Snowed In

This past weekend I had the good fortune to be snowed in at the Quintessence hotel in Mont-Tremblant, Canada. With a blizzard raging outside that prevented my flying back to New York City, I climbed into a hot tub on the edge of frozen Lake Tremblant and watched the snow pile up around me. Then I went back to my room, sat on a plump, beige couch in front of a wood-burning fireplace, propped my feet on a large, leather hassock — and did nothing. Every once in a while, I opened the door to my balcony to see what was happening outside. It was shimmering white and quiet except for the gusts of wind. Perfectly lovely. I lit candles and took a bath in the deep, whirlpool tub, which was placed so that I could see the fireplace. Then I went across the road to the Mont-Tremblant pedestrian village for a steak dinner complemented by a fine glass of shiraz wine, returning through almost knee-high snow to a cozy bed. The next morning was bright and crisp and cold, with two sunny eggs Benedict for breakfast.

The plane could depart.

The list of winter activities at Mont-Tremblant is long: skiing, snowboarding, dogsledding, snowmobiling, tubing, zip-lining, ice climbing, and so on, but I would put lazing in a hot tub watching the snow fall at the top, followed by doing nothing. For people like myself who usually try to do too much, that's the ultimate luxury. With or without a snowstorm as an excuse, I recommend it.

Terese

The Water Show

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is a vast repository of information about the universe, our planet and human culture. Museum scientists and exhibition curators help connect the dots — sometimes leaving visitors amazed and inspired, but in the case of the current show about water, probably leaving them saying "uh-oh."

While most Americans can just turn on a tap and receive an abundance of clean water, many people on Earth don't even have enough to drink much less enough for cleanliness. It turns out that while our planet is around 71 percent water, only 3 percent of that is accessible fresh water.

Several years ago, on a visit to Kenya, I saw the hardships this can create. In one village I visited, women had to trudge over three miles each way to get water for their families. Several valiant women raised money to build a large, clay cistern in the village with a water pipe that connected to the water source. This had an enormous impact on the life and health of the village's families.

At the Museum of Natural History's water exhibit, you can try lifting a full water jug to see what that's like — and considering the scarcity of fresh water in the world, think about that the next time you water your lawn, if you have one — and if you don't have a lawn, think about the water supply the next time you take a bath (using around 50 gallons) or brush your teeth (one gallon, if you leave the water running).

The exhibit teaches and preaches — and also entertains with a six-foot globe displaying satellite images of Earth, a waterfall projected on a curtain of fog, live fishes and frogs and dioramas.

The water exhibit runs through May 6, 2008 and requires a timed ticket for admission, which can be purchased at the museum or online (with a $4 service charge). For more information, go to www.amnh.org.

Terese

The World's Most Beautiful City

This morning, my aunt Sylvia, who has traveled extensively for many years, confirmed what I suspected: Venice is the most beautiful city in the world. I was only there for three days (and half of that time was ill — possibly because of something I ate) but was still enraptured. In a mask store called Ca'Macana near S. Marco Basilica, a lovely saleswoman named Kiaiti Saliha talked about Venice's allure. She was born in Algeria, but moved to Venice 26 years ago, she told me. "I loved Venice from the first time I have seen it," she said, apologizing for her English, which I assured her, was better than my Italian. "It's like first love. You cannot forget it." Venice was her destiny, she said, and where she wanted "to finish."

"Everything in this city is art," she said. "The people who have created Venice were so great." Then she paused and added pensively, "I hope that it will still be here for people in the future so they can see what it is."

I hope so, too.

Terese

Fall Foliage in New York City

Though some people may feel the need to head for New England to see masses of brilliantly colored autumn leaves punctuated by white church steeples, New York also has wonderful autumnal displays. In Manhattan's Central Park and Brooklyn's Prospect Park, we have Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's legacies, and now, in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, we have another great landscape artist at work. In an exposed marine environment that must resemble in some ways his native Holland, Piet Oudolf has massed tall grasses and flowers to create a poetic, wild-looking enclave that is, in fact, carefully planned. Oudolf's garden is less than four years old and will only grow more lovely as it matures, but already it gleams. It's worth a trip to Lower Manhattan to wander along its serpentine paths.

Terese

Being and Doing

I've just returned from a few days in the Gaspe Peninsula at the eastern end of Canada's Quebec Province. "What did you DO there?" my friend, Tova, wanted to know.

