Everett Potter's Travel Report

Born to Shop: One Perfect Day in Hanoi

A vintage Citroen in front of the The Metropole Sofitel in Hanoi.

When you wake up in a large room in The Metropole Sofitel Hanoi and sun is streaming in from the garden, it's already a perfect day. When your room-mates are snoring or buried beneath their down or fiddling with their crack-berries and you know you are first up in the luxury bathroom, it's a more perfect day. When you head downstairs to the colonial portion of the hotel and take in the buffet breakfast (take in visually and orally) and meet with new friends you have just met in The Lounge, then it's a very perfect morning. And that's just the start of the day.

Born to Shop: Autobiography from the Autogrill

By Suzy Gershman

I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of heights. And I am really terrified of Italian highways that go over viaducts and leave you hanging out there in the breeze while Enzo in his Fiat is soaring past you at 150kph. So Sarah, the Editorial Director of Born to Shop, drove today. We curled around the gorgeous houses and flowers and trees with a constant view of the sea and then hit the highway right outside of Genoa. Christopher Columbus clearly left because there was too much beach traffic on a Sunday.

Since breakfast was not included in our rate at our Italian palace hotel, we headed to France, hungry. We stopped at the first Autogrill we found past Genoa. The Italian highway routes have many service areas, only some of them have Autogrills. Since I especially like shopping at these, we held out. Imagine our surprise to find that everyone in Italy was having Sunday brunch at the Autogrill.