ROOFTOP ROSÉ 

Action time – for others. The Tour de France’s 21st stage will be a 35-km Côte d’Azur time trial between Monaco and Nice on Sunday, July 21st. Avoid the pedals by sauntering inland in a roadster booked through The Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel. The legendary hotel’s sixth-floor rooftop is summer-themed, like Rosa, la Plage by Whispering Angel. Look down. Green gardens and blue Mediterranean while sipping chilled rosé. 

 

PAMPERING IN PINK 

Fashion sashays into heritage luxury. For the second year, Dior’s themed the pool and spa of The Beverly Hills Hotel, where E. Taylor honeymooned for the 6th and 8th time. Pool umbrellas, cabanas, the spa, and a pop-up boutique temporarily replacing some loungers all wear pink. If the limited edition Dior bags are all gone, consume your sorrow with the Polo Lounge’s signature McCarthy salad, named for 1940s polo legend Neil McCarthy. 

 

SADDLE UP

The home of polo in the UK is Viscount Cowdray’s 16,000-acre estate in West Sussex, Cowdray Park. Aficionados of the Game of Kings will congregate for The Cowdray Gold Cup, 13-21 July 2024, playing to 22 goals (High Goal). There are cottages to rent on the estate – expect the four Treehouses to be snapped up lightning-fast.

 

I'M SOY INTO THIS

Only the Japanese would turn a mall into an art form. Tokyo’s Tokyu Plaza Harajuku Harakado looks like a gallery and has a vertical garden on its roof – and 75 shops and places to eat and drink. For more external art, go three miles to Mori’s new Azabudai Hills development. Thomas Heatherwick landscaping, next to three-month-old Janu Tokyo, the Aman Group’s slightly younger, more fun hotel.

 

MAKING WAVES

Art sometimes deliberately jolts perceived colour and material pairings. Hollywood-centric artist Alex Israel’s pink plexiglass surfboard, ‘Watermelon Sugar’, appears to be art. Whatever, it dares to stand outside the 1815-vintage brick and stone façade of London’s stately The Connaught. It’s a statement, and also publicity for Israel’s REMEMBR (2023) interactive AI installation, through 13th July at Gagosian, two blocks away on Davies Street.

 

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Hiking’s hot. Who can fail to miss Louis Vuitton’s ads showing Federer and Nadel determinedly strolling in the Dolomites? French-Moroccan polymath Ramdane Touhami’s spot-on with his A Young Hiker activewear brand (its magazine is called Useless Fighter). Touhami owns the 19-room Hotel Drei Berge high above Interlaken, perfect for hiking to the cacophony of cowbells.