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Sandton City shopping centre houses some of the best brands both local and international, and if you’re looking at just spending a day window shopping, this is a pretty decent place to do it. From clothing boutiques to tech stores, Sandton City has pretty much whatever you’re looking for. It even has a mini casino! Take a break and grab a bite to eat at any of the restaurants, or catch a movie at the cinema on the bottom floor. If your feet get too tired, and you feel a little sleepy, you could always check yourself into one of the attached hotels, like the Sandton Sun or the Michelangelo.

Birds Boutique Cafe is a mildly quirky and unpretentious place to have a cappuccino. With their family-style seating around large wooden tables, you’ll be tempted to strike up a conversation with a stranger next to you. Speaking of family, it’s a family-owned business. Their daughter, Frauke Stegmann, is an internationally acclaimed graphic designer who makes everything from the teacups to the creative light fixtures for the cafe. It will soon become one of your favourite places to grab a bite to eat for breakfast or lunch (try the chicken pie). It’s a good example of the type of unpretentious, casual cafes you’ll come across in the Mother City.

Eat Your Heart Out is a cool corner deli with a Jewish inspired menu, located in the bustling Maboneng Precinct. This particular morning I’d met up with a friend and his family for a quick breakfast before heading onto the Market on Main, located just down the street. I’d chosen the “Israeli Breakfast” which is an omelette lightly spiced with a mix of Arabic herbs, served with toasted pita, diced salad, pickled lettuce, chilis, olives, chunky feta and organic humus.

On this rainy afternoon that I visited, Kitchener’s had the DJ on the decks mixing up a storm inside the venue, with patrons being able to browse the goods with their drinks in hand all the while being able to do a little boogie! Whether it’s on the weekend or during the week, Kitchener’s does get very full, but is always good fun! On the weekend’s the bar transforms into a bustling, bar/market with jewellery, vintage books, clothes and more on sale. A cool fact about Kitchener’s: It has the honour of being the second oldest bar in Johannesburg. Check out their full list of events on their Facebook page

Adobe streetfront: door...window...sky. Color. Much of Tucson, like most western U.S. cities, is devoted to strip malls and parking lots, but the historic core still has blocks of 19th-century Sonoran-style row houses. In the 1960s, acres and acres of the Barrio Viejo was razed, but fortunately not all of it. Today it’s a combination of gentrification and the pleasantly decrepit: attorney’s offices, student rentals, and family homes share this yard-less streetscape in a bilingual neighborhood. In reading about the history of the neighborhood, I came across this description, written back in the 1930s by Dr. James Harvey Robinson of Columbia University, who was visiting Tucson for the first time: “But this cannot be the United States of America, Tucson, Arizona! This is northern Africa - Tunis! Algiers! - or even Greece, where I have seen as here, houses built flush with the sidewalks with pink, blue, green and yellow walls, flowers climbing out of hidden patios and overall, an unbelievable blue sky. And the sweet-acrid smell in the air? Burning mesquite. Lovely! And the people - charming. But all this is the Old World, not America.” The Barrio Viejo is perfect for a bike ride. You do feel as if you’ve left reality-TV-obsessed Gringolandia...if only for a few blocks...

Hillside Farmacy is a farm-to-table restaurant in Austin built around a pharmacy theme. While it may sound odd, the execution is brilliant, with incredible food and wonderfully eclectic design. The restaurant space was formerly the home of a 1920s pharmacy owned by Austin‘s first African-American pharmacist. The decor features authentic apothecary items (from a different 1920s drugstore)—a vintage collection of medicine bottles, antique cash registers, tin ceilings, and wooden cabinets. But it’s the “F” in the deliberately misspelled Farmacy that nods to the emphasis on simple, fresh food. The restaurant works with local food purveyors and regularly changes the menus around the highest-quality seasonal ingredients. Local cheese, homemade pate, artisinal breads and pastries, raw bar, charcuterie are all available here. Dishes include bangers and eggs, buttermilk bisquits and gravy, and bison tartare. Other perks include an old fashioned soda counter and a shaded outdoor patio. If I were a local here, this would definitely be one of my favorite go-to places.

Unlike the smaller venues which typically host markets once or twice a week, the V&A Market on the Wharf is open daily. If you are staying at accommodation in the V&A Waterfront or Greenpoint area, the is a great market to grab a drink and snacks for a picnic in the park or up Signal Hill. You can find homemade biltong, dried fruits, Cape Malay spices, and artisanal cheeses. If all this talk of food makes your mouth water, several of the vendors sell prepared meals like wraps, pies, salads, etc. For good ice cream, stop by The Creamery’s stall. You can sit outside when the weather is nice, but there is also seating on the upper level (as well as a bar) which makes it a great winter activity, too.

Having recently opened its doors to the public, the Factory on Grant Avenue in Norwood aims to be a destination for promoting the arts, crafts, design and a bit of individuality as it hopes to inject some renewed interest in the old neighborhood. The Factory features an artisanal bakery, a glass blowing studio, a screen printing workshop, an art gallery, boutique clothing stores and even a flower shop. Over the years, the popular Grant Avenue in Norwood has declined somewhat, with a proliferation of massage parlors and mini supermarkets. With the new Factory having opened early in 2014, Norwood seems to have a new buzz about it which, hopefully, will lead to other new ventures and establishments popping up too.

