Part of the luxury travel experience are the special perks afforded to the discerning traveler that make the destination that much more enjoyable. We think that we’ve amassed some pretty unique luxury properties in the Kiwi Collection, ones that provide that something extra…thats why we individually choose and inspect each property we add to the Collection…ensuring that our word is golden in the eyes of you, our clients.

One of the things that gets my mojo going is having a cool bevvie on a fabulous rooftop, or simply enjoying the sunset. So here’s a list (in no particular order) of Seven Sensational Rooftop views. Agree? Disagree? Have other recommendations? Let me know what you think. Enjoy!

1. Cavalieri Hilton, Rome, Italy
For the best birds-eye view of the Dome of St Peter’s and what seems like the whole of this beautiful city, dine at the Michelin two-star La Pergola on the ninth floor rooftop of the Cavalieri Hilton, near the Vatican (you get the same views too from the two 200 sq m duplex suites on the corners of the eighth and ninth floor – and they have private entrances to La Pergola. Hotel General Manager is Marcus-Milan Arandelovic.

2. Banyan Tree Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand
The Banyan Tree’s 62nd floor Vertigo restaurant is not for the faint-hearted, but where else can you dine so high, out of doors, while checking the city’s rooftops? If you are fit enough, by the way, enter the annual September vertical marathon, 1,073 steps from ground to the top of the building. General Manager is Bernold Schroeder.

3. Athenaeum InterContinental, Athens, Greece
The eighth floor Club Continental terrace of the Athenaeum InterContinental allows you to enjoy complimentary cocktails as you watch the sun set over the Acropolis. Later, enjoy floodlit views of this center of ancient Greece from the hotel’s rooftop Premier restaurant. General Manager of this art-filled hotel is Panos Panayotopoulos.

4. Hotel Gansevoort, New York, NY, USA
The 13-floor Gansevoort, in the Meat Packing District, has a popular rooftop. There is a 45-foot long outdoor heated pool with underwater light and music show, and the bar gives 360-degree views over lower Manhattan and, west across the Hudson River, to New Jersey (you are also a three floors higher than the members-only Soho House so you can watch the rooftop antics there). General Manager is Elon Kenchington.

5. Burj al Arab, Dubai, UAE
Unless you are THE Woods (who hit a golfball there), or Agassi or Federer (who had a mock tennis game over a specially-constructed net), the only way you can get out on the cantilevered 28th floor helicopter landing pad of the Burj al Arab is to arrange helicopter transfer in from the airport. And yes, it is worth it, if only for the view! General Manager is Luc Delafosse.

6. Las Ventanas al Paraiso, Los Cabos, Mexico
Take one of the two-floor casitas – say 208 – at Las Ventanas al Paraiso, and head upstairs to watch the stars over the Sea of Cortez as you enjoy the jacuzzi on your private terrace. The resort’s spa offers, in addition, a Sea and Stars massage. General Manager is Luis Fernandes.

7. The Peninsula Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Arrange to fly in by helicopter and you land on the roof of The Peninsula’s 28th floor tower – the view on the way is magnificent, and as you land you look over Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island. If you do not, of course, fancy a chopper, come in from the airport by a hotel Rolls, take a high-floor Harbour-facing suite and dine up at Felix restaurant and the view of the Island is the same. General Manager is Ian Coughlan.

David Swenson, Yoga Specialist, teaches at COMO Shambhala Estate at Begawan Giri in Bali.

David Swenson is one of the world’s leading Ashtanga teachers and modern day gurus. He will be teaching Yoga in Paradise at COMO Shambhala Estate at Begawan Giri, Bali, May 23-28, 2009.

David Swenson began practicing yoga at the age of 13. His older brother Doug was his first teacher. They practiced hatha yoga from whatever books they could find. David’s introduction to Ashtanga came in 1973 when he met David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff in Encinitas, California. In 1975 David and Nancy brought K. Pattabhi Jois to the U.S. for the first time and Swenson was fortunate enough to be there. He then initiated studies directly with the master. Swenson made his first trip to Mysore in 1977 and learned the full Ashtanga system as it was originally taught by K. Pattabhi Jois. David Swenson is recognized today as one of the worlds foremost practitioners and instructors of Ashtanga Yoga.

