The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Happy Families

SECTION F
INSIDE
TODAY:
Springtime in Madrid
48 hours of eating,
drinking and strolling
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L AT E S T N E W S AT C A LG A R Y H E R A L D . C O M / T R AV E L
EDITOR: LISA MONFORTON 403-235-7428 LMONFORTON@THEHERALD.CANWEST.COM
SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 2010
TRAVEL
NOTES
A palatable
book on
Burgundy
Courtesy, Hotel Gina
Kids jump off a dock at the
Hotel Gina in Austria.
Hills are
alive with
the sound
of happy
families
JODY ROBBINS
FOR THE CALGARY HERALD
Photos, Christopher Reynolds,
Los Angeles Times
Rancho Pescadero is
a 12-room hotel near
Todos Santos in Baja
California Sur.
TODOS
SANTOS
FEK?<J?<C=› The word
“terroir” refers to the way
local influences — geography, culture, history, tradition — are expressed in a
region’s food and wine. The
Terroir Guides: Food Wine
Burgundy (Little Bookroom,
$29.95) is a marvellous book
full of substance and lovely
photographs.
Author David Downie
encourages readers to
appreciate a slower, more
meditative lifestyle based
on a culture with deep
roots that respects the soil
and the seasons’ turnings.
Indeed, Downie insists
that “depth” is the key to
understanding Burgundy
itself; each of its subregions
has a distinctive history
and character that, in turn,
are reflected in its food and
wine.
The guide is divided
into five parts that reflect
the region’s geographical,
cultural, historic and/or
administrative divisions.
But Downie points out that
Burgundy is not immune to
the globalization of the past
few decades.
Downie includes restaurants where chefs continue
to work from scratch and
use fresh, locally produced
ingredients to serve traditional (or gently updated)
regional fare.
Here you will find such
Burgundian staples as snails
(escargots), ham and pork,
poultry, honey, truffles
and, of course, cheese (the
region is home to about 30
varieties). Includes a food
and wine glossary.
— McClatchy News Service
Fairmont
Jasper to get
new spa
N?8KÊJE<N› There’s
alway lots of fun things to
do in the town of Jasper —
hiking, trail riding, wildlife
spotting.
But later this summer you
can add to all that outdoor
activity a rejuvenating day
at the spa.
This week, the Fairmont
Jasper Park Lodge began
construction of a new spa
at the luxury hotel set on
700 acres. The $6.7-million,
10,000-square-foot spa will
take its design cues from
the natural beauty of the
mountains, valleys, lakes
and rivers in Jasper National
Park.
The spa will be located on
the promenade level of the
Main Lodge. Plans include
an entrance with a water
feature that flows over
tiered natural rock, echoing
the beauty of Athabasca
Falls. Natural woods and the
colours used in the spa’s
decor will all be inspired by
the mountain ranges that
surround the lodge. There
will be 10 treatment rooms
(including a couples room),
steam rooms, fitness facility
and an outdoor pool area.
The Fairmont Jasper Park
Lodge Spa is expected to
open in August. For other
details on the lodge go to
www.fairmont.com/jasper.
Colourful plates fill the walls of a curio shop in downtown Todos Santos. Below:
Pelicans and other birds enjoy uncrowded sand at nearby La Cachora Beach.
CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS
LOS ANGELES TIMES
TODOS SANTOS, MEXICO
O
nce upon a time, say about 1972,
Cabo San Lucas was a sleepy
little fishing town at the southern tip of Baja California. Then came
the paved highway, the international
airport, the marina, the golf courses,
the raucous bars and well-heeled retreats. At the newest and perhaps fanciest, Capella Pedregal, suites this spring
start at $675 a night.
In Cabo, you just might score the
spring break you’ll never forget — or
the one you won’t remember.
And then there’s Todos Santos,
still small, still drowsy at most hours,
wedged between the mountains and
sea about 80 kilometres north of Cabo.
Its sugar mills, born amid a 19th century boom, died about 60 years ago.
The paved highway didn’t arrive until
the mid-1980s, about the time the first
American expat artist, Charles Stewart,
moved in. With no airport, no marina, no golf and virtually no nightlife,
downtown amounts to a few blocks
of newish galleries, inns and shops in
oldish buildings. Outside town, cardon
cactuses stipple the hills, and miles of
lonely beaches roar under assault by
waves so wicked that surfers and swimmers must pick their spots carefully.
