6 Ways to Enjoy Zurich

Posted on by
Reply

The view from the Dolder Grand with Lake Zurich in the background.

Just like jump­ing into a children’s sto­ry­book, Switzer­land sur­prises with twists, turns and breath-taking places to get lost. Swiss-bound? Here are a few things to keep in mind when vis­it­ing this prettier-than-a-postcard escape.

1. Get your­self a Zurich Card. Walk­ing is essen­tial, espe­cially in Europe. Zurich’s Old Town is a maze of twisty, twirly cob­ble­stone streets so flat shoes are a def­i­nite do. Not a fan of walking? The pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem in Zurich is amaz­ing (and punc­tual). Grab a Zurich Card; you can find them almost any­where and it’s a lit­tle over $20 for a 24-hour ticket.

Zurich Card

2. Tap into your inner pho­tog. If you’re like me, you don’t go any­where with­out your cam­era - be it a smart­phone or a Nikon D70S. Here, you’ll def­i­nitely want to snap all the impor­tant stuff, espe­cially since Zurich isn’t lack­ing on his­toric mon­u­ments, chapels and build­ings. To give you a head start, the Zurich Tourism web­site offers guided city walks. I also like to shoot things that are unex­pected or sur­pris­ing — on this trip, I kept run­ning into graf­fiti hearts, so that ended up being a run­ning theme through my photos.

Heart Graf­fiti Take 1

Heart Graf­fiti Part 2

3. Get lost with art. Gal­leries and exhibits are every­where. The chal­lenge is find­ing the time to see them all. This is one of my favorite pieces at the Kun­sthaus Zurich by Hans-Peter Feld­mann, a Ger­man artist from Dus­sel­dorf. In this piece enti­tled Schat­ten­spiel (shadow play), he uses lights, children’s toys and trin­kets to cre­ate a mov­ing, life-sized dis­play. The result: a dance per­for­mance of light and shadows.

4. Take a breath of fresh air. While there are count­less amounts of muse­ums to peruse, it’s also impor­tant to take in the nature of Zurich. I was lucky to be based at the gor­geous Dolder Grand - a his­toric hotel dat­ing back to 1899 and nes­tled on the top of a forested hill over­look­ing the city. It’s posi­tion in the for­est makes it easy to explore the off-road trails that go through the for­est. The best part: they even have loaner bikes and maps so you can take in as much of the Hansel and Gre­tel land­scape as possible.

The For­est

4. Cozy up to a cafe. Europe is famous for its cafe cul­ture, and Zurich has loads to choose from. And while Swiss choco­late del­i­ca­cies are a must for any first-time vis­i­tor, I found their mini ver­sions of the French mac­a­roon sim­ply heav­enly — like, melt-in-your-mouth, insanely good. You can’t turn a cor­ner with­out find­ing a café show­cas­ing the prized bite-sized bits of love­li­ness. My favorite place to indulge was Café Schober. Each of the three lev­els has a dif­fer­ent theme but the Salon Rouge — a sexy, red-walled room with vel­vet chairs and vin­tage details — is rea­son enough to stop in.

Mac­a­roons (The gold one in the back was cham­pagne flavored.)

Café Schober

6. Brush up on your Ger­man. An inter­est­ing fact about Switzer­land: There is no sin­gle national lan­guage. Instead, your prox­im­ity to Ger­many, France or Italy deter­mines what lan­guage is spo­ken in the area. Zurich is a six-hour drive from Ger­many so Swiss-German it was. I was secretly excited as it proved to be the per­fect place to use my favorite Ger­man phrase: Guten Appetit (said before meals, it means “good appetite”). Here I am at the Restau­rant Adlis­berg. I ordered a filet, served on a siz­zling hot stone, so the waiter rec­om­mended I wear a bib to pro­tect my dress. I hap­pily agreed.

Rockin’ the bib

 

5 Useless Travel Tips for Spring

Posted on by
3

toes in the sand, white sand

I travel – a lot. So it was inevitable that I would pick up some travel habits along the way. Recently, a trav­el­ing buddy noticed my “quirks” and so we came up with a list. Annnnd, here they are:

Be early.

