Next month, Villa La Massa Hotel, five miles from Florence, adds "La Limonaia", a conversion of the resort's one-time greenhouse for lemon trees. The two-floor La Limonaia has eight bedrooms and two suites, which can, via connecting doors, become two-bedroom suites.. In fact the entire resort, which now offers in total 51 rooms and suites, has [...]
Category: New – and tried and tested
Staying there: Equinox Hotel, New York
Chris Norton joined Related’s Equinox to set up and run its Equinox Hotel brand. A fitness freak himself, he knew no-one else could copy this concept, which started with brand awareness and nearly 400,000 members of Equinox fitness clubs worldwide. The first hotel, in Hudson’s Yards at 11th Avenue and 34th Street, New York City, [...]
Read more: Ted Turner’s unique Vermejo ranch
Vermejo Park Ranch is 40 miles west of Raton, NM, USA - it is four hours' drive south of Denver and four hours' drive north of Albuquerque. The 600,000-acre ranch, bought by Ted Turner, is home to 1,400 bison, plus antelope,1,400 bison, deer, elk, mountain lion, 180 species of birds. There is memorable fishing, Orvis-endorsed, on [...]
Staying there: Setai Miami Beach
Why is The Setai Miami Beach so special? This is the hotel that is obviously packed out not only for Art Basel Miami but for other special events: for Super Bowl 2020, this coming Sunday, 2 February, it has sold its Penthouse for five nights, for $50,000 a night.... GM Alex Furrer can cope with anything. [...]
Havana hotels update
On 1st June 2017 highly-experienced hotelier Xavier Destribats, from Bordeaux, opened Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana, which has, despite US feelings towards Cuba, proved highly popular with discerning luxury travellers. It is a new-build, in an 1894-vintage shell, and of the 246 rooms, even a starter room, say #493, offers 40 sq. m of space [...]
Stay in luxury next to the Tower of London
Four Seasons Hotel London at Ten Trinity Square is about 300 metres away from Tower of London, where mediaeval royalty, sometimes imprisoned, used to stay. The hotel is the same distance from Tower Hill underground tube station, which makes it most agreeable for many reasons. First, The Tower of London. It traces its roots to [...]
News: Corinthia comes to Bucharest
Grand Hotel du Boulevard, by architect Alexandru Orascu, has been Romania's icon since it opened in 1867. Now the 50-room hotel is in the final stages of re-opening as Corinthia Grand Hotel du Boulevard. GM is Jean Pierre Mifsud, formerly at Corinthia's equally-historic Budapest hotel, and the new-look has been done by QP Management, part [...]
Ballooning to the Arctic lights
How about experiencing the Northern Lights in Swedish Lapland while floating in the Arctic skies in a hot air balloon? Aurora in the Sky, being launched December 2020 by Off the Map Travel, has been created by Fredrik Broman and Jonas Gejke, and ballooning expert Andrew Peart. Broman and Gejke, who now live in Swedish Lapland, [...]
Kempinski’s Bali villas are worth the wait
The Apurva Kempinski Bali is, ten years after work began in 2010, fully operational, thanks to the efforts of an enormous team of craftsmen, artisans, designers and architects. The finishing touch is 43 private villas, named for the mighty kingdoms that once ruled over Indonesia and set amid tropical gardens on the clifftops of Nusa [...]
St Moritz’ Badrutt’s Palace adds private jet transport
Starting in February 2020, Badrutt's Palace adds a 30-seat Dornier 328 airlift - 90 minutes between London (Biggin Hill) and Engadin Airport. The fact that Engadin Airport, which is ten minutes by car from the hotel, has a new IFR landing system adds considerably to reliable landing in most weather conditions. Badrutt's Palace is partnering [...]