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What to Expect by Rick Steves

European bathrooms can be quirky by American standards. Your hotel’s WC may come with luxurious heated towel racks — or a rattling fan and leaky sink. Just keep an open mind, and remember that nothing beats a good bathroom story when you get home. No matter what, my advice is to wash up quickly and get out and about in the place you came to enjoy. First, don’t expect big spaces . Over the years, hotel owners have carved out chunks of elegant bedrooms to shoehorn in prefab private bathrooms — and they can be very tight. Counter space is often limited, and showers can be surprisingly tight, especially if you’re a larger person. Be careful bending over to pick up a dropped bar of soap — you might just hit your head on the toilet or sink. Even in top-end hotels, I find some things poorly designed . Once, I used a particularly narrow shower stall with the hot/cold lever directly in the center. If I nudged it accidently while washing, it would either scald or freeze me....

Red Mountain 34′ Tiny House

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Red Mountain is a group of three peaks in between Silverton and Ouray, CO. One can get an outstanding view of these magnificent San Jaun peaks whilst descending Red Mountain pass (11,018′) towards Ouray. The mountains are most notable for their distinctive red hues , as a result of iron oxide present in the mineral content of the rock. The vicinity was heavily mined in the late 1800’s and remnants of this human activity remain in the form of rustic houses, storage sheds, mine shafts, and other mining structures. Incredibly weathered wood has withstood the harsh climate of this environment for decades. To say the place is “grandiose” or “epic” falls short of the aura this landscape provokes. We have waited a long time for the right tiny house deserving of this honorable title. Built on a 34′ bumper pull chassis, not only is this the largest tiny to ever leave our shop, but it is outfitted with some of the nicest features we’ve ever included. The massing is broken into three section...

Bathtubs are out, big showers are in

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Shutterstock.com The shower gets more use than the bathtub in many households. That’s why some homeowners are ripping out their tubs completely, creating bigger showers instead. Extra shower space allows for multiple shower heads , a built-in seat and designs without shower doors, said John Petrie, president of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, in an email interview about current kitchen and bath trends. They can be designed without a threshold — which look more contemporary and are easier for people to use as they get older. “People really like the bigger showers . They like that there’s elbow room,” said Susie Johnson, a real-estate agent with Coldwell Banker Gundaker in St. Louis. Meanwhile, comments she hears from prospective buyers about whirlpool tubs when walking through a property are often along the lines of: “That’s a nice tub but I don’t take baths,” she said. ...

Discover Pantelleria | Travel + Leisure

If you like having your cultural compass skewed , you' ll love Pantelleria . The map says Italy, but everything about the island spells North Africa . Villages have names like Bukkuram, Bugeber, and Gadir. Dwarfed by palm trees and built of rough volcanic stone , clusters of one- story cubic dwellings with humped roofs erupt from the prickly black-brown landscape like oases. The port's architecturally challenged concrete apartment blocks and souk-like alleyways lend it the louche, scrappy allure of Tangier. The heat is the heat of the desert, with sun so strong that only crazies leave the cool of a shop awning to cross the street without first picking out a patch of shade on the other side. Citrus trees are grown in circular, high-walled giardini arabi that protect them from the wind. Locals count the days until restaurants serve the weekly special—fish couscous. I first visited Pantelleria , which is marooned in the strait between Sicily and Tunisia and has a mere 32-mile ...