As soon as the water warms up, people from all corners of the Mediterranean and beyond make for the beach. Whether you’re in the windswept Aeolian islands, on Beirut’s Sporting Club Beach or sequestered in a calm corner of Cagliari, there are unspoken rules governing good and bad beach behaviour.

In my native Portugal, children come to understand these rules before they learn how to swim. I still remember the ritual of going to the beach on the first day of the summer holidays, which involved the careful selection by my family of the best spot for shade and sea access. Why such care? Because from that day on, this hallowed stretch of sand was ours for the season. Amazingly, everyone understood and respected the system. Wander along a Portuguese beach at the end of the day and you will spy hundreds of colourful parasols delineating spaces that local families will return to the next morning.

In Italy, personal space is more regulated. Here stabilimenti balneari (bathing establishments) or bagni dominate the beaches. Orderly rows of sunbeds and shades are arranged with military precision. But there’s still ritual here: many are booked by the same families year in, year out. This is a different form of beach etiquette to Portugal – an address, yes, but a fixed one that can sometimes last generations.

Another culturally specific question that bathers must ask themselves is one of comportment and apparel: how naked is too naked? In Spain, the answer is simple. Along the Costa Brava and across the Balearics, topless bathing draws no glances or whispers, as it might do in northern climes. The real faux pas isn’t taking your top off, it’s flinching when someone else does (take note, travelling Brits, Germans and Scandis). Further east, Greece has a different etiquette. It has little to do with what you wear, where you lay your towel or plant a parasol. Instead, it’s about what you’re willing to share. If a nearby family slices a watermelon and holds out a piece, you never say “no”. All Hellenic hospitality begins with sharing – and accepting – food.

In France, participation in rituals is more a matter of timing. On the Côte d’Azur, the beach empties not because the sun’s afternoon rays are too harsh but because lunch has rumbled around. By early afternoon, most towels are folded, espadrilles are re-donned and swaths of sand fall eerily quiet. Turning down an invitation to lunch, or worse – eating a sad sandwich on your towel – is a social mistake. 

My advice? Don’t rock the boat. Whether you’re setting up camp on a Portuguese strand, bathing in the shifting tides of an Italian bagni or putting your towel down on one of the Côte d’Azur’s pebbled beaches, follow the lead of the locals. Oh, and don’t sit there – that spot is taken.

Joana Moser is Monocle’s radio researcher. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Suspended above the landscape, the circular pool of Morella Vell, a vast homestead in eastern Menorca, offers an expansive view. The relentless tramuntana winds comb the land, leaving only grass, shrubs and south-tilting trees in their wake. Houses here have also evolved to withstand these powerful gusts. As places of refuge and regeneration, these residences are proof of locals’ ability to respond to the elements.

“Menorca is an island of contrasts,” says architect Antonio Obrador. “But the Balearic way of life is about learning to live in harmony with the outdoors.” Hailing from Mallorca, Obrador heads up Palmabased Estudio Antonio Obrador. Quick to dismiss the spread of cookie-cutter architecture across the globe, he prefers to enhance his projects’ singularity by bringing underlying layers to the fore.

A semi-ruined estate, Morella Vell is surrounded by 100 hectares of protected land, which Obrador first began working on in 2004. Restoration efforts continued until 2011, by which time the former dairy farm had been transformed into an elegant multi-building residence. “From the outset, the vision was to create a network of niches in which to rest and reflect, and give people room to migrate around the house,” says Obrador. “There’s space for privacy, pause and communal connection.” The home is defined by three main structures. Inside, large windows offer cinematic views from the lower levels, while smaller sash windows, known in Spain as guillotine windows, are preserved on the south-facing façades of the upper levels.

