The Bush family seaside home on Walker’s Point is visible in quaint Kennebunkport, Maine.

Various members of the extended Bush Presidential family have been visiting Michigan within the last month. Former First Ladies Barbara and Laura Bush were in Grand Rapids to speak at an event just before former President George W came to give a commencement speech.

“I sent my advance team in…my mother and sister,” joked the 43rd President.

In late May, I spent half-an-hour with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother and son to Presidents, at Grand Hotel in Kennebunkport, Maine, where President George H.W. Bush summers at the family seaside home and quaint in the way Mackinac Island is. So for all the Bush visits to Michigan, Michiganders are welcome to visit the Bushes!

Kennebunkport is 15 minutes south of Portland Airport and 80 miles north of Boston. The Bush home is plainly visible to passersby across a cove on Walker’s Point – a small, rocky outcropping of land 41st President George H.W. Bush has dubbed his “Anchor to Windward.” Visitors can take photos at a giant anchor and plaque placed in his honor between the road and the bay which is also home to his beloved speedboat “Fidelity,” at the helm of which #41 has often been spotted alongside, of course, a Secret Service boat.

Tourists can also visit “Ganny’s Garden,” created to honor former First Lady Barbara Bush, who is called “Ganny” by her grandchildren, for whom each individual tree was planted. The flowers and subtle statues are in front of the Captain Lord Mansion and Spa, an authentic, historic, romantic, bed and breakfast (think fresh Maine blueberry pancakes!). Innkeepers Rick and Bev Litchfield, Kennebunkport civic ambassadors who have met the Bushes – it’s likely you’ll spot them, too – host informal wine gatherings in the shade on the lawn. Visit www.CaptainLord.com.

There is also plenty of Bush memorabilia in Ken Raynor’s shop at Cape Arundel Golf Club, which is open to the public. Raynor is like family to George and Barbara.

The Bushes have been known to dine at Mabel’s Lobster Claw, an eastern seaboard-style seafood restaurant on Ocean Ave., the main road, between Dock Square at the corner of town (where you can also get Bush souvenirs) and Walker’s Point. President Bush is said to order a dish called The Dutchess: fresh lobster meat, scallops, and shrimp baked with garlic, Chablis wine and seasoned crumbs, though Jeb Bush, who is also considering a Presidential run, told me, “Dad doesn’t eat like that anymore.” Don’t forget the blueberry pie or cinnamon ice cream!

And as President Bush’s mother told him on childhood vacations to Kennebunkport, “Breathe in that sea air!”

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

The Bush family seaside home on Walker’s Point is visible in quaint Kennebunkport, Maine.

Don’t forget the sun screen at the clothing-optional Caliente Spa and Resort near Tampa and in the Dominican Republic.

Caliente Spa and Resort, near Tampa, is one destination where travelers don’t mind so much if the airline loses their luggage. That’s because Caliente is a “clothing optional” resort.

“Caliente translates to hot,” says Deb Bowen, public relations manager for the property, which, indeed, basks its’ glistening guests in the Florida sunshine. “Bring your sun screen but be sure to remember to apply it everywhere.”

Caliente claims it’s the “hottest party on the planet,” and while it’s own website depicts frolicking, nubile nudes, Bowen says today’s society projects a “too perfect” image of what our bodies should look like, leaving men and women to feel self-conscious. Caliente’s goal is to help people, age 21 and over, to be more natural and healthy and to help guests embrace the natural forms of themselves and others. But not a literal embrace. The overly affectionate will be sent to their rooms.

“It’s not as easy men might think for them to ‘jump up and say hello’ in a crowded room, anyway,” says Bowen, who has been in the business for more than 12 years and has, presumably, seen it all.

Don’t lay eyes on another guest for too long, either.

“If anybody is overtly gawking, we send them up to Tampa, which seems to have more strip clubs than any other city in Florida,” says Bowen.

Is everyone nude all the time?

