Verana Hotel

Verana Hotel is an intimate boutique hotel on Mexico‘s Pacific coast, tucked in a remote hillside jungle just thirty miles south of Puerto Vallarta and accessible only by boat. Verana boasts indulgently private accommodations, a blend of old-world and modern designs and a philosophy of simple luxuries—all set against a backdrop of stunning water and mountain views. The whole experience begin when you disembark onto the hotel’s small, private pier. A few stone steps lead to the full-service jungle spa, which offers aqua-therapy, scrubs, massages and the like, many of which incorporate locally grown plants.

Just next to the spa center, is the one of the two hotel’s restaurant, provding lunchtime service overlooking the bay, a perfect spot to enjoy the sights, while enjoying a stellar chef’s menu, updated daily. A weekday menu might include fresh-baked bread with roasted smoked eggplant puree, guajillo chile-encrusted octopus, and caramelized pineapple with fresh strawberries and yogurt citrus sorbet.

To get to the hotel’s rooms, guests will be guided through a 15-minute jungle route up, winding stone steps to the hotel proper. Along the way, guests pass by a dramatic, eight-foot-tall urn, as well as rustic busts made in the likeness of Verana’s owners. To be more specific there are no rooms, just beautifully simple, individually-designed villas dotting the hillside combine the traditional architecture with modern design.

The hotel’s lush natural surroundings inspired the overall color palette, and its decor (all of which had to be brought uphill by man or mule) mixes streamlined, contemporary pieces with artisan-made furniture and Mexican handicrafts, carefully selected by owners, former movie set builder Heinz Legler and set decorator Veronique Lievre. Visitors can choose from open villas with traditional thatched roofs, few to zero walls and rock floors, or more modern, enclosed villas with dramatic walls of steel-framed windows overlooking the bay. The hotel’s second restaurant and spa location blend in up here as well, where guests meet nightly for a casual cocktail hour at the outdoor bar, enjoying contemporary designs and stellar service, followed by impeccable dinners—yes, once again, overlooking the bay.

If you get tired of laying down on the pool or observing the sky and ocean downhilll, or have had enough of all those pesky, relaxing spa treatments, Verana also offers private and group yoga classes, kayaking, whale and bird watching excursions, an outdoor couples starlit bath. The nearby town of Yelapa is just a twenty minute hike away, with a long, lovely beach and a local celebrity of sorts—”the cake lady” who walks up and down the beach carrying delicious cakes and pies on her head for sale. Plan accordingly though, the trail between Yelapa and Verana is impassible when the tide is in. Verana is open to the public 1 November-31 July each year, rack rates start at $380 a night.

Museum aan de Stroom

The MAS is an impressive building with a museum, among other things. Because it is also the visible storage, the museum square with Luc Tuymans’ mosaic, the boulevard, the rooftop panorama, etc. The MAS is a total experience. Nowdays, Antwerp has its own iconic piece of museum architecture and it’s poised to make the medieval Flemish town a global destination. The Museum aan de Stroom opened last weekend to an estimated 100,000 visitors, including the Belgian royal family.

The MAS brings together the collections from the former Etnografisch Museum, the Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum and the Volkskundemuseum. They are given a new home in the MAS along with part of the Vleeshuis Museum collection and the Paul and Dora Janssen-Arts collection. The collections are spread over four floors and are not displayed side by side. The pieces are connected through a dynamic scenography on the different floors. They don’t just impart information. They tell stories, they endure, they are actors in an ever-changing play.

Once Antwerp was a harbor village with a massive port more than seven times the size of its commercial center. In the 1600s, the city was the seat of the Dutch superpower, establishing the nation’s merchant status for centuries to come. Today, Antwerp belongs to Belgium and it’s still a city defined by its watery borders. And it’s there, just off the River Scheldt between the historic city center and the up-and-coming industrial neighborhood het Eilandje, that the MAS Museum steps into its starring role.

With this museum, Antwerp got a a striking ten-story monolith of stacked boxes in alternating red Indian limestone and undulating glass. The architects, Neutelings Riedijk from Rotterdam, rotated each level 90 degrees, allowing the escalators to ascend around the perimeter of the museum. The effect is a moving viewing platform affording wraparound views of the city, from the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady to the domed Centraal Station to the grittier docklands and warehouses in the immediate vicinity of MAS.