hotel

In “Vanished,” premiering Friday on MGM+, Kaley Cuoco plays Alice, an archaeologist, a fact she repeats whenever she’s asked about herself, without particularly seeming like one, apart from passing mentions of Byzantine caves and “one of the earliest examples of Christian worship” to make her sound professional. Sam Claflin plays Tom, who works for a charity organization dealing with Syrian refugees in Jordan; in a flashback we get to see them meet cute on a dusty Jordanian road, where he has a flat tire and no spare. Alice gives him a lift to camp; they banter and flirt after a fashion. He does something heroic within her sight.

They have been long-distance dating for four years, meeting up, as Alice describes it, “in hotels all over the world” where they “actually want to have sex with each other all the time.” Currently they are in Paris (in a $500-a-night joint — I looked it up). But Alice, now working in Albania, has been offered a job as an assistant professor of archaeology at Princeton, which would allow her to settle down with Tom in a school-provided apartment and “build a life that’s mine, not just uncovering other people’s.” After an uncomfortable moment, he signs on, saying, “I love you, Alice Monroe.”

Would you trust him? Despite the script’s insistence otherwise, Cuoco and Claflin have no more chemistry than figures on facing pages in a clothing catalog. Fortunately for the viewer, Tom disappears early from the action — ergo “Vanished.” The couple are traveling by train down to Arles, where another hotel awaits them, when Tom leaves the car to take a call and never returns; nor can he be found anywhere on the train.

This happily makes room for the more interesting Helene (multiple César Award winner Karin Viard), a helpful Frenchwoman who steps in as a translator when Alice attempts to get an officious conductor to open a door to a room he insists is for employees only, and rules are rules. (Is he just being, you know, French, or is something up?)

They meet again when Alice gets off the train not in Arles but Marseilles; after she has no more luck with police inspector Drax (Simon Abkarian), who insists a person isn’t missing until 48 hours have elapsed, than with the conductor, she’ll turn to Helene again, who has the advantage of being an investigative reporter. (She’s also been made diabetic, which has no effect on the action other than halting it now and again so she can give herself, rather dramatically, a quick shot of insulin. Like Drax begging off because he’s late meeting his wife for an Alain Delon double feature, it’s a tacked on bit of business meant to suggest character.) Together they’ll ferret out and follow clues, as Alice comes to realize that it takes more than the occasional gauzy romantic getaway to really know a person, and Helene gets closer to nailing a big story.

Directed by Barnaby Thompson, whose credits are mostly in producing (“Wayne’s World,” “Spice World”), and written by his son, Preston — together they made the 2020 film “Pixie” — the series begins with a flash forward in which Alice flees for her life out an upper-story window, signifying action ahead. And indeed, there will be, leading to a climactic scene I don’t suppose was meant to make me laugh, but did, magnifying as it does one of the confrontational cliches of modern cinema. Many of the series’ notions and plot points (though not that particular one) may be found in the works of Alfred Hitchcock — who, you may remember, made a film called “The Lady Vanishes,” from a train yet — though they have been given new clothes to wear. But where Hitchcock never waited long to show you when a character wasn’t what they seemed, that information is held on here nearly to the end, with some added twists along the way to keep you confused.

Cuoco (unusually brunet here), has been good in many things, most notably her funny, winning turn as Penny across 12 seasons of “The Big Bang Theory” and more recently as the hallucinating alcoholic heroine of the “The Flight Attendant,” but she feels out of joint here. She’s not well served by the pedestrian direction and dialogue, but comes across as a person playing a person, rather than as the person she’s playing. Perhaps by virtue of their accents, the French actors feel more real; France, as usual, looks great.

Stacey Hamilton has stayed in hundreds of hotels and says a simple visual reminder has saved her from costly mistakes when checking out

If you’re a seasoned jet-setter, you’ll be all too familiar with the minor irritations that come with hotel stays. From inconveniently placed plug sockets to baffling air conditioning controls and light switches that seem to operate something in another postcode.

Stacey Hamilton, a travel guru from Private Tours England, who has clocked up hundreds of hotel stays both in the UK and abroad, has revealed her go-to trick for hassle-free hotel living. From securing valuables to smarter packing and ensuring a good night’s sleep, she claims these simple hotel hacks have saved her time, money and a fair few early morning scrambles.

