Sundowner Magazine: Spring/Summer 2020

SPRING/SUMMER 2020 

Look of love 

FALLING FOR MONGOLIA’S WILDS 

18 SUMMERS 

A CHILDHOOD’S WORTH 

OF FUN FAMILY HOLIDAYS 

BELIEVE 

THE STRIPE 

TIGER SPOTTING 

IN RANTHAMBORE

COLOURS THAT CALL 

Take a break from the everyday and experience the effortless 

revitalisation you’ll find only in Scottsdale. The remarkable clarity 

of our desert light, the exotic cactus blossoms, and the warm 

smiles of our people create a stirring beauty that leaves you 

inspired. Come get away, and see what blooms in the desert 

01242 547 717 

abercrombiekent.co.uk/arizona 

Image: Wildflowers and saguaro cacti along the Granite Mountain Loop Trail in Scottsdale’s 

McDowell Sonoran Preserve (credit: Joel Hazelton for Experience Scottsdale)

54 

64 

72 

DEAR TRAVELLER, 

Happy New Year! A long time before the term 

was coined in the 1990s, I was a firm exponent 

of ‘slow travel’. I first discovered its joys 

and benefits in 1958, when I rode my 

motorbike from Nairobi to Cape Town on 

a 3,000-mile journey of self-discovery along 

some of Africa’s most picturesque roads. 

A leisurely method of travelling that’s about 

the journey as much as the destination, slow 

travel is described by the movement’s guru 

Carl Honoré in his 2004 book, In Praise of Slow, 

as being “about making real and meaningful 

connections – with people, culture, work, food, 

everything”. All things that A&K advocates. 

Discover our suggestion for the ultimate 

slow-travel adventure on page 68. 

Elsewhere in this issue, Sarah Marshall 

urges you to go back to Sri Lanka, Sue Bryant 

is in Egypt, Jan Masters is having an adventure 

in Mongolia, and Sundowner’s editor, Alicia 

Deveney, recommends 18 holidays to enjoy 

with your children. 

I hope your 2020 is full of happy travels. 

Founder & Co-Chairman, Abercrombie & Kent Group 

Follow me on Instagram @geoffrey_kent 

Front cover: A skilled Kazakh eagle 

huntress in Mongolia. Credit: Jan Masters 

Editor: Alicia Deveney 

Design: Debbie Edkins & Louise Maggs 

Contributors: Sue Bryant, Ianthe Butt, 

Audrey Gillan, Faye Hoskins, Sarah 

Marshall, Jan Masters, Joe Meredith, 

Penelope Rance, Sara Sherwood, 

Nikki Stefanoff, Xenia Taliotis, 

Annabelle Thorpe, Nigel Tisdall, 

James Treacy, Philippa Turner, 

Angelina Villa-Clarke 

Sundowner is Abercrombie & Kent’s 

magazine, St George’s House, 

Ambrose Street, Cheltenham, Glos 

GL50 3LG. Advertising enquiries to: 

gbradvertising@abercrombiekent.co.uk 

20 

CONTENTS SPRING/SUMMER 2020 

4 BUSH TELEGRAPH 

All the latest from A&K and the world of travel 

6 IN THE KNOW 

Hotel openings and exciting new routes 

that are on our radar 

8 WHERE TO GO IN 2020 

Featuring the comeback kings, one-off events, 

wild cards, and up-and-comers 

10 CALIFORNIA PREENING 

Innovative and inspiring trips for the body, 

mind, and soul in the Golden State 

14 ROCKING YOUR WORLD 

Don’t cry for Sri Lanka; instead it’s time 

to head back to the teardrop island 

18 48 HOURS IN MELBOURNE 

Spend two days among the coffee shops, 

creative energy, and cool laneways 

20 HOT WATER 

For unchanging Lake Como, the opening 

of a new Mandarin Oriental on the shore is 

big news, says Annabelle Thorpe 

24 A FINE BALANCE 

In rural Rajasthan, Ianthe Butt finds 

wilderness, wellness, and an adventure that 

thrills and rebalances in equal measure 

28 GREAT SCOTTSDALE 

The Arizona town is filled with architectural 

gems by the likes of Edward L. Varney, Paolo 

Soleri, and the mighty Frank Lloyd Wright 

32 A SINGULAR MAN 

An interview with safari-guiding royalty 

and owner of Jack’s Camp, Ralph Bousfield 

36 OFF THE WALL 

For Sara Sherwood and her son, China 

was the obvious destination for their 

family holiday outside Europe 

40 MEET THE TEAM 

A&K’s Gerald Hatherly: “one of the 

greatest travel pros on Earth” 

42 

42 DEATH BECOMES HER 

As the Christie classic returns to our screens, 

Sue Bryant takes a life-affirming Nile Cruise 

46 TURKISH DELIGHT 

Two-thirds of visitors to the Hillside Beach 

Club become repeat guests; a first-time visitor 

highlights six reasons why 

48 FLIGHTS OF FANCY 

Jan Masters journeys to far-out Mongolia 

on a Luxury Small Group Journey, visits the 

Golden Eagle Festival and explores the wilds 

52 ACCESS TO ART HOTELS 

We curate this exhibition of our favourite 

hotels for art lovers 

54 18 SUMMERS 

Our ultimate guide to a childhood of family 

holidays that combine fun with education 

60 OUR FAVOURITE VILLAS FOR 2020 

40 sumptuous retreats and dream hideouts 

64 FOODIE FORAYS: LUANG PRABANG 

Audrey Gillan explores the unique food scene 

in Laos’ chicest town 

68 TAKING IT SLOW 

Penelope Rance discovers the benefits when 

she decelerates and lets the ocean set the pace 

72 FIVE WAYS TO EXPERIENCE PERU 

However you slice it, there’s a piece of this 

South American country for all-comers 

74 A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE 

Boarding the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express 

in the footsteps of a beloved family member 

76 OUT OF THE BLUE 

Saint Lucia, but not as you know it – 

the island still surprises, says Nigel Tisdall 

80 NEWS FROM ABERCROMBIE & 

KENT PHILANTHROPY 

From Africa to Australia, news from our 

philanthropic projects around the globe 

abercrombiekent.co.uk | 3

STARS IN 

THE MAKING 

In our perpetual quest 

to improve our clients’ 

user experience, we’re 

delighted to announce 

our new collaboration 

with Trustpilot, the world’s 

most powerful review 

platform. Visible on our 

website’s home page, 

our recent Trustpilot 

reviews include quotes 

such as “outstanding 

service” and “thoroughly 

recommended”. 

“More than just a rating, 

Trustpilot stars signify 

that a company loves its 

customers and shares our 

mission to create everimproving 

experiences 

for everyone,” says Peter 

Holten Mühlmann, 

Founder and CEO of 

the review platform. 

Bush 

TELEGRAPH 

NEWS FROM A&K AND THE WIDE WORLD OF TRAVEL 

DOUBLE 

VISION 

Two luxury-travel luminaries – A&K’s Founder 

Geoffrey Kent and Manfredi Lefebvre d’Ovidio, 

Chairman of Heritage Group and Executive 

Chairman of Silversea Cruises – have come 

together to become Co-Chairmen of Abercrombie 

& Kent. “We will be working together to translate 

our shared vision for the future of luxury and 

experiential travel,” explained Kent. 

SETTING SAIL 

A&K is pleased to offer Luxury Expedition 

Cruises to the Arctic, Antarctica and culturally 

rich non-polar destinations. New for 2021 are 

cruises to the Northeast Passage, and the 

Faroe Islands and Norwegian Fjords. Backed by 

some 30 years of cruising experience, every 

all-inclusive Luxury Expedition Cruise is set 

aboard an exclusively chartered expedition 

cruiser – including two new luxurious ships, 

Le Champlain and Le Bellot – and accompanied by 

an unparalleled on-board team and local guides. 

4 | SPRING/SUMMER 2020

FLYING HIGH 

THE NEW FLIGHT ROUTES 

& OTHER AIRLINE NEWS 

THAT WE’RE EXCITED ABOUT 

FLYING HIGH WORDS: JAMES TREACY 

Plus, points 

Passengers will benefit from the next phase of British Airways’ 

World Traveller Plus upgrade. Each guest will enjoy a new amenity 

kit. Made from recycled plastic bottles, these kits contain an eye 

mask, socks, a pen, toothbrush, toothpaste, and lip balm from 

Scaramouche + Fandango. 

Seats to Saint Lucia 

Following on from Virgin Atlantic’s decision to cease flying to 

Saint Lucia, British Airways has announced it will be offering 

around 600 additional seats to the island per week in June, 

July and August 2020. 

Test run 

Qantas recently tested three data-gathering, non-stop flights from 

Sydney to London, as part of the Australian airline’s ultra-long-haul 

‘Project Sunrise’. The goal: regular, non-stop flights from the east 

coast of Australia to London and New York. “Flying non-stop from 

Melbourne or Sydney to London and New York is truly the final 

frontier in aviation, so we’re determined to do all the groundwork 

to get this right,” said Alan Joyce, Qantas Group CEO. 

All go for Gaborone 

Qatar Airways has launched a new thrice-weekly service to 

Gaborone, linking London to Botswana’s capital via the airline’s 

hub in Doha. 

ANA goes luxe 

ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS (ANA) has rolled out new First Class and 

Business Class cabins for its B777-300ER aircraft. Created by famed 

architect Kengo Kuma and leading British designers Acumen, its First 

Class is inspired by ‘luxury Japanese hotels’. Dubbed ‘THE Suite’ and 

‘THE Room’, the new cabins feature custom-made lights by Panasonic, 

inspired by natural sunrise to improve comfort, and the largest 

entertainment screens in the skies. 

Class act 

Qatar Airways continues to roll-out its award-winning Qsuite offering. 

From this winter, four flights per day from Heathrow will feature Qsuite, as 

well as one per day from Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Delhi. In addition, 

from March, the service will be offered twice daily from Manchester. 

Recognised as “the world’s best Business Class” at the 2019 Skytrax World 

Airline Awards and 2019 TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards, Qsuite 

was first launched in March 2017 on selected planes. The airline has since 

been adding the offering to more planes and routes. Both aft- and forwardfacing, 

Qsuite seats can be configured into a private but social quad – 

useful for family meals, business meetings, and much more. 

A&K PARTNERSHIP 

TREND WATCH: THE RISE OF THE GOLDEN GAP YEAR 

What springs to mind when you hear ‘gap year’? Like most, you 

probably imagine fresh-faced school leavers backpacking around 

far-flung corners of the world. Yet studies show an increasing 

number of retirees are embarking on extended holidays – 

escapes lasting anywhere from three to 12 months. 

Inspired Villages, a company specialising in developing later living 

communities, recently crunched the numbers of a national survey 

by OnePoll, as well as data from the ONS. The figures reveal that 

almost a quarter of UK retirees have either taken a gap year since 

leaving work, or are interested in doing so; 23 per cent already 

take five holidays or more per year. 

For some potential globe-trotting trendsetters, it isn’t age holding 

them back from their gap year dream. The data reveals that garden 

and household maintenance is a major dissuader for 21 per cent 

of those surveyed. Travel stress was also cited by 17 per cent as a 

limiting factor. However, with more retirement villages providing 

reassuring ‘lock up and leave’ services, and with luxury travel 

companies such as A&K promising a stress-free travel experience, 

those hurdles are looking a lot less daunting. Is this the dawning of 

the age of the golden gap year? 


IN THE KNOW 

BE THE FIRST TO STAY IN ONE OF THESE EXCITING PLACES 

ARCTIC BATH 

Harads, Sweden 

Opening: February 2020 

When it comes to 2020’s travel trends, the buzzwords ‘immersive’, ‘Insta-holiday’, and ‘wellness’ continue to dominate 

how consumers are thinking and talking about travel. Perfectly in-line to tap into all these trends, Arctic Bath hotel 

floats on the Lule River and offers a unique Nordic wellness experience. At the core of this brand-new 12-cabin 

‘floatel’ is a giant ‘coldbath’ that is open to the northern sky for aurora borealis-watching, heated to a bracing four 

degrees, and ringed by treatment and relaxation rooms, and saunas. Just imagine the Insta-opportunities and the 

images that will flood your feed. 


AMAN NEW YORK 

New York City, USA 

Opening: 2020 

‘Aman junkies’ rejoice: the super-luxury hotel brand 

is opening an 83-room ‘urban sanctuary’ in New 

York this year. The property – a combination of hotel 

rooms and 20 private residences – will occupy the 

upper floors of Fifth Avenue’s famed Crown Building. 

This new opening will be Aman’s second city 

destination (after Tokyo) as part of CEO Vladislav 

Doronin’s plan to take Aman urban. He is quoted as 

saying ‘when I bought Aman in 2014, the whole goal 

was to turn Aman from horizontal to vertical.’ 

EXPLORA TRAVESÍA 

ATACAMA-UYUNI 

Chile & Bolivia, South America 

From: May 2020 

The exploras are a group of truly extraordinary hotels 

in exceptional locations. But this group offers more 

than hotels: its Travesías are nomadic journeys by 

4x4 from one explora hotel to the next (glamping if 

accommodation is unavailable). New for 2020, the 

Atacama to Uyuni eight- or 10-night route runs from 

the deep silence of the desert’s terracotta mountains 

to the endless white of Bolivia’s salt flats. Suited to 

wild-at-heart wanderers. 

IKOS ANDALUSIA 

Andalusia, Spain 

Opening: May 2020 

The Ikos brand looks set to bring a touch more luxury 

to Spain’s shimmering southern shores. Close to the 

cosmopolitan glamour of Marbella, the exclusive 

Ikos Andalusia lies on the beachfront of Playa de 

Guadalmansa in beautifully landscaped gardens and 

is packed with leisure facilities and a spa. The ultimate 

‘all inclusive’ offer of Infinite Lifestyle allows you to 

savour such pleasures as Michelin-starred menus 

and 24-hour room service during your stay. 

CREDIT: ARCTIC BATH 

ELEWANA LOISABA 

LODO SPRINGS 

Loisaba, Kenya 

Opened: July 2019 

Nestled in nearly 25,000 fence-free hectares and 

located on the elephant corridor between the 

immense plains of Loisaba and Laikipia Plateau, 

this new five-star, eight-tent property offers an 

ultra-private experience, as well as magical views 

towards Mount Kenya. For the occupants of each 

individually designed tent, there is a dedicated safari 

vehicle, driver, and Elewana field guide. 


Where to go 

in 2020 

Our specialists keep their fingers firmly on the pulse 

of luxury travel, so we know which of this year’s hottest 

destinations will set your heart racing. Discover the 

countries making a thrilling comeback; where to go 

for a true one-off experience; and the up-and-comers 

promising seasoned travellers something different 

THE COMEBACK KINGS 

EGYPT 

Mesmeric relics, atmospheric souks, and natural wonders coalesce to give 

Egypt an enduring romance. After the tumult of recent years, the Land 

of the Pharaohs is making a deserved comeback; in 2018, more than 11 

million tourists visited Egypt, and the World Tourism Organisation has 

since named the country the world’s fastest-growing travel destination. 

Why go in 2020? The Grand Egyptian Museum is set to open this 

year. Encompassing 500,000 square metres, this vast exhibition space will 

showcase an omnium-gatherum of Ancient Egyptian finds – 30,000 of 

which have never been exhibited in public. For true insider access, A&K 

can take you on a guided tour behind the scenes before the museum’s 

grand opening. 

Where to stay in 2020 The follow-up to Kenneth Branagh’s Murder 

on the Orient Express has been slated for release this October. In Death 

on the Nile, Poirot returns to investigate a murder aboard a River Nile 

steamboat. You can follow in the fastidious detective’s footsteps by taking 

your own luxury cruise – unlike his, however, we’ll ensure it unfolds 

without a hitch. Enjoy a five-star journey aboard the Sanctuary Nile 

Adventurer; after a dramatic refurbishment last autumn, this exquisite 

vessel has returned to the water as the 21st century’s ‘Queen of the Nile’. 

A&K’s eight-night Egypt: Cairo & Cruising the Nile escorted tour 

starts at £3,995 per person. Early solo bookers can avoid 

a single supplement. 

SRI LANKA 

The ‘teardrop off India’ brims with lush landscapes, ancient treasures, and 

a rich cultural heritage – all ringed by the palm-fringed beaches of the 

Indian Ocean. In the past decade, visitor numbers have boomed, and it’s 

easy to see why; on a Sri Lanka holiday, a large dose of tropical warmth 

awaits, in both the weather and the welcome. 

Why go in 2020? Although the tragic events of Easter 2019 affected 

tourism, the country’s multitude of charms are tempting travellers once 

more. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office has rescinded its advice 

against visiting the island nation, and UK nationals can enter the country 

on a visa-free, no-cost basis until the end of January. On top of that, the 

government has announced plans to slash airline charges and increase 

flight numbers, and A&K is freezing its holiday prices at 2019’s rates. 

A&K’s 13-night Classic Sri Lanka suggested itinerary starts at 

£3,905 per person (based on two sharing, includes flights, transfers, 

accommodation, and selected excursions). 

EGYPT 

SRI LANKA 

THE ONE-OFF EVENT 

ARGENTINA 

Beguiling landscapes, a vibrant capital, and famously hospitable 

people are reasons enough to put Argentina on many a wish list this 

year. Experience the gaucho way of life amid wild plains and epic 

mountainscapes; try your hand (and feet) at tango under expert 

tutelage; sample exquisite wine on a tour of the country’s acclaimed 

vineyards – and so much more. 

Why go in 2020? For the cherry on the cake – a total solar eclipse. 

Set to take place on 14 December, this aligning of celestial bodies will be 

visible from just a few South American countries. In Argentina, the event 

will briefly plunge northern Patagonia into darkness in the middle of the 

afternoon. Be among the few to witness this rare, magical moment in a 

region already famed for its spectacular scenery. 

Where to stay in 2020 Visit this year to also become one of the first 

guests to stay at the explora Patagonia Argentina. The latest in the hotel 

group’s roster of exemplary eco-lodges, this new property places you 

within southern Patagonia’s Los Huemules reserve, close to El Chaltén. 

You’ll enjoy access to a stunning wilderness, with views to the Electric 

Valley and Marconi range – perfect for embracing your adventurous side. 

A&K’s 12-night Patagonia Explored suggested itinerary starts at 




ARGENTINA 

ARCTIC 

LAOS 

THE WILD CARD 

THE ARCTIC CIRCLE 

Where else in the world can you view the polar bear in its natural habitat, 

mingle with Innuit, spot narwhal, and admire the northern lights in all 

their glory? The Arctic Circle offers a bounty of untamed beauty, and this 

year is a fantastic time to witness it. 

Why go in 2020? To experience a luxury cruise like no other. Our 

48-day Grand Arctic Voyage lets you explore the remote archipelago 

of Svalbard, trendy Iceland, rugged Greenland, the entire Canadian 

Arctic, and the glittering landscapes that surround them. 

Where to stay in 2020 Discover this icy wonderland from the comfort 

of Le Boreal, a robust mega-yacht perfectly matched to this mega-voyage. 

A&K’s 48-day Grand Arctic Voyage is £51,285 per person (based on 

two sharing). Speak to a specialist to discover all that’s included on an 

A&K Luxury Expedition Cruise. 

ETHIOPIA 

THE UP-AND-COMERS 

LAOS 

Until recently, Laos was in the shadow of its more famous Indochinese 

neighbours. This country’s charm and authenticity are drawing a growing 

number of visitors to its lesser-travelled trails, however, and we expect 

the trend to continue in 2020. Discover this nation of jungles, temples, 

hill-top villages, and ancient relics for yourself – there’s plenty to stir your 

senses. We particularly recommend visiting as part of a luxury multicentre 

escape across South-east Asia. 

Why go in 2020? For new discoveries on the Plain of Jars. Stretching 

across the Xiangkhoang Plateau, this vast archaeological site features 

thousands of enormous stone vessels, scattered by a past civilisation 

whose culture remains a mystery. While folklore suggests the jars 

belonged to giants, further excavations in 2019 point instead towards 

a more anthropological answer: that this was once a burial ground. We 

can help you discover more about this hard to reach UNESCO World 

Heritage Site by flying you in directly via helicopter, accompanied by an 

expert guide. 

Where to stay in 2020 Launched just under two years ago, Rosewood 

Luang Prabang has firmly established itself among Laos’ luxury ecoretreats. 

Stay in tented suites or jungle-nested villas within easy reach 

of UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang’s attractions, including museums, 

monasteries, and the MandaLao Elephant Sanctuary. 

A&K’s 11-night Rhythms of South-east Asia escorted tour 

starts at £3,795 per person. Early solo bookers can avoid 

a single supplement. 

ETHIOPIA 

Ethiopia is one of Africa’s most enthralling – and often overlooked – 

destinations. Situated in the Horn of Africa, it easily earns its spot in this 

year’s limelight. The monasteries of Lake Tana and rock-hewn churches 

of Lalibela offer historical intrigue, while the other-worldly Danakil 

Depression and wildlife of the Simien and Bale Mountains are a major 

draw for nature lovers. Whether in the bustling cities or remote plains, 

you’ll find an abundance of history, tradition, and goodwill. 

Why go in 2020? For the Irreecha thanksgiving festival of the Oromo, 

the country’s largest ethnic group. See freshly cut grass and flowers being 

placed in water – a traditional offering that thanks God for the end of 

the rainy season and the start of spring. It’s a fantastic opportunity to 

immerse yourself in this part of the country’s culture. 

Where to stay in 2020 If you’re tempted by Ethiopia’s pristine 

wilderness, Bale Mountain Lodge offers everything you could want. 

Comprising just eleven rooms, this eco-friendly property is secreted 

away in a national park, a haven for endemic and rare wildlife. Your 

neighbours? Everything from the Ethiopian wolf to the Bale monkey. 

A&K’s 10-night Ethiopian Wildlife suggested itinerary starts at 




WELL 

CONNECTED 

Since the 1970s, the Golden State has been at the 

forefront of the wellness industry. From yoga retreats 

to juicing detoxes, the sun-drenched destination 

practically invented the concept of the health holiday 

as we know it. Angelina Villa-Clarke discovers 

some of the most innovative and inspiring trips for 

body, mind, and soul 


CALIFORNIA 

EMBRACE THE WILDERNESS 

Stretching across thousands of kilometres, Yosemite National 

Park, in central California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, is one 

of the most awe-inspiring places on Earth – especially for hikers. 

