“Caroline Phillips is a tenacious and skilful writer with a flair for high quality interviewing and a knack for making things work.”
There are people doing a ‘silent walk’ wearing headphones, gesticulating wildly and singing Freddie Mercury songs in Edinburgh’s city centre. They’re pretending or believing that they’re on stage with Queen. Nearby there’s a man in a kilt playing bagpipes and someone else vying for airspace by strumming flamenco love songs on a guitar.
Sometimes festivals are held at Somatheeram Ayurveda Village. These boast henna painting, palm reading, and guests’ futures also being revealed by a toothless, old soothsayer with a parrot that selects cards with his beak for his master to interpret. The bird picks a lucky card for me, emblazoned with the elephant god, Ganesha. “You shall be very happy lady when you go home,” the parrot tells me, via his master and an interpreter. “Ganesha helps if you are starting a new job or new projects.”
“We have old things to see. And then we have very old things and even older things to see.” Thus speaks the man who has asked me to call him ‘Sammy’, claiming that he looks like Sammy Davis Junior. His real name is Abdulilah Sussi. He’s my guide here in Fez, by the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. As Fez is a place with a medina with 10,000 labyrinthine alleyways, a guide is essential.
There are not many hotels that send a man on a bike to collect clients. But that’s what happens when I stay in the Hotel Savoy in Florence, Italy. Raffaello cycles on a chic fifties-style bicycle to come and find one very lost client (that’s me) stranded somewhere near the Mercato Centrale. He cycles in front of me in his thick black morning suit jacket, leading the way stylishly to the hotel.
You may see Dannii Minogue if you stay there. Or perhaps the famous Dutch film director, Jan de Bont of Twister renown. Welcome to Sevon One Seven, the first and only boutique hotel in the Netherlands when it opened two decades ago. And still, arguably, the best.
Tabata? Burpees? Pad work? Double Dutch to me. But, hell, I’m about to find out what these are. I’m on a Target Human Performance fitness holiday – if doing five hours’ exercise a day can be called a ‘holiday’. I’m here for a five-day ‘get fit fast’ retreat. A so-called health, fitness and wellness break.
It was opened in 1969 by an emperor. That’s pretty good for any hotel. But the ceremony for this one was performed by Haile Salassie, the Ethiopian who was his country’s regent until 1974. And the man revered by the Rastafari movement as God incarnate. That makes for an enticing introduction to a hotel. Welcome to the Hilton, Addis Ababa.
Anyone for Abhyanga in East Sussex? Or perhaps a little Charshana? Or maybe some Panchakarma? In other words, anyone for “dry brushing of the body”, “self-oiling” or “the yogic system of detoxification”. I’m easing myself into a gentle detox. I’m not existing on gulps of air or sips of lemon water. Or even colonics. But rather on Ayurvedic practices, mindfully cooked food, yoga and oodles of downtime. I’m on an Amaveda Detox.
There’s little outside Bohème – with its working farm buildings and agricultural machinery – to indicate how cool it is inside. But open the vast barn doors – the keypad is a clue that this is no normal farm building, Sherlock – and suddenly you’re in a wonder world near Stawley, Somerset. It’s a blend of 16th century former dairy farm turned cider press that is now an exclusive self-catering rental property. A sanctuary where original features (says my mum) stand alongside stylish contemporary touches. And where you can have fun, fun, fun – even with your parents there.
If you’re tired of Christmas shopping and longing to be pampered, hotfoot it to the QMS Skincare Spa pop up in Liberty, London. The treatment rooms are on the first floor, a hidden world (think The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) behind a door at the rear of the shoe department. Boasting a gently clinical vibe and classical music, the rooms are simple and white-on-white – with white-clad therapists who look after you beautifully. (A hand and shoulder massage comes with the facial.)
Don’t want to leave your hotel room? Want something special in your office? Or don’t want to have to drive home from the spa after a relaxing massage? Can’t be bothered to get your pedi done in the nail bar down the road? Like to do a his and hers spa chez vous? Then USPAAH is your new personal spa concierge, bringing a spa to your door. It’s a new app that offers high-end beauty treatments from ‘spaahristas’ – think tip-top mobile beauticians – who arrive Uber-style at a tap of your finger and within the hour.
Tim and Kit Kemp have recently created their eighth London hotel, Ham Yard. And it’s barmy – in the nicest possible way – with décor that’s stylishly zany and elegantly nuts.
The Royal Triangle is like a sort of reverse Bermuda Triangle – so instead of aircraft and ships disappearing under suspicious circumstances, tasteful Highgrove daisy…