Where the cool things are
Halcyon House reinvents Aussie coastal chic
It has been five years since Mr and Mrs Amos checked into Halcyon House, the reinvented motel in a quiet Australian east coast village which became a style setter the moment it opened its doors in 2015. We’re pleased to report that the Halcyon Days continue.
Continue ReadingSanta Maria Novella Relaxing Water
We can’t abide a long-haul flight without a little bottle of mist to freshen up between movies. Historic Florence-based apothecary Santa Maria Novella (you should know the beautiful shop near the church) makes one of the most refreshing spray waters, from distilled witch-hazel, chamomile, cornflower and peppermint. $50 for 50ml.
Continue ReadingJuly Checked Suitcase
Mrs Amos has been a slow converter to clamshell suitcases but she has become very attached to her midsize suitcase from Australian-designed July brand. It’s tough, lightweight, smooth to roll, with clever internal compartments that help consolidate a lot of clothes into a compact space. The smaller carry-on comes with a removable battery charger. Checked […]
Continue ReadingSisley Phyto-Blanc Le Concentrate
This new brightening and unifying serum from Sisley has intense properties but it’s deceptively light to use. We haven’t been on a plane for a few months, but trialing it at home, it has definitely enhanced the radiance of housebound skin. As soon as we travel, it’s going in the kit, especially on long-haul flights when […]
Continue ReadingSENSORI + Air Detoxifying Aromatic Mist
These brilliant purifying mists are based on an all natural plant extracted compound, ClorosPURE, that eradicates air toxins and neutralises bad odours on a molecular level. Wonderful for less-than-fresh compartments of trains, planes and hotel rooms. Four signature fragrances plus unscented. Mrs Amos won’t leave home without the 30ml travel size. $29. Sensori+
Continue ReadingSailing the Med in style.
Is Satori the world's most beautiful yacht?
Forget those ugly mega-yachts, if you can afford to splurge on a Mediterranean charter with style, the handcrafted schooner Satori is so elegant, it’s like the Orient Express on water.
Continue ReadingEating around Porto
It's not just about the wine.
Porto is having a moment as one of Europe’s coolest cities. From its lovely ceramic-covered buildings to the venerable port lodges that lie along the glorious Douro River that bisects it, this hilly, moody city, from which the fortified wine takes its name, is startlingly beautiful and culturally rich. It’s Portugal’s second largest, but its […]
Continue ReadingCastle in the Woods
A medieval Tuscan village is turned into a picture perfect hotel.
There are few country hotels that are as perfect as this former hunting estate of Italian kings. And that’s before we consider those prized vineyards and that luscious Brunello.
Continue ReadingIreland’s Rockstar Beauty
Lose yourself in The Burren's award-winning food trail
We don’t use the word ‘stunning’ lightly, but The Burren, or ‘great rock’, in County Clare is one of Ireland’s most stunning landscapes. It’s also a culinary destination that has been, until recent times, the world’s best kept secret. Now a burgeoning food scene, focussed on high quality organic produce and sustainable farming practices, has sprung up throughout the villages that lie within the UNESCO-listed region.
Continue ReadingSicily is so hot right now.
Ten unmissable places to visit.
Beautiful, sensual Sicily is separated from the Italian mainland by the narrow Strait of Messina, but it feels wilder, more remote, off the beaten track. Touched by three seas, blessed with gorgeous, diverse vistas, from rugged coastlines, crumbling castles and magnificent Greek ruins to rolling agricultural land, citrus groves and vineyards, and beautiful seascapes where small volcanic islands glow with lava in the middle of an azure sea, it’s an island that leaves few unmoved. We are utterly smitten…
Continue ReadingLisbon Awakes
What you need to know about Europe's soulful city.
Romantic, cultured and inexpensive, the Portuguese capital is the European city of the moment. Lisbon’s charm lies in its genteel shabbiness and it’s still surprisingly modest and unaffected by all the attention. Even so, much of the city is being restored and gentrified. Don’t delay!
Continue ReadingThe Where To Stay List
Fifteen hotels that wowed us.
