Royal Mansour, Morocco • 2017 • episode "S1E4" Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby

Category: Travel

Giles and Monica arrive at Royal Mansour, one of the world's most discreet hotels, hidden deep in the heart of Marrakech's ancient Medina. In stark contrast to the developing country it inhabits, the 'jewel of the city' was built with a limitless budget by royal decree to showcase the kingdom to world leaders and to billionaire and celebrity guests.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

patreon.com

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby • 2017 • 6 episodes •

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

In the first episode of this eye-opening series, Giles Coren and Monica Galetti join the 9,500-strong workforce in one of the world's biggest hotels - Singapore's Marina Bay Sands. This epic hotel caters for one million guests every year, cost 3.5 billion to build and was created as part of a government plan to triple tourist income to Singapore within ten years.

2017 • Travel

Mashpi Lodge, Ecuador

Giles Coren and Monica Galetti head to the Andean Cloud Forest of Ecuador to work at Mashpi Lodge, a $10-million modernist hotel featuring an extraordinary gondola cable car that 'flies' guests one mile through the jungle canopy at a dizzying height.

2017 • Travel

Giraffe Manor, Kenya

Giles Coren and Monica Galetti discover Giraffe Manor, a unique hotel where giraffes, staff and guests all coexist in a 1930s Scottish-style hunting lodge on the edge of Nairobi National Park.

2017 • Travel

Royal Mansour, Morocco

Giles and Monica arrive at Royal Mansour, one of the world's most discreet hotels, hidden deep in the heart of Marrakech's ancient Medina. In stark contrast to the developing country it inhabits, the 'jewel of the city' was built with a limitless budget by royal decree to showcase the kingdom to world leaders and to billionaire and celebrity guests.

2017 • Travel

Fogo Island Inn, Canada

Giles Coren and Monica Galetti experience the warm embrace of Fogo Island Inn on a rocky, sea-sprayed outpost of remote Fogo Island in Newfoundland. White, angular and perched atop zig-zagged stilts like the local fishermen's houses.

2017 • Travel

Ice Hotel, Sweden

Giles and Monica don their best thermals and extreme weather gear, and travel 200km north of the Arctic Circle to Sweden's Lapland. They enter a magical world of snow, ice, inky blue and pink skies, and ICEHOTEL, a regular feature of bucket lists, now in its 27th year.

2017 • Travel

You might also like

Crete

In the first episode, Julia visits the picturesque, rustic and rugged island of Crete, a favourite island with British holiday-goers, but Julia steps away from tourist trail and heads deep into the heart of the island to explore the Dikti Mountains and its striking plateau of windmills.

S1E1The Greek Islands with Julia Bradbury • 2020 • Travel

Malta to Albania

At the centre of this great sea, and surrounded by crystal clear waters, is Simon's first stop, the beautiful island of Malta. Driven by a surge of tourists, modern-day Malta is booming. But beneath the picture-postcard image lies a country accused of being a haven for money laundering and organised crime, where journalists can be murdered by car bombs. When Simon takes a ferry to his next destination, Calabria in southern Italy, he discovers a region in the grip of Europe's most powerful mafia, the 'Ndrangheta. With rare access to police and customs investigators, Simon follows an armed convoy carrying a ton of seized cocaine, joins a stakeout of a high-level suspect, and crawls through a huge underground warren of tunnels and bunkers built by fugitive mafia bosses. Travelling east along the southern tip of mainland Italy, Simon visits a turtle conservation centre, meeting Raoul, a loggerhead turtle rescued after swallowing huge quantities of plastic, a massive and increasing threat to Mediterranean wildlife. Simon helps release him back into the sea. Taking the overnight ferry from the heel of Italy, Simon arrives in one of the least-known but most beautiful corners of the Mediterranean, Albania. Under communist rule, Albania was isolated and shut off from most of the world. In a country now hoping for EU membership, Simon discovers an ancient culture of vendetta, where if an adult commits a crime, a child can be killed in revenge. Simon ends the first leg of his journey at a spectacular wildlife reserve where bird life is now recovering following the country's groundbreaking ban on hunting.

S1E1Mediterranean with Simon Reeve • 2018 • Travel

Crisana

In Cri?ana, Charlie appreciates the historical monuments of the region and recounts the story of St. Ladislaus and the origins of the Oradea Fortress.

S2E7Flavours of Romania • 2023 • Travel

Home

The clean minimalism of the Japanese home has been exported around the world, from modernist architecture to lifestyle stores like Muji. But the origins of this ubiquitous aesthetic evolved from a system of spiritual and philosophical values dating back centuries. James visits one of Japan's last surviving traditional wooden villages, and the 17th-century villa of Rinshunkaku, and reveals how the unique spirit of Japanese craftsmen turned joinery into an artform - creating houses without the need for nails, screws or glue. Exploring some of the traditional arts of the Japanese home, James also investigates attitudes to domestic culture in modern Japan, meeting photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki, chronicler of Japan's crowded cities and tiny apartments. Other highlights include a performance by calligrapher and artist Tomoko Kawao and a visit to the hometown of architect Terunobu Fujimori.

S1E3The Art of Japanese Life • 2017 • Travel

Across the Line

Lev and Ash travel to Peshwar for their final destination. They explore the city's Bollywood connection and experience off-roading. Later, they scout Taxila and Skardu and camp in the highest, coldest deserts on the planet.

S1E4Expedition Borderlands • 2022 • Travel

Dagestan to Azerbaijan

In Dagestan - which the Foreign Office warns against visiting - Levison experiences warrior clans' hospitality, stunning beauty and ancient cities. Then it's on to country-of-contrasts Azerbaijan.

S1E2From Russia to Iran: Crossing the Wild Frontier with Levison Wood • 2017 • Travel