It would be easy to say that the past decade or so has been kind to Lisbon – it’s subtly undergone the kind of glow-up certain other smaller European capitals keep putting on the backburner… and it’s been driven organically by tourism raised high on the shoulders of social media’s more gastronomy-oriented corners.
Goudhurst. I couldn’t even pronounce it, let alone find it on the map. But this is where Gemma, the other half, decided to bring us for my birthday. We’ve been scouting villages around London, making a shortlist of places that are charming enough to call home—you know, buy a house, get nestled, and eventually fire out some little ones. So this was as much a reconnaissance as a celebration. One of the great, incontrovertible truths about England is that, deep down, we’d all rather be in the countryside. If you don’t feel it now, you will. The English weren’t built for the city and its Faustian promises. We’re too polite…
The idea of a sneaky few days away to a boutique country house hotel in the midst of Autumn with long walks, roaring fires, healthy food and the opportunity to be pampered at the same time is my idea of heaven. Add to this that it’s at Robin Hutson’s Lime Wood Hotel in the heart of the New Forest and I am taken to a different dimension altogether. Forgive me if I sound a bit like a Robin Hutson cheerleader, but quite frankly I am. For me Mr Hutson sits in the realm of hotelier aristocracy and if there is ever a lifelong achievement award as thanks from all of…