Crash, bang, wallop
Singapore sees the first-ever nighttime Formula One grand prix in September,
and the ultra-posh Fullerton Hotel is offering packages to go and see it
from the rooftop (they’re a high-octane £3,500 through www.blacktomato.co.uk).
It should be a cracking view, but we’re not quite sure about the pitch: “The
Fullerton overlooks one of the track’s most dangerous hairpin bends,” the
hotel says proudly. Tasteful.
Hot chocolate, sinful chocolate
They’ve done gambling, booze, sex, but the big new thing in Las Vegas is
chocolate. Caesars Palace has installed a 13ft imitation-choc cuckoo clock
that has melted chocolate running through it and dispenses free truffles
when the birdie pops out. The Bellagio has gone one better. Its new 27ft,
floor-to-ceiling chocolate fountain pumps two tons of the melted ooze at 240
pints a minute. Apparently, they won’t have to change the gloop for a year.
We’ll have a salad, thanks.
Titikikinikinakinoo
We’ve got to concentrate here: Peru’s newest boutique hotel is Titilaka
Titicaca (the second bit is the lake it’s on). Tongue-twisting aside, it
looks luvverly – 18 suites on a private peninsula, gorgeous views,
minimalist rooms with heated floors and (we think this is a boutique-hotel
first) a private oxygen cylinder. Well, you’re at 12,500ft. Just try saying
it when you’re gasping for breath. Cazenove & Loyd (020 7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com)
has a week in Peru, with three nights at the hotel, from £1,930pp.
Bling, blood, death, hair
Excitement builds around the new Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum, coming to
Piccadilly, in central London, in August: sources now confirm it will be
displaying a Mini Cooper covered in Swarovski crystals, vampire-killing kits
and three shrunken heads from Ecuador – and that’s on top of our favourite,
the 27in hairball taken from a cow’s stomach. How can something be so
pointless and so compelling at the same time? We’re camping on the pavement.
You won’t find another trend like this, babe Note to Cadogan Holidays: if
you’re going to make up “a new breed of traveller”, choose the name with
care. “They’re savvy, contemporary, culture-seeking, 45-plus ... they’re the
New Seekers!” the company says. Hmm. Readers aged 45 and up will remember
the full horror of the 1970s pop combo of that name – and would sooner go to
a South Pole nudist camp than be associated with them. Though the latter, of
course, would be run by the Kinks.
