The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
A year in the life of a travel expert
From turtle watching in Australia to saddling up on the pampas, our writers around the world reveal their standout experiences of 2019
There are more than 100 Telegraph Travel experts living in amazing destinations all over the world, from Argentina’s wild pampas to the fast-paced Japanese capital Tokyo. Their job? To experience everything they possibly can in their region, and share the very best with us. We asked 10 of them to reveal their 2019 highlights.
MFRANCE
Anthony Peregrine sipped bellinis with celebrities in the south of France, and mourned the death of the country’s greatest hotelier
People sometimes ask me: “What do destination experts do?” That’s easy. “They go to places, look, drink, eat and write,” I say. “That’s not a job; that’s a full-time paid holiday,” they say. “Certainly,” I cry. “Back to the coalface, Jeremy; I’m off to the Riviera.”
And so, quite often in 2019, I was, not least to Antibes and the Cap-EdenRoc hotel. The most exclusive hotel in France next year celebrates its 150th year as the hub for high-rollers such as Brad, Matt, Sharon, Clint, George Bush and, last autumn, Roman Abramovich. I should have noticed that he was seated at the terrace table next to mine, except I didn’t, being too occupied trying to decide whether, in the hotel’s signature bellini cocktail, it was the apricot purée that ruined the champagne or vice versa. That said, I doubted he spotted me, either.
Along the coast in Nice, I mourned the death of Jeanne Augier, France’s greatest hotelier, who owned the Negresco on the Promenade des Anglais. She’d created a treasure-plush palace while handling everyone from a plastered Richard Burton to a randy Nikita Khrushchev (“He put his hand on my knee”) to Bill Gates, who apparently wanted to buy the sumptuous hotel. “I told him he wasn’t rich enough.” Hotels need people like her and, in general, don’t have them.
Elsewhere, a gastronomic tour
(work gets tougher and tougher, Jeremy) passed through Avignon market – look out for Cuisine Centr’Halles, the only market lunch stand in France run by a Californian – to Clermont-Ferrand. There, in Le Saint-Eutrope restaurant, Harry Weston – late of London gastropubs – is reintroducing Auvergnat cooking to Auvergnat people. They seem jolly happy, as they should be. It continued to Basque country and then Colmar in Alsace, where a young French couple run the terrific L’Atelier du Peintre restaurant. They arrived there via a gastronomic stint in Inverness. “Inverness? Gastronomy?” I said.
My very best meal of the year was at the two Michelin-starred Gill on the Quai de la Bourse in Rouen. I will hire owner-chef Gilles Tournadre as personal cook when I become king or president. He will then prepare for me his pigeon-à-la-rouennaise – sauce of blood and bone marrow, with foie gras stuffing – whenever I want it, which will be often.
GREECE
dishes, and guides with verve lead hikes through the islands’ lesserknown lush interiors.
In Rhodes, I stayed at Kokkini Porta Rossa in the medieval Old Town. Antique-collecting proprietors Nikos Voulgaridis and Angela Hagidimitriou showed me around the living museum, formerly a knight’s residence, which they have lovingly created. I lingered in the Michalis suite, dedicated to the carpenter who once lived there, featuring salvaged tools and all.
In Apollona village, I met brighteyed, snake-print-apron-wearing chef Giannis Efthymiou at his seasonconscious, no-frills cookhouse Paraga, where he is quietly reviving traditional dishes. I scooped wild herb dusted sourdough into walnut- and tahinilaced eggplant dip, then slipped into a gustatory trance when Giannis smashed open a clay pot revealing a rich goat stifado.
Then to Corfu, where I sampled a degustation menu at Pomo d’Oro, an innovative fine dining restaurant (minus the pomp) in the island’s capital. Soft-spoken French-Greek chef Aristotelis Megoulas cleverly reworks classic Corfiot dishes.
Later, I sidestepped the summer crush on the islands by joining a crew racing in the Aegean Regatta. The 2019 route for Greece’s biggest annual sailing race took us to three islands of the lesser-visited North Aegean – Lesvos, Psara and Oinousses. The 400 residents of Psara proudly fly a flag reading “Freedom or death” dating to the 1821 Greek war of independence. I duly paid my respects.
After wrapping up the first race leg, we docked at Plomari, on Lesvos, to the sight of excited youngsters in teal regatta T-shirts, who furnished us with welcome packs that included the fine ouzo for which their pastel-hued coastal town is renowned.
