“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy’. ” Sylvia Plath’s words, and a perfect descriptor for my staycation at La Petite Ferme in Franschhoek. The blue chip property rests in a prime position on …
Design
Paternoster is one of the oldest fishing villages on the Cape’s sparkly West Coast, 145km north of Cape Town and home to fewer than 2000 folk. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long – more than 20 years! – to get back here and I’m already plotting a …
I’m obsessed with street art. Last week I did a refresher of the walls in Salt River, one of the Mother City’s oldest neighbourhoods and with a prolific outdoor public art gallery. This article ran in the Sunday Times on 22 Sept, 2019 Street art in the Mother City …
This article is in the September edition of Juice mag, the inflight publication for MANGO Airlines Jack Kerouac liked to compare mountains to Buddha. “Think of the patience”, he wrote, “hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and praying for all living creatures in that …
I am so attached to Montagu… And this is (one of the reasons) why.. The backstory to my affinity with this pretty town on Route 62 revolves around the Arts, innovation and excellence (more about that on my next posts). Between 2012 and 2015, I made an annual pilgrimage to …
Wilderness, reserves, and national parks When it comes to the quintessential off-the-beaten-track safari, Botswana is the business. A country one third the size of South Africa, it has one of the highest conservation land ratios on the continent with twenty-five percent of untrammelled wilderness set aside for reserves and national …
The original version of this post appeared in the Sunday Times South Africa, 21 April 2019 Franschhoek is coming in haute. From heritage to cuisine, wine, art, accommodation, sustainability and nature, the village is a showcase of excellence and synonymous with la belle vie. Whether you’re breezing through or jetting …
This article first appeared in the Sunday Times SA on 23 September 2017 It’s almost summertime in Europe and the Cote d’Azur is calling. Synonymous with le good life, it’s typically upsold as the domain of rich and famous, but truth be told, that’s only the half of it. Because …
This article first appeared in the Sunday Times SA Did you really say Friesland? Tell an Amsterdammer that you’re headed to Friesland and watch their eyes widen in surprise. Time and again. You’d be forgiven for rethinking your vacation choice but stay the course because once you’ve been there …
The article first ran in The Cape Times on 15 February 2019 Annual street art event Each February since 2017, Salt River undergoes a hue revolution as street artists from South Africa and the World gather under the auspices of the International Public Art Festival (IPAF) to inject a fresh …