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Byline: Sylvie Bigar Bleary-eyed, I left French-speaking Geneva at daybreak. At lunchtime, I switched trains in Zurich, stammering through my rusty grammar-school-level German. A few hours south through the Saint-Gotthard [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Perched on a rocky ridge surrounded by dense vineyards near Narbonne in the Occitanie region of France last August, I couldn't stop singing 'Blowin' in the Wind.' [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar The West beckoned. Perhaps not the imaginary Wild West of my European childhood, with its covered wagons and cowboy hats, but from New York City where I [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Mention Lyon, France's third-largest city, and Francophile food fans perk up. Thanks in part to its location at the heart of France's agricultural larder, Lyon has always [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Some come to the Vercors Massif in southern France for the butterflies. Others for the 1,860 miles of stunning mountain trails. But I was there in July [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar With two miles of facade in the heart of Paris, the magnificent Louvre Museum is the largest art museum in the world. Erected as a fortress at [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar'Thirsty?' asks the flight attendant as she hands me a blue bottle. I twist the cap and sip the crisp, slightly acidic water. One look at the label, [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Some come to the Vercors Massif in southern France for the butterflies. Others for the 1,860 miles of stunning mountain trails. But I was there in July [...]

When the Peruvian chef Cecilia Zapata opened Kampai in 2017 in Les Paquis, the red light district of Geneva, she was already known as a pioneer and advocate for her [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Each May, new restaurants pop up in the beach villages of New York's Hamptons. Many close by the end of November, though, unable to face the void [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar The first time I encountered tapas, I was 6 and didn't like them. My head was level with a huge wooden bar, and all I could see [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar It was October 1920 in Paris and my grandfather, a young Swiss engineer named Louis Schwob, couldn't contain his excitement. After just a few months on the [...]

The sign is a little alarming: three steel letters, nailed to the sidewalk on Avenue B near 7th Street, read ''S.O.S.'' But no one is in distress here. The earthbound [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar All it took was one instant and the moist silence of the forest gave way to what sounded like the frenzied clapping a crowd emits as it [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar There's more to Switzerland's global city than banks, watches and the United Nations. Step away from Swiss-cheesy cliches and you will discover that this seemingly placid town [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar In Burgundy, but worlds away from the grand-cru vineyards, lies a forgotten, bucolic village named Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye. In 1873, my favorite writer, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, was born there. Known [...]

Thirty-six years ago, when Bilal Egilmez opened his shop, Genius Tailor, in the Lenox Hill area of Manhattan, colleagues wished him well but warned that no one would come to [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Finally, the chef smiled. Huddled under a sunlit chestnut tree, he pointed to dry leaves, opened his pocketknife and in a quick motion dug out the hidden [...]

Byline: SYLVIE BIGAR Correction Appended Most Sunday mornings, throughout my childhood near Geneva, my father would drive me to a spot we had never been before. Switzerland occupies about 16,000 [...]

CORRECTION APPENDEDMost Sunday mornings, throughout my childhood near Geneva, my father would drive me to a spot we had never been before. Switzerland occupies about 16,000 square miles. Squeezed between [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar 'That's all you're eating, chérie? You crazy?' shrieks Julie Ozen, bracelets dangling, gray hair high in a tight bun. She's not my grandma, but she might as [...]

CORRECTION APPENDED''Is it really Wednesday?'' asked Candy Yasser on a recent evening as she brushed past Eric Lemonides, the tall and gregarious co-owner of Almond, in Bridgehampton. With a phone [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar The water washes over me. Sometimes almost burning, sometimes shockingly cold. There are no windows, only circular holes in the dome-shaped ceiling that filter the morning light, [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar 'By God, I think we're lost,' said my guide, Brian Kennedy. Daylight had yet to pierce the thick, humid cloud cover, but we had already been driving [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar All it took was one instant and the moist silence of the forest gave way to what sounded like the frenzied clapping a crowd emits as it [...]

If you're hunting for some quick medical advice, you might check out Mamagyro, the small, brightly lit storefront on Lexington Avenue and East 78th Street that serves exemplary gyros, hefty [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar The minute I breathed in the scent of caramelized sensuality rising from the massive clay cassoulet pot, I was bewitched. It made no sense. Born Jewish to [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar IF YOU GO: WHERE TO STAY - Hotel de la Cité Place Auguste Pierre Pont, Carcassonne 011-33-468-71-98-71 www.hoteldelacite.com Rooms from $247. - Hotel du Pont Levis 40 [...]

CORRECTION APPENDEDSome move to Florida; some volunteer at the library. But when Judith Norell decided to retire as a concert harpsichordist at age 60, she thought she would try her [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar 'Hey, you look like Nina Compton!' My traveling companion and I had just set foot in the flamboyant covered market of Castries, the capital of St. Lucia, [...]

With both sets of bright green French doors opened -- one set on Second Avenue, the other on East Fourth Street -- sitting in the cross breeze at Contrada, a [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar Ignoring the warnings of the ancient Phoenicians, I sailed past the legendary Pillars of Hercules, the mountains that flank the Strait of Gibraltar, and didn't fall off [...]

Byline: Sylvie Bigar WHERE TO STAY Dar Jameel Guest House 6 Rue Mohammed Bergach, Tangier, Morocco 011-212-5-39-33-46-80 www.magicmaroc.com On the edge of the medina, a simple historic riad built around [...]

There's always a slight sense of dread as you approach West 10th Street, just off Seventh Avenue, that you might find Bonnie Slotnick's vintage cookbook shop closed that day. But [...]

It was a singular procession that filed into Le Churro on Lexington Avenue between 83rd and 84th Streets one recent afternoon. Eyes wide, riveted on the menu hung high above [...]

''Me? I'm from Columbus Avenue,'' said Dominick Zingone, 53, a tall and suave member of the clan behind Zingone Brothers, an old-fashioned grocery store on the Upper West Side. And [...]

As the stories poured out, eyes sparkled, smiles widened, hands danced. Everyone I met on Martinique harbored at least one intimate memory of Aim Csaire -- a quiet encounter or [...]

''Adis, Queens!'' said the squat, burly man to Maria Marquez-Hass, the owner of Dulce Vida Cafe on Lexington Avenue and 82nd Street, on a recent Saturday. He wasn't talking about [...]

WHERE, on the endless drive from New York City to the Hamptons, does the weekend really begin? For some travelers, it's at Exit 70, the gateway off the Long Island [...]

THE North Fork of Long Island has developed a reputation for its wineries. Just as the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma led to the emergence of a vibrant dining scene, [...]

IT all started with a sweet, cinnamon-tinted whiff. The subway roaring above, I crossed the street and followed my curiosity to the Greek bakery tucked in the corner of a [...]

Long a gastronomic darling of French food critics, the city of Lyon still pulses with the work of adventurous chefs. Earlier this year, it was a startling reinvention by the [...]