Two stone buildings that once housed cows have been converted into guest quarters and capacious entertaining areas. By introducing a degree of separation between homeowners and guests, Obrador sought to strike a balance when it came to hosting duties. “Inviting guests is attractive but also risky,” he says with a laugh. “Clear boundaries are a must.” There’s a leisurely touch to the interiors, with soft textiles, art books and frames enlivening the walls. Cabinets of curiosities filled with sea shells hint at regular walks along the coast. The fireplaces remind us that Balearic homes are used to host guests in winter too. Several years into the project, the discovery of a talaiot, an ancient temple dating back to the Stone Age, added complexity. Mystique surrounds Menorca’s many megalithic structures, with more than 1,600 archaeological sites scattered across the island. “As an architect, chancing upon ruins is both a pleasure and an obligation – namely to respect the past and give it more protagonism in the present.”

The resulting heritage process meant that a basement needed to be relocated and an entire structure had to be de- and then reconstructed. “The discovery became a virtue,” says Obrador. “It pushed us to create more synergy with the house’s colours, textures and the vernacular.”

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It is not easy for Nauru to get on the news. The Pacific island microstate is the world’s third-smallest country by area, ahead of the Vatican and Monaco, and, by population, ahead of the Vatican and Tuvalu. Nauru is in the middle, approximately, of nowhere: an hour and a bit by air from Kiribati, three hours and change from Fiji, four and a half from Brisbane.

The island’s diminutive size and remote location have historically made it difficult for the country to make any kind of soft-power splash. Nauru had a go during the 1970s and 1980s, when deposits of phosphate-rich calcified guano made it possibly the world’s wealthiest country per capita. During its brief, high-rolling run as the Saudi Arabia of bird crap, Nauru built the tallest building in Melbourne, subsidised a national airline, bankrolled a West End musical and didn’t collect taxes. One Nauruan police officer bought a Lamborghini, a debatable purchase considering that the island had 19 kilometres of paved road.

For Nauru, having since mismanaged itself into penury, making headlines now requires bold thinking and there are few manoeuvres more audacious than changing names. Nauru is now the Republic of Naoero and Nauruans are henceforth dei-Naoero. The alteration restores primacy to the Indigenous, traditional nomenclature that had been anglicised in deference to foreigners who struggled to pronounce it (Naoero is Now-ero, give or take, which isn’t that complicated, and certainly less deceptive than Kiribati, which, despite appearances, is pronounced Kiri-bass). When Naoero’s president, David Adeang, pitched the switch earlier this year, he said that it would “more faithfully honour our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity”.

Naoero has not been the only country in recent years to have furnished work for cartographers by making a decision of this kind. Swaziland became Eswatini in 2018, partly as an assertion of national identity, and partly – so King Mswati III claimed – because it was tired of being mistaken for Switzerland. Turkey announced in 2022 that it would prefer to be known as Türkiye, partly as an assertion of national identity, partly because it was tired of its association with an ungainly bird that is synonymous with stupidity and failure.

Some of the 21st century’s other national name changers have acted out of convenience. In 2019, Macedonia added the prefix “North” to finally – if grudgingly – end an interminable and inane diplomatic row with Greece, which staked an exclusive claim to the name. In 2016, the Czech Republic announced it would rather be known as Czechia, much as the French Republic is the official name of France: it’s shorter, snappier and easier to chant at football games.

Mostly, however, national name changes have been undertaken for the same reason as any corporate rebrand: to signal that the enterprise is under new management. This is, in general, perfectly fair enough. Upon gaining independence in 1964 and 1980, Zambia and Zimbabwe no longer wished to be called Northern or Southern Rhodesia, after the CEO of the British mining company that had occupied and exploited their land. Names such as Malawi, Mali, Benin, Botswana and Burkina Faso are also indisputably cooler than whatever those countries were once saddled with by some pith-helmeted European.

There will likely be more reasons not to invest in a new globe just yet. The big one to watch is India. Several Indian cities (Bombay/Mumbai, Madras/Chennai, Calcutta/Kolkata, et al) have already reverted to traditional names, and the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has intermittently flirted with the nation’s official Sanskrit name, Bharat. Georgia might also be worth keeping an eye on. It awkwardly shares a name with an American state and Georgians themselves call their country Sakartvelo, which is pleasingly evocative of some mythical mediaeval realm of mountaintop castles.

