Sound the alphorn: the alpine summer is officially back. 2025 marked the third consecutive year that Switzerland broke tourism records between May and October, with the number of overnight stays topping 25 million for the first time according to figures released in December by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Now, with the winter’s snow a distant memory, all signs point to the sunshine months of 2026 being yet another record-breaker.

The boom has been attributed to a number of factors: the mountains offering clear-aired respite from the scorching heatwaves and wildfires that are ever more present at sea level; the appeal to both those seeking real rest and relaxation, and adventurous active types; and the simple fact that more and more hotels now open for a full summer season.

One such hotel is Grand Hotel Belvedere, a towering turn-of-the-century grande dame in two parts — revitalised in 2024 by French hotel group Beaumier — that straddles a prime panoramic slope in the town of Wengen, high in the Bernese Alps. And it might just offer the platonic ideal of the alpine summer.

First off, that thing they say about the journey being just as important as the destination? In Wengen it’s never been truer. The car-free town is only accessible via a cog-wheel train that cranks skywards from Lauterbrunnen, itself best reached by a spectacularly scenic lake-skirting train ride from Zurich. When you exit, you’re welcome to take the leisurely stroll ever higher through the postcard-pretty town centre on foot, but the awaiting Beaumier-branded Jumbolino (a sort of chic, electric milk float) makes the ascent with suitcases that much easier.

Inside, the lobby is rich in restored wooden detailing, its soft seating areas inviting you to sit and marvel at the valley views beyond. The bedrooms are spacious, stylish and, in my case, particularly panoramic. Lorenz Maurer, the tall, stylish and affable general manager shows me what keeps things ticking behind-the-scenes, including a series of high-tech wood-chip heaters to provide hotel-wide warmth. Outside, though, the sun is providing plenty of that, the Sonnenbad terrace’s yellow umbrellas standing tall like buttercups among the sweeping green expanse. ‘We’re lovers of the mountain all year round,’ Maurer says. ‘But summer is definitely becoming our biggest season.’

This is the first full one since the installation of Belvedere’s concrete spa and pool which juts out from the base of the higher building and blends into the surroundings ‘like a brutalist relic that nature has gradually reclaimed,’ to quote architect Valéry Clavien. After a sublime full-body massage with alpine-fresh Suzanne Kaufmann products, I take to the indoor-outdoor pool as the sun beats down and the roar of an unsighted jet plane echoes around the valley. I conclude there can be few better spots to gaze up at the iconic Jungfrau peak.

It’s said J. R. R. Tolkien based idyllic scenes of Middle Earth on hikes he took in these valleys, and about 100 years before that, German composer Felix Mendelssohn was moved enough to write symphonies inspired by them (‘Of all the countries I know, this is the most beautiful,’ he said). Today the most picturesque trail bears his name, but if you choose to head in any direction you’re unlikely to be disappointed, with routes that take you through forests, past grazing livestock and picturesque farms, around the town’s outskirts and into the valley’s basin. Hop back on the train and you can make your way back down to the invitingly turquoise lakes you passed on arrival. Part of what makes Wengen such a good base is that it can satisfy both the casual stroller and the hardened hiker (and, indeed, those who prefer such things were done on two wheels) — plus you don’t have to watch out for cars. The buzzy terrace at the rustic Da Sina steakhouse and the lowkey local pub vibes of the garishly signed Crystal Bar make for nice pit stops on your return leg, but an aperitivo at one of Belvedere’s bars or out on the terrace takes some beating, particularly at golden hour as the surrounding peaks are painted bright orange and pastel pink before the starry night sky takes over.

Dining here also takes its cues from what you can see around you. English chef Will Gordon relies on seasonal produce sourced within a 100-kilometre radius with plenty picked on the doorstep. Where in winter that might lean towards heavy, hearty, warming dishes to soothe weary skiers, the spring/summer menus are light, fresh and flavourful — alpine salmon, cured beetroot, charcuterie and house-made chutneys. The locally made Riesling is worth special mention too.

A steam, a sauna, a bask in the sun, another stroll, another Riesling — summer up here is just as uncomplicated as summer at sea level yet it feels so much more…cleansing. Imagining Wengen deep in snow, thronged by the crowds for its annual Lauberhorn downhill ski races, seems almost impossible. Besides, you’d miss too much going at those speeds… this is a place to slow down.

Rooms at Grand Hotel Belvedere start from £475 per night.

The writer’s transport was provided by Travel Switzerland who guarantee seamless connections by train, bus, boat or mountain railway. Click here to buy your Swiss Travel Pass, point-to-point tickets or plan the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland.

‘In a decade, our wildlife has gone from being present to being abundant,’ says Martin White, the head of rewilding at 42 Acres, a sweep of wooded countryside in east Somerset. Behind him, meadow brown butterflies tumble through oat-grass and blackcaps sing from tangled hawthorns. White is well placed to comment, having worked here for every one of the 10 years since this former family estate was taken over by the current owners.

The 42 Acres name is a misnomer. This rural getaway — which offers wellness retreats and self-catering accommodation — was originally 42 acres in size, but now covers 173, most of which are intentionally left to their own natural devices. The retreats themselves tie into this approach, ranging from one-day ‘Slow Sundays’ to longer stays, themed around the likes of nature guardianship and listening to the land. And there’s plenty of land to listen to. The wind whistles through ancient woodland studded with mossy, fallen trunks and pale fungi; birdsong fills the ears during a stroll down country lanes; in the lake, carp splash and water sloshes against hefty beaver dams.

Yes, beaver dams. The busy rodents have been reintroduced here and now live wild, with evidence of their lodges and waterlogging widespread. ‘They’re a keystone species,’ emphasises White, pointing out a muddy, beaver-made channel. ‘The benefits they bring to other creatures in the ecosystem are huge.’

The rewilding efforts take multiple forms. In one large area of native woodland, spruces planted for wartime timber are being thinned out to allow original species to flourish. Elsewhere, netted enclosures are home, separately, to white storks and wildcats, both of which — if breeding continues to be successful — will eventually be released. To look into the eyes of a wildcat, one of Britain’s most endangered mammals, is a rare thrill.

42 Acres describes itself as a ‘regenerative estate, nature reserve and wellbeing retreat centre’, and it’s the real deal on all three fronts. This do-it-right-or-not-at-all approach is also true of both its accommodation and its food.

There are two main clusters of buildings on site, one based around a refurbished 18th-century farmhouse, the other around a one-time hunting lodge. In and around them are a total of seven self-catering options, from cottages and renovated barns, to converted stables and a boat (it’s called Tiny Boat (above) and lets you gaze across the water from bed). If you’re staying in one of these properties, the wider grounds are yours to explore — and indeed swim in — at will, while meals such as breakfast baskets and vegetarian lasagne can be pre-ordered.

Eating is no afterthought. All food, which includes full catering for guests on scheduled retreats, is freshly prepared by the so-called ‘medicine kitchen’. Don’t be put off by the pharmaceutical-sounding description: the chefs are hugely experienced (there’s at least one Royal Academy of Culinary Arts graduate), passionate about organic ‘soil-to-gut’ dining, and have a bounty of hyper-local produce to work with.

Most of this comes courtesy of either the edible walled garden — a vibrant reimagining of a traditional English estate with everything from artichokes and sweet-tasting yacón to peaches and greengages, or the permaculture garden, which produces duck eggs, honey and some 50 (50!) varieties of vegetables.

There are guided tours of the gardens, as well as yoga, foraging, firecraft and wild sauna sessions. But all, in a sense, are sideshows to the main rewilding project, the green effervescence which is likely to be your abiding memory. ‘Rewilding,’ sums up White, as a woodpecker drops down into a canopy of maples, ‘really does work.’

Visit the 42 Acres website for more information and to book.

At this year’s Hay Festival, I was lucky enough to see two out of three of my favourite contemporary female authors — Elizabeth Strout and Maggie O’Farrell. As for the third, alas I was three years behind the curve. Margaret Atwood’s last appearance on stage at Hay was in 2023 and there is no knowing when the 86-year-old Canadian might be back.

Her name cropped up again a couple of weeks later, however, over coffee with a Norwegian travel colleague whose company, Up Norway, designs highly personalised, expertly delivered trips to Norway and the Nordic countries (take note should a holiday to that part of the world be on your agenda). She told me of an extraordinary literary art project in Oslo, now in its 12th year, and I was instantly hooked.

Future Library is the brainchild of Scottish conceptual artist Katie Paterson, who has been doing weird and wonderful things in the art world for several years — often in collaboration with scientists and scientific researchers.

Among her notable works are the broadcast sound of melting glaciers, a map of some 27,000 dead stars and a lightbulb designed to simulate the experience of moonlight. A library, by comparison, might seem somewhat mundane.

Paterson’s library, however, is not exactly as it might sound. This is a 100-year ‘living artwork’, commissioned as part of Oslo’s cultural Slow Space public art programme, with a distinct beginning, middle and end.

The project started in 2014 with the felling of an area of trees within the Nordmarka Forest on the edge of the city to make way for the planting of 1,000 spruce saplings. The felled trees were to be used in the construction of a special ‘Silent Room’ within the Deichman Bjørvika Public Library where Future Library would be housed; the new spruce trees would be used in 2114, 100 years on, as paper for the printing of the library’s contents.

The middle part is where the project takes a more intriguing turn. Each year, from 2014 onwards, a writer of global standing would be asked by the trustees of Future Library (an evolving group as time goes by) to contribute an original written work of any length and in any literary genre, with only one catch. Apart from its title, each work would remain unread and unpublished, sealed within a thin, illuminated glass drawer of the Silent Room’s walls, until 2114, when a limited-edition anthology of all the manuscripts would be printed.

First up to contribute to Future Library was Atwood, with a work titled Scribbler Moon. We know no more than that. Since then, nine further writers, including the brilliant Turkish-British author Elif Shafak, have submitted manuscripts and two more, American writers Tommy Orange and Amitav Ghosh, joined the fold on June 28. Their handing-over ceremony, as did those before them, took place amid the spruce-tree plantation in Nordmarka Forest, their works representing 2024 and 2025 respectively.

The big reveal of 2026’s writer is expected imminently. The Silent Room, therefore, its curvaceous interior fashioned from 100 concentric layers of wood like the growth rings of a tree, now has 12 full drawers with another 88 to go.

How many of these, one wonders, will be filled with manuscripts by people who are yet to be born and how many people alive today will ever get to read them? The City of Oslo and the Future Library Trust have signed a 100-year contract guaranteeing the protection of Nordmarka Forest, the Silent Room and the manuscripts, but who is to say how the world might have changed by 2114. Perhaps humans won’t be reading books anymore, perhaps libraries will be a thing of the past and perhaps, God forbid, no one will care a fig about Atwood.

This feature originally appeared in the July 1, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

In The Odyssey, we follow hero Odysseus’s gruelling 10-year journey home, through the unmappable lands of magic and monsters to Ithaca, following the Trojan War.

For centuries, scholars and amateur sleuths have argued over where Homer’s roiling seas, realm of the sirens and lands of the Lotus-Eaters might truly have been — if, indeed, they existed at all.

Now, courtesy of Christopher Nolan’s (The Dark Knight, Interstellar, Oppenheimer) highly anticipated, lauded film adaptation (out July 17), travellers have a concrete trail of real-world locations to visit, including the Peloponnese and Athens in Greece, Favignana in Sicily, Scotland’s Moray Coast (famous for its resident bottlenose dolphins) and Iceland.

In the Peloponnese, a large peninsula separated from the Greek mainland by the Corinth Canal and easily accessible from Athens, you’ll find a 1,000-mile-long network of scenic hiking routes, much of which uses mule paths that fell out of use in the 1970s.

The Messinia Trail’s eastern branch encompasses the Temple of Apollo Epicurius, ancient olive groves and Methoni Castle and Voidokilia Beach — both used by Nolan — and crosses an area home to legendary King Nestor, who appears in Homer’s seminal poem.

Villa Collective boasts six properties in the Peloponnese region, including Sir Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor’s wonderfully tasteful former home.

In the last decade, Athens's grungy, graffiti-lined back streets have changed beyond recognition. Today, it’s a city of muses, somewhere that writers, artists and culinary talents congregate to help nurse the Athenian renaissance. Its ascendency — or re-ascendency — to southern Europe’s new capital of cool did not come as a surprise to Andria Mitsakos, a local PR entrepreneur and the owner of a popular concept store called Anthologist.

Athens’s ‘moment’ was born, she says, out of ‘crisis’. Grexit (Greece’s potential withdrawal from the EU) has been sowing its seeds of uncertainty since the mid 2010s, but it is precisely this turmoil, Andria explains, that has caused waves of creativity. ‘Athens is constantly evolving and when one realises that the city was the cradle of civilisation and the incubator of so much when it comes to design, architecture, poetry, politics, theatre, philosophy and sexuality, that feeling becomes infectious.’

And infectious it is. Everyone, from domestic Greek travellers to Continental weekenders and young creatives, is keen to get in on the action. There are whispers that this is the new Berlin — equally anarchic, but much more affordable, regardless of whether you’re staying for two nights or two years.

Earlier this year, Hilton Athens reopened following a monumental, four-year-long renovation. Now called Conrad Athens The Ilisian, whoever was in charge thankfully spared the iconic marble facade, a wonderful example of Greek post-war Modernism.

Although Nolan shot some scenes in the Greek capital, it doesn't feature in the source material. However, the hotel is situated on the southern slopes of Mount Lycabettus which, according to Ancient Greek myth, was created by Athena — a pivotal character — by accident.

Approximately 670 miles east as the crow flies you'll find Favignana, the largest of the Aegadian (or Egadi) Islands off Sicily's west coast. And while Homer never explicitly referred to 'Sicily' or 'Favignana' in his epic, scholars and historians tend to agree that both are the setting for some of the most famous stages of Odysseus's journey.

Nolan utilised the ruined castle of Castello di Santa Caterina on the latter — a location that required the cast and crew to clamber 900 feet uphill, every day, to reach it and helicopter equipment drops.

You won't have to suffer such indignities to reach Zu Nillu, an exceptional villa that's been built into a disused Roman tufo quarry — as you do. The four-bedroom property is available to rent through The Thinking Traveller which originated in Sicily in 2002.

Casa Bonavita is very much a family affair — a hotel that feels like a home, but that you wouldn’t dare to call ‘a home from home’ — unless you happen to live in an immaculately decorated, 18th century Maltese palazzo.

The owners are Suzanne and Christopher Sharp, founders of The Rug Company, and before Bonavita opened as a hotel, it operated as their occasional home. Their daughter Sophie's pottery and son Jamie's antiques fill the space.

There were a myriad things to consider when they set about turning a home into a hotel, including planning for everyone taking a shower simultaneously. However, the couple’s flair for interior design and decor has always been innate. ‘Suzanne has the ability to create interiors which are both inspiring and comfortable, and there were constant discussions about… how to get the balance between functionality and design,’ says Christopher. Even when Bonavita is fully booked, there are quiet corners to escape to — with an expertly mixed negroni.

A huge number of craftspeople and artists were involved in the six-year project, but a consistent vision and the couple’s collection of fabrics, furniture, paintings and lighting, collected over the years, helped pull everything together. ‘In many ways, Casa Bonavita is an accumulation of a lifetime of visual memories, brought together to create a place that feels familiar, lived-in and deeply personal,’ says Christopher.

Textiles and artisanal works sourced from throughout the Mediterranean are complemented by antique treasures including a Genoese cabinet, packed with ceramics. One of the dining room’s walls is hung with joyfully-hued art, while a botanical mural by Italian artists Alfonso Orombelli and Luna Aulehla Greppi covers the other.

The Valletta Bar’s walls have not been left behind and are enveloped in a bespoke, hand-painted vista of 17th-century Valletta, by de Gournay. The kitchen is tiled in Sicilian slabs and the grand entrance hall boasts a frescoed ceiling.

The seven bedrooms and suites in the original house (Suzanne and Christopher bought it 15 years ago before purchasing the neighbouring house and land) share high ceilings, but are all unique in design. Suite 5 is located in the former chapel and comes with a private terrace and a statement bathroom featuring a domed ceiling and marble bath. Suite 4’s bathroom is equally impressive with its floral fresco framing the bathtub.

There are five further bedrooms and suites in the Dower House, which can be booked on an exclusive-use basis. This newly built structure fits seamlessly with the existing buildings, accessed via the verdant garden. The building's courtyard centrepiece is a swimming pool atop a subterranean spa. There are more rooms in the former stables and a soon-to-open, stand-alone suite (The Folly) whose lucky guests will be able to brag about their private garden, plunge pool and one-of-kind oval-shaped bedroom.

The ceramics — from monogrammed red dinnerware to statement lamps and urns bursting with fresh flowers — are all painstakingly made, 500 metres away at Villa Bologna, a historic estate that has been home to a pottery studio since 1920.

Back in 2020, Sophie took over the running of the studio and reinstated archival designs. Each piece has a charming story behind it, but few can beat her own tale of growing up with Villa Bologna ceramics filling her home and one day not only owning the business, but supplying her parent’s hotel in the same village.

Art bleeds into the outdoor spaces of Casa Bonavita, too. Between the honey-hued buildings and the palm-and-bougainvillea-framed pool, a vast garden unfurls, studded with ancient columns, statues and fountains.

Christopher nurtured the garden himself: ‘The vision was to create a series of secluded spaces through generous, layered planting, allowing the garden to remain on the edge of wildness while still having structure.’

Plants were chosen with the climate and seasons in mind so that there is something beautiful to look at year round. Once again, this acute sense of care lends itself to a family home; Christopher was dead-heading geraniums when I spoke to him — not your typical proprietor.

Red Savannah can organise four night stays at Casa Bonavita from £2,195 per person, on a bed and breakfast basis. The price includes private airport transfers from and to Malta airport, and return economy flights from London Heathrow to Malta (including a checked bag).

According to Waitrose, the ‘rosé tipping point’ — the outdoor temperature at which Britain’s middle classes start glugging the salmon-pink lady petrol with the same enthusiasm of a water-starved castaway — is 20˚C. Given that the Isle of Wight averages 37 hours of sunshine a week, you’d be forgiven for thinking islanders are popping the cork all year round and in truth, you’re probably right.

The pretty Victorian seaside resort of Ventnor, on the south-east coast of the island, enjoys both above-average sunshine hours and its own microclimate with air, according to The Times in 1841 ‘assimilated to the mild climate of the island of Madeira’ and, to paraphrase Sir John Betjeman, areas of garden so full of exotics, you almost expect a bird of paradise to flit from bloom to bloom. Others have drawn comparison with the Amalfi coast, with Ventnor’s breakneck precipices, zig-zag roads and steep steps echoing those of Positano.

Along the esplanade, directly behind where Ventnor’s 478 foot New Victoria Pier once jutted proudly out to sea, stands The Terrace Rooms & Wine, an immaculately restored Italianate-style villa — with turrets that are said to have inspired Prince Albert’s designs for Osborne House — that offers a more indulgent restorative for those that need a tad more than sea air and sub-tropical climes: wine.

Owned and run by Tom and Ashley Fahey, the six-bedroom boutique bolthole oozes relaxed epicurean indulgence. The rooms are light and airy, conceived in muted tones of putty, peach and artichoke; a pleasing blend of period features complemented by mid-century furniture, sumptuous super-king Hypnos beds and soothing sea views. The dusky scent of rose geranium and cloves gently wafts from the sensorial La-Eva products found in the bathrooms. We stayed in Room Five, an expansive split-level option that also offered views of the beautiful Cascade Gardens (designed at the turn of the 20th century by then town surveyor Edgar James Harvey) that tumble down towards the lapping sea. For those that insist on travelling with their two-or-four-legged shadow(s), sizeable Room Six (The Annexe) is both child (aged 12 or older) and dog friendly. 

Downstairs, the residents’ drawing room yawns out onto a sunlit glass pergola overlooking the coppery shingle and golden sand beach. If the view alone isn’t enough to feast on, prepare yourself for the exquisite four-course breakfast served in this room. I’ve eaten many hotel breakfasts and I can say, hand on heart, this was one of the best. Highlights include — but were not limited to — homemade Irish soda bread and bite-sized sausage rolls, a deconstructed full English (including Isle of Wight tomatoes — yes, please), Oxfordshire’s finest Ue coffee and local Briddlesford Farm milk, fresh from their Guernsey herd.

Now, back to the main event — the bottled poetry. Tom is ranked a Top 12 UK Sommelier (2025) and the hotel holds both the UK’s best rosé wine list and best New Zealand wine list (Star Wine List Awards 2025). In essence, you’re in excellent hands. Each evening, residents are invited to a wine tasting in the magnificent wine library, home to about 1,200 bottles which line the walls and almost every available surface. The tastings are gloriously unpretentious and, as Tom assures a fellow guest, ‘there are no rules here.’

As he pulls out three bottles — two rosés (one pale, one dark) and a red — all produced by Château du Cros in Bordeaux, we discuss the UK’s preference for the palest of the pale. He explains that in 1985, Château Barbeyrolles created the style we all now know as pale Provence rosé using a winemaking method called ‘direct press’. Meanwhile, Californian White Zinfandel was swiftly becoming the gateway wine of an entire generation, embedding the idea that dark rosé is sweet and estates such as Miraval, Domaines Ott and Chateau D’Esclans were turning pale rosé into a yachties lifestyle brand.

‘This is now a crisis for many wine regions,’ Tom sighs. ‘It is now almost impossible to put quality dark rosé on a shelf and expect anyone to look twice at it. The standard order for “your palest” or “the one most like Provence” rosé has negatively impacted traditional — and ironically bone dry — styles from Navarra, Tavel, Bordeaux and Montepulciano. Producers in these areas must palewash or die.’

Feeling a little ashamed of my own misconceptions, we taste the three Bordeaux on the table. The 2022 endangered dark rosé is lusciously dry with notes of dried peel, pink grapefruit and baking spice — the perfect Christmassy winter wine or in fact, is it a year-round rosé? It’s a revelation.

As we mull over what we might like to sup in front of the roaring residents room fire that evening, I dare to raise the question of ice — is it an oenophile’s faux pas? Tom reveals that at the low soaking temperatures during the winemaking process, the skins lend colour and flavour, but none of the astringent tannin that often leads consumers to shun ‘too dry’ red wines. ‘They are not simply winter rosés, but a superb red alternative all year round,’ he confirms. ‘And — whisper it! — they often take an ice cube far, far better than their under-flavoured pale cousins, creating an almost Campari or negroni like feel to a slightly longer and — unlike vermouth — bone dry drink.’

Rooms at The Terrace Rooms & Wine start from £250 a night including four-course breakfast and nightly wine tastings. Visit the hotel website for more information and to book.

Pity the man who never got to fly on Concorde. Your correspondent was but four when the aircraft was discontinued and, akin to many, has been awaiting the return of supersonic flight with glee. Let us rejoice, for a successor has finally landed: the European Space Agency is currently developing a jet called Invictus that aims to travel at five times the speed of sound. This, we are told, will deliver passengers from London to Sydney in only three hours.

Against these soaring ambitions stand our airports: once-proud institutions that have, in recent years, become pandemonium. Practically no one enjoys them anymore. Two-thirds of the British public believe they are overcrowded and, according to Sail Croatia, three of our main hubs — Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow — rank among the five most stressful airports on Earth.

The EU’s new Entry-Exit-System, reliant on biometric data, has been blamed for a recent hike in delays and missed flights. During the US government shutdown at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta earlier this year, paid entertainers were hired to alleviate tensions among those facing superqueues — a strategy akin to putting out a fire with a comedy skit.

If aerospace engineers are capable of building a jet that reaches Mach 5, you’d think that those in charge of our airports would manage to improve things here and there. As David Mitchell says: It's not rocket science. Yet the decline appears terminal. There is perhaps no better metonym for it than the screens that appear after security with four smiley faces, ranging from happy (green) to irate (red): a lazy substitute for adequate staff training. Indeed, a 2025 report from the device’s parent company showed that, even on the best of days, more than one in ten travellers said they’d had a bad time.

With a fall in service comes a fall in glamour — not for lack of trying from some. Designer Anya Hindmarch now has a shop, Air Anya, selling luggage tags and passport holders reminiscent of the 1970s. If only the people at the airport check-in counter were even half as fun. Instead, I have been forced to watch as British Airways asks Gold members to check in hand-luggage small enough to serve as Playmobil.

Isolated attempts at progress are often futile. Where London has done away with the 100ml limit on carry-on liquids, others have not: a fact worth remembering as people plan to bring home large bottles of Factor-50 for the next heatwave. These will be confiscated, unless one remembers to put this in the suitcase that BA has made them surrender as cargo. A more capacious overhaul is needed. I’d put the engineers in charge.

This feature originally appeared in the July 1, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The clue’s in the name: Palm Beach. There are palm trees and a long strip of beach. There’s also bright-pink bougainvillea on every house, jasmine in the air, singing mockingbirds competing with the gentle purr of the odd Rolls-Royce and roads with names such as Hibiscus Avenue and Coral Lane (Gulfstream Road, too, which is appropriately Palm Beach because almost everyone here owns one). Right at the centre of it all is the new, gleaming, bright-white hotel on the block, The Vineta.

It’s boom time in Palm Beach, but not necessarily for the reason you think. Sure, Donald Trump is often in town and holds court at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and country club (the joining fee, cannily hiked shortly before his second presidential term began, is now $1 million).

However, the frenetic activity and influx into this surprisingly small, moneyed patch of America — which boasts the highest density of billionaires in the country, I’m told on my second night there — isn’t all due to him.

Think of it like the gold-rush to the Cotswolds. It’s a slightly glib comparison, but not entirely dissimilar. Californians and New Yorkers have flocked south to Palm Beach for more space, sunnier climes (at least, the ones from New York) and, crucially, more favourable taxes. This means that what has long been a wealthy area is now even more so.

It’s not possible, alas, to do a bus tour of the stars’ homes as you can in Hollywood, but take a walk up the lake trail and you’ll pass $50-million-plus house after $50-million-plus house. Drive around Palm Beach with a local and they’ll point out the Lauder house or Tom Ford’s house or the Peltz house, setting for the, ahem, controversial Brooklyn-Peltz wedding in 2022. Every other car is a Cullinan; a jar of jam in the new Bilboquet deli, a casual offshoot of the famous restaurant, will set you back $19.

This sunny spot has long been well served by swanky restaurants and members’ clubs that cost a cool half million or so to join. The likes of The Everglades Club, and Palm Beach Bath and Tennis have been here since Palm Beach started attracting the rich towards the beginning of the 20th century (on which more in a moment).

The famous pink Colony Hotel flung open its doors in 1947. However, other splashy openings are racing to keep up with demand. Polo kingpin Nacho Figueras opened The Polo Room restaurant last year. Über-exclusive members’ club the Carriage House, which opened in 2022 and is supposedly heavily influenced by 5 Hertford Street in London, has more recently jacked its joining fee to $400,000. Robin Birley has reportedly signed paperwork for a new club near Worth Avenue, which will be to Palm Beach what Maxime’s has become to Manhattan.

Then there’s the new jewel, The Vineta, a hotel bought by the Reuben brothers, David and Simon, in 2022 and managed by the Oetker Collection, the group’s first foray into the USA. Not bad for an island that is pretty small: just under four square miles or, if you prefer, the size of Richmond Park.

However, it’s technically incorrect to call The Vineta new. The building has almost always been a hotel (save for a brief transformation into a condominium block), ever since it opened to tourists in 1926. It was briefly called The Vineta back in the day, then it moved through various hands until it became The Chesterfield in 1989 and attracted Margaret Thatcher, Catherine Deneuve and Sir Rod Stewart.

After a three-year building project, the aesthetic now is classic Palm Beach: creams and blues, the odd splash of pink, with rattan detailing, shell sconces on the walls, orchids and ferns beside thick Assouline coffee-table books and wall-to-wall marble bathrooms (I should note here that the presidential suite is the only room with a bathtub; Florida is shower territory).

The interiors were handed over to the Paris-based designer Tino Zervudachi, who has looked after other hotels in the group, including the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France, and Eden Rock St Barths in the Caribbean. I have never before stayed in such a serene hotel room — more creams, more blues, rattan lampshades, fluted bedside tables — or a hotel room that has a menu that includes a page of injectables, should I need some. How about Nefertiti Neck, to smooth out those pesky lines? Or Trapezius Tox to relax my shoulders after the long flight?