One particular technique she swears by might sound a bit odd, but it’s come to her rescue on numerous occasions.

Stacey admitted: “For years, I avoided using hotel safes because I was convinced I’d forget what I’d put in there. It sounds silly, but when you’re rushing to catch a train or heading out early with guests, it’s very easy to walk out and leave valuables behind.”

To combat this, she now always stashes one of her shoes in the safe along with her passport and jewellery, reports the Express.

She explained: “I physically cannot leave the room without realising something is missing,” she says. “It’s usually a heel for me because I need them for work, but the principle works with anything you wouldn’t dream of leaving behind.”

“If you travel with trainers, pop one trainer in there. If it’s winter, your coat works just as well. The idea is to create a visual reminder you can’t overlook.”

Before checking out of the hotel, after retrieving her shoe and other valuables from the safe, Stacey always makes sure to take one item with her. She never departs a hotel without pocketing one of the complimentary shower caps.

She explained: “They’re perfect for covering shoes when you’re packing to come home.”

If your shoes have become dirty from extensive walking or hiking, it’s not ideal to pack them directly against your clothes in your suitcase. That’s where the shower cap comes in handy.

She said: “Instead of wrapping shoes in plastic bags or hoping for the best, I slip a shower cap over the sole. It keeps everything else clean, and it packs neatly.”

Stacey also revealed another clever use for the shower cap.

She shared: “I also use shower caps on TV remotes. Let’s be honest, those things are filthy. It’s a simple barrier that makes me feel a lot better, especially if I’m staying somewhere for a few nights.”.

On the approach to Arosa in the Graubünden Alps, the road is lined with mountain chapels, their stark spires soaring heavenwards; a portent, perhaps, of the ominous route ahead. The sheer-sided valley is skirted with rugged farmhouses and the road twists, over ravines and round hairpin curves, to a holiday destination that feels like a well-kept secret.

On the village’s frozen lake, young families ice skate, hand in hand. A little farther along, on the snow-covered main street, children sled rapidly downhill, overtaking cars. The resort’s mascots are a happy gang of brown bears. And there are Narnia lamp-posts, which turn the falling snow almost gold every evening. Switzerland is replete with ski towns but none feel quite this innocent and childlike, like stepping into a fairytale.

I am here for a week in an apartment with my wife and two kids, as it’s a place my Swiss partner’s parents and grandparents have been returning to for more than a century. What first drew them here? All say the same thing: Arosa is the Swiss mountain village most Swiss don’t even think to visit; a low-key alternative to the box office of St Moritz, Verbier and Zermatt.

The village sits on a high, terraced plateau one hour south of Chur, Switzerland’s oldest city, and is surrounded by dense fir forests, above which rises an amphitheatre of saw-cut summits. The sense is that the out-of-sight village has been secretly occupied – the pretty-as-pie peaks standing sentry – as if the first farmers here back in the 14th century feared the Habsburgs might return at any moment to take back their territories.

This is also storybook Switzerland to a T. To the north is Heidiland, the farm holiday region where Johanna Spyri set her children’s novels. Also one hour away is Liechtenstein, the pipsqueak principality, which brings to my mind the land of Vulgaria in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Two hours to the north is Zurich where we arrived, before borrowing my in-laws’ car. If you fancy taking the train, there are options to do the trip from the UK to Zurich in as little as seven hours, with a change in Paris. Arosa can then be reached on the memorably scenic Rhaetian Railway, a journey with some of the Alps’ most glorious in-seat entertainment. Outside, all the drama is provided by a script of high-definition gorges and glaciers.

The Arosa Bear Sanctuary, at the middle station of the Weisshorn cable car, is a good place to start exploring. Even during the residents’ winter deep sleep, the 2.8 hectare den offers a walk-through education in animal welfare in an unlikely setting, and its wooden platforms offer memorable views of the snow-fuzzed summits and pistes that lead off in every direction like a spreadeagled skier.