Todos Santos, whose population
Send us your news tips, pictures and videos.
might be as high as 15,000, depending
on how many surrounding hamlets you
include, is not where you come for action. But if you’re after Mexican flavour,
Pacific solitude, desert vistas, fresh
food and a seriously slow spring break,
this might be your place.
“We close down at Baja midnight,
which is 9 o’clock,” said Lisa Harper,
former chief executive of Gymboree
and now proprietor of the Rancho Pescadero hotel, about 10 kilometres south
of town. “We’re not up partying until
all hours. It’s a very calm, relaxed area.
Lots of surfers, lots of expats. Lots of
fantastic Mexican food, great galleries
and artists.”
SSEE
EETODOS
TODO SANTOS,
SANTOS,PPAGE
AGEF2
F2
ALL YOU
WANT,
AND
LESS,
IN A
BAJA
GETAWAY
Take one jet-lagged preschooler; add a foreign
language and a dash of
muesli with yogurt and it’s
usually a recipe for disaster.
Imagine a restaurant that
greets spaghetti thrown on
the head with a smile. Now
imagine entire hotels that
embrace you, your kids and
their mess.
Kinderhotels are where
kinder (German for children) and their messes are
willkommen.
Our family’s journey begins with a disastrous stay
with an Austrian friend.
While we get on like two
bratwursts in a bun, the
children do not. Though
proud of my daughter Eve’s
swift command of German, her constant shouts
of, “Nein! Mein toy!” to our
host’s Teutonic toddler
wear us all out. It’s then I’m
introduced to the concept of
the Kinderhotel.
Dotted throughout the
Alps in Austria, Italy and
Germany, Kinderhotels are
designed for active families
on a budget. Catering to
everyone’s needs, these allinclusives boast free childcare, tricycle grand prix and
bouncy castles galore. Parents can skip off to the spa
or ski lessons while the children frolic in the hills with
English-speaking nannies.
We arrive at Hotel Gina 45
minutes away from quaint
Klagenfurt, in Austria’s
southern most province
of Carinthia. Though it’s a
balmy April with Mediterranean-like temperatures,
the hotel is virtually empty,
with the majority of guests
flocking here during winter.
As it’s off-season, I negotiate a two-bedroom suite for
the two of us at $140 a night
all-inclusive, except for alcohol. All rooms come with
kitchenettes, a balcony and
lounge area.
Independently ownermanaged, each Kinderhotel
offers a unique experience,
ranging from a rustic mountain chalet to those with
wellness spas and fitness
facilities.
A smiley face rating system assists guests in determining which hotel is best
suited for their family.
SEE FAMILIES, PAGE F2
calgaryherald.com
m
CALAA734682_1_1
F2
TRAVEL
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Breaking news at calgaryherald.com
TODOS SANTOS: ‘It’s the best of both worlds’
FROM F1
Pat Cope, who arrived from Los
Angeles to open a gallery with
her husband Michael and infant
son Lane, remembers that “when
we first moved here, all I heard
was roosters.” Sixteen years later,
Lane is contemplating colleges,
and the roosters still greet each
morning, Cope said, but “I don’t
hear them.”
Todos Santos, said Paula Colombo, co-owner of the Cafe
Santa-Fe, “is real. Good and bad,
it’s real.” Now that the recession
has slowed the pace of coastal
vacation-home building outside
town, Colombo added, “maybe
we can settle down and do what
we have to do to keep this place
as magnificent as it could be . . .
an oasis in the desert.”
My first stop was at Harper’s
Rancho Pescadero hotel (no
warning given, full price paid).
Rancho Pescadero, billed as a
different kind of “dude” ranch,
has been busy since it opened in
November 2009 with 12 rooms, a
restaurant, a bar and a pool.
To reach the six-hectare site,
you turn off two-lane Highway 19
at a Pemex station, drive 1.6 kilometres on a dirt-sand road and
stop just past the green fields of
basil. (The area sits on an aquifer
that feeds many organic growing
operations and keeps the place
rich in chilies, mangoes, avocados
and papayas.)
