Think about The Gold Checklist the reply to the query our editors get requested greater than some other: what are your favorite locations to remain? Our annual assortment, passionately chosen by our worldwide workforce, reveals which seaside retreat we return to each August and the town lodge that will get every little thing proper. Now all you must do is decide the expertise that’s best for you – and get travelling.
Europe and The UK
Marbella Membership – Málaga, Spain
This heritage property on the Andalusian coast has been synonymous with unassuming luxurious because it started life as a hangout for Prince Alfonso von Hohenlohe’s mates within the Fifties. Over time it has advanced from a string of Californian-motel-inspired lodges right into a rarefied village anchored by the seaside. But regardless of its progress, it has maintained the intimacy of a members’ membership. Publish-pandemic additions similar to El Patio restaurant draw upmarket locals to sip pressed juices after yoga lessons or crisp rosés afterward. The current reincarnation of the enduring Seaside Membership, as soon as erring on the facet of silver service, has an artisanal, eclectic really feel, with vibrant corals, Artwork Deco-style umbrellas, and painted by hand tiles. It’s this uncommon mixture of bohemian appeal and specificity of service that’s MC’s interstellar mud. It’s what brings good younger {couples} to lounge collectively below the citrus timber. It’s why households collect poolside for languorous lunches. However the children’ membership is the best triumph. There are exhaustive actions, attractive free-flow inventive areas, and interesting, energetic workers who work delicate magic. I’ve “inspired” my very own kids into numerous children’ golf equipment over time, however that is the one one which I’ve needed to bribe them again out of. And comfortable kids imply harmonious holidays: time to slink into the sea-gazing Thalasso spa, attempt some Kundalini yoga or a bit of paddle browsing; maybe even a zingy Zoco cocktail by the pool. Life is all about steadiness, in spite of everything. Doubles from about £377. Lydia Gard
Santo MauroYago Castromil
Santo Mauro, a Luxurious Assortment Resort – Madrid, Spain
Lately, the higher finish of Madrid’s lodge scene has erupted in a welter of blue-chip worldwide manufacturers – however three a long time earlier than the present increase, Santo Mauro was already providing its discreet model of noble luxe. Constructed between 1860 and 1902 because the non-public palacio of the Dukes of Santo Mauro, the 49-room lodge, now owned by Antonio Catalán, occupies an prosperous nook of the Chamberí neighbourhood the place the ebullience of downtown Madrid provides method to a patrician quietude. The high-ceilinged public rooms appear to compete with each other in fin de siècle grandeur, however due to design doyen Lorenzo Castillo, who lately undertook a significant refresh of the lodge’s interiors, what may as soon as have been suffocatingly opulent now has a sure lightness and stylish. Expansive, costly materials adorn the partitions and home windows; restored parquet flooring creak authentically as you pad throughout them; ceiling mouldings are subtly under-lit. The 93-member workers, smiling and as impeccably turned out as the environment, make you imagine you’re a pal of the duke, merely hanging out for an evening or two in your common Madrid bolt-hole. In the meantime within the French-style formal backyard, deliciously re-imagined by landscaper Fernando Valero as a maze of field hedges and trickling fountains, the gravel crunches underfoot. From past a line of towering horse chestnut timber and a excessive fence hung with ivy comes the murmur of what could be, proper now, Spain’s most enjoyable metropolis. Laborious although it’s to tear your self away from this well-upholstered bubble of gorgeousness, it should be completed. From about £509. Paul Richardson
Courtesy El Palace Barcelona/Carlos Garralaga
El Palace Barcelona – Spain