In 2021 one New Zealand party – Te Pāti Māori, which held two seats in the House of Representatives – gathered more than 70,000 signatures on a petition to formally rename the country Aotearoa, an Indigenous word translating as “the land of the long white cloud”. Whatever inconvenience might be occasioned by rewriting the national anthem (“God Defend New Zealand”), Aotearoa is way prettier than any bequest of homesick Dutchmen. In the end, maps are not carved into marble.

Andrew Mueller is a regular Monocle contributor and host of ‘The Foreign Desk’. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

The first half of 2026 has been bumpy for the global travel market. While demand for flights remains high, the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran has disrupted aviation, from complications of planning flight paths around expanding conflict zones to the not-so-small matter of rising fuel prices.

Despite all this, the situation in the Gulf does not appear to have dimmed the appetite for private air travel. As commercial airlines wrestle with airspace restrictions, supply-chain pressures and rising operating costs, the private-aviation market seems to be cruising at a different altitude. International events such as the Monaco Grand Prix and Fifa World Cup have helped to keep demand for long-range business jets firmly on course.

Olivier Perdriel can vouch for the resilience of the sector. He founded aircraft management company Skyfirst with a single jet, a Bombardier Learjet 45, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Eighteen years later, the Paris-based operator manages a fleet of ultra-long-range aircrafts for business leaders around the world.

On a recent visit to Monocle’s Paris bureau, Perdriel spoke to Tom Edwards about managing uncertainty amid geopolitical disruption, preserving the exceptional service that private aviation clients expect and the direction of travel for the industry. 

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full interview on The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio.

How healthy is the private-aviation market right now?
The market is quite good. If you look at the OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], manufacturers have order books stretching over the next two years, so a significant number of new aircraft is still coming into the market. Flight activity is steady and increasing in some areas. In the US, for example, the market is actually booming, which is striking given the current geopolitical backdrop. At first glance, things look very strong but it’s the uncertainty that causes difficulties. In our business, that uncertainty creates real operational difficulties, when you’re flying around the world and dealing with countries that you can no longer fly over or operate into. So the business is good but the current environment makes it much harder to know exactly where we’re heading.

How do you build a private aviation business that can withstand geopolitical shocks?
When there is instability, the most important thing is to stay steady on our side and keep doing the work properly with even more care than usual. Insurance requirements and landing permits can change within hours, so our job is to stay focused, anticipate problems and be ready to react quickly. Most of our flights are for business travellers and they still need to operate around the world. As countries become more complex to fly into or over, our job becomes more complex as well. The key is to provide a consistent service and remain responsive when something changes.

Tell me about the fleet.
Today we mainly operate Dassault Falcon 7Xs and 8Xs, as well as some Bombardier Global Express aircraft. Each type has its own strengths, whether that’s range, cabin comfort, performance or operational flexibility. Our job is to make the best possible use of the aircraft that we are operating and deliver the service that the client expects. One advantage we have is that we operate aircraft from all three brands, Gulfstream, Dassault Aviation and Bombardier. They all have different cultures too – one is American, one is French – and that also shapes the relationships you have. It makes the business dynamic.

Who is the typical Skyfirst client?
It would be a CEO or a senior business leader who operates internationally. They are all different and want different things, so the key is adaptability. Our job is to understand their needs and make sure that they arrive at their destination in the best possible condition for whatever they have to do next. And of course, we enjoy flying all our clients because, at the end of the day, we’re helping them to save time in the best possible conditions. 

What does aircraft management involve beyond operating the jet?
There are essentially two types of owners. Some buy an aircraft purely for their own use, usually through a company, and create an in-house flight department with their own pilots and technical staff. Then there is charter management, which is where we operate. In that model, the owner entrusts the management of the aircraft to an operator like us. That includes the crew, training, recruitment, maintenance, flight planning, compliance and all the worldwide regulations. It is also about relationships. More and more, simply picking up the phone and speaking directly to a person is what makes the difference.