“You can be nude if you want to, but you don’t have to. Women can wear a wrap or bottoms if they don’t want to be completely naked while walking around. Some wear only a netted covering. You can dress to your own comfort level,” according to Bowen, and, for sanitary reasons, staffers make sure no one sits naked on anything without a towel between them and a chaise lounge or dining room chair.

Now that we know the no-no’s, what can guests do at Caliente?

“You can have the same fun you’d have at any other resort, but just more of it here,” says Bowen. “We have theme parties, sports, nude volleyball on sand or in water, nude tennis, swimming, kayaking, Zumba and yoga.”

Nude yoga? Wouldn’t the “downward dog” pose be a little awkward in a room full of naked people?

“Well, 99-percent of the people do wear clothes for yoga,” she admits.

For more information on clothing-optional resorts near Tampa or in the Dominican Republic, visit CalienteResort.com

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

Zona Hotel and Suites in fashionable Scottsdale offers Southwest style without fuss and expense.

It seems when travelers “get away” they still want to be “connected.” I-Pads, laptop computers, smart phones and other devices are traveling companions logged-in, at most hotels, to complimentary wireless Internet. But how much longer will free access exist?

“As anyone who traveled in the pre-cell phone era knows the in-room telephones were profitable for hotels. Making calls was somewhat expensive,” recalls Tom Waite, director of sales and marketing at Zona Hotel and Suites in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Those phones are so rarely used now that I can foresee the day in the near future when they will be eliminated entirely.”

Doesn’t it make sense, then, that hotels replace that lost telephone revenue with Internet access charges? After all, airports, airlines, and even most coffee shops charge for Internet. Not yet, apparently.

“Polling data shows the number-one complaint from guests is when a hotel does not offer free Internet,” Waite explains. “Some hotels offer complimentary wireless in the lobby areas, but not in the rooms. I am guessing that when a Hilton or Marriott decides to stop offering it free, everyone else will follow suit.”

Waite says initially hotels were bombarded with tech-related questions and calls from guests having trouble connecting their devices. “But now we get virtually no calls at all because these advanced devices automatically seek out the wireless signal on their own. The challenge every hotel now has is the need for more bandwidth since guests even watch movies online now.” Since guests no longer need to order “in-room movies,” another hotel profit center has been eliminated. But Zona welcomes cost-conscious travelers.

“We cater to the type of guests for whom $100 dollars still means something,” said Waite as we sat on the patio of Zona’s Grazie Desert Grille in the shade under a canopy of trees in the middle of the chic, yet comfortable, resort. Swimming pools, cool water misters, and outdoor fireplaces blend in with the wildflowers and southwestern-style low-rise suites. Zona’s very fashionable North Scottsdale location is only a short, complimentary shuttle ride to top-rated golf courses – Grayhawk and Troon North, to name a couple – plus restaurants, and shopping, without the fashionable price and fuss associated with the area. Zona’s got the only four-bedroom, four-bathroom suites with kitchens in Scottsdale, and they can be had for $400 per night and accommodate more than 12 people, including complimentary Internet. Families and buddies staying at Zona feel more like coming home at the end of an adventurous day or night instead of having to “gussy up” just to walk through the lobby. (Spa-seeking guests are offered access to the Fairmont Resort next door.)

For more information, log on to www.ZonaScottsdale.com or call 888-222-1059

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

The view from the Renaissance Hotel includes the World Golf Hall of Fame, Slammer and Squire Golf course, and shops.

When Hall of Famers rest their heads on your beds, you’ll better be a top class hotel. On Monday, May 6, international golf luminaries Fred Couples, Ken Venturi, Colin Montgomerie and Ken Schofield will spend their first night as “Hall of Famers” at the Renaissance World Golf Village Resort hours after a star-studded, televised ceremony inducting them into the adjacent World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, FL.

“Many times I stopped off at the World Golf Hall of Fame and walked around and visited. I was in awe of what I saw then, and it’s an even grander place now,” said Montgomerie, a Ryder Cup hero from Scotland, when told he’d be inducted. “I never dreamt in my wildest dreams I would ever be inducted into this fabulous family of Hall of Famers.”

