My heartfelt congratulations to Rob Hersov and his lovely bride Dr. Kate James.

The Hersov’s threw a four-day wedding extravaganza over the weekend in St. Moritz.

250 guests came in from all over the world, many directly into the local Samedan airport. Rob comes originally from Cape Town and is vice Chairman of Net Jets and a founder investor/ambassador of A Small World (ASW). Kate comes from New Zealand and is a qualified pediatric doctor.

There are very few people in the world with a bigger international network.

Rob and Kate’s wedding was one of the best organized nuptials I have ever been to where the four days in the glorious Alps were filled with fun, charm, intimacy and a hilarious sense of humor.

Many old friends came to celebrate the charmed couple including Preston Haskell (thanks for the ride down!), Lambros Milona, Lilly Wittgenstein, Calle and Nathalie Bismarck, Nick Candy, Goga Ashkenazi, Len Blavatnik, Richard Perry, Gus Spanos, Mogens Tholstrup, Andrea Dibelius, Omer Karacan, Ana Drezgic, Janusz Hooker, Pong Bismarck, Eric Watson, Lars Windhorst, Pia Hahn, Morvarid Sahafi, Tandy Nill, Lucio and Esther Vela, Sven and Zoe Ley, and fellow Swedes Johan Attvik, Johan Stael von Holstein and Ulf Ekberg.

Ulf performed from his Ace of Base repertoire “It is a beautiful life” and “All that she wants is another baby” to ecstatic guests following the wedding dinner.

Most people stayed at the Palace and the Kulm. I had the good fortune thanks to the ASW Hotel Finder to discover the magnificent Kronenhof hotel and spa in Pontresina, less than 6 kms from St. Moritz, and a sister hotel to the Kulm.

Kronenhof was bought by the Niarchos family in 2004 and just completed a massive renovation. It is now the most comfortable place to stay in the region and was awarded Hotel of the Year 2008 by Gault et Millau.

Proof that the best place to stay is often the less obvious.

Pictures speak a thousand words and this is a great opportunity to start photo blogging, so here we go:

Rob Hersov Gives a Proud "Thumbs Up"

Silas Chou

Reveller

Ana

Goga

Ulf and Erik

Solis Cambrian Hotel and Spa is the ideal place to stay if you want to enjoy the Swiss Alps and the countryside. This stunning hotel in Switzerland has an exclusive offer running from today to June 30th 2009 – stay for three nights and pay for only two!

If you’re taking a vacation to the Swiss Alps, one thing you won’t be able to live without is a fantastic view in a picturesque town. We recommend staying at Solis Cambrian Hotel and Spa on your next trip to Switzerland because it has that stunning view and great location – and a whole lot more.

The hotel is located where mountain sports happen: the mountain village of Adelboden. Adelboden is the home of Alpine skiing and the FIS Ski World Cup.

And, guests to this hotel this summer get a special treat. The hotel has an exclusive offer running all June for Kiwi Collection’s guests: stay for three nights for the price of two!

Guests will get three nights’ accommodation in a room of their choice with complimentary daily alpine breakfast and free use of the Spa Solis (the outdoor pool that boasts stunning views on the Engstligen waterfalls).

At only 71 rooms, this hotel will provide an intimate experience for all who stay there. Better yet, Solis Cambrian Hotel is family friendly and great for kids. They have a kids’ room close to their restaurant that has toys, books, Wii and other fun things for youngsters!

Adults will appreciate all of the little luxurious details in the rooms from the mountain views to the private balconies and bathrobes. You will also enjoy the complimentary high speed internet, worldwide plasma TVs, DVD systems and the hotel’s movie library.

Try to get a room facing south as they have the best views of the waterfalls and mountains.

After a day hiking in the mountains, relax and unwind at the hotel’s spa. Treat your sore muscles to some TLC by spending some time in the heated outdoor thermal tub or give your feet the gift of the Dr. Kniepp foot treatment.

In the evening, make sure to head to Nova Restaurant. The restaurant has a great view of the mountains and countryside and has some of the best northern Italian cuisine in the area. In the summer, you can dine outside on the terrace!

