Travel Blog - Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

Now that you’ve had my top tips on How to… drive in the Alps, you’re ready to test your newfound skills in some real-life situations. So here are five fantastic Alpine driving routes I try to take whenever I’m in the mountains – strictly for Smith Ski research purposes, you understand:

Geneva – Chamonix – Martigny
Distance: 80 miles
Time: Two hours
Highlights: You get your first view of Mont Blanc near Sallanches, but the most spectacular view is from the small lake at the Col de Montents at the top of the Chamonix Valley (pictured right). On the Swiss side of the pass, there’s a great view down to the Rhône Valley. You can also do this journey in reverse, starting in Verbier.
Destination: Martigny’s Fondation Pierre Gianadda has sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore, and stages regular concerts and exhibitions.
Stay at: cosy and charming Petite Fôret in Verbier

Chamonix – Mont Blanc Tunnel – Aosta
Distance: 40 miles
Time: One hour
Highlights: At seven miles in length, the Mont Blanc Tunnel is an engineering marvel and one of the longest road tunnels in the world. The entrance is just outside Chamonix and links France with Italy. Whatever you do, don’t run out of petrol in the tunnel.
Destination: Aosta has some fine Roman ruins and is perfect for ice-cream in the town square. There’s also hot springs at Pré-Saint-Didier.
Stay at: snug and central Apartment Angelina in Chamonix

Chamonix – Les Gets – Evian-les-Bains
Distance: 67 miles
Time: Two hours
Highlights: There’s spectacular Alpine scenery around the resorts of Les Gets and Morzine in the Portes du Soleil region. If you start from luxury ski chalet Ferme du Moudon in Les Gets, the journey to Evian and its mineral-rich springs will only take about 45 minutes.
Destination: Evian (of bottled water fame) is a lovely spa town on the shores of Lake Geneva. There are some very relaxing thermal baths here.
Stay at: French fancy Chalet Zenith in Chamonix

Les Gets – Megève – Ugine
Distance: 50 miles
Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Highlights: The chic resort of Megève deserves honorary status as an arrondissement of Paris. This is a great place for a lunch break. The best thrills are in the spell-binding Gorges d‘Arly to the south, where black cliffs tower above the road – but you’ll need to keep a keen eye out for rock falls.
Destination: Ugine is nothing special, but it’s easy to reach Courchevel, Méribel and Val d’Isère from here so this makes a particularly scenic (if long-winded) route from Geneva airport.
Stay at: chic rustic chalet Ferme de Moudon in Les Gets

Tignes les Brévières – Col de I’Iseran – Susa
Distance: 55 miles
Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Highlights: From Chalet de la Cloche, you climb up through Val d’Isère to the Col de I’Iseran at 2,769 metres. This is strictly a summer driving route (unless you have a snow plough or some huskies). As you descend down the south side, you’re surrounded by some of the best scenery in the Vanoise National Park. From Lenslebourg, you can drop down to Susa in Italy via the 2,083-metre Col du Mont Cenis.
Destination: The most notable thing about Susa is that it’s twinned with Barnstaple. However, Turin is only another 40 minutes further on. Here you’ll find the National Automobile Museum which traces the history of the automobile – inexplicably starting in the 15th century.
Stay at: glam ski getaway Chalet de la Cloche in Tignes les Brévières

If you’ve a taste for luxury boutique hotels and a minute to spare, then we’d really be quite obsequiously grateful if you filled in our travel trends survey. We know there’s nothing more annoying than visiting a website for the first time only to be assailed with pop-up opinion polls and feedback demands, or to have your dinner interrupted by the chap from Gallup wanting to know whether you reckon the nation’s going to hell in a hand-basket, so we promise that it won’t last longer than you can hold your breath underwater.*

We’re trying to put together a picture of what the world of travel will look like in 2009, what people’s priorities are in what finance types persist in calling ‘the current economic climate’, and what makes a good hotel a great hotel. Of course, we wouldn’t expect anyone to share this info for nothing, so by way of a dangling carrot of temptation, we’ve earmarked £500 in Mr & Mrs Smith Get a Room! vouchers to give to the first respondent out of the trilby.

