It’s no surprise that the wild and whimsical Phillippe Starck is behind the design of Beverly Hills’ newest tourist address. The SLS opened late last year, a complete refurbishment of a former Méridien hotel which could not seem further from its corporate past. I find a towering model of a horse with a lampshade on its head in the foyer and, hanging outside the lifts, digital “oil portraits” of 18th-century gents that morph into monkeys.
Destinations
Put a smile on your face. Visit this American town
Ojai, just outside Los Angeles, is California’s own ‘Shangri-La’. Soon British holidaymakers will be seeking out its rejuvenating powers, writes Sarah Barrell
The American dream is alive and well and living outside Los Angeles. An hour and a half from the city that crushes a million dreams, and grants a few of them, there is a little town called Ojai that delivers all the good things in life without demanding more than a smile.
Stay The Night: Montage Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
The first hotel to be built from the ground up in Beverly Hills for almost 20 years, the Montage, which opened in November, is already positioning itself as a Hollywood grand dame.
For a start, it has managed to bag a huge plot of land in the poshest part of Beverly Hills – near Rodeo Drive’s hallowed boutiques. In return it did the city authorities a couple of favours: the hotel has allowed public access to its lovely lemon-scented gardens, and topped its Spanish colonial-style building with the same terracotta roofs and fanciful gilded cupola as the iconic Beverly Hills City Hall building.
The Big Question: How did the Rio Carnival become the biggest extravaganza in the world?
Why are we asking this now?
Because the annual Rio de Janeiro carnival – Carnaval, as it known locally – begins today, a dazzling, extravagantly over-the-top celebration of life that draws millions of people on to the streets of the Brazilian city. The benchmark against which all other carnivals are measured, this multi-million dollar affair – which always starts on the Friday before Shrove Tuesday and concludes on Ash Wednesday – is sponsored by the gaming industry and fronted by some of Brazil’s biggest TV stars. The whole country stops to watch, if not in the stands, then on television. It’s Brazil’s equivalent of America’s Super Bowl Sunday, only with significantly more “wardrobe malfunctions”.
It’s peaceful here on top of the world: Ladakh ‘Little Tibet’
Ladakh, known as ‘Little Tibet’, is a bastion of Buddhist calm in a wild and remote region. Sarah Barrell gets a taste of village life in the Himalayas.
The Indus River was the first sign of life, making wild snaking curves through the mountains from Tibet, an icy lifeline for the few who inhabit the arid Ladakh plateau.
We’d been flying over a choppy sea of Himalayan peaks for an hour, a mass of violent geology that stretched as far as the eye could see. The pilot waited, making dizzying circles around the edge of the Indus Valley, until the dust cleared and he could put down. The landing gear was barely extended before we abruptly bumped into Ladakh’s capital, Leh, “rooftop of the world”.
City slicker: A guide to Genoa
A new film is about to put this Italian port in the spotlight. Sarah Barrell offers a guide to the sights for new, and returning visitors.
This underrated port is about to become a film star. A new thriller, simply entitled “Genova” and starring Colin Firth, uses the winding alleys and gothic atmosphere of this Ligurian city to great effect and puts the spotlight on its rich 16th and 17th-century architecture.
Genoa is a city defined by its port: a working hub for vast cruise boats and cargo containers. The old town climbs directly out of this watery, industrial heart, a glorious, vertiginous mess of medieval buildings piled up against the base of the steep Apennine mountains – it’s no surprise Henry James described it as “the most winding, incoherent of cities”.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/city-slicker-a-guide-to-genoa-958338.html
Stay the night: The Randolph, Oxford
A great opportunity has been missed in the recent makeover of Oxford’s most venerable hotel, says Sarah Barrell.
Makeovers: they’re all the rage. Take a grand old hotel and do something oh-so-aching-moderne with the décor that it eclipses much of the original elegance. Not so with The Randolph, but sadly in this case, more would in fact be more.
Last year, this landmark hotel was promoted to AA Five Star status in recognition of both its service and its recent renovations, including the addition of a spa. Investment or no, the new look resembles the holdings of a fusty old dowager who has neither the money nor the vision to revive her rambling property.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/stay-the-night-the-randolph-oxford-958371.html
Stay The Night: Thalassa, Paphos
Sun, spa and an ancient Cypriot ruin all to yourself.
Boutique hotel: a phrase that’s become so elastic in definition that if it were stitched into underwear we’d find our drawers round our ankles. The Thalassa, while not quite displaying utter bare-faced cheek, is not, by the original definition of the concept, boutique.
It’s not small or unique: it has 58 rooms and suites all decorated with identical colours and standard mid-range hotel furnishings. There are no special design features, save lilac-painted cornicing to ward off evil spirits (as Cypriot folklore goes) and you won’t be overwhelmed by its architectural beauty: from the outside it looks more like a car park than a hotel.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/stay-the-night-thalassa-paphos-913640.html
Hotel Of The Week: San Domenico House, London
The little Chelsea hotel with big aspirations.
A grand hotel on boutique scale, the 15-room San Domenico House, just off Sloane Square, is a little bit of Chelsea posh newly acquired by a flamboyant Italian family hotelier. The fact that place was converted from two redbrick Victorian houses to the original Sloane Hotel by a chic French designer only adds to its opulence. This has been duly noted by the AA which has just awarded it Best London B&B for 2008/09.
The view from the sunny, teeny roof terrace, of buses bustling up King’s Road and Battersea Power Station as a backdrop, belies the tranquil, almost villagey feel of the leafy, cobbled streets below. It’s enough to make you believe you’re the lord of the manor, despite being in a London terrace.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/hotel-of-the-week-san-domenico-house-london-878016.html
Even at the age of 400, Quebec’s still young at heart
Celebrated as an olde worlde outpost of France, this city is far more modern than it seems at first glance, says Sarah Barrell.
A breaching whale is not an uncommon sight in coastal Canada. But this one blows spume high above the city of Quebec, so there is a collective intake of breath from the thousands of spectators gathered along the waterfront.
This is no wildlife display. We are in the heart of the city and the whale is the animated creation of Quebec’s renaissance man, Robert Lepage. One of the most anticipated highlights of the city’s current 400th birthday celebrations, Lepage’s The Image Mill is a 40-minute movie-cum-sound-and-light show (plus smoke and water), which uses the port’s grain silos as a 600m- long, 30m-high screen.
Sarah Barrell 