The swimming pool is sensational — destined to launch a million Instagram posts. Tino spent some time in Palm Beach doing his homework and it shows. The spiral pool handrails, for instance, are designed to match the swirl on the town’s famous Clock Tower, overlooking the beach. Coco’s, the hotel’s restaurant, features old-timers steak Diane and crêpes Suzette, which regulars from the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc may recognise. It all adds up to create a serene sense of continuity; the hotel may only just have opened, but it feels like a grande dame.

There’s also an in-room pet menu — including a ‘buddy burger’ beef patty with broccoli and rice for $18 or an ‘amuse pooch’ oatmeal cookie for $9. Every room (there are 41) is dog friendly. Palm Beach itself is extremely dog friendly. One morning, strolling the lake trail, I passed a chap in his eighties walking a Yorkshire terrier in a red MAGA cap. Moments later, I passed another with his poodle, in a navy MANA cap, worn by the other side; it apparently means ‘make America normal again’.

Walking is a good way to take in this place, because it’s small enough to explore on foot. Take a stroll down Worth Avenue and you’ll pass Chanel, Ferragamo and Palm Beach favourites Stubbs & Wootton (for slippers) and Lily Pulitzer (for tropical clothing). You’ll see plenty of Tesla Cybertrucks and perhaps even Mona Lisa. Not, I hasten to add, the painting, but a pig. One of the financiers has a pet pig, called Mona Lisa, whose walker takes her up and down the main drag every morning.

After that, I’d continue strolling to the Flagler Museum to brush up on Palm Beach history. Henry Flagler was the oil magnate and generous being who built the grand house that’s now a museum between 1900–02 for his third wife. He has been dubbed the ‘inventor’ of modern Florida for also constructing the railway that stretched the length of the state and allowed 19th-century travellers to discover this balmy patch of the USA. This was the Gilded Age, when it became fashionable for those who summered in Newport to winter down here.

Flagler constructed Palm Beach’s earliest glitzy hotels — the Royal Poinciana, The Breakers — and guests soon flocked. The architect Addison Mizner then rolled up his sleeves and started designing buildings in the style he’d become famous for, still evident across Palm Beach today: ‘Bastard-Spanish-Moorish-Romanesque-Bull-Market-Damn-The-Expense’, someone subsequently dubbed it. Houses and clubs that wouldn’t look out of place in Madrid, in other words, albeit with more tropical gardens. Palm trees, naturally, but also hibiscus, gardenias and plumbago. Colour is everywhere. Nothing is terribly subtle here.

‘The Palm Beach season, then as now, was a time of parties, concerts and entertainment as visitors arrived for a respite from the cold winter weather in Northern states,’ notes a plaque in the museum, beneath a grainy photograph of the Flaglers hosting a tea party on their lawn, alongside their friends visiting from Britain, the Duke and Duchess of Manchester.

That was as correct then as it is now, as the season still exists in these parts and runs roughly from Thanksgiving, when everyone descends from the north, until Easter, when they return to the east coast. ‘It basically empties, it’s a ghost town,’ says a friend, of the summer months, when it’s too hot and humid to do much outside.

However, during the season, oof, remember your vitamins — because it is busy. Supper after supper, charity event after charity event. Are we talking endless charity parties for blind and impoverished dolphins, I ask my friend, assuming there are a good number of rich people here looking for a cause — any cause — to distract them from pilates ($68 a class) and all that golf? ‘Not all,’ she says, contemplatively, ‘although we did go to a charity event for dolphins the other day.’

I stop by one drinks party at a private home (with the usual army of uniformed staff) with martinis the size of fish bowls and a woman tells me she’s drinking as many as she can before speaking to her lawyer about her divorce that evening. That party was to raise money for local beaches. The next night, at another charity do, in aid of the mangroves, former model and heiress Amanda Hearst makes a speech about the importance of the ocean and I talk to a Norwegian who only mentions half an hour into our conversation that he’s a director. Quite a major director. He’s Amanda's husband, Joachim Rønning, and he’s directed a ‘Tron’ film as well as the last in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series.

Then it’s off to dinner at the Everglades; the next night, a supper at another private home by the pool. At least American dinner parties finish early, all wrapped up by 11pm. I developed a chest infection after several days here, despite the tropical warmth. London socialising is nowhere near as frenetic as Palm Beach in season.

In 1995, when property tycoon Frank Lahainer died in Palm Beach, the story goes, his widow Gianna had his body embalmed and kept at a funeral home for more than a month, so she didn’t have to skip any parties. ‘Why would I wait?’ Gianna reportedly said, ‘I would miss the season.’ Quite right.

This is a party town — and the fun must go on.

Rooms at The Vineta start from £735 per night on a B&B basis, excluding taxes. Click here for more information and to book.

Loch Fyne is Scotland’s longest sea loch, reaching 40 miles inland from the Sound of Bute. Kabn, a pair of private, off-grid cabins, is close to its head. From Glasgow, it only takes an hour to reach them, driving along Loch Lomond and down a bumpy track that cuts through the Ardkinglas Estate.

Our cabin — sleek and black, all charred timber topped with solar panels, and floor-to-ceiling windows — stands sentry between a woodland stream and the shoreline. Inside, there’s a cloud-like bed, a hot rain shower, a well-equipped kitchen (with 15 herbs and spices) and a wood-burning stove. Everything is considered and sustainably sourced, including the recycled plastic duvet.

For now, though, our focus is on the outside: swimming in the icy water; barbecuing on the Big Green Egg; sitting by the fire pit; watching the light on the loch. We’re absorbed by the flicker of flames, thinking about everything and nothing. And then a seal pops its whiskery head out of the water and looks at us, and we could hardly be happier.

Cabins are having a moment. Not all of them are strictly off-grid (meaning that they function independently of public utility networks), however, they are often remote enough to feel like it. The majority featured below are only connected to the mains for water.

Of the luxury 'glamping' accommodation represented by Canopy & Stars, cabins account for 352 of 855 places and 50% of bookings. They mostly appeal to urban couples, aged 25-44, according to the specialist, especially 25-34 year olds who live in London, Manchester and Bristol and want to mark a special occasion. Solo travellers also like them. ‘They’re one of the fastest growing parts of our collection,’ agrees Sarah de Vere-Drummond of Kip Hideaways, ‘especially those that have something special, like an outdoor bath, or a wild swimming spot or re-wilding landscape on their doorstep.’

The rising popularity of cabins reflects a wider shift in hospitality, say the founders of Koto, who make place-specific cabins for private homes and, increasingly, members’ clubs, luxury wellness and international hotel groups. ‘Guests are moving away from traditional hotel formats towards something more personal and immersive, closer to a private retreat than a standard room.’ Architects Holiday are more direct: ‘We offer an alternative hotel solution for a new world demanding change, with health, wellbeing and environmentalism at the forefront.’

This need for change is often informed by disillusionment or burnout — including among the cabin owners themselves. Kabn founders Amber and Charlie Teale both had ‘risk-averse corporate careers’ before they realised their passions lay elsewhere. Jimmy Roupell ran a toy company (it went down a storm on Dragon’s Den), but dreamt up Rest + Wild because the ‘pace felt unsustainable and the purpose no longer felt right’. Hector Hughes worked for a tech startup, ‘flying around the world, spending all day on my phone’ and launched Unplugged following a 10-day stint in a Buddhist temple on top of a mountain. He wants to plug a gap in the market between high-end and spiritual retreats. ‘The big reflection for me is that we have ended up, for better or worse, with an environment, lifestyle and society that’s unsuited to how we’re biologically designed,’ he says.

Unplugged suggests that you lock away your phone, but even if you cannot quite do it, a cabin is a great way to disconnect, says cabin-goer and Country Life’s Digital Commissioning Editor, James Fisher. ‘It’s a bit of a cliché to say it, but the real break these days is from your emails. When you go to a cabin where you’re left alone and you open the curtains in the morning and the whole natural world is revealed to you, your brain switches off in a way it doesn’t necessarily when you’re staying in the nicest suite at Claridge’s. It’s a different kind of luxury that only the natural world and a true sense of escape can provide.’

When nature is at the heart of something, design that prioritises low-impact construction, locally-sourced materials and energy-efficient operation is part and parcel. Japanese and Scandi influences run rife; clever storage is key. They rarely feel too pared back though, because cabin owners are experts at ‘finessing the wild luxury experience,’ according to Sarah. At the time of writing, 155 of Canopy & Stars’ cabins come with hot tubs, while 58 have a sauna. However, cabin goers do not expect, or even want, too much luxury, and to be waited on hand and foot. ‘It’s that feeling of being fully independent and away from it all,’ says James. ‘I think we are starting to realise, especially with the advent of AI, that we’re slowly losing the ability to even think for ourselves, and that is really what we need a holiday from — that sense of being swaddled.’

For some guests, taking time out has proved a profound experience, even a life-changing one. ‘People write letters to us saying, “This has helped our marriage”, “This has helped us have a baby”, “This has helped me grieve”,’ says Jimmy of Rest + Wild. The visitor’s book at Kabn is further proof. The comments — ‘We watched the weather change, spotted otters and spent time reading and sketching; I leave feeling restored and hopeful.’ — are heartfelt, ecstatic even, waxing lyrical about the scenery and the wildlife.

During our two-day stay, my twin sister and I spend a lot of time tracing the water’s edge, watching the oyster catchers and the seals, reuniting a tiny lamb that found itself on the wrong side of a fence with its mother and enjoying the sense of joy that comes with being a part of something bigger.

Cabins make it easier for city dwellers to dip their toes into the ‘simple life’ — with minimal fuss and footprint. We get to stay on farms and the grounds of stately homes; in return, landowners get to better balance their books. They reinforce the beauty and value of nature and the need to protect it. Sometimes, they even encourage us to make changes to our lives. And they offer the same restorative effects as a good spa break in a shorter space of time and at a lower cost. They really are a win-win.

Kabn, Loch Fyne, Scotland

Amber and Charlie Teale were inspired to set up Kabn following holidays in Africa and Japan. They loved ‘staying in a really lovely property in the middle of nowhere,’ and the ‘feeling that the minimalist aesthetic of Japan creates.’

Food is a priority. Guests can eat or buy fresh seafood from the brilliant Loch Fyne Restaurant & Oyster Bar and Inveraray Seafood Shack.

Cabins in the Cairngorms and Sutherland are on the horizon (in September 2026 and 2027 respectively).

Two nights in a Kabn cabin start from £510.

Elsa, Unplugged, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

The focus at Unplugged is on digital detoxing, with guests invited to lock away their phones for three nights. An instant camera is provided for photographs, and a Nokia for emergencies.

The startup now has more than 50 cabins spread across the UK and Spain; Elsa is one of 10 with a hot tub and sits in a dark-sky preserve on farmland grazed by wild ponies and Highland cows. There are more Unplugged cabins to come, says co-founder Hector Hughes. ‘We want to get as many people as possible doing this. The challenge for us is, can we make it socially acceptable and cool and aspirational to spend three days offline in a cabin?’

Three nights in Elsa start from £575.

The Red Cabin, Oare, Kent

The Red Cabin was always going to be in good hands with Tally Rix, who used to edit Architect’s Journal Specification and still publishes Open Air Business Magazine (a trade publication for diversifying landowners) alongside husband Steve.

There are now five locally-hosted Red Cabins in Kent, Norfolk, the Somerset Levels and the Cotswolds — the latter on the regenerative farm of Andy Cato (of Groove Armada and Wildfarmed fame). All sleep up to three or four, and have integrated wood-fired saunas, hot tubs or plunge pools and Passivhaus insulation; at Red Cabin Oare, outside Faversham, guests can swim or paddle board on twin lakes and walk through the Oare Marshes bird reserve to the Three Mariners pub. A firm favourite.

Two nights in a Red Cabin for four people start from £450.

Architects Holiday, Great Park Farm, near Battle, East Sussex

This growing cluster of cabins is a passion project of Built Works’ architects Will Gowland and Harry Kay — and sits on Will’s family farm outside Battle. Rituals are the big thing here: new Yogis Cabin comes with a yoga studio, spring-fed natural swimming pool, engawa wraparound deck and woodland views. There is also Bather’s Cabin, Cabin X and Hill Cabin, plus a farm shop and a wood-fired sauna that guests can book for private three-hour sessions.

Yogis Cabin starts from £320 a night; sauna sessions from £45.

Rest + Wild, Shropshire

Rest + Wild is all about taking time out, sinking into an outdoor copper bath and immersing yourself in ‘pockets of the country where you don’t hear anything but birdsong.’ Jimmy and wife Sarah now have four collections of three cabins in Exmoor, Yorkshire and Shropshire. The latter are buried in 5,000 acres of ancient woodland and rolling hills on the Downton Hall Estate, outside Ludlow, and are being refreshed for the summer holidays.

Two nights in a Rest + Wild cabin start from £400.

Denton Reserve, near Ilkley, North Yorkshire

Denton Reserve turned to Koto when it came to installing cabins on their 2,500-acre estate, plumping for their Haku off-grid suites on wheels model, which can be moved to make the most of viewing points and wildlife.

The three cabins join a Grade I-listed Georgian hall, The Penny Bun gastropub, wild swimming site and walled kitchen garden. You’ll fall asleep to the soundtrack of hooting tawny, little and barn owns.

Denton Reserve’s cabins start from £220 a night.

Some hotels spend an awful lot of time, energy and money trying to convince guests that they're cool. Ace Hotel in Brooklyn is not one of them.

This outpost of the growing group — they have a habit of opening in locations on the verge of being gentrified (in this case Boerum Hill on the fringes of Downton Brooklyn) — feels embedded in the neighbourhood around it.

It's a hotel but also: a community hub, workspace, music venue and, occasionally, what feels like Brooklyn's most attractive living room.

The rooms

The rooms are exactly what you'd hope for from a Brooklyn hotel — but executed better than most. There are concrete ceilings and ginormous factory casement windows, inspired by the building's industrial architecture. The latter allow light to flood in throughout the day; some look onto neighbouring residential buildings, others, on the upper floors, provide sweeping views across the city that are tricky to tear your eyes away from.

The decor — bespoke, mid-century-style furniture, locally-made artwork, accents of forest green and navy blue — helps to soften the industrial bones of the building.

My room came equipped with a vintage turntable, which immediately made me feel cooler than I actually am.

Eating and drinking

The Lobby (above) — open all day for coffee and food, and late into the evening when it transforms into a lively bar — is the hotel's beating heart.

A huge number of the local work-from-home crowd use it as a substitute office and, far from negatively affecting the atmosphere, they give the place purpose. Too many hotels try to cultivate a sense of exclusivity by restricting access to their communal spaces — and end up feeling soulless.

There's nothing soulless about Lele's Roman, a restaurant inspired by the lively Roman neighbourhood of Trastevere. You'd never know it, but it isn't operated by the Ace group itself, despite occupying the same building. Order a big bowl of rustic pasta — the world's greatest food group and I won't entertain alternative opinions — and a baby negroni (or three, which just about equals a normal serving).

There's also Koju, a 14-course omakase experience, for something a little bit more formal.

How they'll keep you busy

There is a gym outfitted by the heavyweights at Yeah, I Work Out, which looked excellent.

I had every intention of using it.

I did not.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other ways to occupy your time.

Ace's artist-in-residence programme means there's always something interesting to marvel at as you wander through the lobby. The hotel also maintains an impressively curated calendar of live music, parties, talks and community gatherings.

Failing that, simply retreat to your room and indulge in my favourite sport: people-watching.

What else to do while you're here

Ace describes its location as being 'at the ever-evolving intersection of everything'.

I approached such a claim with some scepticism. This is New York, after all. Every neighbourhood could make a convincing argument for being at the centre of culture, food, music, The Arts and whatever else happens to be fashionable that week. But the hotel sits just two blocks from Atlantic Avenue, the 10.5-mile thoroughfare stretching from Brooklyn's waterfront all the way to Jamaica, Queens. It's dotted with independent boutiques, homeware shops, vintage stores, upscale coffee shops and enviably well-stocked global grocers.

The area is also one of Brooklyn's major transport hubs, making it remarkably easy to hop into Manhattan whenever the mood strikes.

Who's it for?

Everyone.

That may sound like a cop-out, but Ace is fundamentally about community — and making guests feel like they're part of one. Whether you're travelling alone, as a couple or with a group of friends, there's a sense of belonging here that's surprisingly rare.

What gives it the 'wow' factor?

The attention to detail. The subtle kind.

The Smeg fridges tucked into the rooms. The wonderfully easy-to-use Tivoli radios. The quirky typography on the in-room dining menus and information packs. Every element feels considered without ever feeling precious.

The staff also deserve special mention — and not just because someone complimented my jacket minutes after arriving. Even at my pre-dawn departure they were warm and helpful.

The one thing we'd change

Activity from The Lobby and the rumble of nearby subway lines might disturb light sleepers. For most guests, however, it's simply part of the soundtrack of staying in one of New York's most characterful neighbourhoods.

Rooms at Ace Hotel in Brooklyn start from $349. For more information and to book, visit their website.

There are hotels that shout about their luxury and then there are those that simply assume you'll notice it. Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo belongs firmly in the latter camp. Hidden behind its Belle Époque façade, just moments from the glittering heart of Monaco, it manages to feel both grand and unexpectedly intimate.

The rooms

The recently renovated suites and bedrooms, redesigned by Jacques Garcia, are a lesson in restrained indulgence — including my favourite, the Deluxe Premium Junior Suite. Decorated in the prettiest shade of yellow with delicate floral detailing, they mimic the Mediterranean light pouring in through the windows.

Clever televisions rotate 180℃, meaning they can face either the bed or the sitting room sofa, and gleaming silver, roll-top baths will have you thinking about cancelling your supper reservations in favour of another soak.

Then there's the Carré d'Or Suite which, as well as it’s own library, stocked with more than 100 books, has a sprawling terrace with envy-inducing views across the Principality. At present, it's furnished with rich plum upholstery and polished mahogany wood furniture, but rumour has it that Jacques Garcia is about to work his magic. If that's true, it will almost certainly become one of the most desirable suites in Monaco.

Eating and drinking

Les Ambassadeurs, the hotel's two-Michelin-starred restaurant, is a reminder that fine dining needn't take itself too seriously. I was looked after by the indomitable Marco, who I later discovered had received the Michelin Service Award 2026, ‘for his meticulous and elegant service’.

The meal is bookended by two trolleys — a chariot of bread, piled precariously high with sourdoughs and other inventive doughy creations, and a pudding trolley. In between, a page of the menu is dedicated to half-size dishes, should you want to try a little bit of everything.

Elsewhere, there’s Yoshi, the only Japanese restaurant in the region to hold a Michelin star, and a further two informal, al fresco options.

How they'll keep you busy

The Guerlain Spa is a calming sanctuary dressed in shiny marble, vanilla-coloured wood and discreet gold accents. With ten treatment rooms, a generous gym, hammam, sauna and sensory shower among its facilities, it's the sort of place where an hour somehow stretches into an entire afternoon.

Outside, you’ll find the hotel’s secret (at least to me) masterpiece: the Odyssey swimming pool. It is one of only two pools that CHANEL's Karl Lagerfeld designed and its monochromatic colour scheme is reminiscent of his own black and white ‘uniform’ consisting of a tailored black jacket, a high-collared, white starched shirt, a black tie, black jeans or trousers, and fingerless leather gloves. You’re protected from prying eyes by the elegant topiary surrounding it.

What else to do while you're here

Monaco's greatest hits are all within easy reach. Try your luck beneath the chandeliers of the iconic Casino de Monte-Carlo, watch the Changing of the Guard at the Prince's Palace or admire the parade of superyachts in Port Hercule.

The hotel is connected to the Metropole Shopping Monte-Carlo centre, and guests enjoy selected discounts across a wide range of boutiques. Before leaving, make a beeline for HeathStore, a French pharmacy-style emporium devoted entirely to health and wellbeing. It's the sort of place that inspires entirely unnecessary purchases — and puts Boots to shame.

The Monaco Royal Family's car collection is extensive (if you've thought of it, chances are the Grimaldis own it) and available to marvel at. You can read Country Life correspondent Zachary Weiss's feature on it, here.

Who's it for?

Couples and small groups of friends. Families are well accommodated, but the refined interiors and sophisticated swimming pool lend themselves to an older clientele looking for a glamorous escape rather than organised entertainment.

What gives it the ‘wow’ factor?

The swimming pool. I had no idea about its Karl Lagerfeld pedigree until a member of staff mentioned it, but even before then its striking design had completely drawn me in.

The one thing we'd change

The lobby. Despite the beautiful seasonal floral arrangement at its heart, the space feels very dark and a bit too cosy for a place that is blessed with year-round sunshine.

The new Jacques Garcia rooms start from €1,250 per night on a bed and breakfast basis. For more information and to book, visit the Metropole website.

What we think of when we picture luxury travel has changed over the years. Now it’s less private jets and piña coladas and more yoga retreats and home-made kombucha. We are, it seems, looking for meaningful experiences that enrich our lives instead of flashy status-symbols. As usual, throughout this process, people have been reminded that nature is priceless — particularly when it comes to the British countryside.

Although scrambling through the hedgerow in search of rosehips may not instantly scream ‘five star getaway’, foraging courses are now on the docket for many a luxury hotel guest in the UK.

At Bovey Castle, set amongst Dartmoor National Park in Devon, navelwort and nettle beer are on the menu just as much as caviar and Champagne are. It is just one of the Pride of Britain (PoB) Hotels — a curated collection of British hotels is annually reviewed — that are putting on foraging days.

‘A lot of people come to the hotel and they'll look at the view, but they won't actually explore the grounds. When you go out into these grounds today, you'll think: “Why are people not exploring this?” It's heaven down there, it's fantastic,’ says Thomas Radford, who is leading our foraging walk.

On the allure of foraging he adds: ‘I think people like to be guided and feel safe and, as opposed to just another boring drudge around the woods, it is something that brings it to life.’ In this country foraging is legal, as long as it’s not done on private land (for this you must have specific permission).

If we look back 300 years, knowledge about the plants you could and couldn’t eat was absolutely essential to survival. Some women possessed such a startling botanical arsenal that they were accused of witchcraft — something which many of them paid for with their lives. Sadly, with the rise of farming, when we started domesticating crops, and more recently supermarkets, this communal knowledge has since been mostly lost, with the exception of a few individuals.

As he leads us on a two hour walk around the grounds of Bovey Castle, a Grade II-listed early 20th-century mansion, Thomas points out the various plants we can gather and tells us about some of their uses. Elderflower is in season at the moment, and can be used to make cordial, flavoured gin or even elderflower wine. ‘But best use plastic bottles, as it does have a propensity to explode,’ Thomas says, detailing a particularly gory incident when a friend of his used glass bottles which, when one exploded, took his eye out.

Wild garlic is another useful ingredient in the foragers pantry, as is pink purslane, mint, navelwort, Jack-by-the-hedge and cleavers (otherwise known, amusingly, as ‘sticky willy’ — they make a brilliant diuretic that tastes of cucumber when left to soak in water overnight, apparently). Nettles, as long as they are pulled out with a glove to avoid stinging, make excellent nettle soup or beer.

The main thing that puts people off foraging, says Thomas, are ‘lookalikes’. Mushrooms are a prime example. We all, I’m sure, love the idea of cheffing up some self-foraged chanterelles on toast for supper as much as the next person, but many of us remember all too well reading a news story detailing someone’s death after accidentally eating a poisonous mushroom.

When it comes to lookalikes, Thomas never tastes the risk. As he puts it: ‘If you're going to die for something, don’t let it be salad.’ In Dartmoor, hemlock is the most common dangerous plant and can easily be confused with the totally benign cow parsley. Well known as the poison that killed Socrates, the innocuously-delicate white flowers of the plant bloom in clusters by bodies of water. If ingested, the alkaloids in the plant slowly poison the nerve-muscle junctions and cause the failure of the breathing muscles. Thomas aptly, but awfully, describes this as ‘a meat coffin that lasts hours’. We see plenty of it on our walk and I make sure to keep a healthy distance.

Despite the less than appetising description above, the trip did stoke my appetite for foraging. As long as you steer clear of those deadly lookalikes, it’s a healthy and interesting way to reconnect with nature and snaffle up some free grub while you’re at it. Plus the two-hour walk made sure I was ravenous for anything (but hemlock) once we were back in the hotel restaurant.

Booking for The Wild Larder: A Foraging Walk & Lunch with Thomas Radford is open now. Upcoming sessions at PoB Hotels include Thurlestone Hotel, Devon, on June 26 and Calcot & Spa, the Cotswolds, on June 30.

A copious quantity of apple strudel became the unintended consequence of a winter walking holiday in the Austrian Tyrol. We breakfasted and dined at our hotel each day, but lunch would see us at one mountain restaurant or another with a cold beer and a plate of apple pie. Sometimes the strudel would come with custard, sometimes with ice cream; sometimes it would be flaky and light, sometimes rich and dense. We were connoisseurs by the end of the week and quite happy to relinquish furthering our authority on the subject for many months to come.

Most afternoons, in walking off the strudel, our route back to base in Mösern would take us past an enormous bell erected on a high, circular platform with far-reaching views over the Inn Valley below. The bell, it transpired, is a peace bell, installed in 1997 to mark friendship, good neighbourliness and harmony in a region of historically contested borders. For a few minutes each day at 5pm, the 10-ton bell booms out across the valley — a sonorous reminder of a contract for peace.

Having never encountered a peace bell before, down the rabbit hole I went in pursuit of others, only to discover there are numerous peace bells the whole world over. Who knew, for example, of the Maria Dolens bell in the northern Italian town of Rovereto, perhaps the most solemn and ritualised of all bells, which tolls 100 times every evening to honour the fallen in all wars and to promote peace? Originally cast in 1924 from melted bronze of cannons used in the First World War, this bell has been recast twice in the past century, but still weighs in at more than 22 tons as one of the largest ringing bells in the world.

There’s a jostling for first place, however, when it comes to famous peace bells. Some would say Japan’s 1964 bell in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park takes top spot, partly for its direct link to a pivotal moment in history and thus widely recognised as the most potent symbol of peace in the nuclear age and partly because visitors get to ring it themselves — an active expression of the individual within a collective commitment to global unity. Many voices, one sound is how the theory goes. The Japanese, with bells deep-rooted in their culture, are particularly good bellmakers.

Indeed, perhaps the most famous peace bell, located in the garden of the UN Headquarters in New York, US, was crafted by the Japanese and presented by them to the UN in 1954. A pipsqueak in terms of weight, coming in at only a fraction of a ton, this bell is heavy on post-Second World War symbolism, cast from coins collected from more than 60 countries and inscribed with the Japanese rendering of ‘Long live absolute world peace’. Alas, it is rung very rarely — on the spring equinox in March and on September 21, the International Day of Peace.

In our current turbulent and troubled times, the bell to which I find myself most readily drawn is Germany’s Freedom Bell, located in the tower of the Rathaus Schöneberg in Berlin. This 10-ton bell, which rings daily at 12 noon in the spirit of freedom and harmony, was funded by 16 million American donors and given to the city in 1950 as a symbol of solidarity between the US and West Germany during the Cold War. Quite an act of fellowship, I should say.

How prescient it seems, therefore, that our King recently gave the US President a big brass bell from a British Second World War submarine as a token of our allied friendship. Perhaps Donald Trump would like to sit down with a slice of apple strudel and start ringing his bell. Who knows what might happen?

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Behind a fortress of wild white roses, I spy, from the comfort of my own bed, perhaps, the most magnificent view in all of Italy laid out beneath me: the city of Florence. Where is this bed, I hear you ask? In Villa San Michele, a Belmond hotel.

I have been coming to this part of the world since I was a child. My English aunt, Maureen, married an Italian, Gino, and, with their three daughters, lived a 25-minute or so drive away from this lavish villa in the dinky town of Montelupo Fiorentino — a place I remember fondly for its brilliantly creamy gelato and sleepy pizzerias.

I’m spending two days in the stately villa, which serves as a reminder of why the cradle of the Renaissance continues to fascinate and intrigue. Since the 15^th century, San Michele has led countless lives, firstly as a humble Franciscan monastery and later as a wartime base for the French republic’s rebel, Napoleon.

