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by Tom Noble
July 24th 2018

Automotive – Gstaad’s Rallying Cry for Classic-Car Lovers
by Tom Noble

This year’s Gstaad Palace Challenge makes for a weekend of thrills and spills for car-racing enthusiasts, gourmands and lovers of the great outdoors. Not the worst of combinations, eh?

The two-day rally – part of a three-day event from Friday August 31 through to Sunday September 2 – is limited to just 30 classic or vintage cars, which will motor around the stunning Saanenland valley on a route designed by Kim Bannister of UK-based events organiser Rally Round.…

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Welcome to The Journal. A place where we gather and write about the things we love. You’ll read about watches, art, photography, food, cars, boats or simply that special place we visited last summer.

by Tom Noble
July 4th 2018

Automotive – Heard of the Movie The Great Escape? The Most Iconic Triumph of All Time Comes Out of Hiding

Very few people are as closely associated with a brand like Steve McQueen is to Triumph. But then again, McQueen was so damn cool that he’s essentially the eternal spokesperson for Porsche and Tag Heuer. It’s not that he was just a random super fan of the British motorcycle make and happened to be famous — if you’ve ever seen The Great Escape you know exactly why and how McQueen cemented his relationship with Triumph.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
June 20th 2018

Travel – The Classic Kettner’s Townhouse Gets a Soho House Makeover

There aren’t any tunnels. But there is plenty of history. And now you can sleep over. Kettner’s one of London’s most famous, and oldest, restaurants, has a new lease of life.

Opened in 1867, by Auguste Kettner, a former chef of Napoleon III, the choice of Soho was not promising.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
April 24th 2018

Travel – Coffee, Pie, and (Of Course) Lots of Wine – Our Long Weekend in Sonoma, California

Apart from a half-day of hiking in Muir Woods (highly recommended by the way) I’ve mostly remained in the city when visiting San Francisco. And as you’ll know if you’ve been, whilst it’s a great city, it can also get pretty intense.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
March 5th 2018

Travel – A Seductive, Old-World Grand Hotel Outside St Moritz

The Waldhaus Sils Hotel has been around for more than a hundred years, but it’s lost none of its charm and grandeur. Ski bums (and others) from around the world are enchanted with the nostalgic rooms, the impressive staircase and the sophisticated manner in which this has remained a young hotel.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
January 2nd 2018

Automotive – A First Look at The New and Awesome Singer Porsche 911

Last month we covered some really cool electric sportscars here on The Journal, and this time we’re back with some of the the good old petrol driven stuff…

Right from the get-go in 1989, the 964 was seen as Porsche taking the 911 in a new direction.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
November 15th 2017

Automotive – Super-Charged: The All-Electric Car is Given a Jolt As The Best of The Best Charge Ahead with Blisteringly Fast Models

 

Believe it or not, February 2018 marks a decade since the first Tesla Roadster rolled off the line as the first road-legal, all-electric production car of its type. It wasn’t just the first to offer a range of up to 200 miles on a single charge of its lithium-ion batteries – but also the only electric vehicle on the market that truly qualified as a “sports car” because of its looks, Lotus-derived chassis, sub four-second nought-60 acceleration time and 125mph top speed.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
October 9th 2017

Travel – Hunting for A Home: Splendid Isolation On The Island of Corsica

An upturn in fortunes for the Corsican independence movement hasn’t managed to put off a new wave of buyers. Located just 1 hour 30 minutes from Paris, the “Isle of Beauty” certainly lives up to its name.

In the French elections in June, Emmanuel Macron’s coalition won a landslide victory, but did not take a single seat in Corsica.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
September 26th 2017

Eat & Drink – California Dreamin’ with A Slice of The Best Pizza in Los Angeles

As the home of In N Out Burger (and a few other fine establishments too) Los Angeles is one of the world’s best places to go for a bite. From the countless Double Double’s to tacos, ramen and sushi, we’ve had some the best meals of our lives right here in the city of angels.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
September 21st 2017

Culture – François-Xavier Lalanne and His Parade of Woolly Sheep

When it comes to art and furniture (in this case a combination of the two) that makes us drool, only one comes in fluffy sheepskin. Today on The Journal, we look at why having sheep in your living room, as opposed to armchairs or a sofa, is not only pure fun – but also pricey, with a group of ten sheep fetching nearly $7.5 million at Christie’s a few years ago.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
August 30th 2017

Automotive – Classic Cars Reborn – The Best of Both Worlds?

