Travel

Luxurious Alpine accommodation, your own team of chefs, housekeepers, chauffeurs and assistants, daily champagne, ski instruction, massage… No need to lift a finger

WORDS PETER HOWARTH

If like me you have spent a disproportionate amount of your life fantasising about being James Bond, then Descent International was made for you. Imagine a service that puts you up in the best chalets; provides you with your own staff of black-clad chauffeurs, chefs, housekeepers and general assistants; and attends to the daily grind while you enjoy your well-earned rest.

That was Kit Harrison’s dream 10 years ago when he started Descent, a luxury travel company specialising in Alpine properties. Today it is expanding rapidly, with luxury now about service, exclusivity and quality of experience rather than brand names.

His 15 privately owned chalets (Descent manage them for their owners) are in places like Verbier, Zermatt, Val D’Isère and Meribel, and boast chic furniture and furnishings with all the mod cons, including saunas, steam rooms and hot tubs (indoor and out), cinemas, massage rooms, ski rooms and wireless broadband.

But more than the kit and furnishings, what makes these places special is the fact that you don’t have to lift a finger. Included in the package are meals prepared by your chef, access to a fine wine cellar, an open spirit bar, Perrier Jouet champagne and canapés served daily, fresh flowers, daily newspapers, and a chauffeur-driven VW Touareg 4x4 (or a fleet if you have a bigger party). Then there are skiing lessons and guides, massage on site, live-in or part-time nannies, and all the less exciting but vital stuff like airport transfers and travel insurance, and private flights.

One of Descent’s properties is located just outside St Moritz, in La Punt, seven minutes’ drive from the town centre, and five from the private airfield at Samedan. The Chesa Albertini is more a mansion than a chalet: it sleeps 12 to 16, comes with seven staff and features a Jacuzzi, sauna, steam room, cold plunge bath, massage room, gym, card room, reading room, cinema room – you get the picture. The house is a beautifully restored 17th century property built by the Albertini family retaining many of its original features, like wood panelling and frescos. All the fabrics have been chosen by renowned Zurich based designer Hannes B, the bathrooms have Philippe Starck fittings, and there is a mixture of fine antique and contemporary furniture. This is arguably the most prestigious address in the valley.

St Moritz has been a fashionable destination since its beginnings in 1864. As well as the skiing and landscape – and the Cresta Run of course – it also has great bars and après-ski, and fashion retail reminiscent of Bond Street. Up on the slopes at La Corviglia is Reto Mathis’ famous restaurant where it is rumoured that more truffles and caviar are consumed at lunch than in any other eatery in the world.

It is also the home of a host of unusual winter sports – horse racing, cricket, show jumping – all of which take place on the ice. And then there is the snow polo tournament, which now has a 101-year history. These days the Cartier Polo World Cup on Snow is the world’s most prestigious winter polo tournament and features four high-goal teams with handicaps between 18 and 22 battling for the coveted Cartier Trophy on the frozen surface of Lake St Moritz.

It’s as much a social spectacle as a sporting event, and this year attracted about 10,000 spectators over the four-day competition. Top players from around the world took part and the teams for 2007 were Maybach, Julius Baer, Cartier and Brioni. On Sunday 28 February, in front of packed grandstands, team Brioni won its first Cartier Trophy by beating holders Cartier by a golden goal in an extra fifth chukka in the final, after drawing 3-3 at full time.

The Chesa Albertini was the perfect place to stay during the Cartier Polo World Cup on Snow. The combination of home-from-home comfort, high-class service and the thrill of the game played at 1800 metres on the frozen lake made for a heady cocktail, even without the endless supply of Perrier Jouet. www.descent.co.uk

The high life Descent chalets (centre left) are the perfect place to stay while taking in the polo and enjoying the jet-set lifestyle of St Moritz SCOTT BARBOUR/GETTY IMAGES

From trekking alone across Africa to building the international success that is Abercrombie & Kent, not to mention some major polo tournament wins, Geoffrey Kent is a man who likes to get things done

WORDS PHILIP WATSON

When Geoffrey Kent was 16 years old he did something at once utterly remarkable and wholly characteristic. Armed with no more than a Shell map of Africa, tarpaulin, some biltong and raisins, and a 250cc Daimler Puch motorbike, the world-renowned polo player and future chairman and CEO of leading luxury travel company Abercrombie & Kent decided, after just an hour's consideration, to travel from his home in the highlands of Kenya all the way to Cape Town.

It was a solo journey of 3,000 miles along mostly unmade roads and dirt tracks. Kent travelled through rough country and war zones with no radio or means of communication, and encountered almost daily challenges and accidents – at one point his motorbike fell off a ferry crossing the Zambezi. Yet after three gruelling months he arrived and was soon lauded as an oldstyle, all-action hero. Geoffrey Kent was the first person to complete the journey between the two countries in this way.

Kent's African odyssey was a rite of passage that would establish a pattern for the rest of his life. His epic journey was not just an early indication of his unbridled love of travel and adventure; it became a blueprint for his lifelong sense of discovery and ingenuity, for his ardent competitiveness, and for his determination to succeed.

‘The ride to Cape Town was impetuous,’ he concedes, ‘but I am very impetuous to this day. Impetuousness can achieve great things because it means you don't think too much about something. Today in business you often have what's called “paralysis by analysis”. People spend too much time analysing and worrying about what can go wrong. It's okay to analyse, to get a good handle on a situation, but then let's do it, or not do it. I'm a great believer in doing things.’

This pragmatic credo was evident, often through necessity, from an early age. Born in 1942 while his parents, Valerie and Colonel John Kent, were on safari in what is now Zambia, Geoffrey Kent had an archetypal Out of Africacolonial upbringing on a large farm in Kenya. He was riding horses at the age of four; driving his parents' Land Rover at six, propping himself up on pillows so he could see over the steering wheel; and hunting by 12 – he shot his first elephant when he was 16. His parents were busy running the farm, so Geoffrey and his younger sister Anne became very independent.

‘We had to do everything on our own, and my background taught me to take responsibility for myself,’ he says. ‘It also taught me to go for it, to be bold in my decisions.’

Kent is the first to admit, however, that it was the British Army that honed this innate boldness and impetuousness into far more effective and useful skills. Shortly after Geoffrey returned from Cape Town, his father, worried that his son was by now ‘fully through the bridle’, decided that he needed to be brought back under control. By his seventeenth birthday, he was in training as the youngest cadet at the Royal Military