Emerald Coast

A Valentine's Special at the WaterColor Inn

Filed under: Journeys

Once derided as the Redneck Riviera, the hundred-mile stretch of the Florida Panhandle from Pensacola to Panama City is becoming better known as the Emerald Coast. Beyond the inevitable sprawl lie pristine beaches and driftwood-hued hotels, none finer than the WaterColor Inn & Resort. The celebrated resort, in Santa Rosa Beach, is offering a "Four Diamond Valentine" package that may be just the tonic for couples in need of some warm sun.

The offer, valid February 10-18, includes accommodations in a Gulf-view room; a three-course dinner for two at the resort's flagship restaurant, Fish Out of Water; two 50-minute Swedish massages; and Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries delivered to your room. Prices start at $390 per night based on a two-night minimum stay.

The charms of Emerald Coast -- named for its greenish waters, produced by sunlight hitting a bed of white quartz sand beneath the clear blue sea -- are no longer a well-kept secret. Condé Nast Traveler readers named the WaterColor Inn one of the 50 best mainland resorts in the United States. Bon Appetit called it one of the country's top ten "culinary country inns."

Tags: Emerald Coast, Florida, Santa Rosa Beach, WaterColor Inn

The Battle Over Sardinia's Famed Billionaire Club

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Journeys

One of the investors in Billionaire, the famed club for the megarich on Sardinia's swank Emerald Coast, says the club should be shuttered because of the current economic climate. Billionaire, a favored haunt of tycoons who come to frolic with the likes of Dolce & Gabbana, Kate Moss and Sean Combs, is controlled by rakish Formula 1 mogul Flavio Briatore (above), but Italian entrepreneur and politician Daniela Santanchè has a 10% stake.

Santanchè says that the ultra-exclusive club, where methuselahs of Cristal go for $50,000 a pop, is an offensive relic of a more wasteful age, the London Guardian reports. "With people struggling to get by, Billionaire should be consigned to history," Santanchè says. "I myself have put my Aston Martin in the garage and get around in a Fiat 500."

"Daniela has been in the sun too long," Briatore, who has dated the likes of Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum, fired back. "What she's saying is absurd. If luxury is suddenly a problem let's close Bulgari and Cartier, or even all the discos, restaurants and the whole of the Emerald Coast." That may not be necessary, in any case. The New York Times recently reported that the hotspot has lost a lot of its exclusivity lately and that some recent visitors aren't even millionaires, let alone billionaires.

Tags: Aston Martin, AstonMartin, Billionaire, Billionaire Club, BillionaireClub, Cristal, Daniela Santanch, DanielaSantanch, Emerald Coast, EmeraldCoast, Flavio Briatore, FlavioBriatore, Formula 1, Formula1, Italy, Kate Moss, KateMoss, Naomi Campbell, NaomiCampbell, Sardinia

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