Dream Honeymoon Destinations
Pack up and take off
Written by CHUCK CLEVELAND • Photographed by BARBARA CLEVELAND
Travel plans for 2020 were largely curtailed, but let’s think optimistically about 2021. Here are three distinctly different alternatives from around the world for your vacation contemplation. Steeped in beauty and history, Venice, Kauai and Banff each make for an outstanding honeymoon destination.
My wife Barbara and I recommend each and provide tips on where to stay and what to see or do based on our travels there. We wish you a great getaway and a wonderful marriage.
TOP: A newlywed couple rejoices in Venice. ABOVE LEFT: A gondola ride allows visitors to see the city up close. ABOVE RIGHT: Chuck and Barbara Cleveland prepare to launch.
Venice, Italy, has long been recognized as highly romantic, and a few years ago Travel and Leisure Magazine named it “the most romantic city in the world.” Not surprisingly, we saw couples everywhere, all seemingly in festive moods. Usually, they were celebrating anniversaries, but one day we encountered two young people in wedding attire rejoicing on their special occasion. They even allowed Barbara to snap their photo.
Speaking of weddings, when in Venice, we stayed at the Ca’ Sagredo Hotel, which received the Love Travels award for Best Wedding Hotel in Europe for 2017 and earned the Conde Nast Johansen Award for Excellence as Best Hotel for Weddings, Parties and Celebrations in 2021.
A former 15th century palace on the Grand Canal, Ca’ Sagredo is relatively small with 43 rooms and suites. To add to the romance, there’s a gondola stand just outside the hotel doors. Visit their website at casagredohotel.com or call the hotel at 39.041.241.3111; remember, there’s a six-hour time difference.
The breathtaking scenery at Kauai is reason enough to consider honeymooning in Hawaii.
If relaxation among natural wonders is your top criteria for a vacation, Hawaii’s Garden Isle is an excellent choice.
With majestic cliffs, a colorful canyon, lush vegetation and gloriously blazing sunsets, Kauai offers a sensational collection of visual delights sure to inspire newlyweds.
We opted to stay on the sunnier south tip of the island at the Grand Hyatt in Koloa (hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/hawaii/grand-hyatt-kauai-resort-and-spa/kauai, 808.742.1234). With 50 acres overlooking the sea, the hotel affords its guests breathtaking landscapes, spacious accommodations and outstanding restaurants.
At the top of the island, the Na Aina Kai Botanical Gardens are inviting. Within these 232 acres, you’ll find waterfalls, pools, gazebos, a lagoon with spouting fountains, Japanese teahouse and spectacular birds and plants as well as a path along bubbling streams leading to the ocean.
As impressive as the gardens are, Kauai’s top attraction is a 15-mile stretch of shore on the northwest corner of the island. Along the Na Pali Coastline, you’ll see multicolored carved cliffs rising as high as 4,000 feet above sea level. They produce an intriguing combination of majesty and danger. The site can be observed by air via helicopter or by water, and we recommend trying both.
A vacation in Banff, Canada delivers mountain beauty.
The small Canadian town of Banff is located 78 miles west of Calgary and offers a nice contrast to Hawaii’s proximity to the ocean. However, you should know the waters of world-famous Lake Louise (only 36 miles away) are still frozen at the end of April.
The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (fairmont.com/banff-springs, 403.762.2211) originally opened in 1888, but the wooden structure burned to the ground in 1926. Reconstruction took only two years, and the facility has grown over the next almost 100 years to now house more than 750 rooms.
The most important distinction between the facility in 1888 and in 2021 is that the building is now located so as to afford some guests a gorgeous view. We recommend paying a few dollars more to obtain this stunning sight. We visited in late June when the mountains behind us still had snow.
Millions of people visit Lake Louise each year to see the vivid shade of turquoise water. The tour we took from Banff also went to Moraine Lake, more than 6,000 feet above sea level.
The Banff area is beautiful, and the national park of the same name makes for an excellent excursion.
NCM