Australia Traveling

We have recently traveled to Australia – a journey that felt like a surreal happy dream.

Sydney Opera House

Why Australia?

Discovering Australia should absolutely be on every bucket list. The country comes up with so much diversity… Never ending roads, dry desert, wild animals, infinite coasts and astonishing beaches. It feels like the country has so many secrets but won’t tell you all of them – even if you spend your whole life there. There is sort of a mystery, a sublime energy hidden in every rock and every drop of water.

Some things we will never forget

    • To all the lovely / wonderful people we met and visited: thank you for hosting us and for making our stay absolutely phenomenal! during the whole time we were in great company and we had a fantastic time down under!

    • The food was delicious where ever we went

    • Australia is producing some great wine – we enjoyed a couple of nice glasses

    • We still can’t forget the outstanding coffee experiences in Australia!

Australia Travel Recommendations

Sydney ambiance
Sydney definitely belongs to the most amazing cities I have visited so far. During our stay we had the chance to discover the opera house, take a boat out on the harbor and hang out at Bondi Beach. There are a lot of hidden cafés with excellent food to enjoy!

bondi beach

Love Cabins – Blue Mountains
After an unforgettable 3 hours trip from Sydney, we finally arrived at the Blue Mountains. Trees, apple fields and pure nature where ever you go. love cabins australia
Due to a friends recommendation we have booked one of the biggest adventures I have done so far. In the middle of deep forrest pretty far away from civilization there is the ‘Wollemi Wilderness Treehouse Resort’

love cabins

dream cabin

Yes, you’re reading right. A hidden place – about an hour ride to the next grocery story in the middle of the jungle. Some crazy guys have built very comfortable tree houses. You’re just alone there, without any mobile connection, tv and all those kind of things. So you turn into Adam and Eva, naked and in peace. Back to the roots so to say. We have experienced a lot of peace and harmony there.

treehouse australia

tree house australia

Along the coast of Australia
Traveling up the Coast from Sydney to Brisbane was a unique experience. As this is a very popular route, we first weren’t sure whether to do it since we don’t like to do things too mainstream. To our favor, the popularity of this route brings the advantage that you have a wide range of beautiful destinations to stay at and of things to do. australia coast

three sisters australia

After leaving Sydney we discovered the biggest moving sand dunes of the southern hemisphere – well who would have thought, not in Africa but in Port Stephens, 200km north of Sydney. These dunes are not very well known by overseas tourists yet and seem quite untouched. It was therefore an even more special experience to ride them by quad bikes with a very small group and no other people around.  

Often it’s the unexpected that characterizes a journey. Whilst Heading further up the coast on the pacific highway, sometimes you take a bend and from one second to another you get spoiled with an astonishing view over the ocean or over the infinite bush land. We kept coming across dozens of marvelous secret beaches.

Byron Bay

The creative and ‚back-to-the-roots’ lifestyle in Byron Bay, a trendy growing town in northern New South Wales, straight away caught us. As soon as we arrived we felt very welcomed in Byron and we were surprised by the divine bungalows, restaurants and cafés went to. Creativity really seems to be born there

Hamilton Island
Hamilton Island belongs to the Great Barrier Reef and comes up with deep sky blue water that shines like diamonds combined with beaches that are past all belief.

hamilton island blue water

We loved the Qualia Resort with it’s infinity pool. qualia hamilton island The island has a few really cool sports to do like kayaking or wakeboarding. wakeboarding hamilton kayaking hamilton IMG_8237 beach hamilotn island   hamilton beach        qualia hamilton qualia resort      whitsunday island Travelling is one of the most precious things in the world. Pretty much nothing else in this world teaches you more than travelling. And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t wait. Do it. Travel often and mother earth will show you all its beautiful sides.
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LOUIS XIII – L’Odyssée D’un Roi

LOUIS XIII – L’Odyssée D’un Roi

A tremendous masterpiece has been created by four French luxury houses. A unique collaboration harmonised and perfected under the name ‘L’Odyssée d’Un Roi’. What a wonderful tribute to the outstanding history of cognac and the unending journeys through the ages. To me it reflects the infinite pursuit of integrity. The composition is made of carefully selected elements that each of the four maisons has created. An inspiring wayfare that defintely redefines the luxury art of handcrafting.