Tell us a bit more about the company’s hands-on approach and how Skyfirst supports its clients.
It starts with the team; I’m very proud of the people I work with because they do an excellent job. We put people first. We try to stay in contact with everyone, anticipate problems and handle things in the most human way possible. We’re not perfect but that mindset is very important to us. Reputation matters enormously. The goal is that when the passenger arrives, everything feels smooth and effortless from [point] A to B. Most of our flights are for business travellers. They often fly overnight and [head] straight into important meetings. If we can provide a calm, efficient and seamless service on board, we like to think that we are helping them arrive in the best possible condition. In that sense, what drives us is the belief that we are part of our clients’ success.

I’m not normally one for a horror movie – I’ve been known to read a plot synopsis before going to the cinema so that I’m not a shaking wreck throughout. But when Backrooms hit theatres at the start of the summer, I knew that I’d have to watch it. Created by wunderkind director Kane Parsons, the film is a pastiche of 1990s aesthetics and design: it follows the fortunes of a furniture salesman as he makes his way through a landscape of liminal spaces, inspired by the big-box warehouses and the corridors of nondescript hotels and corporate offices of the era.

Think seas of beige carpeting, drop ceilings and fluorescent lights. There are sets filled with chunky pine furniture and skirted, slip-covered armchairs too. The outdated visual landscape was intended to trigger a strange and lonely fear. And it was largely effective. But for me, whenever an overstuffed roll-arm sofa made an appearance (set against a background of chintz) that feeling of disquiet ebbed just a little bit. The horror of the liminal space suddenly balanced out by a sense of comfort.

At the time of viewing, I had chalked it up to pure 1990s nostalgia but a recent conversation with London-based Linda Boronkay for Monocle on Design pointed to the potential for a deeper meaning. Speaking to the designer about how she creates spaces, she mentioned that furniture and objects – not just architecture – are among her most (if not the most) powerful tools. “I choose objects based on their aesthetic and material value, as well as their energy,” she said to me, adding that these still need to work in concert with everything from good lighting to correct placement. “But I believe in animism – the idea that even objects have a spiritual energy and charge.” Such a quality, she said, comes from an object’s ability to carry a memory or an association with a person or moment.

It clicked. What’s terrifying about Backrooms is how it evokes the worst of 1990s environments – a time when soulless big-box shops were ubiquitously rewriting the look and feel of neighbourhoods, and new single-family houses began growing in size, paving the way for McMansions and suburban loneliness. More than any single object, the scale of such spaces – cavernous, overlit corridors and empty, oversized rooms – unsettled me most. In contrast, the film’s furniture – wooden ladder-back dining chairs, moulded plastic seating, honey-oak cabinets – carried an uplifting anima. Despite intending to reference a mismatched showroom display, it recalled feelings of cosiness and closeness, defined by family holidays at rentals down the coast and Christmas at my uncle’s place.

It’s easy to see furniture as second fiddle to architecture. But Parsons, and by extension Boronkay, show that considering the anima of the objects in our curation can shape a space as much as the four walls that define it. So, search for the objects that speak to you – fill your home with pieces that have meaningful energy. And if you’re still scared of watching Backrooms (now streaming and still in a few theatres worldwide), take comfort in its anima-imbued furniture – it might just get you through the terror of its liminal spaces.

Anima in action: Linda Boronkay is a leading interior designer. She’s particularly known for her characterful hotels, including Osborn House in the southern highlands of New South Wales. Read our full report on this outstanding hospitality project here.

First things first: the fear of AI writing replacing that of humans is a big, over-cooked, red herring. A new study published in the Journal of Judgement and Decision Making in the US is being picked up by the panicky press to suggest that humans can’t always tell the difference between human-penned and machine-made prose. Shock horror. Can you hear the novelists and the journalists quaking in their boots yet? I can – but I’m not sure they should.

Beyond the headlines, if I’m permitted to venture so far, the “Bot or not” study suggests some caveats. True, the people polled can’t always tell the difference between work by ChatGPT and a human author but think about it. Are you surprised? Not all human authors are very good. Even fewer are unanimously popular. The study’s main conclusion could as easily have been summed up with a sigh and the phrase “there’s no accounting for taste”.
 