The country’s strong points remain its seas, islands, fertile mainland, quality seasonal produce, traditional flavours and the people’s ingrained talent as hosts.
AUSTRALIA
MLee Mylne found her year’s travels bookended with turtle tales, with her first and last trips focused on the Great Barrier Reef
Heron Island, a tiny coral cay at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, provided a gentle start to 2019, as I watched green sea and loggerhead turtles lumber up the beach to lay their eggs, while early hatchlings scampered down the sand to feel water on their flippers for the first time.
From my home in Queensland, I criss-crossed the continent, my longest flight taking me 2,250 miles to Western Australia. This flight warrants a window-seat for the aerial view of Australia’s ochre Outback landscape. Unseen below lay the magnificent monolith of Uluru – in the news this year as the Anangu, the indigenous owners, banned climbing “The Rock”. I was happy to see this move, but Australians were strongly divided over the decision.
While big cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide – all featured in my year, it was the smaller places that left their mark, not least the national capital, Canberra, where serendipitous timing saw me cast my vote in Australia’s federal election at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Old Parliament House. Exploring regional areas was a good reminder that there’s so much to discover outside the major cities. In Western Australia, I chatted with monks in the Spanish Benedictine monastic town of New Norcia, and took a “selfie” with a quokka on Rottnest Island; in South Australia, winding country roads led me to some of Australia’s best vineyards in the Barossa Valley.
Back in Queensland, the migrating humpback whales that travel Australia’s eastern seaboard each year between May and October lured me once again to the world’s largest sand island, Fraser Island, and to the waters of Brisbane’s Moreton Bay.
In the Whitsunday Islands, I checked into newly reopened resorts on Hayman Island, Long Island and Daydream Island, which were damaged by Cyclone Debbie in 2017. My favourite? The laid-back barefoot luxury of Elysian Retreat on Long Island, where every private villa has a hammock on the veranda.
Finally, more turtles. At the Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre on Fitzroy Island, it was shocking to see the effects of plastic pollution and climate change on marine creatures, as debate continues on the fate of the Great Barrier Reef. The work being done by the vets and volunteers to treat and ultimately release turtles gives some hope for the future.
MTHAILAND
Tom Vater visited a museum that pays tribute to Bangkok’s notorious Patpong street and applauded the country’s efforts to cut down on plastic pollution
Bangkok is the world’s most visited city for the fifth year running, and, though biased, having lived here for 15 years, I can understand its popularity. Besides the reliably excellent food, shopping marathons continue to be a major draw. The thousands of stalls at Chatuchak, offering everything from clothes to ceramics, remain a favourite weekend destination.
The city’s biennale featured an appearance by Marina Abramovic and installations by Yayoi Kusama. I particularly liked Ralf Tooten’s giant photographs of construction workers, which adorned several buildings.
In the spring, I once again visited Koh Samui, where I witnessed a very British wedding at Rocky’s Boutique Resort, which has one of the island’s best restaurants, with tables on rock formations above the beach. Another sumptuous dining experience can be enjoyed at Tree Tops at Anantara Lawana, which serves Mediterranean cuisine in private salas enveloped by tropical foliage. Kayaking around the quiet southern tip of the island, accompanied by egrets and other
water birds, was another highlight.
The year also saw two further Thai restaurants awarded two stars by the French Michelin guide. While
R-Haan’s menu covers royal dishes, Sorn welcomes diners with old recipes in a reconstructed wooden building. My favourite is still Namsaah Bottling Trust, located in a pink colonial-style building. The ambience is decadent, the list of cocktails extensive and the croquette noir (potato balls fried in squid ink bread crust) may be the tastiest starter in town.
With the opening of the Patpong Museum in October, Bangkok has cemented what is left of its nightlife reputation. This permanent exhibition documents the history of one of the city’s most notorious roads, which started life as a strip of shop houses catering to CIA staff after the Second World War, before it mutated into one of the world’s best-known red-light areas. It’s brought to life for visitors with the help of virtual reality goggles and a 3D projection of a go-go dancer.
Thailand has become as much a land of plastic as a land of smiles, and the government is introducing measures to reduce it – microbeads, cap seals and oxo-degradable plastics will be banned by the end of this year, while major retailers will stop handing out plastic bags by January 2020.
