Wouldn’t you love to explore Madison, Georgia, like a true design insider? Jimmy Stanton, owner of popular Atlanta shop Stanton Home Furnishings and subject of a special double feature in our May issue (which you can read here at AtlantaHomesMag.com), has given us the inside scoop on all the things you can do while in town for this Friday and Saturday’s Madison in May Spring Tour of Homes, which will also feature the home of Boxwoods Gardens & Gifts proprietors Dan Belman and Randy Korando. Find out why Atlanta design giants love to get away to the serenity of this fabled Southern town. We encourage you to stay a night at a charming inn—or better still, at the home of a good friend—to get the full experience, but even a day’s excursion is an opportunity for many lovely adventures to unfold. Per Stanton himself: “There are so many wonderful things to see and experience in Madison; here is a list of my favorites. . . . Most are within walking distance from the downtown square.”

TOUR
Heritage Hall
277 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-9627; www.friendsofheritagehall.org

Madison Morgan Cultural Center
434 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-4743; www.mmcc-arts.org

Rogers House/Rose Cottage
179 E. Jefferson Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 343-0190

Madison’s Historic Graveyard

STAY
The James Madison Inn
260 W. Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-7040; www.jamesmadisoninn.com

Farmhouse Inn
1051 Meadow Lane, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-7933; www.thefarmhouseinn.com

EAT
Town 220
220 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 752-1445; www.town220.com

The Icehouse Restaurant
271 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 343-0040; www.icehouserest.com

Madison Chop House Grill
202 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-9009

Amici’s Italian Cafe
113 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-0000; www.amici-cafe.com

The Madison Gift Mart & Cafe
140 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-9940
Order the chicken salad and the Gentleman Jim’s Tea

Claudia’s European Coffee Shop
142 Academy Street, Madison, GA 30650. (404) 293-0338

Adrian’s Place
342 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-1600
Best Fried Chicken and fresh vegetables. This is local secret.

Tequila Express
270 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-0729

Perk Avenue Cafe
111 West Jefferson Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-2562

Antique Sweets
132 East Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-0034
Known for the “Bulldog Bites”

Scoops
123-B West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-3002

Ella’s Sweet Shoppe
191 West Jefferson Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-7544; www.ellassweetshoppe.com
Old-time candy shop; this carries items you haven’t seen in years.

SHOP
Madison Markets
144 Academy Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-8795; www.madisonmarkets.com
Multiple antique dealers display their wares in this high-end market

Le Petite Jardin
281 Hancock Street, Madison, GA 30650  770-262-1177
A must-see for plants, flowers and gifts

Belles Beaux & Gifts
115 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-3311; www.bellesbeauxandgifts.com
Antiques and gifts

Godfrey Cox
127 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-2229

Amelia’s & Barkin Dogs Shoe Company
172 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-2986 for Amelia’s and (706) 342-2929 for Barkin Dogs www.barkindogsshoeco.com

J & K Fleas An’Tiques
184 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-3009

Laughing Moon
183 South Main Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-8008

In High Cotton
158 West Jefferson Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-7777

Madison Hardware
174 West Washington Street, Madison, GA 30650. (706) 342-0217
The star of the store is Tulip, the Jack Russel mix that sleeps in a cardboard box. She goes home around lunchtime to play so you have to see her early in the day.

NOT SO FAR AWAY
The Ritz Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation/Lake Oconee (approx. 25-30 min drive from Madison)
One Lake Oconee Trail, Greensboro, GA 30642. (706) 467-0600; www.ritzcarlton.com/reynolds
Eat at Gaby’s on the Water (great food with an amazing view)

Blue Willow Inn at Social Circle
294 North Cherokee Road, Social Circle, GA 30025. (770) 464-2131; www.bluewillowinn.com
Traditional Southern cooking. . . . I highly suggest reservations.

I don’t know why I am so intrigued with window boxes, but to me they are little works of art. On a recent trip to the Mayfair district in London, I snapped these particular ones, but I could have gone on forever. It’s not just the array of colors, but as in any worthy work of art, it is more about composition and movement. My favorites all seem to have a tall element and a trailing element, and are symmetrical (the Libra thing I guess). I am inspired to create a window box of my own using my favorite herbs—think Rosemary for height, lacy thyme for the trail, and clusters of basil, mint and taragon for lushness and fragrance. For color? French Lavender, Dianthus and Purple sage. Gonna need a big box.

Working at the Hong Kong office of my handbag factory and my precious stone lapidarist, I found that both factories were located just hours away in the same province in China. Yes, southern China is rivaling Bejing and Shanghai as an industrial SUPER ZONE. When traveling, DO NOT try what we did going in—namely a bus to the Hong Kong Immigrations; another bus to the Chinese Immigrations; and then traversing 8 million stairways and then another bus to our destination.

Nope, this Southern Lady insisted on a car on the way back to Hong Kong (about 3,000 Hong Kong dollars, or $400), but worth every yen as we were whisked back to Hong Kong in a van replete with Video for you and the driver who alternately watches TV, talks on his Bluetooth-enabled cell phone and plays games on another contraption. Such is their CAUTION on the roads.

You drive up to both Immigration posts and are not subjected to anything more than a throwing open of your van doors, passport scrutiny and an electronic gun that accesses your temperature—yes with SARS and Avian Bird Flus still in recent memory you are not leaving Hong Kong or Mainland China with a temperature.

But CHINA is magnificent. Every other corner is unbridled construction and development; while in between this frenetic work are the tiny Chinese stalls selling goods and cooking God Knows What! Carts full of chickens and pigs stop at the red light alongside Mercedes and Bentleys.

