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The Big Six: European wine hotels

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:00:01 +0100

L'And, Portugal

Room Service: Gstaad Palace, Switzerland

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:00:01 +0100

The Gstaad Palace has hosted the well-heeled for 99 years. After a pause of a couple of months after the end of the ski season, it reopens for summer on 17 June. It was back in the 1950s that this fantasy schloss-style hotel single-handedly put a small Swiss farming village on the international map.

Summer 2012: Family friendly hotels

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Children's rooms take on a different meaning at Hesperia Lanzarote (00 34 828 080 800; nh-hotels.com), in Puerto Calero, where seven new Junior Suites have been colourfully redecorated, furnished with bunk beds dressed in themed bed linen, and supplied with toys and a healthy "mini bar".

The Big Six: Century-old sleeps

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles

Room Service: Palais Namaskar, Marrakech

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Wander the medina in Marrakech, and you won't find many windows to peer through. That, says Aziz, my guide, is because Moroccans value their privacy. This is a modesty culture, where you keep your bling hidden away. So it makes sense that the Palais Namaskar, a short drive outside the city's ancient medina, doesn't look much as you approach. Only the well-groomed orange trees lining the perimeter hint at the opulence within. Once inside, the squeak of your taxi's tyres on the polished forecourt suggests this is no ordinary hotel – why use gravel when marble will do?

Fawlty no more: British hotels outrank rivals

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

Britain's hotels used to have a reputation for eccentricity – an image best captured in the sitcom Fawlty Towers. But no longer: the nation's hotels have been rated among the best in the world by holidaymakers after eight consecutive year-on-year improvements in customers' ratings.

24-hour room service: The Talbot Hotel, North Yorkshire

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:00:01 +0100

If you ever find yourself motoring from York to the east-coast resorts of Scarborough, Filey or Whitby, or further north to the North York Moors, make sure you take in the pleasant little market town of Malton, which was founded 2,000 years ago by the Romans. As you drive past the war memorial, you might, if the clouds part, see the golden letters spelling Talbot Hotel reflect the sun.

B&B and beyond: Oak House No 1, Tetbury

Sun, 13 May 2012 00:00:01 +0100

In the quiet market town of Tetbury, home of the Highgrove Estate, the curtains must have twitched when Gary and Nicola Kennedy arrived in 2005. This bohemian, globe-trotting couple have previously lived in a 200-year-old chateau in Provence and a rainforest lodge in New South Wales. But after their son had attended nine schools in as many years, they decided to put down roots in the Cotswolds. With them, they brought Tibetan rugs, Murano glass and an enviable art collection. They crammed it all into a solid Georgian house on the corner of one of the town's prettiest squares, painted it in bold, daring colours, and opened their home as a B&B in 2009.

24-hour room service: House Hotel Bosphorus, Istanbul

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:00:00 +0100

Arriving at night, I flung open the French windows in my room at the House Hotel Bosphorus and stepped out on to the balcony for a stunning view of two continents: European Ortakoy's bustling harbour, the neon-lit Bosphorus Bridge and, across the shimmering water, the twinkling lights of Uskudar in Asia.

Room Service: Clarion Hotel Post, Gothenburg

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0100

A rooftop pool? In Gothenburg? You can't help thinking that the team behind Clarion Hotel Post must have made a mistake. After all, this is Sweden, not Spain. And when I saw the sunbeds getting coated by a fresh flurry of snow, stripping down to my Speedos wasn't exactly a priority.

24-hour room service: 25hours Hotel, Vienna

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:00:01 +0100

In a secluded park in the youthful 7th district of Austria's capital, this quirkily cool hotel, with its reception on the top floor, has been cleverly converted from a 1970s student hostel. But to associate it with student digs does it a disservice, for step inside this nine-storey building and you'll find not tatty posters and stained carpets but a paean to the circus.

24-hour Room Service: Pantone Hotel, Brussels

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:01 +0100

The Belgian capital is one of the most rewarding continental cities: formidable cuisine, quirky culture and grand architecture provide enticing dimensions to any weekend break. The problem I have always had, though, is finding somewhere characterful to stay. The default weekend hotel room is Euro-corporate: tens of thousands of boring beds are dedicated to diplomats, politicians and lobbyists from Sunday to Thursday nights, leaving space for you and me on Fridays and Saturdays. Granted, you can get some excellent off-peak rates, but the overall experience feels somewhat beige.

