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I’m cautiously optimistic that we may have escaped a brutal winter, which is a relief since a month out west left me a little too soft and vulnerable for the freezing temps we recently experienced. I’m currently racing around my house packing for a trip later this week–New York City, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Paris.

Sadly, while in Paris I won’t have time to check out our lead feature this week. Erin Zaleski regales us with the tale of Madame du Barry, France’s most famous mistress, whose apartments in Versailles underwent a major restoration and were recently reopened.

The Hamburg leg of my trip will be on assignment for our It’s Still a Big World series, which we’ll post in a few weeks. In the meantime, don’t miss my dispatch from Fort Wayne, Indiana, birthplace of Bill Blass and a classic mid-size American city I’d zoomed past on countless roadtrips. However, it turns out this city is punching waaaaay above its weight when it comes to impressive architecture with works from Wright, Kahn, Graves, Saarinen, and more!

I’m sure many of you are probably already thinking about traveling to Europe this summer. Daniel Modlin’s essay this week may cause you to reconsider, as the offseason is often the best time —he got to experience Portugal without having to deal with all the jostling summer crowds. Enjoy!

— William O’Connor, Travel Editor

The Apartments of France’s Greatest Mistress Have Reopened

Her life was one of the greatest triumphs—from poverty to palaces—that ended in one of the great tragedies of the Revolution.

This Overlooked Midwest City Is Full of Hidden Treasures

Most of us would be pressed to point on a map to this city of a quarter million people. But it has a collection of works by some of the last century’s most important architects.

The Trick to Get Portugal All to Yourself

Nothing was ever crowded, nothing felt claustrophobic—instead it felt like the place was breathing at a normal rate, for once.

Asheville’s New A-Frame Campground Brings Scandinavia to Appalachia

Just outside of town and along the river, this new complex immediately grabs your eye.

“When it comes to all-inclusive resorts, two images come to mind: children running around while their parents struggle to corral them, and drunk frat bros stumbling into or out of elevators, confused about which floor their hotel room is on.”

–Kevinisha Walker found herself singing a different tune about all-inclusives after visiting Marriott’s first luxury adults-only all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic.

Checkout This Versatile and Shockingly Lightweight Carry-On

Arlo Skye is a DTC suitcase company—but their suitcases are better than their competitors, in my opinion. The Zipper Carry-On Max is, first and foremost, shockingly lightweight. It’s hard-sided, which I personally love because that means it can fit in the overhead bin no matter how much you stuff in it. Trust me when I say I really put this to the test. It has four wheels which are extremely quiet—thank god, because there’s nothing I hate more than the clickety-clack of wheels going down airport walkways. It comes with an integrated TSA-approved combination lock that is easy to use and a removable charger (that you should remember to remove). But best of all, the front compartment is where it’s at because it eliminates the need for a secondary carry-on item like a backpack.

— Scouted by Daniel Modlin

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Travel Into an Icon of Venice’s World

It’s a slim book, but Fortuny: Time, Space, Light packs a design history punch. In his lifetime from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th, few designers impacted the visual world as much as Mariano Fortuny. Born in Spain to one of its greatest painters, Fortuny made his mark in Paris and then became synonymous with Venice–so much so that none other than Proust would write how seeing one of his dresses took one back to La Serenissima.

This new tome by Wendy Ligon Smith, published by Yale University Press, explores Fortuny’s legacy. It dives into his experiments with light, electricity, and other technologies. This is a man who was once compared to Edison and Goethe and had a patent for his pleating machine. He transformed fashion, theater, and design–his dresses are still worn more than a century later and the same goes for his lighting techniques and fabrics. While the book is certainly more academic than the typical book you might pick up on a friend’s coffee table, it’s a perfect fit for our series Just Booked.

After all, while the casual tourist to Venice will rhapsodize over the Doge’s Palace or the Rialto Bridge, but get a true lover of Venice and they will tell you one place you simply must go is the Palazzo Fortuny.

Don’t miss our other selections for our series on gorgeous travel-related coffee table books, Just Booked.

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