I had been meaning to write about trains: specifically, those advertised as running from Marylebone to Stratford-upon-Avon on a Saturday, which are cancelled due to engineering works. But, somehow, the indignation that filled my breast a few days ago has evaporated. Taxis from Coventry, buses to Leamington Spa -what do I care for them? We're at the Marbella Club now. The place is a marvel. Founded in 1954 by the playboy Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe, it was intended to be half rustic hideaway, half sophisticated nightclub. In those days, it was still possible to imagine Queen Isabella La Católica exclaiming, ‘que mar tan bella' (‘what a beautiful sea'), before the property boom turned the coast into a ribbon of concrete apartment blocks.
As a piece of urbanism, Marbella can now be compared with Miami. Yet the enclave of the club remains untouched. The gardens glow with the colour from massed plantings of agapanthuses, hibiscuses and oleanders. Swallows swoop over swimming pools. At lunchtime, lobsters open their shells; you dine beneath the twinkle of candles placed in olive trees. The spa has done wonders for my shoulder, stiff after a five-hour drive from Anglesey. National Rail Enquiries? Who cares?
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Chelsea Flower Show 2025: What else to do in SW3 if you're coming to the world's greatest flower showThere's more to Chelsea than just the Flower Show so we've rounded up some of the best places to eat, stay and shop.
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Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curvesAmid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