We’ve unpacked our suitcases for another year. Before we head off again, we’ve had time to reflect on our favourite hotels of the year, all of which we hope to visit again…and again. From the magnificent Ritz in Paris, which reopened after a superb restoration and update, to the dazzling, contemporary, cliff-hanging Memmo Alfama in Lisbon, we’ve laid out weary heads in some glorious places. These are our favourites…
Continue ReadingShanghai Seduction
24 hours in China's sexiest city
The locals say Shanghai is a beautiful, fickle temptress who will surprise you at every turn. From dawn until dark, we pack as many of her delights as we can into one day.
Continue ReadingSnowed Inn
Near the Japanese ski village of Niseko, a ryokan for all seasons
We have rarely stayed anywhere as beautiful and soul-enriching as this modern ryokan in the deep forest in Japan, where cherished traditions meld with state of the art accommodation. And let’s talk about those amazing private onsen baths….
Continue ReadingTri Change
It's all about mind-body at Sri Lanka's premier eco resort
This tranquil new boutique resort on Lake Koggala sits in a cinnamon plantation and offers many restorative pleasures, and some kick-ass yoga from owner Lara Baumann, the creator of Quantum Yoga. We didn’t want to leave…
Continue ReadingKeeping the Castle
Ashford Castle's ravishing makeover.
Restoring and revamping an 82-guestroom Irish castle hotel takes buckets of money and more than a little courage. How wonderful, then, that the Tollman family of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection had the wherewithal and commitment to give this much-loved but run-down dowager a sumptuous, sexy makeover.
Continue ReadingGold, Frankincense and Myrrh
Shopping for Christmas treasures in Oman
The mesmerising souks of Muscat and Salalah in Oman are treasure troves of the fragrant resins, frankincense and myrrh, and gold can better value there than Dubai. At Christmas time, what better place to do a little (or a lot of) shopping for the storied gifts of the Magi? In honour of the gift-giving season, we track down the frankincense to its source and find out about its magical properties. (Did you know you can eat it?) Two not-so-wise people on the trail of the Three Wise Men…
Continue ReadingBlissed-out beach break
Surfing the nostalgia wave at Halcyon House
Australia’s beautiful and breezy Halcyon House is tucked away on a less well-known part of the lauded NSW coast, a nostalgic conversion of a 1960s motel – a place where memories of blissful and uncomplicated childhood holidays flood back. Mr Amos goes surfing with former World Champion Joel Parkinson, while Mrs Amos works hard at perfecting lazing around.
Continue ReadingVenice’s Villa Fantasy
Eleven apartments, a 3 acre garden, 60,000 euro a night.
How does it feel to have an eleven apartment, €60,000-euro a night villa in Venice all to yourself for three nights? We simply had to find out!
Continue ReadingVisiting the Queen of Sheba
A guide to Oman's exquisite, remote south
Venture beyond Oman’s capital, Muscat, to a storied land that defies expectations, where the Queen of Sheba once ruled and the landscape varies from rocky desert to hundreds of miles of deserted beaches and hills so lush they might be in Ireland. Salalah, the land of Frankincense, is safe, friendly, and so gorgeous it’s heart-stopping. And there are camels. Thousands of them.
Continue ReadingHow to Cruise in Style
Why we love small ships
There’s a ship for every kind of voyager these days. There are rowdy cruises for singles who want to spend their entire holiday in a sexy clinch with a stranger and cruises catering to well-read people who are interested in lectures about ancient Mycean civilisation. There are cruises for families, gays, French-speaking people and adventurers. If you like to travel with 4000 other likeminded citizens, there are cruises for you. But we advise you take a deep breath before you take a bath. Small ships are the way to go.
Continue ReadingAesop Protective Body Lotion
Why do sun lotions have to smell so bad? This one doesn’t. It has a heavenly minty fragrance and is chock full of skin-nourishing Vitamin E. Four hours water resistance and effective broad spectrum protection from UVA and UVB rays. Summer is sorted. $45AUD
Continue ReadingThe Sexiest Hotel in the World?
20 shades of white on the Amalfi Coast.
What makes Casa Angelina sexy? For starters, there’s the jaw-dropping view of the Mediterranean coast, all the way to Capri. And then there’s the sense of being cosseted in an intimate, all-white eyrie. Fifty shades of grey? We prefer twenty shades of white.
Continue ReadingPlaying Cowgirl in Texas
There's more to Fort Worth than rodeos.
