Up Close and On Foot in the Cities

From a garret window in Paris’ Hotel Lutece, I heard a droning whir. Only later, when I went for a stroll along the narrow streets of the Ile St.-Louis, did I discover the source: A man bent over a grindstone, pumping a strap-held pedal--the neighborhood knife sharpener, tattered beret and all.

Housemaids, cooks and boys on bicycles lined up for his services as the neighborhood began to stir. Shutters rattled up from shop fronts. Smoke wafted from the chimneys of 17th-Century houses. Exotic flavors (Camembert, red currant, green tea) were being posted at the Berthillon ice cream shop, arguably the most inventive in the world.

I circled the small island, which floats like a dinghy in the River Seine behind the ship-shaped Ile de la Cite. On the far side of a footbridge are the gargoyles and flying buttresses of Notre Dame. On the near side, the smells of darkly roasted coffee from the Brasserie de L’Ile St.-Louis, a neighborhood gathering place that serves hearty Alsatian cuisine.

In any city or town or village, this is my favorite exercise: walking, not just for health’s sake, but to get to know the territory. It reinforces the sense of being there, the reality that even in the shadow of three-star wonders, people are doing ordinary things and not just touring.

In cosmopolitan Toronto, I stayed in the neighborhood of Yorkville, an area that was hippie heaven in the 1960s and now is bright with restoration and commercial promise. Elegant bookshops, art galleries, Italian restaurants and French boutiques are framed in the stylish wide windows of old town houses.

From my home in the discreet Four Seasons Hotel--a charmer whose clubby bar and coffee shop overlook Yorkville Avenue--I slipped out the back entrance to explore the brick arcades and crannies, and the nearby Metro Toronto Library, an architectural prize-winner that mixes waterfalls, art work and vine-draped interior balconies with its basic business of books.

Last winter, my home in Santa Fe was the Inn on the Alameda, a hunker of adobe casitas near the old cathedral and plaza. Pinon logs burned in the breakfast room hearth during the first snowfall. I remember the crunch of a jogger’s steps as she ran in to buy a Sunday New York Times.

“I just moved here a month ago,” she huffed to the manager. “I can’t get along without my Manhattan fix.”

For me, one luxury of travel is to return to a favorite place and become familiar with how it works--to know where the pay phones are at the Tlaquepaque arts and crafts village in Sedona, Ariz., or at Burberry’s in London. To remember the location of the public restrooms at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam or the Jolly Hotel in Siena, Italy. I treasure a corner breakfast table at Garland’s Oak Creek Lodge, eight miles from Sedona, and always hope it’s the morning for apple-and-cinnamon waffles. Or the sour cream and green chile omelet. Either one makes a hike mandatory.

On the Kowloon side of Hong Kong, I like to walk through the neon madhouse of Nathan Road, where electric signs turn night to day and I have always felt safe on my own. Last spring, I explored the warren around the noble Peninsula Hotel and its glitzy neighbor The Regent, which boasts the best harbor-view bar in the city.

I learned that if you turn off Nathan on Mody Road and go upstairs at the sign for Tim’s Toys and Louis Tailor, you’ll be at Spring Deer restaurant, where crisp Peking duck is the specialty and Chinese families gather at round tables that seat 16. The place is cheerfully noisy, inexpensive and, if an address helps, can be found at 42 Mody Road.

In London, I like to stroll along South Audley in Mayfair. I want to make sure that no one has bought the seven-foot-tall Minton porcelain elephants that stand guard over the sumptuous wares (silver, china, crystal) of the 19th-Century firm of Thomas Goode.