John Oseid

Art hotels are happening these days. Some collections more impressive than others. Having started a few decades ago, one Barcelona hotel in the elegant Eixample district now displays some 1,000 fine pieces that all come from the personal holdings of the ownership family. Mounted all throughout the property, from public spaces to your room, the Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona’s artworks are your chance to discover—if you don’t know them already—major Spanish artists such as Antoni Tàpies and Ed...

Art hotels are happening these days. Some collections more impressive than others. Having started a few decades ago, one Barcelona hotel in the elegant Eixample district now displays some 1,000 fine pieces that all come from the personal holdings of the ownership family. Mounted all throughout the property, from public spaces to your room, the Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona’s artworks are your chance to discover—if you don’t know them already—major Spanish artists such as Antoni Tàpies and Ed...

With Barcelona booming these days, locals’ displeasure over hordes of visitors clomping around town has made lots of news. But rest assured that those looking for a classic and peaceful sojourn need only head to the ever elegant Eixample district where the grand Hotel El Palace Barcelona remains a stalwart of luxury on the Gran Via.
You feel the grandness of the 1919 Palace just as soon as you spin out of the revolving door and step into the marbled reception room with a chandelier, sweeping ...

As host of the 37th America’s Cup, Barcelona was abuzz in late summer and into fall with all kinds of civic events. To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Passeig de Gràcia, famed tenor Josep (José) Carreras and flamenco dance star Sara Baras gave a free concert that included countless encores on a closed off stretch of the iconic avenue. The stage was right in front of the chamfered corner of the Majestic Hotel & Spa Barcelona, a reminder that one of the city’s most historic and celeb...

It’s all about the mice here a few miles inland from the Aegean Sea at Türkiye’s westernmost point in Çanakkale province. You just need to know where to look in this pleasant hill country of olive cultivation where a magnificent ancient marble temple will pop up before you outside of the small village of Gülpınar. And with a new bridge crossing the Dardanelles strait, it’s now easier than ever to get from Istanbul here to the Apollo Smintheus Sanctuary, or Smintheion, as you follow the countr...

It’s not often that you can visit a well-preserved site from antiquity and have it all to yourself. In the rich archaeological crossroad of Western Türkiye’s Balıkesir province, you can indeed at a small site that faces the sea. Lying right off a modern highway along the Aeneas Route of ancient sites, the ruins of Antandros are tucked so tightly into a wooded slope of sacred Mount Ida that you could easily drive right by. But find the city and you’ll be rewarded with a series of marvelous 4th...

It’s not often that you can visit a well-preserved site from antiquity and have it all to yourself. In the rich archaeological crossroad of Western Türkiye’s Balıkesir province, you can indeed at a small site that faces the sea. Lying right off a modern highway along the Aeneas Route of ancient sites, the ruins of Antandros are tucked so tightly into a wooded slope of sacred Mount Ida that you could easily drive right by. But find the city and you’ll be rewarded with a series of marvelous 4th...

The ancient world certainly knew just where to build. Imagine a prime hilltop spot facing the northern peaks of Lesbos island just across the Mytilini Strait, its slopes plunging 700 feet down to clear Aegean waters. Fishing and sailing boats are sheltered in a marina fronted by restaurants, while the ruins of a nearby ancient breakwater are still visible underwater. If this stunning scene were California, there would be condos all over.
But this is Assos, the perfect place to build an acropo...

Certain places are so mythical that we can forget they're real. But even if you happen to know exactly where the ancient site of Troy lies, it may come as a surprise just how easy it is to visit these days.
A new suspension bridge—the world’s longest—makes all the difference. Opened just two years ago to take you over the Dardanelles strait from the Gallipoli peninsula to Çanakkale province, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (the year honors the WWI Battle of Gallipoli) means skipping a long ferry ri...

Certain places are so mythical that we can forget they're real. But even if you happen to know exactly where the ancient site of Troy lies, it may come as a surprise just how easy it is to visit these days.
A new suspension bridge—the world’s longest—makes all the difference. Opened just two years ago to take you over the Dardanelles strait from the Gallipoli peninsula to Çanakkale province, the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (the year honors the WWI Battle of Gallipoli) means skipping a long ferry ri...

Lisbon is booming these days, as a great city deserves to be. Its arts scene has always been robust, from institutions like the long-established world-class Calouste Gulbenkian Museum to the new Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology MAAT), and even newer MAC/CCB Museum of Contemporary Art. And yet Lisbon as an arts center somehow remains under the radar and lesser known than other major European cities.
You just need to know where to look, and a museum’s worth of Modernist treasures can ...

It’s always a wonderful thing when a full-on renovation fully respects the roots of a historic edifice—be it hotel, museum, or modest private home—and doesn’t erase the past. While that’s certainly not always the case (talking to you, NYC), a recent major hotel project in Lisbon absolutely hit the sweet spot of rejuvenating the past and modernizing at the same time.
Sitting above the huge Marquis of Pombal Square at the top of swank and leafy Liberdade Avenue, and overlooking the stately 64-a...

You’ve got grapevines as far as the eye can see, either lusciously green in summer or soon to be deep crimson and gold in fall harvest colors. Then there’s all that rich red soil around you. And that’s just from your window at the new Grange Dundee Hills inn which opened mid-summer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
Who knew soils could have such poetic names, as you’ll discover in any of the nine one-off Grange rooms that are named for signature Willamette Valley earth types. On the second floor...

As mass movements go, you don't want to miss this one brewing in Portland. You’ve likely never thought about mass timber. Nor does the word glulam—that’s light-weight, mega-strong laminated wood—ring a bell. But get to the city’s airport and you’ll discover that a timber wave of the future has just taken off there, as in the literal form of a wavy new roof. And its soaring, elegant latticed framework is thrilling a city that has already long loved its airport (sorry, LAX).
After more than a d...

Not too many years ago, few North American travelers outside of wine aficionados had ever heard of the northern Portuguese city of Porto, let alone traveled up the Douro river upon which it lies, nor into the vineyard-rich Douro Valley. That’s hardly the case today. Having just opened upriver from town in 2021, Vinha Boutique Hotel has instantly upped the Porto and Douro game, for both its design and culinary prowess.
Lying across from Porto on the Douro left bank, the nine-acre Leading Hotel...