With its towering ancient sequoia trees, crashing waterfalls, and 

deep valleys, this is the perfect place to recharge your soul and be 

at one with nature. A must is to take in the imposing Half Dome 

granite monolith. While adrenalin junkies can hike to the top 

(it rises 2,694 metres above sea level and you’ll need a special 

permit to do this), the more faint-hearted can trek instead in its 

shadow, by meandering along the picturesque Merced River. 

With more than 1,300 kilometres of trails to choose from, 

Yosemite can be an overwhelming place – so it’s best to narrow 

down your hike according to your interests. For those keen on 

capturing the glorious landscape on camera, the Mirror Lake 

Loop is a good start. The eight-kilometre round trip takes two 

to three hours and will see you spoilt for choice when it comes 

to scenic vistas – all beautifully reflected in still, glacial waters 

left behind by the Ice Age. Those interested in knowing more 

about the wildlife – from the condor that soar above to the 

American black bear which call this place home – can also 

arrange for a customised hike with an expert naturalist. 

HAVE A COASTAL CLEAR-OUT 

It doesn’t get much prettier than Carmel-by-the-Sea – a small 

beach town in Monterey County. The charming spot has attracted 

artists and writers since the 1920s, and is now home to more 

than 100 art galleries. Its quaint cafés, fairy-tale cottages, and 

untouched beaches still bring in a steady stream of hip visitors 

attracted to its quirky, bohemian – and peaceful – way of life. 

Those looking to clear their minds for a while should check 

into the eclectic La Playa Carmel, a revamped historic hotel 

oozing old world charm. With bedrooms overlooking the 

dramatic Pacific coastline, secluded courtyards, and a signature 

Champagne breakfast, it’s easy to switch off here. While you can 

check in and chill out under your own steam, it’s also the perfect 

bolthole to experience the town’s three-day Mindful-by-the-Sea 

retreats, led by renowned psychologist and mindfulness expert 

Rich Fernandez. With a focus on nature and capturing the essence 

of the location, the retreats aim to equip you with tools to manage 

stress and enhance well-being. 

SALUTE THE SUN IN SANTA MONICA 

Famous for its laid-back vibe, trendy dining spots and farmer’s 

markets, the funky town of Santa Monica is one of southern 

California’s highlights. With its mountain backdrop, the beachy 

resort town is an alluring alternative to the brash ‘big-light’ appeal 

of Los Angeles. 

Within walking distance of the pedestrianised shopping district 

and beach, the Viceroy Santa Monica reflects the town’s much 

celebrated charisma. The glamorous Cast restaurant serves up 

modern cuisine inspired by locally sourced produce, the lounge is 

one of the town’s coolest hang-outs, and bedrooms have a funky 

design married with a light and airy feel. With a focus on fitness, 

the hotel has collaborated with Beach Yoga SoCal, so you can take 

advantage of yoga classes on the beach. Breathe in the fresh air, 

plant your toes in the sand, and return home feeling rejuvenated. 

LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE AT LAKE TAHOE 

The cobalt-blue waters of Lake Tahoe have long attracted 

adventurers and fitness fanatics due to the year-round sports on 

offer. Found in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it rests on the 

California and Nevada border and is one of the USA’s most iconic 

beauty spots. 

Whether you want to ski or to hike, the Landing Tahoe Resort 

& Spa, set on the shoreline of South Lake Tahoe, offers a long 

line-up of activities. From adventure biking in the mountains 

to wakeboarding, kayaking, and paddleboarding on the water, 

fishing to golf, and snowmobiling to sledding – this is the place 

to exercise your muscles while expanding your mind in the 

jaw-dropping landscape. Hiking around the many trails means 

that you will be able to embrace the natural splendour – from the 

glacier-carved slopes to the snowmelt waterfalls, it’s the ultimate 

welcome to the great outdoors. 


RESET YOUR MOJO IN SAN DIEGO 

Whether you want to tackle sleep problems or reboot your 

approach to nutrition, Rancho Valencia – a hacienda-style resort 

near San Diego – will probably be able to help. Found in 18 

hectares of lush gardens and olive groves, you bed down in your 

own private luxury casita with views over the canyons of San 

Diego. Lantern-lit evenings are best spent at one of the farm-totable 

restaurants, and by day you’ll be rejuvenated in the spa. 

Offering a dedicated programme called the Wellness Collective, 

based on the cutting-edge science of epigenetics, the spa goes one 

step beyond the usual massage and facial offerings. Based on the 

knowledge that many genes change in response to how we care 

for ourselves, scientists are increasingly convinced that the 

majority of disease – potentially up to 95 per cent – is preventable 

through making healthy choices. Intimate workshops, lectures, 

and activities led by leading experts reveal the science and 

combine to address various aspects of good health – such as 

weight loss or positivity. 

DIG DEEP IN THE DESERT 

Sat beneath the Santa Rosa Mountains in southern California, the 

Waldorf Astoria La Quinta is no stranger to welcoming the great 

and the good. The legendary hotel has seen Frank Capra adapt the 

script for It Happened One Night here, Ginger Rogers get married 

in front of its waterfall, and President Dwight D Eisenhower 

play a round of golf on one of the five standout courses. With 41 

swimming pools, seven restaurants and an award-winning spa – 

you’ll soon be embracing your own inner starlet. 

With a focus on mindfulness and yoga, the desert retreat offers 

a variety of holistic classes, such as full-moon, restorative, and 

yin yoga. You can also hike in Joshua Tree Park, bathe in the 

nearby hot mineral springs, and ride horses across the dunes in 

the desert. Experts are on hand to lead you through meditation 

practices aimed at taking you to a deep state of calm. It’s bliss. 

previous page: Hiking in Yosemite National Park 

this page, clockwise from top: Beach yoga; contemplation in Joshua Tree National Park; a sound-bathing session 


CALIFORNIA 

TAKE YOUR SEATS AT A CONCERT 

FOR THE SOUL 

Gaining momentum in wellness circles is the practice of soundbathing. 

Predictably, California is at the forefront of the therapy. 

Resulting in a deep state of relaxation, sound-bathing sees a 

combination of gongs and singing bowls played in such a way as 

to relax the body and calm the mind. 

Specialising in intimate group sessions, the Soundbath Centre 

in Los Angeles is the first and only centre in the city dedicated 

to sound-bath events and training. Private sessions with crystal 

singing bowls, gongs, and reiki are available, but the most popular 

experiences are the uplifting small group events. You simply lie 

back and relax, listening as the sounds guide you on a journey of 

self-discovery and inner exploration. The result is a fine-tuned 

mental clarity. 

HUG A TREE IN NORTHERN 

CALIFORNIA 

Forest bathing – or tree hugging – may have had an image 

makeover of late, but its roots (pun intended) reach back even 

further than when the original Californian hippies made much of 

embracing a tree trunk. The practice of soaking up a picture-book 

forest environment dates back to a bygone time when people 

naturally ventured into a verdant setting to clear the mind. These 

days, there’s no better place than under the canopy of northern 

California’s soaring giant redwoods to feel the serenity. 

Humboldt County is home to the magical-sounding Avenue of 

the Giants – found within a state park which covers some 21,448 

hectares and where three-quarters of the world’s tallest trees can 

be found. The remote, enchanting landscape is designed for deep 

breaths and gentle walking. Ancient trees with gnarled trunks 

big enough for a family to hold hands around are simply aweinspiring. 

Fragrant air – scented with essential plant oils – restores 

the senses, while the sheer tranquillity of walking among lofty 

trees will bring a lucidity not often found in our fast-paced world. 

CONTACT ABERCROMBIE & KENT 

For more information, or to book your next wellness holiday in California, 

call our North America travel specialists on 01242 547 717. 



SRI LANKA 

ROCKING 

YOUR WORLD 

NOW IS THE TIME TO GO BACK TO SRI LANKA. 

ELUSIVE WILDLIFE, HISTORIC SITES, AND LUSH 

TEA PLANTATIONS: THE ISLAND'S APPEAL IS 

TRANSCENDENT. BUT GO SOON BEFORE EVERYONE 

ELSE DOES, SAYS SARAH MARSHALL 

Carved from a solitary plateau rising 200 metres from the 

jungle floor, King Kasyapa I’s mesmerising fortress is 

stately even by royal standards. An opulent complex of 

sky-high bathing pools and majestic fountains fed by monsoon 

rain, it’s a site better suited to a religious deity than a monarch. 

Although ancient frescoes of bare-chested women presenting 

platters of fruit and toying suggestively with lotus flowers suggest 

hedonism was the ruling spirit worshipped here. 

But the silhouettes that once rippled in water features have 

been washed away by 1,500 years of history, leaving only the 

reflections of a cloudless sky. Today, one of Sri Lanka’s most 

popular tourist attractions is surprisingly empty, and when a 

handful of tourists disappear into the belly of a stone lion that 

lends this place its name, I have Sigiriya (or Lion) Rock and its 

hypnotising views all to myself. 

For the past few years, this Indian Ocean island had been 

riding high on a wave of tourism. Enticed by palm-fringed 

beaches, a fascinating culture, and exotic wildlife, visitor numbers 

were booming. But on 21 April last year, everything ground to a 

halt. Targeting hotels and churches, the Easter Sunday terrorist 

attacks were devastating, creating shock waves which would 

continue to do harm for months. 

The British Foreign Office joined 26 countries in issuing a 

travel ban, which was finally relaxed in June 2019. For hoteliers 

and drivers employed in tourism, the news couldn’t have come 

soon enough. 


“Fortunately, we managed to retain all our staff,” says Suraj 

Perera, general manager of the Water Garden Sigiriya hotel, which 

sits in a perfect eyeline of the Lion Rock. “But many places had to 

let people go.” 

Designed by Channa Daswatte, a protégé of the celebrated 

architect Geoffrey Bawa, the property draws inspiration from 

the famous UNESCO site – from water channels reflecting the 

sunshine flashes of oriole birds, to walls made with mud bricks 

mirroring those used for the citadel’s stupas. 

It’s a place for peace and contemplation – made even more 

tranquil by the fact I’m one of only five guests in a complex of 

villas that could happily host more than 60. 

But the numbers will return. In August 2019, the Sri Lankan 

government waived visa fees for 48 countries including the UK 

for six months in a bid to lure back tourists, and this helped 

bookings rise. 

And for those willing to travel sooner rather than later, there’s 

still a chance to enjoy the island’s most popular sights (relatively) 

crowd-free. 

Reliably large gatherings are guaranteed in the nearby 

Minneriya National Park, however, where a reservoir constructed 

18 centuries ago is the largest known meeting point of Asian 

elephants in the world. In the dry season, from May to September, 

hundreds come here to drink. 

During my afternoon drive, only a few vehicles trundle around 

the vast body of water, where pelicans glide like a flotilla of sailing 

boats. Two young bulls lock trunks in a squabble over feeding 

grounds, while a calf chases snow-white egrets in a race she’s 

destined to lose. The wildlife sightings are impressive, but even 

more notable is the behaviour of the drivers: once criticised for 

their poor knowledge and lack of animal awareness, they now 

carefully follow a protocol. 

The transformation is the result of training from the 

Federation of Environmental Organisations, which has been 

tasked by the government to improve the standard of drivers in 

Sri Lanka’s national parks. It’s a fine example of how the quiet time 

has been used constructively to support the country’s gradual 

bounce back. 

This ability to keep smiling is a large part of the island’s appeal. 

From roadside stallholders cleaving open king coconuts to 

Ayurvedic doctors cultivating aromatic spice gardens, everyone is 

warm and welcoming, and life ebbs and flows at a leisurely pace. 

And then there’s the colour: the white-sand beaches, jade-green 

highlands, and curries in a sunset of blazing hues. Most dazzling 

of all are the religious festivals, although every day is a cause for 

ceremony and celebration in central city Kandy, the last kingdom 

to fall to the British Empire in 1815. 

Dressed in crimson sashes, drummers introduce an evening 

pooja (prayer ritual) at the 16th-century Temple of the Tooth 

Relic, where I join pilgrims queuing to offer lotus flowers and 

lilies to the Buddha’s tooth. Considered too precious for public 

display, the keratin jewel is hidden inside a gold casket, and 

revealed for only five minutes each day. Equally deserving of 

devotion is an octagonal sandalwood library housing books 

bound with palm leaves, some almost 1,000 years old. 

On the manicured lawns of the Kings Pavilion hotel, perched 


SRI LANKA 

on a hill above the city, I’m given a marvellous taste of the type 

of spectacle Sri Lanka is famed for. Performers from the Sri 

Anura dance school spin and somersault in a jangle of elaborate 

costumes, although Master Ruwan steals the show by basting his 

body and walking through flames. You can find them performing 

every evening in Kandy’s Red Cross Theatre from 17.00. 

Less frantic and fiery, my next stop is Haputale in the heart of 

Sri Lanka’s tea country, passing the golf courses and mock-Tudor 

houses of Norelia (also known as Little Britain) and into a region 

of undulating hills in vibrant shades of green. Tamil women carry 

wicker baskets stuffed with leaves and a bitter smell wafts through 

the open windows of busy factories. 

Scottish tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton would survey his verdant 

empire from the viewpoint at Lipton’s Seat, but an even more 

impressive panorama is reserved for guests staying at Thotalagala, 

a former tea-planter’s bungalow transformed into a colonial-style 

seven-room boutique hotel. Cabinets filled with trophies and 

decanters reminisce about the bygone grandeur of Ceylon, but 

it’s the sight outside – where an infinity pool spills into mistshrouded 

valleys – which proves there’s nothing more beautiful 

than the here and now. 

There’s no doubt Sri Lanka’s tourist industry has suffered a 

blow, but in some places a reduction in numbers has provided a 

much-needed opportunity to take stock. Credited as having the 

highest density of leopards in the world, Yala National Park is a 

premier wildlife destination. Yet, a failure to cap the number of 

daily visitors has caused outrage, with tales of up to 70 vehicles 

jostling over a sighting in the popular Block 1. 

Fully aware of these issues, safari camp Leopard Trails prefer 

to find their own sightings rather than join a throng of jeeps 

connected by the park’s increasingly clear mobile phone network. 

Stumbling upon muscular male leopard Harak Hora (the buffalo 

killer), we have a rare few minutes alone with the cat. It’s a 

similar story with sloth bear Ballsy, who we watch searching for 

sugar-rich berries at the base of an ironwood tree. These intimate, 

sensitively controlled sightings demonstrate just how wonderful 

this park can be if numbers are properly managed. 

When Sri Lanka came under attack last Easter, we all cried for 

the teardrop-shaped island. Having suffered a savage civil war and 

catastrophic tsunami, another blow seemed cruelly unfair. But 

now the doors are wide open for visitors, and smiles have replaced 

the sadness. This colourful, charismatic, and endlessly charming 

island is stronger than it’s ever been. 

previous page: Sigiriya Rock at sunset 

this page, clockwise from top left: The tea plantations of Haputale; 

a leopard in Yala National Park; elephants in Minneriya National Park; 

a view of Thotalagala; a stilt fisherman in Galle; the Water Garden Sigiriya 


For more information on tailor-made holidays to Sri Lanka, 

or to book A&K's 13-night Classic Sri Lanka suggested itinerary, 

call our Indian Subcontinent travel specialists on 01242 547 755. 


48 HOURS IN 

MELBOURNE 

DAY 1 

09.00 

It may seem contrary to arrive in Melbourne and then immediately leave 

the city, but there’s just so much to see and do in the surrounding areas, 

starting with a trip to the Yarra Valley. Whether you’re travelling with 

children or sans enfants, time spent at Healesville Sanctuary is never 

wasted. Home to every Australian native animal you can imagine, it’s the 

place to go if you want see koalas and wombats and dingos, oh my! 

A constant contender for the world’s most livable city, 

Melbourne has it all. It’s known as the cultural hub of 

Australia as well as the country’s sporting capital. Got 48 

hours there as part of a tailor-made Australian holiday? 

Let city resident Nikki Stefanoff show you around 

12.00 

Once you’ve finished with the animals, it’s time to start with the wines. 

Wineries in the Yarra Valley are as plentiful as the grapes within them 

so, as there isn’t enough time to visit all of them, you’ll need to hit the 

highlights. For fans of sparkling tipples, head to Domaine Chandon. 

Established by Moët & Chandon in 1986, this is a place where French 

traditions still thrive, albeit with an Aussie twist. TarraWarra Estate is 

next on the list. As famous for its contemporary art gallery as it is for the 

wines, which are meticulously grown, handpicked, vinified, and aged 

on the estate. On to Yering Station – a destination winery complete with 

architect-designed restaurant and bar, historic cellar door, art space, local 

produce store, and stunning grounds. Oh, and wine. Lots of wine. 

16.00 

On the way to Melbourne, the designated driver should set the sat nav for 

the beachside suburb of St Kilda, a special part of Melbourne where the 

old and new collide. Art deco architecture sits alongside contemporary 

apartments as well as the Palais Theatre and Luna Park – city stalwarts, 

which have pulled in the crowds for more than 100 years. St Kilda’s 

always buzzing foreshore and ocean views make it unlike any other 

Melbourne suburb, particularly in summer when locals and visitors alike 

can sink a beer over a late lunch of fish and chips and watch the world 

skate, scoot, ride, walk, or run by along the water’s edge. 

18.00 

It’s worth sticking around St Kilda at sunset to see the small, cute, furry 

local penguin (eudyptula minor) make the nightly pilgrimage across the 

beach back to their nests. Much like Phillip Island’s Penguin Parade (which 

can be seen nightly and is two hours outside of Melbourne), these penguins 

are present all year round and can be spotted waddling from the sea to their 

St Kilda burrows once the sun goes down. Before calling it a night, 

St Kilda’s Supernormal Canteen is the only place to head for dinner – 

their lobster rolls are spoken about with hushed reverence. 


DAY 2 

07.00 

Yes, it’s an early start but if you want to sample what The New York Times 

called the world’s best croissant then you need to get ahead of the crowds. 

Tucked away in a suburban Fitzroy side street is Lune Croissanterie, 

home to these aforementioned award-winning delights. Located in 

an ultra-modern warehouse conversion, at Lune you can watch the 

croissants made, before you tuck into your flavour of choice with a flat 

white. Weekend queues are inevitable, and it has been known to take an 

hour to get through the door, which is why you may want to 

set your alarm clock. 

09.00 

Now you’re full of buttery goodness, take a trip over to the suburb of 

Carlton and more specifically to Lygon Street, Melbourne’s Little Italy. 

The origins of Melbourne’s coffee culture lie on this strip, and the street 

continues to be lined with alfresco dining options. Grab an espresso 

from King and Godfree then take a short wander to Melbourne’s 

best bookshop, Readings Carlton, before crossing over the road 

and diving into Brunetti’s for ‘morning tea’. Brunetti’s is a local 

institution, a Roman-style café/restaurant/bar/patisserie that 

is always packed to the rafters and as Melbourne as it gets. 

11.00 

Jump on a tram and head into the CBD where you can pay your respects 

to the altar of Australian sport – the MCG. The Melbourne Cricket 

Ground – or just simply ‘the G’ to locals – is the place where sporting 

magic happens. Head into the city and check out the city’s famous 

laneways – both Hosier Lane and AC/DC Lane are worth a look if you’re 

a fan of street art. Finish your walk with another espresso in Degraves 

Street, where alfresco Parisian charm meets Melbourne’s café culture, 

before heading up to Emporium for the ultimate in shopping experiences. 

13.00 

Melbourne is famous for having four seasons in one day, which can 

sometimes have an effect on your chosen excursion. So, here are two: 

if the sun is shining, go punting in the gorgeous Botanical Gardens; and 

if the weather isn’t playing ball, spend the afternoon wandering around 

the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne’s art gallery. 

18.00 

opposite page, from top: Hardware Lane (credit: Ray Reyes, Visit Victoria); 

beach tram to St Kilda; food at the Supernormal Canteen (credit: Nikki To) 

this page, clockwise from top: Serving espresso at King and Godfree; croissants at 

Lune Croissanterie*; Readings Carlton bookshop*; people relaxing at Royal Botanic 

Gardens*; street art on AC/DC Lane (credit: Robert Blackburn, Visit Victoria) 

*(credit: Josie Withers, Visit Victoria) 

It wouldn’t be a trip to Melbourne without a drink on a rooftop bar 

and Peaches in the CBD is the newest kid on the block. A two-level 

cocktail bar on Swanston Street, Peaches is a hybrid of 1980s pastel colours, 

1960s modernist chic, and a drinks list designed to reflect its unique 

ambience. Plus, if you get a bit peckish, the downstairs restaurant 

Cheek is a firm city favourite. 


For more information, or to book a tailor-made holiday to Australia 

including Melbourne, call our travel specialists on 01242 547 826. 


HOT WATER 

DESERVING OF ITS REPUTATION AS A PLAYGROUND FOR THE WELL-HEELED, LAKE COMO – WITH ITS NEW 

MANDARIN ORIENTAL – REMAINS THE TRENDIEST OF ITALIAN DESTINATIONS, SAYS ANNABELLE THORPE 

Cocktail hour at the newly opened Mandarin Oriental 

– the first international hotel brand to set up shop 

on Lake Como – and my sister, Caroline, and I are 

discussing the possibility of George Clooney dropping by on a 

gleaming motor launch. Anywhere else, this suggestion would 

be firmly in the realms of fantasy, but here it seems entirely 

possible – and not just because George owns a villa on the other 

side of the lake, in Laglio. Lake Como is so breath-takingly 

beautiful, so effortlessly glamorous, that it seems as if A-listers 

popping up should just be part of the package. 

The smallest of Italy’s three ‘Great Lakes’ (along with Garda 

and Maggiore), Como has been luring the well to do since 

Roman times, but it was during the Renaissance that many 

of the elegant, pastel-hued villas were built along its shore. 

Composers, artists, and writers flocked to the area, drawn by 

its proximity to Milan and the spectacular scenery. Many of the 

sprawling villas are now holiday rentals, or boutique hotels; the 

new Mandarin Oriental was once known as Villa Roccabruna, 

home of the famous opera singer, Giuditta Pasta. 

The opening of the MO is big news for a destination where 

little changes from one year to the next. Como is fashionably 

unfashionable; perennially popular and yet somehow under the 

radar. This is not a place where new hotels or restaurants are 

constantly popping up – many have been operating on the lake 

for decades, including our first stop, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo. 