There’s also a perverse logic at play in the panic. Fretting that AI can write better than (some) humans is like pitting a powerful calculator against mental arithmetic, a hammer against a soft human hand or a Range Rover against a sprinter. Praising the tool misses the point. Human endeavour – in sport, literature, art, mountain climbing, whatever – is only interesting because it’s done by weak, fleshy, imperfect, irrational, flighty and benighted people like you (and me, I suppose).

With the complete works of Shakespeare, Baudelaire and Chekhov at its robot-writing desk, it stands to reason that a trained machine could scrabble together the rudiments of a pretty good yarn. There are rules to follow, text to copy and ideas to ape, a Moby Dick to dive into and a Frankenstein to borrow from.

The study suggests that stories composed by computers lack nuance, complexity or ambiguity. They mush rather than meld the human world that they misunderstand. What people like about them isn’t the awesome power of their insight; it is – the study says – their simplicity. But since when are the most rewarding or interesting things always just the easiest to read? How can we solve or discuss the issues we face if everyone is skimming the un-fact-checked dummy’s guide version of reality? Truth, beauty, irony, anger, art, justice, war – not simple.
 
Which brings me swiftly onto journalism and the renewed importance of the human editor (I would say that, of course). Much has been made of the capacity of AI to aggregate news but let’s not forget who’s gathering it. Without a source, a person on the ground to bear witness and be present, there’s no search business for the tech titans to tantalise us with or sell their advertising against. Human judgement, an experienced reporter, genuine insights and fresh ideas are becoming more, not less vital. They are valuable as the reservoir of AI slop and slurry deepens. Publications and people who deserve trust are at a premium, something to cling to in a sea of uncertainty. 
 
Pleasingly, the study also showed that people preferred things they were told were written by humans. Even the naïfs who didn’t spot a computer pretending to be human were rooting for their own species. In the end, we want connections, not “content”.  
 
And last but not least, as cleverer, more amusing people than me have noted long before this little rant, computers can’t do it all. They’re not funny. They lack a sense of irony, timing, whimsy and the absurd. They don’t get it.
 
Like most herrings, red or otherwise, the idea that human experience, insight or creativity can be replaced by a mirthless mimic machine is best enjoyed with a pinch of salt.

Josh Fehnert is inferior to a machine by almost any measure. But he is – for now – Monocle’s editor. Subscribe today to support our independent, human-made journalism.

Most museums are not grand institutions. They are compact, regional archives tucked behind market squares, housed in former chapels or sequestered in railway buildings. Often maintained by volunteers and built around private collections or singular obsessions, mini museums play important roles in documenting community histories and preserving niche portfolios. 

While large institutions often draw bigger crowds and boast impressive collections, small ones can offer an intimacy and focus you can’t find elsewhere. You can linger in exhibitions without being jostled, discover overlooked histories and see everything in a single visit. Though institutions such as the Louvre or The Metropolitan Museum of Art have a wealth of masterpieces, many visitors see only a fraction of what is on offer and still leave feeling a sense of museum fatigue. 

But what, exactly, is considered a small museum? The Small Museums Committee at the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) surveyed industry workers and found that common characteristics of small institutions include an annual budget of less than $250,000 (€216,960). But budget can often be an unreliable criterion: two museums of a similar square meterage and footfall can report wildly different figures depending on whether they’re independently funded or backed by a municipality, which absorbs certain costs that a private institution must carry itself. 

Visitor numbers offer a slightly steadier measure. The UK’s Association of Independent Museums defines a small museum as one with 20,000 visitors or fewer a year. But that, too, is a squidgy metric, as visitor numbers can vary widely depending on city size and other factors. In the words of the AASLH, “If you think you’re small, you’re small.” 

Setting our threshold at 30,000 visitors a year, we asked Monocle correspondents from around the world to send us their favourite small museums that offer insight into regional history, art or a specialist subject that is not celebrated elsewhere. For more on the importance of these institutions, listen to this episode of Monocle on Saturday. 

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Extinct Media Museum
Tokyo 

Unlike most galleries, which (not unreasonably) have a “look but don’t touch” policy, the Extinct Media Museum in Tokyo actively encourages visitors to pick up any of the hundreds of vintage mobile phones, cameras, cassette recorders and electric typewriters on display. A visit to this pocket-sized private museum, just a short walk from Tokyo Station, makes for an absorbing outing. On display are generations of electronic devices that were state of the art only a few years ago and already look like antiques. Coming here is both a nostalgia trip and a chastening reminder of how fast technology changes. 

