It’s a long, long story, but one night in 2011 I found myself mingling elbow to elbow with the beautiful people at the trendy Boom Boom Room atop The Standard Hotel in New York.
Naturally, I felt like a fraud.
What did I know from cool?
But the view was amazing as the sun went down over the city.
As I slunk around trying to look rich and bored, I successfully hid my real feelings, which were, “gee, whiz! It’s crowded in here.”
That major achievement in bar-going now gives me the authority to recommend some of the world’s best bars. Or at least the authority to tell you about the new Lonely Planet travel guidebook, “50 Bars to Blow Your Mind” (Lonely Planet, $11.99.)
Authors Ben Handicott and Kalya Ryan’s choices for most intriguing bars in the world include the beautiful, the historic and the just plain weird.
There’s the creepy Museum HR Giger Bar in Gruyeres, Switzerland with an otherworldly reptilian theme. It’s a paean to the surreal art of H.R. Giger, whose work inspired the movie “Alien.” You sit under arches that look like the inside of a giant alien backbone and sip your drink next to snakelike visions.
They also recommend the Opera Club bar in Warsaw, which is a series of tunnels and little rooms in the basement of Poland’s national opera house that have been converted into an artistic spot where you can drink “Opera Iced Tea.”
Some bars they recommend are in gorgeous places, like Rick’s Cafe in Negril, Jamaica, and the Area 51 Top Secret Party Facility in Lugutan Beach, the Philippines.
But they also include bars with a quirky angle. One bar overlooks the monkey enclosure at a zoo. Another is an outdoor bar that is a vertigo-inducing 63 stories up. Another is on an island in the middle of the harbor in Sydney, Australia. For beer, spirits or wine, it’s the atmosphere that counts.
Even if you do not drink, a visit to a city’s most famous watering hole can tell you a lot about the society and culture of a place.
So don’t think of it as bar-hopping. Think of it as travel research.
For instance, the book mentions Sean’s Bar in Althone, Ireland. It is nothing special on its own. But it dates from 900 AD, making it the oldest bar in the nation and probably one of the oldest in the world.
Just think of the thousand years of sob stories that the bartenders have heard! Then pull up a stool and stay awhile. Research takes time.
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