Travel Archives - Page 7 of 14

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Melenos Lindos

August 18, 2011 By Paola 2 Comments

Ha! You thought you’d got away with no more Greek holiday snaps. Unfortunately it remains my intention to bore you all into submission. After all, what else is a blog good for?

I mentioned that we liked to stay in little unassuming hotels while in Greece, but we decided to break that rule for the first few days by booking into the Melenos Lindos, high in the acropolis of the ancient town of Lindos in Rhodes. This hotel gets so many fabulous mentions, that it seemed churlish not to try it out.

Images from hotel website

Unfortunately they contacted us a few days before we left and said that there had been a double booking and they had no space for us. They pulled out all the stops to secure alternative accommodation (which, thanks to its enormous swimming pool and spacious grounds was actually much more suitable for the Minx) and offered us a free dinner on their beautiful outdoor dining terrace.

Architect Anastasia Papaioanou and Australian artist-designer Donald Green worked together to recreate a traditional multi-levelled, multi-terraced Lindian mansion, decorated in a timeless way using traditional local crafts and antiques.

Here are some of my photos from our dinner, supplemented by the couple above from the hotel’s website, as I didn’t have my wide-angled lens with me.

Enjoy the spectacularly pretty.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – L’Auberge Del Mar

May 4, 2011 By Paola 12 Comments

We wanted to go to Southern California this year to a) escape the miserable Seattle ‘spring’ (I use this term loosely) b) visit my elderly aunt in Dana Point, an hour or so’s drive south of LA and c) take the Minx to Disneyland.

I was told by friends on Twitter and Facebook that Del Mar was fun and it was suggested that we try the newly-refurbished L’Auberge Del Mar. When we discovered that my very favourite discounted fancy hotels travel site www.luxurylink.com was offering a deal, our fate was sealed.

And we had the most wonderful time.

L’Auberge Del Mar is a historic hotel overlooking the Pacific Ocean and right on Del Mar’s attractive main street.

The hotel was completely refurbished in 2008 by interior designer Barclay Butera who has done a great job bringing a historic building bang up to date.

We were lucky enough to have a room overlooking the main courtyard of the hotel, which was been designed as a series of little ‘rooms’, cabanas, terraces and courtyards centered around the small but luxurious pool and jacuzzi area. There’s the kicking Bleu Bar, a scenic terrace for breakfast and informal suppers, cosy hidden cabanas and even space for weddings, all with an ocean view.

The themes of the décor are soft and muted sage-y greens, brown and white stripes and the most breathtakingly lush white planting – white roses everywhere you turn, undulating seas of fragrant jasmine, and hedges of rosemary and box.

To be perfectly honest we hardly left the hotel all week. The place comes into its own at night, when the surfers come in from the beach and le tout Del Mar comes out to party. We dined one evening in the hotel’s top notch restaurant Kitchen 1540, where the cured meats, golden beet salad and frozen key lime pie will live on in my memory. We drank superlative cocktails at the Bleu Bar every night. The hotel is beautifully lit with fires and burners everywhere to take the chill off the evening air as the sun sets over the ocean.

The internal décor is luxurious too – all sage greens, soft browns, seashells and comfy seating. I loved the ridiculously rococo shell-encrusted side tables, the beautiful mother-of-pearl smothered lamps, the green toile cushions and the enormous shell planters full of orchids.

There were little touches of wit and humour everywhere – the wait staff had foodie quotations printed on their tee-shirts and Sofie, Kristy the Marketing Coordinator’s pretty little dog, had a sign at the front desk telling us when she was ‘working’ and available for cuddles.

Finally, and most importantly for us, L’Auberge trod that extremely fine line between being super relaxed and kid-friendly (with unbelievably kind staff and a great kids’ menu) and sophisticated and happening enough for grown-ups – thanks to a fabulous bar, gorgeous spa and secluded lap pool. The Minx adored it and the Husband and I are longing to return.

Truly I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

Giveaway! Beautiful Shabby Apple Dress

April 1, 2011 By Paola 71 Comments

It’s Spring and this not-so-young woman’s fancies are lightly turning to getting the heck out of rainy, cold and miserable Seattle and going somewhere warm and sunny in Europe instead.

