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...dusk, follow the locals down to the Zayandeh River, with its exquisite arched bridges and discreetly entwined couples. A hop, skip and jump away is the Abbasi Hotel, housed in a former caravanserai. With its restaurants, fitness complex and teahouse - plus a courtyard styled like a traditional Persian garden - it's no wonder the city's beau monde flocks here after dark. Eager to rub shoulders with the all-too-rare tourists in their midst, they'll guarantee you leave Isfahan vowing to return...
Sometimes even the most dedicated gallery goer can't find the time to stand in a ticket line or the patience to brave the crowds. So what could be more sybaritic for the jet-setting art lover than to book into a hotel with its own museum-quality collection? Here are three of the more offbeat best - all with private owners passionate about amassing serious art to share with their guests...
...MERRION HOTEL, DUBLIN The epitome of relaxed Georgian grandeur with its rococo plasterwork ceilings, antiques and Irish fabrics, the Merrion Dublin (www.merrionhotel.com) has one of the most important collections of Irish art outside a conventional gallery - and it's constantly evolving as proprietor Lochlann Quinn makes fresh purchases. The explosive color and intensity of nudes by Irish Post-Impressionist Roderic O'Connor, a close friend of Gauguin's, contrast strikingly with the simplified shapes and subtle lighting in William Scott's kitchen-implement still lifes. The collection also features powerful observations of Irish rural life by Jack B. Yeats, brother...
...lend the painting a Moroccan edge. A stunning light sculpture inspired by a hookah pipe and crafted out of meter-long handblown glass vessels by New Zealander Francis Upritchard vies for attention with small studies in carbon and casein donated by sculptor Antony Gormley after he stayed at the hotel. And there's a big decorative abstract by Terry Frost in the cosy bar. Some photography is on show, too: moving black-and-white images of boy soldiers in the Congo by South African Guy Tillim...
Earlier in the morning, the wind pounded the rain into the windows of my hotel room in Metairie, down the highway from New Orleans on Lake Pontchartrain. You could barely see out the windows, the wind was so strong. Just a few minutes earlier, the branches of trees were barely moving. It's certainly a strong storm, but not nearly as powerful as folks feared. And so Gustav arrived with a somewhat diminished bang, the first bands striking just before midnight. For much of Sunday evening, the city, and region, had been bathed in the odd silence that usually precedes...