The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas is nirvana for wannabe cowgirls. Mrs Amos visits this surprisingly vibrant city and goes in search of cowgirls, old-worldy and modern. Yee Haw!
Continue ReadingThe Shoemaker’s Hotel
Salvatore Ferragamo's legacy is in good hands in Florence
Salvatore Ferragamo liked to call himself, humbly, a ‘shoemaker.’ And yet he was undoubtedly the most innovative shoe designer the world has known, inventing such classics as the cork wedge-heeled shoe and the ‘cage heel’, a hollow heel encrusted with rhinestones. His legacy is still alive in Florence, where one can find the original Ferragamo factory, corporate headquarters and a fascinating museum that houses his collection of amazing shoes. Now, there’s a beautiful hotel that pays homage to Ferragamo’s place in Florence’s fashion history.
Continue ReadingRomantic Ruins
The intriguing beauty of neglect
The world is full of palaces and penthouses, but when we travel we don’t look for perfection. Instead, we gravitate towards the beautifully dilapidated – the broken down palazzo, the forgotten house, the bombed out apartment building, the abandoned villa that has been overtaken by time and nature. For those who share our obsession, a slideshow of 49 images of the gorgeously ruined, from Bucharest to the Falkland Islands.
Continue ReadingGuesthouse Rules
The oldfashioned pleasures of doing very little
Country guesthouses are the linchpin of ‘slow’ travel and they’re back with a vengeance in our anxious decade. There’s nothing more restorative than a whole week or weekend ensconced in a chair on a veranda with a book, not having to think about organising meals, the house or the social agenda. Inertia rules. So, with this in mind, we lolled about at one of Australia’s most well-regarded guesthouses, Bells At Killcare, and discovered a secluded peninsula close to Sydney we barely knew existed.
Continue ReadingShore Thing
On deck at the Atlantic's loveliest beach resort
She’s the grand dame of American summer resorts, and named number one resort in the continental USA for 2014 by Travel & Leisure magazine. But The Ocean House on Rhode Island has another story to tell – the passion of a new owner to restore a fading icon back to her former loveliness. We visit Watch Hill’s enduring landmark and get nostalgic for the Atlantic summers we never knew…
Continue ReadingSerene Kingdom
Has Cambodia at last found good karma?
The infectious optimism of the Cambodian people is all the more remarkable for the kingdom’s painful past. Carli Ratcliff and Tony Amos take a trip down the Mekong to discover a country of silks, spices, moss-covered temples, delicate cuisine – and a precious newfound serenity.
Continue ReadingThe Killing Tour
The current craze for Scandi Crime
Ice cold countries are hot. And so is Scandi Crime, now a big industry, with Scandinavian TV series The Killing and The Bridge spawning international copies, and Nordic and Scandinavian crime writers such as Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Camilla Lackberg and Jo Nesbo gaining fans in the millions. Dedicated followers of all things sinister in the frosty north should know that there’s also an industry in Scandi Crime walks, in Stockholm, Copenhagen, and also in smaller cities such as Ystad, where Mankell sets his Wallander crime series. We went for a walk on the dark side of Stockholm and Copenhagen to discover more about our favourite novelists and TV series.
Continue ReadingPeggy’s Palazzo
A private view of Peggy Guggenheim's Venice home
Peggy Guggenheim, in her caftans and huge sunglasses, riding around Venice in her private gondola with her dogs, became an accidental fashion icon in her latter years. But her devotion to contemporary art was serious and her instincts sound. Her exceptional collection of great 20th Century masterpieces is housed in her palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice, and the spirit of Peggy still pervades every room. We were lucky enough to be granted a private visit, to what is now Italy’s number one museum of modern art. Indulge in some Pegginess with us.
Continue ReadingSweet Istanbul
Is this the world's most intoxicating city?
Istanbul’s layers, visual, cultural, religious, traditional and modern, are like baklava, so rich you risk indigestion. But it’s precisely this chaotic juxtaposition of elements that makes Istanbul the most exciting and intoxicating place in the world.
Continue ReadingSeven Sublime Italian Hotels
From a charming seaside pensione to a blowout villa in Venice.
