Category Archives: Melissa Vinelli’s Travels

A Weekend Afternoon Tea Obsession

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I spotted an interesting piece of news this week. The Houses of Parliament is entering the world of Afternoon Tea. I know, sounds like a gripping movie trailer doesn’t it. Stick with me. Afternoon Tea is not as simple as it sounds. You might be thinking it’s about having a cup of tea in the afternoon. It isn’t.

This ritual is just as complex, long winded and intricate as a Japanese tea ceremony. Although there’s less bowing involved and you don’t have to sit on the floor.
To give you a clue to the complexity here is an extract from the House of Commons press release:
“The chefs have created a tempting array of savouries such as citrus marinated Scottish salmon with cream cheese, lemon curd and chive on a mini bagel, and free range egg mayonnaise with watercress on wholemeal bread. Room should be saved for the sweet course which includes sultana scones with strawberry jam and Devonshire clotted cream, and Valronha chocolate delice. Beverages are a selection of teas or freshly brewed coffee.”

And this is for a tea that costs £19.95 which makes it the budget airline of the Afternoon Tea world. Cheap as chips. To give you an idea of the lengths hotels go to to give their Afternoon Tea the edge I discovered a 24 Karat Gold one recently. During which you drink Champagne with gold in it and eat gold leaf jelly and gold leaf and strawberry tart. Guess what’s sprinkled on top… you guessed it, gold flakes.

Did those brave frontier Americans really push west into uncharted territory risking life and scalp to find gold just so that Brits could eat it? Yes, it turns out.
If staff from top hotels ever gather in Trafalgar Square and have a massive brawl it’ll be who has the best Afternoon Tea that they’ll be fighting about.

Thankfully the Tea Guild (yes tea has a guild) created an awards ceremony 28 years ago to stave off the requirement for fisty cuffs.
The judges follow very strict guidelines, I’m told, covering the décor, the appropriateness of the crockery, staff attitude, tea knowledge, efficiency of service, overall ambience and how the tea itself is served.

Guess who received an Award of Excellence, you’ll be pleased to hear, a Small Luxury Hotel of the World -The Capital Hotel & Apartments.

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So there you have it. If you want the very best Afternoon Tea in London don’t go to the House Of Commons, head to The Capital Hotel. Hmm, I’m feeling a little peckish. See you next week!

The Luck of the Irish- St Patrick’s Day

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As I’m half Irish when St Patrick’s Day comes around each year I circle the day with a big green pen and book the following Monday off work.
I don’t speak with an Irish accent, even my dad’s Irish accent has faded, and I’ve only been to the country a handful of times. But I qualify handsomely to play for the Republic of Ireland ladies football team so as far as I’m concerned that’s more than enough justification to drink Guinness on a Sunday once a year.
Despite my relatively poor Irish credentials I do feel a little bit possessive about it. The whole world has decided it’s a day for a party and suddenly friends who can trace their English ancestry back to the Middle Ages are donning silly green hats and revealing a distinct lack of aptitude for River dancing.
St Georges Day, I say to them, wait for St George’s Day and do something English. Like drinking tea or Morris dancing. Invariably they ignore me.
This year I decided to ignore them and with a small band of fellow Irish-ish pals in tow I jumped on a plane and booked in at La Stampa Hotel & Spa.

I’ll admit, there are more typically Irish spots to stay in Dublin, but I’m a sucker for a decent spa and and an easternatmos’.
Plus I figured we would have all the Irish-ness one could ever want in the bars and streets of Dublin.
And I was not disappointed. For once I was the fraud, but the locals didn’t seem to care. Dublin is as welcoming a place as you’ll find. Inside the hotel we were royalty, outside we were long lost friends. With just about everyone.
So when your 2014 calendar arrives ignore your other half’s birthday, forget your summer holidays. Get out your green highlighter, turn straight to St Patrick’s Day, and book a flight to the Irish capital. Even if you are a Morris dancing tea drinker.

January Blues.

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It’s not really the done thing in January but I did it anyway. While others were in the gym, giving up wine, eating Ryvita and generally being better all round human beings I decided to buy an enormous television.

I have waited until February to share this with you in case you were a JANUARY PERSON. Capped up because JANUARY PEOPLE like to talk about their personal renaissance very loudly and smugly and everyone else has to live in an Orwellian 1984 parallel universe where we’re not allowed to mention that they do this every year and it definitely won’t last.