The refuge is run in cooperation with global animal charity Four Paws and it provides four rescued European brown bears a species-appropriate home. Once held in appalling conditions, including a private mini zoo in Albania, the bears’ compound is now a place to readjust, to feel safe again. For the full Yogi and Boo-Boo experience, I’d suggest visiting in summer.

It’s fair to say my six-year-old daughter fizzes with enthusiasm when the bears are mentioned, but also when we snowshoe later that week into pine forest along the resort’s themed Squirrel Trail. The trail is printed with fresh squirrel tracks and we add our own, feather-pressing our boots into the crisp snow. The flakes fall heavily, as if we’re inside an ornamental snow globe. Then, two red squirrels scurry past with dark-furred yet sparkling tails.

Most days we ski until lunch. All children enjoy one free half-day group lesson for each night’s stay in Arosa with ABC Snowsports School or the Swiss Ski and Snowboard School, but we prefer to explore the mountains as a family. Since 2014, the resort has been connected across the gaping Urden valley with the larger town of Lenzerheide, and like other popular Alpine ski areas, the combined piste map is now a profusion of primary colour squiggles.

But there the similarity ends. British accents are absent. The pistes are largely empty. Strict building regulations, upholding traditional timber aesthetics, mean the village is largely the same now as it was when my relatives first visited. It is Switzerland, but from a half-century ago. At the barn-like Tschuggenstübli, once a cheese dairy on the slopes, everyone crams on to tables to order bündnerfleisch (air-dried beef) and käseschnitte, an upgraded welsh rarebit with melted raclette cheese, pickles and onions.

Afterwards, it’s toboggan time. It strikes me there are almost as many traditional wooden sledges for hire in Arosa as there are pairs of skis, and, from the top of the Kulm Gondola, the only way is down. And at speed. My kids are barely ruffled by the tight, bobsleigh chicanes and, one afternoon, we all howl with laughter as my eight-year-old son hurtles off the track into a marshmallowy drift. He pops back up, grinning, but polar bear white. We repeat the sledge run another half-dozen times.

Another reason for visiting this winter is to stay at the Grand Arosa Pop-Up Hotel, a one-year experiment inside a vacant resort hotel which is open to the end of this season – the concept will continue next year, though details are yet to be confirmed (they also operate another pop-up hotel in Fribourg and a pop-up hostel in Zurich). Clues as to its aesthetic are in the name – this is not a ski hotel in the traditional sense, and certainly not a vintage chalet brimming with geranium window boxes and mounted antlers. More than that, it is probably the Alps’ largest ever pop-up hotel and its interiors are bathed in pastel pink. If you can find me cooler ski accommodation this year, I’m happy to wait.

With a tech-first approach, there is no reception, but self-check in instructions imposed on a poster of a purple bellboy. What might have once been a telephone operator’s room is reimagined as a walk-in guest book, its fan-print wallpaper covered with whimsical, hand-written comments. Velvet curtains drape two symmetrical elevators, then a cloaked red corridor suggests you are somehow walking backstage at a theatre, before revealing a piano observatory and a vintage design cinema. A Wes Anderson film set has been conjured before you. We only drop in for coffee, but I wish we’d stayed.

At the end of our week, my wife mentions to me how sad she is to be leaving. The kids aren’t too happy about it either. Neither am I. It crosses my mind that Arosa, with its sleepy bears, squirrels and surreal pop-up hotel, isn’t what most people come to Switzerland for. Rather, it’s what we’ve been looking for all along.

The trip was supported by Arosa-Lenzerheide. Singles/doubles at the Grand Arosa Pop-Up Hotel, from €117 room-only. For more information, visit myswitzerland.com

HOLIDAYMAKERS are going mad over this beautiful hotel in Ios that they’ve said is the world’s best hotel.

The incredible resort is found on an island in the Cyclades and boasts private infinity pools, cinema rooms, and over the water swing beds.

The five-star resort called Calilo, has been carved into the steep cliffs – it has 36 suites, but none are the same.

The hotel took 20 years to build and each suite was individually designed.

They’re also staggered in amongst the cliff for privacy.

Inside, the rooms have huge beds and are decorated with marble or mosaic.

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No thought has been spared in the bathrooms, which have double sinks, huge showers and deep baths.

