All posts filed under: Stay

Adventure then rest

Tigerlillys, Nusa Lembongan, Bali

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Floating in a pool-side, suspended swing chair, surrounded by lush greenery and thatched-roof cabanas – a menu of tasty food at the ready – is a pretty good recipe for a relaxed holiday stay. When checking in to Tigerlillys, on the southeastern Balinese island of Nusa Lembongan, you are handed a watermelon juice, and then welcomed in to this little island oasis. It’s tempting to pull up a cabana chair, order a fresh coconut, and not leave the premises. In addition to being a pretty hip lodging, Tigerlillys is also a restaurant and bar, and probs one of the best ones around. Craving some tasty Indonesian and Asian cuisine? You’re in luck, friend. We especially dug the Vegetarian San Choy Bau with tempe (chicken one also available), the yummy juices like the dairy free ‘Green Machine’, with spinach, avocado, cucumber, papaya and banana topped with chia seeds, and I find it a real challenge to order beyond a banana pancake for brekky when I’m in Bali – they are sooo good, with the slices cooked …

Miss Clara, Stockholm

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When somebody says Scandinavia, the first thing that floats into my subconscious is clean lines and beautiful, functional design. Well, at least as the top three things with hygge and Alexander Skarsgård – in no particular order. So to even consider going on tour in the land of sleek interiors and not stay in a beautiful hotel or two was out of the question. Enter Miss Clara, Stockholm. From our first experience checking in, where we were greeted by a very friendly and helpful concierge (who later gave me great tips for exploring the design stores of Östermalm), we knew were in a place that was pure class. Then our room, with dark solid wood and billowing white clouds curtains, walls and sheets of crisp white as well, lovely light whether natural or lamp-made, we were arriving into the very aesthetics that Scandi design conjures. A nice hotel is also as good as the little touches, like the Orla Kiely products in the bathroom, the Swedish script on the frosted bathroom window,  and the divine …

Notel Melbourne Best New Hotel Openings Australia Airstream

Wild Five: New Australian Hotel Openings

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Is it just me, or are there some fiendishly cute new hotels popping up all over this sunburnt country right now?! Ok, it’s winter, but you get my point. The fiance keeps having to remind me that we have our wedding coming up, or I would have already booked into a few of these beauties. So, whether you are looking to head to the snow, a nondescript Melbourne rooftop, Byron (which is a damn fine idea at this time of year), the foodie hub of Eastside Sydney or down to that Hobart place that’s so hot right now (OK, I don’t mean that at all literally, Hobart be chilly, I meant so ‘cool’ right now, there you go), these are some new boutique lodgings to put on the radar. Yours, not mine, I have a wedding coming up. The Bower, Byron Bay What do you get when you mix Manhattan and Byron Bay? Everything we ever wanted?! This new opening in everyone’s fave part of far northern New South Wales brings a bit of New …

Cornwall Summer (Part 1): St Mawes, Penzance and the Minack Theatre

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I’ve wanted to go to Cornwall for a long time, but as I approached, I realised I knew so little about what to expect. I didn’t know there would be cliffside theatres with sharks basking in aquamarine water below, or that there would be wildflowers in abundance, pirate bays and bars, accents with an endearing drawl at their strongest, modern hotels opposite centuries old buildings where seafarers have been raising tankards of ale for centuries. All this I didn’t really know. Our introduction was via St Mawes, where to arrive at the coast we found ourselves driving down one of the steepest and surely narrowest streets I’ve ever driven on (in a manual – eeeee!), so by the time we parked I was frantically looking for an alternate exit route, gulping at the thought of terrifying(ly embarrassing) hill starts. When I took a few deep breaths and looked around, I saw an endearing seaside village, where every building was white-washed, only the roofs differed in colour, and only a little. Two hotels draw a sophisticated …

Dorset Days: Lyme Regis (+ River Cottage Canteen), England

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A day that starts with the natural wonders of the Jurassic Coast and ends with a pastel sunset on pastel houses by the sea is one to make you see the world through (English) rose-coloured glasses indeed. While navigating the winding country roads of Dorset is a challenge (I hadn’t driven a manual for some time, and this was a pretty rubbish re-introduction I must say – ha!), it is also a delight if you can veer your eyes off the road. Patchwork green farmlands with hedges of stone and tree, foxgloves lining the narrow roads, and the most fairy tale of cobblestone villages you could imagine – moss covered and with roofs made of straw – at times I almost expected Peter Rabbit to dart in front of the car. Hungry (probably from expending all the energy from my last meal by clenching the steering wheel tightly and despairing over two way streets with only one lane), we head direct to the seaside on arriving in town to find some grub. The beachfront footpath …