Going off grid: How I spent a week living in an ‘apocalypse dome’ May 30, 2017 The more we learn about the effects of social media on the human psyche, the worse it seems to get. The planet is hooked on dopamine squirts triggered by clever algorithms developed by the world’s finest minds, for the sole purpose of keeping us scrolling. And scrolling, and scrolling. We’re connected to thousands of other humans from the second we wake to the [...]
Long Weekend in a magnesium bath at Princess Yaiza, Lanzarote May 19, 2017 The weekend: If, like most City workers, you spend long hours hunched over a keyboard, punctuated by occasional bursts of exercise that you never properly warm down from, you’ve probably got your share of aches and pains. This is why holidays offering spa “cures” are increasingly attractive. The Princesa Yaiza Resort Hotel in Lanzarote offers [...]
Long Weekend in El Jadida, Morocco: Golf and belly-dancing at Mazagan Beach Resort May 12, 2017 The weekend: Spend a long weekend on the central western Atlantic coast of Morocco, a region that combines the old town charm of El Jadida – formerly named El Mazagan – and the luxury of the five-star Mazagan Beach Resort complex. The micro-climate here offers pleasant weather year-round, but with tourism still in its ascendancy [...]
Brunch in Dubai is luxurious in the extreme. Just be careful not to eat the golden macarons – they’re purely decorative… May 12, 2017 Visiting a destination for the first time is like being on a first date. You want to go to a nice restaurant, you’d like him to be charming, but arriving with six dozen roses and a list of potential baby names is probably overkill. Dubai is like the most try-hard of bunny boiler boyfriends, the [...]
Famed for its whaling history, the tiny Cape Cod island of Nantucket has a modern speciality – its vibrant foodie scene May 5, 2017 As I feasted on delicacies from Cru’s raw bar – little neck clams, lobster cocktail with avocado and preserved lemon, a half dozen Fifth Bend oysters washed down with a Crucomber, a cocktail of bison grass vodka, cucumber and toasted sesame – I could see everything from sailboats to sleek super-yachts bobbing around in the [...]
Jerusalem is the world’s top emerging start-up hub. We use a new app to navigate its culinary scene May 2, 2017 Think of Jerusalem and one imagines ancient history, religion, and regional tensions. Not craft beer, tech incubators and model-slash-DJs. It is, I discovered, a city of surprises. In the millennia-old Church of the Holy Sepulchre half a dozen worshippers from a variety of faiths kneel and touch the slab on which, it is believed, Christ’s [...]
How the design studio behind the new London bus turned a disused silo in Cape Town into a boutique hotel May 2, 2017 Table Mountain looms over the harbour city of Cape Town, its extraordinary topography a constant reminder of the city’s precipitous place on the extremes of the African continent. The capital of the Western Cape province and the seat of South Africa’s Parliament, Cape Town was once the largest city in the country, until a gold [...]
Holiday Homes: The property market in Lisbon is so hot right now, it’s being called ‘the California of Europe’ March 17, 2017 One of Europe’s most beautiful cities is also now one of its most vibrant and dynamic. For decades Lisbon’s development and historic architecture was neglected, but things are looking better for the city, tourism is up, unemployment down, and foreign money is bringing in new investment. One of the drivers of this surge in vitality [...]
Embracing Italy’s culinary heritage on a journey from Florence to the stunning Riviera March 17, 2017 As welcomes go, my arrival into Genoa airport will take some beating. In my experience, airport transfers usually involve a 45 minute purgatory of cabs or shuttle buses. However, there I was, driving along dream-like coastal roads with a soundtrack of classic Italian standards. An appropriately bespoke introduction, given I would spend the next week [...]
Holiday Homes: Finding a property investment at Courchevel 1850 on the slopes in the Rhone-Alpes that will pay off March 14, 2017 In the rarefied air of Courchevel 1850, known as France’s ski playground for the wealthy, the word “only” quickly takes on a new meaning. A burger, for example, is “only” €30 on the slopes, and a duplex apartment is “only” €9.65m. But in the Rhone-Alpes prime real estate hotspot, where high-end chalets up to 3000sqm [...]