“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
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.
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.
Mornings were worst. I would wake with lead in my veins, a jackboot pressing on my chest and my body rigid, as if set in formaldehyde. I’d be beset by a terrible inner loneliness and desolation, paralysed with foreboding. I became destructive, self-sabotaging and impulsive, forgetting that I’m a successful, loved woman with a good life and an exciting future.
This is depression. A crippling depression that has been with me all my life. So who would have thought that the best help would come in the form of a spa therapist?
Only the most intrepid backpackers used to make it to this hidden valley, a three-hour drive by (windy, potholed) road from Punakha, passing wild marijuana and cascading forests. Then they grew up, stopped trying to smoke their roadside pickings and wanted a proper place to bed down.
Chiva-som, Thailand – The mother of them all. Chiva remains triumphantly at the top of its game. Come here to scrub your chakras, give up sleeping pills or smoking (or both), lose your post-baby lubber or have accelerated subdermal therapy (ultrasound does battle with cellulite) in the medi-spa. There’s a daily schedule that’s more tightly packed than a tin of chickpeas, from vinyasa flow yoga to gyrokinesis (pilates meets ballet). Plus it’s all run with Swiss-style efficiency.
They’re a religious folk, those Sicilians – you can barely take a step without falling over an old chapel or crumbling monastery. How clever, then, of Vincenza Jolanda Nifosi, the heir to the aristocratic Nifosi family, to convert this 15th-century convent into a heavenly bolthole.
Is there anybody-who’s-anybody out there? Ask the Lunar Club, says Caroline Phillips.
Starring 101 best hotels in the world
American squillionaire Jim DeNooyer is the man behind East Africa’s number-one helicopter company, Lady Lori. Based in Nairobi, these choppers are used by Sting and Trudie, at least one global spiritual leader, governmental bigwigs, film crews and City boys (on safari-from-London weekends).
Mornings were worst. I would wake with lead in my veins, a jackboot pressing on my chest and my body rigid, as if set in…
Chiva-som, Thailand – The mother of them all. Chiva remains triumphantly at the top of its game. Come here to scrub your chakras, give up…