Where to stay when you leave.
2/27/2007 at 10:50 AM
Tags: Luxury Lodges, Hotel Heaven, New Zealand Hotels
If you're aspiring to a luxury holiday with a difference in New Zealand, you'll either hate our pun or be pleased to stay near Mt Aspiring National Park. An hour from Queenstown in New Zealand's Southern Alps, Riverrun Lodge is a small, personal-touch guesthouse with a 5-star feel.
Previous guests rave about it, enjoying factors as diverse as the "woodsy smell of fresh timbers" and the "porch overlooking the hillside" to the relaxing atmosphere. A big kudos to what's outside the lodge, too:
When you are tired of just looking at the beautiful countryside, you can take off walking from the hotel. You'll cross a turquoise stream, walk through bushes that are solid flowers, then climb a small, flower-covered mountain that will give you a breathtaking view of snow-capped mountains beyond, and a turquoise blue river below. Thought I was in Heaven, but alas, it was just the Riverrun Lodge.
So if you want to get a feel for the natural beauty of the South Island of New Zealand, a couple of nights near the mountains is probably a good way to do it. Oh, and before you ask why it's called "Riverrun", the mighty Clutha River (NZ's largest) runs along its border. Why they didn't bother with a space between River and Run, however, is something we can't answer.
[Photo: Girl loves to go]
Related Stories:
· Riverrun Lodge reviews [TripAdvisor]
by amandak
2/13/2007 at 9:34 AM
Tags: Cubicle Dreamin', Africa Hotels, Luxury Safari, Luxury Lodges
Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.
When you realise you've got nearly halfway through February and you still haven't started what you really want to do this year, it's time to shake things up a bit. And what better way than getting a bit wild in Africa: in a luxury safari lodge, of course (there's wild and then there's just uncomfortable). My pick today is Tanzania's Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge, a luxury resort built on the edge of a crater. The website is a touch on the over-poetic side, describing the resort as:
Sensitively constructed so as to take nothing from its environment whilst affording endless vistas over the heat-shimmering reaches of the crater below, the clustered boulder-built buildings of the Lodge hug the crater rim, linked by rope-lashed timber walkways that skirt the buttressed roots of ancient, liana-hung trees.
It goes on to talk about the "concentrated hush of a game-viewing hide" and finally describes the Lodge as "a unique blend of world-class luxury, timeless volcanic splendour and ethnic style". While nearly nothing on earth could be quite as magical as they describe (and nearly nobody on earth knows so many positive-sounding adjectives), guest reviews almost unanimously agree that the Ngorongoro is a marvellous place to stay. While you're there, you can do wildlife walks, crater hikes, visit Maasai villages and even have a massage. Rooms come complete with your own cave-style wall paintings of giraffes and gazelle.
[Photo: jamesrider]
by amandak
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