He runs David Swenson Ashtanga Yoga Productions out of Austin TX USA.

The beautiful COMO Shambhala Estate is one of the most serene destinations on Bali – which says a lot, and its advisors include Donna Karan, and legendary Buddhist philosopher Dr Robert Thurman (and yes, he is the father of Uma Thurman).

As well as its amazing spa, there is a lot to do at the 31-room resort. Do have a session with onsite iridologist and nutritionist Carla Halford, and take the pre-breakfast guided morning walk around the steeply-sloped estate.

Spare time, too, to check out the outstanding boutique, supplied and run by the resort’s original conceptor, Bradley Gardner.

We looked up at what is the narrow end of a 34-floor wedge-shaped building, deliberately designed by architect Kazukiyo Sato to resemble a folded lantern. Inside, it was more like a two-floor, circular café – a very upmarket café – than a hotel. Walls were composed of ceiling high wood slats, with six-inch gaps between, and, diagonally ahead left and right as you enter, upper level cantilevered platforms where live musicians perform in the evenings. Overhead hangs a chandelier with a difference, formed of 1,313 hanging stainless rods with fiber optic lights at the base. Beyond this is a 12-ft wide stylized dragon formed of bamboo lengths turned inside out, by artist Keisen Hama.

At all times of day this café is choc a bloc. Apparently some start standing in line at noon for afternoon tea, which runs from 2.30-5. Others arrive for lunch, and carry on until five pm. At times the waiting line extends up a wide curving staircase out of sight at the right rear of the area (at least they can look into the glittering shop windows of jewelers Chantecler, de Grisogono and Graff, all making their entry into the lucrative Tokyo market).

Guests of the 314-room walk through this hive of activity, to the reception area, half out of sight at the left rear. The desk is manned by the chic-est of chic young women in covetable black suits with casual cream shirts and pearls (all uniforms are by Satoshi Tanaka). Behind the desk is a ten foot-high recessed artwork, a clay composition, with 70 layers of different colors, which apparently is in Hamchiku style, by Shuhei Hasado. Brightly colored ceramic pots stand near the four elevators.

We are in 2201, the 3,000 sq ft Hibiya Suite. Its California King bed, made up with cream Frette linens, faces right out, through all-wall windows towards the Imperial Palace gardens. We have a gym, with LifeFitness elliptical and upright bikes and full weights, an office, and a separate ten-seat dining room. There is a Yamaha grand piano. The bathroom has its oval tub with a flat-screen – one of many in the suite – set into a wall formed of alternating horizontal layers of polished and unpolished grey and white granite. There are Davi vine-inspired toiletries, a safe, and multi-sockets. There are longer and shorter towel robes and a pair of cotton yukata robes. There is also a miniature electric drier set into a table in the dressing room – for drying fingernails: Peninsula technology gurus have also put in bedside control panels that light up if you so much as touch the bedside table in the night, and the Peninsula group’s signature cat-flap, for mail and newspaper delivery, has a lock on it, from both room and corridor sides.

Peninsula has invested in the best, throughout. The smallest of the 314 rooms is 525 sq ft, the spa has a 65 foot indoor pool, with a giant real-time seconds timing clock one end, and an actual clock at the other, and as you swim you admire four giant Dedon planters bearing palm trees, and an array of green bamboo flowers in one corner. And overhead you have a recessed oval in the ceiling, and the oval is itself divided by self-colored curves, with magnificent lighting that says, in such a Japanese way, this is simple art. But throughout the whole hotel, indeed, the feeling is massively sensual. At the basement-level base of the public stairwell is a rippled garden of which sand and pebbles, which is echoed in the self-colored dunes in the ceiling outside the Cantonese restaurant: the Hibiya suite has subtly-lit recessed ceiling panels – the dining room’s is woven wood, the same cream hue as the ceiling surround.