Travel

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.

Finding The One isn’t always fairy-tale straight-forward. It takes patience, searching (and soul-searching). It means experiencing the not-so-right, the you’ve-got-potential, the what-on-earth-was-I-thinking?! But they always say, ‘You know when it's The One’. And I knew.

The smiles struck me first.
Sunshine smiles, happy-to-see-you smiles, there’s-such-a-treat-awaiting-you smiles.
Greetings as heartwarming as the jasmine tea brought to us as we checked in, followed by the pop and bubble of champagne because, why not?
Before we’d even stepped into our superior suite at Cape Town’s The 12 Apostles Hotel and Spa, I knew I was going to find it very hard to leave.

Hong Kong has such a romantic aura surrounding it, rich in history, boys own tales and block buster movies. An island that served as the nexus for trading between two mighty empires for hundreds of years and celebrated for its grand casinos, towering modern sky scrapers, beaches, markets and now the world’s longest sea crossing bridge.

I’m back in the luxury five star Quinta Do Lago resort in the Algarve, Portugal, to meet up with Judy Murray who is there running kids tennis camps in partnership with The Campus, Europe’s premier sport and wellness resort.

How do howler monkeys generate so much noise? They are actually the second loudest animal in the world after the blue whale and release their voluminous, plangent magic by using the wind?
The tropical exuberance of animal life was utterly enchanting with new species offering up a daily surprise. From the fishy, to the furry and the feathered. I felt immersed in the natural wonder of the many birds and animals.