Fortunately for all of us dreaming of summer, the lovely peeps at Shabby Apple have very generously offered to give away one of their delightful summer dresses to mirrormirror blog readers. After much humming and haaahing (sp?) I have chosen this cute ‘Trevi Fountain’ dress worth $78 a) because the pics make me want to go back and live in Rome and b) because I think the cut and colour will be flattering on lots of people.

There are four different ways to enter the competition and everyone can enter up to four times. Just make sure you tell me how you’ve entered in a comment below. The competition closes at midnight Pacific Standard Time and I’ll use a random number generator to draw the winning entry as soon as I wake up on Thursday 7th April.

If you win you’ll be able to choose your size and the dress will be shipped directly to you from Shabby Apple if you live in the US. If you live elsewhere, I’ll have it delivered here and then ship it out for FREE, so everyone in the UK and beyond can enter too. And if you aren’t lucky enough to win, Shabby Apple has provided the coupon code mirrormirror10off, so we can all get 10% off at the store.

Below are the different ways to enter. Remember you can enter all four ways as long as you leave a comment telling me how you’ve entered below.

1) Leave a comment below saying if and where you’re thinking of heading on vacation/holiday this summer

2) ’Like’ mirrormirror on Facebook (leave a comment below saying you’ve done this)

3) ‘Like’ Shabby Apple on Facebook (leave a comment below saying you’ve done this)

4) Tweet the following: I’ve just entered to win a beautiful Shabby Apple summer dress. You can too!http://is.gd/lkSbhM (And leave a comment below saying you’ve Tweeted).

Buona fortuna!

Update: If you’ve already ‘liked’ mirrormirror or Shabby Apple on Facebook just let me know in the comments and that can count as an entry too. Oh and make sure you mention each entry in a separate comment.

Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival

February 23, 2011 By Paola 1 Comment

So the week before last I headed up to Vancouver BC with three friends – Viv from Seattle Bon Vivant, Tracy from AlDente and Mari - to attend the first ever Vancouver Hot Chocolate Festival.

This was, of course, just an excuse, for four greedy women to spend 36 hours eating their way round Vancouver, ably abetted by Stephane Mouttet, the charming and hugely knowledgeable concierge at the Shangri La hotel.

Having had such an enjoyable time when we stayed there last, I recommended the Shangri La to the others and it was such a relief when our stay was even better than I had remembered. If there are friendlier, more helpful, more informative hotel staff anywhere in the world, I’d love to meet them.

Our first stop on the Hot Chocolate Tour was Thomas Haas in Kitsilano. Haas has world-level patissier credentials, most recently as Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons in Vancouver and the sumptuous chocolates and exquisite pastries in his shop were metaphorically, and probably literally, to die for.

Their hot chocolate was the best we tasted on the tour and the almond croissant was the best I’ve ever had anywhere in the world – the perfect combination of crisp savoury outer shell, perfectly toasted almonds and dense squidgy, not too sweet almond filling. The macarons I brought back for the Minx (who has expensive tastes) were as good as Laduree.

Later that afternoon we visited Mink Chocolates and indulged in yet more hot chocolate and a decadent individual chocolate fondue. The speciality here is individual bars of premium quality iPhone-sized ganache-filled chocolate with super cool names, such as Ruby & Tawny Are Friends, Open In Case Of Emergency, Pas De Deux or Mermaid’s Choice and funky colourful packaging. Their striking beauty, and the individual bold statement chocolates in the shapes of hearts and lips, reflect owner Marc Lieberman’s fine arts background – he does all the graphic design himself, as well as develop the chocolates. I bought a stack of chocolate bars for the Husband’s Valentines’ present and can confirm that they are pretty darn wonderful.

For supper Stephane at the hotel recommended ReFuel, again in Kitsilano, which specialises in fresh local ingredients and did fabulous things with charcuterie, marrow bones, BC spot prawns, chalkboard art and funky light fittings at a very reasonable price.

Another highlight of the trip – though my photos unfortunately didn’t turn out too well - was our trip to Bella Gelateria. We had every intention of trying the hot chocolate but after James the owner talked to us at length about the wonders of his pistachio gelato, made from specially-ground paste, using pistachios from the slopes of Mount Etna, we changed our minds. I consider myself to be something of a pistachio gelato connoisseur – it’s been my flavour of choice since I was a kid and I’ve eaten it all over Italy – and this really was incredible.