After a construction phase lasting four years, Zurich celebrates the return of one of its most prominent landmarks

It is not only the indoor pool of The Dolder Grand, high above Zurich, Switzerland, that is Guinness World Records’ awesome.

The entire resort fits that bill, as we were to find out. The cab took the winding zigzag road up Dolder hill from the lake & after 15 minutes we were in mountaintop woodland. Round yet another bend, and there we were. We turned left into an entrance flanked by neat limestone (Dietfurter Gala) walls & came into a turning circle with two ten-feet diameter decorative pools, so shallow you would barely get your littlest toe moist, with inset fountains. These were in front of a 1899-vintage structure that had started life as a four-floor wooden chalet, built as a health spa (”kurhaus”), and over the decades grew – and grew – and GREW.

The splendid Leading Hotels of the World treasure reopened April 2008 after a four-year sleep. During this time architects Foster + Partners added two extended curlicue wings. There are still, despite what is said to be a $420 million expansion spent, 173 rooms and suites, but they are now all larger in size, ranging from 460 to 4,000 sq ft.

Back to our arrival. Apart from ‘Dolder Grand’ down at the roadway there was no sign of branding: I was later to suggest that consultants InterBrand Zintzmeyer & Lux had done such a good job with discretion that the few signs of where you are are limited to barely-visible capital Ds on jampots and soap wrapping. A welcoming party of good-looking young men in brown jackets and pale chinos stood on a ‘Swedish red’ carpet on four front steps under a Swedish-red overhanging porte cochère (the color was the original highlight when the chalet was first built). One of today’s eager team members, Thierry, the top greeter, led us through a marbled hall with two ceiling-high Corinthian columns and, behind them on either side a grand double flight of 27 stairs, with Swedish-red and cream carpets, that take you up past original 1899 stained glass windows to the upper level, with more stairs going on up, up and up. A single giant Swarovski crystal chandelier illuminates the lobby.

Back on the entrance level, doors swish open to lead us forward into the ‘new’ area, where brass lettering set into the floor reminds us that owner Urs Schwarzenbach (sadly away in Mongolia today) opened his glorious new creation on March 18th, 2008. We go along a winding S-shaped, glass-sided corridor that has, at intervals, floor-standing vitrines tastefully advertising, for instance, Sotheby’s, or, more ostentatiously, displaying Dior jewelry. We are heading for one of the two new wings, the Spa Wing, which faces south and west. The glass-sided bank of three adjacent elevators is as modern as Heathrow’s terminal five, or the latest watch styles – namely, all the works are deliberately exposed. One of the elevators glides to meet us. Inside, you activate it by the pressure of a room keycard. Up on the top (fourth) floor we walk along another curved corridor and stop outside the Carezza Suite, and again the card opens the door.

Carezza, apparently, was a 1932 work of sculptor Alberto Giacometti, 1901-1966, a frequent guest at The Dolder. First, we come to our 2,400 sq ft suite’s circular lobby, with a nine-foot diameter floor that looks like a marble mosaic: it is in fact petrified wood. Unadorned woodwork around, and throughout the suite, is sensationally soft and smooth oiled and brushed oak. The boards extended, it seemed, almost to infinity, or at least into the parlor beyond, a room about 20 x 20 feet with only two sculptured sand-colored rugs relieving those floor boards. The best way to describe the effect of the room is organic. Its far wall, curving outwards, is all glass, looking out on the private balcony, four feet wide, that wends its way round the suite: it is retained by a fret aluminum balustrade that protects all balconies, every level, of the two new wings. Beyond are stunning views down the hill, and across Zurich and its lake. The two sidewalls of the room look convex, thanks to sculpted lines on their white concrete, but it is an illusion, and they are flat. Concealed lighting comes from these walls, from a ledge about ten feet high. A white origami-looking lampshade hangs low from the white ceiling, exactly above a round white table, which has four smooth-smooth armed chairs, wood with black leather seating. The wall by the parlor’s entrance, by the way, is mostly wood, with inset work area one side of the door, and the minibar the other. As well as two circular sandalwood leather sofas, facing out, there are two leather-seated spindly walnut armchairs, designed by Dominique Imbert, in front of a ceiling-suspended chimneyed Scandinavian fire, which apparently works. A giant Bang & Olufsen standing flat screen will turn in whatever direction you want.