Museum director Takuya Kawai has pulled in some milestone pieces – Sony’s first cassette recorder (1966) and Apple’s first iMac (1998) – but it’s the modest objects that catch the eye, remarkable not for their design but for how they once featured heavily in daily life. There are curiosities that would otherwise be forgotten: recording formats such as Minidiscs and Betamax that flourished in Japan but couldn’t thrive in an increasingly connected world, alongside picture discs, camcorders and car radios. There are boxes of catalogues, dozens of mobile phones and many, many cameras, including Double 8 movie cameras; the Minolta Hi-matic (from 1962), the first Japanese camera used in space; and a Victor GR-C1 video recorder from 1984 that appeared in Back to the Future. Nothing is off limits. 

Of the 4,000 items in its archive, Kawai says that about 80 per cent has been donated and, as the notice board reveals, the hunt for more continues. Though the museum is often open until 19.00, make sure to check its website for its opening hours before planning a visit.
extinct-media-museum.blog.jp

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Casa Broner
Ibiza, Spain

Weave your way up through Sa Penya, Ibiza’s white-walled labyrinth that was once the main port’s fishermen’s quarter, and you’ll eventually arrive at this house-museum. Perched on the cliff’s edge, it was built in 1960 and was home to Erwin Broner, one of the island’s most celebrated architects. It has been open to the public since 2011 thanks to a generous donation from his widow. A rendition of the traditional Ibicenco house, Broner experimented with a more tempered rationalist style to create a peaceful enclave tempered by perfectly framed views of the island’s southerly sea. 

Entry is free but opening hours are limited so it’s best to double check before venturing up the steep incline of the cobbled streets. Little known even to many locals, Casa Broner’s confines offer a great place to ponder the island’s ever-changing tides while learning about the artist movement that transformed the White Isle into the hedonistic hotspot that it is today. 
mace.eivissa.es 

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Villa Mairea
Noormarkku, Finland

Villa Mairea – completed in 1939 as a residence for industrialists Maire and Harry Gullichsen – is a key residential work by Alvar Aalto, Finland’s best-known architect. Renowned for shaping human-centred modernism, Aalto prioritised light, materials and everyday use in his work. The house blends modernist planning with natural materials and references to Finnish vernacular architecture. Privately owned but open to guided tours, the villa offers visitors a detailed walkthrough of its rooms filled with preserved original furniture and art. The surrounding pine forest is an essential part of the experience, inviting guests to explore both the architecture and the setting.
alvaraalto.fi

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Masa
Mexico City

Launched by a collective of artists, designers and architects, Masa was founded as a travelling showcase that offered a platform for experimental and collectable designs. After five years of producing site-specific installations around Mexico City and beyond, the project settled into a permanent home in Mexico City’s San Miguel Chapultepec neighbourhood in 2023.

For the co-founders, the 1846 colonial-era house immediately felt like a physical extension of the gallery, a place where the spirit of the project could continue to be explored and represented long-term. And that’s no coincidence – the museum site was once a gathering space for the neighborhood’s vibrant creative community. Under the curatorship of Su Wu, the gallery presents rotating exhibitions with previous shows including works by Héctor Esrawe, Jose Dávila and design practice Ex Soup.
mmaassaa.com

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Wing Luke Museum
Seattle, US

In 1910, enterprising Chinese immigrants to the US skirted a prohibition on foreign property ownership and erected the Kong Yick Buildings in Seattle’s burgeoning Chinatown. The four-storey brick edifices divided into single-room flats served as the first home for thousands of immigrants after their journey across the Pacific. A century later, the Smithsonian-affiliated Wing Luke Museum incorporated the heritage structure into a modern museum that celebrates Asian and Pacific American art, culture and history. A tour brings to life the cramped living conditions of young men seeking a better life, while a permanent exhibition honours the city’s famed son, martial artist Bruce Lee. 
wingluke.org

