GSTAAD—It’s been very sunny and hot, with the bluest of blue skies above and the greenest of green mountains around me. It does not get any better than this. The farmers have cut their grass and packed it for the winter’s feed, soon the cows will be coming down from the hills, and the Swiss franc will continue going through the roof. Life is now so expensive in Switzerland, even the rich are starting to complain. Sixty ...

GSTAAD—Forget about Libya and don’t even think about Syria. The mother of all battles is about to take place right here in bucolic Gstaad, a place of terminal political incorrectness—until recently, that is. But before I begin, the Beguine is far more likely to see Saif Gaddafi than we are in this glitzy nouveau-riche Mecca. The Beguine is a religious order in the Netherlands, the nation where the International Criminal ...

Most people in America don’t realize that Greece is a very new country—its independent-nation status was made official in 1830. Greece is as old as Belgium but far more poor. Even Dubya as president did not know our name. He called us Grecians, like the hair dye, instead of Greeks. We Hellenes are among the oldest civilizations, having invented or perfected such bagatelles as philosophy, science, medicine, astronomy, ...

GSTAAD—Blah, blah, blah! I’ve heard it all before. We are all swivel-eyed fanatics, racists, and right-wing extremists. And we’re also bigots because we believe in Jesus Christ. Today is my name day, the Day of Assumption, but please don’t ask me how my parents got Taki out of it—Panagia, Panagiotaki, Taki—that is all I can tell you in my limited English. So I stepped out on my garden overlooking Gstaad’s wooded ...

On September 1, 1957, a pretty French girl by the name of Patricia and an Italo-French couple, Feruccio and Ellen, joined me in the old harbor of Cannes waiting to board the super-new luxury liner Cristoforo Colombo. Our destination was Capri, and we had decided to go on the spur of the moment. Capri’s season back then followed the summer months of the French Riviera, and as all four of us had just turned 21, we felt ...

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—According to C. M. Bowra, gold had a divine association with the Ancient Greeks and possessed more than a symbolic value. When Pindar wished to stress something’s splendor, he called it golden, whether it was a victor’s wreath of wild olive or a song’s opening. Gold stood for wealth in its most magical and least prosaic form, for the radiance it invested in the art of living and for the graces it ...

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—The smell of pine wafting from the shore and the sight of sun-bleached terracotta houses shimmering in the midday heat remind me of the simple island life during the good old days before super yachts, oligarchs, and the brain-jolting cacophony of modern music emanating from so-called clubs. I’m lying off the eastern side of the Peloponnese, far from the flesh spots of Spetses and Porto Heli, having done ...

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO—The thickly pined forested hills form a perfect backdrop to the not-so-wine-dark waters off the Peloponnese. Soft greens and blues are Edward Hopper colors—as is the yellowish-white midday sunlight—noon’s inviolate stillness being a keynote of his paintings. The sea in Greece is mystically wedded to the mountains, the craggy peaks acting as phallic domes to her femininity. The beauty of sailing is ...

I’ve had a longstanding instinctive loathing of those who perpetrate gimmick art, a genre of which Lucian Freud was a master. His art was as sordid as his person, reflecting his loathing of human nature in general and women in particular. In the modern age, we are surrounded by manmade ugliness. And artists, who used to devote their effort to idealizing the human form, to recording nature’s charms and bringing order and ...

ONBOARD S/Y BUSHIDO OFF CORFU—From my porthole I can see Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor talking to his three blonde and beautiful daughters. The eldest, Rory, has just become a doctor, the other two are still kids, and there are also two very talented boys not onboard his boat Tiger Lily. One of his sons is an extremely talented drummer, which I guess goes with the territory. Rock stars do not make for typical loving ...

We all know that the rich and powerful are seldom held accountable. Take, for example, the recent case of Albert II, the Prince of Monaco, and his new wife, Charlene Wittstock. Rumors that Charlene was first kidnapped, drugged, and then forced to abide by the agreement she had signed with the Principality of Monaco—or else—went almost entirely unnoticed by the media once the runaway bride had been brought back to the palace ...

PORTO MONTENEGRO—My friend John Sutin, the world’s most generous man, could not believe his ears. Montenegro’s Tivat Airport would not allow him to land because more than 80 private jets had already booked parking spaces. So we landed in Dubrovnik instead. The Croatian airport welcomed us by rushing us through customs as if we were big shots rather than Nat Rothschild’s guests in neighboring Montenegro. A one-hour car ...

Exactly fifty years ago last Friday night going into Saturday morning—July 1st into the 2nd—in Ketchum, Idaho, Ernest Hemingway asked his wife Mary to sing an Italian song, “Tutti Mi Chiamano Vionda” (“Everyone Calls Me Blondie”), and after they both went up to bed he silently crept down the stairs, stepping softly so as to make no sound, went to the basement storage room, took out a double-barreled shotgun, ...

I first met Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor in the summer of 1977 in Corfu. I was onboard Gianni Agnelli’s boat, and the charismatic Fiat chairman asked me to go ashore and bring “a very smart Englishman whose ancient Greek is much better than yours.” I knew “Paddy,” as everyone called him, by sight, because among us Greeks he was on a par with our ancient heroes. Leigh Fermor was not only famous for his books on ...

ISLE OF ISCHIA—On a bright, windy June morning this beautiful island’s church bells rang out to welcome the most ostentatious concourse of sailing boats to have arrived at its shores since Commodore Thomas Troubridge sailed into the bay of San Angelo in 1799. Troubridge, dispatched by Lord Nelson to quell an island revolt, had brought great distinction to the family. They upheld that distinction for 200 years until in a ...

FRANKFURT—The worst part is the weigh-in: Hundreds of heavily muscled, cauliflower-eared, tattooed, menacing-looking sweaty men from Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Greece, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, the US—you name it—wait patiently and silently to step on the scales. Everyone holds his passport, which he is required to show once on the scales. It is a funny ...