Luxury Hotels|Restaurants|Resorts
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.
Green Spot Irish Whiskey is without doubt one of the finest whiskies available. It has a unique smooth but intense flavour that makes it stand out from the crowd. Widely considered by whisky connoisseurs to be up there with the very best and at £52 a bottle it's pretty reasonable for such quality.
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.
As a little girl, with an imagination larger than my wildly untamed hair (my hairbrush refusal was my mother’s morning battle), I often wondered what it would be like to skip right into a kaleidoscope. An imagined sugar-rush, spinning-tea-cup-ride surge of delight as every kind of colour and shape danced their flamboyant, unrehearsed, flamenco routine.
I’ve been to enough weddings to know that rain on your wedding day doesn’t necessarily a happy bride make. But ask a superstitious Italian, and instead of cursing the rain clouds, you’ll embrace the special day downpour – your soaking instead believed to be a symbol of fertility and cleansing, luck and love drenching you from the skies.
When it comes to madeleines, I must admit, I never really got France’s obsession with the humble, plainly inoffensive little cake. A walnut-sized golden sponge synonymous with writer Marcel Proust. Indeed, for Proust, the powers of the madeleine go far beyond satiating the sweet tooth. In his novel he recalls how, as a child, his aunt gave him small madeleines dipped in tea - decades later, this crumbly delight resurrecting long-forgotten memories. One bite, a sensory trigger, containing the most powerful of ingredients – nostalgia.
One of our favourite yachts is the Baltic Pink Gin, this superb silver hulled sloop was launched in 2017, and won sailing yacht of the year at the World Superyacht Awards in 2018.
Pink Gin is not only the largest carbon fibre sloop in the world, but also displays some of the most innovative features seen in a sailing yacht, including two opening balconies set into the topsides, Baltic Yachts’ revolutionary Force Feedback Steering System and an 18-ton carbon composite hull and deck shell built to the highest degree of accuracy.
We drove the McLaren 570S Spider to the Vineyard Hotel, a 5 star Relais & Chateaux hotel in Berkshire, an ideal stopover on any luxury tour, particularly designed to appeal to wine lovers everywhere.