Ken Venturi, when told he’d be inducted, said, “The last time I had tears in my eyes was when I won the U.S. Open. The greatest honor in life is to be remembered.”

Your stay at the Renaissance World Golf Village will be memorable because if you’re not a Hall of Famer, you will feel like one. You needn’t even remove your golf shoes for the entire stay because the recently renovated, 300-room hotel, Hall of Fame, two golf courses, the world’s largest golf shop, and golf-themed restaurants are all intertwined around a small lake just off I-95.

The World Golf Hall of Fame is an interactive, creative museum with unforgettable exhibits including Masters jackets, tournament winning clubs and revealing personal items donated by golf’s historic and prolific winners and kept in each player’s “locker.” A morning visit to the Hall of Fame will surely inspire a fine round only a few yards away.

Rival Hall of Famers Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus collaborated to design and lend their respective nicknames to the playable and fun “King and Bear” course at World Golf Village, which, like its’ sister course, the “Slammer and Squire,” – named to honor late Hall of Famers Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen – has hosted a Champions Tour event. The courses and resort are part of a collection of First Coast courses available through www.Florida-golf.org, a not-for-profit organization which leads visitors to facilities of distinction such as the beautiful seaside Ocean Course at Hammock Beach Resort, in nearby Palm Coast, also a Nicklaus design.

The Jacksonville-St Augustine area is home to the PGA Tour and the World Golf Hall of Fame, making the “First Coast” a first-rate destination for buddy golf trips, business conferences and more, since the convention center is also built in. Visit www.WorldGolfRenaissance.com

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

Captain Lord Mansion looks too charming to be real!

KENNEBUNKPORT, ME – I can see why George and Barbara Bush love summering in Kennebunkport. So what I wanted to see when I came to Kennebunkport was George and Barbara Bush! I wasn’t disappointed.

The former President, whom the locals call #41 since he was America’s 41st Commander in Chief, and his first lady make regular appearances around this quintessential northeastern seaboard town. The family estate is plainly visible across a small cove on Walker’s Point, a rocky crop of land which juts into the Atlantic parallel to the shore. So many people pull their cars over on Ocean Avenue to admire the view of the Bush home and take photos that subtle benches and viewpoints have been created. The Secret Service guardhouse sees to it that people do not have access to Walker’s Point, but you can see Bush, who is 86, climb into his 38-foot speedboat, named Fidelity IV, and hit the gas for a cruise up the coast or even into town for lunch at Mabel’s Lobster Claw or Federal Jack’s Restaurant. A smaller, black Secret Service boat trails along behind Bush and his passengers until they arrive home safely.

“The former President and First Lady are pretty visible in restaurants. You usually would not see him in the shops and boutiques and art galleries, but in restaurants, sure,” says Rick Litchfield. He and his wife Bev Davis operate Kennebunkport’s most charming bed-and-breakfast, the Captain Lord Mansion. “Very frequently I’ll be talking to our guests who will say, ‘Oh, we had dinner with George and Barbara last night!’ which really means that George and Barbara and their Secret Service entourage were in the same restaurant.”

What is the protocol if you should find yourself in the company of the Bushes?

“George is very convivial, he’ll come around and shake hands with people, doesn’t necessarily give autographs, but he will welcome people in the restaurants, which is really quite a nice thing,” says Litchfield. “He is genuinely a nice person. I’ve met him on occasion at functions in the Kennebunks here and he truly is a man of good character and warm sensibilities. He truly is a wonderful elder statesman for the United States.”

Litchfield’s Captain Lord Mansion is a stately Federal home – circa 1812- and on the National Register of Historic Places, along with a carriage house and captain’s quarters. 16 luxurious rooms with fireplaces and four-poster, canopied beds make it difficult to emerge for the delicious three-course breakfast included. The romantic and friendly inn is in the center of Kennebunkport’s action, overlooking the Kennebunk River, but its’ grassy, maple tree-covered gardens and manicured landscaping serve as a peaceful buffer. Guests can easily stroll into Dock Square for shopping and dining.

