Martinhal Beach Resort and Hotel, Portugal

The charm of the wild stretch of sand on the south-west tip of the Algarve that constitutes Martinhal Beach lies in its simplicity. There's lots of space for lounging around or running about on the wild stretch of sand, where the Atlantic is in a constant strop. When you tire of your holiday reading, you can stretch your legs with a walk across the headland to see the ruins of Henry the Navigator's fort, the Cape Canaveral of the 15th century. Or you could always just while away the time watching surfers ride the waves, or gulls and waders seek out the waters of the tidal pool. True relaxation. What more could you want?

Turn your back to the sea and consider a new vision of what visitors to Martinhal might desire. At the top of the beach, where there was once just the pines and maritime scrub of the Costa Vincentina Natural Park, stands a flash new hotel with a legion of holiday houses, the Martinhal Beach Resort & Hotel.

Sounds like eco-vandalism. But it isn't, at least to my mind. This plot of land had been scythed by a road and earmarked for development back in the 1980s – before people gave much of a thought to letting diggers mow down Mother Nature and get so close to the seashore. All sorts of monstrosities could have scarred this fragile landscape. Fortunately, the final plan was put in the hands of Roman and Chitra Stern, Nigel Chapman and Nicholas Dickinson.

Fans of hotel breaks might recognise those last two names as the original team behind Woolley Grange, the stylish, unstuffy, family-friendly retreat in Wiltshire that won a generation of affluent British parents over to the idea that hotels could genuinely welcome rather than tolerate kids. Chapman and Dickinson rolled out their now much-copied formula to three more properties before the collection, Luxury Family Hotels, was snapped up by Von Essen in 2006. That family-centred boutique approach also impressed the Sterns, who asked the hoteliers to create and run the hotel at Martinhal, to fulfil an essential part of the planning permission for the whole project.

But Chapman and Dickinson's influence hasn't been confined to the hotel. They also prompted a radical rethink of the resort's architecture, which led to the traditional Portuguese style of the 50 villas completed in the initial build being ditched in favour of an audacious modern interpretation of the landscape by London-based architects Conran & Partners.

Conran conceived a long, two-storey structure for the hotel and set it on the brow of the beach, placing 10 bedrooms with sea-facing terraces at ground level and a glass-fronted lounge and restaurant on the floor above. Twenty-eight more bedrooms and suites were set at one side, in a sequence of huge wood-clad boxes. And, directly below the hotel, the architects laid out a beach club, with a large pool, bar and restaurant.

The box concept was repeated for the design of the 132 resort houses, where the concrete was left bare. Conran made the most of the confines of the original plot by positioning some units to overlook the beach and others facing the bay and the pine woods of the surrounding nature reserve. At the centre of the site, a landlocked space was turned to the resort's advantage with the creation of a walled and gated complex focusing on a vast garden with a pool, designed to appeal to families with youngsters.

A large open-air "Village Square" serves as the the heart of the off-beach action, with an indoor/outdoor pool, shop, bistro, ice-cream parlour, gym, crèche and a club for older children, replete with Wii and foosball tables. Tennis courts and a spa with six treatment rooms, sauna and steam room are positioned in further-flung corners of the resort.

The resort has taken a holistic approach to its impact upon the local environment; both environmental and social considerations have been taken into account. All the buildings have excellent insulation and had been orientated to the sun, and use the rainfall from the roofs on the soil, thereby alleviating pressure on the local sewage works.  Moreover, indigenous plants that required minimal watering were selected – in the Algarve, one of the biggest environmental issues is the over-extraction of water. The resort has also renewed the electricity supply to the nearby town Sagres, and hired many of the 250 staff from the local area; 250 further indirect jobs have been created, practical acknowledgements of its role in the community.

The resort boasts a trio of restaurants. Lunch on the terrace at the chic As Dunas can slip languorously into cocktail hour. Line-caught fish, fleshy hoops of grilled squid, just-landed oysters and clams, and a peculiar delicacy called perceves, a goose-necked barnacle resembling dinosaur toes are served by the beach. O Terraco serves breakfast and gourmet fare, including the chef's sublime starter of sea urchin with scrambled egg served in a half-urchin shell (at €49/£40 the six-course tasting menu is excellent value for money), whilst Os Gambozinos in the Village Square is a more laid back pizzeria-cum-diner.

