Escape to the Four Seasons in Florence

The Luxury Channel | 6 Jun 2017

There are five-star hotels, and then there are the ones that deserve an entire firmament of stars. Places like the Plaza in New York, Claridge’s in London, and the Hôtel Ritz in Paris. I’ve stayed in the gold list of historical hotels from Mumbai’s Taj Mahal to Raffles in Siem Riep and Le Meurice in Paris too. It’s with this context in mind that I say that the Four Seasons in Florence is a real corker. A hotel so good that I’d like to live there, per favore.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Above and beyond service at Hotel Savoy Florence

Our Man on the Ground | 1 Jun 2017

There are not many hotels that send a man on a bike to collect clients. But that’s what happens when I stay in the Hotel Savoy in Florence, Italy. Raffaello cycles on a chic fifties-style bicycle to come and find one very lost client (that’s me) stranded somewhere near the Mercato Centrale. He cycles in front of me in his thick black morning suit jacket, leading the way stylishly to the hotel.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Escape to Amsterdam

The Luxury Channel | 12 May 2017

A member of staff wearing a long cream apron opens the front door.

‘May I offer you a glass of wine? A seat in front of the fire?’ asks this cheery Dutchman. We sit down for a cup of tea in the achtersalon (drawing room) midst classical busts. There are antique leather armchairs, comfy sofas, burning candles and a roaring log fire. Plus fresh roses, orchids and daffodils. Even hot off a KLM flight with my 21-year old daughter, it’s easy to set about the business of pretending this is our home.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Beyond Mindfulness: The best way to connect with your higher self – creativity and inspiration

Huffington Post | 23 Apr 2017

Dr Shomit Mitter is a hard man to categorise. Yes, he’s a hypnotherapist. Yes, he mentored Booker-prize winner Arundhati Roy —who pays tribute to him in her book, the God of Small Things. Oh and he ran a multi-million pound aviation business in the nineties – and found himself being shadowed by the KGB for his pains. Why? Because he had an M.Phil from Oxford and a PhD from Cambridge and had written two seminal books on theatre – so he must have been a spy doing those aviation deals in the wilds of Uzbekistan.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Escape to the Park in New Delhi

The Luxury Channel | 11 Apr 2017

‘Do not spit here’ and ‘Carrying tobacco products is prohibited,’ read the signs. This is the Gurdwara Bangla Sahib temple, New Delhi, India; a peaceful Sikh temple with acres of white marble and a gigantic holy bathing pool. Originally it was a bungalow for an important military leader of Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb. It’s as close to my hotel as, say, just 100 turbans rolled out end to end: call it half a mile. But let’s rewind. I’m staying in a hotel known for being Anything But Ordinary. There’s coconut juice, candies, comics and Wi-Fi in the hotel transfer car from Delhi airport. A welcome in the lobby by a sari-clad lady — with a dish of red powder on a rose-petal strewn copper tray — who places a marigold garland on me and a decorative Hindu bindi mark on my forehead. A lift with clouds on its walls and mirror on its ceiling: sort of Alice in New Delhi Wonderland.

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Escape to South Africa’s Vineyard Hotel

The Luxury Channel | 10 Apr 2017

In the foyer, there’s an antique copper consommé pot large enough to please the most exacting cannibal. The patio flooring is the ballast from a shipwreck and the bar is made of wood salvaged from another wreck. Everywhere there are antique nick-nacks and curiosities. ‘Brass navigational divide 1740’ and ‘Brass taps 1830’ are just two of the curios in the display cabinets.

But it’s the nature that has everyone bagging Insta opportunities. The shafts of sunlight cut through the mountain peaks and there’s the sound of the river rushing by. We admire the sheer rock-face — its brown-grey mightiness covered by the greenery of trees on its lower slopes — in the rising morning light. We gaze later in wonder at the same mountain as dusk falls, the sunset lighting its faces and the mist settling on its upper reaches.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Escape to Somatheeram Ayurveda Village in Kerala

The Luxury Channel | 10 Apr 2017

There’s a Chinese lady sitting at lunch slavered in a red face pack. Fabric is wound around her crown, like bandages, and she’s wearing a green overall and sipping fresh pineapple juice. Nearby a Russian man wanders around the garden sporting banana, egg white and mango painted on his face. He has also just enjoyed a Thalapothichil treatment, in which the head is covered with herbal paste and topped off with a lotus leaf — a procedure that’s said to be good for depression and stress.

I’m at the Somatheeram Ayurveda Village — India’s first Ayurvedic hospital in a resort setting. Opened 35 years ago, it boasts more awards than I’ve had hot curries (a lot, in other words). It’s situated in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, above a golden beach that extends to eternity and beyond — and where groups of fishermen gather to untangle their Himalayan-size fishing nets.

• Health, Beauty & Spa,
• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Escape to Beaverbrook

The Luxury Channel | 10 Apr 2017

It’s a Grand Cru classé of a hotel. Its quality akin to vintage Dom Pérignon meets grade 5 Wagyu beef melded with Iranian Beluga. First division, first class and first-rate, in other words. Such words of undiluted praise are rare for me, and I’ve been reviewing five-star properties for 30 years.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

A little lost love on board the Ayeyarwaddy Discovery

The Luxury Channel | 10 Apr 2017

There are naked children splashing innocently in the water by the river’s edge – why would anyone waste much-needed kyats, the local currency, on swimwear? Others are climbing like mini Tarzans on anchor ropes that run high above the water from a ship to the shore.

My family and I clamber aboard a traditional wooden longtail boat — used locally for transporting custard apples, dragon fruit and piles of mustard leaves as well as for ferrying people. Nearby young men in longyis (like sarongs) stand waist-high in the water washing their hair with acacia bark (a natural shampoo) and scrubbing their bodies. This is the scene at the riverside in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma).

• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

We fall in love with hotel Seven One Seven in Amsterdam

Our Man on the Ground | 10 Apr 2017

You may see Dannii Minogue if you stay there. Or perhaps the famous Dutch film director, Jan de Bont of Twister renown. Welcome to Sevon One Seven, the first and only boutique hotel in the Netherlands when it opened two decades ago. And still, arguably, the best.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

Get lean, lithe and puma-fit at Target Fitness Retreats

Our Man on the Ground | 6 Apr 2017

Tabata? Burpees? Pad work? Double Dutch to me. But, hell, I’m about to find out what these are. I’m on a Target Human Performance fitness holiday – if doing five hours’ exercise a day can be called a ‘holiday’. I’m here for a five-day ‘get fit fast’ retreat. A so-called health, fitness and wellness break.

• Health, Beauty & Spa

Gielly Green one-stop boutique salon and spa

The Luxury Channel | 23 Mar 2017

It’s like a studio that houses some of the capital’s greatest artists. Think of it as a curated exhibition or art gallery — but instead of artworks for sale, it has some of the world’s best hair maestros and therapists offering their services. These are the sorts of things that are said about Gielly Green, a tip-top boutique salon cum one-stop beauty lounge in Marylebone, London. It has also garnered glowing reviews in magazines like Tatler and Vogue.

• Health, Beauty & Spa