I’ve been coming to Barcelona since simply earlier than the 1992 Olympics, that watershed second when the town picked up the baton and ran with it. Since then I’ve all the time been swayed by the brand new: staying in Resort Arts Barcelona when it rose up on the beachfront or making for The Hoxton’s rooftop taqueria. Nonetheless, El Palace, just like the Eixample district it sits in, is rarely ruffled by arrivistes. Locals nonetheless name it “El Ritz” – it was César Ritz’s final grand undertaking – and whereas it formally misplaced the identify a long time in the past, it clung to the theatrical pomp. The foyer’s basalt-black columns are the definition of mausoleum stylish, as if able to stage a manufacturing of Salome. Like all grandes dames, it provides good gossip and drops a couple of names. Everybody is aware of that Dalí lived right here and as soon as requested the workers to deliver a large stuffed horse that he’d purchased up the steps to his room, however there’s additionally a wild hearsay that Trotsky’s assassin, Ramón Mercader, was as soon as maître d’ right here. I returned to Barcelona earlier this 12 months, the primary time since lockdown, to search out it nearly utterly awake as soon as extra, and El Palace filled with renewed zip. A brand new identify has arrange residence right here: Rafa Zafra, the topknotted former head chef at El Bulli, in Amar, a midnight-blue restaurant with ponzu oysters, caviar, and spider-crab cannelloni on the menu. And the rooftop pool terrace has been reclaimed by summer season DJ units and cocktail-fuelled artwork classes. I even danced the merengue – seasoned boulevardiers can study new strikes too. From about £283. Rick Jordan
Courtesy Belmond/Mattia Aquila
Cipriani, A Belmond Resort – Venice, Italy
The journey is as vital because the arrival, they are saying, and when utilized to the house and backyard of earthly delights that’s the Belmond Cipriani, it means one thing. A classic motor launch in varnished cedar, the final phrase in Nineteen Seventies Venetian nautical stylish, awaits to whisk you from the terminal or the crowds of St. Mark’s Sq. to the lodge, the place the charming Roberto, who has been right here endlessly, greets friends with a private flourish. Not like Venice’s different luxurious resorts which have been poured into current historic palaces, preventing in opposition to a corset of strict rules, the Cipriani was custom-built in 1958 with loads of elbow room, on three acres of land of the Giudecca, then owned by Guinness the Aristocracy. The daughters, Honor and Brigid, have been followers of Harry’s Bar, a small panelled den within the coronary heart of Venice, and invited its proprietor, Giuseppe Cipriani, to assume massive and create a lodge in partnership with them. The result’s a spot that’s nonetheless unrivalled for that spirit of urbane hedonism; for beneficiant and attentive service that by no means genuflects; for a straightforward environment of peace and sanctuary alongside a way of clubhouse discretion and rarefied exclusivity.
In the summertime, when the canals in Venice get stinkier, the Cipriani provides greater than a breath of contemporary air. The grounds are massive sufficient for tennis courts, a kitchen backyard, a winery, and a spa throughout the orange blossom-scented Casanova gardens, the place the eponymous lady-killer wooed the neighbouring nunnery. They’re a haven for birds and Roberta the tortoise, who, sadly, hasn’t been seen since a current acqua alta. In the meantime, across the showpiece Olympic-size pool, the beating coronary heart of the lodge (and a contented accident of scale, as a result of the architect acquired his meters and ft combined up), sunbathing is raised to the extent of theatre, with limitless alternatives for people-watching across the travertine-marble terrace. Right here, Hollywood moguls cement movie offers in loud voices whereas Venetian aristocrats settle into cabanas for the day, spraying complimentary Evian like Chanel No 5 and addressing the workers as extensions of their household. Sadly, the barman Walter Bolzonella, well-known for the Buonanotte cocktail he dreamed up with George Clooney, is retired. The succesful Riccardo Semeria has stepped into his sneakers, whereas Riccardo Canella, multi-Michelin famous person chef of Noma fame, takes the culinary helm. He understands that the essence of Italian type is to maintain issues easy, pure, and acquainted, but nonetheless contemporary and ingenious. That is the hallmark of the Cipriani. Others have tried to emulate its timeless Italian stylish. However glamour is an environment, one thing tougher to bottle than an Acqua di Parma scent. It’s synonymous with this lodge, with its to-die-for view of the Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s, sequestered on the sting of an insignificant island on a lagoon lapping the Adriatic Sea. From about £1,105. Catherine Fairweather
