Travel

I was warmly greeted by Brendan as I ambled out of Dublin airport security. It’s been a while since I was last in Dublin and his easy charm and humour made me regret that as he escorted me over to the Jameson's Bow Street Distillery, for a couple of days whiskey blending and tasting to launch the new Bow Street 18 YO Batch 2. In half an hour we had covered our similar family histories, Brexit and exchanged a jokey tale or two. It was good to be back.

What a blessed, fertile, cultured and cultivated island Madeira is. This ‘island of eternal spring’ was a ‘paradise of naturalists’ with its exoticism attracting Thomas Cook and Joseph Banks. I’ts immensely fertile, everything seem to grow here, having been colonised by Henry the Navigator who introduced the sugar cane from Sicily and the Malvesia (Malmsey) vine, mentioned by Shakespeare’s Falstaff, from Crete. And it’s a big enough island to house different dialects with some pronouncing the second syllable of Madeira with an ‘E’ and others with an ‘I’.

Danesfield House and Spa evoked 50's movies as we cruised up the steep winding hill through the gardens in the Aston Martin Vantage, before stopping at a tree lined drive dominated by an imposing gothic clock tower. This vast sprawling and imposing Neo-Tudor mansion was completed in 1991 by architect W.H. Romaine-Walker for a soap magnate's son, Robert Hudson. Later during the war it was requisitioned by the Air Ministry as a reconnaissance and photography unit and was known as RAF Medmenham.

Eighty Percent of yacht activity takes place in 20% of the world's oceans. Only 5% of what is beneath the world's oceans has been seen, let alone experienced. Oceanco's newest project, the 105-meter (345ft) diesel-electric driven Esquel has been conceived and designed to explore new territories.
Oceanco has created Esquel in collaboration with Timur Bozca Design, stylist Gina Brennan, Lateral Naval Architects and Engineering, and Pelorus—a leading experiential and yacht expedition travel company.

One word “friendly” sums up Banff’s Sunshine Village ski resort, but do not be fooled by thinking that all its slopes are flattering even to the lazy skier.  There is a good spread of runs to keep the interest of all skills within a mixed abilities party across three mountains, all within the UNESCO World Heritage Site - Banff National Park.  Cruise to your heart’s content through tree lined trails, take the lifts to the top of Lookout Mountain for some more demanding slopes,  or tackle the ‘Double Diamond Blacks’ on Goat’s Eye Mountain.  

The mere mention of “the largest ski area in the world” gets a surprisingly mixed reception.  The span of reactions is wide whilst some skiers feel threatened and daunted by the sheer scale of so many elements, through those who feel they have to cover everything to be able to match their peers, to dedicated skiers who relish the prospects of skiing their hearts out.     

‘What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold,’ gasped Byron’s Childe Harold and certainly the city is highly reminiscent of Paris decades ago. Her special quality consists partly from the exhilarating light falling on her blue-tiled walls and white stone pavements: a clarity assisted by cloudless skies. Indeed the climate was fabulous as, over the New Year, the sun not only shone it penetrated with a refreshing breeze coming off the Atlantic off whose coast Lisbon is the only European capital.

My ‘to do’ list tick-tocked through my mind. Emails, meetings, deadlines; presents to buy, friends to visit, appointments to sort. So much to do and so little time. How could I possibly relax and give in to the magic of the festive season with so much on my mind?
This pendulum of pressure was no match for Surrey’s Nutfield Priory Hotel and Spa.
Here is a hotel that exudes warmth and welcome. Stepping inside was like that post-Sunday lunch, ‘let’s all cosy up by the fire’ feeling, and that’s exactly what we did first.

Arghhh, Heathrow at 6 am, not glamorous or clever. However I was off to visit The World of Leica at Leitz-Park in Wetzlar, an hour outside Frankfurt, which made it all worthwhile. Before we get into the wonders of the trip, let me reassure you that this latest architectural marvel is nowhere near as naff as it sounds, in fact, it is somewhat of a shrine for photographers both old and new, whether they shoot Leicas or not.

This page was blank for a long, long time.
Not because I couldn’t think of anything to say about The Silo Hotel. Quite the opposite. It was because there were so many ways to start the story of our stay, so many fabulous moments, that I really had no idea where to begin. We may have only spent one night here, but in that snippet of time the hotel and its staff created our own spectacular beginning, middle and end.
This is our Silo story.