Ikea for Holiday Houses

One thing I'll definitely miss when we move back home to New Zealand is Ikea. Every time I go in there I see so many things that would be perfect for a holiday house. I recently received the autumn catalog and here are a few things that caught my eye.

These chairs would look great with a tropical print pillow:

 
Having a spare stack of stools is handy for extra guests, side tables etc.

 
Pretty lamp:

 
And some striped linen:

 
I'm not sure what the equivalent shop is in New Zealand but I know for sure there will be many times where I think "I wish there was an Ikea!"

MP

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4

Afghans

It's been a busy few weeks so I haven't posted for a while. Sorry! There never seems to be enough time in the day to do everything you want. Today for example I had to make something for my daughter's International Day at school. "Bring in a dish to share from your home country". My husband said to take Spotted Dick, to which I replied "no way!". I can think of many classic baking treats from New Zealand such as Anzac Biscuits, Lamingtons, Pavlova, Louise Slice, Ginger Crunch but I went for Afghan Biscuits. A few years ago I was given Ladies, A Plate which focuses on New Zealand baking recipes. This is the first thing I've tried from the book although there are definitely more I would like to make.

The Afghans were easy to make however my only advice was that I made them twice the size the recipe said ie. a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon so ended up with half the amount (that sounds obvious doesn't it!) For the recipe, click here.

Hope you all have a great weekend! 

MP

Champagne Brunches

Brunch and Champagne happen to be two of my most favourite things and it is even better when they are combined.

I first came across a Champagne brunch at The Savoy Hotel in London a few years ago (pre-refurbishment). On Sundays you could have a leisurely brunch with accompanying piano music and the waiters would circulate and top up your glass from magnums of Laurent Perrier. Unfortunately, I think they no longer do these brunches. It is hard to find a similar one in London. Please let us know if you have tried any!

The Champagne brunches in Singapore and Hong Kong are legendary. I like to try and get a Monday flight if I have a weekend stopover in Singapore, with the sole purpose of being able to make it to a Sunday brunch. So far, I have made it to a brunch at the Grand Hyatt and one at the Mandarin Oriental (that was actually on a Saturday). There is a long list of ones that I would still like to try as well.

Last weekend myself and MP met up with our good friend in Frankfurt, Germany. We all live in different countries and only usually get together once a year. On this occasion, we had just one full day to catch up, so we got up first thing on Saturday and went to a Champagne brunch at the Grandhotel Hessischer Hof (as seen in both pictures above).

This was a brunch on a much smaller scale than those that you find in Singapore - it was really more of a breakfast and most of the diners were guests of the hotel. However, it was a really lovely way to start the day and catch up on the past year over a few glasses of Champagne, coffee, some salmon gravlax and an omelette. The room was very traditional and formal, and the service was relaxed and friendly. We stayed for nearly three hours then headed out to have a look around the city. At €29 per person, we thought this was excellent value. I was trying to push for us to return the following morning before we left for the airport!

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Holiday Rental Essentials - The Extra Details

When I used to search for holiday rentals you could only go by the owner's description and photographs. These days more and more sites now feature ratings and reviews from previous guests. To me, these ratings of actual guests are invaluable. I like to read other people's opinions of how suitable a property is for children, or how easy it is to get to the nearest beaches, shops and restaurants. An unfortunate side effect of this is that the places with the highest ratings and rave reviews seem to book out far in advance.

Around three years ago I had a few nights in Florence with my husband. We stayed at Hotel Davanzati, which at the time was Tripadvisor's top rated hotel in Florence (currently it's at number five). One of the key things that guests raved about at this hotel was the aperitivo hour that they have every evening. Between 6.30 and 7.30pm guests gather to have complimentary Prosecco, wine and nibbles.

We came across a similar 'happy hour' when we stayed at the Orbit In in Palm Springs (pictured above). The Orbit In is currently the top rated B&B/inn in Palm Springs. At this boutique hotel they served their own signature cocktail along with wine, beer and popcorn.

These little touches are what makes one hotel stand out from another and make guests more likely to leave a (positive) review.

We are heading to Greece in a couple of weeks and I have been interested by two emails that I have received from a couple of the hotels we have booked.

