Upfront
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
Grand dame Amelia Lester
G
D R E A M D E S T I N AT I O N
Punakha Lodge BHUTAN
Wedged high in the Himalayas, this new resort is one of five new Six Senses lodges in Bhutan, with three already open for bookings. Each location has been designed to complement the surrounding environment, with heritage touches like bukharis (traditional wood-burning stoves) and woven bamboo walls, amid luxurious modern comforts. Punakha Lodge is a striking property featuring a breathtaking infinity pool hanging over rice paddies. It’s a magical way to enjoy Bhutan – a country that only opened its doors to visitors in 1974. Tatyana Leonov
E AT / D R I N K
THIS TINY,, dark, loud wine bar from the Fratelli Paradiso team feels as if it has been here forever, yet somehow both food and wine capture the moment. Chef Trisha Greentree’s seasonal dishes share the same natural, minimalintervention philosophy as the wines, from a pillow of pizza fritta topped with sea urchin to a simple strozzapreti pasta with green pistachio pesto and zucchini. This custardy flan ($9) is doused in deliciously bitter vermouth and tastes almost medicinal – in a Jill Dupleix good way.
10 GoodWeekend
10 WILLIAM STREET 10 WILLIAM STREET, PADDINGTON 10WILLIAMST.COM.AU
EORGE ORWELL observed it’s easy to be nationalistic about a country that isn’t your own. Yet it’s surely easier with France than most. The country’s abundant charms were on display recently as I wandered around the medieval village of Vézelay, in Burgundy. Everything in this hilltop hamlet was just so, from the pair of antique wagon wheels flanking a garden gate, to the jaunty red and yellow tulips on street corners, to the artfully crumbling stone walls around the town’s centrepiece Romanesque church. Through a window off the town square I glimpsed two young nuns, hard at work doing whatever it is nuns do these days – jarring delicious honey, perhaps – and just as a ray of sun hit their faces they turned and smiled at me. I had walked into a Vermeer. Even the paint on a rundown B&B seemed to be peeling with a plan. “The only problem with France is that they overdo the green,” said a companion, looking out at the countryside. The bubble burst when we arrived back at our car. We had a parking ticket. A reminder that no country is without its annoyances. The next day, there was catastrophic news: NotreDame Cathedral had burned. It was incredibly moving to see pictures in the press of the church during World War II. That Notre-Dame has stood in the centre of Paris for the better part of a millennium is hard to grasp; seeing it stand witness to the atrocities of the 20th century makes that continuity easier to understand. For a long time now, the whole world has had a stake in a certain idea of Frenchness, of which the image of Notre-Dame by the Seine is a part. Frenchness is about macarons and cheese and men in turtlenecks talking about philosophy on prime-time TV,
but it’s also to do with more profound things. A reverence for beauty and culture, for instance. An insistence on the importance of history. These themes, however lofty, are inevitably front of mind as a tourist in France. Did someone put those wagon wheels by the gate in Vézelay because they looked wonderful there? Probably not. They’ve likely been that way for centuries. But doesn’t their accidental perfection make the scene all the more impressive?
Even the paint on a rundown B&B seemed to be peeling with a plan. Everywhere, increasingly, looks the same. Cities, in particular, all have their Sephoras and their Apple stores and their Starbucks, not to mention trendy co-working spaces and Australian coffee bars. Certainly Paris has its fair share of all these things. But even though some jaded travellers call the City of Light a theme park, it’s impossible not to feel a frisson of excitement at that first glimpse of its rooftops. Paris, despite its many imitators, remains unique, even magical. The fire at Notre-Dame was the ultimate rupture of our collective French fantasy. We want France to never change, but it already has. The day of the fire, the French president Emmanuel Macron was meant to be addressing the nation about how he planned to meet the demands of the “Yellow Vest” movement – an uprising of citizens who feel the promise of the French social safety net has been broken. Those living in it know that what makes a nation is complicated. Orwell was, as usual, right. ■
EDWINA PICKLES; ILLUSTRATION BY SIMON LETCH
BY