Once on the grounds, you can
take refuge in your large room or
on your mostly private patio. Before long, you’ll be sipping your
welcome drink, strolling past
the fire pit, through the fledgling
palm grove, to the dunes and the
wide, lonely beach.
Don’t jump in. Staffers warn
guests not to swim at the hoteladjacent beach because the tide
is treacherous. But you can flop
onto one of the Rancho Pescadero daybeds on the dunes. Or
walk at water’s edge, especially
near dawn or dusk, where you’ll
get the full effect of the nearempty beach coastline: pelicans
gliding above the swells, offshore
breezes blowing feathered foam
off the whitecaps.
It’s a wonder I turned away long
enough to spot the handwritten
signs for the San Pedrito Surf
Hotel, a few hundred yards north
of Rancho Pescadero. Beginning
four years ago, manager-coowner Andy Keller and the other
owners upgraded the beachfront
site from a camping spot to a
seven-unit hotel (rates are $55
to $200 US, a kitchen in every
room), but it remains rustic:
tile floors, a few shelves of wellthumbed paperbacks, all at the
end of another dirt road.
“I’m into the classic look,”
Keller said. “No red lights, no
parking meters, no pavement . . .
the proximity of the mountains
just beyond us here, and the
ocean just behind me. It’s the best
of both worlds.”
Out on the water — that is, the
San Pedrito surf break, known
up and down the West Coast — I
spotted half a dozen euphoric
young men carving waves with
their short boards
If you can’t surf like these guys
but want to get into the ocean,
you drive a couple of miles south
to Cerritos Beach, which has
Photos, Christopher Reynolds, LA Times
Rancho Pescadero is a stunningly designed 12-room hotel near Todos Santos in Baja California Sur, where guests can watch pelicans gliding
above the swells and feel the offshore breezes from the comfort of their rooms.
If You Go
Where to stay:
N Rancho Pescadero, 10 kilometres south of Todos Santos;
www.ranchopescadero.com.
Twelve rooms, restaurant and
pool on six hectares neighbouring dunes and beach. Getting
there, expect 1.6 kilometres of
dirt road after you leave the
highway. Rates $185 to $300. No
children younger than 12.
N Posada la Poza, Colonia La
Poza, A.P. 10, Todos Santos; www.
lapoza.com. Eight rooms, restaurant and pool on 1.6 hectares
at the edge of a lagoon. Rates
$210-$480, with some “recession discounts” as much as 25
per cent. Breakfast included. No
children younger than 13.
N Hotel California, Benito Juarez
e/Morelos y Marquez de Leon,
Todos Santos, Colonia Centro;
www.hotelcaliforniabaja.com.
Eleven rooms festooned with
bright colours and art, with
restaurant, shop and pool on the
liveliest block downtown. Rates
$110-$215. Children OK.
Where to eat:
N Michael’s at the Gallery, at
Galeria de Todos Santos, Calle
Legaspi and Topete, Todos Santos. Asian fusion cuisine. Dinner
only, Thursday through Saturday.
Main dishes $15-$25.
N Miguel’s, Avenida Santoa
Degollado and 2 Rangel, Barrio San Vicente, Todos Santos.
Renowned chili rellenos and
other Mexican fare, made and
served by a lifelong local resident
and his family. Lunch and dinner.
Cash only, dirt floor, impeccably
clean. Main dishes up to $10.
N Cafe Santa-Fe, 4 Calle Centenario, Todos Santos. Fine Italian dining on the town plaza. Founded
20 years ago by Ezio and Paula
Colombo, who still run it. Lunch
and dinner, closed Tuesdays.
Main dishes about $19-$39.
To learn more:
See www.todossantos.com or
www.todossantos.cc. For more
on Los Cabos, try the Los Cabos
Tourism Board website at www.
visitloscabos.travel.
milder tides and beach gear for
rent and the passable Cerritos
Beach club restaurant.
This beach, long empty, has
been busy with development
in the last few years. Just south
of the restaurant, workers have
completed about 10 Cerritos
Surf Colony bungalows, being
sold as time-shares and rented at
$125 nightly. About 60 more are
planned.
Downtown Todos Santos is
affordable and easy to navigate:
the 18th-century mission on the
plaza, the galleries, shops and
eateries on narrow streets, mostly
unpaved.