It became a hotel in the 1950s and has been visited by a dizzying array of stars and nobility from The King (then the Prince of Wales), to Julia Roberts, Robert De Niro, George Clooney, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

A few weeks ago it emerged from an 18-month-long renovation, overseen by Florence-based interior design studio Luigi Fragola Architects, with 39 rooms and suites, three restaurants and Italy’s first Guerlain spa. The question is, was the refurb worth the wait? The devil really is in all of its fantastical details.

The 27 suites and 12 bedrooms pay homage to local Tuscan craft and to the country’s botanical heritage. Think ornate, floral tapestries and frescoes (the latter were restored by Florentine artists), scagliola furniture and restored Baroque fireplaces. Impruneta terracotta has been used with wild abandon in the floors and all of the bathrooms have been clad in green-veined cipollino marble. The bathroom in the Signature Garden Suite is a particular showstopper.

The best room in the house is the Limonaia Suite — a two-storey, Fiesolan-style villa that’s full of curios, antiques and collectibles. To my delight, the minibar was stuffed full of Ginori teacups. The gloriously plump bed sits beneath a beautifully ornate mural of woodland and fluttering birds. And there’s a private garden and plunge pool with 180-degree-views and a sightline to the Duomo.

The main gardens are extensive — and one of San Michele’s most impressive assets — tended to, during the renovation, by Luca Ghezzi Garden Design. The terraced sprawl — paved avenues, immaculate flowerbeds and borders , a 200-year-old wisteria — currently covers an immense 10,000sq m. Blooms include lavender, rosemary, agapanthus, hydrangea, pomegranate, iris and boxwoods, plus bountiful citrus trees (lots of lemons) and a stately 42m-long avenue of roses.

The driving design force is geometry, not just for aesthetics, but to evoke the Roman ideal of otium (Latin for ‘leisure’). The garden is a space for contemplative leisure, relaxation and the pursuit of tranquility, conversation and appreciation. Essentially, garden gossip.

Food? Hit and miss. Executive chef’s Alessandro Cozzolino’s menu reinterprets (a word I often shudder at on Italian menus) Tuscan classics, and while bold in presentation and setting (on the terrace) the dishes at the San Michele Restaurant often miss the mark by falling victim to the chef’s ‘twists’ and attempts at experimentation. That said, the Neapolitan’s talent shines when it comes to pizza — the margarita, for example, is a total triumph. No easy feat.

Despite the new money crowd who like to show off at golden hour on the veranda it’s all very relaxing. The new Villa San Michele has been designed with Belmond’s ‘slow living’ philosophy in mind, and, as such, there are ‘Energy Raising’ programmes and yoga decks available on demand. Yes, the Guerlain spa is pretty, and yes, the treatments are indulgent, but reading your book on your own, rose-scented balcony will put you in a similarly transcendent state. Is there a greater pleasure in life? I think not.

While the Florence of my youth has changed beyond recognition — thank you overtourism – Villa San Michele serves as a reminder of the city that once was. A peaceful sanctuary of beauty and inspiration.

Rooms at Villa San Michele, a Belmond Hotel, start from £1,400 on a bed and breakfast basis.

In Monaco, someone’s always got a bigger boat. This is especially true on Grand Prix weekend. Some 200 vessels turned up for Formula One’s (F1) most famous street race this year, blaring their horns at the end of the 78 laps in honour of Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli’s flawless drive to victory. The biggest yacht in Port Hercule was the 122-metre-long Kismet, available for charter for £2.6 million a week. That’s not including a trackside mooring (£130,000), or a tip for the crew (normally 10% of the charter fee).

However, I discovered a way of doing the Monaco Grand Prix in similar style, with a much bigger boat, and an even louder horn. It boasts staff, service and facilities that I doubt any billionaire’s berth could surpass. Welcome aboard the Silver Ray.

The Silver Ray is the newest cruise ship by Silversea, a pioneer of the all-inclusive cruise and one of the undisputed industry leaders in what’s becoming a luxury arms race. At 244 metres, it dwarfs Kismet. You can peer down your nose at the Lürssen-built bateau from your 11^th floor rooftop pool, which is far more accommodating. It doesn’t have a big H on the bow deck like its navy-hulled neighbour, but Monaco’s heliport is five minutes by tender. And while I hear you complain that you can’t compare a private yacht to a bloody great ship, it’s a rather sleek-looking thing as cruisers go. Painted in elegant white and silver, there’s no Disneyfied gaudiness about this vessel. It hides its 55,000-tonne girth well, and its interior spaces are all handsomely designed.

Silversea keeps passenger numbers down. There are a maximum of 728 guests and a very VIP 1.3:1 ratio of guests to crew. With many guests off on shore activities each day, and others preferring to relax in their cabins, I often found I had an entire deck to myself. Never did I struggle to find a free sunbed.

My trip to the Grand Prix started ten days earlier, in Civitavecchia near Rome. Having checked into my very smart suite, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows and a vast terrace from which to watch the world drift by, I witnessed the arrival of a USA Secret Service motorcade and the decanting of Donald Trump Jr and his new bride. They were also heading to the Monaco Grand Prix. Not on the Silver Ray, you’ll be relieved to hear. They stepped onto the piddling 76-metre yacht Boardwalk V which belongs to the American ambassador to Italy. I imagine the UK’s man in Rome makes do with a canoe. The Boardwalk V has two helicopter pads but, again, I feel it was outclassed by my monumental transport. At this point I want to say the race was on, but while I tracked the Boardwalk V on MarineTraffic, the Silver Ray and I would take a more circuitous and leisurely route; F1 may be measured in thousandths of a second, but why not take your time getting there?

We headed south to Salerno, where I visited the ancient ruins of Pompeii; cruised back along the Amalfi coast and up to Livorno, in Tuscany, where I went truffling with three adorable lagotto romagnolo dogs, and toured medieval Lucca. From there we sailed north to Portofino, and then back through the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas to Porto Santo Stefano, where I tried hitting some golf balls at Italy’s only PGA course, Argentario. Then we set course west to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica and birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte. I explored all these places, and at sea I would stand on my port-facing terrace with the powerful binoculars that came with the room and imagine I was on the bridge; like Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi, I was the captain now. When I wasn’t writing on my terrace, or pretending to be a pirate, I would read by the pool under a cloudless sky. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was eating and drinking like a king. There are eight restaurants on board covering everything from fine dining to casual, Italian, French and Japanese. Three of the restaurants involve a small additional cost, and I never felt the need because the all-inclusive ones and house wines were so good.

There was also entertainment and talks, including from Top Gear’s first Stig, racing driver Perry McCarthy, who’s proven far more successful on the after-dinner circuit than he did on the F1 circuit, he won’t mind me saying.

Due north to Monaco we sailed for our two-day penultimate destination, and here’s where a cruise ship really comes into its own. It affords a spectacular view of the Principality. We anchored just outside Port Hercule, and there’s an advantage to this; unlike those staying in the cramped, overpriced berths within the harbour walls we weren’t kept awake by dreadful Dutch electronic dance music (EDM), nor were we awoken by the wail of racing engines first thing in the morning.

What you can’t quite do, even with my big binoculars and the ship’s 11^th floor elevation, is see the cars going around. Silversea has thought of that, so they’ll sell you access to one of the best views money can buy. Silversea took a large top floor apartment in Le Beau Rivage, just beyond Turn 1 and with overhead views of the cars as they screamed towards Casino Square. You could also see down to Tabac corner and across to the Swimming Pool section and the pits. This life-affirming vista inspired a young American lady with whom I was sharing a bit of balcony to seize the moment by sprinkling ashes over the track. I’m afraid that some of her father went in my drink. Still, waste not want not.

The price of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, minus the cremation, is from £8,000 for the whole 11-day itinerary, including all food and drink, and even the staff tip. That’s exceptional value, given the service exceeded the levels I’ve experienced in any five-star hotel, and that a tiny cabin on a nice, but modest yacht for Grand Prix weekend will run you about £28,000, with none of the Silver Ray’s facilities. The Beau Rivage terrace, with food and drink for Saturday and Sunday is priced at £3,967 per person.

From Monaco, we sailed day and night to Barcelona, where we disembarked. It felt liberating to have visited so many places without having to pack and unpack each time, or battle traffic and crowded airports, or really make any plans beyond which activities to tick. It’s like a hotel where the view changes every day, and which arrives directly into one of the hardest-to-access events in the world. For F1 fans, it’s a floating Paddock pass.

Mark Rothko was too busy gazing into the abyss to engage in small talk and throwaway lines. Yet every now and then he came up with a zinger. ‘A painting is not an image of an experience,’ he once declared. ‘It is an experience.’ Well said, sir. Though I suppose, if you were to split hairs, you might reasonably counter that there’s no reason why a painting can’t be both an experience and an image of an experience.

The perception is particularly pertinent to the magnificent new retrospective of the artist’s work, Rothko in Florence, on display at three venues in the city until August 23. The show raises all manner of interesting questions, one or two of which follow directly from that rare zinger of his. Does it matter where the art experience is experienced? And if so, why?

Most of the 70 or so paintings included in Rothko in Florence are on display at Palazzo Strozzi. They span the artist’s entire career and are presented chronologically: the figurative works of the 1930s; the ‘mythomorphic’ and ‘multiform’ works of the 1940s; the signature-style colour-field works of the 1950s and 60s.

The vast, grand and gloomy palazzo makes for a splendid showcase for Rothko’s vast, grand and gloomy paintings — though one of the most striking features of the exhibition is the manner in which it reveals the variation in Rothko’s emotional and chromatic palette.

The strange radiance of the late black-and-grey paintings, for example, is as irresistible as it is unlikely — trumped only, perhaps, by the final works, created shortly before the artist took his own life in 1970, in pale blue, tan and terracotta. These are beautifully hung in a smaller room that has been configured to recall the Rothko Chapel in Houston. Hats off to the curators — the artist’s son Christopher Rothko and Elena Geuna — for orchestrating this ravishing, uplifting finale to the exhibition.

Even if that were — so to speak — all, Rothko in Florence would be a remarkable exhibition, one that allows you to see the work of a familiar master in the round and from a fresh perspective. An experience, certainly — and one that is further enriched by the smaller displays at the two other satellite locations.

Rothko himself had little interest in travel. ‘His paintings travel much better than he ever did,’ as his son put it to me. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to overstate the importance to the artist of his three visits to Italy, in 1950, 1959 and 1966, or, having seen the new exhibition, to deny the bearing they had on his work.

The vestibule of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, or Laurentian Library, was conceived by Michelangelo in the decade or so before he quit Florence for Rome in 1534. It was, and remains, a uniquely disconcerting space: claustrophobic, despite its high ceilings; locked-in and seemingly without issue, despite its fine staircase; disorienting, despite its simplicity. There’s something almost occult about its oddity. Rothko loved it. ‘He achieved just the kind of feeling I’m after. He makes viewers feel they’re trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the walls.’

For Rothko in Florence, two preliminary studies for the Seagram Murals project have been hung at the foot of the library stairs. Though relatively small by Rothko’s standards, they reverberate in this setting with the force of a double thunderclap.

I happened to be standing alongside Christopher when I stepped into the vestibule and, after casting my eyes about for a minute or two, caught sight and took stock of the paintings. Like finding a loose pair of eyeballs on the back seat of a taxi. I turned to him and remarked on their disproportionate impact in this setting. Did he, I asked, have a Plan B, in case for any reason these particular paintings didn’t quite work in situ? ‘This is Plan B,’ he laughed. ‘Plan A was to use different paintings in different positions. But when I got here to hang them yesterday, I realised that wasn’t going to work, because of the angle of the light from the windows in the west wall. Luckily I’d packed some spares, and it turns out they work pretty well here.’

A gentler, but no less arresting, effect is achieved in what is now the Museo Nazionale di San Marco, formerly the monastery where, roughly 100 years before Michelangelo, the Renaissance master and Dominican friar Fra Angelico worked (though didn’t, as is often supposed, live full-time; he bunked down at San Domenico, in the nearby hill town of Fiesole).

Rothko came to San Marco twice in two days in 1950 and once again in 1966. Five of his works have been installed alongside Angelico’s frescoes in five of the now vacated monks’ cells — tiny, with irregularly shaped whitewashed stone walls, some with small windows, others illuminated only by Angelico’s exquisitely rendered scenes from the gospels.

‘Think of it as if you were overhearing a respectful conversation between two masters,’ Elena Guena suggested. Simply to set the Rothkos alongside them in this fashion invites the viewer to look for similarities between the two artists, not only in terms of colour and tone, though these can be readily observed, but also in terms of attitude and intention.

The differences between the two artists surely outnumber their similarities by a gigantic margin. Yet the comparative exercise is not without value. Later I spoke to Carl Streckhle, an art historian, curator and authority on Fra Angelico, who agreed with Elena's notion of dialogue, only adding — with a poetic flourish — that this is a dialogue which occurs ‘not so much across time but in a world without time’.

I was in Florence as a guest of the Hotel Savoy — a marvellous hotel in hotel terms and an active participant in the city’s cultural conversation. I’ve stayed at the Savoy often over the years and can attest to the seriousness of its commitment to the Arts — a commitment expressed not only in its partnerships with high-profile institutions such as the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, but also through its own programme of talks, workshops and events.

Thanks to the relationships the hotel has fostered in the artistic community, the access it can provide to guests is fantastic (you have only to ask and arrangements will be made and doors will creak open on their ancient hinges).

Moreover, its Artists’ Suites are among the finest hotel rooms in Florence (my own favourite is number 403, from one of the several balconies of which you can see Palazzo Strozzi across the Piazza della Repubblica) — and its impeccable, whimsical little Bar Artemisia (named and decorated in honour of the immortal Artemisia Gentileschi) is likewise one of the city’s best.

After a full day’s worth of Rothko in Florence, it was to Bar Artemisia that I repaired for a glass of something chilled and interesting. ‘What have you got for a weary art-pilgrim with sore feet and a head full of Abstract Expressionism?’ I asked the genial head barman, Federico Galli. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘perhaps I could interest you in one of the cocktails on our new Maestro of Colours menu…’ Of course — I should’ve known they’d come up with a special menu of half a dozen cocktails ingeniously mixed to mimic paintings in the Rothko show.

I went for the Nocturne Vermillion, a blackberry-enhanced variation on the classic Negroni, which, in its meticulously suspended blocks of moody colour, did indeed bear an uncanny resemblance to Rothko’s Untitled: Red and Black 1953.

At dinner in the Savoy that evening I sat next to Arturo Galansino, director general of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. This was a couple of days ahead of the opening of Rothko in Florence, but already the talk of the town was of little else and it was perfectly clear that the show would be a smash hit. I congratulated Arturo on his string of successes at Palazzo Strozzi over the past few years — Tracey Emin, Angelico, now Rothko. The sequence, he insisted, was important: something challenging, something safe, something challenging. He said his intention was to ‘wake Florence up gently, one jolt at a time’.

After dinner, despite the lateness of the hour and the soreness of my feet, I took a long stroll. For me, there are few cities more agreeable by night than Florence. Emptied of tour groups, its stony streets throng instead with friendly ghosts. In Florence, you don’t have to be a Rothko-sized genius to commune with the shades of Michelangelo and Angelico — whether you like it or not, there’s simply no avoiding them. Was there ever a city so densely populated by brilliant minds, so tightly packed with bright ideas as quattrocento Florence? Or one where the gap between present and past is so narrow and so apt to vanish altogether?

I can think of one, though only one: Cambridge, another small, beautiful, compressed city on a river that flourished spectacularly in the 14th century as both a transmitter, incubator and a repository of art and ideas.

Vladimir Nabokov devotes a few droll chapters of his memoir Speak, Memory to his time at Trinity College, Cambridge, in the early 1920s. Though distracted by girls and football and his own sense of émigré dislocation, he was far from oblivious to his surroundings. ‘I thought of Milton, and Marvell, and Marlowe, with more than a tourist’s thrill as I passed beside the revered walls,’ he writes. ‘Nothing one looked at was shut off in terms of time, everything was a natural opening into it, so that one’s mind grew accustomed to work in a particularly pure and ample environment, and because, in terms of space, the narrow lane, the cloistered lawn, the dark archway hampered one physically, that yielding diaphanous texture of time was, by contrast, especially welcome to the mind, just as a sea view from a window exhilarates one hugely, even though one does not care for sailing.’

Sail on to Florence, then, and take in the stupendous sea view of Rothko’s work that is presently on offer there, in the company of Michelangelo, Angelico and that astonishing city’s whole heavenly host.

'Rothko in Florence' is at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Museo di San Marco and Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana until August 23, 2026.

Rooms at at the Hotel Savoy Florence start from about £600.

It was at Tigh na Coille, a secluded cottage on a Highland hillside overlooking Loch Ness, that I idly flipped open a well-placed copy of A Place In Scotland, a 2024 interiors volume by designer Banjo Beale and photographer Alexander Baxter, and spied its opening statement. ‘Something is happening,’ claimed Beale. ‘A new confidence — and inspiring new voices — are redefining what Scottish style really is.’ ‘Well, quite,’ I thought, surveying the elevated Scandi-chic stylings around me courtesy of WildLand, the pioneering conservation-meets-hospitality group whose sprawling Aldourie estate we were at the edge of. If not quite new, WildLand can most definitely lay claim to being one of Scotland’s most inspiring voices.

I’ve been a regular visitor to the Highlands since 2012. Glance up at my byline above and you’ll spot an unmistakably Scottish surname; its roots are up here and I suppose the clan lands spoke to me. In fact, they quickly became my favourite place on Earth. Yet the idea that ‘something is happening’ was one that had been percolating only on recent visits and here Beale had laid it bare in print.

Natural beauty apart, the allure of the Highlands is its unhurried pace. It’s a place where things unfold rather than arrive. Photographer Robbie Lawrence spent five years photographing Highland gatherings for a book called Long Walk Home, recruiting decorated Scottish poet John Burnside to write its introduction. ‘Scottishness itself is as much myth as it is history,’ said Burnside. ‘Myths let us roam, they make space for the imagination, for reinvention…’ It might not be the imagined backdrop to the modern notion of relentless ‘creativity’, but innovation trickles like spring water here if you look closely enough.

Benjamin Morgan agrees. Morgan is a creative producer at Wild Gorse, a Belladrum-based fine art floristry studio that has styled everything from fashion events to Vogue-splashed weddings. ‘The Highlands is steeped in craftsmanship,’ he says. ‘We’re surrounded by an abundance of inspiration. There is space to be creative.’

Whisky, of course, has long been the most well-known canvas for creativity in the Highlands — its fans making pilgrimages to sample it at source; its bottles exported to every corner of the globe. Recent years, however, have seen a palpable acceleration among the big luxury-backed players. The theatrical Russell Sage makeover of Ardbeg House on Islay, the tasteful grassy Teletubbies domes installed at The Macallan’s unconventional Craigellachie headquarters, the Harrison Ford-fronted reboot of Glenmorangie are all cases in point.

Then there is WildLand. The brainchild of Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife, Anne, it began as a conservation project in 2006, acquiring swathes of land with a bold 200-year vision to restore them ‘to their former magnificent natural state and repair the harm that man has inflicted on them’. The hospitality arm exists to help both fund that vision and educate guests on the reasons behind it. For instance, Povlsen had spent much of his childhood exploring the Glenfeshie estate in the Cairngorms and it had made a lasting impression. It was the first piece of land they purchased (the Povlsens, with 1%, are now Scotland’s biggest private landowners) and, aptly, where I began my WildLand tour.

Head naturalist Steve Liddle led the charge, first through the fords of the Feshie river in a Land Rover and then on foot, past the backdrop of rolling Munros that inspired Edwin Landseer to paint The Monarch of the Glen here in 1851. The quickly rattled-off stats caused jaws to drop: more than 6.5 million trees have been hand planted since 2014, the treeline rejuvenated to a level not seen in more than a century. A zero-tolerance policy on sapling-hungry deer has seen an average of 25 per square kilometre reduced to only two. Young deerstalker Finlay Davidson jokes about the notorious summer midges putting him off his aim, but insists on ‘taking every precaution to get a clean shot’. (In a newly agreed scheme, the resulting venison gets delivered to local schools.)

As old fencing has been torn down around the estate, Liddle’s conservation team has grown; 40 of them — Davidson included — now work on deer management, peatland preservation, mapping an extensive biodiversity index and conducting wildlife-impact assessments. (‘First, there’s habitat restoration, then there’s species return,’ explains Liddle, referring to the likes of raptors, beavers and wildcats — lynx are mooted to follow.) At one point, we stopped at a stream and were encouraged to drink the straight-from-the-mountain water. If these lands have inspired creativity in others, here the simple creativity of the land itself is given centre stage.

The next WildLand estate lay three hours north in Sutherland, proudly known as Scotland’s least-explored region, where the Highlands relax into an even more widescreen aspect ratio. Here, the seven-bedroom Kinloch Lodge and Kyle-of-Tongue-view Lundies House take up prime positions at the very tip of our isles, bathed, as I arrived, in late-evening, near-Arctic-Circle sun. That redefined Scottish style heralded by Beale is particularly present here owing to the work of Ruth Kramer, WildLand’s director of concept and design, who cites the stories and exhibits of the Highland Folk Museum and the ‘unhurried nature’ of the local area as inspiration for her relaxed, textural take on Scandi-Scottish fusion. A dreamscape wallpaper in its dining room and artist Claire Basler’s floral mural in my room, Isla, add a sense of flair to Lundies in particular. Nearby, WildLand has had a hand in resurrecting a local bakehouse and store, Burr’s of Tongue, a gathering spot for locals between trips down to the beach.

Further east, at the tip of Loch Hope, sits WildLand’s most ambitious project yet, Hope, a decade in the making and now, finally, open. Part hotel, part activity centre, part Scottish safari lodge — it’s so impressive in scope it almost defies description.

Even seeing it in its unfinished, undressed state, it was clear that this will be an opening to truly test Sutherland’s ‘least-explored’ claim. As the gateway to 114,000 acres of beach, hills, loch and woodland, not to mention its pole position on the fabled NC500 route, its crowd-pulling potential warranted some extraordinary attention to detail. Each of its external and internal wooden planks, for example, was chosen personally by Povlsen and nailed into place. Every stone-carved shower tray took 150 hours to fashion by hand. Some 225 miles of drystone wall have been erected in the area.

Before flitting back to the shores of Loch Ness for a final night in the comfort of Aldourie Castle, WildLand’s most overtly opulent stay, I stared out at Ben Hope as work on the lodge continued around me. ‘Something really is happening,’ I thought.

WildLand’s self-catering cottages start from £275 per night; hotels from £525 per night, on a full-board basis; and exclusive-use properties from £3,000 per night, on a full-board basis with an in-house chef and conservation-led experiences.

Rooms at Hope start from £1,100 per night, on a full-board basis, and include guided daily experiences and access to outdoor equipment.

Visit the website for more information and to book.

This feature originally appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

It’s been said that the United States of America is not a country, it’s an idea. In that case, so is the tiny principality of Monaco; a visionary sovereign nation conjured from the imagination of a Victorian prince that’s been polished and perfumed for the better part of two centuries.

Its story as a playground for the rich and infamous begins in 1865 with the opening of its Beaux-Arts Casino de Monte-Carlo. His Serene Highness Charles III commissioned it to stave off bankruptcy and, by Jove, it worked.

It was an ingenious move and not his last. Income tax for residents was abolished four years later. Charles III’s successors kept up the momentum, leading Monaco to build some exceptionally luxurious hotels, become a banking Mecca and home to one of the world’s finest oceanographic museums, have its own football team and, since 1929, host the annual Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.

Aristocrats, industrialists, film stars and, eventually, oligarchs with a fondness for improbable wristwatches followed. The Port Hercule attracted increasingly large and splendid motor yachts and, throughout, the state provided Fort Knox levels of safety and security, fostered a glamourous social, cultural and sporting scene, and promised discretion.

Three-quarters of a square mile of concrete spilling onto the Mediterranean in the shadow of the Alpes-Maritimes, Monaco is, as much as anything, a triumph of branding, a high-rise ghetto fantasy of unapologetic ostentation, where the Dom Pérignon is chilled, the supercars are loud, the blondes are pneumatic and the taxman is nowhere to be found. That’s the old stereotype of Monaco, however. Changes are afoot — and it’s time for a rebrand.

When I started visiting more than 25 years ago, it was nearly impossible to find anyone living in Monaco between the ages of 18 and 60. The young would leave for university and jobs in Paris, London, Frankfurt and New York. They wouldn’t return until they’d retired.

Now, families with small children are rolling in. Many come from the fintech world. Young professionals and entrepreneurs are drawn to the increasingly dynamic energy of the place, as well its stability, safety and the quality of life: there are amazing sporting facilities and La Turbie, which rises behind the principality, is a popular cycling challenge.

Milan, Geneva and the Alps are an easy drive and Nice airport is only seven minutes away (by helicopter). Such is the demand for international schooling that the British School of Monaco opened in 2022.

Monaco has long attracted wealth, but what it’s beginning to draw now is activity. Instead of simply storing money (and some very fine wine, if the cellars of the Hotel de Paris are anything to go by), people are coming to Monaco to build companies, to network, to innovate and to use it as their European hub.

As well as the 24-hour ballet of Bugattis and Rolls-Royces in the Place du Casino, you’re likely to see prams, school-run traffic and coffee meetings at the Café de Paris where people are huddled over PowerPoints, not merely watching the world go by.

The most visible manifestation of Monaco’s changes is physical. It is no longer constrained by geography. Where once it built upwards, now, it’s building outwards having reclaimed land from the sea and built projects such as Mareterra, a new district of about 15 acres extending from Portier into the Mediterranean.

Residences have been built by ‘starchitects’ such as Renzo Piano, Lord Foster and Tadao Ando. It’s a contemporary antidote to the rather ugly apricot-coloured tower blocks that sprung up in the Larvotto, Monte-Carlo and La Condamine districts in the 1970s and 80s. One residence that has gone very much up, rather than out, is the 49-storey Odeon Tower that was inaugurated in 2015; the first high-rise to be sanctioned since the 1980s and which stands out thanks to its reflective blue glass.

The new architectural direction for Monaco isn’t only about space, it’s about tone. Design is softer around the edges, less Baroque. Glass and greenery has replaced marble severity. It’s an attempt to make it feel calming, rather than ostentatious.

The same impulse is visible in its bars and restaurants. The food and nightlife scene is being reshaped to appeal to a younger, more international crowd; less baccarat and tuxedos, more DJs, rooftop terraces, beach bars and casual dining. The maximalist Amazónico has been imported from Mayfair, together with its Peruvian and Japanese food, and, hidden beneath the restaurant, you’ll find the jungle-themed Selva Monte-Carlo, with deep house and electronic music of the kind more normally found in Berlin and Ibiza (the Monaco clubbing scene has, until now, been as cheesy as it is pretentious).

Maona Monte-Carlo has transplanted Mykonos energy, where dancing on tables is encouraged. The Instagram-friendly Maison FonFon combines Riviera kitsch with yacht-club chic and a Saint-Tropez buzz. Stamping its hipster credentials for the first time, Monaco also has its own craft brewery — the Brasserie de Monaco — which pours €10 pints (half price during happy hour).

There’s strategy in all this. Monaco’s old money has largely ascended to the gates of St Peter to explain their assets. To remain relevant, Monaco must court the next wave: founders, financiers, creative types and digital nomads who can live anywhere and, therefore, choose carefully.

Here’s the pivot: Monaco is no longer selling haute luxury, it’s selling lifestyle infrastructure: safety, connectivity, climate and efficiency. It’s a place where you can swim before breakfast, run a hedge fund in the morning, play some padel with your friends after a fresh seafood lunch, board a plane in Nice at 6pm and be in London in time for dinner with a client. The tax benefits remain neon lit, but they are now part of a broader package rather than the sole attraction.

Of course, Monaco is only accessible to those with the funds. Residency requires a minimum €500,000 deposit in a Monegasque bank. Property costs €50,000 per square metre and there are restaurants that’ll charge you €150 for a starter — although the Tip Top pizzeria, established in 1938, will do you a decent margherita for €19 and McDonald’s charges the same as it does in Paris, with the bonus of a Mediterranean view.

The old stereotype — this static, glittering enclave filled with diamond-laden Chanel-suited grannies with huge sunglasses — is coming to an end. It left no room for growth, only repetition. The world has moved on and Monaco is catching up. It’s experimenting and recalibrating. You see it in small moments; the technology entrepreneur discussing funding rounds in rooms that were reserved for gossip. Children on scooters in their school uniforms, navigating streets that are normally the preserve of Lamborghinis. Restaurants without white tablecloths, serving craft beer and loud hip-hop.