The resort boasts an excellent spa -The Finisterra, which provides a comprehensive range of treatments, and multifarious diversions including surfing, scuba diving, windsurfing, riding, jeep safaris, nature walks, gourmet picnics and (at preferential rates) golf.

The interiors of all the lodgings are as striking as the buildings, with furniture commissioned from Michael Sodeau, whose work features in London's Victoria & Albert Museum. His covetable designs rekindle artisan skills, using such materials as Portuguese wood and cork fashioned into deceptively simple softly angled shapes. The in-house interiors team, led by Chapman, has embellished the practical look with soft fabrics and fun touches such as sheepskin beanbags and giant basket-weave lamps, sourced with help from London design dealer Twentytwentyone. My timber-clad "beach room" had a decked, bay-facing balcony and the bathroom came with separate shower and oversized tub and cute cane-woven lamps made from Algarvian reeds.

The quality of finish could be no less for a hotel pronouncing itself "Europe's finest luxury family resort". More surprising are the prices, which start at £129 a night in the hotel and £1,100 a week for a house sleeping four – very competitive for the five-star market. But the biggest pull for me is still that wonderful beach.

Martinhal Beach Resort and Hotel, Apartado 54, Sagres, 8650-908, Portugal. (00351 282 620 026; www.martinhal.com)

We flew with award winning low fares airline Monarch, which offers flights to Faro from Birmingham, London Gatwick, London Luton (summer season only) and Manchester airports with fares, including taxes, starting from £46.50 one way (£83.99 return)

In addition to year-round low fares, Monarch also offers a unique range of tasty hot and cold meals onboard with prices from £3.00. Seats can be pre-booked at £7.50 per one-way flight to avoid the last minute free-for-all experienced on some other airlines, or for only £20, extra-legroom seats are available, which offer up to six inches of extra space.

Passengers travelling on scheduled flights can also avoid the queues at the airport and take advantage of online check-in which is available between 18 days and 4.5 hours prior to departure.For further information or to book, please visit www.monarch.co.uk.

Moscow's top hotels

It's a while since capitalism came to Russia, but the free market has been slow to work its wonders on Moscow's hotels. In the last few years, however, the choice of accommodation has expanded, with most of the major international chains building, or planning, properties. In the best hotels, standards, style and overall panache are world class, and unrecognisable compared with 10 years ago.

Baltschug Kempinski

Dating partly from 1898, the Hotel Baltschug belies its age, with an airy, light character, yet without any sense of having been brutalised by modernity. Located on the other side of the Moskva from Red Square, the hotel has the twin benefits of centrality and vantage; there is arguably no better view of St Basil’s and the Kremlin from anywhere in the city than that afforded by one of the hotel’s 40 luxury suites (some equipped with telescopes; ideal for those trying to keep an eye on state affairs).  There are 230 rooms, in three categories, but specify the view – choices are the Kremlin and Red Square, side streets or the hotel atrium, and a premium is paid accordingly. In addition to the view, guests may also select their preferred internal decor. A number of rooms have been decorated by Sir David Linley, the Swedish Company Living Design, and even HRH Princess Michael of Kent. The latter managed, with a few reams of excessively florid wallpaper and corresponding curtains, to feminise the Presidential suite to such an extent that the room is now known as the Princess Suite. Not for nothing is she dubbed ‘Princess Pushy’.

The panoramic views and fusion of European sensibility and Russian extravagance in the main Baltschug restaurant make meals memorable, but the Shogun restaurant, showcasing Asian cuisine (the latest fad among moneyed Muscovites), offers some spectacular sushi and sashimi, with thrice-weekly deliveries from Tsukiji Market. There is also Cafe Kranzler – a traditional Berlin-style coffee house with a wide and tempting selection of home-made confections. The hotel also boasts a bar with the world’s longest vodka menu, as well as a number of meeting rooms and often hosts exhibitions and fashion shows in the capacious Atrium.

