Places to go in 2011

Le NY Times a publié aujourd’hui ses “41 places to go in 2011”.

Singapour fait partie de sa sélection, tout comme Anvers (double cocorico donc). Que cela vous encourage à nous rendre visite (et, éventuellement, à visiter Anvers...)! Voici ce qu’ils disent de ces 2 villes (c'est sommaire, je le reconnais):

#23. Singapore
With new resorts and casinos, the city lets its hair down.

For years, this island country was considered oppressive and humorless. But recently Singapore has started to have some fun with new supersized resorts, design hotels and restaurants.

“There has been a big change in the Singapore scene in the last two or three years,” said the hotelier Lik Peng Loh, who recently opened Wanderlust, which he calls an “adult playground.” *

Singapore’s decision six years ago to allow gambling led to the recent opening of two complexes: the Resorts World Sentosa, with a casino, Universal Studios theme park and four hotels, including a Hard Rock; and the Marina Bay Sands. 

#14. Antwerp, Belgium
A new breed of boutiques have made it a fashionista’s paradise.

There hasn’t been so much fashion buzz in Antwerp since the dawn of the Antwerp Six, a group of designers including Dries Van Noten and Ann Demeulemeester who rose to prominence in the mid 1980s. And while the city’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts is still churning out avant-garde talents, it’s Antwerp’s latest crop of shops that is causing the current buzz.

“The fashionistas I know have suddenly fallen in love with Antwerp,” said Lulu Townsend, the managing director of the London travel company Chic Retreats. “It’s a shopper’s paradise.”

In the last year alone four destination-worthy concept stores have opened, among them the fashion shop-cum-gallery Ra, which sells local and international labels and also hosts art and fashion events. Next door is Your, which offers everything from “a 2-euro pack of bubble gum to 14 brands of jeans and a 350,000-euro Alfa Romeo 8C,” said Jorrit Baars, who conceived the space.

Then there are the posh new boutiques Graanmarkt 13 and Renaissance, which features designers like Alexander Wang along with a chic Italian restaurant simply called Ristaurante. While you are in the building, check out the latest exhibition at Antwerp’s fashion museum, MoMu.

* contrairement à ce que le nom et le commentaire suggèrent, c’est un hôtel classique dont seul le design ultramoderne dans une maison historique des années ’20 est distinctif (chaque étage ayant été dessiné par un bureau de design différent).