The last days of summer in Sicily

Country & Town House | 24 Sep 2015

Tell people that you’re going to holiday in Sicily and you can see, on their faces, their imaginations conjuring up pictures of rolling hills, cypresses, red clay roof tiles baking in the sun, plump tomatoes bursting with flavour, cornfields, sheep and exotic, if benign, undercurrents of Godfather-related history. How satisfying, then, to realize that our family trip to SoloSicily‘s Fattoria Corleonese (near that Corleone, but more of that later) was to deliver on all of the above and more.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

These are the best therapists for keeping your brain beautiful

Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2015

Beauty starts from within – our round-up of experts is a good place to start on the road to wellbeing

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Monaci delle Terre Nere: an Italian hideaway from heaven

Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2015

‘I always dreamt of making an earthly paradise,’ reveals erstwhile engineer Guido Coffa. Mission accomplished. Working with his girlfriend Ada Calabrese – a passionate amateur interior decorator and an architect, Guido has created Monaci delle Terre Nere, the sort of boutique hotel that makes heaven look second rate. The property sits in 40 acres of organic farmland in the fertile foothills of Mount Etna, the volcano coughing angrily behind, the Mediterranean Sea beckoning serenely in front. The dusky-pink villa dates from 1800 – a noble family’s private home turned winery, then farm – and there are 19 bedrooms/suites, some in outbuildings on the estate. The refurbishment took five years and the result is the epitome of rural chic – where stylish-rustic meets cool-contemporary. ‘Having fallen in love with it instantly,’ he remembers. ‘I decided to devote my life and every drop of my energy to its resurrection.’

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

The best of head-to-toe preening in London

Country & Town House | 24 Aug 2015

Did somebody say ‘time for a makeover’? We round up some of London’s best beautifiers

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Tatler Spa Guide 2015 – Monici delle Terre Nere

Tatler | 14 May 2015

Mount Etna blows its top theatrically behind, the Ionian Sea twinkles in front and clementine groves jostle for space with fig trees on this blissfully stylish organic estate.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Tatler Spa Guide 2015 – Uma by COMO, Paro, Bhutan

Tatler | 14 May 2015

You won’t find a spa with a more peaceful view. The snow-capped Himalayas and the glacial Mo Chu river gushing past are a sight to ease a troubled mind like no treatment ever could. The hotel is gorgeous, and the spa simple – just two buildings and a tiny menu that makes decision-making a cinch.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Get your rocks off in Nicaragua

Country & Town House | 24 Mar 2015

I’m suspended above the ground wearing a harness. Dangling over rain forest. I’ve already signed a waiver for death, dismemberment and suchlike. Now like some hybrid of monkey and horizontal parachutist, I’m rocketing past trees, rain forest and over coffee plantations. Jumping off the zip line at ceiba trees around which 60ft. high platforms have been built – there to ready myself to take the next leg of my treetop journey. Then careering off again as howler monkeys howl in the forest.

• Travel: Americas

El Salvador: the little country that offers such a lot

Country & Town House | 24 Mar 2015

Almost nobody speaks English and we may be the country’s only tourists, as far as we can work out – which is a delight. Welcome to El Salvador. It is Central America’s least-visited country. Somewhere that has long struggled to gain tourists’ trust. A land perceived as dangerous and with gang killings, violence that has been going on since the 1990s. But if you don’t go into the shanty towns, you’re unlikely to be affected. Instead, we have a holiday in a little country with lots to offer… splendid wildlife and rich forests, colonial towns and beaches, vast mountain ranges and volcanoes. Above all, it’s never more than an hour to reach the city, sea or mountains by car from anywhere in El Salvador.

• Travel: Americas

Bribing elephants with pumpkin seeds and spotting monks with iPads in Thailand

Country & Town House | 24 Feb 2015

The monk in saffron robes clutches a mobile phone and iPad. It’s an incongruous sight. Normally these holy men are holding alms bowls for donations of sticky rice. ‘It’s wrong to use Buddha as decoration or tattoo,’ reads a notice nearby. Across the forecourt I hear the strains of musicians playing instruments with names like Krong, Krap and Pia. Maybe a dignitary has landed. Maybe I’ve got culture shock.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

United we stand

Sunday Times Style | 13 Feb 2015

My husband and I are sitting at a table, being instruted to look deeply into one another’s eyes. Opposite us, a softly spoken American is coaxing us to make statements about what we like in one another, with real feeling. I’m not in a loving mood, as we’ve bickered about the best route to the appointment. But I grit my teeth and tell my husband, Charles, that he’s sensitive and intuitive. That he makes me laugh. And that he’s kind. Then it’s his turn.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

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Gold star service

Country & Town House | 24 Oct 2014

Are those chores that need doing nagging away at you? Caroline Phillips picks out eight super services that should be on your speed dial

• Homes, Interiors & Property

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Salad days

Chewton Glen | 19 Oct 2014

“I was very sad to leave Cliveden,” says William Waldorf Astor, the fourth Viscount. In 1942 his grandfather gave the estate to the National Trust, but the family continued to live there until they found it too difficult, about which more later. Thus Lord Astor spent his first 16 years living at Cliveden, his family home, and a house with a political history – from the Dukes of Buckingham to the Astors.

• Interviews

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