Helena Carter

If Imagination had a home, Iceland would be it.

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.

Bordeaux, oui.
Cognac, oui.
But Angoulême… Still yes?
Unless you’re an avid cartoon fan (I’ll explain more about this later), Angoulême may be somewhat of an enigma. A sign-post flashing past, the “Is it worth us stopping by?” question fleetingly hopscotching through your thoughts.
Well, to save such indecision, I’ll answer your question for you. Yes, indeed it is.

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.

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.

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.