The vouchers can be exchanged for stays in any of the hotels in Smith’s worldwide collection, so whether you fancy a boutique break in Barcelona, a sojourn in Sicily, or a lounge-around in LA, you’ll get a £500 head start on your hotel bill. So – pretty please with a maraschino on top – go and complete the survey now.

*As long as that’s about two minutes. Also, please do not complete the survey underwater, that will monkey up your computer.

Every time we publish a new hotel review on Mr & Mrs Smith, we’ll let you know here on the Smith Travel Blog, so you can keep pace with our team of travel spies and style insiders on their global roams. We visit every boutique hotel, country guesthouse, chic beach hut and luxury stay in our hand-picked hotel collection, and we get every one anonymously reviewed by a real-life couple. Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to check in anonymously, have a rip-roaring, chandelier-swinging, fireside-lounging, beach-strolling, bed-testing, bathroom-assessing time and then report back to us with total candour in a no-holds-barred hotel review.

Here’s a brief snippet from the latest Mr & Mrs Smith stay at Le Couvent d’Hérépian, a gorgeously restored 17th-century convent (pictured above) in Languedoc-Roussillon (one of my favourite parts of the world)…

It is perhaps in adversity that a hotel has chance to show its true colours, and I feel we can reliably vouch for Le Couvent d’Hérépian. After a sweat-soaked, infuriating few hours spent beside a broken-down hire car and an afternoon of golden sunshine wasted in trilingual negotiations at a garage, our final resting place needed to be pretty special if our moods were to be lifted. First impressions of Le Couvent were good: an austere 17th-century facade gave way to a fairytale castle-like interior, filled with chandeliers and candlelit stone staircases, and the whole building was somehow enveloped in a delicious chocolatey fragrance. The bar, lounge and suites were stylishly and comfortably kitted out, and the pre-stocked, in-room iPods were a great touch. I came to particularly appreciate the honesty bar, when, after our day of automotive tribulation, I was able to storm in and dilute my frustration with alcohol, without having to make small talk with bar staff or sit around looking pleadingly at passing waiters…

You can read the full review now (and find out who the anonymous reviewer was!) on the Mr & Mrs Smith travel website…

Ah, Mondays. Don’t you just love to hate ‘em? Definitely the best day of the week to spend a few idle online moments casting your eyes around in search of sunny pictures, faraway inspiration and otherwise entertaining distractions from the daily grind – presumably what brought you to our balmy travel blog shores in the first place. Well today we’re going to signpost you to another insider travel site, Area Daily, because we’re generous like that when it comes to kindred spirits, and because we recently caught up with the site’s energetic and travel-obsessed founder, Christine Magda. Here’s what she had to say…

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Tell us a bit about Area Daily: what inspired you to get it started?

The concept of Area came about as a group of friends were searching for a resource that would give the inside scoop on where locals were dining and hanging out in cities around the world.

We decided on the factors we that make a hotel, restaurant, bar or interesting thing to do a ‘must’ on stylish locals’ lists: architecture, design, style, originality, innovation, and a vibe that has you coming back for more, made up the criteria that Area uses when recommending our picks. We tend to stay away from large chain hotels, overrated restaurants and lounges, and most importantly, tourist traps.

As our concept of providing real insider information for the savvy traveller was coming to fruition, the thought of having a travel guide that you could access from your iPod (now the iPhone) or PDA became the obvious means for our message. We’re launching the first of our Area Guides later this fall.

Wow, you’re channelling the Smith way of life almost 100% over on your side of the pond – we bet you’ve got some great tips for late-autumn getaways from the States?