Yes, this is an obvi­ous one. But by early, I mean a good two to three hours. Then, after you leisurely stroll through the lines (while catch­ing up on Words with Friends) and make it to your gate, you have time to stock up at the news­stand — or grab a cock­tail. (Another bonus: you can let the late guy cut in front of you. You’re in no rush, right? Good deed for the day — done!) Then voila, it’s time to board the plane. But when they call your group num­ber, stay put.*

Be last.

Unless you have a large carry-on that you’re going to need to find space for, you can relax. If you want, even be the last one in line (within rea­son). Then, you can walk right down the run­way with the rest of the late peo­ple and slip into your seat. I’ll never under­stand why every­one pushes to get to the front. It makes no sense. Any­ways, before you do make it to the line, make a stop by the drink cart and …

Buy the BIG one.

Pick up the largest water you can and throw it in your carry-on. (The small cups of water they give you just don’t cut it.) Plus there’s that ques­tion of air­plane ice: Is it really the same sep­tic water from the sink? Yikes! How­ever, when the bev­er­age cart comes around, ask for a cup of hot water – that’s it. Yes, you might get a “this per­son is cuckoo-for-cocopuffs look” but they they end up being under­stand­ing when you …

Just add water.

Oat­meal pack­ets weigh next-to-nothing and smell heav­enly. (My cin­na­mon oat­meal gets rave reviews.) Plus it’s good for you and much bet­ter than a Cinnabon. When peo­ple eat those on the plan that’s just mean. Any­ways, now it’s time to …

Chill.

Whether you’ve got a carry-on stuffed with newly pur­chased rags, an iPad filled with favorite movies, or a good old-fashioned book, this is your moment. (I per­son­ally pre­fer the old-fashioned route and stock up on books and mags; then I lighten the load by giv­ing them away to other pas­sen­gers or the flight atten­dants.**) What­ever your enter­tain­ment of choice, this is your time so do what makes you happy so enjoy it.

So that’s it. It’s sim­ple, really.

Happy Trav­els!

* Do not use this tip if you are trav­el­ing South­west or you’re going to be stuck in the mid­dle seat in the back.

** Give them to the flight atten­dants and you might even score a free drink. Just saying …

 

And the beauty award winners are …

Posted on by
Reply

Through­out the year I am sent sam­ples, bot­tles, spritzes and sprays from beauty brands all over the world. And while it’s easy to be fooled, I know what works and what is just pretty pack­ag­ing with big price tags. So when the time of year comes for the Des­ti­na­tion Wed­dings & Hon­ey­moons Beauty Awards, I can’t wait to see what the testers choose as their “end-all-be-all” prod­uct of the year.

I’ve kept the process sim­ple. Each tester is given a box of prod­ucts to try — usu­ally about three dif­fer­ent ones for their par­tic­u­lar cat­e­gory (sham­poo, mois­tur­izer, nail pol­ish, etc.) — then they report back to me with their find­ings. With all that female kryp­tonite you can imag­ine it gets a lit­tle crazy around here. But there’s noth­ing like watch­ing a gal fall in love — with her new­found favorite gloss.

Girls at every age love their beauty prod­ucts. When my grand­mother Tita was in her late 90s I was still giv­ing her manis/pedis … and the occa­sional facial or two. Dur­ing those moments, while she was get­ting pam­pered and feel­ing pretty, it was almost like she began to get bet­ter. If only for a moment.

old fashioned beauty

Tita

And my grand­mother Margie? When she wasn’t mak­ing me laugh (some­thing she was quite good at) or burn­ing her chili (some­thing she was also good at),  she gave me carte blanche to her box of beauty trea­sures. I would spend hours play­ing with her deep red lip­sticks and paint­ing my nails in every shade she had. What can I say?  I was six.

Margie, as Rosie the Riveter

Ok, sidebar’s over.

So this year, in honor of all things beau­ti­ful, and the women that taught us their tricks of the trade, I proudly announce the third annual DWH Beauty Awards win­ners! Let’s face it, beauty might not heal the world, but it does make it a lit­tle pret­tier to be in.

Color of the Year: Tangerine Tango

Posted on by
Reply

With 2012 here and ready to roll, it’s time to dig into that closet, dust off the old and make room for the new.

While we’re at it, why not intro­duce a new color to the program?

