Yulia Kravchenko

We stopped off at about half a dozen restaurants where Adam asked each of them (he speaks fluent French, I definitely don’t) if they were serving food, and all of them said no, or they were only serving snacks (like bar snacks – nuts and olives etc). So we walked around the lake and had a look at the food stalls that were there for the festival. Most of the food was heavy Indian or Middle Eastern. I love that type of food, but on a hot sunny day I just wanted a plate of seafood! Either a big hunk of fish or a ceviche or carpaccio or even just a bowl of prawns coated in garlic butter. But nope, nada.
I controlled my oncoming hangryness with a really delicious (and cheap, for Geneva standards) ice-cream, and then Peter called and told us to meet him at Les Voiles. So off we went on the bus down the road to Les Voiles. Except we got there and it was closed. It didn’t open until 6pm, and I had to be at the airport at 6pm. It was now 4pm, so Adam and I raced back to the hotel and decided to just go to the Kempinski pop-up terrace restaurant I’d been to the day before.

I knew it wasn’t looking great when I asked Adam where is good to eat in Geneva and he responded with ‘nowhere really…I mainly just eat at home because the restaurants in Geneva are awful’. This is coming from the person who gave me some incredible foodie recommendations for Milan, and who can recommend a huge list of restaurants at the drop of a hat for practically every major city in Europe.

We then wandered back down the hill to the lake, and tried to find somewhere to eat. By this time it was around 2:30pm, and in Geneva nowhere really serves food outside of their strict eating hours (12-2, and 6pm onwards). Both of us were craving a huge plate of seafood (I ended up getting my octopus fix a few days later at Polpo in London), but sadly we couldn’t really find anywhere.

The Shangri-La has a beautiful outside swimming pool, a fully equipped gym, a selection of seven varied and fantastic restaurants, and of course the famous Shangri-La Chi Spa. Nigel and I both had massages at Chi, and it was honestly one of the best spa experiences I’ve had. There was a bit of a mixup with the appointments (our fault, we got the times wrong), but the staff were so accomodating and the massage I had was blissfully relaxing. The spa is a serene sanctuary of feng shui calm, and I left feeling like I was walking on clouds.

Their canapes in the Horizon Club were basically a full on buffet – it was amazing, and everything was so delicious! We sat by the window and had the most incredible view over the City, sadly the glass was super reflective though so I couldn’t get a photo without our reflections staring back at us.

Pioneering female architect Lilian J. Rice drew on Spanish, Cuban, and Mexican adobe inspirations when designing the original 1923 guesthouse in the hills outside San Diego; in the intervening 90-plus years, the property has expanded into a 21-acre country retreat with new cottages, a spa, “coastal ranch” cuisine, and a whiskey bar inspired by the old Santa Fe Hunt Club. Guests can hit the tennis courts, join a yoga class, book a spa treatment, or play a round at the Max Behr-designed Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, which opened in 1929 and is set to complete extensive renovations this November.