Splendia

One of Rio de Janeiro’s best kept secrets, with magnificent views of the city, the Hotel Santa Teresa provides a taste of the authentic Rio. Surrounded by colonial mansions, museums, artists’ ateliers and Rio’s only remaining tramway, the setting is charming and picturesque; high-rise buildings and traffic are replaced by red-tiled rooftops, cobblestone streets and exuberant nature.

We talked to Nelly Pager, Sales and Marketing Manager at the hotel.

What can you tell us about the area?

It is definitely trendy and exclusive. Perched high on Santa Teresa hill, the hotel has spectacular panoramic views of the city and guests can enjoy the haven of tropical gardens unique to Rio. The area surrounding the hotel is charming and authentic, and the historic tramway goes right past the hotel’s main entrance.

What can you tell us about the hotel design?

It is based on a ‘tropical chic’ concept, bringing together Brazil’s rich past and dynamic present, and using only the finest natural elements: luxury linens, wild cottons, coconut and banana tree fibres, tropical woods, Portuguese tiles, slate and burnt cement. Design furniture and art by renowned contemporary Brazilian designers and artists, such as Sergio Rodriguez, Zemog, Studio Vitty, Rock Lane, Carassa and Oficina de Agosto, blend easily with restored colonial architecture. The hotel’s Térèze Restaurant is casual, yet sophisticated and makes use of recycled materials, including demolition wood furniture and restored, treated canvas, creating an ‘eco-chic’ ambiance. And, just across from the restaurant, the Bar dos Descasados has a ‘bohemian boutique’ aura with a red and white tiled floor, brick arches and comfortable, over-sized armchairs, sofas and Dorsel lounge beds.

What makes the hotel unique?

Staying at the Hotel Santa Teresa is like travelling through the different states and times of Brazil. Pieces of art from all over the country and from all eras can be found in the hotel, and the panoramic view is unique and truly the best view in Rio.

What would you recommend?

Enjoying a Caipirinha cocktail while looking across the bay after a tri-dimensional anti-stress massage at the Spa, and a ride on the famous tram of Santa Teresa!

For more information or to book a stay at the Hotel Santa Teresa, please click here.

Recommend a hotel

Here at Splendia, we are happy to launch a new function that allows you to recommend a hotel for our portfolio!

We want to find all those hidden gems around the world and we want you to participate. At Splendia, we truly value our customers’ opinions and pride ourselves on being customer-focused. What better than a personal recommendation? Trust is an important factor for us: we want you to be able to trust our selection without question. And we don’t want to miss a trick!

Rest assured, only hotels of the finest quality appear on Splendia. When a hotel is recommended, we’ll check it fits our selection criteria – importantly, to become a part of Splendia, a hotel must have character, something distinctive that makes it special – and, if it does, we’ll contact the hotel to arrange the details.

Perhaps you have a favourite hotel you’d like to tell us about. Or, maybe you’re a hotelier and you’d like your hotel to appear in the Splendia selection. It’s easy: just fill out the details, tell us the reasons why and click ‘Submit’!

You want to walk on fine white sand. You want to dive into an azure sea. You deserve a siesta in a hammock. You need to disappear from the hustle and bustle.

Welcome to our selection of the world’s best beaches!

Caprera Island, Sardinia, Italy

La Dolce Vita on the ultra-chic Emerald Coast. Only accessible by a 15-minute boat ride to the Costa Smeralda, this is one of the favoured beaches of Italian high society.

Red Beach, Santorini, Greece

Well-known for the unique colour of the sand and the soaring red lava cliffs that drop down to the sandy shore and into the clear blue sea, it’s a beach with a majestic setting and one to be enjoyed.

Huahine, French Polynesia

This atoll in French Polynesia has a rustic, romantic air that puts Bora Bora to shame. The very remote position in the South Pacific Ocean makes this beach the perfect place to disappear.

Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

The jungle stretches so close to the beach at Playa Tamarindo that you might feel like you’re really lost. The sea turtles love this beach so much they come back every year.

Maya Bay, Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

This small stretch of sand is the quintessential Thai beach and might just have the best scenery of any. Part of a small island adjacent to Ko Phi Phi, the beach is nestled in a small bay and surrounded by tall limestone cliffs.

The Baths, Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands

Snorkelling, caves and beautiful sandy beaches are what you can expect at The Baths beach in British Virgin Islands.

So, spoil yourself and take a trip to one of the world’s best beaches.

Nestled on the edge of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, the Gayana Eco Resort is not your average hotel. With its very own onsite Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC), it actively works to protect and regenerate the precious marine ecology of the area.

The one-of-a-kind centre is 100% funded by the hotel owner and enables guests to participate in the careful restoration of the damaged ocean floors and natural coral reefs.  Hotel guests can visit the research centre, learn more about the local marine life, as well as actively participating in the important work carried out there.

It’s well-known that diving can have negative effects on marine life, so MERC collects broken coral fragments, which are then replanted to create new healthy coral reefs. Modern techniques are used to encourage faster coral regeneration in poor water conditions and endangered species, such as giant clams, are propagated and returned to the sea.

Visitors can really get involved by spending a day working alongside a marine biologist. They can plant coral fragments and even adopt the fragment they plant to receive updates on its progress as it grows.

In order to reduce the pressure on the fragile wild fish population, the hotel’s seafood restaurant, Alu Alu, promotes farmed fish over wild captured fish and only includes fish from the local farm, which is certified as practising ‘good aquaculture practices’, on its menu.

So, enjoy a stay in paradise and have something to really write home about!

