Hotel Sacher Salzburg, Austria

Overview

Welcome to the enchanting world of Schloss Fuschl. Situated just a Mozart serenade from the City of Salzburg, this fairytale chateau overlooks one of the grandest lakes in the Salzkammergut region. Built in 1450 as a hunting lodge, it was once the summer residence of the Archbishops of Salzburg. The castle became renowned for its location – made famous in the movie “The Sound of Music,” and by the legendary “Sissi” films with Romy Schneider. Associated with aristocrats, empresses and cinema stars, it has long been recognized as the number-one hideaway resort in Austria. Highlights include new restaurants, a luxurious spa and a unique collection of paintings by Old Masters.

Dining In

The award-winning gourmet restaurant Imperial offers courageously daring haute cuisine. Magnificent and truly royal, the Schloss Restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner overlooking the lake. The legendary lakeside terrace offers quality and service of the highest order. For lunch and dinner the restaurant serves typical Austrian delicacies and fresh fish from the hotel’s own fishery.

Recreation and Health

The spacious, yet intimate, Schloss Fuschl SPA is completely dedicated to your relaxation, offering an indoor pool, steam bath, sauna and fitness area. The very latest equipment and services await in a truly elegant fin-de-siècle setting, overlooking the lake. Enjoy the outdoor Jacuzzi – or in summer, an invigorating massage on the jetty. Your privacy is assured, for the mountain nearby is owned by the hotel. Swimming, mountain biking, Nordic walking and skiing - in the surrounding area. Fuschl is also a paradise for golfers with a 9-hole course right next to the hotel and no less than 10 fine courses within the Salzkammergut region.

Features

Great love of detail and elegance characterize the ambience of all 110 rooms, suites and lake cottages. The unique collection of Old Masters’ paintings lends a singular air of grandeur. Light, warm colors dominate the interior of all elegant Deluxe rooms with park view and Grand Deluxe rooms with lake view. The seven exclusive Tower Suites, which include the famous Sissi-Suite, allow guests to live in authentic Renaissance, Empire, Baroque or Biedermeier style. Our Lake Cottages comprise a lovely ensemble along the lakeshore and provide a privileged atmosphere with a terrace, private lake access, sauna and an open fire-place.

Suites & Butler Service - We invite you to enjoy two splendid additions to our 40 suites: the Mozart Suite and the Franz-Josef Suite with butler in attendance 24 hours a day. Enjoy our thirty junior and traditional suites as well as our seven Tower Suites.

Meeting and function space includes Schloss Remise, accommodating up to 250; the ballroom, with a capacity for 80; Rosa Salon, for up to 25; and the nearby Hotel Jagdhof can accommodate 450.

Nairobi Serena Hotel

Overview

Tranquilly set in beautifully landscaped gardens, overlooking Central Park and the city center, the Nairobi Serena Hotel is renowned for its caring and attentive service. The décor is warm and inviting, reflecting the richness of the African continent. All rooms are air-conditioned and are tastefully appointed with handcrafted furniture, marble bathrooms, satellite TV, mini-bar, electronic safe, and IDD telephones. A nonsmoking floor is available.

Dining In

The Mandhari is one of Kenya's finest restaurants, where unobtrusive service is complemented with sophisticated international cuisine. The more informal Café Maghreb provides all-day dining with tantalizing theme buffets. Light snacks are served at the Pool Bar and afternoon tea in the Bambara residents' lounge.

Recreation and Health

The Maisha Health Club redefines the art of healthy living with an ultramodern gym, aerobics studio, steam rooms, saunas, Jacuzzis, two beauty therapy rooms, a relaxation lounge, and a swimming pool. Golf facilities are just minutes away.

Features

Modern business center. Conference and banquet facilities for 10 to 250 people. Express laundry and valet service. Gift boutiques, hair salon, concierge. Airport transfer service and 24-hour room service.

Al Bustan Rotana-Dubai

Overview

Within hours of arriving first timers soon usually stop mouthing trite phrases like ‘but that is impossible' or ‘surely they couldn't'. In ultra ambitious Dubai nothing is impossible and they surely could. Think lush championship golf courses in the desert, massive manmade islands in the shape of the world and ski slopes in one of the most arid corners of the planet.

