By Bill Bisanz | Paris, New York
On a recent trip to three of my all-time favorite places I practiced yoga…everywhere. Normally my trips, whether for work or pleasure (this was both), are a departure from my normal routine. For sure travel is meant to be a break from the ordinary but why miss out on the extraordinary parts of the ordinary just because we’re on the road.
With this in mind I set out to maintain some of the same practices that help me feel happy and balanced when I’m at home in St. Paul, e.g., yoga, exercise, meditation and food. Yoga was the easiest of these to integrate into the jam-packed days of big-city travel and exploration. Waking up at 6 or 7 and going to bed at mid-night or later and in between meandering around these magnificent urban cathedrals, yoga is a great way to stay balanced while integrating so many new experiences.
In Barcelona, I practiced yoga in two studios – Yoga Studio Barcelona (www.yogastudio.es) and Happy Yoga (www.happyyoga.com) both located adjacent to the Placa Universitat about a five minute walk from Placa Catalunya. I would very much recommend both of these studios. For those of you who like vegetarian food, there is a simple but quite good vegan place called Veggie Garden at 3 Calle Dels Angels, very near both of these studios (try the great smoothies).
In Paris, Elite’s apartments are on the left bank in the St. Germain neighborhood so that is where I tend to spend most of my time. Oddly there seem to be more yoga studios in Barcelona than in Paris and there are more studios on the right bank in Paris, than near our homes on the left. Fortunately, I was introduced to a studio on the left bank Rasa Yoga (www.rasa-yogarivegauche.com), where we enjoyed a couple of different class types. By far my favorite was the Ashtanga class with Malena, a sexy Argentinian who glided as easily between English, Spanish, French and Sanskrit as she did across the floor of the yoga studio.
New York is home to my favorite yoga teacher, Sri Dharma Mittra; true spiritual teacher and gentle man. (www.dharmayogacenter.com). Dharma has been teaching yoga for over 40 years and I find this community to be welcoming warm and inspirational. Can’t say enough about what an amazing experience it is to visit and practice with this group of yogis!
Besides the yoga we enjoyed a rocking good time with our friends in Paris at the timeless Chez Castel, a private club so exclusive it doesn’t even have a website, facebook page or sign at the door. We also crashed the Paris marathon on Sunday morning for a few miles as well as David Lynch’s new club, Silencio. So the trip wasn’t all yoga, meditation and veggies!
Returning from my recent trip to Barcelona, Paris and New York City, I’m again struck by the unique opportunity to be inspired that travel offers us. Exposure to new ideas, people, perspectives, experiences are the reasons that those of us who love to take our journeys on the road just cant stop travelling.