We’re back from a month in Italy, starting in magnificent Sicily and ending in glorious Venice. As we wound our way through the country, by plane, train and car, we discovered some exceptional hotels, from an immaculately restored palazzo in Siracusa to a 60,000 euro a night palace on Giudecca, from a renovated village on a hilltop overlooking the Val D’Orcia to a stylish newcomer on the Arno in Florence. We found a gem in Rome and a dazzling boutique hotel on Amalfi Coast, too. We’d go back to any one of them in a heartbeat. Here’s our hot list…
Continue ReadingDazzling Marrakech
An insider guide to Morocco's city of artisans
It’s difficult to show restraint in Marrakech, one of the world’s most sybaritic cities. Inside the medina (the fortified old city), everything you come across is either exceptionally beautiful or exceptionally curious. It’s a visual overload. We found an insider to show us the way.
Continue ReadingBelle Catherine
Cruising on Europe's most opulent river ship
There’s a swimming pool in the bar, the decor includes lashings of leopard-print, and French icon Catherine Deneuve is its godmother – reason enough for Uniworld’s new river ship, the S.S. Catherine, to make a big splash. Mrs Amos sails on her inaugural cruise and has lunch with La Deneuve.
Continue ReadingDesert Awakening
A walk in Arabia's Empty Quarter
A dawn walk in the endless dunes of the Arabian Empty Quarter is one of life’s truly mindblowing experiences. We find our inner Lawrence of Arabia when we stay at Anantara’s beautiful desert resort Qasr al Sarab.
Continue ReadingIn Love with Hotel Lobbies
An affair that started with Fred and Ginger
Mrs Amos always gravitates towards the most glamorous hotel lobby in town whenever she hits a city. ‘A hotel lobby is a theatre set, a stage for people to reinvent themselves, pretend to be someone else, act out fantasies, or connect with strangers.’
Continue ReadingA Cooking Class in Venice
Shop. Stir. Eat. Love it!
There are few better ways of seeing a city than tagging along with a local while they shop at the produce market. Even better if the local is one of that city’s top chefs. We go to the Rialto market with the Executive Chef of The Cipriani in Venice and learn some interesting things about cooking risotto.
Continue ReadingWelcome to Harlem
A guide to New York's sassiest neighbourhood
New York’s friendly and funky Harlem is our favourite neighbourhood. It has had its troubled times, but a strong community spirit has never wavered. Now, it’s jumping with fabulous bars and restaurants where there once were vacant shopfronts. A visit to Harlem is the most fun you can have on Manhattan. Our guide to where to eat, stay, shop, play, pray and catch some sweet jazz.
Continue ReadingIt’s Muumuu Heaven
Take a sidetrip to an Hawaiian store that's 100% fabulous.
Melbourne girl Deb Mascia recycled vintage muumuus into groovy fashions. An inveterate scavenger, she took trash and turned it into furniture and fun items for the home. Now, her zany boutique in Kailua on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, attracts celebrities and Japanese tourists alike. The Obamas are her most famous customers. We took the forty-minute drive from Honolulu to visit Muumuu Heaven and have a coupe of champagne with its madcap owner. Several mai tais at Buzz’s Steakhouse later, we got the story…
Continue ReadingAll Aboard the Orient-Express
The famous train lives up to its romantic history
Travelling on the Venice-Simplon Orient-Express is one the great romantic journeys but we were afraid the experience would not live up to its fame. Discard that thought. We took the train’s inaugural trip from Venice to Stockholm and found the three-day voyage a marvelous romp, even without the murder and intrigue.
Continue ReadingParis in Greenwich Village
A fleabag with literary cachet becomes a romantic hotel
New York hotelier Sean Macpherson has taken a Greenwich Village flophouse and turned it until a hotel de charme reminiscent of legendary Left Bank boltholes like Scott Fitzgerald’s favourite, the Hotel des Saint-Peres. What the rooms lack size they make up for in panache.
Continue ReadingGrand Budapest Hotel
Inspired by the hilarious movie, we revisit an old favourite
We are huge fans of American film director Wes Anderson and his wonderful film, Grand Budapest Hotel. Let us indulge in a little nostalgia of our own for our favourite Grand Budapest Hotel, the Four Seasons Gresham Palace…
Continue ReadingRavishing Rarotonga
In love with the Pacific's lesser known paradise.