“We have some beautiful white, sandy beaches and we’ve got the rocky coast line. In the summer time you can do so much: there’s bicycling as well as whale watches, and we have sailing cruises on old windjammers,” says Litchfield of Kennbukport, which is 90 miles north of Boston and 30 miles south of Portland, Maine. “We have a package at the Captain Lord Mansion were you can even go aboard a lobster boat cruise, harvest the lobsters, and have them for dinner.”
Don’t forget the blueberry pie – Maine is famous for that, and the “lobster roll.”

Masters of the House: Innkeepers Rick and Bev Litchfield.

“It’s basically a hot dog bun with lobster and mayonnaise in it,” explains Litchfield, who also says Maine is known as “down east” because that was the prevailing wind in the days of schooners, which, when you’re standing in Kennebunkport, doesn’t seem that long ago. The state slogan is “Maine – the way life ought to be, but why are people from Maine called “Maine-iacs?”

“Because I think some of us are,” laughs the amiable Litchfield, who took a turn as president of the Kennebunkport Chamber of Commerce.

“October’s ‘Pumpkinfest Weekend’ is fun, as is our Halloween Weekend at the inn; and December’s ‘Christmas Prelude’ is straight out of Currier and Ives, with Santa arriving by lobster boat,” says Litchfield.

President Bush’s beloved Cape Arundel Golf Club, founded in 1896, is virtually a family heirloom, having hosted generations of Bush’s, including “41” and the 43rd President, George W. Bush. President Bill Clinton has played as a guest, as have many PGA Tour players and celebrities.

“Phil Mickelson holds the current course record of 60,” says Ken Raynor, Cape Arundel’s longtime head golf professional and member of the Maine Golf Hall of Fame, who once held the record himself. Cape Arundel, redesigned by the famed Walter Travis is 1923, and restored by Traverse City, Michigan’s Bruce Hepner in 2006, is an antique, historic course with a refreshingly casual, screen-door clubhouse. Playing the course is like walking back in time.

The public is welcomed but reservations are required.

And as for my hope to spot President Bush? I inadvertently sat in the front pew with “41” and his beloved wife Barbara at Sunday morning services. Coincidentally, the Reverend M.L. Agnew’s seaside sermon that morning was based on the Gospel of Luke’s verse: “Ask and it will be given you…for everyone who searches, finds.”

Whether you run into President Bush or not, Kennebunkport is a terrific tourist find all year.

Visit www.captainlord.com, www.capearundelgolfclub.com, and www.visitthekennebunks.com

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or viawww.TravelTattler.com.

Inside the wine cave at the Four Seasons George V Paris - home to 50,000 vintage bottles. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)

Are French wines the world’s best? Cliché or not, the answer, historically, has always been: “Oui, monsieur!” But I posed the question to Nicolas Charriere, a sommelier at Le Cinq, the exquisite culinary experience inside the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris. He leaned in close, and after careful thought, whispered dramatically, “It is difficult to say because there are very good wines from around the world. For instance, if I had one bottle remaining to drink at the end of my life, it would be a German Riesling.”

Mon dieu! But it’s not heresy, according to sommelier Estelle Touzet, who also demurred from insisting on French wine superiority. She’s served wine in the hotels at opposite end of the Champs Elysees, including the Crillion, Bristol and now Le Meurice’s gastronomic restaurant. “I would choose a dry Riesling as well. It’s not considered fashionable but Riesling is a favorite of sommeliers because it is well balanced and low in alcohol,” she said while pouring a glass of 2011 Austrian Gruner Veltliner to be paired with roasted fois gras and a warm oyster in an ornate dining room meant to resemble the belle époque styled Peace Salon in the Palace of Versailles.

