As we continue the holiday week, I hope you enjoy this encore blog from my Thanksgiving vacation in Costa Rica. It was originally posted on December 16, 2019.
I hope you are all enjoying this holiday season.
Some of you have asked for photos of my Thanksgiving. This year, my family and I went away. It felt odd at first - no turkey, no cranberry sauce, and no pie, but once we got to Costa Rica, near Dominical, a beach-front town in the province of Puntarenas, I started to relax and loved every minute of the five days we spent there. We enjoyed the beaches, the wildlife, and of course the many spectacular views from our villa.
Enjoy these photos.
Here I am at Los Elementos, an extraordinary villa built on a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The house is superb – a large, secluded home built by two very talented garden designers. The pool area was one of our favorite spots.
Los Elementos has four levels and is reminiscent of an open-air house in Bali. In fact, the house was inspired by five Balinese elements – water, earth, fire, air and ether. All the couches were so beautiful and generously sized.
The entire space was so tranquil – look closely at the hammock at the back. There were many spaces in which to lounge.
There were also some resident pets – this cat was so friendly and loved entertaining my grandchildren.
Here is my gorgeous daughter Alexis. She did her yoga exercises every morning by the pool.
Los Elementos has a wonderful infinity-edge swimming pool. Jude and Truman, who love the water and are excellent swimmers, swam nonstop.
Los Elementos is just a short walk to some of the area’s most beautiful and secluded beaches. Here I am with our friend, Milena. She loves the beach.
The views from the beach were endless. Dominical Beach is well known around the world as one of the best places for surfing.
My grandchildren played and played and played – they adore the water.
We were there for the end of the “green season” or wet season, which runs from May to mid-November. The weather was excellent – mid to high 80s during the day with lows in the 70s – perfect beach weather.
The modern garden at Los Elementos was designed by Dennis Schrader, owner of Landcraft Environments, Ltd., a pre-eminent wholesaler of tropical, tender perennials, and exotic annuals, in Mattituck, New York. This garden showcases tropical plants, including water lilies, Calathea, palms, and Heliconia.
Bismarckia palms, my favorite fan palm, abound in Costa Rica.
The water lilies are so beautiful – they are in full bloom every morning.
Here’s a closer look at the water lilies, Nymphaea. These are hardy pond plants that live as rhizomatous aquatic herbs in temperate and tropical climates. The family contains five genera with about 70 known species.
I was so intrigued by this extraordinary vine. Its leaves cling to the tree trunk, all separated and exposed to the light.
Jude floated purple flowers in the pool. She also loves photography and took this picture herself.
And here is another photo by Jude.
The flowers are picked off this pergola – the gardens were so well-maintained – everything was groomed and swept every day.
Here is a beautiful sunset seen from the infinity-edge pool. The sunsets were so stunning.
Here is a photo I took one early morning of a gecko on the screen. It reminded me of an Aztec lizard print.
We also visited Playa Ventanas. The name comes from the caves that look like little windows – ventanas means windows in Spanish. The caves of Playa Ventanas are natural formations.
Our boat was able to go through some of the them – this can only be done at low tide.
Playa Ventanas is located south of Dominical and Uvita and north of Ojochal and San Buenas.
At both ends of the beach are huge boulders covered with lush vegetation that extends to the sea.
Here is another view of one of the “windows.”
Here is Milena standing at the entrance of one of the caves. During the low tide, one can walk through and see the waves breaking inside.
At night, we enjoyed dinner back at Los Elementos. Jude and our friend, Ari, who also accompanied us on the trip, made these arrangements for the table. In my next blog, I will share more photos of our holiday in Costa Rica.
I hope you're enjoying the look back at some of my past holiday blogs. Here's the continuation of my family's trip to Europe. This post is from January 05, 2017.
There is so much to see and learn in the great city of London.
During our recent holiday trip to Europe with my daughter, Alexis, her children, Jude and Truman, and our dear friend, Kevin Sharkey, we had the opportunity to tour many historic and interesting places - we visited cathedrals, museums, markets and other London treasures. Many friends and colleagues also gave me extensive lists of their favorite restaurants and sights - we were so well-prepared for this most exciting and informative excursion.
Here are more of my photos - enjoy.
While my grandchildren napped, we visited the famous St Paul’s Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral located on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London. The original church on this site was founded in 604 AD. This church, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by architect, Sir Christopher Wren. https://www.stpauls.co.uk
In front of the cathedral is the 1886 statue of Queen Anne by sculptors Richard Claude Belt and L.A. Malempré, and Wren. Queen Anne was the reigning monarch in 1710 when the cathedral was completed. This statue is the second to occupy the space after the original fell into disrepair following years of poor weather and neglect.