Anyway, now that it’s February you should be back to normal. You’ve realised that we drink wine and eat cakes because it makes us happy and that not eating any carbs is selfish because it’s the people around us that have to cope with the hungry angry person.

So, back to my 42 inch Panasonic smart TV.

TELEVISION

Despite having what is essentially a cinema at home, miraculously I haven’t become a fat four-eyed box set-addicted recluse. When I watch scary films I am a bit more scared. When I watch tennis it’s like being a ball-boy without the running. And when a nature documentary comes on I just stare open mouthed at the screen for an hour. But I still manage to function as a normal human being the rest of the time.

This took me by surprise. It took me by surprise because a hotel I was looking at online the other day told me I can’t be trusted with a television. It thinks that it must take my television away or else I will sit indoors watching it all day instead of sitting in the sunshine or looking at historic monuments.

It was a beautiful hotel but I’m afraid this lack of trust made me sad. I like to be trusted. In fact I don’t just want trust, I want temptation. I want an enormous television in the bedroom, another in the sitting room and, as I enjoyed at The Arch in London recently, I want one at the end of the bath too.

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A bath so deep my mother would never have let me run it, bubbles so high I could barely see over them, and a romantic film on the flatscreen that some tech magician has made impervious to steaming up. Now that’s a guilty pleasure I don’t want to miss however beautiful the view from the balcony.

It was the missing television alone that made me choose another hotel – find out where I chose instead next week.

#52perannum

SLH Competition Time

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I’d like to talk about competitions today. Have you ever met someone who didn’t tell you that they “never win anything” when the topics of raffles, prize draws, tombolas, the annual gambling for non gamblers amnesty that is the Grand National, come up? I haven’t. Nobody ever claims to be lucky.
But someone must be winning surely? Every week someone beats the 14 million to one odds to become a lottery millionaire. And without winners wouldn’t the whole concept of competitions with lovely prizes be dead?
I was lucky enough to win a day driving fast cars around a track recently (quite a change from sitting in London traffic in my trusty Fiat 500) and there I met three people who don’t believe in luck.
“Have you ever won anything before?” I asked, awaiting the boring stock answer ready with my boring stock reply.
“Yes, lots,” they said in unison.
“I beg your pardon?” said I.
It turns out that the key to winning competitions is to enter them. Extraordinary insight there I’m sure you’ll agree – you have stumbled upon the golden ticket with this blog post…
One of my driving buddies trawls the internet, newspapers and magazines finding every competition going and enters. He wins rather a lot.
Another appeared to be some sort of maths Rain Man and knew how many packets of Walkers crisps he needed to buy to win the racing driving day. He was in the pit lane with me so I assume his sums had worked quite well.
So I’m now going to enter everything I see. I’ve even opened up a competitions email account so that I can hand that one over when I’m inevitably asked for it in return for the right to enter.
And I’m starting with this from The Times+ supplement:  http://www.mytimesplus.co.uk/offers/times/home/2797/win-a-holiday-to-thailand
Seven nights in Thailand and two flights with Cathay Pacific. Shh, don’t tell Rain Man.
My photo for you to enjoy this week is one which I hope I’ll be able to take myself when I win.

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Week One. Tick.

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I’ve survived somehow. I’m not entirely certain how but a whole week passed and just one new photo has been taken. There were a few thousand close calls though.

And the very real possibility that I am now suffering from repetitive strain injury thanks to reaching into and rooting around in the Poppinsian tardis that is my handbag and removing the phone in anticipation of a capturing some banal moment or other before remembering the rules and throwing it back into the abyss.

And here is that photo.

Cannes
The view is Cannes where I spent a couple of days last week.
Not a boutique designer shop in sight you’ll notice. Yes I spent hours salivating over the Vuitton and Versace. Yes I stared at the impeccably heeled ladies and gents of this chic town strolling around like very wealthy peacocks with equally well attired chiens in tow.

But thanks to my hotel concierge (Le Grand Hotel) I spent an afternoon free of credit card-reliant pleasure.
Perhaps he has been trained in the art of spotting women who have journeyed to Cannes to enjoy it’s opulence but once there swiftly realise their eyes are significantly bigger than their wallets.

Perhaps he spotted that my shoes belong to someone who enjoys the sensation of walking more than a couple of hundred yards before being crippled with excruciating pain.

Either way he sent me strolling along the sea front and up to the old town. And this photo was taken 30 seconds after the biggest smile I smiled in Cannes spread across my face.