Caruso, A Belmond Resort, Amalfi Coast – Ravello, Italy
The primary time my household went to Caruso, which is an Eleventh-century property in Ravello at a summit within the Lattari Mountains that overlooks a 1,000-foot-plus plunge to the Tyrrhenian Sea, my son Henry was nearly six months outdated. It was late April, and Amalfi’s lemon timber have been blossoming. The lodge, an austerely stunning, scrubbed limestone palace clinging to the facet of a hill, was an appealingly straightforward escape. We carried cups of wealthy, not-too-sweet Sfusato Amalfitano lemonade into the grounds. Gardens organized with lawns, rose borders, half-hid hammocks, and citrus timber fanned beneath the palace like big steps. Wisteria vines dropped petals from the pergolas, outshone by the punch-pink, first-bloom bougainvillea. We slept within the lodge’s Villa Margherita, designed by Eric Egan. I think about artists who travelled to Ravello within the early twentieth century staying right here as they waited for inspiration to strike. Considered one of us opened a set of floor-to-ceiling home windows, exposing a transparent sweep from the coastal slopes of Maiori to Minori, with the chapel-dotted uplands of the Lattaris rising in each instructions, and the improbably empty Mediterranean filling within the horizon. It’s a view nothing can put together you for.
Final Might, my husband, Andrew, and I went again to the identical villa with the cowrie-shell chandelier. We aren’t within the behavior of repeating journeys, however we each stored mentioning that lemonade. I used to be seven months pregnant with our second son, and if I needed to be benched someplace with a pack of antacids – nicely, what a spot. We mooched across the pool, an adults-only place in spirit if not by decree, edged on three sides by inexperienced hills and by the shoreline to the south. Shallow terra-cotta bowls, filled with pansies, sat alongside large white umbrellas, large sufficient to shade two solar loungers on the patio or, even higher, on the delicate garden dented with ice buckets. On some days we by no means went farther than the poolside restaurant, the place we ordered scrape-the-plate paccheri with burst cherry tomatoes, and eggplant Parmesan that got here in a puddle of vivid passata.
Meals – and the leisurely consuming of it – was the tentpole of our return to Caruso. We hovered over breakfast for an hour every morning, scooping up rosemary omelettes and fried tomatoes with troopers of focaccia, tart rounds of caprese al limone, and sfogliatelle santarosa, my favorite, a shell-shaped pastry full of raspberries and cream. Within the afternoons we’d stroll into city previous the duomo for hazelnut and pistachio cones from Baffone Gelateria Artigianale, and within the evenings we stayed on the lodge – a selection that normally would have smacked of laziness to me, however as an alternative felt decadently unambitious.
As I’m penning this, the infant is due in a few weeks, and I hope our second journey finally ends up being the beginning of one thing. I hope we’ll return to Caruso as a household of 4, and open the home windows in that villa, and bear in mind why we hold coming again. From about £814. Jo Rodgers
Grand Resort Tremezzo – Como, Italy
In an more and more rapacious Italian lodge scene, some iconic family-owned properties retain that made-in-Italy, one-of-a-kind elixir that the larger gamers can solely dream of. The decadent Grand Resort Tremezzo is decidedly one in every of these: It has been in household fingers since opening in 1910 and comes with Grand Tour appeal in spades. Sitting a bit of again from Lake Como, looking onto Bellagio, the Liberty-style constructing conjures a Grand Budapest Resort set, an impression that grows whenever you enter the formal foyer with its sweeping red-carpet staircase, vintage gilt-framed mirrors, and marble-encased bogs. I additionally love the flowers in abundance all around the property. However the lodge nonetheless manages to really feel intimate due to its smaller cosy areas: a cocooning spa with a heated swim-in, swim-out pool and Santa Maria Novella merchandise; an out of doors pool surrounded by a forest of timber and blooming flowers; and tucked-away bars and nook banquettes within the restaurant (make sure to attempt the gold-leaf risotto). The lodge effortlessly pulls a number of punches, with a covetable store stocking manufacturers like Bric’s Milano, Borsalino, and Chez Dede, and a stupendous classic wood boat for lake excursions and to keep away from street site visitors. However the true pièce de résistance is the floating pool sitting on the lake – cinematic grandeur incarnate with a Lido-like beachfront, vivid orange and white umbrellas, and stylish {custom} loungers. From about £637. Ondine Cohane
