FOOD & BOOZE NEWS October 26, 2009 ROKA OPENING IN CANARY WHARFCanary Wharf is becoming the talk of the town for its buzzing food scene.?With restaurants flinging open their doors faster than you can say “bruschetta”, it’s getting tough to keep up. Do not, however, miss Monday’s opening of the fantastic Japanese restaurant Roka, which serves a delectable assortment of sushi, meat [...]
Ski season classics October 25, 2009 IT’S a favourite debate among snow nuts – which continent lays claim to the best skiing? When you’ve got the multi-valley likes of Val D’Isere and Verbier up against Rocky Mountain resorts such as Aspen, Steamboat and Vail; Whistler inCanada, Snowbird in Utah and Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada range, it comes down to [...]
ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND October 25, 2009 St Moritz may be the grand old man of the European skiing scene, but it remains the most glamorous destination in the Alps, crowded with luxury boutiques, Michelin-starred restaurants and the film stars and royals flitting between them. It’s a good place to come if anyone in your family doesn’t ski, since there are numerous [...]
VAIL, COLORADO October 25, 2009 After Whistler and Blackcomb near Vancouver, Vail is the biggest ski resort in north America – seven miles wide, with 5,289 acres of “freeride” terrain. It’s been voted best resort in the US 14 times in the last 17 years for its combination of space, snow quality, diversity of trails and state-of-the-art lifts and gondolas. [...]
LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA October 25, 2009 Where rich Californians go to play, the Sierra Nevada range surrounding the crystal clear Lake Tahoe on the border of California and Nevada is arguably the most beautiful ski area in the US. The lake itself is 12 miles wide, 22 miles long and 1,645 feet at its deepest. Surrounding it are numerous ski resorts, [...]
WHISTLER, CANADA October 25, 2009 In terms of sheer intensity and choice of skiing, Whistler Blackcomb rules north America and quite possibly the world. About 100km north of Vancouver, in British Columbia, the two valleys add up to 8,171 acres, with Whistler set to host most of the snow sports of the 2010 Winter Olympics. With elevations of 2,182 metres [...]
SESTRIERE, ITALY October 25, 2009 Sestriere is perhaps the most famous Italian resort – a place with history, style and fantastic slopes. With its neighbouring resorts it is part of the “Milky Way” ski circuit, which includes over 400km of pistes in a truly magnificent setting. The resort was purpose-built in the 1930s by the Agnellis, the family behind the [...]
COURCHEVEL, FRANCE October 25, 2009 Sitting close to the Swiss and Italian borders in southeastern France, Courchevel is a resort made up of five villages known by their metric heights – 1850 at the top, down to 1100 at the lower end of the valley. Predictably, the higher you go the more upmarket and expensive things get, but you can [...]
TRAVEL NOTES October 25, 2009 Christmas in Bora BoraThe weather’s getting cold and the nights are drawing in. Imagine, then, an escape to the South Seas and days spent in over-water suites or beachfront villas, the sun beating down as you watch sea turtles paddle by and, later, seeing the sun set over the island’s dramatic Mount Otemanu. That’s the [...]
A not so fantastic version of Roald Dahl’s kids’ classic October 22, 2009 FilmFANTASTIC MR FOXCert: PG NOW that it’s pretty much de rigeur for animated kids’ films to be 3-D, computer-generated spectaculars, a Roald Dahl adaptation made with traditional stop-motion photography seems so quaint as to be genuinely original. It may take some getting used to, but the careful characterisation of the animal heroes here and lovely [...]