hardest to book restaurants.
Tables are released two months in advance and swept up in minutes.
But the biggest star of Chaat is Tuli, considered one of the city’s most beloved culinary figures right now.
“When he arrived two years ago, he didn’t know the landscape or culture of Hong Kong,” said Wu. “He is a quiet person but we align in a certain way as we both have a drive. For him, moving his family to Hong Kong with him, he wants to make this a success. So we have been working very closely since day one on that,” said Wu.
He encouraged Tuli to meet the guests and fellow chefs, joining him at events and meals as the chef built a name for himself.
On his days off, Wu organizes lunches for media, including revered industry critics, and chefs he works with or may work with in the future.
These often take place at venues Wu doesn’t work for, from Hop Sze, a no-frills Cantonese diner that has a six-month wait list, to the Forum Restaurant, a Chinese joint with three Michelin stars.
“I worked til 4 a.m [this morning]. I only joined because Geoffrey Wu arranged this lunch,” one food critic tells CNN Travel as he enters the private dining room inside Forum.
The menu of the day includes all kinds of dishes – from street food-style rice rolls to classic Cantonese sweet and sour pork and the restaurant’s famous braised abalone.
As with most lunches with Wu, there’s also an off-menu surprise.
Adam Wong, the executive chef, and CK Poon, the general manager, come in with a pushcart near the end of the meal.
“We are thinking of adding this to the next menu update,” says Poon as he caramelizes sugar for the candied apple fritter (ba si apple), a Northern Chinese-style dessert, on-site.”It’s the first time we’re doing this – so let us know what you think.”
The five-hour lunch wraps up with industry gossip over bottles of cognac.
But Wu is never not working.
He punctuates gatherings with potential collaboration ideas (Tuli and Wong exchanged ideas that day on a hookup between the two restaurants), and fills in moments of silence with jokes to keep the meal entertaining.
“I always say that I’m the chief entertainment officer,” says Wu. “Building relationships takes time. Cold-calling and sending press releases aren’t building a relationship.”
At the end of the day, connections won’t get you far if the food isn’t good or the restaurant refuses to evolve.
“Flavor doesn’t lie,” says Wu. “But everything – restaurants, bars, chefs – has a shelf life. It’s impossible to stay number one forever. You need to keep coming up with new ideas to continue to elevate the restaurant.”
It could be doing more tableside services, educating guests about the dishes, or simply adding a pre-dessert bite that cleanses the palate, he says.
One of Wu’s latest tasks is to edit the menu at one of his new clients, Yong Fu, a Michelin-starred restaurant that specializes in high-end cuisine from China’s east coast Ningbo region.
He’d like to trim down the original one-inch-thick book and has created a tasting menu to offer a more curated ordering experience.
In Hong Kong, Ningbo cuisine is often confused with Shanghai cuisine. The tasting menu includes dishes that diners may not know enough about to order – a “sticky” boiled wax gourd and yellow croaker fish in sour broth, for example – that amplify the trinity of Ningbo cuisine’s star flavors: “savory, umami and sticky.”
Yu Qiong, Yong Fu’s manager, is there to offer an in-depth explanation on each of the dishes.
“These are some of the things that will enrich the whole dining experience,” says Wu. He compares marketing restaurants with running: “Keep refining. Keep pushing. My belief is, just don’t stop until you are at the finishing line.”
It’s an apt metaphor. The avid runner wakes up at 5:45 a.m. on most days to fit in exercise.
“I enjoy Hong Kong on quiet mornings when the city hasn’t woken up yet. When you run, you see a lot of things and think about a lot of things,” says Wu.
As for what was on his mind that particular morning?
“I was thinking about our interview. I was thinking about not swearing. I did well – I only swore once.”
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