Courtesy Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Resort
Villa Igiea, a Rocco Forte Resort – Palermo, Italy
This swish property is such a pointy distinction to wild Palermo that when you arrive you are feeling as if you’ve travelled to the opposite facet of Sicily, not merely 10 minutes from the town centre. Villa Igiea is a legacy resort within the space, purchased as a non-public property by the Florios, as soon as one in every of Italy’s wealthiest households, however then transformed within the early 1900s right into a wellness retreat that was common with royalty. A long time later, it had misplaced its lustre till lodge magnate Rocco Forte introduced it again to life in 2021. Now its pool, bars, and breezy visitor rooms really feel like a glitzy clubhouse of kinds for European dynasty households, who congregate for aperitivo hour in clothes and loafers on the out of doors terrace overlooking the bay, a dapper pianist tickling the ivories within the nook. You’ll want to order that third ice-cold martini simply to muster up the braveness to speak with the multilingual household – from Sweden? England? – on the desk subsequent to you (however eavesdropping is a effective runner-up). Inside, Artwork Nouveau touches embody whimsical frescoes and grand staircases; whereas no two suites are alike (mine was completed in tidy navy and white with superbly vibrant tiled bogs), they really feel like a contemporary extension of what nonetheless could be very a lot a basic seaside resort. Even on this latest iteration, Villa Igiea seems like a lodge with its personal orbit, and one which creates a micro universe of characters rollicking in opposition to probably the most fanciful backdrop. Who wouldn’t need to be part of that? From about £472. Erin Florio
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Courtesy São Lourenço do Barrocal/Ash James
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Courtesy São Lourenço do Barrocal/Ash James
São Lourenço do Barrocal – Alentejo, Portugal
A morning saunter via this 2,000-acre property in Portugal’s Alentejo is a sensory journey again in time. Paths carve via the montado panorama, the place wildflower meadows are punctuated by cork, oak, and olive timber. Lusitano wild horses mingle with cattle; the medieval hilltop city of Monsaraz looms within the distance, and granite dolmens give a glimpse of the area’s pagan previous. Though it’s simply 90 minutes from Lisbon, it’s conceivable that these views haven’t modified in centuries. The identical can’t be stated for São Lourenço’s luxurious lodgings. Balancing the country and the refined, the agricultural and the clever, is the place this elegant 40-room lodge and natural working farm excels. Humble, whitewashed farm buildings have been sensitively reworked into refined suites centred on a geranium-lined courtyard. The visitor actions – beekeeping classes, foraging, and stargazing (the area is a Darkish Sky Reserve) – are nearly as outdated as the encircling hills. Two centuries of winemaking heritage make São Lourenço a key stop-off on Alentejo’s rota dos vinhos, which winds via the area’s greatest wineries. Right here, strong native varietals have been skilfully tempered down and pair superbly with polished takes on conventional dishes – gazpacho, migas, and cozido stews – which are as nourishing as late nights by the firepit. Effortlessly fashionable but wholly unpretentious, this rural retreat gives a compelling case for swapping Portugal’s coast for its countryside. Doubles from about £352. Ben Olsen
Hôtel de Crillon, A Rosewood Resort – Paris, France