The Big Six: Chic Moroccan retreats

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:01 +0100

Palais Namaskar, Marrakech

24-hour Room Service: Areias do Seixo, Portugal

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:00:01 +0100

The name Areias do Seixo roughly translates as "pebble beach", and the property plays to its rugged, coastal location with a motif of purity and nature. But Areias do Seixo's curveball is that it is a modernist glass and concrete construction on a protected patch of Portugal's Costa de Prata ("silver coast"), between Lisbon and Porto.

24-Hour Room Service: Legoland Resort Hotel, Windsor

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:00:01 +0000

My parents once took me to visit Legoland while we were on a camping holiday in Denmark. It was 1981 and I was nine, the age that the elder of my two sons is now.

24-hour room service: Hôtel Americano, New York City

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:00:01 +0000

Waking up at Hôtel Americano, you feel a little like a living artwork. The double bed is enclosed in a wooden frame, elevated on a platform and lit by a sympathetic glow – like a giant Donald Judd box sculpture, but with 400 thread-count sheets. It's fitting when you consider the hotel's location, in West Chelsea, the heart of Manhattan's art district. Gagosian, Pace and Paul Kasmin are among the hundred or so galleries crammed into the warehouses and lock-ups of the neighbouring streets. A former nightclub next door is currently home to Punchdrunk's interactive take on Macbeth – the hottest theatre ticket in town.

24-hour Room Service: Taj Falaknuma Palace, Hyderabad, India

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:00:01 +0000

To appreciate fully the majesty of Falaknuma Palace, you have to remove yourself from the present. As such, I was whisked from airport to entrance just as the inky sky started to lighten and a muezzin's call stirred the sleepy streets of Hyderabad. My driver pointed up a hill – lording it over the ramshackle whitewashed buildings around us was fairy-tale Falaknuma. We wound upwards past strutting peacocks to reach its gatehouse. Here, I was decanted from the car to a vintage mustard-yellow carriage, complete with liveried coachmen in feathered hats.

The Big Six: Dutch design hotels

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 12:00:01 +0000

Villa Augustus, Dordrecht

24-hour room service: The Naka Island, Thailand

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Stepping off a gleaming speedboat is a pretty glamorous way to arrive at a hotel. For this tiny private island resort, off the coast of Phuket, it's the only way to arrive. Shades on, windswept hair, twinkling seas beyond ... it's a fabulous prelude to The Naka Island resort.

Stay The Night: Amani, Jersey

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It's hot on the cliff path today. I pause to take off my sweatshirt and catch sight of two kayaks dancing around a rock in the waters below. Just beyond, a speedboat draws a steady white line across the indigo bay. This could be midsummer on the French Riviera; in fact, it is spring in Jersey.

24-Hour Room Service: Palihotel, Los Angeles

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Los Angeles is awash with trendy crashpads where hip twenty-somethings sip cocktails around the pool and historic hideaways dripping with old-school charm and celebristocracy. Not surprisingly for a city that trades on swank and glamour, upmarket options without the hefty price tag are few and far between, while budget options are bland and mostly dated.

Stay The Night: Natural Retreats, Fistral Beach

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

With its town centre increasingly dominated by rowdy clubs, pubs and rabbles of Borat-themed stag parties, it is hard to believe you are still in Newquay when you arrive at Natural Retreats.

The Big Six: Convent hotels

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Le Couvent d'Hérépian, France

24-hour room service: The Hotel Chocolat, Saint Lucia

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:30:00 +0000

Angus Thirlwell has a Willy Wonka twinkle in his eye – or at least that's the impression I get from the photograph in the brochure of his latest venture, a hotel in Saint Lucia. Thirlwell is the British co-founder of Hotel Chocolat, the chain of grown-up chocolate shops found throughout the UK. With a name and an idyllic location already in place, a hotel was the next logical step: the Hotel Chocolat opened on Thirlwell's cacao plantation last spring.

Stay The Night: Castaway Cottage, Whitstable

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

Castaway Cottage, a terraced house in the heart of Whitstable on the north Kent coast, doesn't exactly grab your immediate attention. But open the door and you are presented with a stylish seaside aesthetic straight out of the pages of The White Company's catalogue.

Stay The Night: The Old Chapel, Stoke Fleming, Devon

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:01 +0000

It takes quite an event to bring our family to church. A wedding or funeral, perhaps. Or, in this case, the conversion of a 19th-century chapel just outside Dartmouth into a high-end holiday rental. It began and continued its life as a United Reformed Church 140 years ago, subsequently serving as a shop, storeroom and boathouse. The chapel was bought in 2009 by the Imlah family, who restored the near-derelict structure to its original elegant form, adding a level of comfort not always associated with places of worship.