Some of the suites even have multiple outdoor pools with bright blue waters underneath wooden walkways and swings – very much like what the Maldives is known for.

Others have secret cinema rooms, heart-shaped pools and romantic outdoor swing beds.

Each has different views; some look out to sea and the hillside or the gardens.

Rooms vary from one to up to three bedrooms.

The resort looks out onto Paralia Papa, which is a very secluded bay – so apart from hotel guests, there is little to no footfall.

On the sand are large complimentary cabanas and shaded beach beds.

Calilo has its own restaurants and one fine dining spot called CHES.

The main restaurant overlooks the vast main pool area and is available for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

There’s also a spa hotel with a gym that has over 40 machines for cardio and strength use.

It has one indoor and two outdoor pools, as well as a dedicated relaxation space – as if you couldn’t be more relaxed here.

Some treatment rooms have mini waterfalls and beds that are suspended above the water for a calming experience.

There’s even a helipad for those arriving by air.

Unsurprisingly the resort is a hit with visitors, one traveller who stayed at Calilo said: “This place is stunning.

“From the moment you walk in, you’re surrounded by crystal-clear water, golden sand, and these incredible cliffs — it’s like a dream, the hotel is simply out of this world.”

Another wrote in their review: “I cannot even begin to explain how incredible my visit to Calilo was. I was absolutely blown away and I truly believe it was a once in a lifetime experience (unless I return, which I really hope to)!

“The most luxurious bathroom I think I’ve ever seen and the rest of the hotel was also gorgeous.”

Another holidaymaker who made a social media post about their stay captioned it “the most beautiful hotel on earth“.

It’s even had some celebrity guests including singer Jason Derulo, who showed off his stay at the hotel in June 2025 – a post that got 188k likes on TikTok.

The hotel is pretty pricey as you can imagine with the cost in June when the weather is pleasant starting from £340 per night (based on a seven night stay) on Trivago.

That price is for a suite double or twin bed garden view room with its own pool on a room basis only.

To get to Ios, guests can reach the island by high-speed ferry from neighbouring islands Santorini or Mykonos.

From Athens it’s three hours and from Crete it’s two and a half hours – plus another 40 minute transfer.

For more on Greek islands, here are four better value islands where locals like to go on holiday with secluded beaches.

And TUI says these four less-popular Greek islands are set to be huge in 2026.

FORGET everything you know about holiday parks – as a new age of caravans could change them entirely.

Caravan holidays have been a popular, and low cost, alternative to holidays abroad, for the last 100 years.

Yet new designs could change the design of them, with many having not changed in decades.

Welsh designer Craig Ledwards has revealed his own creations, likening to them a luxury hotel room instead.

He told local media: “Caravans haven’t changed over the past 70 years.

“They’re exactly the same style as they’ve always been – no insulation so there’s always condensation in it, smell damp, and the layout is the same.

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“But this is totally different, it’s open-plan living. It feels like you’re entering a luxury hotel room.”

Like hotels, guests can access them using key cards which are then slotted in for the electricity.

Inside are marble bathrooms and projectors in the ceiling, as well as full glass walls.

Small balconies are also part of the outdoor space, as well as a rooftop window for stargazing while inside.

He has already introduced them to north Wales last year.

He added: “It’s as far away from a static caravan as you can get – the only thing that’s the same is the size, we’ve designed it to be the same size so it can replace an old one without having to change the footprint or service connections.”

Each one, costing around £35,000 to build, is fully insulated so they can be stayed in all year round.

Not only that, but he says they have a lifespan of 50 years – much longer than standard caravans which is between 15 and 20 years.

They have been met with some skepticism, however.

Some have said that the all-glass models may not retain heat during the colder months, even if well insulated.

And a National Caravan Council spokesperson said: “New designs such as ones imported from China may appeal to a niche audience, drawn to contemporary styling and different layouts,” they said.

“But widespread appeal will depend on how well they meet the expectations of the UK holiday park market, the access to spare parts, the availability of reliable and timely after-sales service and those who are responsible for licensing their use.”

Here’s what it’s like inside the world’s most expensive caravan.

And here’s another futuristic caravan with self-driving tech.