Caroline Phillips

Journalism

Caroline Phillips
“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”

Caroline Phillips

Journalism

All Travel: Europe/ Africa articles

Incomparable Art & Interiors: Delaire Graff Estate, South Africa

Country & Town House | 26 Dec 2022

African aesthetics are having a moment – from the spectacular William Kentridge exhibition at the Royal Academy to the V&A’s blockbuster Africa Fashion. And there’s no better place to experience African art in all its forms (from sculpture to scent and gemstones) than at the Delaire Graff Estate. Set in a glorious 106-acre estate bursting with vineyards near Stellenbosch, it’s the hotel of Laurence Graff, jeweller, diamantaire, billionaire businessman and art collector. You can even rent his art-filled private house, the Owner’s Villa, if your pockets are deep.


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Going Off-Grid In Scotland: Lovely Destinations to Visit

Country & Town House | 12 Oct 2022

Here’s a guide to six of the best off-the-beaten track places to stay in Scotland, from a secret historical hideaway in Edinburgh to a private Highlands estate where you can stalk and pan for gold, to a stylish, off-grid property on a remote island. Most of these discoveries are so off-grid, they have never been written about before.


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The Weekender – 48 Hours in Copenhagen

Country & Town House | 14 Jun 2022

Spring seems like the perfect time of year to explore Copenhagen, best seen on foot or by bike, leaving the newish City Circle Line loop of the metro, a decade in the making, for residents who see the city’s beauty all the time. Although, as Ingrid, who had recently moved there told me, ‘I still feel like I am seeing Copenhagen properly for the first time, as high green walls covering the construction cloaked so many of its finest squares and palaces for so long.’


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Málaga, take two

Country & Town House | 17 Aug 2021

Children dressed as clowns and adults wearing fairy wings – all enjoying a fiesta – stroll past the remains of a Roman amphitheatre. The sun is setting as we sit, al fresco, in an old bodega nibbling local almonds, anchovy olives and drinking fresh Seville orange juice. Above us, an 11th-century Moorish hilltop fortress, Alcazaba, dominates the city. This is the Andalusian coastal city of Málaga, a provincial capital that seems to enjoy a permanent party.


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Escape to Fingask Castle – home of the Fingask follies

The Luxury Channel | 26 Jun 2020

It’s like disappearing down the best of rabbit holes and arriving at a Scottish baronial version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The skew-whiff clipped topiary on the sloping lawn looks as if it’s been cut by a drunken gardener or the March Hare; the 240-acre estate is dotted with water-sprouting mermaids, characters from Robert Burns, Robert Burns himself and Ossian, the mythical Scottish Bard. The Queen of Hearts must have shouted, “Off with their heads” because there are decapitated heads (AKA stone busts) on the garden walls.


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Break for the Border

Country & Town House | 13 Jan 2020

I can’t keep away from Scotland. Yes, yes, I know it rains a lot. And if you go to the wrong place in summer there may be battalions of midges. And, OK, it’s true that far outside the cities a few still think that a vegetarian is someone who’s happy to eat oatmeal picked from the sheep’s liver and lungs of a haggis. But ah dinnae ken of many places I love more than Scotland.


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The Weekender: 48 hours in South Africa’s Winelands

Country & Town House | 10 Oct 2019

The mountainous territory inland of Cape Town — known as the ‘Boland’ or ‘Uplands’ — boasts sandstone peaks, verdant rolling hills and beautiful valleys. It’s dotted with over 200 vineyards, producing globally renowned bottles. The Winelands area and its historic towns – Stellenbosch, Paarl, Tulbagh and Franschhoek, the self-styled culinary capital of South Africa – are known for a high concentration of stunning accommodation, from historical Cape Dutch through to sleek and contemporary. Its restaurants are among the world’s best, stellar eateries serving inventive farm and forage-to-fork cuisine.

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Escape to South Africa’s vineyard hotel

The Luxury Channel | 27 Sep 2019

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.


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Market Street Hotel Edinburgh

Our Man on the Ground | 24 Sep 2019

There are people doing a ‘silent walk’ wearing headphones, gesticulating wildly and singing Freddie Mercury songs in Edinburgh’s city centre. They’re pretending or believing that they’re on stage with Queen. Nearby there’s a man in a kilt playing bagpipes and someone else vying for airspace by strumming flamenco love songs on a guitar.

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All aboard Fingal, Scotland’s first ship turned hotel…

The Luxury Channel | 6 Jul 2019

It’s not often that I get to sleep in a floating hotel. Especially not one that HRH the Princess Royal has been out to sea on. Nor one that’s a former Northern Lighthouse ship, once used for maintaining lighthouses and transporting their keepers and equipment through treacherous seas. And particularly not one that’s based adjacent to the former Royal Yacht Britannia. Welcome to Fingal, Scotland’s first ship turned hotel. Where once she was stationed at Oban, she’s now in the Port of Leith, Edinburgh.


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