Dubai is no longer looking over its shoulder at ‘The West'; it is far too busy showing what an Arabic emirate can do on its own with what many observers are increasingly viewing as an insight into the future of cities the world over.

It is difficult to believe today that less than a century ago Dubai was little more than a desert-strewn wildscape where Bedouin tribes roamed the sands and a huddle of settlers crowded around the banks of the lifeblood creek. Even as Europe embarked on the mass industrial destruction of WWI, Dubai still had no running water, no real roads and the main mode of transport was the camel.

Dubai first grew as a hub on the ancient trading route between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley and, by the 19th century, a small fishing village had taken root at the mouth of Dubai Creek. The village was inhabited by the Bani Yas tribe, who were led by the Maktoum family, the dynasty that still presides over Dubai today.

The city's remarkable success story really began in the 1960s. During the process of shaking off the shackles of British colonial rule, oil was struck in 1966 and Dubai has never looked back. Since the 1960s, the population has mushroomed to almost 1.5 million and now an ever-growing number of hotels welcome in the temporary expat workers and tourists who help propel the economy.

Indeed, only around a quarter of the emirate's population are actually ethnically Emirati in a population mixture that has to be one of the world's most cosmopolitan. This diversity discourages any real ethnic tensions and while conflict might rage further north in Iraq, Dubai so far has been trouble free.

Dubai's evolution has been dramatic, with sweeping skyscrapers and gleaming office blocks rising up everywhere. The rulers of Dubai have a penchant for grand projects - one year the world's tallest tower (Burj Arab), the next a string of offshore manmade islands (the three Palms and the World) and now Dubailand, a massive project that will bring over 45 major projects to a massive leisure oasis in the desert.

Dubai seems to know no end to its ambition, nor does it have any inhibitions, with more grand plans slated, such as Dubai Mall (the world's largest mall) and the colossal new airport at Jebel Ali, which will dwarf the existing one, already the Middle East's busiest.

Even with regional instability in recent years tourism (now responsible for 30% of the emirate's GDP) remains remarkably resilient in this tolerant and stable part of the Arab world with more and more tourists flocking to Dubai every year. This is unsurprising really, considering the idyllic climate for much of the year, with constant sunshine and only an average of five days of rainfall annually. During summer, however, the heat is extreme, making trips away from air-conditioned vehicles and buildings unbearable.

The future prospects of the emirate's tourist industry and its economic situation as a whole may ultimately be governed by developments in the rest of the Middle East, but for now Dubai is a city on the rise and rise.

Tourist Information

Walking Tours
Dubai is a sprawling city that can be difficult to walk around and there are no official signposted tours. However, a self-guided stroll around the older central parts of Deira and Bur Dubai is a great way of discovering the delights of the city, exploring its traditional souks or stumbling across hidden mosques or wind towers.

‘A Walk through the City of Contrasts’, covering Bastakiya and including an abra ride from Shindagha across the Creek and a walk through the gold and spice souks, is offered by Arabian Adventures (tel: (04) 303 4888; website: www.arabian-adventures.com).

Bus Tours
A number of companies offer half-day city tours, including Arabian Adventures (tel: (04) 303 4888; website: www.arabian-adventures.com) and Net Tours Dubai (tel: (04) 226 6655; website: www.nettoursdubai.com). Tours vary depending on the operator but most go to the old and new Dubai souks, Jumeirah Mosque, the thriving commercial area and include a creek crossing by abra (local water taxi). Another option is to see Dubai by night. Post-tour dinner in one of Dubai’s many restaurants is usually a feature of the night-time tours, which also incorporate the mosques, palaces and souks. The tours operate a very organized system, with pick-up at all main hotels.

Boat Tours
Arabian Adventures (tel: (04) 303 4888; website: www.arabian-adventures.com) offers a variety of cruises on Dubai Creek, aboard a 20m (65ft) schooner, which sets off onto the Arabian Gulf. Alpha Tours (tel: (04) 294 9888; website: www.alphatoursdubai.com) operates evening dhow dinner cruises, which take 2 hours. Alternatively, tourists should go down to Dubai Creek and charter a traditional abra (water taxi), for a short river tour lasting 60-90 minutes. The length of the tour and the price should be agreed in advance. Otherwise, visitors can just ride one across the creek to the other side (journey time – 5 minutes).

