Paradise found at Canyon Ranch February 24, 2013 Newsreader Emma Crosby finds Canyon Ranch is the perfect antidote to the punishing daily newsbeat IT’S 7AM and the thermometer is already pushing 80 degrees centigrade. I’m cycling in what must be one of the most stark but beautiful places on Earth, the Sonora desert in the foothills of the Rincon Mountains in Arizona. My [...]
Choose The Black Run for a painless trip to the slopes February 24, 2013 ALL SKIERS know the feeling. Waking the family at four o’clock in the morning, squeezing them into the car alongside bulky bags of equipment, only to arrive at the airport and find an hour long check-in queue waiting for you. The children are tetchy, and towers of luggage are balanced precariously atop a trolley that [...]
Small but perfectly formed: why Brides les Bains is a ski paradise February 17, 2013 BRIDES les Bains may be the smallest place you ever visit. With a population of just 600, it’s reminiscent of those little Irish towns where everyone knows everyone and the pharmacist is also the butcher and the local mechanic on Tuesdays. In fact, while dinning at the town’s main restaurant, La Petite Auberge (where 80 [...]
School’s Out February 10, 2013 WHETHER YOU crave sea air and sunshine, meadows and mountains or lush forests, now’s the perfect time to plan a spring break to blow away the winter cobwebs. Jump in the car and make tracks to a beautiful UK bolthole, lace up your walking boots and tackle some of Italy’s most scenic hill climbs, strap [...]
It’s Davos, but not as you know it February 3, 2013 DESPITE being a 30-something supposed grown-up, I must confess to still suffering from the occasional nightmare. While on duty as a night editor of this newspaper, for example, my sleep can be disturbed by a recurring dream in which I’m culpable for printing over 130,000 front page headlines of “UK ECOMONY DIPS AGAIN” (yes, reread [...]
St Moritz Gourmet Festival insiders’ guide January 27, 2013 AT THE heart of fine living is the art of fine dining. And both are flamboyantly showcased at the annual St Moritz Gourmet Festival this month. Every year the rich and famous flock to St Moritz for the season, and the town prides itself on the exquisite food and wine it has to offer them. [...]
Badrutt’s Palace hotel: a history January 27, 2013 THE INCEPTION of winter tourism to the Alps is attributed to one man – Johannes Badrutt. A hotelier of the late 19th century, Badrutt bet a group of English summer alpine tourists that they would love the winter sunshine of St Moritz as much as the summer meadows. They did. He opened the grande dame [...]
Ben Fogle: everything I’ve done has built up to swimming the Atlantic January 27, 2013 I’M SERIOUSLY afraid of heights and I’m not the best swimmer,” Ben Fogle says as I catch up with him over the phone just after he landed in New York before jetting off to Buenos Aires. But scared isn’t exactly the first word that springs into mind when you think of the 39 year-old father [...]
Hel-Yeah January 13, 2013 YOU can’t see much from the back of a twin-engine Bell 212 helicopter when it’s packed with eleven adventurous skiers. Resembling ski-masked marines on a mission, we sit opposite each other, tightly buckled into our seats as we fly through the Canadian Rockies in spectacular fashion. Heli-skiing is the ultimate off-piste, backcountry skiing experience, in [...]
Forget hotels – live it up in the flat of your dreams January 13, 2013 If you’re on holiday, there are few places in the world better to hang your hat than a luxury hotel. But if you’re a regular business traveller, hotels can be a soul-crushing reminder that you’re a rootless member of the 21st century workforce, eking out your existence in a series of increasingly similar rooms, no [...]