Monaco remains a spectator sport. Nowhere else is wealth so conspicuous and so concentrated. The casino still encourages black tie (although it’s no longer mandatory), and the yachts get bigger and bigger. The mythology remains for those who want it. Yet the cast is changing, as is the stage set. The roulette wheel still spins, but it’s no longer the only game in town.

This feature originally appeared in the June 3, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The true story of the foundation of Rapperswil, an exceptionally pretty medieval town on the northern shore of Lake Zurich, is long, complicated and, unless you’re a serious Swiss history buff, a bit of a fun-sponge. The made-up story is short, simple and charming.

Legend has it that at some point, in about the year 1229, a certain Rudolf, Count of Altendorf, was out hunting with his wife, Mechtild. His dogs chased a deer into a cave on a hillside, where two fawns were discovered, together with their terrified mother. Kindly Mechtild took pity on the creatures and persuaded Rudolf to spare them. Shortly afterwards, the doe reappeared and came to lay her head on Mechtild’s lap in gratitude. Rudolf took this as a sign from Heaven and resolved there and then to up sticks from nearby Altendorf and build a new castle on this blessed hill and a town — Rapperswil — on its slopes.

The castle and the town are still there. The deer are, too, or, in any case, a herd of a dozen or so that are conceivably very similar to the deer of legend, grazing happily within the castle grounds.

Rapperswil’s castle and deer park are a big draw, as are Circus Knie and Knies Kinderzoo, a petting zoo run by the same family. The local ice-hockey team, the Rapperswil-Jona Lakers, is routinely mocked by supporters of other teams because its home arena is next door to the Kinderzoo.

Rapperswil is also much admired for its picturesque lakeside promenade, like something from an earlier, gentler, hoopskirted, boater-hatted time, and its traditional, no-frills badi or public swimming enclosure — likewise a place of nostalgia, albeit with pizza and hot dogs.

Most of all, however, Rapperswil is famous for its roses. Between May and October, the stony surfaces of the Old Town are softened and enlivened by tens of thousands of blooms, concentrated in four main gardens. Each has its own particular history and character, but their collective effect is overwhelming.

Setting off from my conveniently located base at the Hotel Speer, part of the Sorell group and recently crisply renovated, I spent the best part of a day exploring the town and its gardens in the company of a local guide, Astrid Steiner-Brändli.

Two of the gardens are planted on land belonging to a Capuchin monastery. One of them used to be an orchard. The monks, Astrid reassured me, are compensated for the loss of their fruit-related income. Presumably, this is a modest sum, as the plot could scarcely have provided enough fruit to keep the brothers in jam through the winter.

Another of the gardens, the smallest and quirkiest, was planted by Lennart Bernadotte, himself a colourful figure, a grandson of Gustaf V of Sweden who was stripped of his princely and ducal titles for daring to marry a commoner against his family’s wishes.

The fourth is a garden for the blind, planted with fragrant varieties and with signs in braille — a place of transcendent wonder. Science tells us that our sensory system can identify five core tastes: sweet, salt, sour, bitter and umami, but taste only accounts for a small proportion of our overall experience of flavour, possibly as little as 5%. The rest comes from smell. We have about 9,000 taste buds, but between five million and 10 million receptors capable of detecting smell. Smell is the only one of our senses that bypasses the brain’s switchboard, the thalamus, connecting directly to the limbic regions, which deal with emotions, memory and arousal or stimulation.

It was in the garden for the blind that I recalled a visit to Inveraray Castle, in the west of Scotland, with my parents, several years ago. My mother was, at that time, in the grip of quite advanced Parkinson’s. There were days when she found speech so difficult she simply stopped talking. It was one of those days. She was silent as we wandered through the castle, among the endless suits of armour, tapestries, Meissen china and other Campbell keepsakes, but when we stepped out into the garden and began to walk among the avenues of shrubbery, she perked up immediately. ‘Hibiscus syriacus; Digitalis purpurea; Centaurea cyanus,’ she said. ‘Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’ — ah, you are beautiful!’ She greeted every plant by name. Now and then, she would pause and breathe in the fragrance of a flower. This went on and on: the naming, the sniffing, until it became clear to me that she could have done it blindfolded, all day. I was the one left speechless.

Fluency of that kind can be acquired and added to — and sadly lost — at almost any point in a person’s life, although I suppose that, as with foreign languages, it is most readily picked up sooner rather than later, absorbed naturally and unconsciously in early childhood.

In her book First Bite, the food historian Bee Wilson describes a 2009 experiment in which electrodes were attached to the heads of a group of French men and women, half of whom were of Algerian descent, half of whom were not. They were then obliged to smell fresh mint leaves, with the electrodes measuring the intensity of their responses.

Those of Algerian descent showed a significantly higher level of neural activity than the rest of the group. Might this indicate the extent to which, for them, the taking of mint tea is not merely a casual or occasional pleasure, but a matter of profound, soul-deep significance? At any rate, the result seems not only to support the view that memory is the most important factor when accounting for our lifelong passions for certain smells and their associated flavours, but also, intriguingly, to raise the possibility that this is a process that begins before we are born.

Thus it was that I found myself in pieces in the garden for the blind in Rapperswil — one piece of me in the luminous, fragrant present, other pieces in the rose gardens of my childhood, another piece by my late mother’s side on a neatly raked gravel footpath in the grounds of Inveraray.

Whoever recommended stopping to smell the roses was onto something — and there can be few lovelier places to do so than Rapperswil.

The writer was a guest of Switzerland Tourism. He flew from Scotland to Switzerland with Edelweiss, which operates flights between Edinburgh and Zurich twice a week. He stayed at the Sorell Hotel Speer Rapperswill; rooms cost from £153 a night bed-and-breakfast. Click here for more information on Rapperswil.

This feature originally appeared in the May 20, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Some may question why the Six Senses global chain of five-star hotels and spas chose to open its inaugural British venture in this part of London, but it seems fitting that this restorative retreat is set within one of the capital’s most elegant landmarks.

With its majestic colonnaded Portland stone façade, distinctive rooftop cupolas and elaborate Edwardian shop-front glazing, not to mention its proximity to Hyde Park and Notting Hill, the Whiteley building was once a bustling emporium. At its height, Yorkshireman William Whiteley’s retail empire — which started life as a tiny drapery on Westbourne Grove in 1863: think Woman of Substance vibes — employed 6,000 staff, featured an in-store theatre, had a golf course on the roof and promised its genteel clientele the chance to purchase anything ‘from a pin to an elephant’.

The irony then, that this statuesque property that closed as a shopping centre in 2018 has been reinvented, as part of a £1.5 billion pound refurbishment by the architects Foster + Partners, as an achingly cool, health-conscious and quietly luxurious hotel was not lost on me. I also could not help but wonder what Whiteley (who was shot dead in 1907 by a man claiming to be his illegitimate son) would make of the way his pride and joy, known as ‘the Harrods of Bayswater’, looks now.

The 109-room Six Senses London opened on March 1, 2026. Once you’ve entered the serene, hushed and plant-filled lobby — dominated by a dramatic, black-iron and marble-stepped spiral staircase that ascends to the third floor — it’s clear that the space affords a peaceful refuge from the hurry and noise outside.

As soon as I walked in, I felt awash with a sense of calm and tranquillity. I was expecting a high level of attentive service, which was quickly confirmed by Egesa on reception, who warmly welcomed me with a spritz of a ginger spray, after I’d selected it from a deck of botanical tarot-style cards. However, I was not prepared for the way that the glazed rotunda (directly above the circular bar in the Six Senses Space, the brand’s discreet — and first ever — private members’ club) infuses the first floor with light and a steadying atmosphere of stillness.

Our junior suite was a triumph of clean lines, furnished with modern, Art Deco-inspired curved furniture, velvet sofas and a round table to eat at. The generous, twin-sinked bathroom, with a bath plus a shower within a wet room, was perfect for two girlfriends getting ready for an event. A separate loo was a bonus, too, although I never quite got to grips with its heated seat and integrated bidet.

The food, served at the Whiteley’s Kitchen — either in the colonial-style restaurant (white walls, ivy-green leather banquettes and rattan chairs) or outside on the olive-tree studded terrace in the sun-drenched central courtyard — offers a vegetable-first menu of enticing small plates, such as courgettes romana with fermented peppers, green chard rolls with mushroom XO and ricotta nettle agnolotti.

This philosophy of nourishing, sustainably-sourced nutrition was also in evidence at breakfast, where you can have what you want, fuelled by exquisite coffee from Brazil and Rwanda, and help yourself from a ‘wellness’ trolley, laden with gut-friendly kombucha, kimchi and sauerkraut, plus turmeric shots, made in the hotel’s ‘fermentation lab’.

Having been at a party the night before, we did not fancy wine with our lunch, but were pleasantly surprised when the Wine Director, Eugenio, recommended a delicious non-alcoholic alternative in the shape of a glass of Feral N°1 White beet Hop Szechuan Pepper, which was fresh, citrussy and spicy.

The standout factor of this establishment, however, has to be the spa and gym spanning nearly 24,000 square feet (reportedly the largest at a London hotel and the first to offer a magnesium bath, alongside a soon-to-be-opened 65 foot indoor lap pool) on the lower ground floor. Descending the steps to this subterranean idyll, it’s impossible not to gasp at the myriad suspended creamy-white handmade porcelain petals in Ula Saniawa of Unit 89’s sculpture above the shallow pool in the spa reception area.

I was able to exhale further when Nuryiye, one of the sage green linen-clad therapists, treated me to one of the very best massages I have ever had. Involving body rocking, vigorous dry brushing and a sound bath, the treatment — which was so blissful, I did not want it to end — concentrated on my calves, tummy and shoulders to promote lymphatic drainage. There is also a Biohack Recovery Lounge, supported by a HUM2N Longevity Clinic offering medical-grade diagnostics and screenings.

Finally, in what might be a nod to the property’s heritage and a desire to nurture health and welfare by combining the latest gym-equipment technology — such as compression boots and electro-muscle stimulation — with age-old remedies, the hotel’s wellness ethos includes an intriguing Alchemy Bar.

Designed to look like an old, wood-panelled apothecary, with countless drawers and jars containing all manner of herbs, spices and concoctions — as well as dried flowers hanging from the ceiling—this is where the hotel’s herbalists assess guests’ individual needs and come up with a tincture designed to address their personal circumstances through the healing power of plants. My bespoke recipe — delivered by Jade the next morning, after an hour-long interview the previous day — included oat straw, rose, skullcap, lemon balm, motherwort and hawthorn, to ease anxiety, mental fatigue and general overwhelm by diluting it with water and drinking twice a day. All of which ensured that I left with a lasting, and mood-enhancing, souvenir of my time at a genuinely fascinating and thoughtfully-run hotel.

Rooms at Six Senses London start from £800.

Summer has arrived on the French Mediterranean, where the magical light, emerald waters and idyllic landscapes have always attracted countless artists, and an increasing number of private art foundations. One recent addition to the scene is Villa Carmignac, on l'île de Porquerolles, which recently welcomed the season with an exhibition titled ‘Sea, Pop & Sun’, celebrating Pop Art from the 1960s to today.

A short ferry ride from the mainland, Porquerolles is a world away from the glitz of the Riviera. Seven kilometres wide by three kilometres long, it's a bubble of sun and serenity, though forts scattered around the island attest to historic invasions by everyone from pirates, to the British navy. In 1912, the Belgian entrepreneur François-Joseph Fournier, who made a fortune mining gold and silver in Mexico, bought the island as a wedding gift for his wife. He turned it into an agricultural community, building a church and school, planting fruit trees and vineyards.

The French State purchased most of the island from Fournier's descendants in 1971, and since 1985 it has had protected status as part of the Port-Cros National Park. A few hundred residents live full-time in the port village, and only 6,000 visitors a day are permitted on island in the high season. Most of the terrain is wild, home to an amazing diversity of flora and fauna. Car-free aside from service vehicles, it is a paradise for hikers and cyclists, with 54 kilometers of marked dirt-and-gravel trails. The air is scented with pine and eucalyptus, and punctuated by the sounds of birds, from the coo of mourning doves to the squawk of wild pheasants. (When the temperatures rise, these will be joined by the constant buzz of cicadas.) Rugged cliffs offer jaw-dropping views in all directions. Many people come just for the beaches, including one, Plage Notre Dame, named the most beautiful in Europe, its limpid waters sparkling like a jewel.

In the 1980s, the architect Henri Vidal transformed a Porquerolles farmhouse into a family villa with vineyards. The following decade, Edouard Carmignac, a French investment banker, attended Vidal's daughter's wedding and was smitten by the site. In 2013, he bought it as a place to share his impressive art collection.

‘People thought he was crazy,’ says Edouard's son Charles, who now runs the Carmignac Foundation. Since the Villa was in a national park, its exterior could not be touched. Transporting artworks across the water was sure to be a headache. The locals were afraid a museum would change the nature of their beloved island. Undeterred, Carmignac built an exhibition space underground, with large white rooms and natural light through a transparent, water-filled ceiling. He involved the locals from the start, granting them free entrance and invitations to exhibition openings.

The Villa Carmignac is not just a museum, it's an experience. Only 50 visitors are permitted every half-hour, to ensure intimacy with the artworks, and they walk the cool stone floors barefoot. Outside, contemporary sculptures are scattered throughout a 15-hectare garden with Italian stone pines, olive trees, shrubland, prairie and forest.

‘The interactions with art here are different than in a city,’ says Charles. ‘You don't come between two business meetings — you have to spend a day, take a boat, it's a whole thing. The fact that it's a voyage allows you to mentally prepare. Taking the boat cleanses your spirit in a way.’

Curated by Anna Karina Hofbauer and Dieter Buchhart, ‘Sea, Pop & Sun’ features more than 80 artworks from a number of different collections, including that of Edouard. The financier was highly influenced by his time in New York in the 1980s; he was a frequent visitor to Warhol's Factory and had his portrait painted by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Along with important pieces by Basquiat, Warhol and Haring, he owns the largest private collection of Roy Lichtenstein in France.

The exhibition's name references a song, Sea, Sex & Sun, by the ultimate French libertine, Serge Gainsbourg. Dieter Buchhart says the show's underlying theme is freedom in all its forms. ‘In Pop Art, this means individual freedom, but also self-experimentation. Whether in the US, the counterculture Summer of Love, or the European movement of 1968, it points to a fundamental shift in the concept of freedom.’ Though Pop Art was dominated by men, the curators took care to highlight female artists, such as Evelyne Axell and Marjorie Strider, whose racy works proclaimed their sexual independence.

Summer motifs run throughout the show: beaches and swimming pools, surfboards and sailboats, palm trees and kissing couples. The colours are vibrant, the vibe joyous — though if you scratch beneath the shiny surface, Pop Art can also be dark.

Songs from the era are piped in to match each room's contents. The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset accompanies four Warhol prints of the setting sun in different pastel shades. The Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds accompanies a cluster of Niki de Saint Phalle's dancing Nana balloons, hanging from the ceiling. They exemplify the democratisation of consumer culture, and are also conveniently for sale in the museum shop.

The California Dreamin’ room evokes the allure of the American West. One painting, Lost in Hollywood, is a depiction of two lonely palm trees by the contemporary Danish artist Kasper Sonne, who created it as a comment on displacement after learning that palms are not native to California — just one more myth in the land of make-believe.

Dwayne Hanson's hyperrealistic surfer boy is freedom incarnate, shown in a room with Lichtenstein's reclining Mermaid and a 2020 painting by Derrick Adams of three black people relaxing in a swimming pool — a pointed reference to the history of segregation in America, where not everyone is afforded the same access to leisure.

French contemporary artist Théo Mercier created a sand sculpture in situ, a mutant assemblage of shells, sea creatures and industrial waste. It occupies the Villa's centre space, under the water ceiling, sunlight pouring through and shimmering against the artwork. This sculpture will last only as long as the exhibition, then the sand will be carted off to one of Porquerolles’ beaches.

The visit winds up in the garden, in the sun. A strong and very personal painting by the young British artist Marcus Cope contrasts the innocence of childhood with the shadowy menace of the adult world. Nearby, Tracey Emin's plaintive yellow neon sign reads ‘I Followed You To The Sun’.

A reflective bronze ball by Sherrie Levine, Beach Ball after Lichtenstein, sits on a pedestal surrounded by windows, literally drawing us in, says curator Anna Karina Hofbauer. ‘You, the visitor, become part of the work and part of the surroundings of the exhibition, then suddenly you see the reflection of nature outside’ — the myriad greens, the dazzling blue sky, the turquoise sea. If the experience of seeing art changes with the context, this one is difficult to beat.

‘Sea, Pop & Sun’ runs until November 1, 2026. Visit the Fondation Carmignac and official Provence Mediterranée tourist office websites for more information.

The last great challenge in aviation was to circumnavigate the globe non-stop in a hot air balloon. Rival teams comprised of the world’s top aeronauts and billionaire adventurers were in a race to enter the history books. In 1999, the Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard and a British flying instructor, Brian Jones, teamed up to beat Richard Branson and company to the prize. Their Bristol-built craft, the Breitling Orbiter 3, was a capsule that looked like a mini-submarine, with portholes and dozens of propane tanks strapped to it. The silver balloon, towering 55 metres above, was the shape of a giant cocktail shaker. It is a story that’s been revisited, 27 years later, in a new documentary called The Balloonists. Bertrand and Brian would have to overcome extreme weather, a near-fatal technical failure and mental and physical exhaustion as they cruised at the same altitude as airliners for 20 days straight.

It’s a tale of derring-do that was imagined for centuries. In 1783, a soldier-aristo, Marquis François d’Arlandes and a physics teacher, Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier became the first human beings to fly. Their craft was an untethered hot air balloon, invented by brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, and it floated over Paris for 25 minutes. The hot air balloon became a symbol of Romanticism, and was prominent in art and literature, such as the works of Jules Verne. In the 20th century, things moved fast. In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright took to the North Carolina sky in the first airplane, built from wood and cotton. Sixty-six years later, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins rocketed to the moon and back. With the first successful airplane circumnavigation without refuelling having been achieved in 1984, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, there was just the one major aviation record left to achieve: to fly non-stop around the world in a balloon, passing through each meridian and achieving a minimum distance of 22,859 miles carried only by the wind. No one knew if it was even possible.

Eleven-year-old Bertrand witnessed the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969, with his own eyes. That’s when he decided he would become an explorer. There was a family reputation to uphold. His father, Jacques, was a famous oceanographer and engineer, and a guest of honour in Cape Canaveral. In 1960, he rode a submarine 10,911 metres down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the planet’s deepest abyss. Bertrand’s grandfather, the wild-haired, moustachioed and bespectacled Auguste, was the inspiration for the Tintin character Professor Calculus (or Professeur Tournesol, in the French editions). He was a physicist, inventor and balloonist who became the first to reach the stratosphere in 1931 in a capsule built by a beer-barrel cooper. The Star Trek character Jean-Luc Picard is another nod to the Piccard legacy. In total, six members of the Piccard family have been pioneering balloonists. ‘This is such a massive cliché in the filmmaking world, but this is like a Wes Anderson film that’s also a true story,’ says John Dower, The Balloonists’ director.

The hyper-focused Bertrand had already suffered a couple of failed attempts with Orbiters 1 and 2. ‘I learned that after a failure, you should not try again the same way,’ says Piccard. ‘This is probably where Breitling Orbiter 3 succeeded where many of my competitors failed, because they tried the same thing over and over with exactly the same results. I always failed for a different reason, until there were no more reasons to fail.’ Orbiter 3 was all-new; new technology, new strategy, new overflight permissions and new trajectories. But the weather is hard to predict.

‘Bertrand falls out with a lot of people,’ notes director John (Lockerbie, Sophie – A Murder in West Cork, Louis Theroux’s My Scientology Movie), ‘and I think we can all identify with that in the workplace.’ Somewhat irascible, he’d split with two co-pilots when, a week before his third and final attempt, he asked his trusted technician Brian Jones if he’d like to fly. Brian, a gentle, disciplined, unflappable former RAF pilot from Somerset, checked with his wife Joanna (Jo) and, with her blessing, jumped headfirst into the mission despite, according to Jo, not normally being a particularly adventurous sort.

She’d been an air stewardess. Their first date was a hot air balloon ride, followed by the pub. Brian got into ballooning in the mid-1980s, thrilled by the challenge and charmed by its joviality. ‘I was just mesmerised by it. There’s a mystery to it, because you never know where you’re going to end up,’ he says. ‘It’s one of the few things where people will still pull over their cars to wave at you, and trains toot when you pass over railway lines. There’s an old-fashioned romance. And, of course, most ballooners are eccentric oddballs.’

On March 1, 1999, Bertrand and Brian took off from the Swiss village of Château-d’Oex and began their eastbound voyage. For good luck, Bertrand had packed a copy of Guy de Maupassant’s A Life, inscribed by the author to Jules Verne, who had imagined such a flight in his 1863 novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. Verne loved A Life and kept it on his bedside table. Bertrand wrapped it in plastic to protect it in the event of an ocean ditch.

Brian was a little teary as he left Jo on the ground, and still is today when he reflects on that moment. Bertrand says it was more difficult for his family to say goodbye than it was for him. ‘When I look at my eyes in the film, I’m gone already. I’m already in the balloon. I’m not on the ground anymore.’ Jo took a crucial role in the control room during the flight, helping the crew to navigate their way around the world. She described it as going for three weeks without drawing breath. Another key supporting character is Belgian meteorologist Luc Trullemans, who did an extraordinary job of plotting the balloon’s route via the subtropical jet stream.

Following Luc’s altitude instructions, Bertrand and Brian managed to avoid restricted airspace over Yemen, which could have ended in a missile strike, and then thread a needle with a margin of just 30 miles 1,100 miles across China. On board was a 'unique, pressure-operated loo’ and a single bunk. The crew survived on freeze-dried rations, sleeping in shifts. There’s no autopilot in a balloon. ‘We had all sorts of issues with the systems, which was expected because it was completely untried and tested,’ says Brian, who tended to do the nighttime shifts. Night, particularly over the Pacific, was a scary time. There were thunderstorms around, and you couldn’t see the clouds. They were thousands of miles from land or any hope of rescue if they ditched. ‘The Parachute Regiment has a motto,’ says Brian. ‘Knowledge dispels fear. If you’re knowledgeable and well-prepared, you’ve got a pretty good chance of survival. But bad luck can strike. If you came down in the Himalayas or the Pacific, the chances of survival would be extremely remote.’

Their heating system failed. At high altitude, their drinking water froze solid, as did the windows. Stalactites were forming on the instrumentation and delicate electronic circuitry. The carbon-dioxide filters also froze, and this was very nearly deadly. The crew began to feel the effects of hypoxia: fatigue, dizziness and confusion. Brian awoke to find Bertrand slumped at his desk. He put oxygen masks on each of them, changed the filters, and they began to feel better. Doctors estimated they were two hours from death.

Traversing the Pacific was meant to take three days. It took seven, because the wind dragged them nearly 2,000 miles to the south. This ate into the fuel supply. ‘But then we saw this pink cirrus cloud, which often indicates the jet stream. It was exactly where Luc predicted it would be,’ says Brian. ‘The speed picked up and suddenly we were doing 100 miles-per-hour towards Mexico.’

With three-quarters of the fuel used up by the balloon’s six burners, the calculations said they wouldn’t make it across the Atlantic. A strong jet stream would be critical. It was a daunting risk, but Brian and Bertrand decided to go for it: Africa or bust. They jettisoned anything they didn’t need that was weighing them down. Using the last gasps of propane they soared to an altitude of 11,737 metres (38,507 feet) and caught a 142 mile-per-hour wind. The manoeuvre had worked: they crossed the Atlantic in a single day.

Twenty days and 25,361 miles after lifting off from the Swiss Alps, they’d circled Earth in their hot air balloon; a dream that had captured the imagination of adventurers, inventors and authors for centuries had finally come to pass. Having crossed an invisible finish line high above the Sahara, the pair came down in Egypt. Bertrand later told a press conference: ‘We took off as friends and we landed as brothers.’

In the film, Brian says the flight didn’t change his life. He was perfectly happy before, and today he and Jo raise alpacas in the Blackdown Hills. Bertrand says his life completely changed. In 2016, he completed the first round-the-world solar flight aboard the aircraft Solar Impulse. ‘I’m now working on Climate Impulse, which is a liquid green hydrogen airplane that I will attempt to fly around the world, hopefully in early 2030.’ This zero emission technology could become commercially viable. ‘None of this would have happened if I had failed with Breitling Orbiter 3.’

‘I really enjoyed the celebrity that came afterwards,’ says Brian. ‘It doesn’t last very long. My advice is to enjoy it while you can. For a while we did TV interviews and speeches, we had First Class air travel, limos, great hotels, it was just fun.’ He also picked up an OBE. ‘I met most of the Royals. The Queen was absolutely charming. Bill Clinton asked me for my autograph. We were at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington DC and he was there having dinner. He brought us over and said “Hillary’s going to be tickled pink when she knows I met you guys”. He was quite a character.’

The Orbiter 3 capsule now resides at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. ‘It’s there with the Apollo 11 capsule and the Wright Brothers’ plane,’ says Bertrand, with great pride. ‘These things inspired me so much when I was a kid. I met Chuck Yeager, Charles Lindbergh, Armstrong, Aldrin, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, all these fantastic heroes of air and space. When I saw the capsule of my balloon next to their planes, rockets and spacecraft, my dream became real.’

The Balloonists is an unexpected buddy movie about two very different men who balance each other perfectly, a love story between Brian and his wife Jo, and the incredible tale of how a third-generation pioneering Piccard set out to do what Jules Verne could only imagine.

The Balloonists is in cinemas now.

Zurich is a still-waters-run-deep kind of place, full of paradoxes and surprises. Outwardly, the central police station is unremarkable. Inside, its walls and ceilings are covered in frescos by Augusto Giacometti, as rich and vibrant and velvety as a rose garden in full bloom. How much more mixed can civic messages get? The building itself plays both good cop and bad cop: you’re under arrest, but you have the right to remain exquisite.

A few hundred yards away, the Baur au Lac, loveliest of the city’s hotels (and a much nicer place to spend the night than the police station, despite the frescos), embodies one or two paradoxes and surprises of its own.

The ‘Baur’ in its name came from its proprietor, Johannes Baur, who built the hotel in 1844. The ‘au Lac’ described its location close to the shore of Lake Zurich and distinguished it from its sister property, the Baur en Ville, which had opened six years earlier, on Paradeplatz. So far, so unparadoxical and unsurprising.

Baur’s contemporaries thought he’d lost his mind. A hotel not merely on the lake, but also facing the lake, with snowcapped mountains in the distance? Verrückt! Sublime vistas of that kind simply weren’t a thing in those days. The Alpinism craze hadn’t taken off yet and conventional wisdom held that a Swiss city hotel either faced the city centre or imminent closure. Yet Baur was on to something. His guests quickly acquired a taste for the hotel’s unusual situation and orientation, as well as for its aura of leafy, marbled, Italianate lusciousness — a definition of the grand hotel as we’ve come to understand it.

More than 180 years later, the Baur au Lac is run by the same family — now the Krachts, after a Baur married a Kracht. Its ongoing appeal has to do entirely with the Krachts’ hands-on approach. They’ve tirelessly tweaked and compulsively adjusted to make sure the place remains fresh and relevant. Gigi Kracht (sixth generation) has done a huge amount to align the hotel with the city’s contemporary art scene — without dispensing with the Gobelin tapestries, Chinese vases or the perfect little oak-framed kiosk in the lobby.

Martin Brudnizki’s glow-up of Baur’s Bar & Brasserie was a smash hit — so much so that he was subsequently entrusted to repeat the miracle on the Michelin-starred Pavillon restaurant. Rechristened Marguita in honour of two members of the Kracht family (fifth and seventh generations), it’s surely the most joyful dining room in the city, with a carefree, tousle-haired, lemon-scented whiff of Positano about it.

The fact that the lake and the Alps are in one direction and the spires of the Fraumünster and Grossmünster in the other only adds to the thrilling sense of incongruity.

Rooms at Baur au Lac start from from CHF1050 (about £980) per night on a room-only basis. Visit the hotel website for more information and to book.