Our route to the hotel takes us from the town of Como along 

the western shore, and as we follow the winding road along the 

lake to the Tremezzo, it feels as if we have stepped back into 

the 1950s. The road twists through picturesque villages with 

trattorias spilling tables and chairs onto the pavements, 

and faded alimentari signs swinging in the gentle breeze. 

By the time we pull up at the hotel, I already feel as if I am 

living in a Fellini movie. On one side of the road, the lake 

glistens and shimmers, matched by the hotel’s floating pool 

that rests above it. On the other, the Tremezzo rises up – 

a vanilla-hued confection that looks straight out of Wes 

Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Inside, the scarlet walled 

lobby, filled with flowers and velvet sofas, feels wonderfully 

luxurious, as does our stylish bedroom, with a view straight 

out over the lake to the mountains beyond. Behind the main 

building, the hotel’s grounds encompass a spectacular botanical 

garden that steps up the hillside, criss-crossed with footpaths 

and flower-filled viewpoints. 

One of the joys of Como is that once you have arrived on the 


ITALY 

clockwise from top left: A view of Lake Como; a view of the outside the Mandarin 

Oriental; the village of Bellagio; the beach at Grand Hotel Tremezzo; Vista Lago room 

at the Mandarin Oriental 


lake, there’s little need to get in a car to explore further. A huge 

range of vessels ply the deep waters: slow boats, or battelli, that 

offer plenty of time for photographs from the deck; hydrofoils, 

that run from Como in the south to Varenna on the east coast, 

and Colico at the northernmost end; and ferries that traverse 

the middle of the lake. Many of the villas and gardens are 

open to the public, and are accessible by battelli, so it’s easy 

to combine visiting a mansion or two with lunch or a spot of 

shopping in one of the small towns. 

We decide to take the passenger ferry from the pier opposite 

the hotel, and glide across the lake to Bellagio, a historic town 

that sits on a promontory right in the middle of Como. It’s a 

charming place, with cobbled streets that lead up the hill, dotted 

with boutiques and gift shops, the air filled with the scent of 

fresh coffee that emanates from the small cafés. We browse in 

shops selling Murano glassware and beautiful leather handbags 

in jewel-bright colours, and stroll up to Villa Serbelloni, where 

the gorgeous 18th-century terraced garden is ablaze with scarlet 

and purple azaleas and rhododendrons. 

By the end of the day, I am completely bemused as to why 

I have never visited Como before. We sit on the Tremezzo’s 

elegant terrace, sipping crisp prosecco while the dusk creeps in 

across the water and the hotel’s pianist provides a gentle jazz 

soundtrack, and I feel almost giddy with the beauty and the 

luxury, and the sense that this isn’t somewhere that has been 

spoilt by overdevelopment, or greedy hoteliers, or an unthinking 

rush to modernise. We eat dinner in the hotel’s Marchesi 

restaurant – angel hair pasta and fish so fresh it’s almost fluffy 

– where the charming, silver-haired sommelier takes us on a 

whirlwind tour of Lombardy’s best wines. 

Next morning, regretfully, we leave the Tremezzo and 

head back to the town of Como, and over to the east side of 

the lake, where the Mandarin Oriental has just opened its 

doors. The hotel is a clever combination of the Mandarin’s 

trademark pared-down, Asian feel, with more than a nod to the 

flamboyance of those who once called the estate home. Belle 

Époque wallpaper, gilt trimmed ceilings, and velvet sofas in 

deep turquoise give the bar and Co.Mo restaurant a pleasingly 

luxurious feel, while our spacious room comes with all the 

trademark MO trimmings; soft robes, sumptuous beds, and our 

own small library of books. 

It would be easily possible to arrive at the Mandarin and not 

leave for the whole duration of your stay; the coolly tranquil 

spa beckons, as do the pool and deck that stretch out across 

the water. But we’re keen to explore beyond the confines of the 

hotel, and in the early evening we set out for the small village 

of Torno, an easy 10-minute stroll. It’s a fantastic time to be out 

walking; the Mandarin’s location on the eastern side of the lake 

makes it the perfect place to watch the sun set, and as we walk 

the sky fades from blue to lavender, to a warm rose-pink. 

Torno turns out to be a small waterfront town, with a handful 

of restaurants and cafés set around a quiet square. In spite of 


MAJORCA ITALY 

COMO IS FASHIONABLY 

UNFASHIONABLE; PERENNIALLY 

POPULAR AND YET SOMEHOW 

UNDER THE RADAR 

clockwise from top left: The 

exterior of the Mandarin Oriental; 

Lake Prestige room at the Grand 

Tremezzo Hotel; dining in style; 

a restaurant in Bellagio; Torno village 

being right on the lake, it feels wonderfully untouristy, and 

we pop our heads into the only bar to find that the back room 

is a simple trattoria. The menu delivers classic Italian dishes 

perfectly done; local salsiccia and cheeses, a lusciously light 

carbonara, coffees, and a couple of beers apiece. The bill comes 

to under 50 euros. 

The beauty of Como, we agree, as we sit in the Mandarin’s 

waterfront garden on our last morning, is that it combines a 

real sense of old-school glamour with normal Italian life going 

on in the towns and villages. There’s no mass tourism here, 

no sprawling mega resorts, which means that while there are 

plenty of upscale restaurants and boutiques for those who rent 

the palatial villas as holiday homes, there are also plenty of 

traditional trattorias, simple cafés, and bars where it’s possible 

to glimpse everyday life. If only we’d managed to get a sight of 

George too, our time on the lake would have been perfect. 


For more information, or to book your next tailor-made holiday to 

Lake Como, call our Europe travel specialists on 01242 547 703. 


24 | SPRING/SUMMER 2020 

THE MOST TRANSFORMATIVE WELLNESS EXPERIENCE, HOWEVER, 

COMES AT DUSK, DURING A TRADITIONAL HAWAN OR FIRE MEDITATION

INDIA 

A FINE BALANCE 

MEANDERING THROUGH RURAL RAJASTHAN, IANTHE BUTT FINDS 

NATURE-FILLED WILDERNESS, LUXE WELLNESS LODGINGS, AND AN 

ADVENTURE THAT THRILLS AND REBALANCES IN EQUAL MEASURE 

In today’s always-on, can’t-quite-keep-up world, navigating 

the modern holiday is a conundrum. Our curious, 

adventurous soul screams, ‘Go! See! Explore!’, while frazzled 

brains and bodies desire nothing more deeply than to slow down 

and recharge. 

My own India travels thus far have centred around Delhi, 

where long-lashed cows swagger along narrow streets, their 

curved horns a hair’s breadth from alley walls and beeping 

rickshaws. Elegant women squeeze past with a swish of salwar 

kameezes, into impossibly small hole-in-the-wall backstreet 

restaurants where some of the world’s most mouth-watering thali 

are served. There’s so much to say, people chatter (and burst into 

song) through cinema screenings of the latest Bollywood films. 

It’s a frenetic and irrepressible jumble of a city – in my mind the 

best kind – but it left me exhausted and yearning to experience 

India’s calmer side when I returned. 

And so I leave Delhi’s cacophony behind this time and head 

for the western Aravalli hills. India’s oldest mountain range, 

a nearly 700-kilometre-long, jolting cardiogram, runs from 

Gujarat through to the capital’s outskirts, splitting Rajasthan 

along the way. Given that the driving style in rickshaw-clogged 

Delhi is comparable to that of a frenzied ant colony, I opt for a 

stress-free chauffeured transfer for the five-hour journey. 

At sunset I reach Ajabgarh, a village where cattle are herded 

along dusty paths by farmers who walk barefoot, and water 

buffalo chew the cud at a snail’s pace. While Rajasthan’s famed 

for its colour-coordinated cities – terracotta Jaipur, golden 

Jaisalmer, and blue-hued Jodhpur – Ajabgarh is a riot of allnatural 

greens and browns; russet roads line grasshopper-green 

fields and snake to umber forts on olive-hued hills. 

Tucked behind an old stone wall is Amanbagh, an Ed 

Tuttle-designed haven of a hotel. In the 19th century, the area 

was used by Maharaja Jai Singh of Alwar as a base for lavish 

hunting expeditions in the dense jungles of nearby Sariska (now 

a national park and reserve), and in the first years of the 1600s 

it was used as a resting point for the armies of Mughal ruler 

Emperor Akbar the Great. Amanbagh’s buildings – which ring a 

pool where twisted date palms sway – are inspired by Mughalera 

glitz. Domed roofs, scallop-edged doors, and jali latticework 

screens, all carved in rose-hued sandstone, give the impression 

that the entire property has been captured mid-blush. 

The sun rises in a slow, golden yawn, casting light across the 

tips of Aravalli’s undulating hills. The glowing peaks are upended 

as I stretch into downward dog at a yoga session among the 

ruins of a 17th-century chaatri close to Amanbagh. The steps 

which lead to the chaatri’s elevated platform are overgrown with 

vines, above is a dome, decorated with faded paintings of green 

parakeets daubed in days gone by. Finishing up in child’s pose, 

a real-life flock flies past, so close I can feel their wings beat. 

After an alfresco lunch of paneer-stuffed parathas and roasted 

pumpkin and apple soup in Amanbagh’s grand courtyard, in the 

marble-floored spa I have an unknotting Maharani massage. 

The most transformative wellness experience, however, comes at 

dusk, during a traditional hawan or fire meditation. Eyes closed, 

sat in a circle around a central fire with other guests, all-inwhite 

expert Lalit Bhushan leads us in positive mantra chants, 

meditation and moments of fire-feeding. The flames rear up and 

hiss like a spitting cobra as I drip globs of ghee into the fire. 

It’s hypnotising. I feel more grounded than I have in months. 

Next morning, cycling through Ajabgarh accompanied by 

guide Sita Ram, a gaggle of local kids – all wide hazel eyes and 

bubbling Hindi chatter – chase our bikes gleefully. Cups of 

steaming, sweet chai are proffered in a local family’s garden; 

the mother balances several hay bales Jenga-like atop her head, 

while her teenage daughter shyly practises her English on us 

between sips. 

Later, we visit Bhangarh, a once-vibrant fortress town built 

in the 1500s. Long-abandoned, in its heyday 10,000 people 

lived here, and visited its vibrant bazaars and manicured 

gardens. Now dilapidated piles of stone mark where homes and 

dancers’ quarters once stood; monkeys run amok in crumbling 

temples among well-preserved, looming carvings of Ganesh 

and Hanuman; and the remains of an imposing palace stand 

ramshackle atop a hill. 

A climb up several steep stone staircases and a clamber across 

broken pillars, through half-collapsed doors in the palace, takes 

us to Bhangarh’s highest point. The sweeping view of the skeleton 

town is splendid, yet sends shivers down the spine. “Bhangarh 

is believed to be one of India’s most haunted places,” Sita Ram 

tells me, solemn tone at odds with his marigold-coloured turban 

and jaunty moustache. “Many believe that an evil magician, Selu 

Sewra, cast a curse after he died while trying – unsuccessfully – 

to seduce Bhangarh’s princess. So potent was the curse, the place 

was deserted by the next day.” 

The more pragmatic explanation is a famine, but superstition 

holds strong; a sign written in Hindi script forbids anyone from 

visiting after darkness, and Sita Ram shudders at the thought. 

Journeying in the footsteps of the maharajas, I head south, 

a four-hour drive taking me to Ranthambore National Park, a 

sprawl of dry deciduous forest between the Aravalli and Vindhya 

ranges, and former hunting ground turned tiger reserve. Given 

that the latest estimates place the worldwide tiger population 

at around 3,900, and that they’re solitary, notoriously elusive 

creatures, coming face to face with them in the wild isn’t easy. 


THROUGH THE BINOCULARS, A GLINT OF AMBER EYES HIDDEN DEEP IN THE VETIVER 

GRASS. LYING MOTIONLESS LIKE A SPHINX IS A YOUNG FEMALE BENGAL TIGER 

previous page, from top: A female tiger in Ranthambore National Park; Aman-i-Khas outdoor fireplace at dusk 

this page, clockwise from top left: Inside Bhangarh Fort; a Bengal tiger in its native habitat; Bhangarh’s fortifications; 

a warm welcome at Amanbagh; alfresco dining on Amanbagh’s terrace; Aman-i-Khas lounge tent 

opposite page: Amanbagh’s swimming pool 


INDIA 

However, Ranthambore’s relatively small land (392 square 

kilometres) to tiger ratio (74 at last count, so my guide tells me) 

raises the odds of catching a glimpse. 

Just outside the national park is Aman-i-Khas, a next-level 

camping experience and base to explore. Just 10 Jean-Michel 

Gathy-designed tents are scattered through dense jungle where 

coral and blue-coloured Indian roller birds swoop through the 

air. Each tent is sheer explorer chic, kitted out with Indian teak 

furniture, tasteful leather trunks, gauzy floor-to-ceiling bedroom 

curtains, and a sunken bathtub. 

That evening, not yet even inside the park, the big cat spotting 

begins. At a viewpoint close by, the hotel’s eagle-eyed staff point 

out the tangled silhouettes of a pair of leopards mating atop 

a high peak as the sky turns to peach – a good omen for the 

following day’s safari. 

At first light, bumping through Ranthambore’s leafy forest 

in a 4x4, khaki-clad guide Pankaj Gautam spies a crocodile 

submerged in a pond. “They’ll go through 5,000 teeth in a 

lifetime,” he reveals, as a rufous treepie, a bird with the look of a 

jazzed-up orange magpie, and a slender tail feather resembling 

a grey paintbrush dipped in ink, lands on our Jeep. Including 

migratory arrivals, some 350 bird species can be spotted here – 

from showy peacock which stalk the walls of Ranthambore Fort, 

to the neon bee-eater flitting through the undergrowth. 

A sudden snap causes us to stop and cut the car’s engine. In 

the distance is a sambar deer, poised ballerina-like on its hind 

legs, munching on low-level dhok-tree leaves. Pankaj, however, is 

more interested in listening out for their distinctive, ear-splitting 

bark. “Hearing it is good news, it’s an alarm call, meaning tigers 

could be close by,” he grins. 

Barks are plentiful in supply, and lead us every which way 

across the park’s bumpy trails, except to a tiger. It’s not until we 

pause by a watering hole and pull out a flask of masala chai that 

Pankaj spots her. Through the binoculars, a glint of amber eyes, 

one pair, hidden deep in the vetiver grass. Lying motionless like a 

sphinx is a young female Bengal tiger. 

Her burnished orange and black stripes – completely unique, 

like a fingerprint – camouflage her almost perfectly in the 

textured grass. Occasionally she throws her paws in the air, or 

bats a piece of grass around. The motion looks harmless, kittenlike 

and playful, but Pankaj tells me a single swipe has enough 

force to break human bones. It’s a wild, surprising, and somehow 

serene moment. 

After sitting transfixed for some time, we roll back to our 

camp, bird-watching as we go – woolly-necked stork strut at the 

edge of shaded ponds, punk-like hoopoe with their impressive 

feathered mohawks, and noisy rose-ringed parakeet. Back at 

Aman-i-Khas (this time with a rosewater gin in hand) the safari 

continues: lizard slink through the undergrowth and greater 

racquet-tailed drongo whizz through the air. Following each 

twitch, flutter, and buzz is hypnotising, and feels like some 

kind of back-to-nature meditation. Every inch of the forest 

thrums with energy, so much so my eyes can barely keep up. 

Soul-stirring, yet peaceful, it feels like India at its finest. 


A&K offers seven nights at Amanbagh and Aman-i-Khas from 

£4,450 per person (based on two sharing), including flights 

with British Airways, private transfers, selected meals, and 

excursions. For more information, call our India travel 

specialists on 01242 547 755. 



ARIZONA 

GREAT 

SCOTTSDALE 

JUST EAST OF PHOENIX, THE SUNNY CITY OF SCOTTSDALE IS FILLED WITH MID-CENTURY BUILDINGS – 

ARCHITECTURAL GEMS BY THE LIKES OF EDWARD L. VARNEY, PAOLO SOLERI, AND THE MIGHTY FRANK 

LLOYD WRIGHT. THESE DESERT DESIGNS BECKON TO ARCHI-TOURISTS, SAYS XENIA TALIOTIS 

Credit: Jill Richards 

I remember a time when mid-century 

architecture was considered passé, and when 

people wanted it demolished,” says Ace 

Bailey, president and founder of Scottsdalebased 

Ultimate Art & Cultural Tours, concierge at the 

Hotel Valley Ho, and an expert on the style. “We lost some 

gems, but I’m glad to say there is a new awareness and 

appreciation of how ground-breaking Modernism was and, 

actually, how timeless. It’s amazing how well it’s lived up 

to its name – to my mind, it never dates. Decades after its 

heyday, it still looks so contemporary.” 

Mid-century Modernism, which followed in the graceful 

footsteps of Bauhaus, evolved gradually throughout the 

1930s and remained popular until the late 1960s. It is 

defined by geometric and organic forms; by clean lines and 

a futuristic aesthetic; by 

structural innovation and 

minimal ornamentation; 

and by integrating 

nature and using new 

materials. The movement 

was adopted by product 

designers, furniture 

makers, urban planners, 

and, of course, architects. 

Among its pioneers 

in Europe were Walter 

Gropius and Le Corbusier, but in the USA, it was Frank 

Lloyd Wright and his apprentices who led the way. When 

Wright built his home, Taliesin West (pictured, left), in 

Scottsdale, Arizona, and based the headquarters of his 

school of architecture there, he changed the architectural 

landscape of the city forever, turning it into a key location 

in America for mid-century development. 

“Scottsdale has always been a draw for artists: people 

fall under the Sonoran Desert’s spell, and Wright was no 

exception,” says Bailey. “There’s a beautiful quote by him: 

‘There could be nothing more inspiring to an architect on 

this Earth than that spot of pure Arizona desert.’ He was 

speaking about the setting of Taliesin West, but really, he 

THERE COULD BE NOTHING 

MORE INSPIRING TO AN 

ARCHITECT ON THIS EARTH 

THAN THAT SPOT OF PURE 

ARIZONA DESERT 

might have been talking about anywhere in the Sonoran. 

It’s the colours and the mountains, the saguaro cacti and 

the huge skies. They free and feed the imagination.” 

Wright and his students gave Scottsdale and surroundings 

some remarkable landmarks, including the 50-column, 

circular Grady Gammage Memorial Auditorium – the 

crowning glory of Arizona State University; the fine First 

Christian Church; the Arizona Biltmore Resort, designed 

by Albert Chase McArthur; and Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri’s 

visionary ‘urban laboratory,’ which was intended to 

introduce an entirely new concept for cities. 

But there is also much mid-century beauty to be found 

away from these headline-grabbing, internationally 

important buildings. A walk around Scottsdale rewards 

visitors with glimpses of modernist housing developments. 

Mountain View East, 

in McCormick Ranch, 

comprising 51 properties 

designed by John Rattenbury 

of the Frank Lloyd Wright 

Foundation, which were built 

between 1979 and 1983; and 

Town & Country Scottsdale, 

Ralph Haver’s charming 

1950s development of 62 

homes, all bear the hallmarks 

of the movement, including 

asymmetrical lines and clerestory (high) windows. 

And at the Garden Apartments, in the shadow of Hotel 

Valley Ho, the names of the blocks – Granada, Shalimar 

Sands, Capri – evoke high days and holidays. This is where 

Bailey has lived since 2013. “The Garden Apartments district 

is a great example of mid-century Scottsdale. It’s retained 

much of its originality, including steel staircases, tropical 

landscaping, and central swimming pools. My apartment 

had been greatly altered, but I could see its potential. It still 

had some lovely mid-century features, such as concrete 

floors, stainless-steel bathroom fans, and built-in cabinetry, 

but had been ‘modernised’. Restoring its original modernity 

has been a labour of love.” 


SIX MID-CENTURY 

MASTERPIECES 

IN SCOTTSDALE & SURROUNDS 

< The Hotel Valley Ho 

Edward L. Varney’s Modernist marvel, a short walk 

from downtown Scottsdale, was opened in 1956 and 

proved an instant hit with Hollywood greats such 

as Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Humphrey 

Bogart, who sought refuge from the bright lights of 

Tinseltown within its gorgeous interiors. 

Saved from demolition in the 1990s, it is 

considered one of the best-preserved, mid-century 

hotels in the US, thanks to a remarkable renovation that pays 

homage to the original with beautifully recreated concrete motifs 

and detailing, twinned with retro-chic styling. 

Credit: Hotel Valley Ho 

Taliesin West > 

Taliesin West, the winter home of Frank Lloyd Wright, centre for 

his foundation, and the headquarters of his School of Architecture, 

was justly made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2019. 

Wright was considered by many to be America’s greatest 20thcentury 

architect, and Taliesin West, in the foothills of Scottsdale’s 

McDowell Mountains, and built over a period of 22 years (1937- 

1959), exemplifies Wright’s philosophy that architecture and 

environment should co-exist in perfect harmony. 

The low-level property – a series of discreet spaces given to 

living, working, or entertaining, connected by terraces, pools, 

and gardens – uses the colours and materials of the Sonoran 

Desert: large stones found on site during the construction form 

walls, and painted-red timbers complement the hues of the 

sunbaked landscape. 

Credit: Andrew Pielage 

Credit: RoadsideArchitecture.com 

< The Glass and Garden Community Church 

E. Logan Campbell’s flamboyant, joyful, drive-in church 

in Scottsdale is a tour de force. Built in 1966, the circular, 

1,400-seat building has retained many of its original 

features, including its sculptural columns, cross and 

ornate ironwork plinth, blue skylight, outdoor speakers, 

and sculpted exterior frieze. Sadly the indoor garden and 

running stream have long gone. 


ARIZONA 

Credit: Cosanti Foundation 

Credit: Jens Kauder 

< Cosanti 

This architectural gem, designed by Wright acolyte 

Paolo Soleri in 1956, was a home, a studio, and a school, 

somewhere to live and work with students to bring into 

being alternative and experimental concepts. Though the 

name – a fusion of the Italian cosa, meaning property or 

thing, with anti – hints at what to expect, nothing can 

prepare the visitor for Cosanti’s earthcast domes and 

vaults. They evoke other times and other planets, and 

beautifully illustrate Soleri’s belief that urban planners 

should abandon traditional methods of building cities 

and turn instead to ‘arcology’ – his pioneering merger 

of architecture and ecology. 