Back in the elegant, flower filled, Four Seasons near the Arc de Triumph, Charriere’s wine pairings, one of seven during dinner at Le Cinq, including a 1984 Madeira Verdelho from Portugal to accompany Chef Eric Beaumard’s pigeon in a cereal crust with spicy foie gras and preserved turnips in pomegranate molasses and pearly juice, the main course of eight, are astonishing. Is his talent science or art? Charriere, who was raised in France’s Loire Valley, prefers to call it “passion.”

Three floors below Le Cinq the temperature is 52-degrees Fahrenheit with 60-percent humidity in the Four Seasons George V’s wine cave. Built in a former stone quarry in 1928, it’s now the dark, secret home to 50,000 bottles, even some from Napa. Victor Piteot, a 23-year old being trained by head sommelier Thierry Hamon, has learned the magic of proper pairings includes factoring in the dining event, time of day, mood of the customer, budget, and other perceptions. He then showed me a bottle of 1811 cognac and a bottle of port dated 1795. At last, though, evidence of a partisan Parisian! A businessman who visits the hotel eight times a year, described by Piteot only as “a very nice guest,” is so devoted to French wine – a vintage Petrus Bordeaux, to be specific – that the Four Seasons not only procures it but also displays his 120 empty bottles on the wall in the cave because he likes to come down and view his handiwork, a loyal devotion to French wine and France’s best hotel estimated to have totaled bills for him beyond the billion Euro mark.

For more information, visit www.FourSeasons.com/Paris

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com.

Black Forest Golf Club, near Gaylord, was the second golf course Doak designed.

A huge amount of “imaginary travel” takes place in early April when, during the Masters Tournament, golfers dream of rolling up Magnolia Lane to the highly exclusive Augusta National Golf Club. Tom Doak has been there, but then again, he’s been everywhere. And the internationally acclaimed, Traverse City-based golf course architect, who has walked every inch of Augusta National, is about to stroll into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.

Alister MacKenzie designed Augusta National in the 1920’s, and also Crystal Downs GC, where Doak, 52, is a member, in Frankfurt, Michigan. Doak’s first two designs were close to home: the now defunct High Pointe Golf Club, in Traverse City; and Black Forest Golf Club near Gaylord.

“High Pointe was not conceived to be one of the great golf courses of the world. It was conceived as a place that was a really nice piece of land to build a golf course on and a relatively affordable place for people to come and play,” he explains.

Doak speaks candidly about his second golf course, Black Forest.

“It is the most difficult course I’ve ever built and I realize I’d gone too far. But just because my philosophy changes it doesn’t mean I want to go back and re-do everything. When I created Black Forest in the late 1980’s, all the new courses in Northern Michigan, such as The Bear and Treetops, made a point in their advertising of touting how difficult their courses were.” Doak’s clients at Black Forest didn’t want to hear anyone say their course was “too easy.”

“Whatever Black Forest is, it is not ‘too easy,’” Doak says.

New Zealand, Tasmania, Scotland, Australia, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and, domestically, Arizona, Florida, Colorado, Myrtle Beach, and the Hamptons are far-flung locations of construction sites-turned acclaim-winning golf courses that have kept Doak on airplanes instead of breathing the fresh, clean air of his home soil.

“Some of my best thoughts about a course I’m working on have come while I was on the plane coming home, when I am just resting and have nothing else to do. I get some time to think about it without having to worry about other things,” Doak says. Doak has personally visited more famous – and not so famous – golf courses worldwide than any human alive, tagging along with his father on business conferences at resorts as a kid. “Then I began sending letters to golf club managers and superintendents of famous golf courses asking them if I could come and examine their golf courses.” The result was a lifetime of footprints in the dew of fairways across the globe.

“I travel 180 days a year, so home is ‘part time’ for me,” he admits. “It’s particularly troublesome because, especially in the summer, Traverse City is such a great place to live.”

Doak is a citizen of the world, and soon to be a member of the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

The "Peninsula green" chauffer-driven Mini's stand ready for suite guests of The Peninsula Hotel in Chicago.