MFiona Duncan found hoteliers were not deterred by Brexit, and so celebrated old and new memories in some fabulous country piles
In the year that I filed my 600th UK hotel review for The Telegraph, I had some rewarding canters down memory lane. Back in the Seventies, my then boyfriend and I chose the Mermaid Inn in Rye for a romantic weekend away. It wasn’t a success; the heavily beamed smugglers’ inn was creaky, musty and old fashioned, and no one spoke above a whisper. On my return in January, I found it unchanged; now, as then, it is not a hotel I would recommend to loved-up couples, but if it’s character you are looking for then it’s got plenty to offer.
In April, my husband Andrew and I returned to Monkey Island, in the Thames at Bray, that had just reopened. I had mentioned, on booking, that I had been there before, just once, on my wedding night, and as we trotted over the humpback bridge there was a photographer, ready to record our return after 41 years. The best features are its original Grade I listed Temple and Pavilion, built by the Duke of Marlborough as a grand around the coast and, although not everything was open, I had no trouble finding a bar with a terrace table to enjoy a glass of rosé.
High summer is low season in Madrid – or at least it used to be. The Champions League final between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur brought 70,000 supporters to the capital in June. They drank the bars dry in the sultry sunshine.
The heat can make the capital unbearable, which is why so many Madrilenians go away for as long as possible. Changing habits means fishing retreat, and the new spa, cleverly housed in a specially built Thames riverboat, moored alongside.
I covered a slew of new openings in 2019, too: neither Brexit nor the economy seem to deter hoteliers from creating yet more bastions of fine living. They included the Belmond Cadogan in Sloane Street (above), London, where Oscar Wilde was arrested; The Pig at Bridge Place, Kent (how the Pig people make each place better than the last I don’t know but they do); and Grantley Hall, North Yorkshire’s finest hotel to date. Perhaps most impressive was The Newt, in Somerset.
But I’m just as happy in a cosy, affordable bolthole such as the Lord Poulett Arms, also in Somerset, or Park House in West Sussex, both of which offered on my visits warm hospitality and good food. What more can one ask of a hotel? holidays are getting shorter, however, while tourist numbers are on the increase. My standout stay was at the Pestana Plaza Mayor (left), in a historic building that forms part of the square. How they got planning permission for the pool up on the roof I’ll never know.
In mid-October, it was still summer in Valencia, where several days slipped by as I ate paella by the beach. The advent of winter saw me enjoying local cheese and wine in a vineyard in Lanzarote. Sadly, the collapse of Thomas Cook in September was a huge blow to the island and some hotels were forced to close.
While there I also took part in a gastronomic festival and gave a talk about sustainable tourism. I was praying they wouldn’t ask me about desestacionalización.
As an ex-pat in New York, I still get a thrill from calling this metropolis home, but the only way to survive its breakneck pace and reduce adrenalin levels is to get out regularly.
Fortunately, this consumerist country is also one of epic, open spaces and spectacular wilderness. This autumn, in California’s Yosemite National Park, I hiked the Upper Yosemite Falls trail (seven miles “akin to a moderate mountain climb”, according to the park’s literature) and spent the following three days at nearby Lake Tahoe acutely aware of my glutes and quads.
Tahoe, spectacular in any season, is a favourite ski spot. This year, I also managed to squeeze in some skiing at Utah’s Park City resort. With the town taken over by the Sundance Film Festival, held each January, the slopes are unusually empty. And, since the two neighbouring mountain resorts of Park City and the Canyons merged, it’s now the biggest ski resort in the US.
Of the 11 states where recreational cannabis is now legal, Colorado has the most developed retail industry, with more weed shops than Starbucks. On a weekend trip organised by Hi-Curious, designed to help amateur weed consumers overcome their anxiety around/pitiful inability to enjoy marijuana, I very nearly managed it. At least, I discovered a taste for high-end (no pun intended) fast-acting artisanal weed chocolates.
And it’s now possible to travel back in time at the city’s JFK airport. This summer, the long-awaited TWA Hotel opened in the former TWA Flight Centre. An elegant tribute to the golden age of air travel, the 512-room hotel features a bar in a converted 1958 Lockheed Constellation prop plane. A sexier airport hotel you will struggle to find anywhere.
SOUTH AFRICA
MPippa de Bruyn got emotional while peering into the eyes of a lion, before more big emotions took over when celebrating the country’s rugby win
It’s a rollercoaster ride, living in South Africa – every high followed by white-knuckled free fall. Inaugurated for his first full term in May, Cyril Ramaphosa was supposed to be our hero. Instead, 2019 has been the year of Zondo, the judge leading the commission into State Capture, a daily litany of incompetence and greed.