Our hotel in Mykonos sent us a form to complete to create a 'bespoke experience'. Basically this means that we can select a room fragrance and the scent of our shower gels and shampoo and conditioner. We can also select from a 'pillow menu' and request exercise equipment to be left in our room. These selections are all free, but there is a wide range of add on items that you can select as well - from candles, to personalised beach bags, to the contents of the mini bar.

One of the places we are staying at on Santorini, also sent me an email following the booking I made via Expedia, thanking me for the booking and asking if we wished to order breakfast supplies for our room. Again, this is something that we would pay for, but the cost seems quite reasonable and it is a good service to offer.

I'll be sure to report back on both of these experiences when we return from our trip in October.

We posted very early on in this series on holiday rental essentials about how nice it would be to offer a welcome pack to guests. On other forums, I have read that home owners will leave dog beds and bones if guests have dogs, or toys and treats if young children are staying.

These little thoughtful touches are what makes a holiday memorable. In my experience, everybody likes to receive something extra for 'free' (even if the cost is factored into your fees). This could be a bottle of the local olive oil, a bottle of wine, or even just a couple of bottles of water.

For this week's holiday rental essential, I guess I am not really suggesting you do something specific, but rather have a think about what you might be able to do that could make your rental property stand out from the rest. We would love to hear what you have in mind. Please leave comments below.

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Image my own

ferm LIVING

The visit to Maison et Objet was such a fantastic experience. It was great to be able to attend and see how it all works. I wished I'd been able to shop for my own house! There were so many beautiful things and one stand that I really liked was ferm LIVING. I'm a bit behind on product trends (AD is the expert on all this!) and had only discovered them after I saw the round shelf in this photo:

 
This was how the stand looked at the show. I loved the gold on the aqua green wall.

 
Ferm is a Danish brand and was started by a graphic designer, Trine Andersen. She couldn't find a wallpaper she liked for her new house so she designed a range of 10  and started selling them at a fair. Living in Switzerland, I don't get to many shops so it was so nice seeing things in person! These were the things that caught my eye (all images via ferm LIVING)

Wall Wonder Clock in Rose:

Wire Baskets:

And strangely, a lovely looking toilet roll holder!

Hopefully one day Bamboo & Blue will stock a few of these pieces.

More pictures from Maison et Objet in another post!

MP

Images: 1, 5

To queue or not to queue...

Around three years ago I had a few days in San Francisco, waiting for my husband to join me from Burning Man. I spent quite alot of time there standing in queues. When you have only limited time on a city break, you may need to assess how much of your time you are willing to do this.

I recall standing for over an hour in a queue at Tartine Bakery on a Saturday morning - kind of ridiculous when I was only buying one of their famous Morning Buns and a coffee (but the bun was delicious). Another time, I simply joined the back of a queue as I was walking past a place called Dottie's, presuming that the breakfasts must be good if there were that many people in line. As I was on my own, I really didn't mind these queues and often got to jump ahead in line as I was dining alone.

There are numerous places in London that don't take reservations and you need to queue if you don't happen to turn up just before they open. Some of these queues move quickly, others can take a couple of hours. I find that I am not really prepared to queue in London unless it happens to be somewhere like Barrafina, that serve drinks to you while you are waiting, as there are so many other places to try.

As a rule I don't really like to stand in a queue for more than thirty minutes - whether this is to get into a bar, restaurant, art gallery, museum, or a sample sale. I may at times wait for up to an hour, I guess you have to factor in how much you want to try/see the thing or place you are queueing for and then also consider the time it would take you to find and go to an alternative place. As much as I love tennis, I don't think I could ever face the legendary queueing that takes place every year for tickets to Wimbledon.

If you are going to be visiting a city and hope to take in some of the major sights, it is worth doing some research on how to avoid long queues. For example, you can check to see if a gallery has extended opening hours in the evenings in summer. Once I attempted to go see Michelangelo's David at the Accademia Gallery in Florence only to find that the queue extended for a few hundred metres in the hot midday sun. I found out that the gallery stayed open until 10pm on Tuesdays so ended up going in to a near empty gallery after dining out that evening.

You can also look out to see if places have alternate entrances like at  The Louvre, or if  they have an entrance that families can use like at the Musee d'Orsay.*

 
Last weekend in Paris we had a dinner reservation on the Friday night, but on Saturday we decided to join the back of the queue at Le Relais de l'Entrecote. Just as MP asked me how long I would be willing to queue for, a lady came down the line and told us that for a table for two it would take approximately 10 minutes. Sure enough, we were seated not long after that at a cute table outside.