The cathedral’s dome, framed by the spires of Wren’s City churches, is 365-feet high. It was the tallest building in London from 1710 to the 1960s, and remains among the highest domes in the world. At the dome’s base is the well-known Whispering Gallery, a circular walkway halfway up the inside of the dome, where a phrase whispered against one wall can be heard against the far wall about 112-feet away.
Also outside the cathedral is an inscription commemorating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It reads, “Here Queen Victoria Returned Thanks to Almighty God for the Sixtieth Anniversary of Her Accession, June 22 AD 1897.”
This is the entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral.
Inside the front doors is the cathedral’s baptismal font, a blue veined Italian marble piece carved in 1727 by Francis Bird.
The interior of St Paul’s Cathedral is stunning. St Paul’s is often nicknamed ‘the Nation’s Church’. Many National services are held here each year. Among the most notable – the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher. Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria and peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars were also held at the cathedral. And, you may recall, so was the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.
The main internal space of the cathedral is under the impressive dome which extends the full width of the nave and aisles. It rises above a gilded cornice at 173-feet to a height of 214-feet. At the highest point is an oculus inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
This is one of two large cruciform sculptures by artist, Gerry Judah. The pair arrived at St Paul’s to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I and to remind visitors of those who died.
This is a limestone Mother and child sculpture by Henry Moore in 1943 – it is so beautiful.
Here is the choir looking east. St Paul’s Cathedral choir is made largely of men and boys. The earliest records of the choir date from 1127. The current group consists of up to 30-boy choristers, eight-probationers, the Vicars Choral, and 12-professional male singers.
Below is the cathedral’s crypt – the largest in Western Europe. It extends the entire length of the building. There are more than 200-monuments and memorials in the crypt. Sir Christopher Wren was the first person to be buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. This is the Winston Churchill Memorial Screen.
These beautiful iron work gates were commissioned by the Cathedral Chapter and designed and made by the blacksmith James Horrobin in 2004.
Churchill attended St Paul’s Cathedral throughout his long, political career, and admired the designs and works of Christopher Wren. His funeral at St Paul’s was meticulously planned from the procession to the ceremony, and to his final burial place at Bladon in Oxfordshire.
The Union Jack or Union Flag, is the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The flag combines aspects of three older national flags: the red cross of St George of the Kingdom of England, the white saltire of St Andrew for Scotland and the red saltire of St Patrick to represent Ireland.
On this day, we also met with friends and ate at Le Colombier Restaurant, a charming and refined French brasserie. Here I am with illustrated books publisher, Edward Booth-Clibborn. http://www.le-colombier-restaurant.co.uk/home.shtml
And here I am with his wonderful wife, Julia Booth-Clibborn.
This is Kevin with Edward and Julia’s son, Laurence.
And this is my godson, Augustine, and his fiancee, Juliette.
London’s decorations for Christmas were wonderful.
Here is London’s Tower Bridge and the ramp to the river boats at the Tower of London, the Queen’s Royal Palace and Fortress located on the north bank of the River Thames. The Tower Bridge is a combined drawbridge and suspension bridge built in 1894. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and has become an iconic symbol of the city. http://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/#gs.WriYMPw
We also made time to visit the London Transport Museum. It covers all aspects of the city’s transportation and is open to the public every day – the children loved it. http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk
On display are many examples of buses, trams, trolleybuses and rail vehicles from the 19th and 20th centuries as well as artifacts related to the operation of passenger services and the impact transportation has had on the city and its population.
We walked through the Borough Food Market – a wholesale and retail food market in Southwark, Central London. It is one of the largest and oldest food markets in the area and recently celebrated its one-thousandth birthday. http://boroughmarket.org.uk
We saw many beautiful foods, such as these pink oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus djamor. The brightly colored pink oyster is a tropical mushroom that grows best in areas with warmer temperatures and high humidity.
For shoppers, there was a wide selection of mushrooms from which to choose.
And, so many different colored carrots. As you know, from seeing the carrots I grow at my farm, these vitamin-packed vegetables come in an array of colors – red, yellow, white, purple, and of course, orange.
There were also lots and lots of candies.
We had to stop in at Neal’s Yard Dairy, a beautiful shop that offers nearly every cheese imaginable. https://www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk
There are hard and soft cheeses like Red Leicester, Appleby’s Cheshire, Shropshire Blue and Colston Basset and Stilton – all sourced from farms around the UK and Ireland.
If you love cheese – add Neal’s Dairy Yard to your list of places to visit.