We are completely besotted by the beautiful Cook Islands,which are something of an insider’s secret compared to popular Fiji, Tahiti and Hawaii. Although the group of fifteen islands sits in the middle of two million square miles of ocean, direct flights from Sydney, Los Angeles and other points now make the ‘Cooks’ more accessible than ever. We hang out with the locals on Rarotonga, the nation’s island capital, check out the best accommodation, devour fresh mahi-mahi sandwiches and learn that island living can be as simple and blissful as you wish it to be.
Continue ReadingValentine’s Stay
14 romantic hotel bedrooms we love
It’s that time of the year when a person’s fancy turns to – sexy hotel rooms. In honour of Valentine’s Day, February 14, we’ve collected together 14 of the most romantic hotel rooms we’ve stayed in lately, from a cosy boudoir in Greenwich Village to an art deco landmark in Cambodia.
Continue ReadingA Love Nest in Istanbul
The secret history of a romantic little hotel
Put this in your address book – a wonderful boutique hotel in Istanbul that we recently discovered purely by chance. The 102 year-old apartment building was once the love nest of modern Turkey’s reformer, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and his Italian mistress. Romantic, much?
Continue Reading
Think Pink Hawaii
Follow Don Draper to Waikiki's Pink Palace
It’s probably Elvis Presley’s fault that Hawaii is thought of as ‘Blue Hawaii,’ after his popular 1961 movie of the same name. Yes, the skies are consistently blue in the 50th State of the USA. But stay in the classic Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach and you’ll be dazzled by pink, from the candy-striped bathrobes in your room, to the phalanx of pink umbrellas that line the hotel’s strip of white sand. Say yes to pink, we think!
Continue ReadingHow Green is My Valley?
A luxury bush retreat with superb eco cred.
In the Blue Mountains beyond Sydney we found a remote valley of such powerful beauty it feels like the Land that Time Forget. Except that Wolgan Valley is very much on the map, thanks to a $125 million investment from Emirates airlines in 2007 which saw an exceptional conservation-based resort rise on ground that even kangaroos couldn’t reach until the 1960s. It has just won a big sustainable tourism award. What did we think of the award-winning Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa?
Continue Reading
New York’s Fashion Revival
A hat factory becomes a chic hotel
We visit the chic new Refinery Hotel, in midtown Manhattan, which is a savvy restoration of an arcade of that once housed high-end hat makers’ factories. The fashion-themed hotel is the new home of Project Runway – and it’s got one of the best bars in New York. But it’s also an important centrepiece in the revival of New York’s once-thriving garment district.
Continue ReadingThe Year’s Best Experiences
Highlights from a fabulous year of travel
We’ve had quite a year! Here’s a round-up of the experiences we enjoyed the most, and some previews of what’s to come. Happy travels in 2014, everyone, and thanks for coming with us.
Find your Inner Viking
Get festive in Stockholm's old town
There’s more to Gamla Stan than moose-shaped toilet-roll holders and plastic Viking shields. Stockholm’s romantic old town is where we’d like to be this festive season. Clogs, reindeer pelts and meatballs!
Continue ReadingWatsons Bay Watch
A beach holiday in Sydney's surprising east
Sometimes we just take Sydney for granted. Beautiful weather. Yawn. Glorious harbour vistas. Yawn. Magnificent surf beaches. Yawn. Coffee-obsessed hipster neighbourhoods. Double yawn. But we were lured to pretty harbourside village Watsons Bay because we’d heard good things about the revamped Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel. What we found was gobsmackingly gorgeous.
Continue ReadingOver the Top in Marrakech
This glitzy palace has a curious history
You might remember it as the outrageously extravagant hotel from Sex and The City 2 but it’s not in Abu Dhabi. It’s really in Marrakech. Now the set decorators have moved on, we move in and uncover the strange background to this opulent resort hotel.
Continue ReadingGeorge Clooney Slept Here.
In praise of Venice's Cipriani and other glam abodes.
We’re not kidding. We slept in George Clooney’s bed in his favourite suite at The Cipriani Hotel in Venice. Which led Mrs Amos to reflect on what makes a really great hotel and reminisce about her best five-star experiences. Mr Amos shares his photos of the Cipriani.
Continue ReadingPoetry in motion
A perfect day on the Connecticut Coast
Wherein we discover many poetic things about a beautiful Connecticut village and take a spin along the coast in a gleaming new Bentley convertible.