The television, and curtains and heating and lighting, are controlled by a robot like control panel that fits into the palm of a hand, round ball beneath, screen above. Will I ever make it work? I do manage the Internet, which is both wired and wireless. I have an access password, and a direct telephone line. Above the desk are copies of every gorgeous book that has ever been published on Giacometti (the largest by Yves Bonnefoy, published by Flammarion). Magazines include the UK edition of Condé Nast Traveller, La Bellavista for German speakers, and a local shopping guide, Magazine Zürcher Bahnhofstrasse.

Two bedrooms lead off the circular foyer. One comes with a small six-person television room and a separate box room with letdown bed that would do for security, or my maid (bother, I left her behind). The master bedroom is a triumph. You walk into an area – still all wood floors, remember – that has a freestanding tub and frosted white glass walls. Behind are a massive steam shower, and a separate sauna. Parallel is another white-glass area, hiding the toilet and a baggage storage facility: facing this are two inset rectangular basins, eight feet apart in an all-white shelf so you do not bump into your other half – above are ceiling high mirrors with inset leaf motifs that are back-lit lights. This, like all the interior design, is the work of United Designers. Fresh orchids stand on the shelving.

Later I find another bathroom, with shower, and a kitchen, and a sauna and at least six closets. All the bath furniture is Villeroy & Boch, with gold fittings. Everything you see is designer-named (even the garbage pail is Brabantia). Main toiletries are Kerstin Florian but I also have Farfalle pure relaxation and pure vitality oils. The minibar’s champagne is Veuve Clicquot, and all the glassware, of course, is Riedel. As well as a Californian-sized bed with real linens, by the way, there is a sand-colored circular leather day bed, and a standing lamp that appears to be covered with a fluted linen wrap, which in fact of course is a designer lampshade.

Madonna is supposed to be at this city-resort somewhere, but the place is so huge it would be hard to find her. I think, anyway, that she only has a day room as she is singing to 70,000 of her close friends in Militarflugplatz Dubendorf and flying back to London, to her own tiny home, afterwards. Other fans have elected to stay here, at this luxury resort only a few minutes from Zurich city-center: these cognoscenti have, like us, decided to make use of the fabulous spa facilities.

Designed by Klafs Saunabau, the indoor pool, lined with glass mosaic tiles, is like a 75-foot whoosh, a wedge that curves, so to speak. On the terrace outside are hot tubs, and lots of lounge seating (designed by Paola Lenti) that is fully used now, in the early evening sun. Both the men and women’s changing areas have full single-sex, nudity-allowed indoor wet areas, with ranges of small pools, saunas, steam and herbed showers.

This is a place for wellness. Bedrooms have fresh air vents that you can open, and all interior air conditioning allows 20 percent fresh air: Thanks to 70 tubes sunk a staggering 450 feet into the surrounding landscape, 75 percent of all required energy is geothermal heat extraction. No wonder the Botox took so many years.

Who on earth put this remarkable resort together? Well fortunately the owner, some six years ago, came across a passionate young man from Bern, Thomas Schmid. For all the intervening time he has reconstructed and expanded, rebuilt and chosen everything, from concept to actual items through to his 400 staff members (and that does not include, by the way, those working in the nearby Dolder sports center, or on the golf course). Schmid does not look quite so teenage as when I first met him but it is amazing after everything he has been through he has not lost his sense of humor or his hair, and neither has the latter gone gray.

Because it is still summer, dinner will be outside, but first we inspect the indoor Restaurant, which a century ago was the chalet’s card room. The tall ceiling has had its original paintings, all playing-card inspired, restored. Walls are now a collage of real silver leaf, and the dominant feature is an interior-lit glass wine cellar. Out on the terrace the architecture is simple, gray walls and floor, to contrast with the brilliance of the multi-hued trees around. Down in the distance a water ballet rises from the lake, and the mountains, sorry, the Alps, are a pale backdrop. There are cream umbrellas shading tables set with real natural-linen linens, exquisitely hemmed. The porcelain is Dibbern, the cutlery Robbe + Berking. We each have a different-pattern of cut glass tumbler.