And by that, I mean Pantone’s 2012 color of the year …

Pan­tone Tan­ger­ine Tango

I can almost hear her intro­duc­ing her­self: “Hey girl! I’m Tan­ger­ine, Orange’s niece from Argentina. You may have heard of my cousin, Red? She does a bur­lesque show in Paris. Or maybe her sis­ter, Pink? She’s is a prima bal­le­rina in Russia.”

And she adds just the right bit of bold­ness to any sit­u­a­tion. She can show off your feet in killer peep toe heels. As a nail pol­ish, you can pair her with a play­ful cock­tail ring. Or, she can play the lead as the per­fect vaca­tion dress: a travel-friendly maxi. Roll it up, throw it in your carry-on and off you go.

Here’s some inspi­ra­tion to get your tango on:

Clam­bake by Essie, $8

ASOS Maxi Dress with Hal­ter Neck Tie, $172.71

2 Lips Too Women’s Desire Wedge San­dal, $54.95

California Getaway – La Costa Resort & Spa

Posted on by
Reply

After work­ing with the women on Spa’s Fall “Spa Girls” fea­ture, I was inspired to plan a sim­i­lar trip. So when a girl­friend was about to get mar­ried in Hawaii, we decided to send her off in style with a spa week­end at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carls­bad, Cal­i­for­nia. Tick­ets were booked and before we knew it nine of us were fly­ing in from places like New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Florida, Los Ange­les and Texas. Our retreat: a three-bedroom villa with three bal­conies, a full kitchen and liv­ing area.

Nine girls in a villa? I have to admit, no mat­ter how big that villa was going to be, I was a bit nervous.

Upon arrival, any wor­ries quickly fell away. The prop­erty sits on 400 acres of grounds, has six pools, two golf courses includ­ing the new Cham­pi­ons Course (which recently under­went a $10 mil­lion ren­o­va­tion) and the Spa and Chopra Cen­ter for Well-being.

The bride anx­iously waits for our friends to arrive. We sur­prised them with wine, cheese and snacks from Trader Joe’s — a must-stop shop.

With play-dates, car­pools, dead­lines and meet­ings wait­ing for us back home, we went right for the spa and signed up for one of the lunch pack­ages that included a treat­ment (mas­sage or facial) fol­lowed by a pri­vate al fresco lunch by the pool. Instructed to arrive early, we walked the reflex­ol­ogy path (cre­ated with a vari­ety of stones to hit dif­fer­ent pres­sure points) and had time to relax in the sauna, steam room and lounge area. Then, we were ush­ered off to our treat­ments. One by one — with that after-spa-glassy-eyed-look — we met back at the pool for lunch. On the menu: healthy options like edamame, wraps and sal­ads fin­ished off with cham­pagne and citrus-scented angel food cake. Yum!

And while the food on-property was amaz­ing (every night the Blue­Fire Grill even had live music out­side near the fire pit), that night we decided to stay in and make a home-cooked Ital­ian din­ner – com­fort food at its best.

We even had a sur­prise visit from Jeremy, the groom. We imme­di­ately threw a robe on him for the pic­ture. As always, he was a good sport.

Need­less to say, the week­end went a lot faster than we antic­i­pated. And before we said our good­byes we were already plan­ning next year’s trip.

Want to plan a spa week­end for you and your brood? La Costa offers pack­ages through­out the year. Click here to learn more.

W Fort Lauderdale — Pure Bliss and Brownie Bars

Posted on by
Reply

Last week­end I attended the W Fort Laud­erdale’s W Well­ness Hap­pen­ing – an event that fea­tured every­thing from a sneak pre­view of the resort’s new Ted Gib­son salon, ea apparel (a sexy line of yogawear that works as cocktail-wear, too), pilates, barre and yoga classes and a pre­sen­ta­tion by my favorite beauty expert, Rona Berg. Here we are the Yolo (You Only Live Once) Restau­rant. (Rona’s the one with the fab­u­lous lip­stick.) Isn’t she lovely?

Another bonus: The W is dog-friendly (always a plus in my book), so res­cue dog Jax came along and worked her magic as the Spa mas­cot for the week­end. Here she is check­ing out the digs.