I looked at paintings in Galeria
Logan and Galeria Indigo, chatted
with sculptor Benito Ortega in his
studio, checked out the 1930s mural at the Cultural Center. I picked
up a book at El Tecolote bookshop on the main drag, Juarez,
and sipped some cool gazpacho
on the patio of Los Adobes de Todos Santos.
Toward the middle of the day, I
drove out to Punta Lobos Beach,
where you can buy fresh catch
from the fishermen as they drag
their boats ashore about 2:30 p.m.
each day.
This is no longer a town I can
hold in the palm of my hand,
which is what it seemed when I
first visited in 1995. Todos Santos
has probably doubled in population since.
In 2006, local boosters managed to win a “Pueblo Magico”
designation from national tourism officials, even though the label is usually reserved for towns
with older buildings and more of
them, more elaborately restored.
If the highway is improved as
promised, the drive to Los Cabos
airport could drop from one hour
and 40 minutes to one hour.
But even so, there isn’t a lodging here with more than 14 rooms.
And though some have Wi-Fi
and air-conditioning, most don’t
bother with guest phones or TVs.
Though Stewart, the first expat,
has closed his gallery, there are a
dozen others, including Michael
and Pat Cope’s enduring Galeria
de Todos Santos.
Cafe Santa-Fe, the smart, tasty
Italian restaurant that Ezio and
Paula Colombo started on the
plaza in 1990, coexists with several other well-loved eateries,
including the top-notch Asian
fusion cuisine of Michael’s at the
Guests enjoy the poolside bar at sunny Rancho Pescadero near the
resort area of Todos Santos.
Gallery, now four years old. I also
got a fix of down-home Mexican
cuisine at Miguel’s, where since
2001 a family has been serving
widely admired chili rellenos in
a dining room with dirt floors, a
palapa roof and walls of woven
twigs.
On the main drag, the Hotel
California traded for years on
the false idea that it had inspired
the Eagles’ 1976 song of the same
name. It got new owners in 2001,
and when they reopened the place
a year later, 11 rooms, pool patio
and restaurant were full of vibrant
colours and festive atmosphere.
In otherwise muted Todos Santos, the Hotel California sounds a
brassy note, but is a step up from
the old days. And unlike other
lodgings, it doesn’t ban children.
If you want grown-up gentility in the heart of town, go to
the Todos Santos Inn, which has
been open since 1997. It has eight
rooms, a restaurant and a tiny
pool at the converted residence
of a 19th-century sugar baron.
Or you cast your gaze across
the street to the brick walls of
the 14-suite Guaycura Hotel, expected to open in coming weeks.
“We came for the first time in
‘96, and it was much sleepier than
it is now,” Juerg Wiesendanger,
formerly a Swiss financier, told
me one morning. “We went to
look for a place to stay on the
beach. Nothing. And we said,
‘This has to change.’ “
He and his wife, Libusche,
moved here and went to work.
In 2002, they opened the eight-
room Posada la Poza, which sits
on the edge of a lagoon at the
end of a long dirt road. It has a
popular rooftop lounge, a restaurant (El Gusto) and some of the
town’s quietest guest rooms, with
glimpses of La Poza Beach. The
walls display Libusche’s paintings.
On yet another dirt road that
leads to the sea, London-born
designer Jenny Armit in 2007
opened the four-unit Hotelito. It
sits about midway between town
and La Cachora Beach, and its
quartet of cottages ($90 to $135
nightly) is done in minimalistmodern style. It has a dining
patio, bar and pool, palm fronds
here, hammocks there, carefully
raked pebbles in between. I liked
the privacy, simplicity and quiet
. . . for a while.
But my night at the Hotelito
was the wrong night. In the wee
hours of the morning, a chorus of
crowing roosters piped up. They
never quite settled down, and
neither did I.
When I met Armit over coffee
later, she brought up the roosters and told me how the farmer
across the street had brought in
hundreds of the caged birds. She
sighed and said she was confident
that the problem would soon be
solved, but she didn’t yet know
exactly how. If you run a business
in Todos Santos, it seems, crises
like these come and go.
“And if you haven’t got a sense
of humour,” Armit said with a
winning grin, “you shouldn’t live
in Mexico.”
