Best Hotels

If Imagination had a home, Iceland would be it.

If you’ve ever fancied hosting a fabulous party on a superyacht, why not turn your wedding into something all your guests will remember?
A wedding on a yacht can be a sublime way of celebrating that all-important day. The right yacht can easily accommodate luxury catering facilities, bars, dining areas and cloakrooms for up to 200 guests. Including seated dinner, different dance floors, pools and a jacuzzi.

Maybe the long, rather forgettable name of Bad Kleinkirchheim puts people off visiting which surely contributes to this resort being quieter than you would expect for a village in an extremely picturesque valley. The locals simply call it ‘BKK’. The village is also long as it follows the wide valley bottom but, along the way, it has more attractions than most resorts that make it a year-round holiday destination.

I was determined to immerse myself in Japanese modernity.
I didn’t sadly get to visit the gadgets and gimmicks of Akihabara, famous for its many electronics shops but I went instead to Takeshita Street in Harajuku. Here young girls, dressed up as rebel schoolgirls with their ties at half-mast, dream of being snapped up as models. Both kitsch and cute as they acted out their fantasy of perfection for the Instagram age.

Christmas and New  Year are all about tradition from the religious aspects leading through to two occasions when memorable dinners are de rigueur.  For these festivities, you can justify exploring beyond the normal choices. For me, the best wines are those fresh discoveries; they add new, pleasurable and exciting experiences to the dinners.

There is a moment, usually on the second morning, when guests at South Point stop making plans. The sea is right there. The light falls perfectly across Falmouth Harbour. A superyacht has materialised overnight and sits like a benevolent giant just off the jetty. The cocktails at Maia are, frankly, too good to rush. Jeff Hadeed, the hotel's managing partner, knows this moment well. He designed it.

Follow the Swiss; they know the best places to stay for a holiday and they do not have to go far; within sight of Mont Blanc is Conge in Italy’s Aosta Valley.   They jointly account for the most visitors to this idyllic village of some 1,500 inhabitants.   
Conge is just over 1,500 metres above sea level on a plateau at the confluence of four valleys.  From our second hotel’s suite we could steal a glimpse of the snow covered summit of Mont Blanc between the mountains and from the other window; we had an uninterrupted view across the National Park to the Paradis glacier.  

As the only city in the world located on the border with three countries - Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary - Bratislava, the Slovak capital, is worth at least a weekend trip away. There are also some excellent things to see and do in ‘Little Big’ city. And, with Vienna around 40km away, it’s a perfect place for a getaway.

The pace of everyday life is such that a holiday without any pressures in idyllic, uncrowded countryside does not always sustain its promise.  Luxury and total relaxation have to be essential ingredients whilst relative isolation and lack of passing interest can soon lose its appeal.  However, adding the ingredients of the home of some of the world’s best wine – Burgundy and the most relaxing, eco-friendly and luxurious means of travel – Hotel/Barge through unspoilt countryside is an unbeatable combination.  
 

It wouldn’t be at all difficult to think of 360 reasons why staying at 3Sixty Hotel in Nafplio would be one of the best ideas you’ve had all year. A list as glorious as a never-ending gelato menu – and equally as scrumptious. But life is enough of a list as it is (albeit, for me at least, a ‘to do’ one), so instead let’s take a leap into the Hellenic microcosm of Nafplio, home to the Neoklasiki Hotel Group, and, quite frankly, home to the friendliest Greeks I’ve ever met.