‘Dendriform Column’ bank > 

Frank Henry designed an absolute beauty for a Phoenix branch of 

the Valley National Bank (now occupied by Chase Bank). Fluid, 

organic, even playful, it remains ageless 52 years after it was built, 

its harmonious blend of stone and concrete circles and part circles, 

fountains, and sculptures enduringly beguiling. The building’s most 

notable structures are the dozen or so dendriform (tree-like) columns 

Henry planted both inside and out. 

Credit: Austin Kaphammer 

< The David and Gladys Wright House* 

The house that Frank Lloyd Wright built for his son and 

daughter-in-law in 1952 in Arcadia, Phoenix, in many 

ways defined the style for the Guggenheim, which Wright 

completed in 1959. Known locally as the spiralling house, 

its circular shapes and cantilevered spiral walkway, which 

wraps around the kitchen tower, trap air and cool the house. 

*At the time of going to print, this iconic property is on the 

market, and public tours are currently suspended. 


For more information on Scottsdale, or to book your next holiday 

in this architecture hot spot, call our North America travel 

specialists on 01242 547 717. 


A SINGULAR MAN 

Son of a crocodile hunter-turned animal conservationist, born in Tanzania, 

and raised among the Zu’/hoasi bushpeople, Ralph Bousfield is a real-life 

safari rock star and truly one of a kind, says Alicia Deveney 


BOTSWANA 

Ralph Bousfield impresses even in two dimensions. 

A quick Google image search returns pictures of him 

striding across the Kalahari, driving a quad bike on 

the dunes, climbing into the pilot’s seat of fixed-wing aircraft, 

and sitting like a statue while meerkats use him as a lookout 

post. In some pictures, he sports flowing 1980s rock star-esque 

locks, in some his hair is cropped short and business-like, but 

in all of them, he’s the epitome of a safari superstar – all khaki 

bush jackets, dark fedoras, lace-up brogues, and his signature 

bracelets. One wrist is laden with them: cuffs of copper, twists 

of leather, and circlets of beads. 

It’s these images that I have in mind when I speak to Ralph 

over the phone, from one of his offices in Cape Town, and the 

effect is striking. The impression he gives is one of charisma, 

intelligence, and vast reserves of knowledge. What it must be 

like to have him as your guide in Africa, I can scarcely imagine, 

but I know it’s an experience that is going straight to the top of 

my bucket list. 

Born in Tanzania and raised in the Kalahari by a bona fide 

African legend – Jack Bousfield – Ralph is one of Africa’s most 

renowned guides: the singular choice for those who want to 

explore the intriguing deserts of Botswana and Namibia, and 

to experience the assailed-by-modernity traditions of the 

Zu’/hoasi (also referred to as San) bushpeople, among whom 

Ralph was brought up by his crocodile hunter-turned animal 

conservationist father. 

His elite client list includes Oscar-winning actresses, filmmakers, 

and former US presidents. He’s shepherded them 

through Africa – from Angola to Zambia, and most places in 

between – and he’s not the first in his family to have guided a 

person of privilege. In fact, all recent generations have engaged 

in some form of the occupation – family legend has it that in 

the late 19th century after the Anglo-Zulu war, his maternal 

great-grandfather, Major Richard Granville Nicholson, escorted 

Princess Eugenie to the site where her only son had been killed. 

But it was a more recent tragedy that radically affected the 

now 57-year-old’s life. In January 1992, father and son’s small 

fixed-wing aeroplane crashed in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. 

It was Jack’s seventh and final crash. As a memorial to his 

beloved parent, Ralph established 10-bedroom Jack’s Camp 

in the Kalahari, seven-bedroom San Camp on the edge of the 

Nwetwe Pan, and Camp Kalahari (the “laidback little sister of 

Jack’s and San Camp”). 

By those who knew him, Jack’s spirit can be felt at these desert 

camps. In the early 1960s, when Ralph was only weeks old, 

Jack – perturbed by the socio-political changes occurring in 

Africa – moved his family from Tanzania to a seemingly empty 

space on Africa’s map. It’s often recounted that when Jack asked 

what lay in the Makgadikgadi Pan, he was told “nothing – only 

idiots go there”. “Fine,” he’s said to have replied, “that’s the place 

for me.” It was the place for his whole family – and all five of his 

children revelled in life among the pristine salt pan landscape 


and community of San people. Jack’s Camp is located in the 

exact spot that Jack first pitched up, in an area he described as 

embodying the “savage beauty of a forgotten Africa”. 

Jack’s Camp is known to all Africa aficionados for its 

1940s-esque glamour and oasis-like comforts. This year, it will 

reopen following a revitalisation. It will boast a refreshed look, 

but its appeal won’t have changed – and nor will the camp’s 

official museum accreditation. In the mess tent and library, 

on display in cabinets, are enthralling artefacts, curios, and 

tchotchke collected by the Bousfield family over the generations. 

Ralph’s pioneering family first arrived on the continent in 

the 1670s, a mere two decades after the first ‘European city’, 

Cape Town, was founded by the Dutch East India Company. 

Scion of this line of adventurers, explorers and, yes, hunters, his 

father Jack is famous – or as viewed through a prism of more 

modern sensibilities, notorious – for 

a Guinness World Record for the 

number of crocodiles shot. He supplied 

famous European fashion houses with 

the raw materials needed for crocodile 

skin bags, belts, and shoes. Times 

and tastes have changed, and Ralph is 

proud that his father was one of the 

first ‘great white hunters’ to see the 

change coming and turn his back on 

his profession. 

Living a Boys’ Own adventure in 

the desert at his “exceptional” father’s 

side, capturing animals for zoos or to 

restock areas in which those animals 

had disappeared, Ralph experienced 

the “full beam” of his father’s attention. 

“Dad had a different attitude to education than Mum’s. He 

believed I could learn more from him and from immersion in 

the bushmen’s traditions.” Before going to boarding school at age 

10 – and during every holiday thereafter – he learnt the types of 

skills, such as tracking, that make other men envious (even the 

little ones). Telling my six-year-old son about Ralph and his life, 

his eyes grew round with amazement and he instantly wanted to 

know if “his daddy taught him how to wrestle a crocodile”. 

“He did,” Ralph chuckles when I relay the question. 

He recounts the time he was asked to catch a crocodile 

wreaking havoc near a village. “It turned out to be a LOT bigger 

than I had been told – 12 feet long – but I had committed to 

capturing it, so just had to jump on this leviathan’s back.” Levi, 

as the crocodile was quickly nicknamed, was moved to the 

wildlife orphanage that Bousfield helped to establish. “He’s still 

there – 14 feet long, as broad as a bus, and quite the character.” 

Though passionate about animals and a trained biologist, 

Ralph is undoubtedly also a people person. He announced 

to his siblings at age three that he would be taking over the 

then-seasonal family business of showing tourists the wonders 

of Botswana’s deserts. “I think it was a relief for them. There 

have been times I’ve been overseas, but the Kalahari is my soul’s 

spot,” Ralph says. One of those stints abroad was postgraduate 

research in natural conservation at the International Crane 

Foundation in Wisconsin, studying under conservation 

legend George Archibald. “It’s very cold in Wisconsin, 

especially when coming from a hot summer in the Kalahari – 

but it was a fantastic experience.” 

And then there is Ralph’s involvement in various 

JACK’S CAMP IS LOCATED 

IN THE EXACT SPOT THAT 

JACK FIRST PITCHED UP. 

AN AREA HE DESCRIBED 

AS EMBODYING THE 

‘SAVAGE BEAUTY OF A 

FORGOTTEN AFRICA’ 

philanthropic projects. His three camps support the 

Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pans Conservation Initiative, which is 

working to create the optimal conditions for Africa’s best-kept 

secret: the Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pans zebra migration. Every 

year, 25,000 zebra cross the Chobe River and move due south 

to the Nxai Pan National Park before returning, less directly, 

to their dry season habitat, but Ralph remembers hundreds 

of thousands, millions of these animals on the move in the 

1960s and 1970s. All great animal migrations are under threat 

from anthropogenic pressures and land-use transformations, 

and Ralph wants to see the numbers of zebra undertaking 

this annual trek return to those he saw in his childhood. He 

believes it can benefit more than just the animals. “It’s really 

quite hard for Botswanans to find work,” he says, “and one often 

needs an economic driver for animal conservation projects to 

be successful. Imagine what it could do 

for tourism in Botswana if the Kalahari’s 

migration was equivalent to the Serengeti’s.” 

For the Kalahari bushmen, tourism is a 

much-needed source of income. Travellers 

who venture to this remote corner of 

Botswana value this endangered culture – 

their language, ability to track, their songs, 

dances, and trances. The San people have 

lived in the Kalahari – Earth’s fifth largest 

desert – for at least 35,000 years, maybe as 

long as 75,000. It was from this area that 

our human ancestors may have emerged. 

Talk about travellers going back to their 

roots. Ralph, who has known these people 

for practically all of his life, is an advocate 

and facilitator of these meetings. “There’s 

huge potential for future generations,” he believes. 

The next generation of the Bousfields is also growing up 

among the Zu’/hoasi. Ralph and partner Caroline Hickman’s 

seven-year-old son Jack has just begun to learn to track. “In 

traditional culture the onus is on the individual to want to do 

something. Stepping forward when you feel the calling. He came 

forward recently and said, ‘I’m ready. I want to.’ So off he went in 

his flip-flops and shorts with a legendary tracker called Cobra. 

The extraordinary thing is that I was learning the same thing at 

around the same age from the same man.” 

Fitting in all the demands on his time – father, guide, hotelier, 

businessman, biologist – must require a good deal of multitasking, 

so how does he find the energy and passion to keep it 

all going? “I want people to come to the Kalahari, meet the San 

people and enter a new dimension with the knowledge that we 

are more similar than different, that we are all wonderfully the 

same. It’s extraordinary and so profound.” 

previous page: Ralph in his element, crossing the desert on his quad bike 

opposite page, clockwise from top: San bushmen; dining at Jack’s Camp; 

Ralph hangs out with the locals 


A&K offers three nights at Jack’s Camp starting at £5,895 per person 

(based on two sharing), includes domestic flights, all meals & beverages, 

laundry, expert guiding, park entry fees, and VAT. Excludes international 

flights. All three-night stays at Jack’s Camp also include a 45-minute spa 

treatment and two-hour horse-riding activity. For more information, 

call our Africa travel specialists on 01242 547 702. 


BOTSWANA 


OFF THE 

WALL 

CHINA MAY NOT INSTANTLY 

SPRING TO MIND WHEN YOU'RE 

PLANNING A FIRST FAMILY TRIP 

OUTSIDE EUROPE, BUT FOR 

SARA SHERWOOD AND HER 

KUNG FU PANDA-LOVING SON, 

IT WAS THE OBVIOUS CHOICE

CHINA 

Broccoli was not what I expected my six-year-old son to 

fall in love with on our trip to China. Will had embarked 

on our first family holiday outside of Europe armed 

with a strong working knowledge of the script from Kung Fu 

Panda, a deep love for dumplings, and a catalogue of facts about 

the Great Wall. He was lured by impossibly romantic tales of 

emperors and the rugged landscape he’d seen in photographs. 

China, to this six-year-old, represented the ultimate adventure. 

In Tiananmen Square, he marched after the changing guards. 

He trailed our guide through the Forbidden City, fighting 

through jet lag to count the number of claws on each dragon 

we saw – five-clawed dragons being the exclusive preserve of 

the emperor. Balancing our lectures, we parked ourselves in the 

shadow of the nearby 800-year-old drum tower, and headed 

down a labyrinth of crumbling alleyways, filled with painted 

paper masks, copies of the sort used for centuries in theatrical 

performances. These alleyways in the heart of Beijing were 

filled, as Will put it, with “damage”; while we’d moved away 

from the vast crowds of Tiananmen Square, a six-year-old from 

Sussex couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the smells of public 

loos or the intimate sights of domestic life, spilling out of the 

few traditional one-storey courtyard houses remaining in the 

Chinese capital. 

These were interesting things, but what hooked him – what 

pulled Will into the same love for China that I’ve had since 

I first lived there 15 years ago, was broccoli. A friend had 

recommended Li Qun roast duck restaurant down another 

alleyway south-east of Tiananmen Square. Unlike the Cantonese 

version, Beijing-style roast duck offers succulent meat and 

the crispiest of skin, which melts in the mouth. It is served 

with thin pancakes alongside matchsticks of cucumber and 

spring onion, and is followed by fried salt and pepper duck 

on the bone. Hugely popular, with long queues out front, 

the restaurant is housed in a courtyard house and tables are 

balanced precariously alongside the blazing open kitchen; in 

early summer, it was hotter than Hades, bustling and chaotic as 

Liverpool Street station at 6pm on a Wednesday. Will adored 

it. And in this context, in a bid to be a good mother, I ordered 

some broccoli on the side. One of Will’s least favourites at home, 

in this context, and doused in soy sauce, garlic and ginger, he 

proclaimed it the best vegetable in the world and ate the entire 

family-sized platter, an enthusiasm he has continued to show 

since we returned home. 

This wasn’t my first trip with children in China: more than 

a decade earlier, I led a few reunion tours of parents with their 

adopted Chinese kids, now tweens, growing up in European 

and North American families. The typical trajectory of a family 

trip to China goes like this: first, horror at the foreignness – the 

chaos, the smells, the different etiquette; followed, at different 

times, by the discovery of one particular thing – kung fu for 

one child, noodles for another, the scale and engineering of 

the Great Wall for a third – that they can claim as their own 

discovery, a point of pride, their touchstone in the vast, glorious 

world spinning around them. In my experience, they often fall 

in love before their parents do. 

You never know what that thing will be: our guide kindly 

booked us into a kung fu show in Beijing – a reasonable bet 

for a child with a professed love for Kung Fu Panda. But at one 


HE TRAILED OUR GUIDE 

THROUGH THE FORBIDDEN CITY, 

FIGHTING THROUGH JET LAG TO 

COUNT THE NUMBER OF CLAWS 

ON EACH DRAGON WE SAW 

point in the show, nine young performers at the Red Theatre 

broke lead bars over their heads. “Why did they do that?” my 

son asked, alarmed. This spectacle was pointlessly violent to 

Will, who was more shocked than thrilled. But what saved the 

day was a £7 dumpling feast at Master Yi’s Dumpling House 

in a shopping mall near our hotel, where the waitress not only 

served us delicious food but also intervened politely when 

we were growing increasingly frustrated by a newly bought 

Transformers toy that would not transform. She deftly turned 

it from robot to car in the space of seconds, explaining that her 

young son had the same toy. China is a deeply friendly place. 

It is also, to the amusement of my son, a place of great 

reverence for elders. And for parents wishing to instil a bit of 

respect in their children, this is the year to visit, to coincide with 

the release of the new Mulan film in the spring. 

Far more than a live-action remake of the 1998 Disney 

animated movie, this war epic – the roots of which lie in a 

6th-century ballad – sees the eldest daughter of an ailing warrior 

disguise herself as a boy in order to answer the emperor’s call 

that one man per family serve in the imperial army to defend 

China from northern invaders. Spirited and determined – 

besides being a fierce warrior – Hua Mulan embodies the grit 

we are warned our children need to have these days. 

Less a musical than a girl-power kung fu action film, this 

is just the tale to lure young travellers. The fight scenes take a 

sweep across the plains of northern China, and the northern 

invaders encounter the Great Wall – as your young invaders 

should, too. 

The secret to planning a trip like this is pacing: for each visit 

to a grand monument – the Wall, or the unmissable Terracotta 

Warriors in Xian – you’ll need a more intimate experience to 

balance the exposure for your child. 

After taking in Emperor Qin’s clay army in the ancient capital 

of Xian, and visiting that city’s beautiful Muslim quarter with 

its fragrant breads and roasted lamb, we flew to the enormous 

central Chinese city of Chongqing to embark on a cruise down 

the Yangtze to see a bit of rural life. While the landscape is 

monumental, the Sanctuary Yangzi Explorer, the river’s most 

luxurious cruiser, is intimate and calm within, offering a 

pleasant break from the bustle of big cities. On a ship like this, 

you see the different stages of travel, and of life: a Texan couple 

of mature years were there with their daughter and son-in-law. 

A Boston couple, Chinese-American, with their adult kids, 

just out of university. There were a few children, Chinese and 

British, who, like Will, were at the start of their travels. Sideby-side, 

we had calligraphy lessons, went on scavenger hunts, 

and visited the small spa with a glorious view out of the stern 

of the boat. These three nights onboard offered us a bit of rest 

and stunning scenery before we headed back into the scrum in 

Shanghai. At this point, 10 days into our trip, we were ready for 

comfort and for some shopping. Like New York, Shanghai is a 

relentless and fast-paced city. Shopping here involves silks and 

paper kites at the covered markets, and skater gear at the deeply 

trendy young designer shops that dot the centre. 

There are few places I love in China more than Shanghai’s 

Peace Hotel: it is unique in being housed in a building of 

genuine historic importance – a grand 1920s tower right on 

the Bund – but also being incredibly comfortable, as it’s now 

owned by Fairmont. From this base we wandered the local 

shopping streets, visited the excellent art museum, and had an 

outing to Zhujiajiao, one of the small 19th-century river towns 

on the outskirts of the sprawling city. With 19 bridges over the 

canals, and a population of just 200,000, most of whom work 

in tourism, punting along the waterways or selling various 

small knick-knacks or clothing, Zhujiajiao has an intimate feel 

from another era; artists come to stay in the guesthouses to 

paint. Filled with canal-side tea houses and tasteful jewellery 

and china shops, this is a pretty place to wander. Plus, as many 

elderly people remain in their family homes here, there’s a large 


CHINA 

local population sitting outside, gossiping and watching the 

world go by, lending a homely feeling. 

Everywhere we went – in towns, on the river, even in China’s 

biggest and most cosmopolitan cities – I kept having a John 

F Kennedy moment: I was, indisputably, the woman who 

accompanied Will to China. Small blond children are still a 

bit of a novelty and locals are intrigued to have a photo taken 

together. “To be fair, Mum,” Will reasoned with me at one point, 

“around here, I do look pretty funny!” On the Great Wall, so 

many Chinese tourists asked to take a photo with Will that his 

six-year-old voice soon rose above the crowd. “You’ll have to 

queue from here,” he said, pointing to a brick sticking out of the 

wall. How British. 

But with all of our cultural differences, what my family was 

most happily reminded of in the People’s Republic was the 

universal truths of life: exploring together as a family is the best 

way to bond, because everyone is on an equal footing. Play is an 

international language. Dumplings are, objectively, delicious. 

As, apparently, is broccoli. 


For more information, or to book your next family holiday to China, 

call our Far East specialists on 01242 547 914. 

previous page, clockwise from left: At the Great Wall; a view of 

the Bund from the Peace Hotel; a young explorer enjoying China; 

Xian’s famed Terracotta Warriors 

this page, clockwise from left: One of the Forbidden City’s lion statues; 

traditional dumplings; broccoli with soy sauce, garlic, and ginger; 

view of the Yangtze from the Sanctuary Yangzi Explorer 


MEET THE TEAM 

GERALD HATHERLY 

ONE OF CONDÉ NAST TRAVELLER’S ‘GREATEST TRAVEL PROS ON EARTH’ AND 2018’S 

‘TOP TRAVEL SPECIALISTS’, GERALD HATHERLY WITH HIS IMPECCABLE MANDARIN, 

DECADES OF EXPERIENCE IN CHINA, AND IMPOSSIBLE-FOR-ANYONE-ELSE INSIDER 

ACCESS, IS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ABERCROMBIE & KENT HONG KONG 

Since the age of nine, when he studied Marco Polo and the 

Silk Road in school, Gerald Hatherly (pictured left) has 

been in love with China. At university in the early 1980s, 

the Canadian abandoned science for a course in Mandarin, then 

Chinese history, putting him on his own road to adventure. 

“One of my Chinese professors recommended I study in 

Taiwan. I went in 1982 – and 37 years later, I’m still in Asia.” From 

Taiwan, Gerald travelled to Mainland China, and knew he wanted 

to explore the country further. Then he chanced upon the perfect 

opportunity. “In 1986 I saw an advertisement in one of the Hong 

Kong papers for a company I’d never heard of, called Abercrombie 

& Kent, looking for people to take tour groups into China. I 

thought it would be for a year, because I’d been accepted into a 

Chinese degree programme at the University of Toronto.” 

That year’s deferral became permanent when A&K offered him 

a position in the Hong Kong office, helping develop the company’s 

presence in China. “It’s been a wonderful experience, because 

we started small and grew continually over the years. It was so 

serendipitous, the right time for anyone working in China because 

it was just beginning to open up. In 33 years, I haven’t had a dull 

day on the job.” 

So, what keeps him excited after three decades? “China is 

such an incredibly diverse country both geographically and in 

its people. I’m always discovering something new in terms of the 

physical aspects of the country, and then it’s this incredible sea of 

humanity, so many different ethnicities. China’s much more than 

just Chinese. There are Mongols, Tibetans, Lisu, Pumi, Bulang, 

Uighur… There are 56 different cultures.” 

It’s the people, says Gerald, that make the place. “I’ve had so 

WORDS: PENELOPE RANCE 


many wonderful encounters and friendships at every level 

of society.” Which is also what he loves about guiding guests 

for A&K. 

“I really enjoy bringing people together. I remember, I worked 

with a family from London and we went out to the Great Wall at 

Mutianyu, then they asked to visit a farming area. So, I took them 

to a village in Huai Ruo County, where we encountered a woman 

who invited us to her house. We had 

this wonderful conversation, and 

then she said, ‘I want to give this 

family something to take back to 

Britain,’ and produced a live chicken! 

“She said, ‘I don’t know if the 

British people have ever had chicken 

before, but our chicken is delicious. 

We don’t have many, but I thought 

I could give them one to take back.’ 

All of us began to cry because she 

was totally genuine. Those are the 

wonderful moments that reinforce 

not just my love of the country, but 

my faith in humanity.” 

These interactions benefit 

everyone involved, he believes, and have a wider purpose too. 

“Encounters between people of different cultural and racial 

backgrounds help the understanding that we’re more similar than 

different. As a travel company, one of the great services we can do 

is to break down barriers and bring people together.” 