Finally here are a few more photos of the splendours of the ShangriLa, featuring their signature chandeliers, their smiley staff, an immense afternoon tea (with OMG! REAL clotted cream) and a doozy of a breakfast, including my first ever taste of congee, which I adored.

And a couple of pics of the incomparable Stephane at work, who did so much to make our trip one of the most fun and memorable I’ve taken in ages. Merci beaucoup!

We had a lot of fun posting pictures and tweeting and checking in from all Vancouver on Facebook and Twitter and will definitely be back again next year to check out all the chocolate stops we didn’t make it to this time round.

If you’re on Twitter you may want to follow @thaaschocolates @ShangriLaBC @bellagelateria @CityFood_mag @refuel_bar @minkchocolates or my lovely friends and travel companions Viv @bonnevivante, Tracy @choicemorsel and M @bitterbiscuit.

And of course I can be found at @mirrormirrorxx or on www.facebook.com/mirrormirroronline

New Year’s Resolutions

December 30, 2010 By Paola 4 Comments

This year I have decided NOT to make any resolutions because a) I am absolutely crap at sticking to them and b) I’ve got quite enough on my plate thank you with my 101 Things list.

The good news is that I managed to make further inroads into the list over Christmas.

First up was ‘go snowmobiling’.

Many moons ago, when I’d just met the Boyfriend (before he became the Husband) we went on a skiing holiday to Whistler (little guessing that we’d be living in Seattle and spending our Christmases there, ten or so years into the future).

I had been trying my hand at snowboarding and after a couple of lessons the then Boyfriend and I decided to board down the mountain. It turns out that I’m even worse at snowboarding than I am at keeping New Year’s resolutions and it soon became apparent that there was no way I was going to make it to the nearest chairlift before nightfall. Cue a ruggedly handsome snowmobiler rushing to the aid of this damsel in distress and whisking me off down the mountain at top speed. And I’ve wanted to go snowmobiling again ever since.

So it went on the list and the Husband and I signed up to go snowmobiling last week in Whistler. I decided that it would only count for the list if I drove one, little realising how terrifyingly huge they are.

Here I am as nervous as hell before we set off.

Here I am clinging on grimly for dear life (yes, I promise that’s me).

And here we are after I decided that my tentative driving was hugely unenjoyable for all concerned and I climbed on the back of the guide’s machine, whizzed at furious speed through the snowy trees, and fulfilled all my snowmobiling fantasies.

It turns out that snowmobiles are another thing (along with cars and supermarkets) that are not designed for people who stand just over 5 feet tall. It really would have helped if I’d at least been able to see over the windshield which became totally covered in snow at one point.

The other thing I can of course tick off the list is ‘knit a sock monkey’. Here are a couple of last photos, before I bore you to death, of Carmen B modelling a few accessories. I knitted the hat on Christmas Eve, made her earrings and sourced the little sunglasses online.

What are your resolutions this year? Is anyone going to join me in a 101 Things List? If you’re feeling introspective then this list of prompts from Reverb is very thought-provoking (I may work on it in January).

Sadly Carmen Banana has not been an unequivocal success. The Minx was very impressed that I’d knitted her and told me that ‘she looks like she came from a sock monkey shop’. However the next night I found that she had been relegated from the Minx’s bed ‘because she looks a bit scary’. I have to say that I can’t really disagree with her.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Poet’s Cove

December 6, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

So I celebrated Thanksgiving in a rather unconventional way by heading off with a girlfriend to the Canadian Gulf Islands – part of the same group of islands as the US San Juans, situated in the strait between Vancouver Island and Vancouver itself.

Snow was falling gently as I left the house early on Thursday morning to catch the Clipper and for a moment I was worried that me and my wheely suitcase wouldn’t even make it down our icy steps, let alone all the way to the islands. But I needn’t have worried – the crossing over to Victoria was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and welcome rain was turning the snow to slush when I arrived.

The following day we took the ferry out to Pender Island. It’s only a short ferry crossing from Sidney, near Victoria, and then about 20 minutes drive on Pender from the north island to the south. And this is what we saw as we turned the last corner.