Here is the gate to Queen’s House, a former royal residence built between 1616 and 1635 in Greenwich by architect Inigo Jones. The house now forms part of the National Maritime Museum and is used to display parts of their substantial collection of maritime paintings and portraits. It was used as a VIP center during the 2012 Olympic Games. http://www.rmg.co.uk/queens-house
We all just loved seeing the iron work around London – so beautifully made.
The Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, Cutty Sark was one of the last tea clippers to be made and one of the fastest.
The Cutty Sark is listed as part of the National Historic Fleet. She is one of only three remaining original composite construction clipper ships from the 19th century.
While in London, we also enjoyed a real pub meal at the Town of Ramsgate Pub, a friendly and welcoming establishment in the heart of East London, and in the center of the ancient hamlet of Wapping. http://townoframsgate.pub
We had a ploughman’s lunch, also known simply as “ploughman’s.- an English cold meal including cheese, pickles and bread. Sometimes, these lunches also include apple, boiled eggs, ham, and pickled onions.
Truman took this photo of me – he’s an excellent four-year old photographer, don’t you agree?
Before leaving for the second half of our European trip, we enjoyed a driving tour of Bond Street on the way to the airport and saw more of the lovely holiday decorations. Bond Street is a major shopping street in the West End of London. It links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north and has been popular for retail since the 18th century.
I love these peacock feather lights!
We passed the Ermenegildo Zegna flagship boutique on Bond Street. The shop had the best lambs in the windows.
Everything looked so beautiful! Tomorrow, Photos from our journey to Paris. Don’t forget to visit my Instagram page @marthastewart48 to see more of my photos.
I hope you all had a safe and happy Christmas weekend. Here's a blog that was originally posted on January 4th, 2017. It includes photos from my family's holiday trip to London - enjoy.
Over the holidays, I enjoyed a wonderful and very interesting vacation with my family - we decided to spend a week visiting London and France. As you may know, I love to travel and now it's a whole new experience seeing places with my grandchildren, Jude and Truman. Over the next few days, I will share photos of some of the sites we saw during our journey.
Please enjoy this first post about our trip to London.
Jude and Truman are always so excited to travel. These Rimowa multi-wheel titanium suitcases made perfect rides for them when moving through the crowded airports. http://www.rimowa.com/
Here is Kevin sitting in a business class seat aboard the Virgin Atlantic plane – the seats turn into long fully flat beds.
Jude and Truman had their own seats, but loved visiting their mommy. Here they are crunching Alexis during a nap.
This is the bar on the plane – the children enjoyed some tea with honey. At four and five years of age, they are excellent travelers.
One of our first stops was the Guards Memorial, also known as the Guards Division War Memorial. It has five life-size bronze figures representing the Foot Guards Regiments – Grenadiers, Coldstream, Scots, Welsh and Irish. It commemorates the war dead from the Guards Division during World War I and all the members of the Household Division who died in World War II and other conflicts since 1918.
There are five wreaths at the foot of the memorial – one in front of each of the bronze statues.
This one reads in Latin, “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit”, meaning “No one provokes me with impunity”.
Both Jude and Truman were very interested in looking at the memorial wreaths and learning about the monument.
This is the fourth wreath in front of the bronze Welsh soldier. The Guards Memorial was designed by H. Chalton Bradshaw.
Each has the Flanders poppies, Papaver rhoeas, in the decorations. After the First World War, the poppy was adopted as an international symbol of Remembrance.
Life Guards have stood guard at Horse Guards, the official entrance to St. James and Buckingham Palace, since the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. There are two main groups of guards – those without horses are called foot guards.
Guards on horseback are part of the Household Cavalry. These poor guys remain still even in the most frigid weather- and it was very cold- in the low 30s while we were in London.
The helmet does not look very warm.
Here I am with one of the Queen’s Guards. The Life Guards, although not the oldest, is the most senior regiment of the British Army. They were formed by Prince Charles, later King Charles II, when he was exiled at the end of the civil war from loyal followers who traveled with him to Holland.
And here is my beautiful daughter, Alexis, standing next to the Guard, who did not move one bit while we were taking these quick snaps.
This is the Old Admiralty House at London’s Whitehall, built by Thomas Ripley in the 1720s. Its rear facade looks out over the Horse Guards Parade and Changing of the Guard.
The Life Guards who always ride black horses, wear long red cloaks with blue collars during inclement weather.
During the Changing of the Guard, the Old Guard forms up on the North side of the enclosure in Horse Guards. When the New Guard arrives the trumpeters of both the Old and New Guard sound a Royal Salute. When both Guards have formed, the Corporal Major, and the sentries of the first relief of the New Guard leave for the Guard Room. When the Old Guard departs the trumpeters again sound a Royal Salute. The entire change takes about 45-minutes.