I’d recommend taking advantage of the latest air and hotel savings that we’ve seen in the last few weeks, both here in the US and abroad. For example, upon check-in at The Crescent Hotel in Beverly Hills, the hotel will give you your own personal car and driver to shuttle you wherever you’d like to go for the length of your stay. Despite rising fuel prices, airlines are also offering some unbeatable savings. One of the best deals I’ve found is flying to Mexico City, with airfares as low as $210 from NYC - an amazing price to enjoy culture and Latin flair. With deals like these, it’s silly to stay at home and watch the leaves fall.

Area Valet – your virtual travel butler – has put together some amazing journeys and experience packages: which are your favourites?

Front row seats at Paris Fashion Week shows and exclusive ‘invite-only’ pool parties at the Winter Music Conference in Miami are top of my list. As for Area Valet excursions, truffle-hunting in Alba, Italy, and journeying into Laos are extremely intriguing.

If you had to pick one travel experience from each of the world’s continents, what would get on to your shortlist?

Exploring Montana, in North America, and sleeping in a tent that has the amenities and feel of a luxurious lodge; in South America, experiencing the energy and foods of Cartagena, Colombia; sailing the Dalmation Islands of Croatia in Europe; touring Vietnam on a bike in Asia; spending a few days in an eco-lodge in a national park in Africa; camping with the penguins in Antarctica; and tasting wine at the much-lauded vineyards in Australia.

What do you think 2009 holds for trends in luxury travel?

The luxury travel market will be more resilient to the economy than the business travel market; I believe we’ll see more discounts and special offers this winter and spring than we have in the past few years. Area will be sure to feature as many of these deals as possible.

What’s your favourite destination?

Maybe cliché, but I can’t help going back to Paris.

What’s your insider scoop for anyone who goes there?

I love to stay in the Marais. If you’re looking for something private, rent a furnished and cozy apartment from www.parisapartments.net. Make sure to visit Petit Fer à Cheval, a great watering hole with an oval bar on Rue Vielles du Temples. You can’t go wrong at Chez Janou on Place des Vosges or Le 404 for dining and people-watching. And don’t leave without shopping along the narrow streets for original Parisian designers.

What’s your favourite place to stay and what makes it so great?

If you feel like getting away from it all, Awasi in the desert oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile is the utmost in relaxation and adventure. It’s simply decorated with vibrant textiles and my favourite luxury, each room is assigned a private guide and 4WD vehicle to take you to nearby volcanoes, lakes, or other gorgeous places in the desert.

In a perfect world, who would be your ideal travel companion?

My ideal travel companion can pack a suitcase on a minute’s notice and travel anywhere in the world. They’re not afraid to explore and ‘get lost’ discovering hidden gems or sit on a boat in the middle of the Aegean Sea. It’s quite a challenge to find, but they’re out there.

Describe your perfect weekend away – where do you go, what do you do, where do you eat?

That is a difficult one. When on the West Coast, nothing tops a weekend getaway to Palm Springs. It’s the perfect locale for enjoying everything the weekend offers: hike the trails at Indian Canyons and soak in the beautiful desert sky surrounded by towering palm trees. Play tennis, golf or bocce ball, or do nothing at all and relax poolside sipping a glass of rosé while listening to intoxicating lounge music. Dine at Citron in the Viceroy Palm Springs, or at Purple Palm at the Colony Palms Hotel. If that doesn’t rejuvenate you, what will?

Where’s next on your holiday wish-list?

Visiting Shanghai and up-and-coming Lijiang in China.

We’ve started a new relationship - no, we’re not cheating on Mr Smith: we’re contributing to the slick travel blog at WeJetSet, an online store selling all the gizmos and gadgets a modern traveller could possible desire. (The Maharishi jackets, super-cool Lomo cameras and Krink laptop sleeves have already caught our eye as potential Christmas presents for Mr Smith.) And they’ve already blogged about us by way of introduction, so we really heart them!

