Hotels

I was sitting in a hotel restaurant in Cheshire a while back: one of those rambling country manors, full of mock Jacobean wood panelling and fake Tiffany lamps, beloved of football-and-property enriched couples with gravy hued fake tans, sports cars parked outside and more signet rings than GCSEs. I was hungry and alone, aside from, as always, travelling with my own disability in the form of severe visual impairment, aka ocular albinism and nystagmus – or the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow of very bad eyesight, as I prefer to call it. I’d asked in advance for an accessible room which, predictably, was ‘not yet ready’ for me to check into when I arrived.

One can see a city so differently over time. Visiting Oxford recently I noticed fine whisky shops and fashion stores which have always been there but which I barely registered as a student 15 years ago. There are new arrivals: some good, such as the handsome Jericho Cheese Company; others less so, such as the proliferating bubble tea shops catering to the now numerous Chinese, both students and tourists. Covered Market is still there, where we used to indulge at the original Ben’s Cookies. Though I do not remember back then the Thames Valley Police signs now warning of ‘bag dippers’ operating in the area. Oxford is both swisher and scruffier than I remember it. Swish embodied in the new Ivy, in a palatial neo-Gothic pile on the High Street that used to be a NatWest.

September felt like a long month — and I needed to escape London. The Spectator had just been sold — and while the transition from one editor to another brought excitement, it was also exhausting for everyone. Paris felt like the perfect retreat. And of course, the Eurostar is the fastest — and most enjoyable — way to get there from London. A friend of mine lives near the Gare du Nord, and as she was in London for a night, I borrowed her keys, jumped on the train and arrived in Paris as evening fell. Alone and hungry, I made my way to Les Deux Gares, a stylish hotel nestled between Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est. Designed by Luke Edward Hall, whose aesthetic is unmistakably English, the restaurant inside is quintessentially French — and superb.

I love hotels. Growing up, my family never stayed in them (we were poor but we were honest, M’Lud). Instead we went to Butlin's, sharing a tiny ‘chalet’, or we stayed at bed and breakfasts; private lodgings where you got exactly those two things but had to be out and about during the daylight hours – come hell, high water or hailstones. For those too young to have experienced them, a B&B is basically the exact opposite of an Airbnb, where you’re allowed to stay in every single moment of every day you’ve hired it for, if that’s what turns you on. I’ve only stayed in one Airbnb, which was a houseboat in Amsterdam; I love boats and I love Amsterdam (or I did, before it went mad), but I never wanted to repeat the experience, because – hotels.

Summer in Rome. Expectation: breathe the soul of the classics, soak up the history, feel the romance. Reality: breathe in the AC, soak in a pool of sweat, feel ever so slightly unhinged. My plans to indulge in Italy’s time-honored tradition of la passeggiata — strolling around looking stylish, gelato in hand — were quickly nixed by the Cerberus heatwave. Dreams of meandering around perhaps the world’s most famous open-air museum gave way to lying recumbent with a handheld fan. Jumping from the relative cool of a sleeper-train carriage onto the platform at Termini station felt akin to opening an oven door and climbing in. Red alert warnings were issued as the mercury soared toward 119°F.

As the Olympic Games descend on the French capital this July, the contest that really matters for this sports-shy travel writer is where to stay. From historic heavyweights to new contenders, these Parisian properties stand head and shoulders above the rest. Best for wellness: Shangri-La Paris The cool marble interiors of Shangri-La’s Parisian outpost feel a world away from the tumult of the Champs-Élysées (in fact, it’s only a fifteen-minute walk). If the Grecian frescoes, silk wallpaper and sweeping, gilded staircase all seem distinctly regal that’s because the nineteenth-century building was originally the pied-à-terre of Prince Roland Bonaparte, Napoleon’s great-nephew.

It is 7:30 a.m. and already seventy degrees in Bowness-on-Windermere. A rare, early summer heatwave. My friend Ebele and I lower ourselves into a sunken outdoor hot tub in groggy disbelief. We appear to have woken up in Utopia. Llamas and alpacas frolic yards away as we sip coffees in silence. A butterfly lands on the decking. There’s no noise but for the bubbles, until a perfect breeze ruffles the fronds of the tree that’s dappling the sunlight. The grass could not be greener, skies cerulean. This is the definition of “bucolic,” I think. William Blake’s England, plus massage jets. His pastoral poems that plagued me in university start to make more sense (plenty of lambs here, too; the local “Herdies”).

Whether it's train fares, energy bills or the supermarket shop, prices are rising and belts are tightening. But if you’re desperate to get away from it all, it’s still possible to have a break on a budget – however many people you’re taking with you. From cosy couples’ cabins to beach houses big enough for two families, and from Scotland to Sussex, these seven boltholes offer spring getaways with plenty of wow factor – and all cost no more than £50 per person per night. For couples  Tahuna Bothies, Aberdeenshire Sleeps: 2-4Price: From £100 a night (£50 each for two people)  [Lee Fowlies] These wooden huts on a corner of Scottish coast are a stargazer’s dream.

When rulers are thrown out of their countries, they cannot expect all that much. Think of Napoleon, first cooling his heels in Elba, then ending his days in the damp-infested confines of Saint Helena. Which is why the former Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was comparatively fortunate that the Parisian spot in which he found himself living after his abdication in December 1936 was Le Meurice in Paris: then, as now, a hotel that offers not only glitteringly luxurious accommodation to its well-heeled denizens, but a tangible sense of history — its lavishly appointed suites and restaurants exude an atmosphere that’s simultaneously relaxing and conspiratorial. Turn an unexpected corner, and you half-expect to see the ghost of Wallis Simpson, barking orders at some hapless minion.

The Burgh Island Hotel lives on a tidal island in a deserted part of south Devon. The directions for visiting are very detailed. You drive along the deserted country road, and at a certain point – just before you lose mobile telephone reception – you must stop to telephone the hotel, and they tell you where to park your car on the mainland, and they will send the car across the beach and meet you in Bigbury-on-Sea. You drive on and eventually you see a brightly lit Art Deco palace under a cliff. It was built by a filmmaker called Archibald Nettlefold (Human Desires, The Hellcat), the heir to an engineering fortune. I think he was a very odd man. There is very little information about him, but he left this hotel, and there is probably an old monastery underneath it.