News, new tourist offers, must-sees, trends, favourites… Two of our tourism expert collaborators take turns writing in this weekly section to inform you of what is happening here and elsewhere in the world of travel.
From head to toe…
Here, as elsewhere, the diversity of businesses found in a neighborhood makes it attractive — for residents and tourists alike. Madrid, which was not born yesterday, knows something about it. While recently in the Spanish capital, I wandered around Malasaña, the ex-HQ of Movida (hello, Almodóvar!), and found myself at the Antigua Casa Crespo, which has been making espadrilles for 160 years this year, inform me the owner. Judging by the interior design, we take her at her word, and that’s what makes the place so charming!
High place of the theater world from the second half of the 16th centurye century, the Barrio de las Letras is home to another of these centuries-old businesses that the city conceals: Capas Seseña. In the window, a picture of Pablo Picasso catches the eye. Let’s enter.
No, said photo is not a nod to the fiftieth anniversary of the painter’s death, which Spain commemorates in style. Rather, it reminds us that the capes he wore were made here – the same style as those worn long before him by Miguel de Cervantes, a resident of the area.
On the racks of the shop are lined up winter capes in fine wool, summer capes, for men, for women, long, short (pelerines), with tone-on-tone or velvet embroidery, called “salon “.
“For Picasso, wearing a cape was a fashion statement, says Carmen Fábrega, tailor. He is also buried in one of ours. And the people of Madrid, do they wear them? “Ah, that, I don’t know, but they buy us some!” she says. If your steps should lead you to Madrid, then go to Seseña to see the beauty before going to whistle, not far away, a little vermouth at Alberto, another address 100% translation !
Let’s borrow a national park!
Did you know ? Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec (BAnQ) and the Société des Établissements de Plein Air du Québec (SEPAQ) have launched a pilot project whereby our subscription to the Grande Bibliothèque allows us to borrow one of 35 passes for certain National parks. These give access to the Îles-de-Boucherville, Mont-Saint-Bruno, Oka, Yamaska, Mont-Orford, Mont-Tremblant or Plaisance parks for two adults, for one day. “Nature is culture! National parks are part of our heritage, just like the wealth of documents that BAnQ offers to the public,” says its President and Chief Executive Officer, Marie Grégoire. The brilliant idea! May it materialize on an even larger scale…
Tailor-made trips
Francisca Matteoli writes very beautiful books. I also presented to you his extraordinary travels two summers ago. Here now Map Stories. card stories, which EPA has just reissued in an improved version. At the time of Google Maps, whose flatly prosaic usefulness cannot be denied, maps of the world make people dream, and even more so when they are deliciously obsolete like those, road, marine, railway, school or colonial, which accompany the writer’s stories. From lost cities to worlds of ice via roads that have become legendary, they situate us in a space-time of pioneers and take us to where everything was new. “The cards allow everything and you enter them like in a novel, writes Mme Matteoli. Explorers only had a compass, things have changed a lot since then, but they are still the best I know to live a great adventure. »
Not new, but still beautiful
This content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, relating to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.