Forty-eight hours elsewhere: Paris, Milan and the Riviera, planned from London
Three weekends within a short journey of London, each planned in one exchange with Octavia: Paris on the morning train, Milan for the eye, and the Riviera, in season or quietly out of it.
One conversation, three destinations
A weekend abroad sounds elaborate. It need not be. The three destinations below each lie roughly two hours from London, by train or by air, and each can be planned in a single exchange: the dates, the city, and the kind of weekend you have in mind. Octavia does the rest, which chiefly means finding the companion who will enjoy it most.
The figure begins at £6,000 for the weekend and is confirmed in writing once the plan is settled. You book her journey and her room as host. You give her the fee yourself, in person, at the start of the first day, and no turn in the weather alters it.
Paris, by the morning train
Paris is the one weekend abroad that starts in central London. Eurostar leaves from St Pancras and reaches the Gare du Nord in a little over two hours, so a Friday morning departure puts you at a Paris lunch table. Allow a little more time at the terminal than you once did, because the border formalities now take longer.
Stay on the Right Bank for grandeur, near the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré or the Place Vendôme, where Le Bristol and the Ritz Paris keep their doors. Stay in the Marais, or on the Left Bank around Saint-Germain, for streets that reward walking. Saturday might hold the Orangerie and Monet's water lilies in the morning, a long lunch, the Seine at dusk and a dinner that had to be booked weeks ahead. On Sunday much of the city rests, and a long lunch followed by a slow walk through the Tuileries is the right reply.
Liana, who reads Paris novels in translation and usually has one in her coat, is Octavia's first thought for this one. She will want an hour in a bookshop on the Left Bank, and she will be right to.
Milan, for the eye
Milan rewards a guest who likes things made well. Flights from London take about two hours, landing at Linate, close to the centre, or at Malpensa, further out. The Quadrilatero, the grid of streets around Via Montenapoleone, holds the tailors and the jewellers; Brera, a short walk north, keeps the galleries and the cafés. Evenings run later than in London: an aperitivo at seven, with small plates arriving unasked beside the glasses, and dinner seldom much before nine.
Two anchors need planning. Leonardo's Last Supper, in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, is seen by timed booking only, and the slots go early. La Scala is the other: the opening night of its season falls on the seventh of December, the feast of the city's patron saint, and it is the hardest ticket in Milan. A companion who knows the anchors in advance can dress for them.
Laura, whose map of Italy is annotated in pencil, would gladly add a morning on Lake Como, about an hour north by car or train.
The Riviera, in season and out
Fly to Nice and the coast opens in both directions: Cannes and Antibes to the west, Villefranche, Cap Ferrat and Monaco to the east. The road along the cliffs, the Moyenne Corniche, is one of the loveliest drives in Europe, and a car with a driver makes it lovelier still. In Monaco, the Hôtel de Paris faces the casino across its square, and a drink on the terrace there is the principality in one glass.
Timing matters more here than anywhere. Late spring brings the film festival at Cannes and the Grand Prix at Monaco, and rooms along the whole coast go months ahead. High summer is busy and hot. Several of the great coast hotels close for the winter, but those that stay open are calm, sunlit and far easier to reserve. A February weekend on the Riviera is a connoisseur's choice.
Nancy, who swims outdoors all year and loves a coast road, is made for this one; she is among our blondes, as is Cindy, who crews a dinghy and will read the sea before breakfast.
The shape of a good weekend
Whatever the city, the weekends that work share a shape.
Gaps, on purpose
Leave room. A companion with an afternoon to herself returns to the evening in better spirits, and so, usually, does her host. The same thinking guides longer journeys abroad, where the empty afternoon matters even more.
Weather is the other reason for slack. Paris in rain is still Paris. Milan has covered arcades. The Riviera in a February shower offers museums, markets and long lunches, and nothing about a changed Saturday alters the figure agreed.
Before you write
Three questions settle most of a weekend. Which city, or which two? Which dates, and are they fixed? And what sort of weekend: a quiet one, a social one, or one built around an event? Send those, and Octavia returns a companion's name and a figure. The weekend line on the rates page begins at £6,000, and extended engagements explains how longer trips are priced.
Many weekends begin at a hotel beside Green Park, with the car to St Pancras or the airport leaving from the door. The first message goes through booking.
Asked after reading
By train, almost always. St Pancras is in central London and the Gare du Nord is in central Paris, and the time saved at airports outweighs everything else.
Yes. A longer weekend is priced once the dates are known. Tell Octavia the days you have in mind and she will confirm whether the companion you would like is free for all of them.
Then the plan changes and the figure does not. Monaco has its museums, Nice its markets and restaurants, and a wet afternoon in a good hotel is rarely a hardship.
The outline: the city, the dates, the hotel and anything formal on the programme. She decides whether the weekend suits her before a figure is confirmed, and she packs from the same outline.