Continue ReadingParis’ Museum of Horrors
Do you have the nerve to visit the Musée Fragonard?
This creepy little museum, at Maisons-Alfort near Paris, houses one of the most grotesque collections of exhibits you might find anywhere, outside of Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. Except in this case, everything on display, whether a two-headed calf or a flayed human corpse riding a horse, is real.
Continue ReadingA Civilised Wilderness
Architect Geoffrey Bawa's Sri Lankan paradise
A fascinating way to see Sri Lanka is to follow the informal ‘Bawa trail’ of hotels and houses designed in the second half of the 20th Century by celebrated architect Geoffrey Bawa. Lunuganga, his tranquil private garden and residence near the popular coastal town of Bentota, is unmissable. Even better: you can now stay there and waft through the cinnamon grove as if it’s your own.
Continue ReadingLondon’s New Cafe Society
Sleeping in the controversial Cafe Royal
London’t newest five star hotel has received some excoriating reviews for its minimalist aesthetic. But Mrs Amos thinks the British press has lost its marbles. She investigates and has a different verdict.
Continue ReadingThe Best Little Town in Texas
The buzz is all about Marfa
It’s not near a big city, a major airport or an outlet mall. It doesn’t have a McDonalds, a Starbucks, or most of the other familiar signs of global commercialism, just a solitary Dairy Queen. But for some, Marfa, Texas is the centre of the universe. Filmmaker Sam Griffin explains why she keeps being drawn back.
Continue ReadingThe Divinely Decadent QT
Life is a Cabaret at Sydney's cheekiest hotel.
It might have been devised by Federico Fellini and Bob Fosse, with a bit of help from Jean Cocteau and glam rocker Marc Bolan. Exuberantly designed and cleverly appointed (and a sequin short of camp)the QT is a bold and wonderful addition to Sydney’s mostly-beige hotel scene.
Continue ReadingHello Sailors!
It’s chefs ahoy for 30 years of the Hamilton Island regatta
Audi Hamilton Island Race Week is not just about yachts. We discovered whales, koalas, kookaburras, retro bathing beauties, fast cars, and the cooking of three of Australia’s best chefs. No wonder we didn’t want it to end!
Continue Reading
Valpo: Chile’s dilapidated beauty
There's no rhyme nor reason to this poetic, coastal town.
‘If we walk up and down all of Valparaiso’s stairs, we will have made a trip around the earth.’ So wrote Pablo Neruda, Chile’s great poet, of the romantic, raffish city that hangs above Chile’s Pacific coast, winding around forty-five steep hills and defying gravity, geography and history.
Continue ReadingWhere the Wild Things Are
South Africa's Luxe Molori Safari Lodge
Is this South Africa’s most luxurious safari lodge? Mr Amos took his cameras to Molori in the Madikwe Game Reserve, near the Botswana border, and was astounded by the access to Africa’s iconic beasts.
Continue ReadingSleeping in the Tivoli Gardens
Copenhagen's enchanting Nimb Hotel.
From the Tivoli Gardens it looks like a fairground attraction – a faux Moorish Palace that might house a maze of mirrors, a magic carpet ride or a sideshow of undulating belly dancers. But Copenhagen’s best hotel, the Nimb, is all elegant Nordic style within. And you can watch the children’s pantomime from your bed.
Continue ReadingThe Divine Drift of River Cruising
Get over the fairytales. The eastern Danube is ugly-beautiful.
It’s day two of our Eastern European river cruise and the only cruising we’ve done is drifting across the Danube from the Romanian side of the river to the Bulgarian side, a distance of less than a kilometre. Eventually the ship will glide upstream towards Vienna, passing through Serbia, Croatia and Hungary, but right now we’re moored at an embankment where corpulent Bulgarians lie along the hot concrete towpath browning themselves in the 35 degree C heat. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. Unlike ocean cruises, river cruises let you get down with the locals. Drifting is just our speed.
Continue ReadingBeau Monde of the Dead
Paris' cool underground
Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, was buried in an unmarked grave at Paris’ Père Lachaise cemetery in 1971. He was moved to a proper resting place with a monument shortly after. And then someone lopped off his head. A perfect tale for Bastille Day we think.
