Santa, Nutcracker, and other Revellers
Here we are again: Christmas is just around the corner! Candles are lit and delicate Christmas decorations are aglitter everywhere you look, and the scent of home-made cookies and fresh-cut spruce is in the air. A rich and eventful year of travel is drawing to a close. We visited more than 400 hotels and restaurants across Europe, testing and evaluating them anonymously and independently. About the 302 finest venues that made a lasting impression on us we wrote detailed profiles that we present to you on pillowandpepper.com. But now the time has come to pause for a few days; time to feel grateful, and time to celebrate.
Here is how we celebrate:
Joanna Peyer, publisher & co-founder of pillowandpepper.com: From her Polish grandmother, she inherited not just the family silver, but also a fondness for Yuletide traditions. «Every year, we set an extra plate at the festive table just in case an unexpected guest or a person in need comes knocking at the door.» Joanna always takes her own sweet time to decorate her flat in Zurich. She fills tall vases with white amaryllis and white pine, and multi-level trays with Christmas cookies, making sure they never run out of her favourite kind – vanilla crescents.
Ekaterina Ossipova Bolte, co-founder of pillowandpepper.com: She loves to celebrate Christmas and New Year holidays the traditional with her family in snowy Russia. «It doesn't have to be caviar, but no festivity would be complete without the Olivier salad created by the French chef Lucien Olivier in Imperial Russia during the 1860s. Finally, we toast the New Year with a glass of ‘Champansky’ during a performance of Tchaikowsky's ‘Nutcracker’ Suite at the Bolshoi Theatre.»
Daniel Ojala, art director of pillowandpepper.com: «Since Santa Claus officially hails from my native country of Finland, celebrating Christmas is sort of like performing on my home turf, even though I tend to spend the holidays in Berlin, Germany. Something I could not do without on Christmas Eve is a richly trimmed tree with all the bells and whistles and real candles. Then again: Overdoing it with jingle bells, harmony and marzipan will put the damper on your creativity. So once the old year ends, at the latest, I get stir-crazy and hit the new year full throttle.»
You are one of our “early bird” launch members. We would like to thank you by giving you a €15.00 voucher code. Simply enter the code the next time you download a room number or table number at your destination of choice.
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Driven by our tireless wanderlust, we will keep travelling the length and breadth of Europe in 2016, too, on our perennial quest for unique new hotels to bring back the most coveted room numbers for you. Do you have a favourite hotel that is missing in our travel guide? If so, do share your secret with us, and we'll be happy to test it for Pillow & Pepper. E-mail us your hotel tip to: redaktion@pillowandpepper.com
We would like to wish you a magnificent, peaceful Christmas season, and an enterprising start into a felicitous and prosperous new year. Enjoy the revelry, and don't forget to kiss your sweetheart beneath the mistletoe and to make joint plans for lovely trips together in 2016.