Travel

A pine-scented Italian mountain refuge beneath Monte Bianco where folklore, food, skiing, and serious pleasure converge, and where leaving feels faintly disloyal

Courmayeur sits at the foot of Mont Blanc with the quiet confidence of a place that knows exactly who it is. It has no need to shout. Unlike many Alpine resorts engineered for throughput and spectacle, this is a real town with a proper centre, cobbled streets, stone houses, and a rhythm dictated as much by weather and tradition as by ski lifts and restaurant bookings.

There are destinations we choose, and destinations that choose us. The last time I was in the Maldives was on my honeymoon, just over 25 years ago. I remember two things from that trip. Firstly, we slept for 33 hours straight after we landed (God’s honest truth) and that trip ruined all other holidays for me for the next two decades of my life. The Maldives, with its impossible palette of blues, is a place so ethereal it seems less like a holiday and more like a deliberate seduction.

And also: an eagle ray, but we’ll get to that.

They do it so well. The Italians that is. Such imagination and such refinement in best utilising their impossible precipices and improbable shapes and angles.

For I had come to Lake Iseo, an hour from Milan’s Linate airport and called Sebino from the Latin for ‘double-hooked’ and divided between Bergamo and Brescia. It’s wonderfully punctuated with a dozen towns, some medieval.

Luxury takes many forms, yet Villa Nai 3.3 reshapes the very idea of indulgence until it feels impossibly richer, deeper, and more intoxicating than you imagined. Perched on the edge of Dugi Otok like a superbly hidden hobbit house of luxury, tucked into the hills with secret terraces, sun-drenched stone, and olive groves that seem to whisper ancient secrets, it offers a view so arresting even the most discerning Middle-earth residents might consider relocating.

The Ferrari Roma Spider is an Olympic gymnast of a car: elegant, agile, powerful, and perfectly proportioned. I decided the only way to truly get to know it was to take it on a 1,000-mile tour through the heart of France, visiting medieval Troyes, the Château de Montmelian, and finishing in the whirlwind glamour of Paris.

A Journey Through Ypres and the Fields of Remembrance

Few European towns blend history and beauty quite like Ypres. Nestled in Belgium’s West Flanders region, this elegant city charms visitors with its cobbled streets, graceful façades, and lively squares filled with cafés serving excellent Belgian beer. It’s a region I’ve visited many times, not only for its accessibility but also for its superb cycling, equally appealing to families and seasoned racers.

Where Alpine Peaks Meet the Art of Wellness

Some hotels offer you a bed. Others offer you a view. The 5-star Cyprianerhof Dolomites Hotel offers a philosophy. Its daily rhythm is seductively simple: climb mountains like an Olympian in the morning, surrender to spa decadence in the afternoon, then dine like a Renaissance prince by evening. In short: sweat, steam, feast, repeat.

After six exhilarating, exhausting months on tour with “Now That’s What I Call a Musical”, my mind was racing, my body ached, and sleep had become an elusive friend. So when I was invited to Croatia’s Maslina Resort on the island of Hvar to experience their new “Disconnect to Reconnect” retreat, I said yes faster than you can say “lights, camera, action.”

KRIS GRIFFITHS spends three days in Michigan’s Motor City, experiencing the best of its arts, attractions and craft beer as can be squeezed into a short break in this multifaceted city getting back to its prime.
 

DAY ONE – checking in after a providential occurrence