Our hotel, The International Hotel of Quandong, featured three types of accommodations: Western, Japanese, and Chinese. Opting for Japanese we each had a two-story Zen Palace with a top floor boasting a typical Japanese bed and a plasma screen TV and as for the hotel help…a call to the hotel concierge started with “I’d like a Pellegrino…” and an IMMEDIATE ding at your door from a waiter bearing a bottle and lemon slices. The work ethic is unbelievable.

The factory workers work from 8 am to 10 pm with meal breaks and then retire to DORMITORIES where they sleep. But I am constantly assured that my offering of extra cash would be an insult as the Chinese are PROUD of their factory jobs. And the factories? Nothing in America or Europe compares—the hive of activity, the belt floors, the bag floors, the SCREEN PRINTING floors—everything but handbag hardware together for one-stop designing. Dinner at the hotel offers surprises while lunch is routinely McDonalds and KFC (with Chinese twists such as the KFC egg pie dessert).

The Hotel Buffet netted us Fried Loach (a local worm delicacy from what we could decipher), Fried Insects with Solt and the ever-tempting Frog with Sauce. We chose pizza, which seemed innocent until we could not get our waiter to assure us that the meat was NOT French Bulldog.

The Chinese will kill themselves to accommodate you. And their TV is CCTV (Chinese controlled, but in English is more fascinating than Bravo, CNN and The History Channel rolled into one). China is the stepchild of the more Western Hong Kong but for this weary traveler, it is China that calls me back. Its youth, earnestness and its sheer hospitality.

—Marcia Sherrill 

Having been to Japan I thought I was prepared for the magic and mystery of this former British Isle but nothing could have prepared me for the inscrutable Orientalism of Hong Kong and China. And the best part? It seems as if there is one Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton store for every 200 people—they are ubiquitous in the city that sports giant skyscrapers like Atlanta does trees.

Every squre inch of this hilly atoll sports either a mall (and I mean mega-mall, like Lenox on steroids) or a hotel or a giant office building. In between lurk the tiny shops and market streets and warrens of restaurants, Chinese and Western, that feed these affluent hordes. The Peninsula Hotel is magnificent and tea there is de rigeur for the weary traveler but try to get off the beaten path of stores, stores, stores and head to the tiny local markets for silks and other yummy fabrics—and trust me, they can make you that Balmain Dress in Vogue in the three days that you will reside in Hong Kong.

It was all I could do not to launch The Marcia Sherrill Couture Collection right then and there. The main attraction is the city’s nightly light show that has all of the massive buildings lining the harbor lit up in a 4th-of-July style extravaganza that lasts a full 15 minutes. The Gateway Mall across from the Sheraton is not as super mod as the newly opened Elements Mall but it does house Japan’s IT shop, where all the natives shop and upstairs on the third floor is their incomparable outlet store with all the big European labels. Go native and buy scads of make-up from Japanese Cosmetics, FACES.

Seems as though the younger Hong Kong shoppers want all things Japanese, and why shouldn’t you at half the price of the European Brands we can get at Phipps!

—Marcia Sherrill

Down the street is super-hot Italian restaurant Ciancimeno just past Paul Smith’s antiques gallery with its Mid-century Karl Springer and Tommy Parsinger pieces that even with the pound almost at $2 are worth it at twice the price. We went to the renowned Battersea Antiques Show and saw an acre of beautiful British and Continental furniture and a shocking mix of mod from dealers like De Parma who are usually down the way at the famous Alfie’s market (pictured above) with a jumble of vintage jewelry, clothing and furniture and the downstairs has just been renovated by Decoratum—a splashy new face on the contemporary scene with giant vintage photos of Twiggy and Marilyn Monroe and ultra-glam pieces from Brazil. On Pimlico Road and nearby in the antique gallery-strewn side streets are such famous firms as Zuber (the French wallpaper house known for its gilded tea papers), Nicky Haslam and Nina Campbell and they were all abuzz. Nearby at V V Rouleaux (a grab fest for Vogue editors) were the most fantastic ribbons and trims while Top Shop was packed with customers clamoring for their right-off-the-runway looks at shop-girl prices and downstairs they were nearly rioting for the new Kate Moss line. Three new restaurants, Daylesford Organic, Megan’s and Dinings (former Nobu-ites are the owners) have London recahing for something other than Yorkshire pudding and the chic and ultra-exclusive Aspinall’s Club was a thrilling respite from the world with its casino and posh restaurant serving from a menu that offered complete Thai, Chinese and Japanese cuisine and for an ole Southern gal like me some steak hopefully untainted by Mad Cow disease (if only that would explain my behavior). The Brits are still stiff-upper-lipish but were universally amused when I took off my stilettos for a trot down Jermyn Street in a Top Hat and Escada gown suffering Jimmy Choo foot-fatigue and hell bent on making it to Turnbull and Asser before it closed—well, I have brothers to shop for, and those boys are the perfect Southern Gentlemen and will settle for nothing less (though I did get a text message from Brother Billy requesting a vintage Sex Pistols t-shirt). Flying on OES out of JFK was a rare luxury on the first-class only jetliner and the week long sojourn was a glorious spree topped off with the new play "Billy Elliott" that celebrated its 1,000th performance by doling out marzipan-frosted cupcakes to all the lucky theatre goers. Pound for pound still a lot of bang for the buck! Want more Marcia? Click here for recent columns. More London? Be sure to check out our December issue for more on London and the best of luxury travel.