Arizona-Travel-News

Phoenix … when it sizzles

Ah, the good life! Sipping a prickly-pear margarita while you wallow in an infinity-edge pool. Settling in for a siesta in your spiffy hotel room with its exquisite southwestern décor.

There’s no denying those triple-digit temperatures in the heart of the Sonoran Desert at this time of year.

“Why not?” my friend Lucy asked? We have everything right here in our own back yard – world-class resorts, luxury spas, upscale shopping environments, a huge selection of museums and cultural happenings, and an endless variety of outstanding places to eat. Near the northern edge of Scottsdale and nestled beneath Pinnacle Peak, the resort has clustered adobe casitas set into the hollows of a gentle hillside. Some of the suites even have private plunge pools, garden showers and kiva fireplaces on the patios.

The resort’s small but posh spa claims to take its inspiration from Native American healing rituals and promotes such indigenous ingredients as ground Sonoran pumice, Saguero blossoms, and Sedona Red clay. For my pampering experience at the spa, one in which I am to “sweat out my body’s toxins,” I let aesthetician Lisa wrap me in unbleached linen sheets soaked in a tingly-fresh white willow bark infusion.

A nice touch: The high-powered telescope in our suite. The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess is modeled after a Mexican hacienda and has five pools, as many restaurants, a 27-hole golf course, (think air-conditioned golf carts!) lagoon fishing and an upscale shopping arcade. The 650 rooms are clustered around pretty tiled courtyards filled with fountains, fragrant shrub-size rosemary, and brightly-hued bougainvillea cascading from every window box.

In the lavish Willow Stream Spa, we follow the sound of rushing water to find a lovely man-made waterfall, inspired, it seems, by Havasu Falls in the Grand Canyon. Upstairs, at its source, there’s an adults-only “mesa” pool with private cabanas for relaxation, a massage, or an afternoon snooze. Popular treatments for men include hand and foot grooming and stress relief and jet-lag massages.

The very chi-chi Phoenician offers a complete contrast to the two afore-mentioned resorts. Instead of natural desert vegetation, the multi-storied lodgings are surrounded by a meticulously landscaped garden of bright flowers and expansive green lawns. An acre of water gardens called “The Oasis” has seven terraced pools, large and small, including an adults-only cluster of tiled hot tubs. There’s even a pool with Mother-Of Pearl tiles. Golf and tennis?

Nice touches: Daily afternoon tea in the British tradition; a two-acre cactus garden that’s absolutely stunning at sunset.

Definitely worth checking out!
Taking time for the visual arts

What a shame to be in Phoenix and not spend a morning or two perusing some of the country’s finest art museums! The Heard Museum is Arizona’s premier cultural institution. Magnificent rugs and pottery, delicately-woven baskets, handsome Navajo, Zuni and Hope jewelry, and hundreds of kachina dolls, (many from the Barry Goldwater Collection) attest to the creativity of countless, mostly nameless Native American artists whose work is proudly exhibited here.

Within the labyrinth of halls and galleries of The Phoenix Art Museum is an admirable collection of paintings and sculpture from the Renaissance to the present.

Scottsdale may be obsessed with art featuring lonesome cowboys and solemn Indians, but the boldly designed Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art also contains cutting-edge art, from the abstract to the absurd. Our favorites – a pair of Dale Chihuly art-glass installations in an adjacent building. A desert ‘island’

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright fell in love with the Arizona desert and, in 1937, built Taliesin West. “The desert is ours.”
… Along the garden’s miles of footpaths, some 4,000 clearly-marked species exist – mostly cacti, succulents and wildflowers. Among our favorites: bony-fingered ocatillos, paddle-shaped prickly pears, spiny agaves and aloes, barrel cacti, and the giant cactus known to everyone who’s ever seen a western movie – the stately Saguaro (pronounced “Sawaro.”)

Don’t forget to look for the wild creatures that seek cooler temperatures at night too. The indoor/outdoor ’sport’ of choice

Few regions in America offer such an exceptional range of shopping experiences. From charming antique shops and boutique art galleries to “Main Street” districts and some of the nation’s most fashionable malls, shopping in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area offers sure-to-please “retail therapy” of every ilk.

We blitzed through a few of the most prominent shopping venues in the Valley – Biltmore Fashion Park, Kierland Commons, and Scottsdale Fashion Square.

If you think that shopping doesn’t fit into the theme of “keeping cool,” think again. “Misters” in the mall?
  
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