Gerald also delights in bringing his guests face to face with the 

GERALD ALSO DELIGHTS IN 

BRINGING HIS GUESTS FACE 

TO FACE WITH THE SWEEPING 

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY OF 

CHINA, WHICH OFTEN FAR EXCEED 

THEIR EXPECTATIONS 

sweeping geography and history of China, which often far exceed 

their expectations. “I love traveling in Xinjiang where 

you have incredible mountain ranges and expansive deserts. 

People have no idea of the grandeur of China’s topography. 

“Then there’s the ancient history, the communication that 

occurred between China and Central Asia, and all the way to 

Europe almost 2,000 years ago. That always surprises them.” 

And it’s not just on a grand scale 

that Gerald’s insider knowledge 

comes to the fore – there are intimate 

moments too. 

“A&K has special access to the 

Tang Mural Restoration Workshop 

in the Shaanxi Provincial Museum. 

It’s a small room where wonderful 

work is being done, restoring murals 

removed from the tombs of the 

imperial family of the Shang Dynasty, 

and we get to share this little window 

onto Chinese antiquity.” 

Whenever he gets the chance, 

Gerald delights in offering his guests 

another snapshot into China’s past 

in Yunnan Province. “There’s a village called Shigu on the way 

to Tiger Leaping Gorge, where I’ve become friendly with the 

village calligrapher, Mr Li. I always take people to his shop, and 

he invites us to his home and his wife will cook a lunch. It’s 

these spontaneous happenings, bringing people together, that 

I find so enjoyable.” 


THE NILE IS ESPECIALLY 

PRETTY HERE, THREADED WITH 

SMOOTH GRANITE ISLANDS AND 

GRASSY SANDBANKS, FELUCCAS 

ZIPPING BACK AND FORTH 


EGYPT 

Death 

becomes her 

This year, the scaffolding comes off the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, the newly 

refurbished Sanctuary Nile Adventurer sets sail, and the latest version of Agatha Christie’s 

Death on the Nile comes to the silver screen. New cultural monuments and remembrances 

of the past are beckoning in Egypt, says Sue Bryant 

The Nile is infused with a soft, golden glow at sunset, the 

sounds and smells of Egypt hanging in the air: wood smoke, 

roosters crowing, donkeys braying, the call to prayer echoing 

out from a minaret in a distant village. I’m on the deck of Sanctuary 

Sun Boat IV, enjoying the warm breeze and the gentle clink of ice in 

my gin and tonic. 

I’m here to explore Upper Egypt for a few days and I’m curious 

about what might await me. Ten years have passed since my 

previous visit. Tourism was at its peak then, with more than 14 

million visitors swarming over the ancient temples, and riverboats 

steaming up and down the Nile. But that was before the Arab 

Spring. By 2016, arrivals had dropped to just 5.4 million. 

Now, there’s a new sense optimism in the air as visitors are 

coming back. Hotels, riverboats, and temples are being spruced up 

and, once again, the banks of the Nile at Luxor and Aswan are busy 

with cruise vessels. 

My journey starts in the south of the country, in Aswan. The Nile 

is especially pretty here, threaded with smooth granite islands and 

grassy sandbanks, feluccas zipping back and forth, river breezes 

filling their sails. Ibis perch like statues on the rocks against a 

backdrop of undulating, golden sand dunes. 

The sun is intense, though, so I take refuge in the Sofitel Legend 

Old Cataract Hotel. It was in this opulent, chandeliered palace, 

all Moorish arches and gently whirring ceiling fans, that Agatha 

Christie wrote Death on the Nile. The novelist travelled all over 

the Middle East with her second husband, archaeologist Max 

Mallowan, and Egypt was her romantic muse. I can just imagine 

her, installed on one of the shaded terraces overlooking the Nile, 

cooking up the twisting thriller of love, jealousy, and revenge. A 

small shrine to Christie sits in the lobby, her chair, desk, and portrait 

cordoned off by a red velvet rope. I sit on the terrace, gazing at the 

river as the sun sets behind Elephantine Island, throwing tall date 

palms into silhouette. 

Back in 1977, this vista would have been much the same, but 

tourism in Egypt was a different picture then; there were only two 

river cruisers operating on the Nile, for a start. Abercrombie & 

Kent’s founder, Geoffrey Kent, was in Egypt with a view to setting 


previous page: The Mausoleum of the Aga Khan and Nile at Aswan from above; poster from the 1978 film version of Death on the Nile (credit: Studio Canal/Shutterstock) 

clockwise from top left: Hieroglyphs at Medinat Habu, Luxor; sunset over the Nile; the first Sun Boat, inspired by 1978’s Death on the Nile; 

statue of the god at the Temple of Horus at Edfu; dining at the Hotel Sofitel Legend Old Cataract; sunloungers on the deck of Sanctuary Sun Boat IV 


EGYPT 

MY OWN EGYPTIAN ODYSSEY IS THANKFULLY LESS DRAMATIC THAN THAT OF 

THE HAPLESS LINNET. SANCTUARY SUN BOAT IV EXUDES TASTE AND STYLE 

up his own river cruise operation. In Aswan, he encountered a film 

crew, who were staying at the Old Cataract Hotel, as it was called 

then. Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile was being shot with an 

all-star cast: Peter Ustinov as Poirot, supported by Bette Davis, 

Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, and David Niven. 

Geoffrey knew David Niven; the actor’s son had taken an early 

A&K trip in east Africa and had introduced the two men. Over 

dinner on one of the Nile cruisers, the actor pointed out an old 

steamship, the SS Memnon, glowing in the sunset; it played a 

starring role in the film, as the Karnak. The seed of a brilliant idea 

was planted. 

After a brief visit to the charming old paddle wheeler, an excited 

Kent decided to lease the Memnon and offer cruises on her to 

coincide with the opening of the film. The owner agreed and 

A&K’s own Egyptian river cruise operation was born. A prominent 

Egyptologist, Anthony Hutt, was hired to lead the first trip, for a 

private charter by a wealthy American investment banker. 

Disaster struck the minute Memnon’s engines were started; a 

panicked call from Tony Hutt revealed that a hefty puff of black 

smoke had shot out of the funnel, depositing oily soot on all the 

passengers. Worse still, the plumbing didn’t work. Visiting the ship 

had been one thing. Sailing on it was another entirely. The charter 

had to be cancelled. Geoffrey Kent promised the Americans that 

they would be the first on board once the company had built its own 

ship – which he vowed to do. “We’d sold out the Memnon cruise 

in one go,” he remembers. “I’d hit on an idea people wanted and I 

had to improve on my original plan before our competitors did.” 

The Sun Boat was to be the most luxurious vessel on the Nile, with 

panoramic windows, lavish marble detailing, and a swimming pool. 

Such was the demand for this level of luxury that Sun Boat II, 

III and IV followed. 

A new version of Death on the Nile is on the horizon, too, which 

will no doubt boost interest in Egypt. Kenneth Branagh will direct, 

in a follow up to his opulent 2017 production of Murder on the 

Orient Express, reviving his own turn as Poirot. The film is due for 

release in autumn 2020, with Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot as 

Linnet Ridgeway Doyle, the murdered heiress, and Armie Hammer 

as Simon Doyle. 

My own Egyptian odyssey is thankfully less dramatic than that 

of the hapless Linnet. Sanctuary Sun Boat IV exudes taste and style, 

refitted last year in shades of cream, stone, and silvery grey, lifted by 

splashes of rich blue and burnt orange, exquisite Egyptian lanterns 

throwing soft shadows in geometric forms. Days on board follow 

a blissful pattern: an early start, to visit ancient temples before 

the heat intensifies. Delicious lunches: fresh salads scattered with 

pomegranate seeds, dips of aubergine, lentils and chickpeas, warm 

pita, and savoury pastries. Afternoons spent either sailing or visiting 

more temples as the light softens. Magic hour and sundowners on 

deck, followed by gourmet dinners. 

We wake to fresh, cool air on our first morning in Aswan; perfect 

for exploring Philae Temple, dedicated to the goddess Isis and 

perched prettily on an island in the Nile. It’s here that the ancient 

Egyptians are believed to have written their last hieroglyphs, in the 

fourth century AD, and you can see early Coptic graffiti on the walls, 

as well as the much later carvings of Victorian adventurers. There’s 

nobody around, although a few tour groups drift in as we leave. 

We sail for Edfu, a blissfully relaxing afternoon on deck, lazing 

in the shade of oversized sun umbrellas and rattan cocoon chairs, 

dipping occasionally into the shimmering blue pool. On the banks, 

a constantly shifting scene unfurls as we head north: children 

running along the beaches, waving; water buffalo standing like 

statues in the shallows; and farmers toiling in emerald-green fields. 

Shifting dunes encroach constantly on the fertile strip that lines the 

Nile, changing colour as the sun crosses the sky. 

At Edfu, we are driven in convoy through the bustling town to 

the immense Temple of Horus, brooding in the darkness. But the 

ancient façades and pillars come to life in the blackness as coloured 

spotlights of a sound and light show pick out ancient columns, 

images of the falcon-headed god projected onto the massive, 

36-metre-tall façade. It’s eerily magical. 

Aswan is really just a prelude to the astonishing treasures of 

Luxor: ancient Thebes, necropolis of ancient Egypt’s greatest kings 

and queens. I’ve always loved visiting the tombs concealed under 

the barren rocks of the Valley of the Kings. Although their treasures 

are long since plundered, the preservation of the colour and detail 

on the walls is astonishing, both in its intricacy and its intensity. 

And while the tourists are certainly back, there are no queues to get 

in. I pay a token extra fee to visit the tomb of Tutankhamun. His 

treasures, discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, are in the Egyptian 

Museum in Cairo, but his tiny, shrivelled mummy is preserved in 

tomb KV62, 3,342 years after his death. 

Karnak’s temple complex is the grand finale to any Nile cruise, 

more lavish in scale than any of the others, statues 18 metres 

high gazing down on scurrying tourists, stars still shining bright 

in ceilings painted 3,000 years ago to depict the night sky. Late 

afternoon is most atmospheric, the light slanting through the forest 

of vast, papyrus-shaped columns in the Temple of Amun-Ra, one of 

the world’s largest religious monuments. 

If pent-up demand for Egypt continues, though, you won’t always 

have these treasures to yourself. Money is being poured into tourism 

projects, in the private and public sectors. Sanctuary Sun Boat IV 

isn’t the only vessel to receive a makeover; sail on the Sanctuary 

Nile Adventurer and you’ll enjoy new, soothing interiors decked in 

luxurious fabrics and textures, as well as a new spa and open-air gym. 

Timescales are fuzzy for the larger scale projects – but time moves 

slowly here. The billion-dollar Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, 

five times the size of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, is scheduled to 

open in October 2020. Assuming this actually happens after years of 

delay, Egypt and the Nile could be firmly in the spotlight next year, 

so don’t leave it too long to visit. Now really is the perfect time to go, 

to contemplate 7,000 years of history and the dazzling antiquities 

along the Nile in relative peace and quiet. 


A&K offers six nights in Egypt from £2,300 per person (based 

on two sharing), including one night in the Fairmont Nile City, 

one night in the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel, four nights 

aboard the Sanctuary Sun Boat IV, transfers, and international 

and domestic flights. For more information, call our North Africa 

travel specialists on 01242 547 703. 


Turkish delight 

BY ALICIA DEVENEY 

Hillside Beach Club on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast is the stuff of hospitality legend, a five-star resort whose guest repeat 

and satisfaction rates (68 and 99 per cent respectively) have been studied at Harvard Business School. While it’s a 

generally accepted truth that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, Hillside works hard to prove this old 

adage false – satisfying the youngest to the oldest of the many multi-generational families who come to stay. Nestled in 

Kalemya Cove, among the fragrant pine forests of Fethiye, this 330-room, three-restaurant, three-beach resort has so 

much to offer its array of international guests – a charismatic clutch of discerning Turkish, British, Irish, Dutch, German, 

and Canadian visitors. Read on to discover a few of a first-but-not-last-time visitor’s favourite things about the resort… 

HILLSIDE BEACH CLUB HITS 

LIMBER UP 

For a blissful beginning to your day, join yogi Suzie on Silent Beach at 

08.00. Unroll your mat, limber up, and zone out for 60 mindful minutes. 

For those who like to seek their zen later in the day, at 17.00 she runs a 

sunset class in the studio. Suzie impressively teaches numerous styles 

including Iyengar, vinyasa, yin, and yang yoga, and offers down-to-earth 

daily inspiration. The hotel’s biannual Feel Good Week offers mindfulness 

plus more – astrology, meditation, and breath therapy. 

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! 

For film enthusiasts, the resort is continuing its partnership with the 

British Film Institute (BFI) to bring cinema to the bay. During this 

(and 2021’s) May half-term school holiday, BFI and Hillside will offer 

specially curated screenings for guests of all ages, talks, and interactive 

workshops – including filmmaking, screen writing, and prop and 

costume making. Screenings take place throughout the resort and even 

in the nearby abandoned town of Kayaköy. Kids will have the opportunity 

to create a short comedy, which will be edited by the BFI’s experts, and 

then shown at a celebratory screening. 

LAP UP LUXURY 

Although you can hardly describe Hillside’s luxurious Sanda Nature Spa 

as ‘back to basics’, its beautiful setting among the verdant hills will leave 

you feeling relaxed and at one with nature before your first treatment. 

Nestled above Silent Beach, peace and tranquillity are guaranteed. Highly 

experienced Balinese therapists offer a wide range of body and beauty 

treatments to ensure you leave feeling revived and revitalised. Tucked 

away behind the pool bar, the Sanda Day Spa offers refuge in the heart of 

the usually activity-filled resort. Reinvigorating treatments are on offer, 

plus a whirlpool, sauna, and traditional Turkish bath. 

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN 

Hiking boots were a sartorial golden ticket in 2019 autumn/winter 

collections – so we’re sure you have a pair from Jimmy Choo lined with 

shearling, chunky ones from & Other Stories, or grungily on-trend Dr 

Martens ready and waiting to stomp into Turkey’s countryside. Scale the 

exceptionally pretty peaks surrounding the bay on routes provided by the 

hotel’s excellent Outside team. From Soğuksu National Park to the famed 

ghost town of Kayaköy and the Af Kule Monastery, you’ll be rewarded 

with beautiful views on every hike. 

AGE OF AQUARIUS 

For water babies, an array of water sports and sailing activities give 

you plenty to pick from to fill up your days. Professional and charming 

staff and top-of-the-line equipment will help make whichever activity 

you choose a breeze. Some of the options include water-skiing, knee 

boarding, sky sailing, paddleboarding, sailing, and scuba diving. If you’d 

like to push the boat out with a luxurious, less active experience, Hillside’s 

boat trips are go-with-the-flow fabulous. Nautical jaunts include sunset 

boat excursions, a cruise to Fethiye’s bazaar by traditional gulet, and 

nearby bays and 12 islands tours. 

LITTLE LEAGUE 

Caring staff at the Baby Park, Anri and team at Kidside, and Sencan and 

pals at the pre-teens and teen’s activity centre bat well above average 

when it comes to ensuring that younger guests are well cared for and 

entertained. From tennis lessons, water polo, and nightly football 

matches, to tune-spinning DJ lessons, gladiator games, and treasure 

hunts, kids will love their days at the resort. There are also arts and crafts 

sessions at Artside, baby chefs in the restaurant, and fun evening shows 

in the amphitheatre to entertain the whole crew. 


clockwise from top left: Hillside Beach Club from above; a film screening 

on the bay; guests walking to Kakaköy – one of the numerous activities 

that are arranged daily; family fun in the resort; a terrace in one of the 

luxury rooms 


A&K offers seven nights at Hillside Beach Club on an all-inclusive 

basis from £1,250 per person (based on two sharing), including 

flights and transfers. For more information, call a Europe travel 

specialist on 01242 547 703. 



MONGOLIA 

Flights of fancy 

WITH ENDLESS, PIERCINGLY BLUE SKIES CROSSED BY EAGLES SWOOPING TO HUNTERS’ FISTS, 

MONGOLIA WILL MAKE YOUR HEART SOAR. INTREPID TRAVELLERS FIND INSPIRATION 

IN A HARSH LAND, WHERE HOME COMFORTS ARE HARD WON 

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAN MASTERS 

Being woken in the middle of the night by a stranger. 

Hmm. Never thought I would look so positively on 

such a prospect. But here in my ger (Mongolian yurt) 

in the brisk autumnal temperatures of the Altai Mountains, I 

hear the ger manager arrive in the early hours. He’s lighting the 

wood-burning stove with its tall chimney that is the structural, 

practical, and emotional hub of my temporary home, so that 

when I rise, I’m toasty rather than teeth-chatteringly freezing. 

Let the fire-lighting commence. 

And there is another fire that Mongolia ignites in the soul of 

any visitor who’s open to big skies and even bigger adventures. 

Landlocked, with Russia to the north and China to the south, 

it’s a country of sweeping steppes and arid deserts. Of ragged 

mountains slicing too-blue-to-be-true skies. Of gazillions 

of sheep and goats grazing vast swathes of wind-whipped 

pastures. And with a history 

that still reverberates with tales 

of Genghis Khan, who from the 

early 13th century, established the 

mighty Mongol empire. 

So you get the picture. This is 

no ordinary, run-of-the-villa type 

holiday. There will be times, like 

when you hear the thrum of a 

generator thud out, that for once 

in your pampered life, the phrase 

‘out in the middle of nowhere’ has 

real meaning. You’ll also meet 

nomadic people whose way of life 

is not so different from that of their great, great ancestors (give 

or take the odd solar panel, mobile phone, and motorbike). 

There will also be moments when you simply breathe in 

the beauty of emptiness. Because while Mongolia is similar in 

size to western and central Europe, it has a population of just 

over three million – London alone has nearly nine. In short, 

Mongolia gives you spatial perspective in spades. 

More visitors are heading this way, a fair few because they’ve 

seen the film The Eagle Huntress, about then 13-year-old 

Aisholpan Nurgaiv, who hunts with eagles on horseback and 

has won the annual Golden Eagle Festival in Olgii (she now 

hopes to be a doctor). I haven’t seen it, but it has attracted 

many, including the elderly woman from California who I meet 

on the plane from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar (UB), the capital 

city. Travelling alone, she continually shuffles pages of her 

itinerary, repeating the mantra that she just had to come. 

THERE IS A FIRE THAT 

MONGOLIA IGNITES IN 

THE SOUL OF ANY VISITOR 

WHO’S OPEN TO BIG SKIES 

AND EVEN BIGGER 

ADVENTURES 

My own inspiration was a talk at the Royal Geographical 

Society in London that put Mongolia on my must-see list. 

So here I am. Bedding down in my ger near the Kazakhstan 

border, having flown in from UB to Olgii with 17 fascinating 

fellow travellers. I met them at the start of our holiday at the 

Shangri-La, all guests on this limited-edition Luxury Small 

Group Journey, of which the Golden Eagle Festival is one of 

the many exciting prospects. 

We are ably shepherded by our man on the ground, 

Amarbuyan Yura (Amraa) and host Palani Mohan, an awardwinning 

photographer and author of Hunting with Eagles: In 

the Realm of the Mongolian Kazakhs. He is the perfect cultural 

commentator, having researched and documented the proud 

people who inhabit this unforgiving landscape, where winter 

temperatures routinely drop to -40°C. 

In toughening up for the trip, 

I don’t make the best start. On 

the runway in Olgii, I miss my 

footing and crash-land on my 

knees. We decide a bag of ice 

might help the pain but is an 

unlikely find. Frozen peas? Again, 

pass. However, a shopkeeper sells 

us their last two packets of frozen 

prawn dumplings. Somewhat 

unglamorously, prawns poised, 

I am driven in convoy to camp. 

The Lilliputian village of gers 

soon puts a smile on my face. It’s 

been erected just for us for three nights, near to a rushing silver 

river edged with ribbons of golden trees. Each ger has a Hansel 

and Gretel doorway and is decorated inside with embroidered 

wall hangings. There’s a shared shower, for which you make an 

advance appointment, and a kitchen that creates tempting food, 

from full-on breakfasts to multi-course suppers with soups, 

and meat and vegetable dishes. The wine flows. 

As we wake to the sunniest of days, we head out to the 

festival, which takes place on a stretch of, well, dust, in the 

shadow of a huge, sheer escarpment. Launched in 1999 to 

preserve cultural traditions, the Golden Eagle Festival has 

evolved into a two-day event with over 100 horsemen and 

women in their finery, attending with their eagles to compete in 

various competitions to showcase their riding skills and close 

bond with their birds – think a falconry display at a county 

show but with a more rugged, Wild West vibe. 



MONGOLIA 

The hunters (burkitshi) are ethnic Kazakhs and over the 

centuries have survived some of the harshest conditions 

Mother Earth can throw at them. It’s mostly older hunters who 

remain: younger generations are tending to head to urban 

areas. However, there is a still a passion for falconry and the 

trained eagles (always females, as they are more powerful than 

the males) live with their hunter for a number of years, before 

they are released back into the wild. Some birds develop such 

a bond, they fly ‘home’ and the release has to be repeated. 

Over two days, we first see the hunters judged on sartorial 

flair. Then, how quickly their eagle can land on their arm 

when released from the mountainous peak – the rider waits 

on the showground far below and the descent is timed, as in 

sheepdog trials. 

Some birds go like guided missiles. Boom. Land. Cue 

explosive applause. Some, they take an easy-does-it detour 

before deigning to descend. There are also equestrian displays 

with riders picking up coins while their horses gallop full tilt, 

a tug-of-war on horseback, another game where the woman 

whips the man (I never figure out why, but a delighted pair win 

first prize), plus camel races and archery. 

After a final cosy dinner in our rustic camp, it’s back to UB 

to prep for the next adventure – the Gobi Desert. UB itself 

is worth exploring, from the fascinating Natural Museum 

of Mongolia to the Gandantegchinlen Monastery, one of 

Mongolia’s most revered. Plus there are cashmere shops galore 

and the Shangri-La, a shrine to all those things we take for 

granted – but shouldn’t – like hot water, heat, and light. 

A short flight to Dalanzadgad drops us into the South Gobi. 

