Fly Airlink - Freedom of the African Sky

Home away from home

As featured and advertised in the July 2010 issue of Skyways, Airlink's inflight magazine

The latest trend in tourist accommodation offers apartments that provide an 'own home' atmosphere plus the full service of a hotel. The luxe More Quarters Hotel off Kloof Street, Cape Town, transcends the ordinary with an animated grace that is soft on the senses.

Secret Cape Town is all around us, snaking up labyrinthine cobbled streets, holding the history of the town in its vicelike grip, with its backspin of mountain and sea reflecting a diorama of changing light. Over the years many of these streets have been finessed into svelte areas with restaurants and shops. More Quarters in Nicol Street, off Kloof Street, has been expertly refurbished to reflect the historical fabric of the environment and to provide apartment living with the full service and support of a hotel.

Robert More, owner of More Quarters, says, 'We have found that apartment style accommodation is very popular, especially with Europeans. Our guests are looking for accommodations with larger living areas, where they can relax after a day out exploring the beautiful city and its surrounds. The lounges, outside courtyards and balconies, together with self-catering kitchens, give guests the freedom to cater to their own requirements, but still know there is the full service of the hotel should they require it.'

Little villas
These old slave cottages with their Cape Georgian facades have been sculpted into small villas where visitors can feel independent and yet have access to all hotel amenities. There are eight one-bedroom and two two-bedroom apartments plus a four-bedroom house. The coming months will see other houses in the area take on the same cohesive appearance, with their contemporary design and ancient appurtenances such as outside walls and steps made from Table Mountain granite.

Having your own apartment is the ultimate way to explore a new environment and feel safe but retain an adventurous spirit. The famous explorer Bruce Chatwin once said, 'All you need in a new town is a place of your own, where you can venture into unknown territory with the knowledge that at nightfall you can return to somewhere familiar.' Although 'I can sleep anywhere' has become a shibboleth of the modern tourist, where you stay colours your whole concept of a country. We are all familiar with the B&B disguised as a hotel with its bowl of unripe fruit, cheap bubbly and letter from the management in gothic script.

More Quarters provides a home away from home with spacious rooms with lofty ceilings and large mirrored bathrooms. There is something about space that animates the soul, a place where your mood can be raised like a flag. Even in the smart hotels in big cities of the world, space is a scarce commodity. Staying in Complete getaways july 2010 one of London's most expensive hotels, a woman recently found herself climbing over a table to get to her bed.

All aglow
More Quarters has cleverly mitred together the old with the new, resulting in clean new lines, lots of glass, lush greenery and absorbing views of mountain and sea.

The whole place glows with the pale fire of renovation, punctiliously executed with a nod to its historical past with chandeliers, custom designed furniture and expensive fabrics, including linen sheets and soft pillows (you can always tell a good hotel by its pillows). The colours are lambent gold, celadons, creams and buttercup yellows, and luxury is in the detail, piles of white towels, jeroboams of body lotions and big white slabs of soap. Blond wood furniture is highlighted with tobaccocoloured Polish linen, soft gauzy curtains and plush cushions in shades of silver. It is a place where fame and glamour fit so easily alongside ordinary life, and only metres away is the fizz of Kloof Street with its specialist food shops and restaurants, the best continental butcher in Cape Town and patisseries that make melting chocolate gateaux and bread still warm from the oven.

This brand new venture is an adjunct to the Cape Cadogan Hotel with its majestic demeanour and forms part of the More Hotels management company. Four years ago owner Robert More took the desiccated shell of the Cape Cadogan, a Rolls Royce without wheels, and turned it into a majestic edifice with 13 bedrooms that lights up at night like an ocean liner. Robert is also co-owner of one of the most desired private game reserves, Lion Sands on the Sabie River, and together with More Hotels are experts in the slippery and complex phenomena of the hospitality

Expect the unexpected
More Quarters is a place where you can break through the membrane of mediocrity and experience an unexpected Cape Town, a fugitive place, still unknown to much of the world, where each day brings forth something new out of Africa. More Quarters combines hotel living with 24-hour room service, air conditioning, reading lights you can actually read by (the beautiful Cécile & Boyd's lamps are famous) and ever helpful but unobtrusive manager Andy Paterson, who has researched a flexible wine list with handpicked wines from all over the country.

Each apartment becomes your own home for your stay. Lapped by the beauty of the town, it allows individual expression where you can tango till dawn, work on your novel, watch movies or let your mind trawl through the imaginative landscape of life and at the same time order up running lattes, cold drinks trickling over ice cubes and smoked salmon sandwiches at midnight.

The management's philosophy has always been family-orientated and children of all ages are welcome. Having your own space, as any parent will know, can turn what might be a fraught situation into one of fun where ingenuity can keep the demon boredom at bay. And the good news is that the future holds More of the same.

For more information:
Telephone - 011 484 9911
or visit - www.morehotels.co.za

How to get there:
Airlink offers direct flights from Nelspruit, Kimberely, Upington and George to Cape Town.

Book online at www.flyairlink.com or call +27 11-978 1111.