Just a lit­tle over a three-hour drive, it always amazes me how refresh­ing it is to be at the beach. Which is why I was super stoked to see that the hotel was not only just across the street from the beach (per­fect for a morn­ing run), but the rooms here have prime views of the sandy strand … all day long.

Another bonus, the Bliss Spa, is the cen­ter­piece of the pam­per­ing cir­cuit here. Being a “Bliss Vir­gin,” I opted for the Triple Oxy­gen Mask Facial, their sig­na­ture treat­ment. After the 75-minute facial (which also included a won­der­ful effer­ves­cent mask of oxy­gen bub­bles), I was instructed by the estheti­cian to go to the wait­ing room and relax with some sweets from the brownie bar. Wow. Yep, I’m seri­ous people.

You can’t walk out of the spa with­out going through the manicure/pedicure room. And it’s a good thing: the Dou­ble Choco­late pedi­cure makes the entire place smell like a choco­late. Not a bad way to leave an impression!

Want to get your Bliss on? Click here for a salon near you. And don’t for­get to treat your­self to a brownie. Every gal knows that calo­ries don’t count at the spa!

Pet-friendly Miami

Posted on by
Reply

The Man­darin Ori­en­tal, Miami

Trish, Jax and I hang­ing out at Nikki Beach.

Miami is the place for fresh seafood (at Joe’s Stone Crab, course), gor­geous beaches, fun nightlife … and … dogs? One of the things that I love about Miami is the amount of places you can take your pet. Which is why last week­end I reserved a room at the Man­darin Ori­en­tal, Miami. Not only is the hotel itself filled with an amaz­ing Five-Star spa, the Mediterranean-Asian inspired Azul restau­rant, and a pri­vate pool and beach over­look­ing the bay, but the Man­darin Ori­en­tal brand gives new mean­ing to the word “pet-friendly.”

Their MO Pets pro­gram includes spe­cial menus, pet turn­down ser­vice, play dates, groom­ing and pet walk­ing ser­vices (at the sur­round­ing 1.3 mile trail). But the “reg­u­lar “ ameni­ties were what got me. Upon arrival with Jax, my lit­tle res­cue, she was greeted like a full-bred show dog. Included with check-in, a golden Man­darin Ori­en­tal col­lar tag, a comfy pet bed, food and water bowls, toys and treats. Lots of them.

Jax and all her swag.

Also included: per­son­al­ized dog bones

What’s even more fun, they offer in-room din­ing with menu items like Grilled Organic Chicken Breast and gourmet desserts. And while Miami is filled with gor­geous resorts, it’s nice know­ing that a few cater to our four-legged friends too. When it came time to check-out, I swear Jax was walk­ing with a lit­tle more bounce in her step.

Beach Babe-Worthy Hair

Posted on by
Reply

Liv­ing in Florida, come Sat­ur­day, I’m usu­ally beach­bound. And while I love swim­ming, by day’s end my hair can get kind of wild. (As you can see from this pic­ture, it’s under­stand­able why, as a lit­tle girl, my grandpa called me “wild woman.”) And that stick I’m car­ry­ing? That stick end­ing up being an art project that my grandpa and I ended up paint­ing. It was my prized pos­ses­sion. (I still have it.) I actu­ally stole that stick from my brother … because that’s what big sis­ters do. He’s in the pic­ture too. (I think he’s mad that I stole the afore­men­tioned stick.)

Any­ways, back to the hair. So I’ve tried sprays and serums with UVA/UVB pro­tec­tion and my hair still ends up being a big crazy mess. So after test­ing out Salerm Golden Hair­sun Mist on my last visit to the beach, I had hat-in-hand … just in case.

To my sur­prise, come sun­set I only needed a few spritzes over my hair and body (it’s good for both), and it not only tamed the mane into a smoother ver­sion of itself, but it also left me with a fresh, beachy scent. Per­fect for those end of day mar­gar­i­tas! And while my hair will always have a wild side to it, it’s nice to know I finally found some­thing to make it pretty after a day in the sun. Plus, it smells so good I even use it when I’m not at the beach. Who says you can’t sport some beachy waves when you’re at work?