FAMILIES: Hotels
kid and budget friendly
FROM F1
To achieve the coveted five
smiley rating, hotels must have an
indoor pool, bouncy castle, baby
monitors, on demand soft drinks,
a no-smoking area of the restaurant and 60 hours a week of free
child care.
Everything at Hotel Gina (rated
five smiley) has been designed
with the child in mind. Stocked
with potties, wet wipes and an
endless supply of milk, I regret
packing half my suitcase.
Enchanted with the child-high
sinks, toilets and stairway banisters, Eve becomes a delightful
fraulein, munching on the Swiss
chocolate provided with her turndown service.
An acceptable practice in Europe, each room is equipped with
a baby monitoring system so parents can get a break once the kids
are kaput.
Feeling rather like 16 going on 17
with my now cheery child, I contemplate if I would actually be so
irresponsible as to nip off to the
spa when Eve was down for the
count? As it turned out, yes, yes I
would.
Hotel Gina also offers delectable
spa services at extra charge. While
tempted to try the hay bath using unfertilized hay from nearby
fields, fear of my ranching relatives
ridicule make me think twice.
Instead, I opt for a facial one
night and aromatherapy balsam
massage the other.
As a refreshed mummy and contented child, our days fall into a
predictable pattern of swimming
If You Go
Do:
N Visit in spring, or early summer.
Summer holidays don’t start for
the locals until the second week
of July.
N Head over the Alps to Italy or
Slovenia, less than an hour drive
away.
Don’t:
N Pack too much. Kinderhotels
come with wipes, bibs, water
wings and strollers in most cases.
N Rent a car. Many Kinderhotels
offer a free shuttle service to and
from the airport.
Getting There:
N Air Canada flies to Vienna
via Toronto and Frankfurt. Both
Austrian Airlines and Tyrolean Airways are part of the Star Alliance
and fly from Vienna to Klagenfurt.
N Canadians can also fly direct to
London Heathrow and then with
discount airline Ryan Air, out of
Stansted Airport direct to Klagenfurt or other destinations in Austria. Frequent buses on National
Express Coach to get you from
Heathrow to Stansted in about 90
minutes.
N London Liverpool Street Station
has express trains to Stansted
departing every 15 minutes.
For more information:
N www.kinderhotels.com
N www.gina.at (Hotel Gina)
N www.austria.info
(classes with certified instructors
start from three months old) and
terrorizing the indoor adventure
play area each morning.
Afternoons were reserved for
Courtesy, Kinder Hotel
The highly innovative Kinderhotels offer weary parents a welcome respite from the usual trials and
tribulations of travelling with energized youngsters.
waltzing through alpine meadows
studded with wildflowers, stopping only to make friends with the
horses grazing in nearby fields or
gaze at Mount Mitterkogel, towering over the pure waters of Lake
Faaker at 2,134 metres.
Uber-kinders embrace stilt
walking, night bathing at the waterfall pool and the Hocus Pocus
Wizard School.
During summertime’s twoweek adventure club, children
from three to 12 years can polish
their survival skills in the woods,
learn the accoutrements of
knighthood or strut their stuff in
musical theatre.
Extra programs for the seven to
12 year set (not inclusive) consist
of scuba diving school, archery
and river rafting.
Always, there is fishing in the
pond, pony and tractor rides and
the winterized outdoor pool.
All that play works up an appetite and the food isn’t all sausage
and sauerkraut.
Focus is on organic, regional
specialties such as freshly caught
trout or kasnudeln (savoury
cheese dumplings) otherwise
known to Eve as the world’s largest perogy.
For gastronomically challenged
tots, there are child-appropriate
menus with homemade bread,
pastas and fresh veggies.
Admittedly, the highlight for
kids and adults alike was the selfservice ice cream bar, open every
afternoon until dinner.
Throughout our stay my once
pokey child polkaed from one activity to the next. Tantrums were
met with tolerance, her spills with
smiles.
All too quickly it was time to
say, “so long, farewell,” to Hotel
Gina.
Since not all of us can solve our
child care woes by marrying the
nanny as Captain Von Trapp did,
Kinderhotels offer weary parents
a welcome respite from the usual
wear and tear of travelling with
one’s kinder.