Louis XIII and the enduring Art of Travel

As one of the world’s most storied Grande Champagne cognacs, LOUIS XIII has been present at every milestone in the history of luxury travel – from the legendary bar-car of the Orient-Express to the first-class lounge of the S.S. Normandie ocean liner to the sleek cabin of the supersonic Concorde jet. To pay tribute to this heritage of adventure and discovery, the house is proud to unveil L’ODYSSÉE D’UN ROI, a unique collaboration inspired by the first shipments of LOUIS XIII in the late 1870s and the iconic journeys that followed to the farthest corners of the globe.
 
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For this monumental journey, LOUIS XIII has chosen as its travelling companions three French luxury houses that share its passion for rare craftsmanship and unbroken tradition: HERMÈS, SAINT-LOUIS and PUIFORCAT. Each house has contributed its own centuries-old savoir-faire to the creation of a series of three objets d’art. These one-of-a-kind masterpieces will be presented at exclusive events in culture capitals on different continents as part of a yearlong travelling exhibition. Sotheby’s will auction each masterpiece in New York (September 2016), Hong-Kong (October 2016) and London (November 2016), with proceeds benefiting THE FILM FOUNDATION, a non-profit organization founded by Martin Scorsese and other leading filmmakers in 1990 to preserve and restore classic films, ensuring their survival for future generations.
 
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The Ultimate Journey

MORE THAN 50 INDIVIDUAL ARTISANS DEVOTED OVER 1,000 HOURS PER PIECE TO PRODUCE THESE THREE BESPOKE CREATIONS. EACH IS UNIQUE, ITS DESIGN AND CONTENTS INSPIRED BY
THE CONTINENT FOR WHICH IT IS DESTINED.
THE TAILOR-MADE OFFERING INCLUDES:
• A bespoke trunk hand-stitched by Hermès using the finest leathers and evoking a bygone era of luxury travel.
• A white gold pipette forged by the Art Deco silversmith Puiforcat for the ritual of service.
• A sublime crystal decanter and four elegant serving glasses — mouth-blown, cut and wheel-engraved by hand at the royal cristallerie Saint-Louis. Each decanter is etched with a 19th-century map of the continent where it is bound.
• A blend of LOUIS XIII Cognac enriched with a selection of the house’s oldest treasures from Grande Champagne, that each cellar master pass on to each other, from generation to generation. A very special spirit revealing flavours that are at once singular and complementary. A Cognac to savour and admire.
Completing the unique work of art is a beautiful book that chronicles LOUIS XIII’s mythical journeys that begin on a 16th-century battlefield in rural France but will touch every corner of the globe.
 
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Hermes

This bespoke trunk was hand-stitched by HERMÈS using the finest leathers. Modelled on a classic steamer trunk — the kind that would have been taken on an ocean liner or a long journey by train — it evokes a bygone era of luxury travel. In fact, the handles are exact replicas of those used for HERMÈS from the 1920s and 30s. Of course the design of the interior was created for a very precise function, which is to luxuriously house a unique magnum decanter of LOUIS XIII. This unique object is a suitably grand conveyance for this unforgettable journey across space and time.
 
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Puiforcat

This white gold pipette was forged by hand by the Art Deco silversmith PUIFORCAT for the ritual of service. The method is centuries-old: the craftsman spins a plate of silver on a mandril, which is a tapered piece of wood that turns horizontally. He uses a simple tool called a “spoon” to give shape to the object. Several passes are often needed for a piece to take on the desired contours. These steps are punctuated by “annealing,” a controlled heating process used to soften the metal. Etching is another whole step: the piece is wedged on a leather pillow full of sand. With thin notches made on the surface of the metal, the craftsman can draw a coat of arms or some other decorative pattern with exquisite precision, honed through decades of practice.
 
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Saint-Louis

Three sublime crystal decanters and 12 elegant matching serving glasses were blown, cut and engraved entirely by hand at the royal cristallerie SAINT-LOUIS. The ancient, painstaking technique of copper-wheel engraving has given these crystal works their regal profile. Each magnum-size decanter was additionally etched with a 19th-century map of the continent where it is bound. For this project, SAINT-LOUIS capitalized on the savoir-faire of more than 10 craftsmen — including four glassblowers, one engraver, and a specially trained artisan to apply the palladium trim to each crystal object. The crystal was heated to over 1,400°c degrees and then mouth-blown at around 1,200 °c. Each glass required 110 man-hours of work while the magnificent decanter itself took no less than 270 hours to accomplish. 
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Louis XIII