Before passport control, visitors at Auckland airport must pass another threshold: a carved wooden gateway, known in Māori as a tomokanga — a scene of warriors, serpents and spirits entwined. It’s a wonderfully dramatic contrast to the drab terminal, but this is how New Zealand introduces itself from the start.

It had long arrested my imagination. It is a country that, after a day’s travel, red-eyed and weary, already felt otherworldly, as if I’d stepped into the realm of the tomokanga.

I’d come to escape London and find solitude through New Zealand’s natural contrasts on a three-part, fortnight-long itinerary by road and air, courtesy of Turquoise: from the coastal cliffs of Kaikōura in the South Island, to the Cape Kidnappers wildlife sanctuary and finally across the mountain pass to Taupō and Rotorua, a Māori heartland and Mecca for anglers.

Above all, I wanted an adventure.

On the drive to Kaikōura, my first stop, New Zealand promised to live up to those romantic expectations. The landscape and weather transformed each hour, as I passed between ranch towns and idyllic vineyards; neither of which hinted at the snow-topped mountain range that stretched across the horizon and tumbled into Kaikōura’s coastline.

I finally arrived at the Hapuku Lodge in a spell of heavy rain, relieved by the main building’s warmth. Founded by Tony Wilson as a deer farm, the Wilson family then added a luxurious lodge for visitors. Today, Hapuku is famous for its five treehouse suites, which look out to both the mountains and ocean.

General manager Emile van der Linde was there to greet me. ‘Each treehouse is named after a bird,’ he explained — mine being the Kererū wood pigeon. Originally from South Africa, by way of London, Emile first visited Kaikōura for its famous surf and has since built a family. ‘It’s a paradise for outdoor-lovers: the mountains, the ocean, the stargazing... and, of course, the marine life,’ he said.

Once a thriving port for commercial whaling, Kaikōura’s biggest attraction today is whale watching; it is one of few coastlines where you can observe a humpback from tip to tail — and in proximity with dolphins and fur seals. ‘We’re fortunate. The whales come close to shore to feed in the waters of the continental shelf,’ he explained.

Fyffe House is all that remains of Kaikōura’s whaling industry, yet I was told on entering, that it was foremost on Māori land, maintained with the blessing of the indigenous community — an instance of the seemingly effortless negotiation in New Zealand between both cultures to own their histories.

Fyffe’s was a settler one, the home of an eponymous wealthy whaler Robert Fyffe (plus three other families), now a museum. A tour through its creaking rooms gives insight into the lives of 19th-century settlers, many of whom arrived from Britain. For them to have travelled to the other side of the world, their nefarious trade must have felt deeply rewarding.

My guide volunteered to drive me to Point Kean’s car park, a common starting point for excellent walks around the bay. Plodding along the coast, the clouds unfurled over the bay and the blue skies brightened the afternoon.

The air tasted sharper — salt, kelp, something metallic carried from deep water and the Hikurangi Trough. The mountains, now vivid, dropped into the Pacific where 100 or more seals were lounging mere feet away. Here, alone with the seals, the seabirds, the mountains and an unfamiliar ocean, the world took on the mythical grandeur of the island’s proximity to the Antarctic.

Finally, I felt far from home.

Days later, I boarded a quick flight to the North Island — a new, different realm — for a stay at Cape Kidnappers. It was my mission, on visiting the cape, to spy a kiwi: the rare, thorny-nosed mascot of New Zealand. There’s no better place than the Cape Sanctuary: New Zealand’s largest privately owned and funded island conservation project since 2006 — closed to the public and guarded around the clock by 200 volunteers.

Cape Kidnappers’ seclusion is what really appealed to me. The drive between the inconspicuous front gate and my hotel, the Rosewood Cape Kidnappers lodge, is 15 minutes and, by the time you pass the world-famous golf course and see the magnificent main building, the world has vanished. Kailash Rana, the affable operations manager, became my compadré over the duration of my stay, even driving me to see a rare colony of gannets up close. ‘I wasn’t interested in birds before working here, but now I’m obsessed with them,’ he said, as a kerurū swooped overhead and perched beside my bungalow.

At Rosewood Cape Kidnappers, there was little need to do anything except sit by the fire-place in the beautifully decorated bungalows with a glass of wine and a book.

Whenever I looked out from a window, the view was always heavenly: a panorama of the cape with rolling green hills, fluttering birds and chalk cliffs falling into the ocean.

There is a sofa that was once owned by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore in the main living room area. It is where I spent time writing my notes each evening. Some books in the sitting room told the stories of the first families to settle on the cape. Here, farmers became immensely wealthy and their descendants remain so, forming dynasties such as the Gordons who, in this part of New Zealand, carry an influence comparable to the British landed gentry. Yet a more recent American clan, the Robertsons, established both the lodge and the Cape Sanctuary.

Kailash had booked for me a half-day excursion there with Andy, my amicable, but serious guide, who greeted me in a Steve Irwin-like bush jacket and shorts. ‘Won’t be seeing a kiwi at this time, mate,’ he shrugged. ‘They only come out at night.’ I knew nothing about my prey, but Andy did. A seasoned trapper, he volunteered with the Robertsons after his retirement. ‘This is like a safari,’ I suggested, his Land Rover creeping up the cape’s lush hills, causing the curious sheep, of which there were thousands, to flee into the crags. ‘A day pass to Eden, more like,’ Andy quipped.

As we drove deeper, he pointed out mischievous kākāpō parrots, dinosaur-like tautara reptiles, brown teal pāteke ducks (one of the rarest), and penguin mothers nesting with their fuzzy newborns. He also introduced me to the pride of Cape Sanctuary: the blue takahē, brought back from near extinction.

After the tour, Andy offered tips for tracking the nocturnal kiwi (left): ‘The kiwi never comes out at a full moon. Drive slowly. Their eyesight is bad, but their hearing is exceptional.’

We passed a number of hairpin bends just outside of the sanctuary where he recommended I look. I circled the roads near the lodge, perhaps seeming a little mad to the staff, but Kailash's words resounded: ‘If you want to find a kiwi, there’s no better place than Cape Kidnappers.’ I continued until — four long loops around the lodge later — I gave up. Then, as I neared the gate, a bumbling ball of fuzz — a kiwi — zipped across my headlights and vanished into the bush.

The following morning, it was time to depart the cape. This meant returning to the highway to cross the tropical Kaimanawa mountain ranges for the Huka Lodge and the final leg of my trip. There were scarce stops for provisions so I asked Kailash to fill my water can for the road. It was a beaten-up thing, but served me well and I anticipated he’d run it under the tap. However, I found his reply wonderfully funny — and telling of the lodge’s hospitality. ‘Just one question, sir,’ he said, unfaltering in his efforts to accommodate my every need. ‘The water for your bottle. Still or sparkling?’

‘New Zealand. The Country For The Angler’ — so reads a large Art Deco poster framed in each bungalow at the Huka Lodge, the grande dame of New Zealand’s lodges. If Kaikōura was for marine life and Cape Kidnappers for birds, Huka is where you go for freshwater fishing.

It is also where presidents and Elizabeth II stayed in complete privacy, so when I got the go-ahead for a few nights, I couldn’t believe my luck. It proved to be the most accommodating bridge between here and my return home, which by now was approaching.

It was a place to rest and reflect on what I had already seen — perhaps because of the sacred Waikato River that runs along the property and out to Lake Taupō. Built by fly-fishermen in 1924, the lodge was recently refurbished. Now, there is a state-of-the-art gym and spa, too.

The lodge organised an afternoon fly-fishing session. My teacher was a roguish, charming Kenyan-Briton named Oliver Jones who was raised on safaris and whom I liked immediately.

As I tried my luck at rainbow-trout fishing, and between his patient, but pleasingly chappy tutelage (‘the water was pure gin last week!’), he shared stories from his adventures as an instructor in the Congo or in Russia before the Ukraine-Russia war. Depending on the season, Oliver travels the world for his fishing, bringing private clients up to mountains for weeks at a time. He described his profession as an artform and used a hunter’s intuition to track along the river. Oliver has even designed and patented fishing flies.

With him scouting overhead, I cast the reel where he instructed, repeated and slowly got the gist of it. Before long, I had a series of wrestles with the trout. After an hour, I caught my very own — a brutish looking male with a protruding gurn. ‘Congratulations,’ exclaimed my companion. He handed it to me to hold and pose for a photo. That night, courtesy of the Huka’s kitchen, my trout was served pan-seared in butter. On ensuing mornings, I would bring a cup of tea to the bank, cast and watch the river’s colours change.

Time moves quickly along the Waikato — my trip had ended as quickly as it had begun, but, in my pursuit for an adventure in less than two weeks, New Zealand was generous. I had experienced great lodges, hospitable warrens of nature and rest. I had traversed mountains and coastal roads, through sleet and sunshine, meeting friendly people along the way.

However, it was time to cross the threshold again, to leave the realm of the tomokanga. This feeling was heightened when, boarding my flight home from Auckland, a clever person at United Airlines decided to put on a hit song by New Zealand’s greatest-ever band Crowded House. ‘Hey now, hey now, don’t dream it’s over,’ the chorus floated over the hum of the engines. Yet, I knew I would return.

Turquoise Holidays offer similar experiences from £7,995 per person, based on two sharing (every journey is flexible and tailormade).

The price includes two nights in an Upper Branch Tree House at Hapuku Lodge, two nights in a Hilltop Junior Suite at Rosewood Cape Kidnappers and three nights in a Lodge Suite at Huka Lodge on a half-board basis, car hire, international economy flights from the UK to Auckland return (with United Airlines via San Francisco) and domestic economy flights with Air New Zealand.

This feature originally appeared in the April 15 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

A few years ago, I found myself in a meeting with a private-jet company days before the Monaco Grand Prix. ‘You must be operating at capacity,’ I said. ‘In fact, I bet you’re already taking bookings for next year.’

Wrong.

Ultra-high-net-worths tend to book trips on a whim, sometimes hours ahead of when they want to set off, depending on what side of the bed they got out of that morning.

However, perhaps the rest of us are onto something. According to new research by Original Travel and Paul Dolan, professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and one of the world’s leading experts on wellbeing, science supports their long-held concept that simply looking forward to a holiday can be a significant contributor to wellbeing.

The best time to book for maximum emotional benefits? Roughly four months before.

The study conducted demonstrates that people who have a holiday planned report higher levels of happiness than those who do not. 'The happiness hit of a holiday is not just from the time spent away, but also comes from looking forward to going away,' says Paul. 'These anticipatory benefits require a degree of psychological proximity, so that the trip feels near enough to savour.'

To fend off the eager beavers who book a hotel room a year or more in advance, you will need to build a relationship with the hoteliers you like (the ones par excellence, such as Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, offer repeat guests booking priority) or travel with a trusted tour operator who will do the schmoozing for you.

This feature originally appeared in the May 13, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

‘Corsica came into view with the dawn. Almost colourless, its outlines uncertain, it swam in the early morning mist… the mountains surged into the sky… their lower slopes, smothered in vegetation, looked uninhabited and impenetrable.’

So Dorothy Carrington described her arrival to Corsica by boat in 1948 in Granite Island (1971). Soaring in from above, my views of the mountains, so many years later, were just the same, but, once I had landed, I claimed for myself the sight of the golden sun setting behind the famous lion of Roccapina, silhouetting its pink granite shape as we wound our way to Domaine de Murtoli.

Arriving at dusk, I stepped into an air heavy with the scent of maquis — myrtle, rosemary, lavender and thyme — welcoming wood-smoke and sea salt.

People often say that Corsica is a French Island that basks in the Italian sun, but in this corner in the island's south-west, on an estate of more than 6,000 acres, Corsica is defiantly itself.

The hotel’s story starts in 1993, when Paul Canarelli inherited a parcel of land, neatly sandwiched between sea and mountain. He decided, as a sort of homage to his grandfather and to the land, to restore one of the 17th-century shepherd houses — a number of which dot the fields, some overlooking the sea, some in the olive-tree groves.

The dry-stone walls were duly crowned with ancient terracotta tiles, heavy shutters, carved from chestnut wood, were installed and an oak floor laid. Stone sinks were brought in and the walls were washed in lime.

Today, there are 20 such houses, all immaculately restored to their original footprints. Their windows frame views of a shimmering sea, Aubrac cows, sheep and, even, opportunistic wild boar, rootling for acorns, figs and chestnuts. Often, the only sound to interrupt the delicious silence is birdsong.

Twenty-first-century luxuries, including private pools, often set between rocks, have also been installed. There is a central farmhouse with a clutch of suites for those who might find the cottages too isolating, plus a bar and a restaurant. In the winter, a soaring fireplace keeps diners warm; in the summer, it’s possible to eat outside on the lavender-filled terrace.

The farm-to-table concept triumphs here; think Murtoli’s own sheep's cheese and honey, chestnuts and beef, wine and olive oil. Fruits and vegetables come from the large, organic garden.

New this year is A Mandria di Murtoli, a Tuscan hamlet-style offering, next door. There are rooms in the main house, surrounded by lemon trees, and suites inside the sheepfolds. The communal swimming pool is the perfect spot from which to watch the sun slip behind the surrounding hills, surrounded by fairy light-strewn olive trees and the smell of tagliolini al limone. It's one of the moments that might just make you believe in magic.

Rooms at Domaine de Murtoli start from €290 at the Hôtel de la Ferme and from €330 in a Shepherd House.

Rooms at A Mandria di Murtoli start from €280 in a double room in the main building and from €270 in a Shepherd House.

Visit the website for more information and to book.

Bloomsbury is lovely this time of year, isn’t it? The sun seeps through the trees that line the avenues around the British Museum, bright young things flock to Lamb’s Conduit Street for wine and tailoring and locals and tourists mingle, for the most part in peace, as the days draw longer and longer. It will be summer soon.

The neighbourhood also has the rare distinction of catering to both the traveller and the resident. The local hotels, historically geared to the former, are beginning to play a similar double act. There has long been an unspoken divide between the southern end of Bloomsbury — bordering Holborn — and its northern end, bordering King’s Cross: younger, trendier and somewhere people actually live. The Zetter Townhouse, a new property that sits in Bloomsbury's southern hemisphere, may finally be changing that.

As is the mark of any fine boutique hotel, you could easily walk past the Zetter without realising it is there. I know this because I did so, twice, while searching for signage after an event with the Red Squirrel Survival Trust. I was due to have dinner there with James Thurstan Waterworth, the superstar designer whose past clients include Soho House and the Duchy of Somerset, and who led the Zetter’s four-year renovation project. He is also the man behind Thurstan, a design studio in Clerkenwell (the title is a nod to his middle name).

I find James in the dining room dotted around by lamps, busts and vases (from Africa, Oceania, et al) as well as more quixotic pieces like a miniature ukulele. There is a painting that sits somewhere between a green and a blue, on whose chromatic identity no one can quite agree. The designer holds court over dinner surrounded by an enamoured press (besides being talented, James is compellingly good-looking). And so to the new Zetter, of which much the same can be said, and where a thousand antiques are strewn across all bedrooms and common areas. The building, I am told, was designed to evoke the home of a well-travelled friend. Everywhere are reminders of trips to far-flung corners of the Earth: trinkets and artefacts are carefully arranged so as to feel in dialogue with each other, rather than obliquely juxtaposed.

Every piece has been acquired in much the same way as one might buy a holiday souvenir, James explains, serving as a memento more than an actual symbol of anything. It is a decor that merely hints at erudition without ever falling for the didactic; where stylistic choices are guided not by meaning, but — in a manner reminiscent of Bloomsbury’s status as a fin-de-siècle icon — by beauty. With this new property, the Zetter Group continues to cement its hold over central London: the Bloomsbury townhouse is their third opening in the last 20-odd years, joining properties in Clerkenwell and Marylebone.

The building is made up not of one but six Georgian properties, vestiges of a golden age that have been knocked together to create a quiet grande dame. There are 68 rooms in total, although the hotel feels nowhere near as big — a good thing. The lighting, sly and seductive, contributes to an overall feeling of cosiness. The location, at the back of the British Museum, elucidates some of the more out-there design choices. What has been derided, in recent years, as a largely looted national collection — many of the museum’s notable items, such as the Elgin Marbles, are cobbled from Ancient sites — works rather well here, the moodiness of the setting conferring upon the artwork a more intimate, perhaps devotional feel.

The Zetter’s strength, as a hospitality brand, is evidenced in the time it takes to build its portfolio. It waits for the right set of properties to come up for restoration and ensures that all artistic choices are considered and unhurried. Bringing in Soho House’s former European design director for this particular project has paid off. Speaking to Country Life in 2025, James cited Axel Vervoordt and Robert Kime as his aesthetic heroes: men whose seamless blending of the old and new have left an indelible imprint on the young designer and whose relationship to antique collecting showed no temporal or geographical boundaries. (Still the case for Axel.)

In the same interview, James expressed a love for the artist Roger Hilton. ‘It’s very basic,’ the designer said — an accusation sometimes leveled against Soho House by its detractors — yet his decisions suggest, at every turn, that he is marching to the beat of his own drum. The artefacts at Zetter, while varied, are singular — the pick-and-mix of a trained eye who refuses to subscribe to common denominators. Everything about the Zetter, moreover, feels uninvasive, as though this really is one's pied-à-terre while there. Guests move about the place freely, with glass doors leading seamlessly from the orangery into the garden. The wait staff is discrete, and the bar staff efficient.

Dinner runs like clockwork. Our pudding, a chocolate and salted caramel torte served with hazelnut, amoretti and vanilla ice cream, is an ideal palette cleanser after our exceptional medley of chicken, artichoke and morel. It is time to retreat upstairs. The strength of a hotel, naturally, must be judged first and foremost on its rooms. Are these enough of a blank canvas that one can leave their mark simply by hanging their clothes in the wardrobe or leaving their toiletries in the bathroom? Yet not so impersonal as to feel alienating when one’s usual creature comforts are nowhere to be found?

It’s a fine balance — one the Zetter strikes with ease. Each room is entirely unique: some boast mustard-coloured walls, others four-poster beds, and in the odd case, a freestanding bath. Sash windows are painted cream and gaze out onto the street or onto the courtyard, depending on which side of the corridor one enters the room from. If booking, ask for one with a courtyard view. They gaze out onto the British Museum and on the west-facing light at sunset.

A mounted fabric of blue indigo, produced by the Mossi Tribe of Burkina Faso, hangs above my desk (the Zetter knows its clientele can be the busy kind), lending a touch of drama to an otherwise warm bedroom. Mattresses, meanwhile, are from Royal Warrant-holder Hypnos, so comfortable one falls asleep in under ten minutes. The bathroom is modern and practical: a shower head disappears into the ceiling just as overhead lighting would ordinarily, although you’ll find none of the latter here. The handle of the smaller shower spray is appended somewhat annoyingly close to the body; a slender man myself, I kept bashing into it.

There is an obvious reputational risk for any hotel set within walking distance of King’s Cross: how to avoid being seen as somewhere visitors merely pass through, even if they do pay their dues? The Zetter has risen to the challenge in much the same way as The Goring, one of London’s grande dame hotels a stone’s throw from Victoria Station. That is, as Voltaire decreed, by cultivating one’s jardin. The Zetter's garden holds both a terrace and an enviably mowed lawn (crucial, as the summer months creep in), which themselves serve as extensions of the orangery: a paean to the early 20th-century explorer-collector and, no doubt, the room in which James’s vision comes alive the most.

Hand-stitched cushions, red whicker armchairs and a rich assembly of plants envelop the dining tables, as the sun beats down from an ample roof light. The blinds recall those you might find on safari and the whole thing smells faintly of cedar. ‘I collect 20th century British abstract art — 1950s-70s — very much the British-St Ives ilk,’ James once told Country Life. The Zetter fizzes with the same kind of mid-century energy that London's new hotels tend to lack. I'll certainly be coming back.

Rooms at The Zetter Bloomsbury start from £400 a night, without breakfast. Visit the hotel's website for more information and to book.

Gleneagles, Scotland’s most famous bastion of hospitality, never rests on its laurels. In the last 10 years, in particular, much has been done to keep loyal guests returning and new guests suitably wowed by all that is on offer in what the hotel calls its ‘playground’.

This is a place for doing stuff, for getting stuck into the great outdoors (and indoors, for that matter) and for embracing a raft of activities so vast that the idea of a dull moment is simply out of the question.

And, each year, to keep momentum up, to keep the hotel evolving, another little tempting activity is added to the roster.

This year’s little tempter is Frandy Water, to which I was given a ‘first-in’ introduction just days before it’s official opening (May 1). Technically designated a reservoir, Frandy Water in appearance is mercifully more Scottish loch than man-made water storage facility, cradled as it is within the picturesque embrace of the heathery, sheep-strewn Ochil hills, a mere 10-minute drive from the hotel’s front door.

Back in 1824, when Gleneagles was founded, even indeed as recently as the turn of the 21^st century, the idea of cold-water swimming, waterside saunas and a slap-down with a handful of birch twigs was really only a pastime indulged in by gung-ho Scandinavians.

How times have changed.

These days, as standalone saunas pop up beside beaches, in private gardens and hotel spas, it seems we can’t get enough of extreme hot and cold therapy — good for the body, good for the mind, or so we are told. Bring it on, I say, I’m a true believer.

Frandy Water, however, is about more than saunas and wild swimming; there is also fly fishing (the loch is well-stocked with rainbow trout, plus a few wild brownies), kayaking and canoeing, with experts on hand for all. Conor O’Leary, managing director of Gleneagles, is first to point out that among all the activities the hotel offers, there was a shortage of al fresco ‘water’ experiences. This box has now been ticked and, I should add, in some style.

A Gleneagles Land Rover delivers me to The Bothy, the centre of Frandy Water operations, designed along the lines of a traditional wooden fishing hut but exquisitely pimped with creature comforts: sofas, blankets, books to read, an abundance of dry wellies and a wood-burning stove. No chill fingers, wet feet or damp sandwiches here.

Outside, a large wooden deck extends towards the loch — part viewing platform, part entertaining space, part sundeck for a picnic lunch on a fine day. And fine it is, the cool, April air warmed by a whisper of summer and only the slightest breeze to ruffle the water and distort the mirror image of golden hills and shifting clouds. When Scotland does days like this a little bit of magic takes hold.

Down by the water’s edge, a spiral of wood smoke curling from the chimney, is the sauna — more hobbit house than square box, blondly luminescent, curvaceous, shingle-tiled, strangely and surprisingly beautiful, and moulded into the landscape as if nothing out of the ordinary.

A regular sweat‘n’dip sauna routine feels far too mundane for a building such as this and Gleneagles, as we know, never does mundane. So a sauna therapist accompanies me in, to beat the air and circulate the heat, to dowse me with sprinklings of cold, pine-scented water, and to slap me down, top to toe, with a fragrant, leafy birch whisk. I am grateful for the leaves — and for the fact that the Finns have being doing this for centuries. The smell is good, the sensation is good and that’s good enough for me.

All the while, Frandy Water glistens beyond the sauna’s small, arched window. I dither a bit outside, too long perhaps as the body begins to cool, but I take the plunge — inelegant, breathless, intoxicated. Gleneagled, to coin a phrase.

Frandy Water experiences start from £220 for a 90-minute session for two people, plus £80 for each additional person.

Stays at Gleneagles start from £595 per night on a bed and breakfast basis. Retreats priced separately.

Visit the Gleneagles website for more information and to book.

Is there anywhere more beautiful than a library? The smell of musty books, rows upon rows of stories, lovesick heroes or heroines, great works of fiction, non-fiction, art, culture, philosophy and science — all beg you to choose them; to let theirs be the pages you reveal, pore over and learn from.

We can’t think of anywhere better. That is why, this year, Country Life has commissioned the architect George Saumarez Smith to design our Chelsea Flower Show stand as a shrine to books. It will be named ‘Garden Lover’s Library’. A safe haven in which readers seeking a quiet place can escape the hustle and bustle for a moment among vintage books.

Although all libraries are beautiful in themselves, filled with books as they are, that only tells half the story. As important as those books may be, libraries can also be great works of architecture; vast monuments to our collective creativity, art enshrined in art, accessible to all. So, without further ado, here is our list of the world’s most beautiful public libraries to tide you over until you can come and visit Country Life’s very own at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

Gladstone’s Library, Wales

Politicians don't leave many great things behind after their tenure these days, but perhaps William Gladstone was an exception. The UK's only Prime Ministerial library was built following a bequest from Gladstone and the Grade-I listed building houses thousands of books, including many items from the four-time Prime Minister’s own personal collection. The current building was designed by John Douglas in 1902, and it is a Jacobethan delight with sundrenched wooden interiors full of old dusty volumes. It’s a bookworm’s paradise, and one where the fun doesn’t stop at 5pm. At this library, you can stay the night. Gladstone’s is the UK’s only residential library and has 26 reasonably priced bedrooms. It has me daydreaming about a bookish getaway. LB

Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Germany

The Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, as it is called in German, is located in Weimar. Built at the behest of Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to preserve and present the collections of Duke Wilhelm Ernst, one of its famed patrons is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who worked there from 1797 to 1832. The building was converted into a library in 1761 and became a designated UNESCO World Heritage site in 1998. The oval hall is divided by open-backed bookcases and walls of clean, white woodwork. Garnished with gold, there is an elegance and femininity to the Rococo decor. Small portraits and white busts line the two-storey room, directing the eyes to the end of the hall where a shock of teal blue and a portrait of the Grand Duke Carl August, the son of the Duchess, hangs with prominence. The library has among its collection an important Shakespearean collection of approximately 10,000 volumes, many of which belonged to Christoph Martin Wieland who was hired by the Duchess to tutor her son. The Duchess’s 13,000-volume music collection is available to view, as well as a 16th-century Bible connected to Martin Luther. AEW

Espace Gabrielle Chanel, China

You may not immediately hear Chanel and think: ‘library’, but the world-recognised fashion brand has recently opened one in the Power Station of Art in Shanghai. It’s the first of Mainland China’s libraries run by the government that celebrates contemporary art. Designed by the Japanese architect Kazunari Sakamoto, the library also contains the Archive of Chinese Contemporary Art. The space itself is light, modern and large — at 1,700sq m. It used to be the Nanshi Power Plant; built in 1897, the plant provided energy, including for some of China’s first electrical lights. A wonderful repurposing of a historic building by a historic brand. LB

The British Library, England

It was impossible not to include a library close to home on this list. This beloved treasure of our capital contains everything from Magna Carta to handwritten lyrics by The Beatles. Not to brag, but it’s also one of the largest libraries in the world and, as a legal deposit library, receives a copy of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Created in 1973, the library moved to its current Grade-I listed building in St Pancras in 1997. This was designed by the architect Colin St John Wilson and his wife MJ Long and was the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century. There is always a fight for a table in its various cafes — such remains its popularity among tourists and locals alike. LB

Abbey Library of St Gall, Switzerland

Founded by St Othmar, the first real abbot of the convent of St Gall, the present library in Switzerland was designed by the architect Peter Thumb. The original abbey library was built in the 7th century, but the present library room was constructed between 1758 and 1767. A glory of honey brown shelves and leather bound spines is hooded by a ceiling of elaborate stucco, which twists to divide and embellish biblical frescoes. Playful putti sit atop the shelves and glass cases, offering a visual clue as to the contents below: the case of astronomy-related materials bears a cherub observing the books through a telescope. The Greek inscription above the entrance door, ΨΥΧΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΕΙΟΝ, translates as ‘healing place for the soul’.

The library collection is the oldest in Switzerland, holding around 160,000 volumes, with most available for public use. Notable works include the St. Gall Cantatorium, believed to be the earliest known complete music manuscript in the world; a 4th-century Vergilius Sangallensis; an 8th-century bill of sale for the abbey property; a Gospel of John from about 800AD; biographies of saints from as early as the 8th century; and works providing insight into the daily lives of the abbey monks from the 9th century through the Middle Ages. AEW

New York Public Library, USA

This Manhattan building by Stephen A. Schwarzman is a haven for many New Yorkers. The second largest public library in the USA, and one of the largest in the world, was developed in the 19th century. It’s worth visiting for the The Rose Reading Room alone, which displays a myriad of crystal chandeliers. The lion statues that stand guard at its entrance are made from Tennessee marble and named Patience and Fortitude — something that seems to be in short supply as of late. Long may they protect this magnificent collection of books. LB

Library of St Mark, Italy

Named after St Mark, the patron saint of Venice, this regal library holds one of the world’s most significant collections of classical texts. Founded in 1468, it is the work of the Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino. ‘It is perhaps the richest and most ornate building that there has been since ancient times up until now,’ said Andrea Palladio — an argument that still stands today.