The Health Club comprises a well-stocked gym, a satisfyingly long pool, sauna, solarium and a yoga class. The Baltschug Beauty Centre is small, but the therapists are exceptional. I had a Lomi-Lomi massage, an immensely profound Hawaiian treatment that involves the therapist employing forearms as well as hands, and massaging different parts of the body simultaneously.

Besides the Baltschug’s diverse domestic distractions, there is the cultural crucible of Moscow to explore, and the hotel has a number of guides who will, in consultation with guests, tailor-make a city tour.

 007 495 287 2000; www.kempinski.com/moscow.

Golden Apple Hotel

Despite the daft name, the 92-room Golden Apple is a welcome novelty in Moscow, and an alternative to the traditional grandeur of the central hotels and the Stalinist hangovers on the outskirts. The city's self-proclaimed "first boutique hotel" (2004), it's the sort of thing that could have gone horribly wrong, but if sleek contemporary is your thing, this is the place. There is an overwhelming sense of the Sanderson London here; the eponymous golden apple – a giant gilt cutaway sofa imbibes something of the Starckian Cocteau-like dream world into the hotel’s lobby. The hotel is well-located for the city's key shopping streets and half a mile north of Red Square. The spa was under reconstruction when I visited (it reopened at the beginning of September 2010), and if they’ve done as good a job as they have on the recently-refurbished restaurant, it will be outstanding.

The restaurant focuses on ‘molecular cuisine’ elements, but this does not, as I incorrectly assumed, mean puny portions – far from it. Rather, the focus is on aesthetics and flavour, and any single dish could contain over ten individual ingredients. I was stuffed after the starter (warm seafood salad with langoustines and pineapple dressing), but somehow made room for the steak (with countless accoutrements).

Arguably the hotel’s top feature (besides the achingly hip bar’s inbuilt chess board – perfect for sparking barman banter) is the in-room Nespresso machines, which really raises the tea and coffee making facilities bar to another level.

007 495 980 7000; www.goldenapple.ru

Ararat Park Hyatt

The oligarchs’ (and Paris Hilton’s) choice, the Ararat opened in 2002 on Neglinnaya Ulitsa, just a few minutes' walk from the Bolshoi Theatre, and within comfortable walking distance of Red Square and the Kremlin. The hotel owes not only its forename, but also its outward appearance to Armenia. The shape of the building represents ancient Armenian edifice: massive polyhedrons of fortresses and temples built into the surrounding landscape with forensic accuracy. Moreover, Cafe Ararat, the first floor restaurant, is a replica of the landmark establishment of the same name that existed from the 1940s until the 1970s inside the former Hotel Armenia.

The Park Restaurant on the hotel’s second floor is particularly renowned for its Sunday brunches – a mêlée of world cuisines washed down with unlimited champagne, but the ultimate dining experience here is to be found in the Conservatory Bar and Lounge on the 10^th floor of the hotel. The trendy zebrano wood-meets-chromium bar, with both internal and external seating, offers sweeping views over the Duma and the Bolshoi theatre. Indeed, the sensational view earned the Conservatory a place in the ‘Best Bars in the World’ list compiled by the Architectural Digest. It is somewhat ironic that Ararat, the city in Armenia from which the hotel’s name derives, is notorious for the impurity of its atmosphere, as on the day we visit, the toxic smog that has engulfed Moscow for a fortnight makes an unsolicited reappearance, scuppering our al fresco dining intentions. The views from inside are just as spectacular, but fortunately the food bucks the conventional negative view-quality correlation. All the dishes we tried – a gazpacho, tuna tartare and pelmeni (Russian ravioli) – demanded focus on the plate as opposed to the window.

The hotel contains 216 rooms, including 21 suites, which are in no sense generic, all featuring designs individual designs that project a cosmopolitan yet residential feel.  

Flights: We flew from London Heathrow to Moscow Domodedovo with British Midland International (bmi). bmi offers twice daily return economy flights from London Heathrow to Moscow from £218 (www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/special-offers/flight-offers/worldwide-hotspots.aspx), or why not treat yourself to Business Class tickets: from £1394 including taxes, and enjoy the Great British Lounge at Terminal 1, Gate 5 featuring an Aga serving piping hot soup and porridge, The Local (a bar offering a sophisticated British pub environment), Lounge Dining, showers and work stations.