Our first post for WeJetSet is about the gorgeous Palazzo Barbarigo in Venice, and over the coming months we’ll be reporting on a variety of the amazing places to stay in our worldwide hotel collection. We’ll also soon be featuring an interview or possibly a guestpost from WeJetSet’s founder and publisher, Taj Reid, about his global roamings and online ramblings. Basically, it’s all getting very exciting here at Smith HQ – our blog cup runneth over.

Car adverts invariably show a gleaming vehicle purring unhindered along an empty highway that twists and turns through magnificent scenery. Real life is, of course, a bit different. The reality is that the average speed of a car in London’s rush-hour traffic is seven miles an hour, and the nearest that many motorists get to top gear these days is watching Jeremy Clarkson on Dave. But don’t despair: you can escape the terrible tedium of the Hammersmith gyratory (and Clarkson). In the Alps.

Before you blaze off into the mountains, it’s worth considering a few of the lessons I learned the hard way while researching the Smith Ski collection. Here are some tried-and-tested Alpine driving tips to help you get to your ski chalet in one piece:

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Just a quick notice about some new faces (if you can call them that) who will be posting on our blog soon: Sophie Dening, one of our long-time Smith collaborators and currently the restaurants editor for oh-so-glamorous fashion bible Harper’s Bazaar (with whom we also share our hotel secrets), and Jim Whyte, another Smith contributor and roving Smith Ski reporter.

As I mentioned in this post here, we’ve created a little blographies area, where you can now read all about the two latest additions to Smith’s blossoming blog gang. I’ll let you all get to know each other a bit better, before Jim and Sophie are let loose to unleash some stylish travel-related bloggery at you.

If you feel like clapping, or maybe doing some sort of celebratory jig, the camera we’ve installed to film you will capture it all and give us many long moments of mirth. Only kidding. Watch this space for insider restaurant news and ski tips…

Back when we started the Smith Travel Blog, we would never have expected that six months later we’d be stood in a room with the cream of the travel-blogging community, having a thoroughgoing chin-wag about the state of social media in the travel sector, but life is full of surprises.

Yesterday, Tamara and I attended the Travel Blog Camp, organised by Travel Rants’ creator, Darren Cronian, at a riverside bar in Blackfriars. We had no idea what to expect, but any fears that it might turn into a dull evening were quickly dispelled. Bloggers are quite a feisty bunch when they get together, it emerges.

Four speakers led the discussion:

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A big Smithy thank you to Erica Johannssen of photo-based travel blog Travel Blissful who has kindly presented the Smith Travel Blog with an ‘I Love Your Blog’ award.

As much as we’d love to hog the glory and leave it at that, we felt we ought to share the bloggy love a little, so here’s a quick run down of our favourite web spots to while away the day… Read the rest of this entry »

Mr & Mrs Smith’s hotel relations manager, Maggie, just got back from a week in Morocco where she and Peggy took a quick whistle-stop tour of Smith’s Marrakech hotel collection, and also unearthed a new range of ravishing riads and gorgeous Maroc palaces.…

So, Maggie, you’ve recently landed from Marrakech – bring anything new back in your luggage?

Loads of mint tea, actually.

Splendid – is the mint tea pretty special out there then? Better than Twinings?

Definitely – it’s the real stuff. If only I could be in a gorgeous riad every time I drank it…

Indeed. Speaking of gorgeous riads, where did you visit while you were there?

Well, we saw all of the places that we know and love in the Smith collection, such as Noir d’Ivoire which is incredible, and Riad 72 and Riad 12 which both have fewer than four rooms and make you feel like you are a guest in their home.

Everyone I speak to raves about Noir d’Ivoire – what’s all the fuss about?

Firstly, the owner Jill is so involved in running it, and knows all her guests by name. She makes you feel so comfortable and will always sit down for a drink and a chat. Not to mention that the place is beautifully done. It is very grown-up: dramatic fabrics and great big baths – seriously big.

Lucy was saying that Jill’s just had a load of new rooms built. Are they finished? What are they like?

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