Our base is at the Three Camel Lodge, a permanent ger camp 

with en-suite facilities and a great bar. Meals are expertly 

prepared, the wine and whisky list on a par with many capital 

city hangouts, and the cabaret includes traditional music and 

throat singing, which is hauntingly beautiful. 

It’s from here we head out to ride Bactrian camels on the 

sand dunes of Moltsog Els and meet nomadic camel breeders, 

and take hikes in idyllic scenery, where horses drink from 

streams in the foothills of monolithic mountains. On our final 

evening, we walk the Flaming Cliffs, incandescent at sunset. 

A significant palaeontological site, if you know what you’re 

looking for you can still find tiny remnants of dinosaur eggs. 

Three Camels has thought of everything and brought along 

sundowners, chairs, and umbrellas. We toast a trip, wild in 

concept, wonderful in its welcome. 

previous page: A Kazakh horseman with his eagle 

opposite page, clockwise from top left: A monk prepares for a ceremony 

at Gandantegchinlen Monastery in Ulaanbaatar; eagle hunters arriving at 

the festival; a ger in A&K’s private camp, erected especially for the festival; 

a Mongolian woman in the late afternoon sun; a typical, highly decorated 

Kazakh saddle; the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert 

this page, clockwise from top left: Spread out for sale, traditional handembroidered 

wall hangings used to decorate and insulate ger; the sweeping 

landscape surrounding Olgii; camels in the Gobi 


A&K’s 12-day Mongolia: Golden Eagle Festival with Palani Mohan 

– a limited-edition Luxury Small Group Journey starts at £14,025 

per person and next runs from 29 Sep to 10 Oct 2020. For more 

information, call our escorted tours specialists on 01242 547 892. 


ACCESS 

ART 

In the eye-catching world of art hotels, many hoteliers use their properties as 

galleries to showcase their private collections. Read on for our own curated 

exhibition of hotels in which you can wake up next to a masterpiece 

ELLERMAN HOUSE 

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA 

Art lovers will delight in staying at this landmark hotel on Cape Town’s 

coast. Within the elegant Edwardian mansion of Ellerman House, close 

to 1,000 works of art reflect the changes in South Africa’s social and 

geographical landscape since the 1930s. Artists included in the collection 

include John Meyer, Erik Laubscher, Jan Volschenk, Cathcart William 

Methven, and Pieter Wenning to name but a few. Guests can take a 

self-guided art tour, with an electronic tablet providing insight into each 

piece. If you prefer the human touch to the touchscreen, the in-house 

guide is on hand to take you around the extensive collection – or beyond; 

guests can request guided excursions to the city’s local galleries, enjoying 

behind-the-scenes access and unmatched insight. 

THE SILO 

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA 

A disused grain silo may seem an unlikely candidate for an art hotel, 

yet this imposing building on Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront has been 

transformed in recent years, its image a Brutalist bastion for African 

arts. The lower portion of the building is now the Zeitz Museum of 

Contemporary Art Africa, while its literal crowning glory is The Silo 

hotel – six storeys of luxury accommodation brimming with curated 

artwork. The Silo’s owner, Liz Biden of The Royal Portfolio, has used 

space across the 28 rooms to display her personal collection of African 

pieces. There are works by upcoming artists as well as more established 

names, such as Nandipha Mntambo, Cyrus Kabiru, and Mohau 

Modisakeng. The hotel even features its own boutique gallery, The Vault. 

WORDS: JOE MEREDITH 


HOTEL ÉCLAT 

BEIJING, CHINA 

Beijing has plenty to offer beyond its top-billed tourist attractions, 

including a vibrant contemporary art scene. The city’s creative streak is 

reflected throughout Hotel Éclat, a favourite among our travel specialists, 

housed within the landmark Parkview Green building. This boutique 

hotel showcases a sizable portion of its late owner George Wong’s 

extensive art collection. Across its five floors, admire more than 100 

eclectic pieces, from dazzling sculptures to captivating paintings. As well 

as works by notable contemporary artists, Éclat is home to Asia’s largest 

collection of Warhol and Dalí works. This member of the Small Luxury 

Hotels of the World puts you in the heart of Beijing’s downtown, and puts 

art to the fore of its design. 

HOTEL B 

LIMA, PERU 

For those of us who travel often, firsts are increasingly hard to come by; 

yet Hotel B is that rarest of things. Lima’s first – and only – art hotel is 

an A&K Favourite, aptly situated in the city’s most bohemian district 

amid galleries and fashion boutiques. The building itself is brimming 

with character, converted as it is from a 1920s colonial mansion. Stay in 

this restored ‘grand dame’ to admire its private collection of more than 

200 artworks, proudly displayed across the landings. Hotel B’s close 

relationship with nearby Lucia de la Puente Gallery allows guests to easily 

request private viewings; the gallery offers a fantastic insight into the 

world of contemporary Peruvian art. Our clients can enjoy additional 

perks during their stay, from room upgrades to wine on arrival. 

VILLA LA COSTE 

PROVENCE, FRANCE 

The bucolic landscape of Provence is impossible to upstage, so the owners 

of Villa La Coste have sought instead to adorn it with dazzling flourishes 

of creativity. Throughout the biodynamic vineyard of Château La Coste 

and art hotel, sculptures are tucked amid verdant woodland, hills, and 

lawns – including works by acclaimed artists Ai Weiwei and Tracey 

Emin. You can enjoy a two-hour private art and architecture walk with 

the curator, learning all about the eclectic collection while taking in the 

beautiful Provençal countryside. In addition, the hotel is home to its very 

own arts centre and hosts temporary exhibitions throughout the year. 

Stay here, and you’ll never be short of art to admire (nor home-grown 

wine to sip as you do). 

MONA 

TASMANIA, AUSTRALIA 

Fancy bedding down in one of Hobart’s best art museums? Set on 

the banks of the River Derwent, the Museum of Old and New Art 

(MONA) is Australia’s largest privately owned gallery and museum. It 

was masterminded by gambler and mathematician David Walsh, and 

exhibits his diverse taste in exhibits – from Ancient Egyptian relics to 

quirky dioramas. Visitors also have the opportunity to stay in one of 

eight contemporary pavilions, each with its own character. As well as 

access to an enclosed lap pool, sauna, and gym, you’ll have a museum 

chock-full of eclectic and eccentric artwork right on your doorstep. Enjoy 

untrammelled access to MONA’s permanent collection, and utilise its ‘O’ 

device during self-guided wanders to learn more about the art. 


18 

SUM 

MERS 

THE DAYS MAY BE LONG, BUT THE YEARS ARE 

SHORT. THE SCARY FACT IS THAT THERE ARE ONLY 18 

SUMMERS IN YOUR MINI-ME’S CHILDHOOD AND YOU 

SHOULDN’T SQUANDER A SINGLE ONE OF THEM 

Uninterrupted family time – every parent wants it and 

every child needs it. As Sally Peck, The Telegraph’s family 

editor, recently told Sundowner: “With work, school, 

and ever-present smartphones, we spend so little uninterrupted 

time with our children: holidays are the one chance we have 

to really engage and interact, in a relaxed setting, without the 

intrusions of mundane life.” 

Pre-school summer holidays – when there’s more flexibility 

and you’re not a slave to your child’s education – pass by in a 

happy haze of armbands and ice cream. All holidays offer the 

opportunity for memory-making and family-fun time, but during 

primary and secondary school summer breaks, can you also travel 

smarter and fight holiday-time “learning loss”? 

There are a multitude of reasons why travelling is a great form 

of education; it’s a fun way to reinforce learning and keep young 

minds sharp when school isn’t in session. Research indicates that 

children who enjoy learning opportunities during the summer 

retain more knowledge over the holidays than their peers who 

do not. So read on for our ultimate guide to 18 summers that 

combine family fun times and edu-travel. 

WORDS: ALICIA DEVENEY 


FAMILIES 

AGE 

0 

SUMMER #1 

CYPRUS 

Anassa: a touchstone for new parents. Spoken 

about in hushed, awed tones by mums and 

dads who had previously resigned themselves to a few years of 

staycations. Located in Cyprus, Anassa is a lap-of-luxury hotel 

that offers an all-encompassing and sanity-saving Baby Go 

Lightly service. Prior to arrival, parents can order items such as 

car seats for airport transfers, potties, training seats, highchairs, 

carriers, buggies, bottles and teats, sterilisers, bottle warmers, 

baby gyms, baby walkers, baby bathtubs, dry/swimming 

nappies, nappy bins, wipes, and much more besides. But that’s 

not all: as well as the baby kit, there’s also a phenomenal crèche 

and babysitting service. It’s a utopia for parents. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: ANASSA, CYPRUS 

AGE 

1 

SUMMER #2 

FRANCE 

At this age, no parent is willing to mess with 

the mid-day nap. One hour, two hours, 

sometimes three – these hours of early afternoon sleep are 

vital at this age, so you need to factor this into any possible 

holiday and be somewhere that you don’t mind being stuck 

for half a day. Enter stage left: a luxurious villa in France. 

It’s good for baby: child-friendly garden, safe pool area, 

interconnecting rooms, cots, monitors, highchair, buggy… 

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And it’s good for mum 

and dad too: saltwater swimming pool, terrace for sunbathing, 

shady nooks for book reading, dining spaces for alfresco eating 

and barbecues. That’s nap time sorted then. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: LE MAS D’ARTISTE, PROVENCE, FRANCE 

AGE 

2 

SUMMER #3 

SICILY 

Celebrities flock here: Harry Styles, Bradley 

Cooper, and Leonardo DiCaprio have all 

stayed. Google’s legendary conference is also held here annually. 

With its award-winning, 4,000-square-metre spa, championship 

golf courses, and proximity to the Greek temples of Selinunte 

and Agrigento, Sir Rocco Forte’s sprawling Verdura resort on 

Sicily’s south coast is perfect for grown-ups. So what happens if 

that grown-up happens to be the parent of a toddler? Tailored 

to two-years-olds to a tee, the RBabies area of Verdùland has a 

baby pool, outdoor space, sleep zone, and indoor play zone. It’s 

an ideal place for a two-year-old to spend a few hours while you 

have some much-needed, recharging ‘me time’. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: VERDURA RESORT, SICILY 

AGE 

3 

SUMMER #4 

MAURITIUS 

With a three-year-old in tow, you’re potentially 

travelling a little lighter and life isn’t a complete 

nightmare if naps are occasionally skipped – however you are 

navigating the choppy waters of life with a ‘threenager’ who is 

exploring his or her independence. It’s the perfect opportunity 

for a holiday that includes time at a fantastically fun kids’ club. 

This luxurious island escape is fabulous for all ages but ‘Play’ 

welcomes those aged three upwards. There’s a splash pool, an 

outdoor culinary corner, an e-zone, a reading corner, and a 

quiet zone. Fun-loving and full of energy, the resort’s qualified 

childminders organise beach games and other outdoor pursuits 

guaranteed to burn energy. No ’mares here – just a dream holiday. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: LUX* BELLE MARE, MAURITIUS 


AGE 

4 

SUMMER #5 

SOUTH AFRICA 

Sally Peck, The Telegraph’s family editor and a 

travel expert, recently took her young daughter 

on safari with A&K. “I wanted to take her on her first major 

adventure,” she explains. To any family considering a safari, she 

says: “I cannot think of a more perfect family trip: safaris combine 

adventure, activity, and learning with relaxation and scenes of 

unequalled beauty.” For a four-year-old, South Africa is a great 

choice – there’s only a minor time difference and you can leave 

the malaria pills at home. Much of South Africa is free from the 

disease, including Kwandwe, a private Big Five game reserve not 

far from the Garden Route. At Ecca Lodge, guests of all ages are 

welcome, and a range of other family-friendly amenities include 

family suites with the use of a private vehicle and dedicated range, 

children’s menus, activities, and childminders. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: KWANDWE ECCA LODGE 

AGE 

5 

SUMMER #6 

ARIZONA 

What’s the formula for a truly perfect family 

holiday? The answer is simple: time together 

plus fun on tap. At the Hyatt Regency in Scottsdale, Arizona, 

everyone gets to be a kid. The resort is an enormous playground. 

Pack the water-resistant SPF50 – this resort has its own onehectare 

water park with 10 pools, hot tubs, a ‘Greek-style’ water 

temple, waterfalls, a sandy beach, and a three-storey waterslide. 

When fingers have wrinkled sufficiently, the rock-climbing wall, 

putting green, fun zone, and tennis courts are perfect for drying 

out in the warm sun. At the kids’ club, there are Native American 

crafts, cowboy storytellers, and campfire snacks. Could you ask for 

anything s’more? 

FAMILY QUARTERS: HYATT REGENCY SCOTTSDALE RESORT & SPA 

AGE 

6 

SUMMER #7 

TANZANIA 

From the original animated version to the liveaction 

remake, The Lion King has a special place 

in our children’s collective conscious. Although the animators 

famously travelled to Kenya’s Masai Mara for inspiration, it and 

Tanzania’s Serengeti are a shared ecosystem. Vast rolling savannahs, 

rocky outcrops, and acacia trees punctuating the horizon – it’s 

something straight from the cinema screen. During the year, the 

Great Migration – made up of more than 1.5 million wildebeest, 

200,000 Burchell’s zebra, and a smattering of trailing Thomson’s 

gazelle – circles through these ‘Pride Lands’. Snapping at their heels 

and lying in wait are hungry predators like Simba, Shenzi, and 

Scar. Far from being too brutal for children to witness, Sally Peck 

is adamant that “our Victorian squeamishness about the realities 

of life and death do us – and our children – damage”. Showing her 

daughter the circle of life was one of the main reasons that Sally 

wanted to take her on safari and they both “loved it”. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: SINGITA SERENGETI HOUSE 


AGE 

7 

SUMMER #8 

ROME 

During Key Stage 2 (KS2) history, most pupils 

will learn about ancient Rome. Bring their 

studies to life with a holiday in the Eternal City. At school, they’ll 

be discovering what the Romans did for us. They’ll examine how 

Rome began, who ruled, who the emperors were, what Romans 

believed, and how they liked to spend their spare time. What 

better way to learn about the beloved, bloody games than a visit to 

the Colosseum and enrolling them into Gladiator School? During 

the training class, children dress up in belted tunics and learn 

basic swordsmanship, history, and battle strategy. Other sites to 

enjoy (between fuelling stops at pizzerias and gelatarias) include 

the Circus Maximus, the Pantheon, and of course, the Forum. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: HOTEL DU RUSSIE 

AGE 

8 

SUMMER #9 

ATHENS 

The ancient Greeks also feature on the National 

Curriculum for history. While doing school 

projects they’ll learn about who the ancient Greeks were, the 

different city-states, the Olympic Games, family life, gods and 

goddesses, war, culture, theatre, the invention of government, 

and Alexander the Great – all important subjects for young minds 

to explore. These age-old influencers affected our modern-day 

arts, sports, medicine, law, language, and even the buildings we 

live in. A trip to see the Elgin Marbles is good, but why not go 

one step further? Athens is the obvious choice for an ancient 

Greece-inspired long weekend or as part of a longer Greek 

sojourn. The Acropolis is the city’s most famous and important 

landmark. Visit with a local guide to explore the site and its 

centrepiece, the Parthenon, which dates back to 438 BC. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: HOTEL GRAND BRETAGNE 

AGE 

9 

SUMMER #10 

MEXICO 

With so much Euro-centricism in the National 

Curriculum, it’s vital that children learn about 

non-Western cultures. One possible KS2 history topic covered 

during Years 4 and 5 is the Maya. These Mesoamericans shared 

complex beliefs and traditions, studied the stars and weather, and 

built amazing cities including Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and Tulum. 

Studying the Maya links well with work on ancient Egypt – 

think of all those stepped pyramids. A&K’s seven-night 

Family Mexico suggested itinerary features an educational 

scavenger hunt at Uxmal as well as exploration of UNESCO 

World Heritage-listed Chichén Itzá. 

HOW TO DO IT: A&K’S SUGGESTED FAMILY MEXICO ITINERARY 

AGE 

10 

SUMMER #11 

EGYPT 

Staying with the theme of KS2 history, students 

in Years 5 and 6 might travel back in time 

thousands of years to the banks of the Nile to learn all about 

ancient Egypt during this curriculum stage. So why not take 

them to see the artefacts and monuments of this still-there-to-bediscovered 

civilisation. Most schoolchildren study the ‘boy king’, 

Tutankhamun, while learning about Egypt. A&K’s ‘Explore the 

pyramids and museum’ experience is an A&K Egyptologist-led 

tour of Cairo during which families explore the pyramids of Giza 

and come face-to-face with King Tut’s golden death mask at the 

Egyptian Museum of Antiquities. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: FOUR SEASONS HOTEL CAIRO AT THE 

FIRST RESIDENCE 

FAMILIES 


AGE 

11 

SUMMER #12 

THE GALÁPAGOS 

The study of Charles Darwin, the theory of 

evolution, and the process of natural selection 

at KS2 has cross-curricular links between science, history, and 

literacy. Consolidate their knowledge by undertaking your own 

expedition to the Galápagos Islands (a group of 19 islands and 

more than 100 islets in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres off the 

coast of Ecuador). The HMS Beagle may be unavailable but three 

to seven nights aboard the family-friendly Galápagos Legend is 

perfect for budding naturalists (and their parents) looking to meet 

the incredible creatures that Darwin encountered. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: GALÁPAGOS LEGEND 

AGE 

12 

SUMMER #13 

TUSCANY 

Do your children know who the Teenage Mutant 

Ninja Turtles were named after? Well, they should. 

It’s time to return to Italy, just as the National Curriculum does 

when it hits KS3. Zooming forward 900 years or so and hopping 

from Rome to Florence, the Renaissance was a period that 

followed on from the Dark Ages. During history lessons, children 

might be looking at this time of rebirth, when people showed 

renewed interest in ancient Greece and Rome. Leonardo da Vinci 

may have already been encountered in KS2 science. He was a real 

‘Renaissance man’ and Tuscany is the place to go to learn more 

about this famous polymath. His birthplace was the Republic of 

Florence and there’s a whole museum dedicated to him, plus much 

more besides. Base your famiglia at a family-friendly A&K villa in 

Tuscany for Da Vinci-themed daytrips. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: OPTIONS INCLUDE: AL CASTELLO; VILLA SAN 

CRISTOFORO; IL PALAGIO 

AGE 

13 

SUMMER #14 

CHINA 

During history lessons in KS3, children will be 

comparing spans of British history with Dynastic 

periods of China’s past. They might be looking at the rise and fall 

of the final Imperial Chinese dynasty, empire-changing events 

such as the Qing from Manchuria replacing the Ming, the 

breath-taking growth of Qing China (1644-1912), and the Opium 

Wars (1839-1860). Scaffold their learning and – more importantly 

– broaden their horizons with a holiday in China. One of the 

best places to experience the Qing is in Beijing where 10 

Qing emperors held court at the Imperial Palace. During 

A&K’s Discover China holiday, you can even stay at Jing’s 

Residence in Pingyao, which was built 260 years ago by a 

wealthy Qing Dynasty silk merchant. It’s time to live like a 

local – albeit one from over 200 years ago. 

HOW TO DO IT: A&K’S SUGGESTED DISCOVER CHINA ITINERARY 


FAMILIES 

AGE 

14 

SUMMER #15 

CALIFORNIA 

After so much emphasis in the past, it’s 

time to share a summer holiday that’s very 

much about the present. As it gets more difficult to prise 

away their smartphone, take them somewhere exciting and 

iconic. Somewhere they won’t sneer at – where they can be 

independent, be active, and have some fun with their parents. 

Popular films and TV shows will have introduced them to 

America’s west coast by now, so take them to Cali – and earn 

some cred in their eyes while you’re at it. Together, you can 

cycle, sail, surfboard, hike, paddleboard, kayak, snorkel, as well 

as going behind the scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and 

enjoying a VIP experience at Universal Studios Hollywood. 

HOW TO DO IT: A&K’S SUGGESTED FAMILY CALIFORNIA 

ITINERARY 

AGE 

15 

SUMMER #16 

VIETNAM 

For GCSE history and English, kids learn 

the history of the conflict in Vietnam, the 

Cold War and the wider context of world politics post-WWII. 

They address the question of why America – with its population, 

resources, and technology – couldn’t defeat the Vietcong and 

their guerrilla tactics. Visit the beguiling country of Vietnam 

to support your child’s subject work and general knowledge. 

A&K’s full-day Hanoi tour includes visits to sites such as the 

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the Military Operation Bunker, 

D67 bunker, and Military Museum. There is even an 

opportunity for retired-colonel Nguyen Van Tam to escort 

you on this 20th-century tour. Other fascinating experiences 

are on offer in Hue and Ho Chi Minh City. 

HOW TO DO IT: A&K’S ‘MEET A VIETNAM WAR VETERAN’ 

EXPERIENCE 

AGE 

16 

SUMMER #17 

JAPAN 

This summer is significant – most children finish 

their GCSEs or other national qualifications in 

June of this year – and a celebration is in order. They’ll probably also 

be planning their first trip without mum and dad, so it’s certainly time 

for one last long-haul adventure together before they embark on a 

lifetime of independent holidays. Japan is the ultimate destination for 

families. It’s a joyful playground of a place, offering an exhilarating 

escape from the familiar. Teenagers will love A&K’s Edits and 

Experiences in Japan which includes cycling the Shimanami 

Kaido, one of the planet’s most gorgeous bike routes, a full-day 

tour of Tokyo’s pop culture scene, and ninja training in Kyoto. 

FAMILY QUARTERS: MANDARIN ORIENTAL TOKYO 

& RITZ-CARLTON KYOTO 

AGE 

17 

SUMMER #18 

AUSTRALIA 

It’s the final summer of their childhood, so show 

your pride and honour their accomplishments (thus 

far – just imagine what’s to come) with a celebratory blow-out holiday 

Down Under. Travelling as mates as well as family, you can tick off all 

the iconic Australian experiences: sail Sydney’s harbour; dine in the 

desert under the stars at Uluru; snorkel and dive at the Great Barrier 

Reef. Teenagers will also love Melbourne’s buzz of creativity: street art, 

coffee houses, cool shops, and laneways. 

