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Rwanda has always had the sort of scenery that makes a person reconsider every holiday previously spent beside a hotel pool reading a novel about people having better holidays. Now The Lux Collective has arrived, opening LUX* Lake Kivu and SALT of Akagera, the first two properties in an ambitious five-resort tourism circuit across the country.
As we have previously commented, the Park Hyatt does the best breakfast in the world along with the best view. This does create difficulties when someone asks how you would like your eggs, because you are too busy staring through the window and wondering whether it would be socially acceptable to move permanently into The Dining Room.
But Champagne now has competition. The latest French obsession is butter. French butter, particularly the Breton sort made by Maison Bordier, has acquired the sort of following usually associated with limited-edition handbags and restaurants whose booking systems open at 3am and are full by 3.01.
The Kriya Spa at the Grand Hyatt Bali in Nusa Dua appears to have been designed on the ambitious premise that you may arrive as one person and leave as a loosely assembled collection of very happy limbs.
Wednesday night is an interesting choice for the opening night of an opera in Sydney, particularly when it collides with State of Origin. My husband mentioned this several times.
In 1884, a steamboat came to grief on the Albert River and washed up near the Beenleigh sugar property with a copper still on board. This was the sort of historical accident that makes modern branding departments sob into their mood boards. John Davy and Francis Gooding, who were growing sugarcane in that steamy corner of Queensland, looked at the stranded apparatus and appear to have reached the only sane conclusion: the universe wanted rum.
Some places announce themselves with fireworks and enough polished surfaces to make a person feel underdressed by the time they have located reception. Arjan Cave at Kamalaya does something far more interesting. It sits at the centre of the retreat, faintly amused, as if it has watched centuries of human fuss come and go and has decided silence remains the best review.
Handpicked Wines is a highly organised, beautifully hydrated, soil-conscious, Pinot-whispering operation in which even the worms probably have professional development plans.
Topper’s Mountain is well suited to such vinous eccentricity. Founded by vigneron Mark Kirkby, the vineyard sits in one of Australia’s youngest wine regions, where high altitude, cool climate and rich red volcanic ash soils create the sort of conditions that alternative varieties find extremely agreeable. If mainstream grapes are the people who arrive at dinner parties with a reliable bottle of Chardonnay and sensible shoes, Topper’s Mountain is where the more intriguing guests gather in the kitchen: Manseng, Nebbiolo, Gewürztraminer, Touriga, Tinta Cão, Tinta Roriz and now, the Spanish oddity with the almost biblical backstory.
There are certain inventions that make humanity look briefly magnificent. The wheel. The printing press. Antibiotics. The emergency Tim Tam. And now, with absolutely no regard for the dignity of civilisation, Real McCoy has launched a Cinnamon Doughnut Whiskey Liqueur, which sounds ridiculous until you taste it and begin making dangerous plans involving ice and a second bottle.
Asia has become the default new gateway, with most major Asian airlines reporting full flights out of Australia. With its reputation for uncompromising safety and service, Cathay Pacific is an obvious choice for Europe-bound travellers. But how do its premium cabins stack up against the rest? Firstclassmagazine.co recently put the airline’s A350 business class experience to the test.
We are spending time in Lyon – the gastronomic centre of France. One restaurant is on our “must do” list, Michelin-starred Restaurant Paul Bocuse. First opened by Paul Bocuse’s grandfather in 1924, Restaurant Paul Bocuse is about eight kilometres out of Lyon in Bocuse’s hometown of Collonges-au-Mont-d’Or. Dining there is to dine like Royalty.