Hotel de l’Europe, Holland

Overview

Amsterdam is a city like Venice founded on and still today focused around water and waterways. However, unlike Venice, Holland's largest city is no mere museum piece. Amsterdam is a real, living and breathing metropolis.

In the canals, young Internet entrepreneurs strike deals across Europe from their houseboats and just outside the old core is the RAI, one of the continent's key conference and business hubs. As well as the chugging canal boats, the city's waterways also increasingly play home to massive cruise ships and cargo vessels from all over the world. Today, Amsterdam peddles tourists almost as slickly as it has peddled goods and services over the centuries.

The Dutch capital has clearly come a long way since it was founded, as legend has it, by two fishermen and a seasick dog. The story goes that the dog jumped ship to deposit the contents of his stomach and the two fishermen became the founders of Amsterdam. The reality might have been slightly more prosaic, with the River Amstel being dammed in the 13th century and spawning a settlement, which took the name of Aemstelledamme.

The lifeblood of Amsterdam has long been its aquatic locale, close as it is to the North Sea and built on myriad canals, which neatly divide the city into easily navigable districts and imbue it with a small town ambience. There seems to be a canal around every corner in Amsterdam - not too surprising, considering that the city is home to a staggering 165 of them (more than Venice).

Amsterdam is a haven for many nationalities, various sexualities and people of radically different political and religious persuasions, but laws have tightened in recent years as some of the city's eclectic communities have become more and more divided. There is still tolerance when it comes to man's vices, with practical solutions on how to deal with one of the world's oldest industries and the controlled use of soft drugs.

During the summer, the city comes together in Vondelpark, where locals and tourists alike relax in the balmy weather. Amsterdam statistically might be one of Europe's wettest capitals, but as soon as the clouds clear and the sun is allowed to shine, its inhabitants spill out onto the streets to sit in the numerous pavement cafés, take a cruise on a canal or even to partake in that most ubiquitous of Amsterdam pastimes, riding bicycles (the city has more than double the number of bikes as it has people).

Amsterdam's winters tend to be cold with plenty of rain but this seldom seems to deter the tourists, who flock to the city. Particularly cold winters also offer the unique chance for visitors to witness Amsterdammers skating across the picturesquely frozen canals. These days, with plenty of rail, bus and air connections to all over Europe and further afield, the Dutch capital is a year-round tourist destination as well as one of the world's key business hubs.

Tourist Information

Walking Tours
The Amsterdam Tourist Office (VVV) (tel: (020) 551 2525; website: http://www.visitamsterdam.nl/) publishes a number of brochures detailing informative and interesting walking tours of the city.

Bus Tours
The De Opstapper minibus is run by GVB (tel: 9292; website: http://www.gvb.nl/). The hop-on hop-off bus circles away from the Centraal Station and curves around Prinsengracht towards Waterlooplein and then back. It leaves every 10 minutes and, as there are no dedicated stops, passengers just tell the driver where they want to get off. Standard public transport strippenkaarten for one zone are valid, as are day cards, otherwise, tickets are available for purchase from the driver.

Boat Tours
Probably the best way to see Amsterdam is from one of the many canal tour boats available. There are a number of companies operating these tours. The hour-long itinerary varies little but the price and delivery of information does. Visitors should choose from The Best of Holland, Damrak 34 (tel: (020) 624 6340; website: http://www.asiacompass.nl/), Lindbergh, Damrak 26 (tel: (020) 622 2766; website: http://www.lindbergh.nl/) and Lovers, opposite Prins Hendrikkade 25-27 (tel: (020) 530 1090; website: http://www.lovers.nl/). The tours run throughout the year, at regular intervals during the day. Passengers can choose either to go once in a loop or use the boats as a hop-on hop-off way of getting around the main attractions. Other boat tours that combine the cruises with visits to various museums or take in the canals by night are also available.

Bicycle Tours
Yellow Bike, Nieuwezijds Kolk 29 (tel: (020) 620 6940; website: http://www.yellowbike.nl/), operates tours between April and November, including tours of the Vondelpark and the Jordaan district. Tours are conducted in Dutch or English but German, French, Spanish or Italian speaking guides can also be arranged on request. All tours depart from Nieuwezijds Kolk 29, which is a five-minute walk from the Centraal Station.

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