It seems like a miracle on Chicago’s “Miracle Mile” of glittering shops, restaurants and revelry: a world class, five-star, international luxury hotel…with sincere, Midwest friendliness. Upscale hotels are often uptight, but a stay at The Peninsula has the sophisticated yet fun feeling of playing horseshoes on the White House lawn or going to Buckingham Palace to sing karaoke.

Consider Sunday brunch in the hotel’s Lobby Restaurant, where dawn’s early light spills in through soaring, two-story, floor-to-ceiling windows. A string trio scoring the breakfast – The Peninsula is Chicago’s only hotel with daily live music – eschews the expected and clichéd Mozart or Bach in favor of classical versions of pop hits from Lady Gaga, Coldplay, and Taylor Swift. Teens perk up. And Chef Lee Wolen has prepared a two-foot high buffet table specifically for little children.

“For the kids who might not want sushi, beef tenderloin and crab legs, we present macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and cookies,” says Marc Anderson, The Peninsula’s director of marketing. Wolen, who left a three Michelin star restaurant in New York City because he prefers Midwest sensibilities, added, smong other culinary surprises, a gnocchi starter that hides the ricotta in a pillow of pasta with sweet potato, brown butter and black truffle.

Push a button to open the automatic drapes in the 1,000 square-foot Jade suite, for instance, on the corner of the building and you’ll get a panorama of the iconic Windy City skyscrapers above – including the Hancock Tower – and, 16 stories below, Water Tower Place. Two bedrooms with two bathrooms, a living room, dining room, office, kitchenette area, foyer, guest bathroom, walk in closets, and a Jacuzzi with an embedded flat screen television make the suite perfect for families or couples.

Room at The Peninsula Hotel, Chicago.

“The Peninsula in the heart of the action at Michigan Avenue and Superior,” says Anderson, who suggests a trip to the rooftop pool and spa after a day on your feet. “We have the best shopping in the world around the hotel – Zara, Burberry, Neiman Marcus, Ralph Lauren, Saks 5th Avenue, Tiffany, and Stuart Weitzman, to name a few – and we’re steps away from the museums.” Should you not wish to pound the pavement, a chauffer-driven, “Peninsula green” Mini Cooper is available to suite holders for three hours at no charge.

Don’t be surprised when you’re thoughtfully handed a bottle of water as you head out of the hotel. It’s okay to be, though, initially startled when every employee in the hotel greets you by name – a Peninsula touch.

Chicago's The Peninsula Hotel stands proudly among the city's legendary shopping streets.

Special spring break packages and family retreats start at $350 per night including complimentary overnight parking and free meals for children. For more information visit www.Peninsula.com/Chicago

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted atInviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

The scenic countryside in the Southwest of Ireland, windswept and pastoral, includes both castles and ruins.

Take a stroll through Detroit’s Irish Corktown neighborhood on St. Patrick’s Day and you’ll find the holiday has become an outlandish blend of New Year’s Eve, Halloween, Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras! Young women with green and white-striped stockings, orange hair, and bouncing, shamrock antennae springs on their heads swig green beer from plastic cups and dance to The Unicorn song. Men, in tents set up outside the Gaelic League and The Old Shillelagh, fake high-pitched Irish accents that sound more like the Lucky Charms leprechaun than a proper, rolling brogue. They’re celebrating an Americanized version of the Emerald Isle’s religious tradition, as they do in Boston, New York, Savannah and Chicago, where the river is turned green in salute.

Irishman Conor Cuneen, a motivational consultant who authored “Why the Irish Never Invaded America,” scratched his head about St. Patty’s Day events when he moved to the United States.

“I am happily exiled in Naperville, Illinois but I have been force fed more corned beef than I ever had in Ireland,” he insists. “The natives are friendly, though, and the Guinness is good.”
But not as good as it in Ireland, according to those who know.

“The Guinness in the U.S. is getting better. There is less difference now than there used to be,” admits Brian O’Callaghan, head golf professional at the tumbling, top-ranked Ballybunion Golf Links along the Atlantic in County Kerry. “There is a great art to pouring it over here. There is a process and a way of pulling a pint and you’ve got to let it cook for a while before you drink it.”