The Oriental Plaza, located in Fordsburg, just west of the old CBD, is home to many an Indian store owner who specialise in beautiful exotic fabrics and other clothing items and related trades such as tailoring. That’s not to say that the Plaza is limited to those items, as there are spices and curios too, amongst other things. It is a favourite shopping destination amongst locals who are looking for designer fabrics and good deals on those items. While you’re resting from all the price haggling, you can enjoy a good curry or some samoosas or any number of Indian dishes from one of the stores inside the plaza, or venture out and find one of the many restaurants nearby.

The 6km range of mountains jutting out on the Atlantic Coast of Table Mountain are known as the “Twelve Apostles”. The 18 peaks located between Camps Bay and Llandudno make for a very scenic route by which you can travel from Cape Town to Hout Bay. If you have time, continue on all the way down to the Cape Peninsula. The 12 Apostles Hotel, an exclusive, five-star property, is nestled in these mountains. Dine at the on-site restaurant, Azure, where approximately 95% of their ingredients are sourced from the Western Cape. If a meal or overnight stay is beyond the reach of your budget, you can always stop by for a drink or book a spot at their afternoon “Tea by the Sea”.

Husband-wife duo Yves and Claudine Camdeborde got their start as industry pioneers with their restaurant La Régalade, the city’s first “neo-bistro” (a trend marked by high-quality cooking at an accessible price point), which they ran for 12 years. Since 2005, their acclaim has come from their Relais Saint-Germain hotel-restaurant combo located in the beating heart of Saint-Germain. The hotel blends quaint Parisian style with a just-like-home atmosphere.

The design goal was to preserve the 17th-century soul of the building, keeping its original, exposed beams and stones and blending antique furnishings and old parquet floors with avant-garde decorative elements and rococo textiles hand-picked by Mme. Camdeborde. The result is an urban inn that guests would want to return to year after year. Each of the 22 rooms bears the name of a celebrated writer inspired by Paris—from Madame de Sévigné to Marcel Proust—and a unique aesthetic theme (Asian, African, Louis III) in a nod to the neighborhood’s literary past. What unites them is an intimate vibe that instantly makes guests feel at home.

Set in a renovated 18th-century Milanese palazzo on a private street close to Milan’s Via Montenapoleone, the Bulgari is one of Milan’s most distinguished residences. The hotel’s enormous private garden dates back to the 14^th century, and the interior is awash in sophisticated materials like African black marble, Italian stone, and teak. In short, the place oozes class. The rooms—designed by the architectural studio Antonio Citterio, Patricia Viel and Partner—are tasteful, modern, and surprisingly adventurous. Located along dimly-lit corridors, the rooms come in various color schemes and feature an array of designer furnishings and conveniences, including not one but two plasma screens, Tivoli radios, and exclusive Bulgari bathroom products. Balconies overlook the surrounding villas, and gardens have been redesigned by landscape architect Sophie Agata Ambroise and feature patio furniture and a dedicated bar service. The Bulgari gardens serve as a natural extension of the nearby Botanical Garden and provide private relaxation amid Milano’s bustle. The hotel also has a high-end restaurant and bar, and a comprehensive spa. All guests get access to a personal shopper, personal trainer, luxury car rental, and even assistance with packing and unpacking. In addition, the concierge can arrange everything from hydroplane trips around Lake Como to personal shopping excursions around Italy by private plane, limousine, or yacht.

As the camp’s name indicates, the main reason to stay here is to catch the Great Migration, the annual movement of more than one million wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of zebra and gazelle making an 1,800-mile circuit through the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Serengeti National Park, and into the Maasai Mara in Kenya. At the camp, large, tented chalets on stilts have wraparound decks with a 360-degree view of the landscape and its denizens. The lodgings blend into the surroundings on the bank of one of the great migration obstacles: the Grumeti River, with its many crocodiles, hippos, and boulders. Herds pass through the vicinity from August through November, and the Elewana’s northern Serengeti location miles from the main concentration of game lodges gives it a sense of privacy rarely achieved in the far more visited western and southern park corridors. One further advantage: The camp is within driving distance of the other great wildebeest crossing point, the Mara River, on the border region between the Serengeti and Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Park. The atmosphere at the lodge is cheerful and relaxed, and the huge tented suites, which are divided by canvas walls into bedroom and bathing areas, have comfortable queen or twin beds, wood floors, colonial-style leather chairs, African textile accents, and, unlike most mobile migration safaris, hot water and electricity 24/7.

Chef Franck Dangereux (formerly of La Colombe, a celebrated Cape Town institution) runs the Foodbarn Restaurant out of a lovely old barn in the village of Noordhoek. Here, you’ll get all the flavors of a fancy restaurant, without the fuss. You may dine on artistically presented dishes like pépé goat cheese beignets, but a glance around the revamped space, with its rustic-chic decor and colorful knickknacks, will remind you that you are, in fact, feasting in a barn. At night, the place transforms into a tapas bar.

A new addition to the Jo’burg night market scene is the House & Leisure Night Market at Katy’s Palace Bar, which is also home to an antique store located on the ground floor and The night market featured a good variety of local arts and crafts as well as some locally produced foods and drinks. On the night there was a competition to win a prize hamper consisting of awesome prizes from all the vendors at the market, and amazingly my friend and I ended up winning! Katy’s Palace Bar is normally a private venue for hire, however they are also open for selected public events and every first Sunday of the month for easy lunches and cocktails on their balcony which looks out over the city of Sandton