HOW TO DO IT: A&K’S SUGGESTED CLASSIC AUSTRALIA 

ITINERARY 


HOME RUN 

From castelli where you can live like Italian nobility to châteaux on the Riviera 

promising a place in the sun, our leading villa experts have selected 40 of their 

favourite properties to rent, and put the spotlight on five winning examples 

Villa Neptune, Côte d’Azur 

BEST FOR LOSING YOURSELF 

It’s been just over a century since F Scott Fitzgerald, wife Zelda, 

and daughter Scottie arrived in the French Riviera to live it up 

on the Côte d’Azur with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Pablo 

Picasso, and Dorothy Parker. Fitzgerald and his gregarious gang 

– the “lost generation” of Americans who were escaping the 

post-war, Prohibition doldrums in the USA – may be long gone, 

but the playground vibe they established on the Riviera lives on. 

Over 100 years later, the villas are every bit as glamorous as the 

A-listers and aristocrats who holiday here. Five-bedroom Villa 

Neptune, located on the water’s edge of the Bay of Cannes, offers 

magnificent Med views from pretty much every room. It’s an 

escapist’s dream – there’s a Jacuzzi on the terrace, alfresco shaded 

dining area, and private jetty. 

Dalmatian Dream, Dalmatian Coast 

BEST FOR HISTORY LOVERS 

Dubrovnik’s Stari Grad (Old Town) with its Adriatic Sea backdrop, thick medieval 

walls, Gothic good looks, and associations with gone-but-not-forgotten Game of 

Thrones film sets is as gorgeous as it is historic. The allure of this storied Croatian 

city on the southern Dalmatian Coast is as strong as ever. If you feel the city’s 

medieval glories beckoning, then Dalmatian Dream is just 500 metres from the 

Old Town. Built of creamy local stone with pretty terraces tumbling down the 

hillside scattered with social areas and a pool, this 300-year-old villa has been 

lovingly restored. The seven bedrooms and interior communal areas sport a 

contemporary Nordic-inspired style – simple, modern lines and neutral colours. 

There’s a Finnish sauna, and a self-contained apartment for granny or nanny. 

WORDS: ALICIA DEVENEY 


EUROPE 

Villa Veo, Majorca 

BEST FOR OUTDOOR LIVING 

Described by Gertrude Stein as “paradise”, Majorca is 

practically sunk under the weight of its Spanish charms. The 

largest of the Balearic Islands is made for exploring – the pace 

is sedate, the living is easy, and the coastline’s pretty coves 

shout perfect Mediterranean island. Although once you see 

Villa Veo, exploration might be the last thing on your mind. 

Perched high on the hills on the outskirts of Port d’Andratx, 

the six-bedroom house offers a home cinema, bar, and gym 

inside. Outside, there are panoramic views of both Cala 

Llamp Bay and the dramatic Tramuntana Mountains from the 

wraparound terraces that feature a 15-metre infinity pool, day 

beds, and dining and social areas. 

Villa le Ninfe, Lake Como 

BEST FOR DESIGN MAVENS 

Play house at Villa le Ninfe, a seven-bedroom mini-mansion 

made for sharing with your favourites. This modern villa was 

reopened after a three-year renovation, and it’s an awesome 

architectural vision of stone and glass. Looking inwards, 

there’s a library, wine cellar, gym, spa with hammam, sauna 

and massage room, and a home cinema. Outside, there's a 

recessed firepit area, a heated lakeside lap-pool, and a rooftop 

terrace. From the dock, launch the villa’s own five-and-a-halfmetre 

boat to visit Bellagio, a picturesque and popular midlake 

village located opposite Villa le Ninfe, to stroll through 

the azalea and rhododendron-filled gardens of neoclassical 

Villa Melzi. 

Parco del Principe, Tuscany 

BEST FOR A BIG CELEBRATION 

Staying here is a glorious exercise in playing at being Italian 

toffs in the Tuscan countryside. Wannabe principe and 

principessa will love this luxurious neogothic estate, which 

was originally built in the 1800s by an aristocratic Tuscan 

family. This villa near Siena has recently undergone a 12-year 

renovation by model-turned-designer and owner, Astrid 

Schiller Wirth. With its mix of antiques and custom pieces, 

the eight-bedroom, three-storey property is stately and has 

style to spare. Despite its history, inside there’s no shortage of 

modern amenities. Outside, there are alfresco dining areas 

and a swimming pool, and the 25 hectares of surrounding 

parkland – adorned with cedar, elm, cypress, lemon, and 

pomegranate trees – are a dream setting for a party. 

akvillas.com | 61

1 

2 

4 

5 

7 

62 | SPRING/SUMMER 2020 

8

OUR 

FAVOURITE 

FAVOURITES 

As with children, we know you shouldn’t play 

favourites, but sometimes it just can’t be helped... 

These villas are so perfectly placed and exquisitely 

appointed that you’ll wish you could move in for 

good – true homes away from home 

EUROPE 

3 

6 

CROATIA 

Dalmatian Dream, Dalmatian 

Coast 

Villa Amaroo, Dalmatian 

Coast (1) 

FRANCE 

Le Mas D'Osu, Corsica 

Le Castellet, Côte d’Azur 

Villa Joya, Côte d’Azur (2) 

Villa Med, Côte d’Azur 

Villa Neptune, Côte d’Azur 

La Bastide du Bois, Provence 

La Maison de Maussane, 

Provence 

Le Mas Charlotte, Provence 

Le Mas des Chenes Verts, 

Provence 

Le Mas du Luberon, Provence 

Le Mas Merindol, Provence 

Le Mas Nicolas, Provence 

Les Amandiers, Provence (3) 

GREECE 

Pearla Mabe, Corfu (4) 

Almyra Residence, Crete 

The Zarassi Estate, Mykonos 

ITALY 

Casa Porpora, Amalfi Coast 

Villa le Ninfe, Lake Como 

Dimora delle Balze, Sicily 

Podere il Baglio, Sicily 

Casa Matteucci, Tuscany 

Il Convento di Siena, Tuscany 

La Castellina, Tuscany (5) 

Masseria Torre Leverano, 

Tuscany 

Parco del Principe, Tuscany 

Villa la Ginestra, Tuscany 

Villa la Veduta, Tuscany (6) 

PORTUGAL 

Quinta da Alegria, Algarve 

Villa da Zita, Algarve (7) 

Villa Destiny, Algarve 

SPAIN 

Casa Luminosa, Andalucia 

La Caceria Lodge, Andalucia 

Can Ivy, Majorca (8) 

Can Noblessa, Majorca 

Villa la Silda, Majorca (9) 

Villa Rocoso, Majorca 

Villa Sonrei, Majorca 

Villa Veo, Majorca 

CONTACT ABERCROMBIE & KENT VILLAS 

For all villa holidays, we advise early booking. For more information, 

or to discuss reserving a villa, call your specialists on 01242 547 705. 

9 

akvillas.com | 63


LAOS 

FOODIE FORAYS: 

LUANG PRABANG 

FROM FABULOUSLY FERMENTED FLAVOURS 

COOKED BY MICHELIN-STARRED CHEFS TO 

RIVERSIDE BUFFALO SAUSAGES AND BEERLAO, 

THE CULINARY OFFERINGS IN INDOCHINA’S 

CHICEST TOWN ARE A CELEBRATION OF ALL 

THINGS LAO, SAYS AUDREY GILLAN 

Lemongrass, garlic, and onion – this trilogy of ingredients is 

the cornerstone of Lao cuisine. Fragrant and flavoursome, 

they come together in dishes that often have their roots 

in the country’s reliance on foraging foods from the jungle and 

the rivers and their banks. Cloud ear fungus and yellow monkey 

mushrooms; algae collected from the Mekong and pounded into 

thin sheets, then sprinkled with sesame seeds, dried and served 

with a chilli paste studded with buffalo skin – all elements of the 

wild larder that sustains this landlocked country. 

Almost all Laotian dishes are accompanied by sticky rice – 

70 per cent of the terrain is mountainous and rice is the easiest 

crop to cultivate in such an environment, with 500 different 

varieties. Rise at dawn in the exquisite UNESCO Heritage 

riverside city of Luang Prabang and you will be greeted by the 

sonorous sound of sticky rice balls hitting large metal vessels 

with a bong, as saffron-robed monks seek alms from locals and 

visitors alike. Head to the market, best seen this early in the 

morning, where old ladies hunker down beside empty rice sacks 

which are sparsely laid with their goods – a handful of potatoes, 

lemongrass, fresh herbs maybe, wild mushrooms, or beans. 

You’ll also find river crabs, catfish, frogs, birds, and insects all 

bound for the pot and table. 

A French colonial town, the continental influence on Luang 

Prabang is not just evident in the beautiful architecture of this 

calm place that sits on a peninsula at the confluence of the Nam 

Khan and Mekong River; it’s there in the coffee, the baguettes, 

and a local appropriation of mayonnaise. The culinary culture 

here takes elements from the French kitchen, and sometimes 

mixes them with the four key tastes of Lao cooking: spicy, sour, 

salty, and bitter. In spite of being a neighbour to Vietnam and 

Thailand, Laos has a very different, unique cuisine, borrowing 

few ideas from across its borders. 


THE CULINARY CULTURE HERE TAKES ELEMENTS FROM THE 

FRENCH KITCHEN, AND SOMETIMES MIXES THEM WITH THE KEY 

TASTES OF LAO COOKING: SPICY, SOUR, SALTY, AND BITTER 

While Luang Prabang celebrates past traditions, the restaurant 

scene is modern, bringing new twists to dishes from both 

royal and peasant households. Bongkoch ‘Bee’ Satongun is a 

young chef with Laotian roots awarded a Michelin star at Paste 

Bangkok. She is now also cooking at Paste Lao Food, where the 

menu is very different. It takes inspiration from Phia Sing who 

was chef at the Royal Court of Laos. Satongun says: “The soil and 

terroir of Laos produces herbs of a different strength and we use 

several different varieties of herbs compared with Paste Bangkok 

in Thailand. The seasonings in addition are different as Lao food 

uses very few sweeteners and souring agents. 

“The natural scenery of Luang Prabang is magnificent and the 

unique, original wild ingredients seduced us creatively to open 

Paste Lao Food in November 2018,” she explains. “Lao food 

is enticing for its marriage and balance of fermented flavours 

that are integrated with a huge amount of fresh plant life – 

overall it is more savoury than sweet, intensely perfumed with 

mountain herbs, and unusual tastes such as sundried river algae. 

Internationally, however, it simmers under the radar and we 

would like to expose its treasures further over the coming years.” 

Bee believes one of the most incredible Lao dishes is or bon 

waan, which she describes as “sweet bon leaves, slide-off-thebone 

beef rib, jelly mushrooms, sakhan vine, sour mak kwak, 

and grilled lemongrass” and her other favourite is or lam gai faa 

stew “slow-braised French pheasant, mouth-numbing sakhan 

vine, splitgill mushroom, bitter rattan, and scarlet gourd”. 

Another exciting addition to the city’s burgeoning food scene 

is The Great House at the Rosewood Luang Prabang. Culinary 

director Sebastien Rubis has studied the finest elements of 

Laotian royal cuisine and brought it together with a farm-totable 

ethos. “We are reintroducing forgotten recipes from royal 

cuisine. This means we have to find some rare products that were 

really only for the king and the court. One clear example is lon 

som, a very rare pork curry made with wild zucchini, which we 

found. The colour of this dish is pink, which is very unusual,” he 

says. “Lao royal cuisine is not supposed to be spicy. One of the 

main flavours is bitter. We don’t really know about bitter – we 

know about sweet and sour flavours – and so we are allowing 

people to become accustomed to this and opening them up to 

tastes of the past.” 

Rubis – who was awarded the prestigious title of ASIA 

Geographical Indication Ambassador for Laos, a UN Food and 

Agriculture Organization and French Development Agency 

project with a focus on protecting food cultures in the region and 

reviving ancestral and forgotten recipes – offers guests cooking 

classes, which can also include foraging. “I take them to a small 

market and I tailor-make recipes and courses to what guests can 

find at home so that they might make things more easily. It is 

custom-made for them,” he says. 

“I love the freshness in Laos. Before the country opened in 

1998, there was no factory food and so still most of what you 

have is organic, because they don’t have access to chemicals. 

Herbs are very fragrant and strong in terms of taste.” 

A gastronomic sojourn in Luang Prabang shouldn’t just 

focus on high-end restaurants. Meeting farmers such as Lautlee 

is an important part of understanding Lao food and where it 

comes from. Leading a ‘crop-to-bowl’ experience through his 

verdant fields, Lautlee demonstrates how he harvests vegetables 

and rice by hand or using simple bamboo tools. This is labour 

intensive subsistence farming but many Lao will tell you they’re 

content doing this work because it’s generally done by families 

and communities together. At a little wooden farmhouse, the 

matriarch of Lautlee’s family shows how the grains of rice just 

harvested can be turned into kaopun, a delicate, soft, slightly 

glutinous noodle which is then served with a hot broth and fresh 

herbs from the garden. 

The trip culminates in a visit to Kuang Si waterfall, a beautiful 

three-tiered cascade known for its brilliant turquoise pools and 

streams, 32 kilometres southwest of Luang Prabang, where a 

swim is followed by a picnic lunch, surrounded by nature. On 

the return to the city you can visit Laos Buffalo Dairy, a social 

enterprise that works with local farmers to produce underutilised 

buffalo milk. Founded by former high-flying corporate 

officers-turned dairy farmers, here artisanal cheese, yoghurt, 

and ice cream are produced, all made from buffalo milk sourced 

from local villages. Watch friendly buffalo feed their calves, then 

sit down in an open gazebo to enjoy a tasting platter filled with 

various types of buffalo cheese as well as ice cream, all freshly 

produced at the farm. (Buffalo meat features heavily in Luang 

Prabang cooking, often candied, made into sausages, served in 

stews, or used raw in laap.) 

Down by the riverside at sunset is the perfect place to discover 

why Lao people love their national beer, Beerlao, with the 

accompaniment of khaipen (fried river weed) and jeow bong, a 

chilli paste which is most often dotted with Lao sausages among 

other ingredients. These things “simmer under the radar” as Bee 

Satongun puts it. It’s time they were put on the culinary map. 

previous page: A dish at Paste Lao Food 

opposite page from left to right, first row: The Great House, Rosewood; 

classic twin-layered coconut; almsgiving 

second row: A farm-to-table dish at The Great House; arts and crafts in 

Laos; sticky rice steaming 

third row: Cooking up sticky rice; The Great House; crunchy rice balls 

fourth row: Watermelon and ground serpenthead fish at Paste Lao Food; 

Bee Satongun; Rosewood Luang Prabang's culinary director Sebastien Rubis 


For more information, or to arrange your next tailor-made 

holiday to Luang Prabang to celebrate the town’s hot culinary 

scene – including exclusive experiences with chef Bee Satongun – 

call our Asia travel specialists on 01242 547 704. 


LAOS 



LUXURY EXPEDITION CRUISING 

Taking it slow 

HOLIDAYS SHOULD BE ABOUT MORE THAN JUST TICKING OFF THE TOP 10 

PLACES IN THE GUIDEBOOK AND MOVING ON. PENELOPE RANCE TAKES 

TIME TO DISCOVER THE BENEFITS OF SLOW TRAVEL, FALLING IN WITH THE 

RHYTHM OF WIND AND TIDE, AND LETTING THE OCEAN SET THE PACE 

Holidays are supposed to be a chance to relax, de-stress, 

and do the things we love – but how many of us 

treat them as an opportunity to cram a year’s worth 

of experiences into two weeks, jetting from destination to 

destination, and creating crammed itineraries of guidebook 

must-sees rather than meaningful moments? In reaction to this, 

the slow travel movement has arisen: the antithesis of non-stop 

tourism, it espouses a more considered, in-depth experience. 

I have been guilty of leapfrog travel, hopping over continents 

by plane to arrive in exotic destinations, where I try to see it all, 

and stay constantly active – snowboarding, mountain climbing, 

kung fu training on a remote Chinese mountain top – lest any of 

my precious holiday be wasted. 

But slow travel dictates a different pace, and an ambition to 

dig below the skin of each place and culture visited. I found my 

compromise when I decided to sail around the world aboard a 

70-foot yacht: an active adventure that would also include long 

periods of reflection; when the timetable was dictated by wind 

and weather, not flight plans; and where I could remember what 

it was like to just be me. Given that the entire trip took almost a 

year, it was certainly a prolonged progress. 

The trend for slow travel has been driven in part by 

millennials looking for transformational experiences beyond 

the norm, but is just as relevant for harassed executives in need 

of an escape from the rat race. “Slow travel is a mindset, not a 

process,” says Ross Pakes, director of product at A&K. “To enjoy 

slow travel successfully you must invest in slowing down. This 

may be hard in our time-poor modern world, but it is worth it.” 

Eschewing aeroplanes is a founding principle of the slow 

travel movement, making boats – particularly those under sail 

– the perfect vehicles. Time and tide may wait for no man, but 

equally, they won’t be rushed. Yachts have departure dates, but 

arrival times are dependent on nature’s whim. On my journey, 

crossing the Atlantic took four weeks from La Rochelle in 

France to Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro – but just nine days from Cape 

Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to Kinsale in Ireland. 

The thrill of arriving at each new port, anticipation building 

as dry land came gradually closer, was slow travel in its purest 

form. I made landfall in more than 20 places during my voyage, 

and in each one found a different culture, people delighted to 

open their hearts and homes, and landscapes as breath-taking 

as they were varied. After days and weeks at sea, each new place 

seemed more vibrant, intoxicating and, frankly, pungent, than I 

ever anticipated. 

And that’s the beauty of slow travel – you get to see beneath 

the surface of a place, and come to appreciate it in a way that is 

impossible to achieve through non-stop tourism. “When you 

take your time, you are able to make connections with people 

and places, both with your own groups and with the people you 

meet along the way,” believes Pakes. “You will experience a far 

deeper understanding of a region or town if you spend time 

getting to know it.” 

If you’re seduced by the prospect of an ocean-going slow 

travel experience, but don’t have the time or freedom to 

circumnavigate the globe under sail, then the Grand Arctic 

Voyage offers an unforgettable immersion into a unique 

landscape – a bucket-list destination to top all others. 

Combining three of A&K’s Luxury Expedition Cruises – 

Arctic Cruise Adventure: In Search of the Polar Bear; Ultimate 

Iceland & Greenland Cruise; and The Northwest Passage: From 



LUXURY EXPEDITION CRUISING 

SLOW TRAVEL IS A MINDSET, NOT A PROCESS,” SAYS ROSS PAKES, 

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT AT A&K. “TO ENJOY SLOW TRAVEL SUCCESSFULLY 

YOU MUST INVEST IN SLOWING DOWN. THIS MAY BE HARD IN OUR 

TIME-POOR MODERN WORLD, BUT IT IS WORTH IT 

Greenland to the Bering Sea – it takes 48 days to sweep across 

the top of the world and crosses five Arctic regions along the way. 

This one-of-a-kind voyage gives you the opportunity to follow 

in the wake of the Vikings as you journey to the wild Svalbard 

archipelago and rarely visited coastlines of Greenland, stopping 

off in Scoresby Sound. You will have the opportunity to see 

polar bear in their native habitat, then journey on to Iceland, 

where the snow gives way to fiery volcanoes, steaming geysers, 

and hot springs. Landfalls at Húsavík, Grundarfjörður, and 

Reykjavík allow you to see the different faces of the country, 

from the northern wilderness to its unique capital. 

On the second phase of this incredible Arctic-crossing, you 

will have time to explore the Westman Islands and the western 

fjords before leaving the Land of Ice and Fire to cross back to 

Greenland. Here you can marvel at giant glaciers, meet the 

people of its remote villages, and learn about its past at frozen 

archaeological sites. The stunning southern coast is yours to 

explore, with stop-offs in Qaqortoq, Narsaq, and Nuuk. 

The last 20 days at sea are spent navigating the Northwest 

Passage, that legendary route from east to west that frustrated so 

many Arctic explorers until Roald Amundsen took three years 

to pick his way through between 1903 and 1906. You don’t need 

to travel quite that slowly as you traverse from the Uummannaq 

Fjord to Ulukhaktok in Canada. Along the way, the Inuit people 

of Nunavut welcome you, and share traditional customs and 

crafts. Then you’ll explore the unique geology of the ‘Smoking 

Hills’ in Franklin Bay before passing back into the Arctic Circle 

on your way to Herschel Island, Point Barrow, and Nome. 

The Grand Arctic Voyage combines the best of slow travel, 

getting to the heart of the region while experiencing the finest in 

luxury travel aboard exclusively chartered mega-yacht Le Boreal. 

This extended cruise gives you an opportunity to rediscover 

who you are, forge new friendships, and spend quality time with 

those you love. “Slow travel allows you time to reconnect with 

your family, partner, or children, away from the stresses of day 

to day life,” Pakes points out. “It’s about making time to slow 

down and consider self-improvement, beyond just seeing the 

sights and moving on.” 

Undeniably the way to view the far north in style, the 2020 

Great Arctic Voyage could also be one of the last chances to see 

these lands of ice and snow before they are irrevocably changed 

by human influence. So slow down, tune in, and get immersed. 

previous page, clockwise from top left: Ilulissat Icefjord off the 

coast of Greenland; sea and sky in the Arctic Circle; Lindenow Fjord in 

Greenland; polar bear on the ice opposite page, clockwise from top left: 

Ulukhaktok culture; Arctic hiking; polar bear walking on sea ice; Le Boreal; 

a Zodiac trip this page: Ittoqqortoormiit village in Greenland 


A&K’s 48-day Grand Arctic Voyage is a combination of 

three Arctic Voyages, which can also be booked individually. 

It starts at £51,285 if booked early and sails from 31 July 

to 16 September 2020. For more information, or to receive 

a full list of everything that is included on a Luxury 

Expedition Cruise, call our specialists on 01242 547 881. 



Peru 

FIVE WAYS 

Lima, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu are Peru at its most iconic. Their myriad attractions include 

a vibrant culture, a heritage of Incan ruins, a rich ethnic diversity, world-renowned food scene, and 

gorgeous guesthouses, along with exceptional artisan-made goods. But it’s the legacy of the country’s 

complex history and its welcoming spirit that linger, discovers first-time visitor, A&K’s Faye Hoskins 

1 

FOR ESCAPISTS 

Moray and Maras are often referred to as Peru’s hidden gems. 