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Haida Heritage Centre
Haida Gwaii, Canada

More than two million cruise-ship passengers will ply the waters off Canada’s West Coast this summer en route to Alaska but the floating behemoths won’t stop at Haida Gwaii. About 30,000 intrepid travellers annually venture to this remote British Columbia archipelago, formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands. Last year Ottawa granted the aboriginal people’s land title – the first such voluntary recognition in Canadian history – whose isolated homeland has helped preserve their language and culture. The landmark decision was a cause for celebration at the Haida Heritage Centre, a modern interpretation of a traditional village site, where the next generation learns traditional crafts including carving cedar canoes and argillite sculptures.
haidaheritagecentre.com 

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The Intan
Singapore

This small, private museum in the historic Joo Chiat enclave is a jewel box of Peranakan (an ethnic group descended from Chinese settlers who intermarried with local Malays) artefacts. Founder Alvin Yapp has spent more than three decades collecting thousands of culturally significant objects, such as beaded slippers, mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture, hand-painted sarongs and enamel tiffin carriers. What truly separates the Intan from other Peranakan experiences are Yapp’s rich, personal stories on an array of cultural themes, from heirloom pieces to wedding customs and family rituals. Tour options include a one-hour tea experience (complete with traditional bite-sized nyonya kuehs) as well as a 90-minute lunch or dinner. Visits are strictly by appointment only. 
the-intan.com

It’s day three of a semi-planned, somewhat impromptu road trip that came together thanks to a little bit of direct intervention from some hotel managers (I’m of the view that a hotel is never fully booked), some flexibility with dates and the firing up of a vintage iPod packed with 25 years of my favourite hits. Let’s roll!

Honk, honk!
We set off from Zürich around lunchtime on Wednesday and after four hours and 30 minutes we were turning down the lane to Villa Arnica in Lana – the third time this year. As ever, the sunny crew were on hand to greet us, the pool was a perfect 26C and the menacing storm clouds made a few rumbles but – knowing better than to spoil the mood – politely stayed on their side of the peaks. My colleague Linda (more on our Südtirol outpost at the end of this column) joined us for a super dinner at 1477 Reichhalter and the following morning we set off south. Our destination: Lake Garda.

Wait! Where’s mom?
Worry not, she’s either minding the shop with Linda or she’s poolside at the Villa. Should you swing by our store on Dantestrasse in Merano over the coming days and a woman with big eyewear gives you a little painted ornament or upsells you something bold and graphic on canvas, she’ll likely be my mom. And no, dear reader, I won’t forget to pick her up on my swing back north.

Hey, Mr Deejay!
Last summer we drove the boxy little Jimny from Zürich to Lisbon via San Sebastián and relied on spinning the dial the whole trip to find the right radio stations across Switzerland, France, Spain and Portugal. The beauty of the exercise was picking up a few new songs and getting into various regional moods but the road trip most definitely lacked some of the classic playlists that vanished when my tiny iPod disappeared into some plush upholstery. Thankfully, a very observant reader took notice, went to the trouble of tracking down a fully functioning iPod and offered it as a most thoughtful gift. I’m not big on streaming services and would have been very happy if the Land Cruiser had a CD slot – but the return of the iPod has been nothing short of transformative. Miki Matsubara, Angèle, Saint Etienne, Lisa Ekdahl, Clara Luciani and many more have all been getting plenty of play time.

Another villa
Is it stay number 20? Could it be more? On Thursday afternoon, we rolled down the driveway and crunched to a stop on the gravel at Villa Feltrinelli. For the past 25 years, this establishment on the western shore of Lake Garda has been a summer constant. You know a GM (the delightful Herr Odermatt) and the owners are doing something right when many of the staff from your first stay are still around to look after you at breakfast, round the pool and on the massage table.

Take the plunge
There are few hotel swims quite as satisfying as doing a two-metre dive off the jetty at the Feltrinelli. The long, dark pool cut into the lawn has its fans but the best summer day starts with a pre-breakfast plunge into Garda’s cool, rolling waves.