Continue ReadingThe gallery off Main Street
In a place you've never heard of, an undiscovered artist
It’s the only place in the world called Ivoryton. The quiet Connecticut village was once the place where ivory was made into piano keys, but these days is most famous for the Ivoryton Playhouse, America’s longest continually running summer stock theatre, where Katharine Hepburn made her debut. But there’s something else to discover about Ivoryton: tucked away off Main Street is a shingled fibreglass factory-turned-gallery, dedicated to the intriguing works of an unsung photographer and artist, Richard Davis.
Continue Reading
Harlem Hep Cats
Dive into New York's swingingest jazz bar
From the street, it doesn’t look encouraging, but that’s Harlem for you. A string of Christmas lights hangs limply outside, even though it’s October. There’s a little picket fence under a dismal awning. The boulevard is almost deserted. For those looking for nightlife in the big city, this is probably not anyone’s first choice. But Paris Blues is the dive of your dreams – a genuine local bar with sizzling hot jazz run by Harlem’s coolest cat.
PARIS CHECK IN : HOTELS WITH STYLE
Six fabulous hotels for fashionistas
With so many good hotels in Paris to choose from, how do you pick a residence that’s right for you? Mrs Amos casts a frankly feminine eye over the city’s offerings and selects six romantic hotels that will delight even the most exacting fashionista.
Continue ReadingSHABBY CHICA
Bellavista is Santiago's bohemian barrio.
The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda chose Santiago’s Bellavista neighbourhood for his secret hideaway. These days, the still slightly down-at-heel barrio has gained one of Santiago’s best boutique hotels, while retaining the disreputable air that once attracted the city’s artists and writers.
Continue ReadingNew York’s luxed-up NoMad
No longer no man's land
New York’s newest acronym, NoMad, has always been a bit of a No Man’s Land. Roughly extending north from 23rd Street to 30th Street, between Avenue of the Americas and Lexington Avenue, it has been not so much a neighbourhood but the lack of a neighbourhood, squeezed between defined districts such as Chelsea, Murray Hill, Gramercy Park and the office district of Midtown, which each have their own character.
Continue ReadingBitter-Sweet Sri Lanka
It's just like India on Prozac
Sri Lanka is only 35 km distance from India across the Gulf of Mannar (and ‘forty miles from Heaven’, according to native tradition) yet, in many ways, it is the un-India – environmentally pristine, mostly undeveloped, exceptionally safe and free of hassles, except perhaps when navigating its famously appalling roads.
Continue ReadingAlong France’s beautiful Charente
A photographer and his iPhone capture the romance of a great river.
“These uncaptioned black and white photos were shot on an iPhone 4S while wandering downriver – along tow-paths and vineyard tracks and over old stone bridges – between Angouleme and Cognac, in the autumn of 2012…
Continue ReadingThe Great Gatsby Mansions
The magnificent mansions that inspired F.Scott Fitzgerald
When Baz Lurhmann chose a location for the new movie version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby he decided to shoot the film in the stately homes of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, rather the grand mansions of Long Island’s ‘Gold Coast’, the setting for Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel about a mysterious bootlegger and his passion for a mercurial young flapper.
Stopping over in Dubai
Is shopping the new Arabian Adventure?
I’m just a tiny bit shocked when Mr Amos, who is the world’s greatest mall-phobic, tells me he is eager to visit the Dubai Mall. We’ve arrived on the inaugural flight to Dubai of Australia’s Qantas Airways and we’ve spent two days celebrating hard Qantas’s important new relationship with the UAE’s Emirates. I’m trying to work out something authentic we can do – falconing perhaps? – when Mr Amos decrees, ‘The new Arabian Adventure is shopping.’
Budapest Fest
The Hungarian capital rivals Vienna for scrumptiousness.
Twelve Budapest cafes in three days. More than a dozen tortes, four pancakes, five luscious icecreams, a warm cherry strudel, sticky beef goulash, roast duck with tangerine, piquant savoury pogácsa, goose crackling, marzipan, plum schnapps, fiery palinka, and countless cups of deep, rich espresso. Someone had to do it. And that someone was me.
Continue ReadingFalaknuma: an Indian palace is reborn
The home of the scandalous Nizams of Hyderabad is now a hotel.