Of all of the legendary travels of Louis XIII, its most important journey is the one taken through time.
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That voyage begins in the rolling hills and chalky soil of Grande Champagne, the strictly demarcated and most prestigious cru of Cognac. Here the region’s delicate grapes — predominantly the Ugni Blanc variety — are harvested and turned into a low alcohol wine, which is then twice distilled in an onion-domed copper pot still, yielding an eau-de-vie of uncommon freshness and power. Only the tiniest sliver of this base spirit will be set aside to become, four generations later, a part of LOUIS XIII.
lxiii-cognac-tools-overview
That ageing process takes time, but also a tremendous amount of savoir-faire, an almost mimetic genius possessed by each generation of LOUIS XIII’s cellar masters. The chais, or cellars, in which they work are dark, incredibly quiet places, the barrels in which the cognac rests covered in thick blankets of spider webs. As the alcohol evaporates over time, the spirit deepens and darkens, releasing a sweet and rich smell that fills the moist air.With each passing year, the cellar master dips a pipette into the barrel and tastes something different. At 20 years, there is almonds, figs and fresh-baked brioche. At 40, candied plums. At 70, honeysuckle and saffron. All the while, he is blending different eaux-de-vie, searching for perfection through a process called marriage.By 100 years, hundreds of eaux-de-vie have been married together, resulting in a complex, ineffable flavour. On the nose, it is elegant and floral: dried rose and jasmine — the fragrances of Grande Champagne. These are followed by denser notes like dates, dried fig and walnut. On the palate, the first drop of LOUIS XIII unleashes a ballet of flavours; the walnut and fig aromas soften with those of honey as headier notes — of wax, tobacco and undergrowth — roll in like a wave. The tasting is distinguished by a haunting, lasting finish. The century-long journey of LOUIS XIII has come to its triumphant end.An Unyielding Commitment

L’ODYSSÉE D’UN ROI is a shining testament both to the heritage that created LOUIS XIII and the nature that continues to inspire it. Its grapes grow in the chalky soils of Grande Champagne, the premier cru in the Cognac region. Preserving this terroir and its bio-diversity has always been a priority for the brand. LOUIS XIII has pledged to replant 115,000 oak trees in France in partnership with ONF (French National Forest Office). Some of these will be used to make its centennial tierçons, the special casks that, in one century’s time, will be the vessels for LOUIS XIII journeys of the future.
The protection of cultural treasures – whether the art of filmmaking or the art of cognac – requires time, finesse and care. In this same spirit of preservation, the house has chosen to support THE FILM FOUNDATION in its vital efforts to ensure the survival of our shared cinematic heritage for future generations.
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At the end of this beautiful story, I’m actually very much looking forward to taste the LOUIS XIII, which is one of the leading cognac brands in the world and tell you what it feels like. I’m sure you will hear more very soon!
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Kameha Zürich Smoker’s Lounge – By Beat Mumenthaler

Kameha Zürich Smoker’s Lounge

The Kameha Zürich is definitely one of my favourite Hotels in Zürich and comes up with an amazing smoker’s lounge. Of course there is a huge variety of drinks to order at the bar. 
 
Now that we made such amazing shots, I have decided to combine them with a few Gentleman’s quotes I absolutely love.
Thanks a lot to Beat Mumenthaler for the brilliant work.
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„A gentleman is one who puts more into the world than he takes out.“

 George Bernard Shaw
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“Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.”
 William Penn
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 “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.”
Oscar Wilde
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“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”
 Winston Churchill
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“I never can understand how anyone can not smoke it deprives a man of the best part of life. With a good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe, nothing can touch him, literally.”
Thomas Mann
 
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“Fashions fade, style is eternal.”
 Yves Saint Laurent
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 “Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”
Mahatma Gandhi
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“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”
 Muhammad Ali
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Glenfiddich Grand Cru: Whisky meets champagne barrel

With the Glenfiddich Grand Cru, the traditional Scottish company is breaking new ground. This 23-year-old single malt Scotch whisky spent a second maturation phase in French cuvée barrels, which gives it an additional freshness and balance. Glenfiddich…
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Absolute relaxation - Wellness in the Allgäu region

In the south of Bavaria you will find the beautiful region Allgäu, with its endless forests, an impressive view to the Alps and the cosy atmosphere, the region is one of the most important and largest holiday destinations in Germany. Time for…
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Golf equipment included - the advantages of the Swiss Traveller Card

Every golfer knows it: You get used to your clubs and want to play with them - rental sets or other golf clubs are rather not an option. So if you want to play the many incredibly beautiful courses in the world, you have to take your golf equipment…