Library of the Academy of Fine Arts, Austria

Vienna has many great things: Schnitzel, strudel, that song by Billy Joel — and the library at the Academy of Fine Arts. The dark wood decor and classic gold reading lamps with green lampshades transport visitors to a time before iPhones, where books were king. Its library houses around 110,000 volumes and an ‘etching cabinet’, containing around 150,000 drawings and prints. LB

The Mitchell Library, Scotland

I couldn’t finish my list without a Scottish entry. The Mitchell Library in Glasgow is well worthy of inclusion. Tobacco producer Stephen Mitchell is to thank for the grand building and philanthropist and Glaswegian William Euing is to thank for much of the original collection of early books. You can’t miss the distinctive copper dome upon which stands Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. Always a good omen when there is studying to be done. LB

The Country Life ‘Garden Lover’s Library’, designed by George Saumarez Smith of Adam Architecture, is at stand PW215 at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, May 18–23.

To celebrate, you can buy a year-long subscription for £150 and save more than 40% on the cover price. International offers also available. Until May 31.

The first 200 subscribers at Chelsea will receive a bottle of The Grange Classic Sparkling NV, worth £39. Rated 94 points by Decanter magazine, this premium sparkling wine from Hampshire was described in Country Life as ‘the connoisseur’s choice’. Offer available with subscriptions for UK delivery only.

It was here, in Positano, that Hercules lost his heart to a nymph called Amalfi and where the very concept of la dolce vita was born.

Set amid the vast cloud-capped mountains and terraces studded with colourful houses, rests another legend, too: Le Sirenuse.

The former home of the Sersale family, over the past seven decades it has evolved to become one of the hotel world’s greatest addresses. Its latest venture is one of its most ambitious: Le Sirenuse Mare, a beach club set in the nearby, sleepy fishing village of Nerano.

Quiet and far from the maddening crowds, the beach club’s home remains something of an insider secret. The building of it spanned five years. ‘Le Mare is an extension of the Le Sirenuse world,’ says co-owner Aldo Sersale. ‘Like our hotel, [it] has its own rhythm and character and represents a warm, genuine and authentic side to the Italian coast.’

The family called on Architetti Artigiani Anonimi to bring their vision to life and the reality is a bold and colourful space accented by the vernacular traditions of the Amalfi Coast: handmade terracotta and ceramic floor tiles, chestnut-wood pergolas and undulating cannucciato sunshades.

The garden, landscaped by Paolo Pejrone, is filled with eucalyptus, umbrella pine and lemon trees. As in the hotel, art is a prominent feature, with installations scattered across the space by artists such as Giuseppe Ducrot, Alba Clemente and Lucio Liguori — and the bar is named after British artist Rose Wylie.

The restaurant is open for lunch, every day, with executive chef Gennaro Russo and Calabrian chef Francesco De Simone at the helm. ‘Sheer natural goodness’ and ‘vibrant flavours’ are the heart of everything they make. Think spaghetti alla Nerano and all the fruits of the sea, plus a pudding bar dedicated to the gods of gelati, granita and classic Italian treats.

However, Le Sirenuse Mare’s sweetest element is its outlook. This, as Aldo says, is not a party destination. ‘[It is] a relaxed, elegant and supremely laidback’ — and on a coast that, over the years, has become overwhelmingly frenetic, is desperately needed.

This feature originally appeared in the April 29, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Hero hotel

Bull Burford

Although this Grade II*-listed building dates back to 1475 and has been an inn since the 16th century, this is a hotel that now dresses in a far more contemporary style.

You might notice it first with the name: no superfluous ‘the’ or ‘in’; this is the clean, concise Bull Burford, or perhaps the branding. If you opt to take the train (into nearby Charlbury or Kingham), you can arrange to be picked up in an all-black Defender with ‘BULL’ emblazoned on its side in a chunky sans serif typeface, which you’ll see again. You definitely notice it upon arrival, when your eyes dart between the curvaceous black check-in desk and the Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, Charles the First, that are juxtaposed with gnarled wooden beams and weathered chunks of original wall.

This old-meets-new Bull, which opened in 2023, is the brainchild of longtime Burford resident Matthew Freud, the famed PR executive well versed in putting a winning spin on things. It’s his personal art collection that enlivens the public spaces and 18 bedrooms — a collection he describes in the in-room guides as ‘eclectic and incoherent’, taking in everything from Alberto Korda’s iconic Che Guevara portrait (hung above the fire in the lounge bar) to Matisse’s Blue Nude (hung in Zen, the treatment room I can highly recommend). My room, the lofty wabi-sabi-chic Venetian, has its pastel-pink lime-plaster walls lined with an array of 15th-century portraits of Roman emperors who would have surely approved of the super king-size bed, feather-soft robes and all-natural Wildsmith bath products.

There’s little chance of you going hungry or thirsty. Graze is the street-side coffee, juice and infusions bar where breakfast is served. Horn is the inviting modern Mediterranean restaurant, Slice the outdoor pizza terrace and Vincent’s bar the building’s central hub. If you can find it, there’s also a wine-cellar snug that currently houses Idris Elba’s own personal poker table, but is soon to get a more speakeasy-style makeover.

One of Bull’s greatest lures, however, and what helped it land a Michelin Key in the autumn, is Wild. Not really a restaurant in its own right, but a 10-person, 11-course dine-by-fire experience with amiable chef Ben Chamberlain in its own seasonally adaptable tent. It’s communal, convivial and clever in its menu (charred beets, seared trout, scurvy grass, Turkish bazlama flatbreads and monkfish all feature alongside locally sourced meats) and stands as something of an analogue for the hotel itself: not necessarily reinventing the wheel, but adding a confident dash of personality for those who’ve had their fill of Cotswold classicism.

Rooms at Bull Burford start from £275 per night. Visit their website for more information and to book.

Need to know

Burford itself is undeniably pretty. A well-to-do honeyed-stone high street tapers down a steep hill to a narrow bridge over the River Windrush, crocuses peek out from grassy verges and quaint lanes spill off this way and that.

Bull sits almost perfectly in the middle of it all. There’s enough to this vibrant market town to easily while away a weekend, including great antiques and homewares stores, a string of small art galleries and plenty of pubs to provide refreshment.

The 15th-century church of St John the Baptist still stands impressively in the village’s north-east and is supposedly what prompted William Morris to found the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings after popping in after lunch in 1876 and taking umbrage with the tiled floor being added as part of its restoration.

The town’s picturesque old priory — home to Matthew and his partner, Sheherazade Goldsmith — sporadically opens up its sweeping grounds to show off its spring and summer blooms to raise money for local charities. The Freud fiefdom also extends to the nearby rectory, now a nine-bedroom, exclusive-use country crashpad available on Airbnb, ideal for group getaways.

Beyond the town borders, nearby Charlbury boasts its own bull, The Bull Charlbury, from London’s heralded Public House Group, which, confusingly, sits opposite Daylesford’s The Bell. All of the Cotswolds’ greatest hits — Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton etc—are within easy driving distance, with Cheltenham 40 minutes to the west and Oxford 40 minutes to the east.

Where to eat

• Only about 165 feet down the street, you’ll find Bull’s sister hotel, Highway, a similarly styled pared-back old inn with its own tapas restaurant, Toro, serving sunny Spanish small plates at lunch and dinner.
• The bijou Bakery on the Hill is great for a coffee, a pastry, or some classic farm-fresh breakfasts. For something with a little more ceremony, Hugo Lovage Patisserie offers a full afternoon tea, as well as plenty of sweet treats to take away
• Pub-wise, you’re well catered for. The locals are quick to recommend the ‘proper’ shortcrust pies served at the Royal Oak. Its neighbour the Angel offers elevated British fare in a cosy setting. If you fancy stretching your legs first, the Fox at Barrington is just over an hour’s scenic walk away

What to do while you’re there

• Walks The ‘Walkabull’ map left in every room charts some well-planned walking routes of varying length and difficulty, from a pub-lined tour to Taynton to a peaceful valley-view stroll via Westwell and Holwell
• Shop It’s not often the local garden centre gains must-visit status, but Burford’s 15-acre horticultural hub is one the UK’s best, stocking everything from rare trees to Sunspel tees. Its palm-lined café is a great lunch spot

This feature originally appeared in the April 22, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

For too long, Milan has not been the destination of choice for travellers to Italy, overlooked in favour of the more obviously beautiful cities of Venice, Florence and Rome.

Until now.

Thanks to a flurry of cool new openings, plus the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, which enjoyed record-breaking digital engagement, and viral fashion and design weeks, Milan is firmly on the map. In fact, those in the know will confirm that Milan is the most exciting city in Europe right now.

It is a city that gradually reveals its beauty. You might catch a glimpse of a secret garden behind the heavy wooden doors of a residential building as they swing open, or stumble upon a restaurant’s spectacular tree-lined terrace that you’d never know was there until you set foot inside. But once you start to look for it, you’ll soon find that Milan is the epitome of understated elegance — much like its residents.

Situated in the northern region of Lombardy, Milan is within easy reach of alpine regions for skiing and hiking, and the Lakes for al fresco lunches. The beaches of Liguria and the rolling hills of Piedmontese wine country are also a short drive away. Combine its strategic position with the city’s surplus of excellent restaurants, shops and museums, and you’ll quickly understand why flocks of expats are relocating to it.

With the annual Salone del Mobile Design Week starting today (April 21), I’m sharing a handful of my favourite places across the city I call home, together with some help from friends who love it as much as I do.

Where to stay

Mandarin Oriental

A quiet oasis in the very heart of the city (complete with its own secret garden), the Mandarin Oriental’s Milan outpost is set within a series of 18th century buildings that have been elegantly renovated.

It’s impossible not to feel calm when you sink into bed in one of the serene suites, and the gargantuan bathtubs are a treat for weary feet after a hard day of shopping in the nearby Montenapoleone shopping district.

For those in town for Design Week, check into the sumptuous Fornasetti suite for maximum bragging rights.

Vico Milano

Vico Milano is run by the charming Baccheschi Berti family, who also own the inimitable Castello di Vicarello in Tuscany. Combining rustic Tuscan touches with Milanese contemporary design, this is a seriously Instagrammable hotel.

There are just a handful of suites, so staying at Vico feels like you’re spending the night at a friend’s eclectic private house. If I ever get round to renovating my bathrooms, the inspiration will come from here.

Portrait Hotel

The Ferragamo dynasty opened their first hotel in Milan in 2022 to much fanfare — and the chatter is yet to die down.

The 16th-century, former Archiepiscopal Seminary occupies a vast, historic piazza surrounded by ancient cloisters. There are 73 suites, multiple restaurants and the award-winning The Longevity Spa. Don’t miss the spectacular swimming pool with its vaulted ceilings and majestic granite columns.

Where to eat

Milan takes its food very seriously, from traditional trattorias to an ever-increasing number of contemporary eateries.

The only trouble you’ll have is choosing where to go first…

La Latteria

Have you even been to Milan if you haven’t joined the well-dressed queue outside La Latteria?

When owners Maria and Artuso Maggi decided to close the restaurant after 40 years, the uproar from the fashion crowd was epic (we observed a full year of gastronomic mourning). Thankfully, the Loro Piana family stepped in to preserve the beloved eatery’s iconic status and La Latteria is now officially back in business — with the Maggi family still at the helm.

There are seven tables and a strict no bookings policy, so you’ll need to drop everything and get in line in order to try the famous lemon and chilli spaghetti.

Pasticceria Cucchi

The chicest place for breakfast and people watching in the city. It’s also my go-to place for an aperitivo after work. If you’re travelling towards the tail end of the year, don’t miss out on their artisanal panettone.

A Santa Lucia

A proper old-school trattoria with endless character serving no nonsense, traditional dishes. Duncan Campbell, the London-based artist, designer and co-founder of design atelier Campbell-Rey, confesses that he loves to eat at A Santa Lucia when he’s in Milan ‘because they serve all day, which is very rare in Italy.’

Contraste

If you’re in the market for a once-in-a-lifetime special dinner, look no further than Contraste: the finest fine-dining option Milan has to offer.

A meal here is an entirely unique experience, from the restaurant’s exuberantly-hued interiors and ultra-charming staff to, of course, the world-class food. Uruguayan chef and co-owner Matias Perdomo’s playful creativity is spellbinding; trompe d’oeuils are his forte. Look out for the lasagne cleverly disguised as a doughnut. Frankly, I’m surprised it only has one Michelin star.

Younique Café

The fashion cafe is having a moment (Prada in Harrods, Anya Hindmarch in Belgravia, Lacoste in Monte-Carlo, Ralph Lauren in New York), and the recently-opened Younique Café by Golden Goose is Milan’s cool crowd’s favourite for everything from brunch to sundowners. Stop by for punchy cocktails and live DJ sets every Thursday evening.

Ratanà

Where to eat the best risotto alla Milanese in the city where it was created, you ask? Ratanà. No competition.

De Santis

This tiny sandwich shop on Milan’s beautiful Corso Magenta has been churning out showstoppers since 1964. Order the Ronny, a parma ham, brie, mozzarella and white truffle baguette, and thank me later.

Da Giacomo

Via Sottocorno in the trendy east of the city is Da Giacomo’s empire with multiple eateries by the group jostling for space on one street. They all serve stellar food, but splash out at the original upmarket Ristorante. Alternatively, try my favourite, Rosticceria, which serves the type of home-cooked food I could eat every day of my life. You’ll often find me in there scoffing delectable homemade meatballs.

Rovello 18

‘One of my favourite restaurants in Milan is Rovello 18,’ says Michelin-starred chef Matias Perdomo. ‘I always feel at home there, and chef Michele De Liguoro’s cooking is simple and perfectly executed, with a warm, welcoming atmosphere.’

Seta

This understated yet hugely popular restaurant is hidden inside the Mandarin Oriental and has two Michelin stars.

When chef Antonio Guida removed his iconic raspberry risotto from the menu, to make room for new inventions, outraged diners demanded its return and so it’s been the restaurant’s signature for a decade. Sounds bizarre; tastes fantastic — trust me on this one.

Where to drink

Camparino in Galleria

Brave the crowds in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (Milan’s bustling and grandiose glass-domed shopping arcade) for the original Campari cocktail. It doesn’t get more classic than this.

Bar Paradiso

A trendy wine bar in the south east of Milan, with seriously scrumptious food to match.

Bar Basso

No visit to Milan would be complete without an aperitivo at the iconic Bar Basso bar, where the Negroni sbagliato (my go-to drink) was invented by accident in the 1970s.

What to do (according to the locals)

‘Villa Necchi Campiglio, of course,’ says Duncan Campbell, ‘followed by a peek inside the Pinacoteca di Brera art museum then lunch at Trattoria Torre di Pisa or Antica Trattoria della Pesa.’

‘I’m very drawn to the antique markets in Milan,’ says the chef and owner of Contraste, Matias Perdomo. ‘I often visit the Brera market and the antiques market along the Navigli canals.’

Bea Bongiasca, the jewellery designer whose pieces adorn the chicest people in Milan and beyond, recommends exploring the city on foot: ‘If it’s nice out, I stay outdoors as much as possible, usually heading to Parco Sempione near my home, often stopping by the Triennale Milano, one of my favorite museums, especially now that its library is open to the public. Later, I’ll head to Via Paolo Sarpi for lunch. If the weather isn’t great, I’ll maybe go to the cinema or spend the day at a cute spa, like the Armani Hotel or Palazzo Parigi.’

‘A stroll to the market in Via Fauchè is one of the Milanese local’s secrets for excellent fresh fish to cook at home,’ says Enrico Casati, co-founder of Milanese brand Velasca. ‘In the afternoon, I take my children to Parco Sempione or the park in City Life before a quick hello at our original Velasca store at the Arco della Pace. Then I might head for an aperitivo at Lom Dopolavoro, which has a nice garden for warmer evenings.’

Where to shop

Milan has an excellent selection of independent boutiques and markets, and I often spend my weekends perusing the following:

• Minina For ultra-chic contemporary womenswear
• Velasca For a pair of perfect handmade Italian leather loafers
• Cavalli e Nastri For designer vintage pieces
• Peck For a large jar of their homemade mayonnaise
• Mazzolari For heavenly scents and hair products
• Choses: for womenswear and excellent straw beach bags
• Mercato di Wagner For top quality groceries (my olive addiction is fuelled by the charming husband and wife couple who sell me green Nocellara olives by the kilo)
• Bonvini 1909 For beautiful stationary in a historic Milanese boutique

There’s no business like show business, except perhaps for the hospitality business, which in the Dorchester’s Oliver Messel Terrace Suite, comes with all the bells and whistles of a West End sell-out. It is rare to stay somewhere where the designer’s original vision has been so tangibly realised and well preserved, but on my hunt for the best hotel rooms in the country, I managed it in here.

Throughout the room, rosette-style hangings frame watercolour costume designs by Messel as the prize pieces of art they are. By the door there is an illuminated ‘EXIT’ sign, just like those in London’s theatres, that I can’t imagine ever wanting to follow. The Dorchester’s star suite is a marvel. And that’s all before I’ve mentioned the set-pièce de résistance: the loo seat shaped like a golden shell that is decadent enough to make any performance feel Olivier Award-worthy.

Messel, the English artist who died in 1978, is remembered for much more than just this golden throne. One of the best-known stage designers of the 20th century, his theatrical debut came when he designed the masks for a London production of Serge Diaghilev’s ballet Zephyr et Flore (1925). Famously, he also designed the sets and costumes for the Royal Ballet’s 1946 production of Sleeping Beauty, many illustrations of which hang in the suite, as well as a string of other impressive shows and films. Those in his close circle included the production’s prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn, Princess Margaret and Cecil Beaton.

The suite, a short spit away from where Messel grew up in a house overlooking Hyde Park, was originally designed by the artist and opened in 1953. It has been restored and was re-opened this January as part of larger restoration works at The Dorchester. The work was led by the specialist painters and decorators at Hare & Humphreys, who spent more than 2,000 hours and used more than 2,750 sheets of 23.5-carat gold leaf to meticulously refresh every detail of the 133sq m suite. Messel said that it is a place he would have liked to have lived in himself, a wish that I am sure would still be true today (more modern features include a large television in the living area, but this has been hidden behind a panel printed with a Messel painting that slides up on demand in order to keep the era-specific magic of the suite alive and well).

A particular gem, courtesy of the restoration, is a hand-painted mural on the domed ceiling between the corridor and drawing room. This was discovered under layers of paint by the renovation team and features an arch of roses painted by Messel himself, complete with his original pencil sketch marks.

The suite as a whole is a marvel, with a sense of playfulness throughout — exemplified by its ‘bookshelves’ that are actually hidden doors. A parlour for waiting visitors leads through to a well-stocked pantry, sitting and dining room, outdoor terrace and a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Messel’s career-long dedication to ballet, opera, theatre and art shines through in all. So does the sun, which beams through the curved French doors to the three-sided terrace when we arrive for our stay (I took my mum along for the experience. We were both giddy with excitement when we saw the suite). Despite overlooking the many building works going on around the hotel, this still serves as the perfect tranquil suntrap on which to relax with a book in one hand and a chilled glass of Dom Perignon (courtesy of the hotel) in the other.

It’s easy to see why the suites’ catalogue of former guests includes the rich and fabulous. It was Elizabeth Taylor’s favourite place to stay in London, apparently, although when my mum presses our butler Sean for further names his discretion is impressively ironclad. ‘I can assure you, your secrets will be very safe. I will tell nobody what you did here tonight,’ he promises enigmatically, which is a shame given we had a lovely, yet notably not outrageous, stay. And, it’s not just the array of mysterious guests that makes the Oliver Messel suite famous. The design of the residence itself is so notable that a scale model of the original 1953 suite is part of the permanent collection at the V&A Museum.

The showstopping room is the bedroom. Ottoman yellow silk-lined walls and gilded mouldings make for grand yet whimsical sleeping quarters. ‘It’s like marmite. People either love it or they hate it,’ Sean tells me. We loved it. A skirted dressing table decorated with a vase of yellow roses and a perfume atomiser is such a picture of 1950s glamour that it's almost as though Taylor could strut in at any moment to powder her nose before a glamorous night out. Hand-painted mirrors featuring Messel’s characters and enchanted trees frame a large indulgent bed canopied in yet more yellow silk. It’s the perfect stage to inspire a night of dreams in which you are the lead performer in a show entirely of your own making.

Room rates are subject to enquiry and may vary. For enquiries, please visit The Dorchester’s website.

The first time I travelled to Namibia, in April 2024, I rented a 4x4 Toyota truck for a road trip across the country — as I’d been told that was the best way to approach the vastness of the landscape and to appreciate its marvels of sand and rock. After eight-hour days of sloshing around the gravel roads, I’d arrive at one of the fantastic hotels I’d booked, too fried to do much exploring and missing out on whatever activities might have been on offer.

What I did find everywhere along the way, waving goodbye to me when I left one place in the morning and welcoming me at the next place in the evenings, looking fresh and relaxed at each point, was an English couple on their ninth visit to the country. I soon learnt that they had booked a Cessna safari to collect them from one property and deliver them to the next with minimal fuss and, as I was to learn, far better views than I was getting on the ground. Immediately, I became determined to return and do the full Denys Finch Hatton-style survey from the air.

My goodness, I am glad I did. At once, I noticed the difference in perspective and the way that modes of locomotion affect our mindset. I’d spent the entirety of my Namibian road trip in an almost discombobulated state; now, high in my Cessna seat, I felt much lighter — buoyant in every way. For the purposes of this trip, I worked with Wilderness Air, an operation run in conjunction with the Wilderness hospitality brand, which will also transport travellers to properties belonging to andBeyond, Zannier and so on. It made sense for me to stay within the Wilderness envelope, however, visiting the brand’s properties in a variety of locations to see the range of landscapes, wildlife and experiences Namibia has to offer — and to cover a great deal more territory than before.

I began with a stay at Wilderness’s Little Kulala camp. On arriving at Windhoek airport, the team there helped me, and a few others — an American couple on honeymoon and two friends on a ladies’ trip — into one of the fleet of 1980s Cessna 208 Grand Caravans, 14-seaters with a range of about 1,000 kilometres (about 620 miles). After landing at a long, straight strip of red sand in the centre of a wide sand valley to drop off the honeymooners, the pilot took us up again, banking over the famous serpentine shapes of the dunes at Sossusvlei to drop us at the airstrip near Little Kulala.

Once I had settled into my recently renovated tented room and resettled my nerves with Champagne, the reality of where I was and what I was doing overwhelmed me, as did the endlessness of the landscape around me. It may be the way that Cessna travel reveals the expanse, but, in that moment at Little Kulala, I felt very intensely just how unbelievably small I am.

In many ways, Namibia is a great place to think outside of human time, outside of human scale (although testimonies to that scale exist here, too, with rock carvings in the north-east of the country going back 10,000 years). Standing on my cabin’s deck, looking out on the vastness of the landscape, it felt so clear that everything is so much bigger and older and more important than us and our worries, in part because this canvas has remained unchanged for so long.

The Namib desert, the oldest in the world, goes back at the very least some 55 million years (making it about 10 times as ancient as the Sahara, for example). This desert is so venerable that there are dinosaur footprints in it. In Namibia, you begin to see things on geological time — then, when the curtain of the day is pulled and the immensity of stars is revealed, on a planetary scale. It is impossible not to come in direct contemplation with how very, very tiny we are; how diminutive, even, our solar system is.

The next morning, Wilderness arranged for me to take in the scenery from a hot-air balloon. I am, unfortunately, terrified of heights, so I spent much of the ride hunkered in the bottom of the basket, holding my camera above my head to capture some of the views (absolutely spectacular, I’m told) as the sun rose, casting its rays sidelong through the dust and sand. Apparently, it was one of the most incredible sunrises I didn’t quite see.

Later, firmly on the ground, we drove to the monumental red sand dunes of Sossusvlei. In the heart of the park, we passed through a cove protected on all sides by mountainous dunes, then entered the little salt clearing where ancient trees stand in mute ceremony: Deadvlei, made famous by Tarsem’s fantasy film The Fall and now an Instagram favourite. The deep ochre red of the dunes is testament to their age, the iron content in the sand given time to rust and rust and rust over millennia.

At Little Kulala, I climbed back on board one of Wilderness’s Grand Caravans and flew into the centre of the country, where I changed planes, to a Cessna 210C. I would spend much of my time in these four-seaters (including the pilot), each of which is named for an animal found in the bush: Lion, Kudu, Cheetah and so on. Now, picture, if you will, a car made in the early to mid 1980s and driven over great distances every day since. The patina to the interior knobs and chrome and instruments of the 210C is fairly consistent with that, as is the design, with faux wood grain and chrome ash trays, cantilevered windows and analog instruments.

It was on these plane rides that I thought about the personality type it takes to become a bush pilot in Namibia. There is, on the one hand, a little bit of a carnival barker to these men — playing for jokes, entertaining the passengers as they go through their safety briefings and so on — but there is an aspect of the mechanic, too, the MacGyver, and something of a loner, being way out in the back of beyond. I loved chatting with these men, Tinashe and Adam, William and Xander and the rest. Many of them are from southern Africa, although not all. Some are super fastidious; some have the ease of mastery; most of them are quite boyish. Each of them told me stories of falling in love with planes and flying in their adolescence.

Viewed from above, in my regular Cessna hops, the trippy topography of Namibia could have been the visuals from a 1990s Björk music video: origami patterns of canyons and the long, undulating ribbons of dunes running out to a plain of limitless, desolate white rock, then the fractal, encrusted shapes of long-ago water run-offs. If you have been on a safari in the east of southern Africa or rambled around in the back of a Land Cruiser through the Serengeti in Tanzania or Kruger National Park in South Africa and perhaps begun to think that all safaris are somewhat the same, Namibia will clean your slate. The deserts, the rock formations and the sand dunes are so unlike those I have ever seen anywhere else and the rare sightings of lions and elephants and the like bring with them an extra giddiness, a thrill, in part because you are encountering these animals in such a strange, surreal context.

My second stop on the tour was the Desert Rhino camp — once the headquarters of the rhino rangers of the region and still a great place to see these singular animals — recently reopened after a brand spanking new renovation. The sandstone and basalt mountains around the camp are some 500 million years old. The plains are flecked with red rock boulders and, infrequently, the dusty sage of a euphorbia, shooting up like a bouquet of jointed string beans. It is intensely beautiful and utterly inhospitable — and yet there are clear traces here, there, everywhere, of where our ancestors lived and moved.

From Desert Rhino, I flew toward the north-western coast, to Hoanib Skeleton Coast and its cluster of tawny-coloured tented cabins. This might be the time to say how misleading the term ‘tented cabin’ can be on safari: my ‘tent’ at Hoanib was among the most luxurious accommodations available anywhere in the world. The views, the comfort: sublime; and the food, at each of the camps, at every meal, was as good or better than at any hotel.

It was on our adventure out to the Skeleton Coast that I saw an entire parade of animals. A feasting lion, playful elephants, curious giraffes and, by the sea, more seals than I could have ever imagined. On my last night in Namibia, as I sat in a canvas chair in front of the fire, watching the sky turn cotton candy and then mauve, I noticed how much more free and clear I felt. My mind seemed somehow rewired, wiped free from the noise of ‘real’ life. Then, an event, a revelation, occurred: the moon rose in the desert. Something so fundamental, it appeared to me as a spectacle, a symbol of the divine. How had I become inured to this magic, this sensation? How is it that I take any of this for granted? How have I lived so far from this experience, happening here all the time, for so long? It is only a few plane rides away.

Wilderness can organise seven-night itineraries from £7,675 per person, based on two people sharing on an inclusive basis. The price includes two nights each at Wilderness Little Kulala and Desert Rhino camps, followed by three nights at Hoanib Skeleton Coast camp, as well as return air transfers from Windhoek. Visit their website for more information and to book.

Storfjord Hotel is a hush-hush, hill-top retreat about an hour inland from Ålesund, south-west Norway’s Art Nouveau fishing town, and it delivers cosiness and quietude in spades.

It’s the full Scandi fantasy: a cluster of classic Norwegian log cabins with chimneys made out of Jenga-stacked stones and grass growing on the roof.

Birch and pine forests stretch in every direction and, out front, sheepskin-swathed Adirondack chairs come with front-row views of the Hans Dahl scenes of the fjord that gives the hotel its name.

