Stephanie Drax

A blog post for Victor - an on demand private jet hire company.

bvispringregatta.org

A blog post for Victor - an on demand private jet hire company. 

Click here to read.

I am the editor of and contributor to the Cecil Wright Newsletter - a magazine from a top yacht brokerage company. Interviews in this issue include Patrick Byrne, CEO of Scorpion RIBs, Stuart Brooke, CEO of ashmei sportswear, Robert Shove, Captain of SALU and how one quantifies quality in the superyacht industry. 

Before I had ever set foot in Swedish Lapland, the name conjured up ideas of snow, stars and the spectral wonder of the aurora borealis. During the 90-minute flight north from Stockholm to the region’s capital, Lulea, I am faced with another defining characteristic: space. Located within the Arctic Circle, Swedish Lapland is Europe’s largest remaining wilderness, a natural wonderland of mountains, dense forests, river valleys and the Lulea archipelago of 1,300 coastal islands, all of which supports, on average, just two people per square kilometre. It’s as if I have carved a window into another world - a Philip Pullman fantasy tale ripe with adventure - where now, in February, winter has set in.

It’s a flight to Catania, a 90-minute drive to Milazzo, followed by a 90-minute hydrofoil ride before we ultimately land on Salina, but this is an island that can afford to play hard to get. One of seven islands in the Aeolian archipelago off the Sicilian coast, its steep twin mountains - once volcanoes - are swathed in lush vegetation, blossoming trees and wildflowers. Though Salina has been inhabited intermittently since the Bronze Age, nature here is raw and unspoilt; on docking at the petite port of Santa Marina, there’s an instant aura of tranquility. We’ve arrived, but also retreated millennia. 

The temptation to touch is overwhelming. Spun on the end of a gathering stick, a bulb of liquid crystal looks like golden candy. The viscid syrup requires skillful manipulation as it quickly cools and I prudently resist the urge to reach out: this “candy” is 2,100℉ (1,150℃).

For a wave of hotels across England, “hotel” is actually a misnomer: These emerging enterprises are not measured by the size and sumptuousness of their bedrooms, their linen threadcount or toiletries. For them, food is the focus.

I am the editor and contributor to the Cecil Wright Newsletter - a magazine from a top yacht brokerage company. Interviews in this issue include Victor Muller, (CEO of Spyker Cars and co-founder of the Feadship Heritage Fleet) Joe Flannery (President of Canadian Mountain Holidays - heli-skiing), Nicolas Mee (of Nicholas Mee & Co, an Aston Martin Heritage specialist) and an overview of London’s St James’s Street. 

So often a ‘spa hotel’ promises much , but falls woefully short. Not so here at the SPA Hotel Jagdhof, a typically Tyrolean chalet embedded deep in a picturesque Alpine valley. Read more here.

Among the world’s constellation of luxury hotels there is one that is - quite literally - set apart from the rest. The luminous Taj Lake Palace sits pretty in the centre of Lake Pichola in Udaipur, a vision of white sculpted marble encircled by water. Read more here.

With fine features accented in butter yellow and pastel blue, Château des Aspras is a picture-perfect château framed by leafy plane trees, which provide a cool canopy for a game of boules on the gravel drive.

I interview Virginie Taittinger about her eponymous champagne and take a look at the recent launch of OneOcean Club in Marina Port Vell in Barcelona - a new yachting magnet.

Graz, Austria’s second largest city, effortlessly blends classical epochs with bold modernity.

St Barths is glamorous even from the air. First glimpsed on the tiny propeller-plane transfer from St Maarten, the island’s slender frame is hugged by the electric blue waters of the Caribbean Sea. Then, you make out the red roofs of the villas scattered among the aloe and native gaiac trees, and then you spy the super yachts....

I am the editor and contributor to the Cecil Wright Newsletter - a magazine from a top yacht brokerage company. Interviews in this issue include Viscount Linley (Honorary Chairman of Christies Europe), Henk de Vries (CEO of Feadship), Guy Cribb (UK Windsurfing champion)  and Toby Ecuyer (of yacht design consultancy Redman, Whiteley, Dixon).