Identified by locals merely as Le Crillon, it’s the sort of spot celebrities roll as much as with the intent of mixing in and mere mortals present as much as with the hopes of standing out. First opened as a lodge in 1909 and owned by dukes and counts previous to the Revolution, the palace – which this summer season celebrated 9 years since its $300 million makeover – is Paris’s most luxurious in each status and design. Treasured stones, elaborate floral preparations, and so…a lot…marble – it’s all there in extravagant droves. As an area, I’ve popped in a number of occasions over time, however probably the most memorable go to was in 2021 when the town was nonetheless closed to foreigners and the lodge rearranged the Leonard Bernstein suite, and its wrap-around balcony, right into a bar for Parisians to sip cocktails and snack on tartines whereas overlooking the Place de la Concorde. The suite has been returned to its grand residence glory, however at the least we nonetheless have Les Ambassadeurs bar, which has a David Bowie–Labyrinth vibe that – due to a sky mural on the ceiling the place crystal chandeliers are draped in chains – is darkish, moody, and ultra-ethereal. Maybe the lodge’s solely snafu is that it’s so “match” for royalty, its bathrobes are Napoleon-sized. (A “massive” was quick and comfortable, even for this five-foot-one Madame!) Nonetheless, consolation and sophistication are key, from contemporary hydrangeas within the room and toiletries by French apothecary Officine Universelle Buly to a charging wire showing minutes after requesting it and an on-call butler service accessible through WhatsApp. And mon dieu, that mattress! It’s like sleeping on a large cream puff: delicate, pillowy, and oh-so-sweet. In all, you come to Le Crillon for heritage with a splash of recent swank and savoir faire. From about £1,573. Sara Leiberman
Courtesy Le Meurice
Le Meurice – Paris, France
Speaking level: would Paris resorts be fairly so palatial had la Révolution by no means occurred? The Louis XIV vibe – gold leaf and satinate sheen, baroque chairs and chandeliers – has been so mimicked and dulled by repetition, it’s straightforward to neglect how showstopping it may be. Le Meurice is a reset: Callas at La Scala in comparison with The Phantom of the Opera of sure different grandes dames whose surroundings wobbles a bit of. A bit of immersive theatre the place all the small print – the greyhound emblem stamped on the butter, the fold of the maître d’s silk scarf, the trompe l’oeil fruit by pastry chef Cédric Grolet – are scrupulously choreographed. And but, for all of the marble-lined grandeur, surprisingly cosy and modern. Sit amid the Versailles pomp of the Ducasse eating room and you may idly swivel in your Eero Saarinen Tulip chair whereas ready on your truffled eggs. On my final keep right here, I joined one of many lodge’s non-public artwork excursions, following within the footsteps of Monet and as much as the Belle Étoile penthouse for a view nearly equivalent to the painter’s 1876 research of the Tuileries. As a result of not like most of the metropolis’s palace resorts, this isn’t tucked away in a fancy enclave however is correct within the coronary heart of correct Paris: the Jardins proper in entrance, the primary museums unfold round. When Artwork Basel debuted in Paris in October, Le Meurice was the plain selection for collectors – it’s a completely authenticated masterpiece. From about £800. Rick Jordan
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Courtesy Hôtel du Palais Biarritz/Franck Juery
Hôtel du Palais – Biarritz, France
Again in 1854, when Napoleon III purchased a beachfront property in sleepy Biarritz and constructed a palatial vacation residence for his spouse, Empress Eugénie, little did he think about that the topped heads of Europe would comply with swimsuit and switch the town right into a buzzy resort with a on line casino. Now, after an enormous four-year renovation, the previous Villa Eugenie, reworked into the stately fin de siècle grande dame Hôtel du Palais in 1892, is prepared for her close-up. Speak about imperial presence: Every thing from the fairy-tale frescoed ballroom to the plush Napoléon III Bar, topped with a 900-pound crystal chandelier, requires a lighthearted waltz, flute of classic Bollinger in hand. Add to that the spectacular antique-reviving craftsmanship: armchairs, curtains, bedspreads, mouldings. However there’s nothing museum-like concerning the 142 rooms and suites – locations to throw open the home windows, breathe within the ocean air, and watch the spectacle (the seaside beneath, La Grande Plage, is big-wave surfer territory). Nautical particulars, just like the porthole home windows on the higher ground, abound. The ocean-liner vibe continues on the panoramic, curved La Rotonde, the place chef Aurélien Largeau whips up eight-course seafood menus; homestyle Basque cooking will be discovered on the casual Côté Maison subsequent door. The emblematic excessive level is the 32,000-square foot Guerlain Imperial Spa (Guerlain invented a cologne in 1853 only for Eugénie) for its regal Black Orchid facial therapy. From about about £328. Lanie Goodman
