A fresh perspective of Cambridge at Turing Locke May 19, 2025 At the Turing Locke apartments in Eddington, Cambridge, a ten minute walk separates the new from the familiar. The Cambridge residential suburb of Eddington didn’t exist ten years ago – the new area on the outskirts of the historic university city is blissfully surrounded by fields and you can see the town being built around [...]
Art’otel London Hoxton, review: an unlikely Shoreditch icon May 18, 2025 Built on the site of a Hoxton pub that became synonymous with the Brit Art movement, the Art’otel Hoxton has some seriously big, trendy shoes to fill – and we think it’s met the challenge. Not content to hang art on the walls, the double-height atrium in the hotel’s foyer becomes the art. Edge-to-edge screens [...]
Italy, Call Me By Your Name style: staying at Luca Guadagnino’s hotel May 17, 2025 Every so often in films, carpets steal the spotlight. There’s the hypnotic hexagonal pattern in The Shining’s Overlook Hotel, The Dude’s Persian rug in The Big Lebowski, or the Kubrick-inspired flooring in The Substance. And no premiere is complete without the deep plush of a freshly vacuumed red carpet. At Palazzo Talìa in Rome, designed [...]
British execs still fly to US despite Trump turmoil, data suggests May 14, 2025 Business travel across the pond has increased this year despite concern over policy developments under President Trump, data suggests. Data from the travel tech firm Navan, shared with City AM, shows year-to-date bookings for UK-US corporate trips have risen by nearly a quarter year-on-year. There were 8,000 corporate trips from the UK to the US [...]
How to fly to New York in style (and why The Devonshire is overrated) May 7, 2025 Flying to New York to visit the Evolv Collection Restaurants last week, I was reminded that the British Airways loyalty scheme conditions had changed. For reference, here are my own (slightly tongue in cheek) rules for any self-respecting ‘City Guy’ visiting Terminal Five: 1. Arrive at the airport in a cab and ask for the [...]
The Vineyard in Berkshire is the perfect pre-summer holiday May 6, 2025 With the weather improving but summer holidays still a way off, it’s the perfect time to cast around for mini-break options closer to home. The UK’s luxury spa market has recovered strongly from the hospitality-wide hit at the beginning of the decade, but how to distinguish between the many options? The Vineyard in Berkshire has [...]
Why Florence, Italy makes the ideal spring break from London May 3, 2025 If I were searching for heaven on Earth, Florence is the first place I would look. The Italian city‘s Renaissance art and architecture make my spirit soar with their otherworldly beauty, the mountainous backdrop refreshes my eyes and soul, and the food and drink? Well, a Tuscan feast is exactly what my body ordered, in [...]
Libby’s Naked Wines Diary: Quaffing Spanish wine in the Parisian Pulitzer April 29, 2025 Paris has often been described as “magical” but I experienced my own miracle this weekend. The Significant Other and I were dining at Le Patio, the restaurant of Hotel Pulitzer in the Opera Quarter of Paris. Over squidgy, crispy croquettes and pesto laden burrata, I realised I had lost an earring. An earring my late [...]
Paradise ploughed: Laferm Coco is a pastoral oasis in Mauritius April 29, 2025 Wandering through Laferm Coco, you pass through neat little fields packed with guava and papaya and bananas and coconuts and turmeric, all hemmed in by jagged volcanic mountains, the splashes of colour from the produce impossibly saturated beneath a clear blue sky. Elsewhere farmyard animals flap and graze and squabble. There’s a duck pond that [...]
Maradiva: Mauritius in five-star style April 29, 2025 It is rare that I feel an urge to return to a hotel – part of the joy of travel is to experience a place for the first time, after all. But I’ll make an exception for Maradiva, the five star resort in Mauritius where your dreams of borderline-pornographic beachfront perfection are dragged, startled and [...]