The Pool at Four Seasons Astir Palace
Four Seasons HotelsThe Astir, as it is known to Athenians, has long been the capital’s hotel for special occasions, where friends celebrated a job promotion or grandparents toasted a milestone anniversary. And so it can be tricky when global brands come in and start messing around with heritage like this.
But the Four Seasons seems to have completely nailed it—freshening without forsaking. In fact, the spirited general manager Philippe Roux-Dessarps tells me nobody has yet squeaked, a remarkable testament to the transformation, which has been sensitive as well as rigorous.
This urban resort does, after all, have one of Europe’s greatest locations: on the beach, yet 20 minutes to the Acropolis (and the airport), on a crooked peninsula swinging into the Saronic Gulf. In these times, it feels almost too much to ask for: to laze by a pool in deep Mediterranean sunshine, shadows cast by seductively retro 1950s architecture cascading down a rocky coastline dotted by groves of pines, then a dip in the salty sea, before darting to the city to see what Ancient Greece gave us, reminding us where we humbly fit in history.
Sunvil offers three nights from £1,719 per person based on two sharing, including breakfast, return flights and transfers. visitgreece.gr
Aerial View of Anantara Maia
My heart skipped a beat when I saw turtle tracks in the sand, heading up from the shore to the dunes. A single set of tracks, that’s the thing. If it’s two tracks—back and forth—that means the female turtle has laid her eggs and already returned to the ocean. But one set of tracks means the mother is still on the beach.
I advanced tentatively, crawling on all fours on the sand, until I spotted her in the shade, under the fronds of a gnarled sea grape tree, her back flippers digging into the sand, moving like rotor blades, carving out a deep narrow hole. I could hear her even from where I was ensconced, grunting and panting, raising up her head every few minutes to gasp for air.
It was nearly an hour before she finally paused, and then began laying her eggs. From where I was, she seemed supremely still. I, too, didn’t twitch, waiting patiently, until she turned towards me, leaving babies she would never see, to move swiftly back to the sea, passing so close that if I’d reached out I would have touched her.
Imagine this is what I found at Maia—as I walked along a stretch of sand in front of my villa. A beach so unto itself, that turtles emerge from the sea unafraid to lay their eggs here, and there really is nothing more precious than that.
Ocean Panoramic Villas, from £1,965 per night, all inclusive. anantara.com
Six Senses Douro Valley
Six SensesThere were patches of sun, then rain, then sun again, a carousel of weather, which makes the Douro feel all the more abundant, more fertile. The greens become wet, shiny, prolific. Then the sun makes it all sparkle and shine. Between the showers, I slipped outside, walking through the vineyard to the banks of the river that gives the valley its name.
The Douro is calmer than it once was, with five dams constructed along the few hundred kilometres from the Spanish border to Porto, tidy terraces of farmland along its flanks. I turned and walked uphill into the trees, a landscaped forest planted by a Lisboeta couple 150 years ago who made this place home, bedding in oak and arbutus, cedar and spruce, cork and oak, perhaps unaware it was to become a magnet for birdlife. I found myself rooted listening to the chirrups and twitters, perhaps one or two that could even be called arias.
Then the rain fell again and the birdsong was silenced, and I sped downhill, sheltered by the canopy, past beehives, into the formal gardens, as a rainbow swept across the Abraao Valley.
Scott Dunn offers seven nights from £2,700 per person based on two sharing a River Room, including breakfast, return flights and transfers.
.jpg)
The Boardwalk at Amanwana
Courtesy of AmanIn the heart of the Flores Sea, this tented camp has the finest house reef anywhere, nicknamed Turtle Street, and worth travelling halfway around the world for. There’s a resident three-flippered turtle, who I worried might swim in circles, but who cleverly learned to compensate for its asymmetry and instead moved serenely between seagrass and coral. One morning, while snorkelling, I came face to face with a manta ray, mouth agape, which was a little alarming until, an instant later, I realised it was simply heart-stoppingly incredible.
Deeper yet, the diving here is peerless—with Napoleon wrasse, schools of batfish and reef sharks cruising above gorgonian fans and giant sponges, as cuttle fish wobble about the seabed as camouflaged as a chameleon, even a deadly black-and-white banded sea snake, brazenly holding my gaze as it slithered up to the eye-level of my mask.
Yet my favourite sighting of all was a tiny damsel fish living under a half-coconut bobbing among the waves. When I lifted the lid, as it were, it came swimming frantically towards me, trying to find a sliver of shade beside my skin. Because, of course, we all seek refuge.
Abercrombie & Kent offers five nights from £4,699 per person, including breakfast, flights and transfers.
"sweet" - Google News
June 11, 2021 at 08:33PM
https://ift.tt/3iANo28
Michelle Jana Chan: Sweet Spot - Vanity Fair
"sweet" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2PcPlld
https://ift.tt/2KSpWvj
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Michelle Jana Chan: Sweet Spot - Vanity Fair"
Post a Comment