The Week USA - 30.08.2019

28 LEISURE Travel

The Cévennes captured my imagi-
nation before I’d ever set foot in
that corner of France’s south-central
highlands, said David McAninch in
The New York Times. “One of the
wildest and most sparsely populated
parts of the country,” the ancient
mountain range with its 5,000-foot
peaks and deep river gorges seemed
like the perfect place to fulfill a
lifelong dream of mine: making a
road trip through rural France in
a vintage Citroën 2CV. My wife,
fortunately, was willing, and when
I discovered Drivy.com, a site that’s
like Airbnb for cars, I quickly
located an owner in Lyon willing to
rent us his 1976 2CV for $70 a day.

The first day didn’t go well. It “rained
ropes,” as the French say, and our mint-
green Deux Chevaux lacked a defogger
or any wiper speed beyond medium-slow.
But when we woke to clear skies the next
morning near the village of Anduze, the

This week’s dream: Exploring untamed France in a classic Citroën

Gabrielle Voinot/The New York Times/Redux, Aqua-Aston Hospitality

Honolulu’s new luxury hotel

offers an unusual perk: the

extravagance of not sharing

a wall with other guests, said

Jay Jones in the Los An geles

Times. Each floor of the nine-

story property is a single

2,250-square-foot suite with

three bedrooms, three and a

half baths, a balcony with a

jacuzzi, and a kitchen stocked

before arrival with your favor-

ite foods. The décor mixes

Italian marble, hand-knotted

Per sian carpets, Mo roc can

metalwork, and pieces by

local artists. Nightly rates

will be discounted through

No vem ber, but Es pa cio earns

its standard $5,000-a-night

rate with butler service and

an Audi Q5 loaner.

espaciowaikiki.com

Hotel of the week

Every state seems to have a Springfield, and the

one in Missouri “isn’t just a name—it’s a destina-

tion,” said Valerie Schremp Hahn in the St. Louis

Post-Dispatch. The billionaire founder of Bass

Pro shops helped see to that when he opened the

Wonders of Wildlife National Museum. A visit

to Springfield today can be all about animals. In

Strafford, 12 miles outside the city of 167,000,

lies a 350-acre wild safari park where you can

ride a bus amid bison, ostriches, and zebras. And

at Springfield’s Dickerson Park Zoo, you can let

giraffes eat lettuce from your hand. Bass Pro’s

Johnny Morris has meanwhile tried bringing

nature indoors at his two-year-old museum, home

of the Midwest’s largest aquarium plus a 1.5-mile

trail that weaves through various habitats occu-

pied by thousands of living or taxidermied ani-

mals. His flagship store is “an attraction in and

of itself,” with a stream running through and an

NRA-sponsored museum of sporting arms.

Getting the flavor of...

Your own slice of paradise

Last-minute travel deals

Rocky Mountain majesty

See the Canadian Rockies

through the panoramic win-

dows of a Rocky Mountaineer

luxury train. Book by Aug. 31

and trips of eight days or more

start at $2,850 and include

two free hotel nights. Mention

“Four Free Perks.”

rockymountaineer.com

Wild times in the Galapagos

Snorkel, hike, and watch some

of the world’s most unique wild-

life in the Galapagos Islands.

Book one of six tours with

Intrepid Travel by Sept. 30 to

save 30 percent. For example, a

six-day “Galapagos at a Glance”

tour starts at $2,206.

intrepidtravel.com

Jamaica made easy

Book a resort getaway at Moon

Palace Jamaica by the end

of the month and save up to

30 percent on a stay through

Dec. 23 of three nights or more.

The Ocho Rios property is also

offering $1,500 in credit toward

extras like golf and the spa.

jamaica.moonpalace.com

surrounding landscape was “every bit as

beautiful as I’d imagined: terraced foothills

backed by craggy, sun-dappled mountains,

with pockets of mist nestling in between.”

We started to enjoy coaxing our underpow-

ered mule through the mountains and up

their “preposterously steep switchbacks.”

The idiosyncratic machine coughed and

wheezed but mostly carried on.

And when we passed a matching

mint-green Citroën, its passengers

smiled and waved wildly, just as

we did.

On the morning of our final day on

the road, the car simply wouldn’t

start. Because it was Sunday, and

we had a flight to catch, we quickly

exhausted all other options and

had to leave the car outside our

hotel. We made it to Paris in time

for dinner and wine at a bistro in

the 10th Arrondissement, and the

car’s owner was not upset. The

repair turned out to be routine, and

we had parted ways with the car in a beau-

tiful spot, a riverside village called Sainte

Enimie. It sits at the end of a cave-pocked

river canyon favored by motorcyclists, and

just past the “beautifully bleak” uplands of

the Causse Méjean.

On Drivy.com, owners offer cars for rent

starting at $30 a day.

The Ozarks’ animal kingdom

“If you want to feel like a New Yorker—get the

rhythm of the language, the streets—then get

yourself up to Arthur Avenue,” said Gerald Eske-

nazi in Forbes.com. The historic Italian neigh-

borhood near the Bronx Zoo “reeks of authen-

ticity,” and not just because cured meats and

cheeses hang from the ceilings of half its shops.

Also known as the Belmont Business District,

Arthur Avenue “looks and feels and sounds like

the New York you first met in old movies or tele-

vision shows.” At the huge Arthur Avenue Retail

Market, where you can find every Italian food

import imaginable, I watched as craftsmen care-

fully rolled cigars by hand. At Egidio’s Pastry,

I counted almost three dozen different kinds of

cookies. “And then there’s the people. The store

owners will tell you how their grandparents

came here after the war—World War I, that is.

Or they might take you in the back, if you ask

nicely, and show you how to stuff cannoli.”

New York’s other Little Italy

Honolulu

Espacio

The author’s borrowed Citroën climbs the Causse Méjean.