In the communal living room, which smells of wood smoke and pine, you’ll hear the crackle of embers glowing in the fireplace. And in every nook, there are plush, tartan sofas or leather wingback chairs to curl up in with a birch cider and a tome borrowed from the communal bookshelf.

The 30 rooms and suites are snug, lined in pale pine and wool, with fireplaces that flicker to life at the push of a button and balconies that frame nothing but forest and fjord. The best one to book is the suite above the main living room, from where you can spy on the goings-on on the fire-warmed terrace below before turning in with a glass of apple brandy.

With a wealth of farms and a wild larder on its doorstep, Storfjord’s food is, unsurprisingly, outstanding. Mornings start with a breakfast buffet of still-warm sourdough and local staples, such as dill-flecked salmon gravlax and caramel-like brown cheese. Lunches and dinners change with the bounty of the season and include everything from local lamb with baked beets and pan-fried Brussel sprouts, to snap peas and monkfish from the nearby coast. You’ll want to pair it with the apple cider from the neighbouring 1,000-year-old Skarbø farm, where it is pressed exclusively for the hotel.

On some evenings, guests gather in the lavvo, a giant traditional Sámi tent pitched between the trees a short walk away from the hotel, for forest-to-table dinners of brisket and root vegetables cooked over open flames.

Days here unfurl like a choose-your-own-adventure game. There are forest trails for easy walks and tougher treks tracing Storfjord’s hilly spine. E-bikes stand ready by the main lodge and the hotel can arrange kayak excursions on the fjord or helicopter tours deeper into the Sunnmøre Alps that roll to the horizon. A wood-fired sauna and hot tub help ease weary limbs and there’s a spa therapist on call for Swedish massages make knotted muscles melt. At sunset, you could take the boat to the hotel’s seafood-centric sister restaurant, Sjøbua, in Ålesund’s postcard harbour, where fishing boats still dock with their metal bellies full of the day’s catch.

If you’re feeling a tad more ambitious, 62°Nord, Storfjord Hotel’s tour operator-arm, can map out multi-day road trips by race bike or in one of the resort’s whisper-quiet electric Porsche Taycans. These include stops at sister hotels deeper into Sunnmørsalpene (the Sunnmøre Alps).

However, there’s no shame in simply staying put — wrapped in a woolly blanket, and soaking in those soul-soothing views.

Rooms at Storfjord Hotel start from 4090NOK (about £307) on a bed and breakfast basis. Visit the 62°Nord website for more information and to book.

This is a column about wind. Forget hurricanes, typhoons or any old rough and tumble storm; think instead of those winds that billow and blow across our continents with annual regularity. The ones with exotic names like haboob, khamsin, chinook; not those called Amy, Bram, Chandra or Dave (God forbid we should make it to Wubbo this year).

In Europe, we might also think of the mistral, the ‘master wind’ and cold north westerly, which blows most intensely in Provence and Languedoc in France in winter and spring; or the hot dry sirocco surging up from the Sahara at the change of the seasons with fiery sand in its entrails; or the cool meltemi cavorting vigorously through the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean in high summer.

Back in the day, before modern Greeks adopted the Turkish name, the meltemi was known as the etesian wind, something that Aristotle tried to get his teeth into in his famous scientific work, Meteorologica, written in about 340BC. His was the world’s first study of weather and natural atmospheric processes, marking a shift from ancient mythological explanations for everything that happened between the Earth and the heavens. Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind, was dispatched. In came Aristotle’s understanding that at the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, when the sun was at its highest and the heat was greatest, melting snow in colder regions would cause the etesian winds to blow from the north, often for many days continuously.

The Aegean islands most susceptible to the meltemi have always been the Cyclades, an archipelago of some 220 islands and islets circled around the central sacred island of Delos, the mythological birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. I have many favourites among these islands, but a particular soft spot for Serifos where, over the years, we have spent many of the dog days of summer lounging around in the sun — and the wind.

Serifos is one of those islands where an authentic slice of Greek island life still exists. None of the glitz of sister islands such as Santorini or Mykonos has made its mark here. Instead, the island is defined by a barren, predominantly treeless landscape of steep hills ribbed with ancient and abandoned terracing, remote farmsteads and tiny blue-domed chapels — not to mention its 72 beaches and bays, some only accessible by boat. The bountiful days of flourishing industries in wine, wheat, vegetables and iron ore are long gone, leaving behind a quiet haven where life is truly simple.

On our first visit, the lady in the car-rental agency, at the island’s small port of Livadi, handed over the keys to our tin can of a hire car with a nonchalant warning about being mindful of the wind. We thought little of this as we explored the island along Serifos’s sparse road network; parking up to explore the labyrinthine cobbled passageways of the hilltop Chora, one of the prettiest and best preserved ‘old towns’ in the Cyclades; turning off down unmarked tracks in search of walking trails and panoramas; navigating routes to beaches such as sandy Kalo Ambeli, picture-perfect Agios Sostis, remote Sikamia and sweet Platis Gialos with its pretty beachside taverna, all of which would become focal points of future stays on the island.

Then came our own Italian Job moment, returning to our car at one of Serifos’s highest points on a ferociously windy afternoon. We blew the bloody doors off — well one, actually. Don’t mess with the meltemi, Aristotle might have said.

This feature originally appeared in the April 1, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Artemis II has blasted itself into the stratosphere and, outside a rocket hangar, a herd of Texas longhorns is grazing in the 30°C  heat, heads bowed, hooves planted, jaws rolling in rhythmic motion. I’ve arrived on site at the world’s foremost hub for manned spaceflight — namely NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas, an employer of thousands of the biggest brains in the country — and the first sight to greet me is a crew of prodigiously horned cattle chewing the Houston cud.

It transpires that the animals are part of an initiative to engage local schoolchildren in science through agriculture. If that seems incongruous, space agencies have always embraced the unexpected. A trip here has long been a highlight of a visit to Houston — which has gone by the nickname of Space City for more than 50 years — but the centre has extra gravitational pull in 2026. ‘Artemis II, baby,’ says my generously bearded NASA guide Reid when we begin our tour, barely containing his excitement. ‘It’s happening.’ The 10-day mission will see four astronauts orbit the Moon in the first flight of its kind since 1972.

To hop onto a visitor minibus and cruise around the Johnson Space Center’s 1,620-acre complex is to enter a kind of alternate reality. On one level, it looks and feels like a university campus — a sun-kissed sprawl of 1960s concrete, open lawns and rucksacked academics — until your attention gets grabbed by a lunar buggy being tested at the roadside or a space shuttle looming over the rooftops. And this is before you set foot inside the buildings themselves. The hangar, for example, holds a titanic, 363ft Saturn V rocket as thick as a giant redwood. It’s a mind-boggling thing to see up close.

At their furthest point from Earth, the Artemis II crew will be about 230,000 miles from home, but for the past 2½ years, the space-bound quartet has been training here in Houston. The fact that the mission is taking place in the 250th anniversary year of American independence, meanwhile, gives the project further oomph — even if one the four astronauts has the temerity to be Canadian.

The centre offers two daily, pre-bookable VIP tours and by reserving spots on both I get treated to behind-the-scenes looks at everything from the 6.2 million-gallon Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory indoor pool — a watery colossus containing full-scale replica modules of the International Space Station (ISS) — to the simulators of the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. ‘Welcome to the astronauts’ playground,’ says Reid, when we set eyes on the wire-sprouting mega-machines of the latter. There’s an air of momentousness about the place, as well there should be. In keeping with all the original Moon missions, the launch itself took place in Florida, but is being controlled from here at the Space Center. The thinking behind this, I learn, is that having a mission headquarters removed from the hubbub of the launch site is believed to give better operational control. The political influence of Texas-born Lyndon B. Johnson — after whom the Space Center is named — helped Houston get the job in the early 1960s, and it’s kept it ever since.

Reid leads the way to Historic Mission Control Center, the very room which guided Apollo 11’s Eagle down onto the lunar surface and where Apollo 13’s stricken ‘Okay, Houston… we’ve had a problem here’ was first received. Coffee cups and filled ashtrays — original, apparently — still line the console desks. When we arrive, the lights dim and the screens crackle to life to replay audio and video footage of the last couple of minutes of the final descent from the original Moon landing. The goosebumps come quickly. Within the same multi-level building is the present Mission Control — sleeker and shinier than its predecessor — which guides Artemis II. On my visit, before the launch, a link-up with the ISS is under way. Experts huddle under headphones, studying data. The screens above them hold graphs, maps and live images of astronauts floating from pod to pod. One feed displays the current view of the planet from an on-board camera: a shifting, cloud-dappled fantasy of green and blue. It’s mesmerising, pinch-yourself stuff.

As a destination, Houston makes a fitting base for a complex so, well, astronomical. Everything about the city is big. It’s the fourth largest metropolis in the USA, home to some 2.3 million residents. It’s subtropical, skyscraper-studded and eccentrically all-American, with labyrinthine underground shopping centres (or malls), dimly lit late-night joints—‘the stairs are dangerous’, one local tells me, pointing out old-time bar La Carafe, ‘but the drinks are good’ — and petrol that seems surprisingly pricey ($2.79, about £2.07) until I realise the price is per gallon rather than per litre.

This might be famed as oil country, but it is also a place of surprises. Houston votes blue in a state of red. It has the world’s largest medical centre, a string of incredible Vietnamese restaurants and a population that collectively speaks some 145 languages. Its evergreen oaks buzz with the insect-drone of cicadas and its annual livestock show is the planet’s biggest. I spot two driverless cars on its busy roads, a concept as head-spinning to me as any moonshot, and hear tales of alligators in Buffalo Bayou, the slow-moving river that flows through the city. Even away from the NASA complex, there are signs of the city’s cosmic heritage all over the place, too. This is, after all, somewhere that still revels in the fact that the first word broadcast by Neil Armstrong after landing Lunar Module Eagle was ‘Houston’. Its central green space is named Tranquillity Park in honour of the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility, one of the top craft breweries in town is Bad Astronaut — complete with a cheekily titled, hazy IPA named Fake Landing — and its ardently followed major league baseball team are called the Astros (more than once, Houston-trained astronauts in space have asked Mission Control for updates on the team’s progress).

It might be on the edge of things in terms of the national map—the iconic east-west American highway of Route 66, which marks its centenary this year, passes almost 500 miles away to the north—but it’s played a key role in domestic affairs ever since Texas was incorporated into the US in 1845. Its sense of self-confidence is well illustrated by Houston-born superstar Beyoncé, whose much-quoted song refrain (‘This is how they made me/Houston, Texas, baby’) captures something of the local sense of pride.

At street level, it’s a fascinating place to visit. I spend hours at Art Club, a former post office distribution centre reinvented as an avant-garde art gallery. I attend a packed Astros game, which is a riotously enjoyable carnival of diving catches and home-run fireworks, and I head to Republic Boot Co, specialising in rodeo boots and cowboy hats, where I’m offered a shot of cinnamon whisky within minutes of walking through the door (it is 12 noon). ‘You’re in town for the Space Center?’ asks the store’s young hat-shaper, James. ‘I have family working at NASA, making spacesuits. But hey—everyone round here has family working at NASA.’

Back at the Johnson Space Center, I pass my final morning in the main visitor building, touring its permanent exhibits of spacecraft and other artefacts. Among the many highlights are memorabilia from the Mercury and Gemini spaceflight programmes of the late 1950s and early 1960s, as well as the still-intact spacesuit worn by mission commander Pete Conrad for the Apollo 12 mission, with lunar dust still visible on its legs. Gazing at all this, it’s the sense of sheer, otherworldly ambition that hits you. Nearby, above a vast display given over to the Artemis project, a sign reads ‘We Are Going Back To The Moon’. If this year’s mission goes well, the plan is for the subsequent manned flight, Artemis III, to touch down on the lunar surface for what would be the first time in more than half a century. Before then, of course, Artemis II needs to return safely to Earth. The longhorn cattle won’t be aware of a thing, but Houston and the rest of the world will.

The writer stayed at Four Seasons Houston, Texas, US, where rooms start from $550 (about £410) per night. Visit the website for more information and to book.

Hôtel Byblos is a reminder of Saint-Tropez days gone by — a heady mix of glamorous and bohemian styles that brings to mind the Golden Age of travel. Something that doesn’t seem that surprising when you recall that Lebanese billionaire Jean-Prosper Gay-Para was inspired to build the hotel by his hopeless infatuation with Brigitte Bardot (below).

(Legend has it that the Lebanese town of Byblos is where Adonis and Aphrodite became lovers.)

The French actress and singer catapulted both herself and the then sleepy fishing village on the map on account of her sexually-charged performance in And Then God Created Woman (1956). It received a mixed critical reception—the Catholic National Legion of Decency in the US 'condemned’ it — but was a massive commercial success.

Whether Gay-Para was successful in his romantic endeavour is up for debate. Yes, Bardot frequented Byblos — which quickly became a celebrity magnet that attracted stars such as Mick Jagger and Cher — but she didn’t attend the opening party. And he was up against some touch competition. In 1966, Germany’s ‘prince of pleasure’ Gunter Sachs famously dropped a tonne of red rose petals out of a helicopter over Bardot’s La Madrague home — she married him the same year.

Today, the nearly 100-room hotel is arranged around a courtyard and swimming pool — each building painted in warming tones of ochre, rust red and terracotta. In 2024, four new suites, designed by Paris-based interior designer Laura Gonzalez were introduced — and what a treat they are. One is daubed in coral, a second in yellow, the third in turquoise and a fourth in jade green. Not so subtle nods to retro design include the ceramic minibars inspired by travel trunks that were popular in the 1970s. Last year, the hotel completed a total overhaul of their food and beverage outlets and opened the doors to its first-ever rooftop bar.

I first visited more than a half century after Bardot first walked through the doors — likely in much less glamorous circumstances. I was supposed to be staying somewhere that shall remain nameless on the opposite side of the Bay of Saint-Tropez, but it was so unspeakably awful (another story for another day) that we ran out in a panic and into the outspread arms of the team at Byblos.

My travel companion collapsed, quite literally, with relief and joy when we walked into our bedroom.

A handful of hotels on this Earth just get it right, exuding a kind of aura that intoxicates everyone who stays. It’s a tricky science and there are plenty of places that are perfect on paper, but leave guests feeling a bit, well, flat. Byblos falls into the former camp. It’s sexy, but not sleazy, and still feels like a closely-guarded secret despite its headline-making hedonistic history.

Oh if walls could talk!

The village-within-a-village, cloistered layout likely has a lot to do with that. However, the hotel’s back entrance spills guests out onto busy Avenue Foch — the best of both worlds.

Rooms at Hôtel Byblos start from €645 on a bed and breakfast basis in the low season, and on a room-only basis in peak season. Visit the website for more information and to book.

Syros isn’t trying to impress you — yet it delivers on everything that matters: culture, history and some of the best food I’ve eaten anywhere in Greece.

Think of the Cyclades and you probably picture whitewashed walls, choreographed sunsets and places designed for the camera — selfie sticks and all (shudder). Syros is refreshingly uninterested in any of that. It’s not that it isn’t beautiful. It is. It just doesn’t seem particularly bothered whether you notice.

I arrived slightly off-script. On a neighbouring island, the wind had picked up — still bright, still blue, but enough for whispers of ferry cancellations. The ferries, of course, ran anyway. What should have been a simple hour from Paros to Syros became a four-hour round trip via Athens after I missed my stop — thanks to two drowsy travel sickness tablets I had optimistically taken for what I thought would be a rough crossing. A mistake I would not recommend repeating.

Finally, slightly dishevelled and mildly furious with myself, I disembarked the ferry — relieved to find not the heaving crowds of its neighbouring islands, but something far calmer: a place that felt, immediately, lived-in.

A quick drive through Ermoupoli — the island’s main town — and I realised this was unlike anywhere else in the Cyclades. I should caveat here that I have very high standards for Greece, thanks to a Greek friend who has spent years dragging me across the country to the very best beaches, tavernas, bakeries, caves and un-Google-able spots. I like to think I know my Cyclades from my Ionian, my Aegean from my Saronic, but Syros surprised me — in the best possible way.

It is, technically, the capital of the Cyclades and was once even considered a potential capital of Greece itself. In the decades after the War of Independence, Ermoupoli was built almost overnight by refugees and merchants, becoming one of the most important ports in the eastern Mediterranean. Wealth followed — and, unlike on many other islands, it stayed. You see it in the scale of the buildings, the marble staircases, and in the universities that draw some of the brightest minds in the country, imbuing the island with a sense of energy.

You should spend your morning wandering through the town. Start in Miaouli Square, all symmetry and pale stone, before ducking into the Apollo Theatre — a scaled-down echo of La Scala — and then lose yourself in the narrow shopping streets. Here, you’ll find loukoumia, a local delicacy: softer and lighter than Turkish delight, often flavoured with rose or bergamot, a legacy of the refugees who settled here after 1821. There are excellent coffee spots alongside traditional bakeries, where trays of fresh bougatsa emerge still warm.

Head to Kois Optics for designer sunglasses, then upstairs, to the mansion on top of it. Stavros — the owner — will usher you in like an old friend and start to tell the story of his family home, a well-preserved 19th-century house that probably hasn’t changed a lot. There are painted ceilings, gilded furniture and a ballroom floor still marked by the faint scuffs of his grandparents’ parties.

The Church of St Nicholas — known locally as ‘the rich’ — reflects the island’s unusual mix of Orthodox and Catholic influences, with interiors that feel closer to Renaissance Italy than traditional Greek iconography. Beyond the town, the island opens up: smaller villages, quieter beaches and stretches of landscape. In Posidonia, grand villas reveal the island’s maritime wealth, while local beachside tavernas serve the kind of unfussy, deeply satisfying food that Greece does best.

Hotel Argini sits in Vaporia — the old shipowners’ quarter — where neoclassical houses line the sea in soft pastels and stone. The hotel occupies a mansion built in the 1850s by Grigorios Paikos, a businessman and member of a revolutionary society instrumental in the successful fight for Greek independence. It was a house designed for a family of 11 and for a life that involved entertaining — all generous proportions and rooms built for conversation.

Like much of the town, it was eventually left to deteriorate before being brought back by the Polykretis family, who chose to restore rather than reinvent. The owner grew up next door, returned to renovate his family home, then took on this building too. Years of careful work followed: repairing ceilings, restoring paintings and preserving original features under strict heritage regulations.

The original marble staircase remains, worn in places; the ceilings — painted by Italian and Greek artists — have been restored without losing their character; and in certain corners, fragments of the building’s past have been left visible. The layering of old and new is both fascinating and considered.

There are only 11 bedrooms, which makes it feel more like a house than a hotel. The standout rooms — including the former ballroom, now a suite — retain the building’s most impressive features: those painted ceilings depicting figures from Ancient and modern Greek history, tall arched windows and balconies overlooking Vaporia and the Church of St Nicholas. It’s grand, but not overdone.

Downstairs, former cisterns and working spaces have been transformed into a hammam and indoor thermal pool carved from rock: low-lit, vaulted, almost cave-like. We were brought wine and fruit, which felt both indulgent and entirely necessary. It’s private, quiet and, I suspect, very romantic.

I am deeply committed to Greek food in all its forms — I could happily exist on a diet of gyros and loukoumades — but here, familiar flavours and traditional dishes are reworked. A 24-hour fermented bread with Syros butter and truffle taramas; orzotto with shrimp, fennel and ouzo. Yet it still retains that family-run warmth — dishes arriving generously, one after another, until I was slightly concerned I might have to be rolled off the island. I even had my third-ever memorable non-alcoholic cocktail, which feels worth noting.

Ermoupoli is not preserved for visitors. Students, shipowners, shopkeepers and families all exist side by side. Orthodox and Catholic churches sit within walking distance of each other, their histories layered rather than separated. It is a place built by refugees, shaped by trade, and still very much evolving.

Syros doesn’t try to sell itself to you — but it succeeds anyway.

Rooms at the Argini Hotel start from €300 per night on a bed and breakfast basis. Visit the website for more information and to book.

Greece has a, quite frankly, ridiculous number of islands — around 6,000 — that seemingly take it in polite turns to emerge from the shadows in order to advertise themselves to discerning travellers who don’t want to bump into their Chelsea neighbours on Corfu.

Kefalonia — of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994) fame — is one of the old guard that has stood the test of time and the onslaught of fame, unlike Mykonos, Greece’s Ibiza, and Santorini, which had to impose a visitor cap in 2025 because of overtourism.

Even in peak season, the largest of the Ionian islands, feels manageable, relaxing even. As popular with honeymooners as it is with groups of friends and families.

Eliamos — a sanctum of 12 villas, positioned high up on a steep slope on the island’s southern curve — is a sure bet for the first two because the more famous sites (Myrtos Beach, Melissani cave, Argostoli, the capital) are situated further north.

Guests come here to stay put (for the majority of the time, at least) and rest. There’s a communal pool, bijou spa and open-sided restaurant, but the villa concept means that you don’t need to leave your room(s) if you don’t want to.

We — three girlfriends — stayed in a two-bedroom villa with a sleek stone open-plan kitchen, dining and living space at its heart. Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors opened up onto a terrace, private pool and, below, a sweep of cerulean-blue ocean that was, from time-to-time, studded with large yachts.

Though the villas were all designed by a London-based studio, they have a strong sense of place, unlike the beautiful garden which utilises all of the blank space between and around the buildings and is clearly English-inspired, reimagined for the egg yolk yellow Mediterranean sun. The frothy planting of Mexican fleabane, fragrant rosemary and fennel, is popular with local pollinators.

One morning we tumbled down the gravel track to a cove directly underneath the hotel (not as pretty as some of Kefalonia’s celebrated beaches, but we had it to ourselves); on another, we braved a (fun, I promise) personal training session in the open-air gym. The fact we couldn’t move the next day didn’t bother us one bit because we lay in the pool watching French Open matches on a precariously-balanced laptop.

The breakfast is worth leaving your room for and we made it our mission to try everything on the menu. Lunch and dinner are served in the same space — or you can order food to your room. The latter is quite formal, but staff happily recommended local favourites and leaving at least meant we utilised our hire car.

In recent years, fly-and-flop holidays have acquired an unsavoury reputation — perhaps because, in the wake of the Pandemic, travellers were urged to embrace bucket list adventures — but there is something necessary and nourishing about a holiday that can coax both the body and mind into a state of relaxation.

I know just the place — and now you do too.

Rooms at Eliamos start from €759 (about £650) on a bed and breakfast basis. Visit their website for more information and to book.

Hero hotel

The Vaults at Stow

The Vaults at Stow deliciously upends the normal routine of things when it comes to a stay in the Cotswolds (the check-in desk routine of a hotel; the left-to-your-own-devices experience of an Airbnb; the general din that’s part and parcel of a room above a pub). Here, everything is quiet at night, except the church bells solemnly ringing out the hour, and you can slip in without a squeak of a conversation, by unlocking the door to one of the three very smart apartments with a secret code.

Husband-and-wife team Rory and India Hunter have overseen a masterful reimagining of the upper floors of an old Barclays Bank, done in the best way. It is like a home away from home, the pied-à-terre of a deeply stylish friend, instead of bland hotel renovation. The design notes are all very on point: Ottoline de Vries and Penny Morrison fabrics, Hum Fleming cosmic lampshades and Edward Bulmer paint in buttery yellow, plaster pink and sage green.

Everything about the set-up says: ‘Come in and make yourself at home.’ On an antique Welsh dresser, there’s a chess set and dominos. Under the bedside table, there’s a considered and diverse selection of books from The Best of Betjeman to Brian Cox’s Human Universe. In the fridge, cans of Dash and Trip sit next to bottles of La Vieille Ferme rosé and on the kitchen counter you’ll find a just-baked sourdough loaf, a jug of verdant tulips and a bowl of crunchy Granny Smiths. A marbled visitors’ book sits by the door, filled with love letters from previous guests.

Sash windows that close with a satisfying swoosh look out over the square at the front and, to the back, terraces have widescreen views of moss-covered rooftops, chimneys puffing out curls of woodsmoke and early-morning mist rolling off the surrounding hills.

The Vaults is plum in the middle of everything you might want to see and do here: gallery pottering at Red Rag and Stow Art House, picking up paints at Cotswolds Art Supplies, stationery browsing at Phyra Studio, choosing coloured tea towels and candles from Domestic Science and tasting pastel-speckled gull’s-egg treats from the Cotswolds Chocolate Company. Don’t miss the Crock Shop, either, a tardis-like emporium of kitchen kit you never knew you needed.

Rooms at The Vaults at Stow start from £260 per night. There is a two-night minimum stay. Visit their website for more information and to book.

Need to know

The history book of Stow-on-the-Wold reads like a gripping page-turner. The town sits on the site of an Iron Age fort that caught the eye of the invading Romans, who used it as a handy stopping point on their ruler-straight Fosse Way. Stow as we know it, arranged about the main square, took shape in the 11th century courtesy of Henry I, who granted a licence for a weekly market.

Sheep — tens of thousands of them — soon followed, zigzagging through narrow lanes to the square, which had become an important hub for the medieval wool trade. St Edwards Church was consecrated in the 10th century, but changes to the structure and interior decoration were made up until the 19th, shortly before J. R. R. Tolkien’s rumoured visit.

Local legend has it that the church’s famous yew-tree framed entrance inspired the Doors of Durin in the author’s seminal work, The Lord of the Rings.

It’s not hard to understand why Stow-on-the-Wold has been such a prominent town for so many centuries: it’s the highest town in the Cotswolds, a long-standing gathering place for hungry travellers and a melting pot of prosperous small businesses.

A word of warning: do not misbehave here. The remains of 15th-century penal stocks still stand on the green, not far from Digbeth Street, where the road was said to have run red with blood during the final battle of the English Civil War, in 1646.

Where to eat

• In the morning, join the queue at Otis & Belle in Talbot Court, less than a minute’s walk from The Vaults, where locals scoop up sticky cinnamon rolls and flat whites and compare notes on the weather
• For in-apartment lunches, try the deli counter at D’Ambrosi Fine Foods, where the counters are piled high with delicious salads, soups and shrimp rolls
• Bar Foletta boasts an enviable atmosphere. Perello olives, serrano and manchego croquettes, pints of Hawkstone and wicked, salt-rimmed margaritas are served to a soundtrack of vinyl records
• There are plenty of pubs in Stow, as well as a craft beer café and bottleshop Off the Square, and, three miles away, the Daylesford-owned The Fox at Oddington is delightful, run by an endlessly cheerful, young team

What to do while you’re there

• Walks All the best walks are loops. For a quick circular trot, the route between the pretty sisters of Lower and Upper Slaughter is a great pre-lunch warm up. It’s even better if you start out from Stow-on-the-Wold directly
• Viewpoints If the views from The Vaults at Stow whet your appetite, hotfoot it to Capability Brown’s Broadway Tower folly — the second-highest point in the Cotswolds. On a clear day, you can see for more than 60 miles
• Architecture Another brilliant folly, the neo-Mughal Sezincote House was built for Col John Cockerell at the turn of the 19th century to remind him of his time serving in the East India Company
• Visit Daylesford’s flagship shop is always worth a peek, if only to marvel at the sheer scale of the place, the foot-long trays of rhubarb and rainbow-colour heirloom tomatoes, shelves of homeware as far as the eye can see and restaurants at every turn

This feature originally appeared in the April 30, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.'

Evolving from more basic fortifications like hill forts, castles first appeared in Europe around the 9th century. William the Conqueror started building them in Britain after the Norman Conquest, and over the following 150 years the Normans built more than 1000 in England and Wales, first from wood and later using stone.

It wasn’t until the 12th century that castles began to be built in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and luckily for us endless ancient skirmishes means that today the UK is simply brimming with beautiful castles. Fortunately, some of them are available as holiday accommodation, either converted into characterful hotels or as self-catering holiday homes.

The opportunity to wander the beautiful courtyards and idyllic surroundings of a stunning castle steeped in history makes for a perfect romantic break, and a family holiday at an historic fortress is hard to beat too, where children can run riot, revelling in life as a medieval lord or lady.

Northern Ireland

Crom Castle, Co Fermanagh

When, some years ago, I stayed in the west wing of this magnificent fairytale castle built in 1840, Henry Crichton, 6th Earl Erne (who is sadly no longer with us), and his wife, Countess Erne, dropped in for tea. This is the kind of experience you don’t get while staying at a Travelodge.