Poet’s Cove is a modern resort, spa and yacht marina tucked into a tranquil and stunningly beautiful bay. My friend and I were lucky enough to stay in a two-bedroom cottage with its own personal outside hot tub, so we spent a lot of time drinking prosecco in the tub, watching dreadful movies curled up in front of the fire, doing the crossword and knitting, having treatments in the fabulous spa and dining on top notch comfort food in the relaxed and busy dining room.

The decor is in the modern ‘lodge’ vernacular which one finds so often in the Pacific Northwest and is all about the fireplaces and cosy sofas, high ceilings and a few interesting craftmade pieces.

The staff were absolutely lovely. Nothing was too much trouble – here they are keeping brunch buffet open for us, so that we could fit in our spa treatments before they stopped serving brunch.

And while the resort was tremendously relaxing for the body and mind, Mother Nature was busy weaving her magic on our souls. An old Native American chief is buried close to the resort and you can see why he’d want to live out eternity looking out at views like these.

A big highlight was when this little chap came out to play close to the marina. This beautiful mottled seal was a star in the making, giving us a ten minute display of incredible underwater athleticism and seemingly revelling in his audience.

No wonder we looked somewhat drunk on fresh air, beauty (and possibly the odd caipirinha) by the end of our stay.

Apparently this place gets understandably busy in the summer, though I’d still love to return then – I think the family would love it.

And if you live in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for somewhere fun for a weekend, even in the depths of winter, then head off here. It’s where even the seals come to relax and play.

Go Love Your Trailer Park – Hicksville Trailer Palace

November 12, 2010 By Paola 6 Comments

You already know how much we love Joshua Tree, but the person who decided to build a trailer park motel there with themed trailers, secluded swimming pool and recording studio (just in case you have an album to make) was clearly a genius. Hicksville Trailer Palace, I salute you!

The Fifi would definitely be the Minx’s trailer of choice, though the Husband would need to keep a firm grip on his masculinity. Though glowing wig heads would make up for all the frou frou I suspect.

I could live out my fantasy of living in an Airstream in the Integratrailer, though the interior does seem a little subdued. It apparently comes with its own alien communication system though.

And I also like the look of the Lux, which apparently comes with its own library of horror movies, which I would NOT be watching stuck in the middle ofJoshua Tree. At night.

The other amenities look more fun than normal camping too.

And can you imagine how spectacular it would be sitting out under all those stars?

{All images from www.hicksville.com and their Facebook page. Found via the Divine Ms T at Whorange}

Go Fug Your Room? – Paola Navone

November 4, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

Oh we haven’t done one of these for ages, have we? So let’s get our ~~bitchpants~~ critical thinking caps on and get to work.

My first name, courtesy of my Italian mother, has always been a source of great consternation to me – as so few people in either the UK or America have any clue how to pronounce or spell it (for the record, say ‘Pow-la’ in your best Italian accent and you’ll come pretty close) and I’ve had some pretty creative versions of both over the years.

Because my name is so unusual in English-speaking countries (Paolas are ten a penny in Italy) I’ve always had a soft spot for famous Paolas such as er, Queen Paola of Belgium and Italian product designer Paola Navone. In the latter case, it’s not just because of her illustrious name, but also because she designs some super cool stuff.

So I was very excited when September’s Livingetc featured her Milanese apartment – an old Parmesan cheese warehouse that was apparently in miserable condition until Navone recently rescued it.

The problem is that I’m not exactly thrilled by the interior design. The overlapping blues and greys, are beautiful in and of themselves, but there’s just too darn much blue everywhere and, coupled with all the hard tiling on floor and ceiling, it just looks so cold and uncomfortable, like living inside an icecube.

That might be appropriate in Morocco, or Greece, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Milan, and in winter it is often as dank, cold and foggy as Sarah Palin’s brain. The ceramic Moroccan stools; smooth, shiny Moroccan pouffes and Asian ceramic busts only add to the chill. Am I the only person who wants to add some snuggly orange cushions or thick, shaggy deep red rugs to the mix?

Also, and this is probably just me, there’s just a bit too much Moroccan going on in here. Don’t get me wrong, I love Moroccan design in and of itself and I love combining elements from an eclectic mix of cultures in a single space, as Navone mostly does to great effect. But the pasha’s boudoir above has strayed into ‘theme-bar’ territory and the Asian busts just seem incongruous and out of place.