One of Europe’s most vibrant cities and Germany’s capital of cool, Berlin is a creative centre that is home to thousands of artists, musicians and writers. With over 450 galleries and new ones opening all the time, it has an internationally renowned gallery scene, flourishing in the districts of Berlin Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. Its own art fair, Art Forum Berlin, is staged annually in October and has made the city a melting pot for the international art market and a seismograph for contemporary art trends. The unofficial opener to the spring art season in Berlin, Gallery Weekend Berlin, showcases exhibition openings at diverse galleries around the city and is on from 30 April to 2 May this year.  And, until 22 May, homegrown talent design-duo Osko+Deichmann’s Tainted Beauty exhibition can be seen at Gallery Helmrinderknecht.

Hotel design is greatly influenced by this booming art scene, so your stay in Berlin can reflect the galleries and exhibitions you visit.

THE MANDALA HOTEL

On the exhilarating Potsdamer Platz in Berlin’s uber modern Mitte district, The Mandala Hotel is where purist luxury meets elegant style. The hotel’s 157 suites are renowned for their sleek design and inspirational interiors. Space is the key factor for the uncomplicated atmosphere, where suites have between 40 and 200 square metres of living space. The cool, distant atmosphere often associated with luxury hotels is dispensed with and the hotel’s aesthetics express authentic joie de vivre.  The hotel is a modern home-away-from-home for those who appreciate sense and sensibility. (more…)

Eldgos-Thorsmork-53 by bjarnit (flickr)

The Customer Service team at Splendia are doing all they can to help those customers unable to fly following the volcano eruption in Iceland. Extra travel consultants have been made available to manage the high volume of calls and emails we are receiving and, although we are not able to control the restrictions on airspace, we hope to provide you with a satisfactory solution should you not be able to fly.

What should I do if my flight has been cancelled?

We advise customers due to travel over the next few days to continue to monitor press reports and check airline websites for further updates on the situation.

If you need to cancel your hotel booking, please call or send us an email and we will make the necessary changes for you.

Splendia will not charge you any cancellation fee to cancel your hotel booking. However, for last minute cancellations, a cancellation fee may be applied by the hotel in accordance with their cancellation policy. If this is the case, we will do everything we can to negotiate with the hotel directly on your behalf to avoid this charge.

We realise this is a difficult time and will do our very best to help in any way we can.

We’d like to thank our Customer Service team for their dedication and for working around the clock to continue to provide a high level of service to our customers during this disruption.

A tour of Barcelona can be done in many ways: by bike, bus, on foot, or even on rollerblades. But one of our favourite ways is by GoCar!

If you’ve ever been to Miami, San Francisco, Lisbon or Madrid, you may have encountered the little yellow GoCars. Originally launched in the US in 2004, GoCar is the first-ever GPS-guided storytelling car – enabling visitors to experience cities in an entirely new way. You drive the nifty little GoCars around the city and they talk to you as you go, with no tour guide or umbrella to follow!

We enjoyed a GoCar tour in Barcelona and the experience was unique! Finding the GoCar office proved to be slightly complicated, but once there we were greeted by a friendly atmosphere as staff prepared the GoCar and issued necessary papers. Staff members are mostly students who speak various languages fluently, so you won’t get stuck even if you don’t speak Spanish or English.

Once you’re set to go, unlike a traditional tour, (more…)

With the release of Tim Burton’s latest creation, Alice in Wonderland fever has hit! And this Spring, London’s Sanderson Hotel invites guests to tumble down the rabbit hole and enjoy the wonderful world of its Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea in their Courtyard Garden.

With true British eccentricity, Sanderson’s chefs have toyed with the traditional afternoon tea in the same way that Lewis Carroll played with logic in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, creating a gastronomic adventure!

Sample the Queen of Hearts Teacake, which melts in the mouth as soon as you bite through the white chocolate and strawberry shell; the Hazelnut and Passion Fruit Tart, topped with White Rabbit’s pocket watch; and the Chocolate Crackle Cupcake, which surprises with every bite.

Guests will be grinning like Cheshire Cats after pineapple lollipops turn their tongues from cold to hot and mint chocolate chip ice cream lollipops explode with a single bite. Finger sandwiches are served in a rainbow of colours, including ham and English mustard on yellow saffron bread and smoked salmon with cream cheese on green spinach bread. All topped-off with traditional scones with clotted cream and jam to bring you back to the real world.

Served daily from 2.30-5.30pm and priced at just £20 per person (or just £29.50 with a glass of champagne), the Mad Hatter’s Afternoon Tea will constantly evolve with the seasons. The Courtyard Garden setting is relaxed and casual at the same time as complementing the wit, irony and elegance of the award-winning Sanderson – providing a real wonderland amidst the bustle of London.

Courtyard Garden

Sanderson Hotel

50 Berners Street

London W1T 3NG

For afternoon tea reservations call:

+44 (0)20 7300 1444

Splendia are happy to have a new LIVE CHAT application, so you can ‘chat’ directly with our travel team at Splendia HQ!

It’s easy! Click on the Chat icon at the top of the website. Select your language (from: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Mandarin and Cantonese).  You can make a booking or amend existing ones, or simply ask questions about our hotels and offers. Available 24-hours a day in English and from 8am to 10pm respectively for other languages, depending where you are around the world.

If you have a problem finding what you’re looking for, we can send you links. Or, perhaps you don’t want to be overheard making a hotel booking?!

We spoke to Simi from the Customer Service team in Barcelona.

So, what do you think of Chat?

“It’s exciting for us because it’s a new way to be in touch with our customers, and the great thing is how immediate it is! Much more so than emails.”

And how’s it going so far?

“Really well. We were all really excited when the first booking was made using it. At first we were a bit nervous, but it’s going very smoothly. It gives a completely new meaning to customer service!”

So, why not log on to www.splendia.com and give it a try?!