Best of travel: Living La Dolce Vita in Puglia in a Fiat 500 March 10, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. Today we revisit Adam Hay-Nicholls’ drive through Puglia in a retro Fiat 500. ••• I’m touring the heel of Italy in a car with no seatbelts and ropes for doors. Puglia is home to the mainland’s best [...]
Best of travel: Rampaging through Dartmoor in an Aston Martin March 5, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. Today we revisit Adam Hay-Nicholls’ tour through the rugged terrain of Dartmoor in an Aston Martin Vanquish. ••• It’s the tail-end of dusk in Devon and silence is broken. Thundering down the twisting A382 from Exeter to [...]
Best of travel: The luxury yacht with more toys than Hamleys March 3, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. Today we revisit Adam Hay-Nicholls’ stay on what might be the best pound-for-pound yacht in the world. ••• Luxury journalism: It won’t make me a billionaire, but I do get to act like one on occasion. The [...]
Best of travel: South Africa’s finest nature reserves and safari March 2, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. Today we revisit Adam Hay-Nicholls’ trip to South Africa in search of the ultimate nature reserve safari. ••• There’s nothing particularly unusual for those used to a life of luxury about a five-star pool villa, except when [...]
Best of travel: Why the US Navy sank its own ship off the Cayman Islands February 4, 2021 To tide us over until we’re able to travel again, we’re republishing classic travel stories from our archives. This week we revisit Adal Hay-Nicholls’ diving trip to the Cayman Islands to discover the truth behind a legendary wreck. Read more: Jaguar XF P300 review: revitalised luxury at a surprisingly low price ••• The sound of whirring [...]
The best luxury resorts in the Alps – where to stay and where to ski February 17, 2020 Tap your ski pass, perch on our comfortable chairlift and let City A.M. take you for a tour of the Alps’ best new (or newish) hotels. We’ve had the enviable task of spending the early part of this winter season reviewing the peaks of high-end hospitality and the black runs of flashy facilities; a blizzard [...]
How a Lexus mid-life crisis led to a £3m yacht and a car that outshines Jaguar and Porsche October 30, 2019 A few years ago, at the prestigious Pebble Beach concours in California, the president of the Toyota Motor Company was holding court and pressing flesh. Akio Toyoda, 63, is the grandson of Toyota’s founder and so, you can imagine, he takes enormous pride in its products, and none more so than its luxury off-shoot, Lexus. [...]
Why did the US Navy sink its own vessel off the coast of the Cayman Islands? September 27, 2019 The sound of whirring rotor blades carries across the bay. I’m staring at a framed photo of Tom Selleck inside the office of Cayman Island Helicopters, while its proprietor, Jerome Begot, readies the chopper. Jerome is a Frenchman who, inexplicably, flew in the US Air Force decades ago, and Magnum PI is his hero. After [...]
Putting the new Audi R8 through its paces on some hair-raising roads from Calais to Paris to Provence September 25, 2019 The Audi R8 is a mid-engined supercar with multiple personalities. Ideal, therefore, for a blast through France to visit three characterful but very different hotels. The 2019 Audi R8 might have only received a mild facelift but it can still stop people in their tracks. From the front, I worry that the recent nip-tuck makes [...]
Trisara hotel review: Foraging needn’t be at the expense of luxury July 24, 2019 Foraging is all the rage but, despite its fashionable foodie status, it does rather bring to mind getting grubby at the bottom of the garden, thrashing around with a set of secateurs, or simply pretending to be a badger. Surely there’s a more glamorous way to liven up lunch? So, off to Trisara in Thailand [...]