There is nothing worse than a hotel claiming to be the ultimate in luxury when it simply does not deliver. You know how much you loved a place by how ready you are to leave.

Is there anything that annoys like noise? Given the sophistication and substantial investment in most hotel and restaurant designs, it never ceases to amaze us how many places seem to take no account of acoustics.

An appreciation of art and an eagerness to experience it first hand has long enthused international travellers and today that passion is further fuelled by an explosion of interest in contemporary art.

The Museum of Contemporary African Art, otherwise known as Zeitz MOCAA, has finally arrived in Cape Town. It is, by far, the most exciting part of the otherwise underwhelming V&A Waterfront with its shopping malls, average restaurants, lacklustre hotels and waterways reminiscent of London’s Docklands.

Nota Bene talks to Swiss jeweller Christophe Graber.

French fashion icon Coco Chanel once famously uttered: “I don’t care what you think about me – I don’t think about you at all.” In that one succinct phrase, she encapsulated the essence of that infamous French insouciance which – whether admired or despised – has become the country’s calling card the world over.

A collection of our favourite pools across the globe.

It’s the tiny details and the nuances of service, which influence our judgement and form our abiding memory of a place.

In a digitally saturated world of so-called expert travel opinions there are few, if any, independent, impartial and unique sources. And this is why Nota Bene exists.

We love Venice full stop, but there is something particularly ravishing about La Serenissima in winter.