February 3, 2008

MARIN COUNTY, just north of San Francisco, cradles wealthy bedroom communities in picturesque bays. But nearly half of the county’s 520 square miles is protected open space — bucolic and wild, its tiny towns separated by forested mountains.

It is the kind of landscape, with miles of well-maintained trails, that people travel across the globe to traverse — to Wales, say, or the Cinque Terre. But Marin, particularly its western reaches, offers something for anyone spry enough to walk a mile or two, on any budget. (more…)

January 20, 2008

Until recently, San Francisco’s Japantown had been suffering from a lingering neglect. Even anchors, like the 1960s-era Miyako Hotel, were rundown. So the conversion of the Miyako into the Hotel Kabuki by the boutique hotel company Joie de Vivre — an overhaul finished in November — is a milestone for the neighborhood.

Read it on the NYT site…