 
The waitress simply asked us how we would like our steak cooked and what we would like to drink. Everyone at the restaurant is served salad and bread followed by fries and steak with their famous secret sauce. There is a menu if you would like to order dessert. It is all pretty efficient, yet the food was yummy and the waitress was quick without making us feel like we were being rushed. It's a touristy spot - but somewhere that we would recommend.

 
On Sunday we headed to L'As du Fallafel. The queues here are also often extremely long - luckily we arrived just after they opened and were able to grab a table inside.

What are your thoughts on queueing? I think I have rarely been disappointed on the occasions that I have decided to queue for something, but long queues are something I would definitely avoid if I was with my husband and/or daughter.

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Images: 1, 2, 3

*I read that tip in this trip report from the littlest.

Paris!

So excited to be seeing AD again and also to be travelling to Paris for the weekend for Maison & Objet. We're hoping that we'll find the perfect pieces for Bamboo & Blue! 

Here are some snaps from our trip to the City of Lights in April. 

Holiday Rental Essentials - Pepper Mill

I am excited to be heading off to meet MP in Paris tomorrow. It is only a quick trip, as we are primarily going to have a look at the Maison et Objet show, but it will be great to be in that wonderful city again.

The first time I ever went to Paris, nearly all of the main tourist attractions - various art galleries, the Palace of Versailles etc were closed for the week due to strike action. This didn't actually bother me too much as I often prefer to just wander the streets rather than following an itinerary packed with the 'must-see' galleries and attractions. Anyway, I found myself over on the Avenue des Champs Elysees at some point during that week and walked all the way up, checking out the various stores.

I remember thinking it was so bizarre to see car showrooms on the avenue, amongst all of the retail stores, cafes, restaurants and theatres. In particular, I thought the Peugeot store with displays of salt and pepper mills alongside the concept cars was a very unusual sight - something I definitely hadn't come across in New Zealand!

These days, I rarely go back to the Champs Elysees - but, I am a big fan of Peugeot salt and pepper mills.

I am one of those people that looks around in dismay when I realise that a cafe or restaurant doesn't have salt and pepper on each table. I particularly love sitting down to a table and finding the very heavy silver plated pepper mills, such as the one pictured above that they use at The Wolseley.

For me, salt and pepper are everyday essential items and would be right at the top of my grocery list if I was doing the first shop of the week at a rented property. I usually try and find some sea salt flakes and then some peppercorns that come in a container with a built in grinder. Depending on how big the local stores are though, it is not always easy to find these items. You might instead be looking at table salt and ground black pepper. I can cope with the salt, but have no interest in that powdery form of pepper - so, this week I am recommending that pepper mills be considered to be a holiday rental essential.

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Italian Riviera - Part 2

After exploring the Cinque Terre we drove up north for an hour to a place called Recco which we used as a base to explore a few other villages in the surrounding area. We stayed at a great agriturismo called Villa Carmelina which I chose because the food had glowing reviews and also because it had a pool. The food was so delicious and each night we would have one or two appetisers, a pasta, a main and then dessert. The majority of the food was all from the farm. Dinner including wine was 23 euros per adult and it was a bonus that the girls ate for free!

From Recco we drove half an hour to Santa Margherita Ligure where we caught the ferry to Portofino:

From Portofino we jumped straight onto a bus to take us to Paraggi Beach. This beach is taken up mostly by private beach clubs where you hire sun loungers and umbrellas. I was quite surprised at how expensive it was. We paid 60 euros for two sun loungers and an umbrella. The club down the road was charging 100 euros! It was money well spent though as we had a really nice relaxing day at the beach swimming in beautiful emerald coloured water.

Walk the plank!

The view along the beach:

Cute beach cabins:

Another day we made it to Camogli which was pretty, but crowded and very pebbly which might have been hard to sit on all day!

On our last day we drove half an hour to Sestri Levante where we spent the day at the Bay of Silence. This was a beautiful little cove with a sandy beach and calm clear water which the girls loved swimming in.

I had the perfect lunch at a beachside restaurant right called Cutter Cacca, a lovely end to a great holiday!

MP