Sightseeing & Scenery

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Did you solve the Montreal Mystery in my last blog post? Did you guess which Montreal mansion was the location for our decadent brunch?

Plaudits to Steph Sirois (@StefS31) and Linda Coffin who answered correctly that the mysterious Montreal mansion in the video is Mount Stephen Club! Both Steph and Linda have personal connections to the property, one from college reasearch and the other from growing up two blocks away... Bravo, Montrealophiles! (Shoot me your mailing addresses, and a prize will help you celebrate your smarts.)

The Mount Stephen Club occupies the late 19th century mansion of George Stephen, the co-founder of Canadian Pacific Railway. This extravagant home in Montreal's Golden Square Mile was architecturally inspired Italian Renaissance palaces. The interior is extravagantly finished in detailed Cuban mahogany, English walnut and exotic woods and boasts many marble mantles, stained glass glass windows, and grand staircase fit for royalty.

It's time for a mid-winter escape from the Adirondacks. And what better destination than Costa Rica? For the second year in a row my wife and I are venturing to the jewel of Central America with in-laws for ten incredibdle days at the Four Seasons Peninsula Papagayo. After that we join our friends Amy and Brian who winter in Tamarindo, but unlike last year when we fired straight off to Nosara, this year we're headed inland to Lake Arenal. Volcano. Hot springs. Windsurfing. Then down to Tamarindo for some surf, surf, surfing!

"A flâneur is anyone who wanders, and watches, the city. The 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire called the flâneur a “perfect idler” and a “passionate observer.” Baudelaire was a flâneur himself and, when he wasn’t writing poems and spending his trust fund on dandy outfits and opium, he drifted through the streets of Paris.