The estate is now managed by the National Trust, and the castle owned by John Crichton, the 7th Earl Erne. Once the family owned far more land. I remember asking John’s father how big the estate used to be. ‘It extended almost to Dublin at one point,’ he replied, rather matter-of-factly. He may have been joking somewhat, but in the late 19th century his family was certainly one of the biggest landowners in Ireland.

Crom Estate is stunningly beautiful and unspoilt. You can walk in complete tranquility through 1,900 acres of rolling parkland, oak woodland and along the shores of Lough Erne past numerous fine old buildings and ruins, including the original castle dating from 1611, now a ruin. Or, you can jump on a boat and explore the islands on the lake. The Estate was also a location for the BBC television series Blandings, based on the works of P.G. Wodehouse.

The castle is luxurious and adorned with antique furniture and pictures, including imposing oil paintings of Erne ancestors. The west wing sleeps up to 12 people and the entire property can be rented, and those without considerably large wallets can also rent cottages from the National Trust on the Estate, and camp in the grounds.

For Crom Castle stays see Loyd and Townsend Rose’s and National Trust Holidays’ website.

Scotland

Castle Fraser, Aberdeenshire

Built between 1575 and 1636, but with parts dating back to the 1450s, Castle Fraser — one of Scotland’s largest tower houses — is an excellent example of Scottish Baronial architecture.

You can stay in its two-bedroom apartment in the east wing overlooking the grounds and castle courtyard. However, apart from the domed ceiling, the modern and rather plain interior design means that there are not many clues as to its history.

Luckily, much of the castle elsewhere (open to the public) retains many original features. There is a medieval Great Hall and elegant Victorian bedrooms installed with four-posters, and quirky features such as hidden trapdoors and secret staircases. There are numerous intricately-carved stone armorial crests, family treasures and portraits, and if you climb the round tower you are rewarded with wonderful views.

The extensive grounds include a traditional walled garden and estate trails where it is possible to spot red squirrels, roe deer, buzzards and dragonflies.

For Castle Fraser stays see the National Trust for Scotland’s website.

Bothwick Castle, Lothian

Built in 1430 and situated just 12 miles from Edinburgh in the heart of the beautiful Midlothian countryside, Borthwick was the refuge of Mary Queen of Scots in 1567, and Sir Walter Scott also visited. It still bears the scars of being besieged by Oliver Cromwell, its magnificent twin towers standing 100 feet high from dungeons to battlements.

The elegantly-proportioned State Room boasts beautifully arched windows and tapestries and guests can dine in the candlelit Great Hall. Impressive original features abound, including stone vaulted ceilings, spiral staircases, chandeliers, large medieval chimney breasts and magnificent medieval fireplaces.

The very comfortable bedrooms have walls of exposed stone or wood panelling and are decked out with luxurious fabrics, carved-oak beds and antique furniture. One has a medieval ceiling mural, another a painting by Uccello of the Battle of San Romano, one of the earliest examples of the use of perspective in Renaissance art.

For Borthwick Castle stays see Celtic Castles’ website.

Saddell Castle, Argyll and Bute

This splendid 16th century four-storey tower house with comfortable accommodation for eight people sits right on the beach, on the sheltered, western side of the Mull of Kintyre and facing the Killbrannan Sound and Isle of Arran. Probably completed in around 1612, it has some fine touches such as a decorated ceiling, panelling, carved stone panels, and a battlemented wall-walk around the roof. The windows embedded in the thick stone walls look out onto fabulous countryside and Saddell Bay, where sea birds, otters and even basking sharks can be seen near the deserted beach.

For Saddell Castle stays see The Landmark Trust’s website.

Wales

Ruthin Castle, Denbighshire

The first documented castle on this site in the Vale of Clwyd was built for Edward I in 1277 but was destroyed during the English Civil War in 1646. Part of the ruins were incorporated into the large castellated mansion built in its place in the mid-19th century that exists today.

Ruthin Castle has had a dramatic history, including withstanding an 11-week siege during the Civil War, and the imprisonment and torture of the Welsh poet Richard Gwyn, who was hanged, drawn and quartered in 1584. In Edwardian times visitors included the Prince of Wales, actress Lillie Langtry, and Lady Randolph Churchill.

Some striking features remain, such as its medieval sandstone-dressed masonry capped by Victorian rough-cut limestone, and a huge Victorian stone carved fireplace. It is now a hotel set within gardens and sprawling woodland, and although its rooms do not convey a medieval atmosphere, occasional medieval banquets are held where guests can quaff wine from pewter goblets and mead from clay cups and eat in medieval style with a dagger.

For Ruthin Castle stays see the castle’s website.

England

Leeds Castle, Kent

Situated five miles southeast of Maidstone, Leeds Castle has a rich history, with residents and owners including Edward I and II, Henry VIII, and six queens including Eleanor, Isabella and Catherine of Aragon. In the 1920s it became a glamorous country house retreat for Anglo-American heiress Lady Olive Baillie, who hosted stars like Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn and Cary Grant.

The castle is now a major historical tourist attraction and receives more than 600,000 visitors each year. As well as some pretty walks, there are numerous attractions in the extensive grounds including a challenging maze and underground grotto (dating from the 1980s), a birds of prey centre and a children’s play areas.

It has had many changes over the years. Initially a manor house listed in the Domesday Survey of 1086, the first stone castle was built in 1119, later enlarged and improved, becoming a Tudor palace. In 1823 a new castle was built in Tudor style because the original was in such a ruined condition. It is possible to stay in a variety of castle bedrooms and buildings on the estate.

For Leeds Castle stays see their website.

Thornbury Castle, Gloucestershire

When Thornbury Castle was completed in 1521, Henry VIII promptly beheaded its owner, Edward Stafford, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, and took ownership. He stayed here with Ann Boleyn, the castle then passing through the hands of his children, Edward VI and Mary I, once he had died.

Surrounded by walled Tudor gardens with views over the River Severn into Gloucestershire and Wales, it has thankfully been upgraded since those times and now has a fine restaurant and 26 extremely comfortable bedchambers, one having the largest four-poster bed in Britain, at an impressive 10 feet wide.

Numerous original features such as four-foot walls with crenellations, arrow slits and ornate oriel windows, mighty oak-panelled doors and grand stone Tudor fireplaces feature throughout.

For Thornbury Castle stays see their website.

Kingswear Castle, Devon

This pretty artillery fort built to defend the harbour at the mouth of the River Dart at Dartmouth sleeps four. Perched on the water’s edge, from the windows you can look across to Dartmouth or down the craggy coast and pine forests, or simply watch the boats go by. At night you can stand on the battlements watching the stars. The square three-storey tower is owned by The Landmark Trust, which has painstakingly restored the castle’s ground floor to look as it did when it was completed in 1502.

The castle was constructed using slate rubble, with detailing using red sandstone ashlar. Numerous original features, both Tudor and from the Victorian renovation, remain, such as exposed stone walls and elegant wooden doors.

The accommodation is smart but unfussy. One bedroom is located 50 feet away in a blockhouse built in World War II, ideal if you have fractious kids or troublesome guests.

For Kingswear Castle stays see The Landmark Trust’s website.

Chillingham Castle, Northumberland

Nestled in beautiful, secluded countryside near the attractive rural town of Wooler, this remarkable castle, complete with dungeons, state rooms, a banqueting hall and torture chamber, has been in the same family, the Earl Greys and their relations, since 1246.

You can tour the castle or stay in one of the apartments from April to November. Apartments have some impressive antiques, and one is situated at the top of a look-out tower, another has a panelled and beamed Elizabethan long gallery, and a further room has works by Victorian painter Sir Edwin Landseer, a frequent visitor to the castle.

There's a tea room, lawns, gardens and wonderful woodland too. Chillingham Park contains the world’s only surviving true wild herd of cattle, which once roamed the forests of Britain.

For Chillingham Castle stays see their website.

Snape Castle, North Yorkshire

Three miles from pleasant market town Bedale, this 15th century castle has, unsurprisingly, a rich history. Previous residents include Queen Anne and in January 1537, a mob stormed the castle and took Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth wife, and her two stepchildren hostage.

Although you can admire its imposing structure, the castle itself is closed to the public. However, it is possible to stay in cottage-style accommodation in the undercroft beneath the castle’s 15th century chapel. It is comfortable rather than luxurious and features a spacious open plan sitting, dining and well-equipped kitchen area.

For Snape Castle stays see Sykes Holiday Cottage’s website.

At dinner on my first night at Atelier Francis Mallmann, I watched as a pair of German bikers ordered the entire menu. It’s a common sight. The restaurant — in the small ranching town of Garzón — is chef Francis Mallmann’s flagship and has become a Mecca for people who travel on behalf of their appetites. Each breakfast, lunch and dinner is a chance to devour succulent grilled steaks, wood-oven empanadas, dulce de leche ice creams and the seasonal dishes that have secured his reputation as one of Latin America’s culinary greats.

Opened in 2003, on the site of a former general store, the hotel is also famous for revitalising Garzón, a forgotten, yet undeniably beautiful town in the heart of Uruguayan wine country that now an upscale culinary and artistic hub. There is a sculpture park, a myriad international art galleries and modern art residencies, including CAMPO Garzón.

The area is accessible by car or by a bus that, the driver’s mood permitting, departs for Montevideo on Tuesday mornings.

After a week by the coast, and on invitation from his daughter Allegra, I jumped at the chance to stay.

Like the German bikers, I was prepared to enact La Grande Bouffe (1973) on Mallmann’s menu, but, in the moments between those gluttonous sessions, my bungalow became a home and I fell for Garzón’s village life. ‘We wanted a place where people could feel at peace,’ said Mallmann.

I wandered the streets meeting the locals. Some were gallerists, photographers or architects — others friendly gauchos. I am still in touch with a few of them.

Atelier Francis Mallmann is laissez-faire luxury. The rooms are whitewashed, spacious and sparsely decorated — save for hallmarks such as bowls of fresh lemons.

There are two pools, both of which are heated, asado barbecues and outdoor kitchens. If I wanted five-star hotel service, all I had to do was make a quick call to reception, or strike up a conversation with a member of staff at breakfast, but I was just as able to disappear into the rhythms of village life at my own pace.

Mallmann was among the first to recognise Garzón’s charms. It has since been described as his ‘Macondo’, from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude —a forgotten corner of the world revived by outsiders, where the heavy, peaceful silence is punctuated by bird song.

Like its fictional counterpart, Garzón is hard to leave. That trip, I extended my stay twice.

Rooms at Atelier Francis Mallmann start from $450 (about £335) per night. Visit the website for more information and to book.

Hero hotel

Three Mile Beach

Cornwall, the land of saints, is divided into two different types of devotees or Kernowphiles: those that love the north with its beaches and surfing (my wife, Rachel’s, family) and those who prefer the south for its gardens and peace (me). It’s Padstow versus St Mawes. In November, Rachel drove a bit further down the A30 than normal to Gwithian Beach, as I took one of the most beautiful train journeys in Britain to St Erth, before we joined up to stay at Three Mile Beach. Here, at the toe end of Cornwall, both points of the compass are so close that you can walk from one side of the county to the other in an afternoon. There is no need for a north-south divide.

We stayed in one of the 19 beach huts with Tiger (a dog bed is supplied, as is just about everything else you could imagine you might need). Each hut has a New England-meets-Poldark feel, sumptuously kitted out with a woodburning stove, mini Everhot cooker and the types of natural products that put a big smile on Rachel’s face. Outside, in the tightly fenced, slightly claustrophobic courtyard is a hot tub, sauna and barbecue, where one evening we made pizzas from the kit left for us on arrival.

This is a place for a romantic escape, avoiding all the intrusion that hotels bring. You can, of course, order delicious food to be delivered or cook your own. It is the best of both worlds: you can have as much service or solitude as you like. There are surf schools to join or massages to enjoy for those seeking relaxation. Whatever your penchant, you will feel renewed by the peace and sea air.

A two-bedroom beach shack at Three Mile Beach costs £600 for a three-night stay. Visit their website for more information and to book.

Need to know

There was no view of the sea from our room, which was a great shame, as the sea is so close that we could hear it. It is, however, a paradise for children and dogs. There are wonderful walks — the hotel lies on the South West Coast Path — in every direction from the hotel. You could spend the whole week setting off in different directions and never repeat a step. The hotel provides an exceptionally well-produced book listing all the local activities and directions. There is also the possibility of being picked up by the staff from a nearby station, but, to get the best out of a stay here, you really need a car.

The area has a proud mining heritage; tin and copper were dug from the earth. There is no mining today, but the remnants of this once-great industry are still visible as chimneys rising above the abandoned sunken shafts. There are Bronze Age remains to be found in the sand dunes and ancient Celtic chapels around the village of Gwithian; nature reserves abound for ornithologists — guillemots, razorbills and cormorants nest locally — and the striking Godrevy Light-house that inspired Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse stands proud at the eastern end of the beach. If you are very lucky, you may see dolphins in the bay; you are almost guaranteed to see seals.

Where to eat

Cafés abound in the area, but we particularly enjoyed Godrevy Café after a morning walk for breakfast. Lots of things are home-made, including the lemon curd. Go upstairs for the best views of the sea and choose the bacon sandwich.

You cannot better Carbis Bay Hotel for a full-on, Cornish afternoon tea with panoramic views of St Ives Bay and we enjoyed the simple, fresh, cheerful pub food at The Old Forge, Lelant.

What to do while you’re there

• Surf The sea here is good for all abilities. When we were there, the waves, pulled inexorably bigger by the full moon, lured many locals from their beds at dawn
• Walk There’s a truly exceptional offering of beach walks on golden sand, historic walks around the old tin and copper mines and pub treks, all while taking in the freshest air and admiring the wildlife, from murmurations of starlings to singing oystercatchers
• St Ives Founded in the 5th century by an Irish monk, the pretty town (above) has a rich history of fishing, mining and, more recently, art, with artists drawn to the particular light reflected from the water onto the sands. Visit Tate and the Barbara Hepworth Museum
• Visit The Lizard, the southernmost point of the British mainland; Mousehole for cobbled streets, its harbour and charming granite cottages; The Minack for its world-famous open-air theatre built into the cliffside; and the tidal island St Michael’s Mount, the English counterpart of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy

I first visited Fouquet’s New York in late 2022, when it had just opened and memories of the havoc wreaked by the Pandemic were starting to fade. The mood in New York felt cautiously optimistic and I was buoyed by the fact that a) the hotel was busy and b) native New Yorkers were already congregating around the speakeasy-style bar. I didn’t know it then, but the launch would kickstart a tsunami-size wave of new hotel openings around the globe.

The hotel is on a cobbled street in downtown Greenwich, but feels decidedly French: from the Cannes-inspired cinema room (above), to the spa that echoes the small chain’s St Barths property.

The man behind the interiors isn’t French at all, but Swedish-born and London-based designer-of-the-last decade Martin Brudnizki. The rooms are all slightly different: sugary pink walls and a pistachio sofa in one; a French navy roll-top bath in a second; custom wallpaper covered in sketches of popular Manhattan and Parisian landmarks in a third.

I stayed for a second time in late 2025 and was delighted to find that little had changed, including the superb bespoke scent — Fugue a Paris — perfuming the lobby. An often overlooked way to make the best first impression.

The rooms

If, for whatever reason, you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to live inside a macaroon, then look no further than Fouquet’s. I love the decidedly feminine, pastel-coloured bedrooms, but I expect they’re not for everyone. And that’s fine. They’re delicate and comfortable — but never childlike thanks to clever design decisions such as Art Deco inspired furniture and decor, and parquet flooring — and a welcome juxtaposition from the skyscrapers and harsh architecture lingering outside.

Some rooms overlook the Hudson River, and others, on the building’s corners, offer panoramic views of the city. All have marble bathrooms filled with Diptyque amenities.

Eating and drinking

There are three restaurants and a bar, including Brasserie Fouquet’s, a ground-floor-level outpost of the Fouquet’s in Paris (described by Country Life as ‘the Champs Élysées’ silver-screen canteen’, because it hosts the annual César Awards’ dinner and is regularly visited by A-list Hollywood celebrities).

In 2022, beret-wearing staff welcomed diners with greetings of ‘bonjour’ — a gimmick that they have, I’m happy to report, disposed of. It doesn’t need it; it’s popular as is, especially on the weekend, for brunch, with local Tribeca families and groups of friends. The onion soup is particularly popular, served with a pleasingly solid cheese lid.

The other options are Élysée's, which is open all day, and Le Vaux Rooftop, which is located atop the eight-story hotel and only open in the spring and summer months. They make a mean cocktail and the view is rather good too — especially framed by twinkling lights on a balmy New York summer evening.

How they’ll keep you busy

The spa is impressively comprehensive for a hotel of this size and place (there is a sauna, hammam and hydrotherapy pool). It’s well worth a visit and feels light and airy despite being underground. And it would be remiss of me not to mention the gym, which was designed in partnership with DOGPOUND, a cult New York and LA fitness brand that famously prepared Taylor Swift for her record-breaking ‘Eras’ tour. Go it alone with the top-of-the-line Technogym equipment or request a private training session with one of DOGPOUND’s specialist trainers. It is open 24 hours.

What else to do while you’re there

The West Side Highway, a 5.42-mile scenic road running alongside the Hudson River, is two blocks away; The Whitney Museum, with its impressive collection of 20th- and 21st-century American art, is a 25 minute walk.

Click here to read our complete guide to Manhattan, New York.

Who is it for?

I’ve always thought that the hotel’s soft glamour is best suited to small groups of girlfriends; when I was last there New York content creator Audrey Peters was enjoying a solo staycation, accompanied only by her sausage dog.

However, the massive penthouse and adjoining suites might appeal to families, though I’ve never seen any children in the lifts or outside of the restaurant.

What gives it the ‘wow’ factor

Fouquet’s has 97 bedrooms and suites, but it feels like an intimate, boutique-size hotel. There are always guests lingering in the lobby — key for atmosphere, I think — but I’ve never had to queue at the check-in desk or ever felt on top of anyone.

The one thing we’d change

The chocolate Arc de Triomphe waiting for you in your room when you first arrive. I eat the whole thing every single time because I have no willpower, and as lovely as they are, it doesn’t do my waistband any favours…

Room cost from $1,000 per night, based on two people sharing. Visit the Fouquet's website for more information and to book.

Whether in daylight or in darkness, beyond the glass of my expansive bedroom window lies a cornucopia of marvels.

Late into the night, long after my hot-water bottle has lost its punch and the fire in the wood-burning stove has dwindled to ash, I can lie in my bed and watch the progress of a waning moon through the sky.

I can see the blackened outline of trees and wooded ridges and, beyond, a horizon of high mountains, their snow-capped peaks washed purple in moon shadow. I can see the stars, almost as clearly as if I were outside lying beneath them.

When dawn breaks, the pink rays of sunrise hit the highest summits first — a slow reveal of Himalayan magnificence unfolding with the light, accompanied by an enthusiastic sound-bath of early-morning birdsong. Someone taps on the door and I am brought a tray of tea and biscuits — bed-tea, they call it, for obvious reasons — to ease my passage into the new day.

No need to raise the blinds, however. I never closed them. Why would I, when the roof of the world is right outside my window?

The mighty Nanda Devi — a sacred mountain and India’s second highest after Kanchenjunga — forms one section of my view, segueing into the five dramatic peaks of the Panchachuli range.

All, as the hallowed preserve of Hindu Gods, are off limits to climbers and adventurers, but where the feet can’t walk the eye can certainly travel. For Shakti Prana, a remote, new, seven-bedroom lodge in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, these mountains and this view are the crux of its existence.

However, the story starts long before my trip (in 2025). It goes back to the time when a young Jamshyd Sethna was sent from Bombay to boarding school in Darjeeling where his love of the mountains took root; and to the time, several decades later, when he founded Shakti Himalaya, a series of culturally immersive walking holidays in three remote, mountainous regions of India — Sikkim, Ladakh and Kumaon — each one linked by small, beautifully restored or purpose-built village houses where guests can indulge in off-the-beaten track adventures, but with none of the hardship.

The houses are all exquisitely appointed with sumptuously comfortable bedrooms and teams of staff to ensure the highest levels of service, despite the often near-inaccessible nature of their locations.

On the Kumaon circuit, the most celebrated of the houses was always Shakti 360˚ at Leti, a dramatic, four-bedroom lodge set on a vertiginous plateau high above the Ramganga River. When problems set in with the lease of the land, however, a decision was made to strike camp and to move Leti piece by piece to an even more spectacular site, not far as the crow flies, where the views of the mountains are far superior and where there was space to create a bigger, more luxurious lodge.

Over the course of a mere 11 months, Leti was reborn as Prana (above), a passion project if ever there was one, but undoubtedly the new jewel in Shakti’s crown.

My journey begins in Delhi after a few days touring the sights of Rajasthan (there seems little sense in coming all the way to India without embellishing the Shakti experience with a longer, fuller trip to make the air miles more worthwhile).

The monsoon rains are dying their last breath as we board the hour’s flight to Pantnagar in Uttarakhand, but the promise of finer weather looks assured for the next few days. Autumn and mid-winter are the best times for mountain views because the light and air are clear and sharp; spring, however, brings the rhododendrons in technicolour bursts of red and pink.

Prana, a 10-hour, helter-skelter drive from Pantnagar, is unreachable in a single hop; guests must break the journey at one, or all, of Shakti’s other Kumaon village houses. We go for all, believing in the slow crescendo of a build-up and a deeper immersion into the region’s rural communities.

The traditional style of Shakti Kana, our first stop, belies the extent of its restoration: a brick façade with deep-blue shuttered windows, a flight of steps to the front door, three deeply comfortable bedrooms and a sitting room where the warmth from a wood-burning stove offsets the lingering drizzle outside.

We are in the heart of the village on a steep terraced hillside, small areas of pasture fashioned from precarious slivers of level ground. Villagers, young and old, greet us as we wind a slippery path through their homesteads, unabashed at the uncommon sight of Westerners and eager to say hello.

In the morning, we leave on foot, our masterful guide Pujan leading us on a long, scenic walk, up, up to unfurl the first distant glimpse of snow-capped Himalaya; down, down through a sacred forest of deodar cedars to a river valley and the 8th-century Jageshwar Temple to pay homage to Lord Shiva.

As if by magic, lunch appears in a wooded glade: a chequered-clothed table, salads and sticky carrot cake, plus refreshing tea delivered by the Shakti support team who slip into nowhere as we eat.

Then on, legs beginning to tire, the view opening and closing as we walk, uniformed schoolchildren sharing our path on their way home to their villages, women bent double with the weight of cut grass or dried wood on their backs.

Finally, a narrow path leads us down to our next abode, Jwalabanj Village House, more isolated than Kana, but every bit as comfortable, a chill evening mist licking the tops of the trees, hot-water bottles warming the beds, gin and tonics at the ready.

We save the third village house for our return journey, batting instead straight to Prana by car. It’s a wild, white-knuckle ride as we career for five hours on narrow roads in a spiralling vortex of barrierless drops. Buses, lorries, motorbikes, pedestrians and animals — some-how we dodge them all, our driver a demon behind the wheel, negotiating our route through the beautiful Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary and the thrumming riverside town of Bageshwar until we are dropped at a roadhead, no lodge in sight.

There’s a reason for this. Shakti Prana is only accessible on foot via a rough mule track that ascends steeply uphill for 45 minutes — a natural filter, you might say, for determining the type of guest who will reap the most from staying here.

The rewards, however, are mani-fold. Here is that soul-filling view, here are the seven individual suites crafted into the hillside for minimum impact out of stone, copper, glass and wood combined in elemental sophistication — a modern aesthetic delivered with ancient building materials and techniques.

‘This is quite something, isn’t it?’ sighs Jamshyd contentedly as we sit around the dining-room table one evening and the delightful chef, Yeshi, a former Tibetan monk, conjures up yet another masterpiece of Indian home cooking. Communal eating is not a pre-requisite, but excellent food certainly is.

Our days are spent with Pujan, exploring on foot many of the tiny village communities that cling to these precipitous hillsides. We are wrapped in smiles, invited into homes, proffered fresh cucumber sprinkled with chilli and Himalayan salt and handed mugs of warm milk drawn straight from the cow. The children, shy at first, grow in confidence, brandishing their mobile phones and testing out their English. It’s a world apart, but strangely, simultaneously, a world connected.

At barely more than 6,000ft, Prana presents few problems with altitude, but vertigo is often only a whisper away. Walks are always tailored to guests by their respective guides — a Shakti holiday, after all, is a deeply personalised experience—but they can be challenging. Our longest, some 10 miles or so, starts out on the high ridge above the lodge, the glistening massif of Panchachuli rising beside us.

A breathtaking circuit of near-vertical hillsides follows as we teeter along narrow paths, scurry beneath waterfalls, picnic in mossy woodland and haul ourselves back to the top. In the sauna and bathhouse at Prana, tired limbs are soothed and we feel like epic adventurers. If only there were time for more.

Our reluctant departure from Prana is tempered only by the promise of one last surprise, Panchachuli Village House (above), the final pit stop to break the journey back to Pantnagar. This house is new, too; less lauded than Prana, but a showstopper in its own right.

The three thatched bedroom cabins, set above a central stone village house, are also accessible only on foot — this time a mere 25 minutes from the road, but still another deep dive into a landscape peppered with brightly coloured houses, small temples, grass-land and forest.

Through the vast picture windows in yet another exquisite Shakti bedroom, I watch as the light fades, as wood-smoke curls up from the valley below and as the far horizon of mighty peaks is swallowed by the night sky for the final time.

cazenove+loyd can organise nine-night itineraries (seven nights with Shakti and two nights at The Imperial New Delhi hotel on a bed-and-breakfast basis) from £8,600 per person.

The Shakti journey to Kumaon comprises four nights in villa houses and three nights at Shakti Prana on a full-board basis and the price includes activities, an accompanying English-speaking guide, support guide, porters and a car, plus return domestic flights between Delhi and Pantnagar and airport transfers in Delhi.

This feature originally appeared in the January 7, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

Siargao, a tear-shaped island in the south-eastern Philippines, is known for its surfing, yet, with its tangle of palm forests, fishing villages and jade-green lagoons, it feels like Bali before the beach clubs. Here, there’s still a sense of real life, where bikes weave past pastel-painted houses, children splash in the shallows and fishermen cast nets at sunrise.

Nay Palad Hideaway sits between the sea and the mangroves. Formerly Dedon Island Resort, it was rebuilt after the 2022 typhoon Odette by its owner, Dedon founder Bobby Dekeyser, and French architect Daniel Pouzet, who worked with local craftspeople to restore what was lost. Much was made by hand on the island — from the timber beams and woven thatch to the sculptural rattan and shell details.

The resort unfolds in the manner of a small village. Foliage weaves its way around villas, set amid private gardens, shady terraces and pools. There are no televisions and the WiFi is patchy — wonderfully irrelevant when the sun shines, but mildly challenging when it rains. When the weather does behave, there’s almost too much to do, from kayaking through the mangrove channels to island-hopping to the nearby islets of Daku and Guyam for picnics on the sand. Those on the island to surf should make for Cloud 9, the legendary break that put Siargao on the map.

One of the loveliest ways to see the island is by Jeepney, the open-sided minibuses that are a national symbol of the Philippines. Nay Palad’s version is a chic take on the original, crowned with what looks like a Moses basket. Jump inside the basket for a tour, stopping wherever you like. If you prefer to explore under your own steam, there are bikes to ride past emerald rice paddies and coconut groves.

When the rainclouds do gather, the place doesn’t lose its magic — WiFi aside. In the spa, the soothing soundtrack of falling rain soon becomes part of your treatment. The menu includes Filipino hilot massages, hot-stone treatments and coconut-oil scrubs — and you can book as many as you want. Once a term that brought to mind bland breakfast buffets, ‘all inclusive’ has been entirely redefined here. There are no bills to sign, merely the simple and seamless pleasure of knowing you can have whatever you want, whenever you want.

The food offering changes daily: breakfast might be mango pancakes or sinangag rice with fried egg and local longanisa sausage; lunch and dinner is normally fish, caught that day. If you crave something that isn’t on the menu, the team will happily whip it up. Nothing here is ever too much trouble.

Rooms at Nay Palad Hideaway, the Philippines, start at $890 (about £660) per night for a two-bedroom Garden View villa on a full-board basis. For more information and to book, visit the Nay Palad website.