Europe’s travel offerings are as diverse as the landscape. From budget group tours, small group experiences with besopke inclusions to experiencing Europe’s most iconic cities by river cruise – Europe is a vast landscape beckoning to be explored.
- Heritage Tours: Visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as the historic center of Rome or the Acropolis in Athens.
- Art and History: Explore museums, galleries, and historical sites.
- Food and Wine: Experience local cuisine and wines in regions like Tuscany, Bordeaux, and the Andalusian countryside.
- Cooking Classes: Participate in hands-on cooking experiences, learning to make traditional dishes.
- Farmstays: Spending sometime where great meals start gives a unique experience whether in the Scottish Highlands or sun-soaked Tuscany.
- Hiking and Trekking: Explore scenic trails, such as the Camino de Santiago in Spain or the Dolomites in Italy.
- Cycling Tours: Enjoy bike tours through the vineyards of France or the countryside of the Netherlands.
Uniquely European
What Can We Do For You?
We can arrange the most intimate experience, behind the scenes peaks, and exclusive access to both private and public historical institutions. If you can dream it, we can do it.
It’s Your Journey; Simplified.
Hotel butlers often work behind the scenes: unpacking luggage, serving your favorite cocktail at the end of the day, or presenting a perfectly pressed shirt in time for dinner. But then there’s the specialty butler, bringing personalized services you didn’t even know you needed, often unique to the hotel and its heritage.
Here, five hotels with truly unforgettable butler service.
Antibes, France
The South of France evokes a spirit of opulence and excess, exemplified by perennial favorites such as Cannes and Saint-Tropez and their yacht-filled waterfronts. But the slightly quieter town of Juan-les-Pins may be the region’s version of stealth wealth. It’s also the site where water skiing was popularized in Europe in 1931 by a Nice-born boxing champion-turned-alpine skier who took his prowess from ring to snow to water.
The 43-room Hôtel Belles Rives, an art deco darling and the birthplace of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, pays tribute to this heritage, with new water-ski butlers who lead guests through warm-ups, help them into wetsuits, and offer tips for zipping across the Mediterranean. One of them is Nathalie Grilli – daughter of the founder of the hotel’s original water ski club (which she can help anyone join). Think you’re too old or uncoordinated to try the sport? Nathalie starts by taking guests out to watch the graceful octogenarian who skis at the club each morning. We negotiate rates & benefits for our clients directly with the hotels’ senior management.
We offer a suite of extra VIP privileges and recognition:
- Daily complimentary buffet breakfast for two
- Up to $100 dining or spa credit per stay, and or in-house dining / spa discounts
- Welcome amenities
- Complimentary private airport transfers.
- Early check-in and late check-out.
- Complimentary Wi-Fi.
- Enhanced recognition through VIP status at throughout your stay
A complete or partial suite of VIP benefits will be offered, subject to the property T&C, including availability, category of room & length of stay.
Istanbul
Splash down in a custom bath at the only hotel in an Ottoman imperial palace on the Bosporus. The 317-room Ciragan Palace Kempinski offers a dedicated soap butler, in homage to Turkish culture, where soap production and consumption holds significant economic value. Head butler Necmeddin Ekinci explains that the soap butler offers guests a choice of four different kinds of soaps (mint-lemon-green tea, jasmine, orange blossom, and rose-lavender) and eight perfumes. In a ceremony that competes with even the most satisfying TikTok, the butler slices two soap cakes with a small, sharp sword so that guests can use one during their stay – and take another bar home for future soaks. Your garden-variety soap, this is not: High-end ingredients such as pure olive oil and natural plant extracts honor the integral role soap plays in Turkish culture. Just add a kese mitt and a tiny bit of pain tolerance for your very own at-home hammam. Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and a $100 hotel credit.
Beachfront bliss at Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort.
Tangalle, Sri Lanka
The wellness program at the 152-room Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort, set along a private bay on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, includes the services of a Slumber Guru – what you might call your own personal sleep butler. Following a day of seaside yoga, life-coaching sessions, and Ayurvedic spa treatments, the Slumber Guru draws guests a candlelit bath, offers a soothing essential-oil massage, and lays out a selection of nighttime refreshments, music, pillows, and pillow spray, along with an eye mask and ear plugs. Sajith Grero, the hotel’s director of operations, says, “By teaching people how to switch off and embrace their natural rhythms through Ayurvedic traditions, the gurus are helping people restore balance and mind-improving sleep quality, which is critical for overall health and well-being.” Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and one lunch for two.
Paris
Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris, a Philippe Starck-designed, 149-room property constructed in the Roaring Twenties, caters to distinguished art aficionados. Julie Eugène is the property’s designated art concierge, having studied art theory and history at University Paris 8, specializing in contemporary and new-media art, and photography. She now oversees exhibitions at the hotel’s gallery and designs individual experiences for art lovers. One of her most memorable projects? Guiding a guest on a private, after-hours tour of a museum, where they viewed an exclusive exhibit before it opened to the public, as well as the museum’s storage facilities, which hold masterpieces worth billions of dollars. “Throughout my career, I’ve curated and arranged many exhibitions, yet this experience left me in awe,” Eugène says.
Tartan butler Andy Fraser.
Edinburgh
At The Balmoral, a 167-room hotel in central Edinburgh, tartan butlers help guests trace their Scottish roots and can include all the trimmings – from tracking down family tartans and arranging kilt fittings to a tour through Scotland to visit villages and homesteads and unearth family secrets. (Heritage drama, anyone?) Andy Fraser, one of the hotel’s tartan butlers, recently assisted a guest with a Scottish name to find their designated clan and tartan design (a vibrant mix of reds and greens). Fraser then accompanied the guest on a shopping trip to Kinloch Anderson, a sixth-generation Edinburgh clothing and textiles company that holds three Royal Warrants of Appointment and has supplied the royal family’s tartan since 1903. Virtuoso travelers receive breakfast daily and a $100 dining credit. -credit Anne Roderique-Jones