These are the Blues and Royals, or Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons, part of the Household Cavalry. During poor weather, they wear long blue cloaks with red collars. Except for the Trumpeters who ride greys, the Blues and Royals ride black horses.
Here are Kevin, Jude and Truman at the Horse Guards Building. Look closely and you can see the London Eye in the background.
This is the London planetree, Platanus × acerifolia, a large deciduous tree that can grow to more than 100-feet tall, with a trunk 10-feet or more in circumference. The bark is usually pale grey-green, smooth and exfoliating. It shares many visual similarities with the American sycamore, Platanus occidentalis.
Here is the ubiquitous taxi of London. In the United Kingdom, these are called hackneys or hackney carriages.
Here are Jude, Truman and their nanny, Beverly. We were all so interested in the wildlife in London, especially the birds.
This is a pair of Ruddy Shelducks. The male has an orange-brown body, black rump and tail, a creamy buff head and neck, blackish collar around the base of the neck, and the wings are white with black flight feathers. Females are similar but have a whiter face and lack the black collar around the neck.
The Eurasian coot, also known as coot, is found in Europe, Asia, Australia and parts of Africa. The Eurasian coot is largely black except for the white frontal shield on its head. As a swimming species, the coot has partial webbing on its long, lobed, strong feet. It’s a noisy bird with a wide repertoire of crackling or trumpeting calls, often at night.
The Duck Island Cottage was built in 1841 as the home of the bird keeper in St. James’s Park. It also had a club room for the Ornithological Society of London, which once helped to look after the park’s ducks and geese. Over the years, Duck Island Cottage has served many uses and is currently used for offices of the London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust.
Just to the side of the cottage is a shed – I found the wall of the shed very interesting.
Here was another Changing of the Guard. During autumn and winter months the Queen’s foot guards may change into their grey great coats, which are much warmer. The British Royal Guard uniform includes the bearskin cap first worn in the 19th century at the famous Waterloo battle where the British Army defeated Napoleon’s French Imperial Guards. They wore bearskins because they looked taller and more intimidating. Nowadays they are worn as a symbol of victory and are used for ceremonial duties and for guarding royal residents.
They are all lined up perfectly. And bearskin caps are not light – each one weighs about 1.5 pounds.
The Guard provides a full Military Band consisting of no fewer than 35-musicians, often from one of the Guards regiments. It plays music to entertain the New and Old Guard as well as the watching crowds.
The Changing of the Guard is definitely something everyone should try to see when they go to London.
Here is one of London’s iconic cherry red double-decker buses. The most recognized was the Routemaster, which was first introduced in 1956. Most double-deckers have been retired, replaced by the articulated bus, but a few more modern versions of the double-decker can still be spotted on certain routes.
We passed some construction sites, where we noticed building facades were kept completely intact, leaving the interiors to be rebuilt.
The London Eye is Europe’s tallest ferris wheel, with one of the highest public viewing points in London. The structure is 443-feet tall and the wheel has a diameter of 394-feet. https://www.londoneye.com
It was very, very crowded – visitors wait for hours in the cold to take a ride on the Eye.
Here is another view of the pod on the London Eye. Each of the capsules represents a London borough and holds up to 25-people.
The London Eye was designed by the architects Frank Anatole, Nic Bailey, Steve Chilton, Malcolm Cook, Mark Sparrowhawk, and the husband-and-wife team of Julia Barfield and David Marks. The rim of the Eye is supported by tensioned steel cables. The wheel was constructed in sections which were floated up the Thames on barges and then assembled.
The lighting was redone with LED lighting in 2006 to allow for digital control.
It is also known as the Millennium Wheel, and has 32-sealed and air-conditioned ovoidal passenger capsules that are attached to the external circumference of the wheel and rotated by electric motors. For superstitious reasons, they are numbered one through 33.
The Eye provides some of the most stunning views of London. The wheel rotates at about 10-inches per second, so that one revolution takes about 30-minutes – slow enough to allow passengers to walk on and off the moving capsules at ground level.
Look how pretty the views are despite the fog. On the right is Big Ben, the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of Westminster Palace. The tower is officially known as Elizabeth Tower.
For lunch, we went to ROKA, London’s award winning Japanese restaurant, serving contemporary Japanese robatayaki cuisine. https://www.rokarestaurant.com
We enjoyed a lovely salmon teriyaki. It was a perfect lunch to end our busy first morning in London. Tomorrow, I will share more photos from our trip. Be sure to also check my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48 for more of my photos.
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