O’Callaghan says you won’t find green beer in Ireland, but you will find colorful, local, village parades. “Families, kids, schools, businesses and even farmers with tractors will be in the parades.”

That’s after attending morning Mass, of course.

If your vision of authentic Ireland includes little, white cottages and rainbows over stone-walled green fields, you won’t be disappointed, but you should also remember not all castles you see will be ruins.

Dromoland Castle Hotel and Country Estate, very near Shannon Airport and close to the Cliffs of Moher, the fairways of Lahinch, Galway and Limerick, lets you live like an ancient Irish king, but with modern, 5-star amenities. “The castle was built in 1752 and I can’t understand how they survived in it back then with no central heating. A nice power shower wasn’t available back then like it is now in our hotel. I think people were more robust then. We’ve made ourselves too soft by pampering ourselves too much,” joked Mark Nolan, Dromoland’s general manager. Nolan was very comfortable in the hotel, peering out the window at 1,500 acres of pastoral, undulating land and a lake stocked with rainbow and brown trout – picture perfect Ireland.

The Republic of Ireland is about the size of Ohio, but don’t over-schedule your visit based on distances between towns or attractions. Driving on the left side of narrow, bumpy roads, and being delayed by sheep herds or wandering cows is part of an Irish adventure. Your best bet is just to get there, relax, and, as Tourism Ireland recommends, “go where Ireland takes you.”

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com

Doral's Royal Palm pool and spa is an oasis separate from the family pool and water play area.

When real estate mogul and television star Donald Trump buys in, he buys in big. “The Donald’s” 150-million purchase of South Florida’s iconic Doral Golf Resort and Spa in 2012 gave him a renovated property he is already starting to remake again. The PGA Tour players competing there next week, along with the CBS TV viewers, will be among the first to see Trump’s work in progress.

“Doral will be phenomenal. I will spend a great deal of money on it to bring it back to its grandeur,” Trump told me. “It is home to one of the most important tournaments on the PGA Tour. And the 18th hole there is probably the greatest finishing hole in golf.”

Trump’s trademark touches come first, of course. A stately, old-world fountain that would otherwise be found in Florence now gurgles water over white statues of stallions and naked cherubs in full view of the patio, restaurant, and first tee of the famed Blue Monster Golf Course.

“Anyone hit the fountain with a golf ball yet?” I asked the starter.

“Oh yeah,” he answered.

Trump, who renamed the private portion of the resort “Trump Doral Golf Club,” can land via chopper on a putting area near the fountain, as long as the pilot avoids the giant American flag installed behind the 18th green and the big, ornate, iron clock with Trump’s name atop it. Updated guest suites will be the most evident changes, while design adjustments to the Blue Monster course will happen during the next 10 months.

Six miles from Miami International Airport, in the middle of suburban sprawl, Doral is an oasis. Park your car and have the valet throw away the keys. You can literally fall off of your veranda onto one of the golf courses in the footsteps of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Henrik Stenson, who stripped to his underwear to play a shot from the muddy bank of a pond on the third hole. You can even learn to play like them at the acclaimed, on-site Jim McLean Golf Academy.

For the non-golfer there are colorful, international dining experiences, shops, walking trails, panoramic fitness room, elaborate, stand-alone, European-style spa, and separate themed swimming pool areas for adults and families are among the offerings. Wanna get away? Imagine floating in a large, placid pool between tall hedges and under towering royal palms basked by the warm Florida sun. The only sound you’ll hear is the rushing water of the Jacuzzi waterfall fountains that provide an intensive hot aqua massage…only steps away from a Blue Monster Martini at the poolside bar.

Doral, in its clientele and presentation, is a very international experience. Wrap your day by listening to Jazz music at Bossa Nova Lounge after a Latin dinner overlooking the course at Mesazul…where you might even run into Donald Trump.

For more information visit www.DoralResort.com

Michigan-based travel writer Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at InviteYourself@aol.com or via www.TravelTattler.com