Seychelles: The Princess and the Coconut
“THUD. I’m dicing with death here. That’s the third coconut to narrowly miss my head. In the Seychelles, more people die from falling coconuts than shark attacks.” Jess visits Desroches…
Browsing: The Explorer
The Chocolate Box Desert
“As a kid I had a sentimentally-illustrated bible, depicting events in the Holy Land circa 2000 years ago. They were pretty, in a chocolate box kind of way, but somehow they didn’t make the place seem real.”
Scotland: Unveiling the Unmissable
“I could hear my heart pounding as we inched our way around yet another terrifying bend. I could only wish someone had told me how dreadfully nerve-wracking the Applecross Road is before we’d embarked on our drive.”
Hotel George V, Paris
Having fantasised about the meandering streets of Paris whilst reading French literature, and having fallen asleep listening to Peter Sarstedt singing ‘Where do you go to my lovely?’, I had arrived – and this was really arriving.
Moscow: A City Guide
“Moscow still remains the city that the world associates with iron-clad socialism, dodgy airline companies and the imposing Kremlin. Despite being only a short hop from London, it invokes a far-off, almost feral image.”
The Yeatman, Porto
“Seated a deux along the pretty paved harbourside of the terracotta-coloured UNESCO world heritage city of Porto, an inky Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas 2009 from the Duoro valley glugged into my wine glass.”
The Torridon
The low, moaning drone hummed through the glass of our hotel room in Inverness, immediately bringing an ironic smile to my lips. “It can’t be,” I mused to the boy. “It can’t be bagpipes. Can it?”
Stoke Place
“Stoke Place was built as a family residence in 1690, and little did they know that one day an enthusiastic hotelier would fill an entire wall with empty picture frames, paint the staircase a duck egg blue…”
Banyan Tree Phuket
It was my first evening at Banyan Tree Double Pool Villas in Phuket and an excitable looking Thai man was beckoning me away from my bubbly. “Miss Jessie, please follow me, I have something to show you…”
One Aldwych, London
“This round office had a view through three imposing windows, and the whole rummy thing was decorated like a luxury apartment; it wasn’t like an office at all!” Jonesy stays at the Morning Post’s former HQ…
Middlethorpe Hall
“I found myself at the chic new concrete concourse that is Kings Cross at the hitherto unheard of hour of 8am, to catch a train to the unknown quantity of Middlethorpe Hall in deepest Yorkshire.”
Hotel 41, London
“When it comes to staying in a hotel in your home city, the test for me is how far it takes you out of the daily routine: the softening of the harsh edges of day-to-day life; the dulling of reality.”