But the real story here is the monotone colour. The blue is absolutely unrelenting, permeating every room in the apartment, though she goes wild and adds a little green to the kitchen, which, I’ll admit, I would kill several close family members to have in my house.

In isolation, each of these rooms is beautiful, as are many of the pieces in them. It’s just that the whole just seems so chilly and hard and the monotones are just well, monotonous. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the stylist had to, both literally and figuratively, turn the fire on, so as to liven up the spread.

poll by twiigs.com

You may be interested in Paola Navone’s other houses. Her Greek island home, which is a study in white, is here and her stunning Paris apartment, which is mostly white, with pops of colour, is here. I am obviously not remotely insanely jealous of anyone who has homes in Paris, Milan and Greece.

Fancy Hotel of the Week – Hotel Triton, San Francisco

October 29, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

One of the very nicest things about the Husband’s job is that he occasionally gets to travel to San Francisco on business, which makes it much cheaper and easier for us to organise a long weekend. So that’s where we were at the beginning of the week. Yep, lucky doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The Hotel Vitale was fully booked this time, so we instead got a room at the fabulously located Hotel Triton – just steps from the Chinatown gate and three minutes walk from Union Square. It’s a smallish hotel with limited amenities and doesn’t even have a restaurant, though it shares its building with the excellent French-style brasserie Cafe de la Presse, which serves thick frothy cappuccinos and French patisserie as good as any I’ve had in France, as well as authentic-looking French brasseries staples such as French onion soup and croque monsieur.

Architecturally the building isn’t anything to write home about but, boy, have they made the most of what they have – going wild with vibrant pop art wallpapers, crazy colourful upholstery and weird and wonderfully shaped accent pieces (though the rooms themselves are a little more restrained).

It was as if it had been designed by Mondo from Project Runway while high on the waccy baccy (and speaking of whom, what the bloody hell happened last night?)

Needless to say the Minx and I both adored it – particularly as the reception area came complete with Romy the very cute puppy, whom the Minx insisted on ‘training’ by throwing his ball around the lounge, chasing round all available pillars and grossly overfeeding on dog biscuits. The little rubber ducks in the outside water feature were another Minx-friendly addition. Such a kid and dog friendly design hotel is a rare gem indeed.

All in all we loved this enough to go back, despite a mix-up at the beginning which meant that the kid-friendly room we’d booked was not available when we arrived amid torrential rain and all very tired after an early start.

To be fair to the hotel they did offer us one of their ‘celebrity suites’ – the Haagen Dazs room, but it didn’t have a sofabed for the Minx (why don’t all hotels automatically put sofabeds in all their rooms?) And also, to be honest, my waistline does NOT need a hotel room where the key attraction is a huge freezer full of unlimited FREE Haagen Dazs. You however, may disagree. The Minx probably would too if she’d had any idea what we turned down.

In the end we got the more spacious kid-friendly room we wanted (space is such a premium when there’s three of your in a room), the hotel apologised, we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our stay and I’m happy to recommend the hotel as a great place to stay in San Francisco.

Enjoy the crazy pretty.

Days of Wine and Roses – Aix en Provence

August 26, 2010 By Paola 2 Comments

Do you want the bad news or the good news?

On the downside the Minx’s interminable summer vacation continues, so you’re just going to have to make do with holiday snaps and maybe the off it of flybynight blogging for the time being.

The good news is that she goes back to school NEXT WEDNESDAY (be still my beating heart!). Not only will it be business as usual, but I’m hoping to unveil a bit of blog re-launch then as well. I’ve no idea how y’all can cope with the excitement.

In the meantime though, here are some pictures from the next stage of our French adventure (which seems so long ago now).

After five very pleasant days in Menton we drove north and east to spend a few days in a gite near the beautiful town of Aix en Provence.

As you can see, we indulged in a lot of shopping, sitting in cafes, drinking wine, eating patisserie and general loafing about a la francaise.

We stayed in some very sweet and well-equipped gites, in beautiful old stone buildings set in a vineyard close to St Maximin and Aix. The Minx managed to swim her very first length in the huge pool, which accounts for the enormous cheese-eating grin below.

Not surprisingly the Minx has decided that she likes France very much. This was all part of my cunning plan to ensure that she continues to enjoy going to a French immersion school. I have not yet revealed to her that not every corner of France is quite like this.

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