The BluePrintCleanse

Posted on by
1

Twice a year I do a cleanse. Once after Christ­mas — I’m Mex­i­can so you can only imag­ine the food that my fam­ily serves up dur­ing the hol­i­days — and once in July (it’s the mid­dle of sum­mer and my birth­day). So when our Asso­ciate Edi­tor at Spa, Amy, asked my buddy Rea­gan and I if we would test out some juice fasts with her, we were all about it. What bet­ter way to get all rev-ed up for sum­mer, right?

My cleanse, the Blue Print Cleanse, is a three-day pro­gram made up of 18 organic, freshly-squeezed juice con­coc­tions. The rules are sim­ple: You drink six juices a day (they are num­bered to keep it easy) and that’s it.  You are allowed tea, water and cucum­bers … if you get really hun­gry. Need­less to say, I’m dizzy. (So please excuse any typos or gram­mat­i­cal errors.) By day 2, Amy (whose cleanse tastes the worst) looked like she was about to burst into tears while Rea­gan and I had the con­stant gig­gles. Hon­estly though, I will admit, I’m sleep­ing bet­ter, my skin is glow­ing, I lost 5lbs and I swear I can see bet­ter. (Rea­gan thinks it’s because our bod­ies are in starvation-mode and there­fore our eye­sight is height­ened so we can find food.)

I love that Reags thinks we are hunters.

In any case, if I could have a hand­ful of almonds, the occa­sional glass of wine and run in the morn­ing with­out pass­ing out, I could do this for­ever. But since I can’t, I just bought a juicer. Appar­ently start­ing the day off with a juice kick­starts your metab­o­lism and gives you amaz­ing skin. (At least that’s what Char­lene Flo­rian told me.) And since she is a spa expert and has gor­geous skin, I’m going to believe her.

Want to try one out on your own? Here’s the recipe from Char­lene her­self. And if you get the gig­gles, just go with it. It’s kind of fun.

½ a lemon

½ a green apple

1 ½ inches of ginger

She also rec­om­mends adding in kale, spinach, pars­ley, cilantro or cel­ery. Just have fun with it! If you want to live on the wild side, add in a small piece of habanero chile for some extra kick.

Enjoy!


Just Back: Ojai Valley Inn & Spa

Posted on by
Reply

After Spa’s Travel Well media event in L.A., I decided to stay the week­end and drive up to Ojai Val­ley Inn & Spa. Count­less peo­ple had told me about the prop­erty (with an “amazed” look in their eyes) — so I was stoked to actu­ally see it for myself. And since I had two of my best friends sur­prise me with a visit, I was more than ready for a girl’s weekend.

Ojai, located in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia, was as beau­ti­ful as I had expected but what I really came to appre­ci­ate was the calm­ness I found there.  The place itself seems to be an artist’s haven, the prop­erty even has an “Artist’s Cot­tage” for guests to paint, write, sketch … you name it. I felt com­pletely at home (that is if my home was a quaint lit­tle cot­tage in the mid­dle of a fairytale-like forest).

Dur­ing lunch one day, I was talk­ing to an Ojai local who said, “Ojai chooses you, you don’t choose Ojai.” I couldn’t be hap­pier to be let in on California’s lit­tle secret. Find out more about it in Spa’s upcom­ing Sum­mer issue (on stands 6/21).  In the mean­time, here are some pics from the trip.

This is the view from our suite, with the Topa Topa moun­tains in the background.

Anne and Trish, two of my favorite gals, hav­ing pre-dinner drinks at Maravilla.

Before din­ner we looked out the win­dow to find this: a rain­bow. Nice!

You KNOW the food is going to be good when the chef is pick­ing the day’s veggies!

This is at the Apothe­cary, in the Artist’s Cot­tage. Sher­rie is get­ting ready to bring out the essen­tial oils so we can start con­coct­ing my magic per­fume. (She knows I love vanilla and kept try­ing to hide it from me.) Even with my eyes closed I still kept choos­ing it … she finally gave in.

The final mas­ter­piece came out with a soft mix that included vanilla, amber and blood orange (which we decided felt like a scented hug). I named it Olivia, after my mom.

A girl’s week­end isn’t com­plete with­out at least one cham­pagne toast.

The Friend­ship Tree, located right out­side of the Artist’s Cottage.