What a New York question. We're always busy doing something here. In the Gaspe, although there were things to do, I realized that sometimes it's enough just to BE somewhere.

In Perce, a fishing village famous for its distinctive, pierced rock, which apparently migrated to its present position millions of years ago as the Earth's tectonic plates shifted and carried it north from the equator, I couldn't stop taking pictures. I walked out into a heavy rain to photograph the rock swathed in mist and the next morning I got up at 5:30 to photograph the rock at sunrise.

I also went on a whale-watching cruise in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. "I saw blue whales," I told Tova, "the largest animals on Earth."

"I'm jealous," she said. "I love whales."

Gloating only slightly, I laid on her that I also saw fin whales and a minke whale.

There were Italians, French, Swiss, Germans, Americans and Canadians in our little boat. After a blue whale swam close to us and then gracefully turned away, we all sat in complete, motionless silence. The sun was warm, the air was cool and the only sound was the lapping of the waves. For a few moments, all of us just WERE — human beings on a small boat in a grand and mysterious universe, midway between the leviathans and the stars.

Terese

Another September in Lower Manhattan

As soon as Lower Manhattan reopened to the public after the destruction of the World Trade Center in September 2001, visitors started arriving. They're still coming.

At first the visitors left flowers, photos, candles, mementos and notes that they pinned to the metal fence surrounding the site. Now, they mostly look at the construction equipment and the few displays near the site, perhaps buy a booklet or a New York City baseball cap from a souvenir vendor and take photographs. But it would be a mistake to think that most of them are just gawking. A week ago, I walked by the World Trade Center site and asked a few people at random where they were from and their thoughts about what they saw there.

To my surprise, everyone that I happened to talk to came from outside the United States, with the exception of one man who was working at 2 World Financial Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and had brought his daughter and two of her college friends to see Ground Zero. I spoke to four Italians, a young man from Belgium, a woman from Spain and a Catholic priest from England.

The Spanish woman said to me in halting English, "The pain is our pain. In Spain, we had the same in Madrid on March 11 with the train that was bombed. We cried for the American people and we cried for the Spanish people, too. We are brothers because we’ve got the same pain." When we parted, she kissed me on the cheek.

And so another September 11 approaches. There will be speeches, the reading of the names, and there will be flowers pinned to the chain link fence. And visitors will continue to come. Should you be among them, be sure to visit St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway. The chapel was finished in 1766 and is Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use. This is where George Washington worshipped after he was inaugurated as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789.

Miraculously, considering how close it is to the World Trade Center site, St. Paul's survived the attack. In the aftermath of the destruction, the chapel was used by rescue workers as a place to eat and rest. Scuff marks from their ash-covered shoes are still on the pews.

Usually, the chapel is open from Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. On Sept. 11, the chapel will be open to the public from 8 a.m. for prayer and reflection.

Terese

New York Greenmarkets

For the last 31 years, Greenmarkets in New York City have been bringing local farmers and city residents together for their mutual benefit. The farmers get an outlet for their products and city dwellers get beautiful, fresh food at reasonable prices -- plus a chance to get to know people whose way of life is so different from their own.

Every day of the week from spring through Thanksgiving, there's a Greenmarket somewhere in New York City. Sixteen of the Greenmarkets run year round.

The largest is on Union Square in Manhattan. On a typical Saturday in the height of the growing season, around 60,000 people shop there.

But there are Greenmarkets throughout the boroughs that are as central and haimish as the old wells and fountains in European villages. These are places where neighbors run into each other and chat and where it's easy to strike up a conversation even with a stranger.

For visitors to New York, a neighborhood Greenmarket is a great way to meet New Yorkers — and also to cut down on the cost of a New York City visit.

On a Saturday, stop by the Tribeca Greenmarket, for instance, on Greenwich Street just north of Chambers. Buy some fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries and peaches are in season, with apples and pears on the horizon), some cheese, bread, milk or yogurt, and maybe some carrots and cucumbers, and take your picnic into the Washington Market Park, which is right next to the Greenmarket.

For Greenmarket schedules and locations, see www.cenyc.org/site http://www.cenyc.org/site.

Meet a Greenmarket merchant at http://www.TravelArtsSyndicate.com/fish

Terese