Luxury Hotels|Restaurants|Resorts
We started our journey in Surrey at 9 am and headed north, basking in the explosive snorts of the 710 bhp McLaren 720S engine. My colleague David and I were pretty stoked about a week in the Scottish Highlands. As Lex Luthor so aptly condescended in Superman II "A good time? Is that all you care about? North, Miss Teschmacher. North!".
For that dream winter sun holiday, one place stands out from the rest, the Maldives. It is the quintessential holiday desert island poster that dreams are made of. As Sinead sang so aptly, “nothing compares”. But how to choose the right resort in a country famed for over a thousand islands?
We decided to fly over in business class with Srilankan Airways and discover the very best the Maldives has to offer, from outright luxury to fabulous beaches taking in the finest residences, outstanding cuisine and adventure sports along the way.
As I pulled up at The Royal Duchy Hotel in the new Audi E-Tron GT Quattro, I was splendidly greeted by the concierge James who showed me to my free electric charging parking space and immediately made me feel at home. He has worked at The Duchy for just under 40 years and is an expert on the hotel and the area. In fact, Mark, the manager and James are genuinely good company and skilled at predicting a guest’s every wish.
Why go to all the trouble? By which I mean a Mediterranean summer holiday with spiralling temperatures, lengthy traffic jams and overcrowded flights for the holiday that never really stands a chance.
The delightful spa town of Malvern is located 3 hours from London by car in Worcestershire and accessible directly by train from Paddington.
Lunch at The House Lounge at Heathrow was the perfect way to start our trip to Ozen By Atmosphere At Maadhoo Island in the Maldives. We had wisely picked our flight times to make the trip as comfortable as possible and to get the maximum time in the Maldives. The outbound flight to Male with Qatar Airways was at 15.05 with a 55-minute stopover in Doha. This meant we would arrive at 9.00 in the morning at Male and have the whole day to get over the jet lag and get acclimatised.
There are getaways and there are hideaways. And it was on Arran, an isle separated by the Firth of Clyde that I had chosen to come, to avoid the hassle of Covid, the endless paperwork and all those wretched travel passes.
So I took the ferry from Ardrossan to Arran’s Brodick Bay and then drove beyond a heathered wind-swept mountain graced with roaming deer.
The Relais Henley is a stylish new waterside retreat in Henley-on-Thames. There’s just something about riverside hotels that is gloriously appealing, particularly in England. In the old days, you could always find something wrong about a hotel, but a new breed has emerged that just gets everything right from the get-go and the Relais Henley is just such a place.
The Hotel Montalembert is an incredibly chic hotel set just off the Rue Du Bac, one of the best streets on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris. You are ideally situated to explore the superb cafes, Michelin-starred restaurants, antique furniture shops, bistros and boutiques and only a stone's throw from the famous bridge of love "Le Pont Des Arts".