Hand-built recreations of classic cars offer the charm and character of the originals combined with the comfort, reliability and performance of modern supercars – and demand is accelerating fast.

We’ve featured Singer and their lovely Porsches here on The Journal a couple of times, but if you need a reminder, Singer performs exceptional work in restoring, tuning, customizing, and modifying customers’ older Porsche 964 donor cars.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
August 15th 2017

Eat & Drink – Checking Into London’s Best and Buzziest (New) Hotel Bars

With the very first cocktail bars in the early 1800s often doubling as reception area, it’s no surprise that hotels and good cocktails have gone hand-in-hand for quite a while. Nowadays, bartenders may no longer be charged with running the check-in, but three new London hotels prove that the link between top‑flight libations and a place to lay your head is still as strong as ever.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
August 7th 2017

Travel – Southern France and Northern Italy – Mixing The Best of Two Worlds This Summer

Part one of our summer holiday officially kicked into gear a week ago when we boarded our flight, collected our little Fiat 500, and sped across the border to the Ligurian alps.

Unlike our Scandinavian compatriots we usually escape quite late, and per usual at Nice airport we’re met by the great European summer holiday handover, a concept that sees Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Danes ease out of beach loungers, pack up H&M holiday-wear strewn along the coast and board their flights to start the journey north and give their more continental neighbours the chance to kick off their own holidays.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
July 19th 2017

Culture – Artsy Fartsy – Top Picks From This Week In The Arts

From Pablo Escobar’s old Tulum mansion to Ai Weiwei making a powerful statement, this week we’ve listed some of our favourite recent news in the world of art and design.


Escobar’s Tulum Mansion Is Transformed Into A Five Star Resort

What would Pablo make of this?…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
June 27th 2017

Travel – Ahoy! The Corniche Journal Summer Boating Special

The creme de la creme of boatmakers are ambitiously growing their brands at both ends, building mightier superyachts alongside sportier and more nimble crafts. In today’s summer special, we turn our focus to some of the greatest boating brands out there – where they’re heading as companies – and the best places to actually steer their boats.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
June 21st 2017

Travel – The Perfect Mix of Luxury and Redwoods In One of Our Favourite Places in The World

More than thirty years ago, the Harmon family opened Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley, a restaurant (eventually with a few gorgeous rooms to accompany it) inspired by Provence but infused with a wholesome Northern California feeling.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
June 13th 2017

Travel – Vroom, Vroom: The Four Seasons’ Classic Car Experiences

In our world, nothing says summer like a classic road trip, bonding passengers and creating lasting memories. In fact, some of our best memories come from driving cars across Europe and the US together with friends and family.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
June 5th 2017

Travel – From Newcomers to Old Favourites: Stockholm and Its Increasingly Exciting Hotel Scene

The capital of Scandinavia might have lagged behind some of our favourite cities when it comes to hospitality, but in today’s post we discover three locations that have raised the bar for hotels in Stockholm – giving “Stockholm Syndrome” a whole new meaning.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
May 24th 2017

Automotive – Another Tribute To Italian Road Racing: The Gran Premio del Mugello

Vintage sports cars and the country of Italy are two of our favourite things. And when you combine the two, you end up with something truly special. In fact, we find this particular mix so great that we’ve already wrote about it once before right here on The Journal, in the form of the famous Mille Miglia – one of the world’s most classic automobile races.…

by Tom Noble
by Tom Noble
May 9th 2017

Culture – Transforming An Abandoned Cement Factory Into One of The World’s Coolest Studios

Regardless of whether you’re into architecture or not, you sometimes stumble across stories that blow your mind. The story of Ricardo Bofill and his cement factory is most definitely one of those stories. With more than 30 silos, massive buildings and towering ceilings, the space is extremely raw and quite obviously presented the Spanish architect with a design challenge or two.…

by Tom Noble