My 2017 Top Five Favourite Places

Last on my short agenda of Top Five’s is Places. My list for 2017 is a mix of old and new. I was lucky to get to some familiar places again last year such as Barcelona, North Fork, Beaver Creek and San Francisco, all of which I love but although they didn’t make my favourite five, a couple of my old tried-and-true did.

So here are my Top Five Favourite Places that I visited in 2017:

1. St Barts
We were here just before Hurricane Irma battered this beautiful picture postcard island (photo), it was Caribbean island’s first big storm for almost 20 years. St Barts is part of the French West Indies, and is an absolutely peach of a tiny isle, in equal parts uber chic and casual and I was very lucky to be there for my birthday.

2. Brooklyn, New York
I hadn’t previously spent any real time in Brooklyn, one of New York’s five boroughs, but I spent a few days there in the summer and there was much to explore. Although just a bridge and length of a river away from one of the planet’s most famous cities of Manhattan, I might have preferred it.

3. Causses-et-Veyran, France
My first time in the south of France and this jolie little village in the Languedoc region was a treat. Surrounded by vineyards this quaint cobbled-street-village was a place to hide and relax with only tall, stone built narrow houses and an irrestible smelling bread shop which combined as a bar as company.

4. Buckhead, Georgia
I have been here many times before and it has long been surrounded by fancy houses and nice streets but after the economic downturn, Buckhead itself appeared to take an age to redefine itself. However it is doing so now and the Shops of Buckhead have added even more style and sophistication.

5. Eastbourne, East Sussex
My home from home for most of the 15 years I have been away. My parents live in a village not far from one of the pearls of the English south coast and with it’s 3.5-mile sweeping, palm-tree-lined seafront it has one of the UK’s grandest beaches. Add to this the rolling hills of the South Downs and Eastbourne has a much sprightlier feel to it these days.