For many years during the first half of the 20th century, an artist’s atelier with attached living quarters a few blocks from the Luxembourg Gardens was the scene of regular Saturday night soirées that drew a stunning array of intellectual and artistic talent from across Paris and around the world. Now visitors to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art can take a look at the “modern art” everyone was so eager to see at 27 rue de Fleurus, back when it was something very new. The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, on display through June 3, has brought together more than 200 works of art collected by Gertrude Stein, and by her brothers Michael and Leo, in the early years of the 20th century.

Winters in San Miguel Mexico allow one to follow the sun, eat and live well and enjoy people and ideas from around the world. This is our fourth winter here and again it is the people and activities that draw us. Where else could one attend a violin concert by a young talented American, a top notch 1950’s French film, a reading of a Neil Simon Play, all in three days. Yes, San Miguel has it all.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I learned masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso Paris were being exhibited at the newly renovated Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA), the only East Coast stop of a seven-city international tour. U.S. Francophiles are encouraged to attend Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris.

The Keukenhof Gardens near Amsterdam are in full bloom and spring tours of the gardens and flower fields continue until May 20. Consider this as a daytrip or overnight getaway: just over three hours by Thalys fast rail or rent a car for a scenic five-hour drive north to the magnificent Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, Holland.

It’s entirely your fault. You voted to read more about my Berlin trip. Once again, it wasn’t the usual “three days here or there” because we skipped so many must-see sights.

After another week of thinking about Berlin, it’s more than clear there was no way we could do the city justice with a fast in-and-out trip. Living in Paris has so many advantages including being the ideal jumping-off place from which to travel. If you're a travel junkie and find it enriching, it's heaven.

Welcome to Berlin. It’s so close to Paris, but so very different. It’s going to take a long time to digest what we experienced. This isn’t a city where you can see and do all and get a feel for its history in a long weekend—but many might work.

I got sick from the bad clam I ate at your house/restaurant/cookout—you owe me. No matter who's done the cooking, there are times when someone awakens in the middle of the night feeling less than great. What was the culprit?

A sudden New Year's resolution to conquer the ski slopes, and take my first ski lesson, led me to Gstaad recently. I was also seeking the Gstaad of yore—the golden years of Gstaad in the 1980s when A-list social swells and film stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Roger Moore frequented its ski-friendly slopes—to see if the myth held any truth.