The first amuse includes little light-as-air rice parcels of flying fish caviar, and there is also olive oil foam. Quite soon the first breads arrive, with an addictive, cannot get enough, cucumber bread. Butters include lemon, mascarpone, ricotta and Serrano ham flavors, another amuse is a tiny fennel salad in a puddle of coffee oil. The chef, Heiko Nieder from Hamburg, comes out, as lean and vital as one could wish. Another lot of breads arrive, the six choices including a mustard seed roll and a couple of bite-sized flavored bagels. I have replaced our set menu’s crab and coconut starter by a simple salad, that arrives like a painting on a plate, and then we proceed to veal, which turns out to be a military precision parade of four shapes set side by side on a plate, veal this, veal that, veal sweetbread, something green, and a fifth shape, a polenta cube, is added.

By now it is completely dark. Concealed lighting and candles in red and clear glass shades enhance the stage set. How can we have room for the raspberry concoction that is our set dessert? There is an a la carte menu but such is the performance here it is honestly easier to go for one of the connoisseur set menus that chef, and the restaurant manager Didier Clauss, propose.

We find our suite, and sneak into a bed that has yet more acres of that hand-rolled natural linen. Somewhere in the world there must be fields of flax growing just for The Dolder, I think, and fall asleep.

I wake wishing I were here for longer, to take advantage of the nine-hole golf, the tennis courts, the hiking (and, in winter, a myriad of snow activities). However, there is no snow, and no time, so I suffice with a marvelous run on up the winding hill, up into the Dolder woods, and have a great shower. We breakfast out on the Garden Terrace. Places are set with peach-colored linens and white Rosenthal Jade china, and little pots of jams, specially made by Markus Kunz for The Dolder Grand. Juice is just-squeezed from oranges obviously kept at exactly the right temperature because it is as if the juice was still on the trees a few minutes before – and the coffee, brought by the cup in china that has pink flowers on it, is similarly just-made. I have a bowl of natural yogurt, a plate of blueberries and banana slices, and I watch my friend admiring his eggs Benedict, a confection of eggs and Hollandaise, two cooked tomatoes on the vine, and a little sprig of greenery: when he cuts into the eggs, the yolks, as yellow as sunflowers, are soft and yielding. Two white ceramic sculptures turn out to be mills for salt and pepper.

It is time for my sports massage. Down at reception of Sylvia’s Spa (my term, as a reminder that the legendary Sylvia Sepielli said hold off too much Asia, but do introduce a bit of Japanese influence) I am greeted by one of the charming staff, and escorted up 27 wood stairs to the waiting room, a cream cocoon of an inner room. Aila from Lucerne, a blonde beauty with neat hair bun and wearing oatmeal-coloured over-vest over matching pyjamas, comes to pick me up, and escorts me along one of the curving corridors past 18 other treatment rooms to the furthest, where I am to be treated. It is all white, apart from the wood floor: the far wall, with white net curtains over the all-wall glass, looks out over pasture. There is a floor-to-ceiling column holding an inset gas fire that is lit from six every evening – a very special atmosphere, says Aila. She offers me four choices of Kerstin Florian perfume, I choose Soothing, lie on the bed and promptly fall asleep.

One hour later she wakes me, tells me yes, my thighs were very tight, I need a whirlpool. On my way out I look at the fabulous spa suite, with two beds, a circular day-bed, double jacuzzi tub, shower, sauna and so on. I check out the spa store, with gym and swim equipment, plus full ranges of all the products used here, not only Kerstin Florian but also La Prairie and Kenzoki, by Kenzo. Back at the suite, the automatically-retracting gauze sunshades are down in front of all windows, for energy-saving.

The greeters back down in the lobby have now become dispatchers. They wish us well, urge us to come back (really, Thomas Schmid has assembled a most attractive and likeable crowd of team members, of all ages). The Lexus Hybrid is waiting, and we speed to the airport, through pastures where I like to think one of the cows is dedicated to producing the milk that was hand-churned for my Dolder breakfast butter. It is this kind of place.