The Seventh Nizam of Hyderabad was once the world’s richest man. Eccentric and profligate, he collected enough pearls to fill an Olympic swimming pool, used the 400-carat Jacob diamond as a paperweight, and had so much cash lying around that it was snacked on by rats. He was also very cheap. He knitted his own socks and drove an old Ford. His palace fell into ruins around him – until the Taj Group rescued it with a mindblowing, 15 year restoration.
Continue ReadingAll’s swell in the Maldives
He surfs, she spas. Perfect holiday.
If there’s a surfer in the family, it’s a familiar scenario – when it comes to deciding on a beach holiday, the surfer won’t countenance going anyplace where there’s not a wave. Trouble is, surfers like Mr. Amos are terrible snobs about their waves. Nirvana for them is an unsurfed break that can only be reached by a trek through mosquito-infested jungle in a remote location until recently populated by headhunters. If the non-surfing partner is looking for something less barbaric – a nice bed, perhaps, some fine dining and a bit of spa therapy – a destination to please both may prove very elusive. Add kids to the mix and the result can be a compromise that doesn’t suit anyone.
Continue ReadingSmythson Notebook
The lovely people at Firmdale Hotels gave Mrs Amos this notebook. The gilt-edged lightweight pages provide plenty of room for writing down flights of fancy but it’s still small enough for a pocket.
Continue ReadingParis Heaven Scent
Ten must-visit niche fragrance houses, from the edgy to the extravagant.
This Left Bank treasure has to be the chicest perfumery in Paris. Based on the idea of book editions, the boutique showcases editions of fragrances from the worlds exceptional perfumers – Pierre Bourdon, Jean-Claude Ellena, Edouard Fléchier, Olivia Giacobetti, Maurice Roucel, Edmond Roudnitska, Michel Roudnitska, Ralf Schwieger and Dominique Ropion.
Continue ReadingWeekend in Tokyo
Tokyo’s arcane system of non-addresses mean you might as well follow your nose.
Outside Shibuya 109, the ten-level fashion emporium near Tokyo’s busiest intersection, it’s late Friday afternoon and it seems as if all of Tokyo’s schoolgirls are descending on the store en masse. Somewhere between school and shop the girls have hitched up their uniforms and added a few racy accessories like garters, tiaras and fingerless gloves, making it impossible to tell whether they are real schoolgirls or young women fashioning themselves as schoolgirls as part of A Look.
Continue ReadingJet Set Tasselled Scarf by Everyday Cashmere in Baby Pink
100% cashmere, super snugly, many uses as scarf, shawl and blanket on the flight. Makes the back of the plane bearable. $375AUD
Continue ReadingSleeping with Evita
And where to find the famous first lady’s frocks
In Buenos Aires for the first time, I find it almost impossible to get the dramatic tunes from the musical ‘Evita’ out of my head. And, oddly enough, although the country has moved on from the dark Peronist days of the 1950s, it seems the soundtrack of the city, apart from the moody, broody tangos you hear played everywhere, often includes Don’t Cry for me Argentina, piped through the sound systems in shopping malls and hotel lobbies.
Continue ReadingGoing Baroque in Venice
A photographer's dream assignment
“In the summer of 1984 Alain Burger, my photo agent in Paris, and I went to Rome for an assignment to cover the Night People of Rome. This was an assignment that I had presented to Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine as a continuing travelogue that I had been doing for them through out Europe. I took my large 4×5 Camera as my weapon of choice and away we went…
Continue ReadingLost Tribeca
A local landmark was once a great dilapidated beauty
The handsome red brick building on the corner of Hudson and Duane Streets in Tribeca was, in recent years, occupied by David Bouley’s gastronomic empire (now it’s a condo) but back in the 1990s and long before that was the home of the Mohawk Electric Supply Company. Mr. Amos had his eye on it since we moved into the neighbourhood in 1995 – finally he talked owner Lou into allowing him access to shoot locations inside for Singapore Vogue (another lost thing – but returning in 2020) before Lou retired and sold the building in 1996.
Continue ReadingA Good Souq
Buckets of Bedouin silver
You can’t get Mrs Amos out of a good souq and the ‘Gold’ souq at Muttrah, along the beautiful Corniche from Muscat, Oman, is one of the most authentic.
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