A continuing series by Forrest Preece
Mary Sullivan Casas, Educator and Community Leader
Greg and I enjoyed our first spring break adventure without our adult children, though we missed traveling with them very much. Madeline and William spent their spring breaks in Spain and Lisbon, respectively.
Madeline spent a week at the IRAM observatory in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Spain doing research for the culmination of her master’s degree in Astrophysics at ENS in Paris. William was in Lisbon with a group of friends from Duke, so we missed seeing him, and we look forward to a visit with him in Durham in April. We had the good fortune of catching up with Madeline in Paris after a week in Switzerland. If anyone is looking for a fabulous place to stay in Geneva, we can highly recommend The Woodward—it’s now an Auberge Resorts Collection property, as is the Commodore Perry here in Austin. The rooms offer a gorgeous cocoon of comfort, and the 26-room boutique hotel offers a true home away from home experience.
Don’t miss a chance to visit the Guerlain spa at The Woodward and dinner at L’Atelier Robuchon, Geneva’s only 2-Michelin-Star restaurant, also inside The Woodward, is an absolute treat. Save room for dessert as the pastry chef, Titouan Claudet, has been recognized as Gault & Millau’s Pastry Chef of the Year 2025 and Pastry Talent of the Year by La Liste, International Selection.
We also visited my favorite house museum in Paris, Musee Jacquemart-Andre, with Madeline’s roommates in Paris, which has undergone a recent renovation. My dear Ballet Austin friend, Ann Downing, told me about the museum over a decade ago, and I have visited it at least three times over the years. The current exhibit is Artemisia, Heorine De L’Art.
We also had a fabulous stay at George V in Paris, where we hosted an impromptu reunion in their cozy bar for some of Madeline’s Stanford friends who were visiting Paris for spring break. All of this reinforces my feeling that Paris is always a good idea.