The beautiful circular Inca terraces of Moray are located 3,500 

metres above sea level and off the tourist trail. Built from stone 

and in immaculate condition, Moray was believed to have been an 

experimentation space in which Incas could test various crops at 

different levels (each layer has its own microclimate). Alternative 

theories suggest it was the site of a water temple. Whatever 

happened in this amphitheatre-like site, spend time walking 

around the huge earthen bowl before moving onto Maras. On 

a hillside, near the town of Maras, are thousands of pre-Incan 

salt pools (pictured left, each now owned by local families), 

from which Peru’s famous pink salt is harvested. This trek yields 

spectacular rewards in terms of views, Instagram opportunities, 

and encounters with locals – not to mention salty snacks. 

2 

A&K EXPERIENCE: Explore Chinchero, Maras and Moray 

FOR FOODIES 

Peru’s capital, Lima, is South America’s culinary capital. Lima’s 

food scene is diverse – the result of Incan heritage, Spanish 

influence, and Japanese immigration – but the cuisine produced 

is always big on flavour and driven by sustainability. Three of the 

city’s eateries – Central, Maido, and Astrid y Gaston – regularly 

appear in the world’s best restaurant lists. Most foodies have a 

love affair with Peru’s national dish, ceviche – raw fish marinated 

in citrus and salt – and its typical accompaniment, pisco sour 

cocktails (pisco with lime juice, simple syrup, egg white, and 

angostura bitters). While in Lima, travellers can learn how to 

prepare ceviche and pisco sours with Peruvian chef Penélope 

Alzamora – who has worked with Gastón Acurio of Astrid y 

Gaston fame – in her elegant kitchen in Barranco. 

3 

A&K EXPERIENCE: Learn how to make ceviche 

FOR PEACE SEEKERS 

Rural, remote, and among ruined Inca terraces, explora Valle 

Sagrado is set in Peru’s Sacred Valley, en route to Machu Picchu. 

The sultry natural scent of wood seduces travellers upon entrance 

to the Scandi-chic accommodation. It brings to mind the cosiest 

of ski lodges with its roaring fires and butterfly chairs. The hotel’s 

spa – now called the Pumacahua Bath House – was once a 17thcentury 

manor house, owned by a local freedom-fighting hero, 

and will have you unlacing your hiking boots for a while. But at 

this explora, which is located at 2,900 metres above sea level, it’s all 

about the views and surrounding valleys. On duty, there are more 

than 20 guides who lead expeditions into the wilderness, guarantee 

captivating treks into the landscape, and facilitate opportunities to 

engage with local people and their customs. 

4 

FOR PEOPLE-WATCHERS 

A peaceful place once the Machu Picchu-bound tourists on the Inca 

Trail have passed through each morning, the town of Ollantaytambo 

is full of vibrant textiles and friendly locals. It’s the best surviving 

example of Inca city planning and has been inhabited since the 13th 

century. The narrow cobblestone streets are framed by irrigation 

channels, which carry water from mountaintop to town, and quaint 

buildings. Locals welcome travellers into their homes, where women 

weave naturally dyed colourful cloth made from llama and alpaca 

wool. Although it’s mesmerising to watch the weavers at work, the 

town’s ruins are also must-sees: there’s a large Inca fortress, a temple, 

and a towering edifice known as the Wall of the Six Monoliths. 

5 

FOR MODERN-DAY HIRAM BINGHAMS 

No trip to Peru would be complete without a visit to the UNESCO 

World Heritage Site of Machu Picchu. For a rolling journey that 

nearly outshines arrival at the royal Incan retreat, travel in style 

aboard the Belmond Hiram Bingham rail service. However, the 

more adventurous can trek the Inca Trail to get to Machu Picchu, 

traversing the countryside, enjoying the wild Andean view, cut-stone 

ruins, and herds of curious llama. Shrouded by mist, flanked by 

foliage, and perched above the Urubamba River in a narrow saddle 

between two peaks, Machu Picchu has been on most travellers’ wish 

lists since the moment Yale-sponsored explorer Bingham stumbled 

upon it in 1911. Visits are enlivened by knowledgeable guides, who’ll 

take you off the very beaten track to discover the best photo-spots. 


For more information on suggested itineraries, Travel Edits 

or Experiences in Peru, or to book an Andean adventure, 

contact our Latin American travel specialists on 01242 547 701. 


A JOURNEY 

WITH A PAST 

IN THE NAME OF THE (GRAND)FATHER: A&K PRODUCT MANAGER PHILIPPA TURNER AND 

DAD FOLLOW A FAMILY TRADITION ABOARD ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST ICONIC TRAINS 

I can’t believe it,” my father had repeated, filled with emotion. 

I’d just told him to cancel any plans, as we were going on a 

journey aboard Belmond’s luxurious Venice Simplon-Orient- 

Express – a journey in honour of Grandad. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, my grandfather would regularly cross the 

Channel and ride the original Orient Express service from Calais 

Maritime to Venice. A carpenter by trade, he was passionate about both 

trains and Italy, and he’d regale my father with tales of his trips and the 

colourful characters he’d encounter along the way, making him long to 

follow in Grandad’s footsteps. So, what better present for my father’s 65th 

birthday than two tickets to do just that? 

While the route we were following was inspired by my grandfather’s, 

the train service we were taking was slightly different. The direct 

descendants of the original Orient Express service, established by 

Compagnie Internationale des Wagons- 

Lits, have all ceased to run. However, 

the spirit of this pioneer of luxury trains 

lives on in the Venice Simplon-Orient- 

Express, and this was our chance to 

mingle among its privileged passengers. 

Our journey began in March, when my 

father and I flew from Bristol Airport to 

Venice, swapping cold drizzle for brilliant 

sunshine. We had a day to enjoy the city 

of canals ahead of catching the train, so 

we sped off on a vaporetto (water bus) 

to St Mark’s Square. The lagoon was 

surprisingly busy for the time of year; the hustle and bustle of gondoliers 

plying their trade and tourists admiring the views gave us an authentic 

Venetian experience. We spent the rest of the afternoon meandering the 

waterways, sipping on cioccolato calda (Italian-style hot chocolate), and 

devouring gelato, excitedly anticipating what was to come. 

The next morning, the doors to our beautiful hotel in central Venice 

opened onto a small canal where our real journey began. Belmond had 

arranged a classic water taxi to take us to Santa Lucia station in style. 

We weaved from canal to canal, admiring the vivid colours of the houses 

reflected in the water, before docking station-side and being relieved of 

our luggage by staff. The resplendent Venice Simplon-Orient-Express 

awaited, and my dad was giddy with excitement. 

Dressed in our best and feeling like aristocracy, we were guided by 

staff in equally elegant attire to our train carriage, number 3525 – one of 

the iconic blue and gold Wagons-Lits kind. In 1977, founder of Belmond 

James B Sherwood bought two of these vintage carriages at an auction 

in Monte Carlo. They were the first of many, each sourced from a classic 

train and carefully restored to their former glory to become part of the 

Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. By 1982, the service was ready to ferry 

passengers across Europe in ultimate luxury. 

Before settling in, my father and I were invited to see the new on-board 

Grand Suites with double beds. These handsome, spacious en-suite cabins 

DRESSED IN OUR BEST AND 

FEELING LIKE ARISTOCRACY, WE 

WERE GUIDED BY STAFF IN EQUALLY 

ELEGANT ATTIRE TO OUR TRAIN 

CARRIAGE – ONE OF THE ICONIC 

BLUE AND GOLD WAGONS-LITS 

match the original coaching stock and are simply stunning. Our own 

cabin offered an equally royal welcome: a basin and mirror adorned 

with luxurious amenities including gold leaf creams, and Venice 

Simplon-Orient-Express branded slippers and robe. Nestled in the 

corner was a bottle of Taittinger Champagne; dad’s favourite, and a 

taste of things to come. 

The train made a start, with two FS electric locomotives hauling 16 

coaches of excited guests. Off through Italy we travelled, then through 

Austria before heading overnight through Switzerland and into France. 

Magnetically drawn to the view from our window, we admired all that 

Europe has to offer from the comfort of our cabin. Valleys, peaks, lakes, 

and pastures swept by as we twisted westward across the continent. 

Meals were taken in three distinct dining carriages featuring individual 

seating, vintage décor, and an intimate atmosphere. We quaffed more 

Champagne and tucked into superb 

lobster, duck, and more. The seasonal 

menu was exceptional, as was the service; 

the head chef even came by to check 

everything was to our satisfaction (it 

was). In addition to our divine meals 

in the dining carriages, we were served 

afternoon tea in the privacy of our own 

carriage. Sipping tea and nibbling on 

dainty, exquisite savoury treats while 

the world rolled by before us: it was an 

unmitigated delight. 

That evening, done up in suit and 

glittery frock, my father and I glided to the bar to enjoy the live piano 

music and merriment of the other guests. The atmosphere was electric; 

people were singing, laughing, and mingling in this attractive 1920s-style 

carriage – all dressed to impress. It offered a delightful contrast to the 

quiet and intimacy of the dining carriage, and there was an intoxicating 

sense of communal revelry. We were sat opposite a charming couple and 

enjoyed a magical evening exchanging stories of travels across the world. 

When we returned to our cabin, it had been elegantly transformed into 

a bedroom. In surprising comfort, and with the gentle movement of the 

train rocking us to sleep, we drifted off. 

Our wonderful journey was over all too soon. The following day, 

we arrived at Calais Ville for our coach ride back across the Channel. 

We spent the return trip gushing with praise about the Venice Simplon- 

Orient-Express, feeling lucky we’d had the opportunity to recreate my 

late grandfather’s cross-continent jaunts. Now it was our turn to regale 

family and friends with tales of our travels. 


A&K offers one night at Venice’s Hotel Palace Bonvecchiati and 

two nights aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express from £3,200 

per person (based on two sharing), including flights. For more 

information, call a Europe travel specialist on 01242 547 703. 




SAINT LUCIA 

PRISTINE BEACHES AND EXHILARATING 

VIEWS, SAINT LUCIA LIVES UP TO ALL 

THE PARADISIACAL HYPE. IT OFFERS 

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, BUT 

STILL SERVES UP SOME DELIGHTFUL 

SURPRISES, SAYS NIGEL TISDALL 

Out of the blue 

Sporting a large black Stetson, and backed by his Family 

Band, LM Stone is singing about the tribulations of being 

“a rhinestone cowboy, riding out on a horse in a starspangled 

rodeo”. It’s a fine and much-covered song made famous 

by Glen Campbell, but why is it being received with relish amid 

the volcanic peaks and rampant rainforest of Saint Lucia? 

The surprising answer is that, in a region where reggae, 

soca, and calypso rule, many Saint Lucians love country and 

western music. This is a legacy from when the United States set 

up military bases here in the 1940s, and LM Stone is one of the 

island’s top local acts. He performs regularly with his sons and 

daughter at the luxurious beachside Anse Chastanet Resort near 

Soufrière. “Whenever we hold a staff party,” a manager tells me, 

“we always have to have a country DJ.” 

This charismatic Caribbean island may be renowned for its 

fly-and-flop holidays delivering sun, sea, and scenery, but it’s 

also a place rich with wonders, both man-made and natural. 

Next door to Anse Chastanet rises Jade Mountain, a strikingly 

designed adults-only resort that is a triumph of architectural 

rule-breaking. The 49-room property has barely a right angle 

in it, while each super-romantic ‘sanctuary’ is reached by a 

private suspended walkway. Inside there is no fourth wall so 

guests can drink in the views of ocean and mountain, and 

instead of a television there’s a glorious infinity pool or double 

whirlpool bath. 

A few kilometres south of Soufrière you can visit the world’s 

only ‘drive-in volcano’, a crater with steaming sulphur springs 

and scorched rocks that looks like the set for some post- 

Armageddon movie. By contrast, the green forested hills nearby 

are alive with birds, flora, and tropical fruit. The well-known 

brand Hotel Chocolat grows its organic cocoa beans here on 

the Rabot Estate, which has a terrific restaurant called Boucan 

that uses the product in innovative ways, such as a marinade for 

scallops, and in a dark chocolate gravy for beef fillet. Meanwhile, 

down on the coast marine reserves protect some of the finest 

coral reefs in the Caribbean – book into Anse Chastanet in 

August and divers and snorkellers can witness the mysterious 

‘spawning’, when the sea here is turned yellow and pink by 

millions of coral larvae. 

Much of this fascinating area, which lies on the island’s west 

coast and is just an hour’s drive from the airport, is conserved 

in a World Heritage Site dominated by the Pitons, Saint Lucia’s 

iconic twin volcanic peaks that rise up like a pair of shark’s fins. 

As UNESCO puts it, somewhat prosaically, “the combination 

of the Pitons against the backdrop of unspoilt lush and diverse 

natural tropical vegetation and a varying topography in a 

coastal setting gives the property its stunning natural beauty”. 

In other words, this landscape is a world-class cracker that 

can be appreciated from a cluster of top-class resorts – with the 

views from the meticulously sited Jade Mountain arguably 

the most breath-taking. 


For a different, but equally memorable perspective on these 

mighty pinnacles, you can climb to the 798-metre summit 

of Gros Piton. This takes around four hours return and the 

surprise here is not that it presents a serious challenge following 

a steep and muddy trail, but what fun the uniformed rangers 

who act as guides and ensurers of safety are. It is mandatory to 

be accompanied by one, and many are spirited women from 

the nearby village of Fond Gens Libre. When I make this ascent 

with a bunch of friends, we’re assigned Kaurene, who looks like 

she’s taking an afternoon stroll while we pant and sweat and 

curse in the morning heat. “Around a fifth of climbers never 

make it to the top,” she confides, but if the weather’s good, as it 

is for us, the reward for your struggles is incredible views and a 

fine sense of achievement. 

After all that, I deserve a drink – a local Piton beer, obviously. 

A fitting place to try this is Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort, 

which enjoys a billion-dollar seafront location right between the 

Pitons. Guests staying here can bob in the warm turquoise water 

beside its neatly brushed white sands, casually looking up and 

thinking, “Did I really climb that? Just how stupid am I?” 

There’s nothing daft about staying here, though. At the 

96-room Sugar Beach all the white wooden cottages come 

with a four-poster bed, private plunge pool and butler service, 

plus there’s a high-class restaurant and a rainforest spa where 

treatments using local fruits and herbs are administered in 

tranquil treehouse cabanas. It’s easy to see why this muchlauded 

resort is a magnet for honeymooners, celebrities, and 

travellers with something to celebrate. Yet even here you find the 

unexpected – in this case a vibrant art collection that regularly 

waylays me on the journey to breakfast in the Great House. 

The idea of developing a beach escape in this magical place, 

formerly a copra plantation, came from Colin Tennant, the 

flamboyant Scottish aristocrat who created the posh playground 

of Mustique then moved on to Saint Lucia in the 1980s. He 

opened a restaurant here called Bang Between the Pitons 

because that’s exactly where it sat, which is now the site of 

some fabulous Sugar Beach residences with as many as four 

bedrooms. The story of this showman’s time on both islands is 

revealed in entertaining detail in Nicholas Courtney’s biography, 

Lord of the Isle, which is perfect reading while you laze on a 

convenient sunlounger. 

Tennant built himself a fantasy Indian house in the shadow 

of the Pitons, the ruins of which can still be seen, and livened 

things up for the residents of Soufrière no end by importing a 

seven-year-old female elephant called Bupa, acquired from a 

Dublin zoo. She was given a pig for a companion and took pride 

of place in the Saint Lucia carnival – the story goes that Tennant 

was passing a BUPA hospital when he decided on the name. 

After Bupa died there was talk of replacing her with a pair of 

elephants, but this was quashed by the authorities who feared 

they could breed and overrun the island. Had that happened, 

Saint Lucia might now be a very different place – but on this 

enchanting island of surprises, you just can’t rule anything out. 

previous page: Marigot Bay 

this page, clockwise from top: Views from Jade Mountain; the beach 

restaurant at Anse Chastanet Resort; the Grand Luxury Villa at Sugar Beach; 

cacao beans in the Caribbean destination for chocolate lovers 


For more information, or to book your next holiday to Saint Lucia, 

call our Caribbean travel specialists on 01242 547 780. 


ADVERTISEMENT 

SAINT LUCIA 

One destination, limitless inspiration 

Saint Lucia offers so much – from 

the dreamiest array of luxury 

accommodation, to an abundance 

of amazing experiences and adventures in 

the great outdoors. 

On this Caribbean island, your senses 

will be filled with the sound of steel drums, 

the sight of miles of perfect sandy beaches 

and the taste of Creole cuisine – and all with 

a backdrop of towering green mountains 

covered in lush tropical forest. 

Celebrate the Caribbean on an island 

that joyfully blends its own culture with 

both French and English heritage. You don't 

have to wait until July’s annual carnival, as 

every week there are events to awaken your 

soul to the rhythms of Caribbean calypso. 

The Friday Night Street Party at Gros 

Islet has become a hotspot for Saint Lucia 

holidaymakers and locals alike, while Anse 

La Raye Seafood Fridays are the perfect 

opportunity for tasting fresh, delicious local 

fish dishes. 

Saint Lucia boasts so much more than 

just sun, sea, and sand. Fans of water sports 

will love the wonderful diving, snorkelling, 

deep-sea fishing, and sailing. Nature lovers 

won’t want to miss a trip to the Caribbean’s 

only ‘drive-in’ volcano, La Soufrière, or 

the opportunity to take a mud bath in the 

Sulphur Springs. The National Rainforest 

Reserve, which has more than 7,500 hectares 

of paradise, is ideal for birdwatchers, hikers, 

and nature lovers to explore. 

As well as enjoying activities such as 

rainforest aerial tram rides, private sailing 

lessons, and Creole cooking classes, be sure 

to tick off the following experiences: 

• Soaking up local atmosphere on a foodie 

or historical walking tour of Castries. 

• Swooping over the Piton Mountain 

peaks on a helicopter tour, or painting 

the peaks during a private lesson with 

a local artist. 

• Snapping the island’s verdant rainforests, 

idyllic bays and palm-fringed beaches 

during a private photography tour. 

• Savouring a sweet Bean-to-Bar 

experience at Hotel Chocolat. 

Visit abercrombiekent.co.uk or call 01242 547 780

EMPOWERING 

TRAVEL 

For close to four decades, AKP has been passionately 

supporting a wide range of philanthropic projects around 

the world. It’s all part of our commitment to ensuring luxury 

tourism gives something back to the destinations we love. 

Here is a glimpse of what we’ve been up to recently 

SISHEMO BEAD STUDIO, ZAMBIA 

In July 2019, we opened the Sishemo Bead Studio – a project to economically 

empower women in Nakatindi Village, Zambia. Eight local candidates were 

chosen based on their potential and level of need. Each was then trained in 

African beadmaking, learning how to use recycled glass bottles and a kiln to 

produce beads in unique colours and shapes. Using these handmade beads, 

they make necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other hand-crafted products. 

A&K clients have the chance to visit the studio, where these skilled artisans 

can teach you how to make beads and bracelets yourself. 

RAPTOR REFUGE, AUSTRALIA 

There is more to Tasmania’s wildlife than the iconic devil. This rugged island 

is also a breeding ground for myriad bird species, including raptors such 

as the wedge-tailed eagle. Unfortunately, human encroachment on wildlife 

habitats is posing a threat to these beautiful birds, so we’re working with 

conservationist Craig Webb to reverse the trend. Webb helms the Raptor 

Refuge in Hobart, the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. He 

and his team offer vital protection and rehabilitation to Tasmanian raptors. 

AKP has helped fund the construction of a new, larger aviary at the centre, 

allowing more birds to be brought back from the brink. 

WAITING MOTHERS’ HOSTEL, UGANDA 

The high risk of health complications can often overshadow the 

excitement of expectant mothers in developing countries. Many must 

travel for hours or even days to reach the nearest properly equipped 

medical facility. That’s why we established the Waiting Mothers’ Hostel 

near the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Lying adjacent to a community 

hospital, this facility allows pregnant women from across the region to 

stay in a safe place until they give birth. Due to high demand, we are 

now expanding the hostel to accommodate more expectant mothers and 

midwives, while ensuring standards of comfort and care are maintained. 

GJØA HAVEN ARTS WORKSHOP, CANADA 

Musician Mike Stevens was so struck by the plight of Inuit children when 

he visited the Arctic region of Canada in 2000, he helped establish the 

charity ArtsCan. Through AKP-supported workshops, Stevens and his 

team bring musical instruments and art supplies to these communities 

and teach at-risk youth how to express themselves. Recently, ArtsCan 

visited Gjøa Haven in Nunavut, working together with a local school to 

deliver a series of creative workshops for Inuit pupils. At the end of the 

programme, the participants came together to perform in front of their 

fellow students. Our clients are welcome to join one of our sponsored 

workshops during a visit to this remote region. 

CONTACT AKP 

To find out more about our far-reaching philanthropic projects, 

visit akphilanthropy.org. 


MORE THAN 

MACHU PICCHU 

Going off-piste in Peru can be hugely rewarding. 

While many flock to the legendary citadel and to hike the Inca 

Trail, there are myriad alternatives that rival the country’s 

most visited sites and well-trodden paths, including Arequipa, 

the Colca Canyon, Huchuy Qosqo, Choquequirao, Lake 

Titicaca, the Salkantay trek, and the Ancascocha route 

01242 547 701 

abercrombiekent.co.uk/peru

REACH PACIFIC HEIGHTS 

Santa Monica is Los Angeles’ beach city, a charming seaside 

town with all the cultural attractions and amenities of a 

bustling metropolis. With A&K, you can enjoy its natural 

beauty, award-winning dining, beachfront shopping, and 

luxury hotels – all in ultimate style. Welcome to one of 

California’s most iconic coastal destinations 

01242 547 717 

abercrombiekent.co.uk/santa-monica

abercrombiekent.co.uk/mexico 

01242 547 701 

In Los Cabos, a different side of Mexico welcomes you warmly, 

and every experience is tailored to you. 

WHERE THE DESERT MEETS THE SEA

SOUTH AFRICA: 

A VOYAGE 

OF DISCOVERY 

Culture. Nature. Adventure. 

You’ll find it all in South Africa. We can 

take you direct to Cape Town, Durban 

or Johannesburg from London Heathrow 

Find out more at 

abercrombiekent.co.uk/south-africa 

or call us on 01242 547 760

Sundowner Magazine: Spring/Summer 2020

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?