All posts tagged: Hotels

Wild Spin of the Web {1}

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In this new segment, let’s take a regular little spin of the World Wild Web together: the lusty hotels, exotic food delights, stylish destinations, podcasts worth sticking in your ears, blogs and websites dedicated to the adventurous delights of life, and the odd things that are offline, but still very, very fine. Think of it like a compass, a jumpy, excitable pointer at some of the best in travel and lifestyle on any given week. Come on this little e-journey with me… STAY: Eden Locke Hotel, Scotland (pictured) – Wowsers! I lived in the glorious, gothic, cobblestoned (and cold) city of Edinburgh about ten years ago and have sadly yet to return, but after seeing this gem on the wonderful site Melting Butter this week, it might be time to couple this hotel stay with a highlands adventure. TASTE: These vegetarian dumplings by the chef Benny Doro are outrageously delicious and super easy to make!  Add them to your list of go-to recipes – if you’re into delicious things, that is. LISTEN: One of my …

Haweswater Hotel, Lake District, England

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Filling up our tank on a day driving around the Lake District, the service attendant asks where we are staying. “Haweswater Hotel”, we tell him and he looks surprised. “That’s a great spot”, he says “it’s where us locals hang out on our days off”. Skymie and I exchange a smirk. Originally, I questioned whether staying by a reservoir in a district of lakes was the wrong move, but the website made it look so damn peaceful and pretty that I couldn’t resist.  Once checked in, we discovered it was also in a quiet little hikers paradise, with the start of some spectacular walks just down the road (you can read about our first short wander here). In an English summer the sun stays up until late in the evening, so our first dinner was by the bright windows of the dining room. The interiors were modern country with deep grey blue walls, mounted with a deer head or two. This wasn’t exactly to Skymie’s tastes as he’s vegetarian (I was also for a very long …

Ace Hotel, Shoreditch, London

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Early on a Shoreditch morning, the lobby of the Ace Hotel is simmering with creatives and travellers, drinking coffee, setting up laptops, checking in and out. Vinyl lines the front desk, there’s a photobooth, a fixie bike near the lift, and a mini exhibition by Tokyo-based artist Yu Nagaba in a glass cabinet along the wall. I’ve been looking forward to staying at the Ace almost as much as I’ve been anticipating arriving in London, and I’m immediately smitten. So imagine my delight when we are granted an early check in and an upgrade. And just as we are settling in, turning on the vintage radio, reclining on the window seat, the door knocks and we are presented with a bottle of champagne for our recent engagement. And then they bring flowers from the florist next door. Did you hear that? THEY BROUGHT US FLOWERS! It’s often the little touches that make a great hotel. And there were plenty of those – a channel on the in-room radio of stories being read to help you …

Warwick Ibah Luxury Villas & Spa, Ubud

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We arrived in Ubud in the early eve, and while the darkness shifted my senses, sounds to the fore, we wandered into the Warwick Ibah to the soft flow of trickling water and the chi chak of local geckos. We were led along a stone path to our room, intermittent lights bringing into focus frangipani trees and foliage that had crept through the cracks of the wall. The humidity was high. Our room was the promised luxury, a four poster bed draped in a thick white mosquito net. Glassed bottles of water and air conditioning were welcomed. The room had a large balcony beside an outdoor dimly lit stairwell and peered into the tropical-sounding blackness in the other direction. We were above a valley of sorts that we couldn’t yet see. We ordered drinks to the room. It wasn’t until the morning, when we walked through the hotel grounds to visit a local fave cafe (Sari Organik) of my travel buddy Kel (who I think I mentioned in a previous post has been to Indonesia …

Alabama Hotel – Hobart

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Hobart is defiantly breaking away from it’s sleepy capital moniker to become one of the coolest cities in this country. With the most crazy-curated gallery (MONA) in the Southern Hemisphere, a farm-to-plate ethos in many of the restaurants and hipster cafes, and even the annual Falls Festival just a skip away (priorities people, priorities!), it’s a wonder you’re not on Jetstar booking your cheap flight this instant. Further reason to just book your Hobart break immediately (that is if local Instagrammer LoveThyWalrus can’t convince you – in which case you must be dead), is that there is now a super awesome and very cheap hotel in the heart of town that will add some mojo to your trip and have you extending your stay, because you spent so much time hanging out there you almost didn’t get down to Salamanca for a sunset beer! The Alabama Hotel (72 Liverpool St) only re-opened in 2013 after being closed for almost a decade. A piece of history in itself, the building was constructed in the 1830s and …