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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.
I grew up devoted to Get Smart. For me, Maxwell Smart was the perfect secret agent. He blundered magnificently through danger with the cheerful confidence of a man who had never once allowed competence to ruin a good adventure. Which is why The Porter House Hotel Sydney struck me as exactly the sort of place where Agent 86 might stay, provided CONTROL had suddenly acquired excellent taste and a heritage architecture budget.
It’s easy to label time away at a health retreat ‘for yourself’ as indulgent, or a luxury even.
But the older I get, the more I see it differently. Taking deliberate time out isn’t about escape. It’s about maintenance. A reset. A considered pause that allows me to return sharper, calmer and frankly, a little bit better company for everyone else.
Let us begin with the most astonishing detail.
The accommodation does not sit in the desert. It floats above it although it’s not a mystical, levitating way, sadly. It is in a deeply clever engineering way that ensures nothing permanently damages the fragile desert floor.
Across Sri Lanka’s mountains, coast and tea country, the brand unfolds through a set of experiences that are deliberately slow, rooted in language, landscape and lived tradition. Each begins with Aa…, a shared linguistic thread drawn from Sinhala and regional heritage, connecting the properties while allowing each to speak in its own voice.
Season Five picks up exactly where the last left off: Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) heads to Rome to help launch Agence Grateau’s new Italian office. Paris is still technically home, but Rome is where things get complicated – professionally, romantically, and in that particular Emily way where a single PowerPoint idea can detonate her entire life.
Five Greek Islands for People Who Like Greece, But Not Elbowing Strangers for a Sun Lounger
There are two kinds of Greek island holidays: the velvet-rope, DJ-fuelled kind where you dodge influencers mid–engagement shoot, and the quieter, better kind with blue water, long lunches, locals who still outnumber visitors, and the radical luxury of space. These five islands belong firmly to the second camp – beautiful, storied, delicious, and refreshingly untrampled by the tourist throng.
Now why should newlyweds get exclusive rights to swanning about in luxury suites, clinking glasses of Champagne, and pretending they’ve never argued over the correct way to stack a dishwasher? Especially now that Australia’s marriage rate has taken a dramatic slide to a 20-year low, down from 7.1 per 1,000 people in 2004 to a rather sheepish 5.5 in 2023.
If your idea of the festive season involves elbowing strangers for the last box of mince pies at Woolies, then Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary would like a quiet word. Nestled in the Neyphu Valley, this luxury retreat (the world’s only wellness-inclusive one, mind you) has decided that December is best spent in the crisp Himalayas with an eggnog in one hand and your chakras realigned in the other.
But this is the magic of the InterCon Double Bay, you don’t have to care about rugby league to feel glamorous. Because here, it isn’t just NRL coaches and players gliding through the lobby. Oh no. The guest book reads like a Who’s Who of the 20th century. Princess Diana, David Bowie, U.S. Presidents, and our very own Bob Hawke, who famously jogged the nearby streets in budgie smugglers because why wear Lycra when you can wear less? It’s that kind of place.
But The Rusty Rabbit, newly hopped into Concord, has solved this existential crisis. This is not a café where vegetarians are forced into the culinary equivalent of sitting at the kiddies’ table with toast and butter. No, here you’re spoilt. Here, the meatless meals strut onto the stage, demand a round of applause, and frankly, steal the show. Of course there are plenty of meaty meals for the carnivores too.
Luxury Escapes has just announced its newest Signature Series tour to Türkiye, and it’s hosted by none other than Shane Delia, chef, TV personality, and the man most likely to know where the really good köfte is hiding.