Courtesy Beau-Rivage Palace
Beau-Rivage Palace – Lausanne, Switzerland
It’s been greater than 5 years since I final set foot on the grounds of the Swiss grande dame Beau-Rivage, presiding over Lake Geneva like some proud Belle Époque aristocrat. However the reminiscence of my suite stays vivid – of my ft on the thick padded carpet, of the fairy-tale terrace the place I’d watch the sunshine hit the Alps at nightfall, of urgent a single bedside button to deliver up the blackout shades earlier than I ordered a contemporary carafe of espresso. The interiors have been regal and restrained; the workers, many the product of the close by École Hôtelière de Lausanne, have been environment friendly and type. I spent my days strolling the manicured waterfront gardens; at night time, after eating on clever plates of sole meunière on the two-Michelin-starred restaurant Anne-Sophie Pic, I’d retreat into the modern darkness of the bar, cradling a glass of amaro whereas watching businessmen conduct negotiations beneath Outdated World tapestries. In some methods, it was all a distraction – a method to waste time till I may politely excuse myself and retire to my room, to step again into the fantasy. One I lengthy to return to. From about £420. Betsy Blumenthal
Deplar Farm – Iceland
Some locations defy, or perhaps transcend, the entire notion of what a lodge is. Deplar – a turf-roofed former farm on northern Iceland’s Troll Peninsula, the place sheep outnumber folks – is a type of. It lingers within the reminiscence as a sequence of sensations: the shuddering tingle of the icy plunge pool after meditation in a 200-degree sauna; the sight of ephemeral sea spray in opposition to the pinkish morning gentle on a silent sea-kayak journey among the many seals; the shimmering, blissful half-sleep of a sound tub, in a small candlelit room. This all may sound a contact woo-woo, however Deplar Farm – like its mother or father firm, Eleven, owned by the skiing- and fishing-obsessed former Blackstone government Chad Pike – is something however. Although it nearly seems to be like simply one other black timber farmstead on the drive up the valley, the 32-guest lodge is a lair of pure-grade hedonism.
All over the place there are tactile invites to play, like a shuffleboard desk in a comfy alcove, with its hidden recreation consoles and film projector. Grown-up consolation music – assume Fleetwood Mac – performs gently always, creating an environment the place frazzled bigwigs can rediscover their inside kids, aided by privateness and limit-pushing adventures, from heli-skiing within the surrounding mountains to fly-fishing for char in close by Lake Miklavatn. At occasions, the luxurious borders on the comical: like wafting from the indoor sizzling tub to the steaming out of doors one, when one of many workforce seems within the sunken swim-up bar, questioning if we’d like the identical negronis as final night time. The workers appear to be having a blast too. We’re on horseback when Beda Mörgeli, a Swiss-born journey information, tells me, unprompted however very convincingly, “Fuck, I like my job.” My associate and I cease asking who has stayed right here (a winking “No remark”) and the way wealthy or demanding they have been, and provides into the facility of the place. We drive away on the single-track street the identical as they in all probability all do: like comfortable goose-bumped kids, made small and contemporary once more by the chilly, silent valley. From about £2,781. Toby Skinner
Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam – The Netherlands
As a pupil in Amsterdam, I cycled previous this clutch of mansions alongside the Herengracht canal a whole bunch of occasions – typically questioning what would develop into of those stately gabled marvels that appeared to alter their white-collar tenants each season. Waldorf Astoria had the reply in 2014, when the model selected this canal-belt nook, a stone’s throw from the Museum Quarter and a carbon copy of an Outdated Masters portray, as the bottom for its Amsterdam outpost. It had its canvas reduce out for the job: a row of six Seventeenth- and 18th-century palaces, all stone-hewn festoons and swirling pilasters, that when housed the mayors and retailers I examine in historical past books.