Continue south
By the time you read this, I should be on the Med and lunching at il Pellicano. As ever, there’ll be a more timely update on Monocle on Sunday and, if you’re game for a thoroughly Monocle road trip across the Alps, take a ride with our Robert Bound as he guides you from Zürich to St Moritz to Merano and all the way back to our little shop at Zürich Airport.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns. 

As Japan’s summers grow hotter, the country is trying everything to keep its cool. Wipes, sprays and fans are big business here; the nation is also a leader when it comes to fabrics that counter the worst of the season. Apparel makers are throwing resources into the latter sector for good reason. The global cooling-fabrics market is projected to be worth €2.5bn by 2030. And where Japan goes, others follow. Asia-Pacific is now the fastest-growing market for this sort of heat-busting clothing.

Technical fabrics, once reserved for sportswear, are moving into the Japanese mainstream. Take, for example, Muji’s Cool Touch line-up of shirts, dresses and trousers that uses uniquely shaped cotton and polyester yarns to allow fabrics to absorb heat and diffuse sweat more quickly. Uniqlo’s summer juggernaut is airism, the smooth, moisture-absorbing fabric that the brand developed with synthetic-fibre manufacturer Toray. The North Face’s Japanese line uses its breathable UV-blocking fabric Breeze Range for a fetching line of Aloha shirts.

Shoppers understandably don’t want their T-shirts and underwear to look or feel like workout gear, so makers have been refining their yarns to maximise comfort. After learning that sweaty undergarments were its customers’ biggest source of summer discomfort, Gunze set about tackling it. The brand’s sweat-busting Asedoron range of T-shirts, boxers and camisoles has sold more than four million units since its launch in 2024. “The market now is about even faster drying,” says Hidetoshi Takeyasu, Gunze’s general manager of merchandising strategy, “along with the development of hybrid fabrics that combine value-added features, such as UV protection, heat shielding and odour control.”

Sweltering temperatures have become a significant health concern. The Japan Meteorological Agency recently adopted a new term for days of 40c and above – kokushobi (literally, “brutally hot day”) – and employers can now be fined if workers’ smart watches show signs of heatstroke. Workman, a brand favoured by Japanese construction workers, is producing lightweight synthetic fabrics (such as Ice Assist) that cool, block UV and dry quickly while also being durable and cheap.

Some of the best Japanese fashion brands, such as Aton and Comoli, work closely with domestic factories to produce custom fabrics with natural materials that perform well in the heat and humidity of a Japanese summer. History has other answers too. Tanaka Hat has been making its straw hats in Kasukabe, in Saitama, since the end of the 19th century. The hats are made from slender straw plaits – each hand-braided from seven strands of wheat stem – that are soaked in water, then sewn together on a special machine and shaped on a mould. It’s a highly skilled process that involves different craftsmen at every stage. Stray strands are then clipped by hand; the final touch is the decoration, usually a ribbon. “Straw hats breathe well due to the natural material,” says brand manager Kyohei Nakada.

“Consumer demand for cooling fabrics is growing rapidly,” says Gunze’s Takeyasu – which comes as little surprise. “Japan’s traditional four-season climate is giving way to more of a two-season pattern, with summer lasting far longer than it used to.” This shift is evidently motivating the problem-solving brains in the textiles business.

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Discover Monocle’s selection of Japanese products to keep you feeling fresh this summer in our seasonal newspaper:

Are you a plate flipper? I can’t stop myself. Same with glasses. The labels on the towels. Where is this stuff made, I wonder? Often the answer is a delight but too often a disappointment.

Hotel groups have – like lots of brands – locked on to the fact that people are seeking authenticity. And when that comes to travel it means delivering that cliché, “a sense of place”. Guests don’t want to arrive in a room stripped of connections to the spot where it sits and where, as you awake, it’s hard to recall if you are in Milan or Minnesota without opening the curtains.

The only trouble is, if you are a hotel group, it’s very hard to stop your central buying team from dispatching the same plates, towels and even art, to every property in your portfolio. It’s quicker and cheaper. 

I’m in Mallorca on holiday and have been doing a lot of crockery flipping. Last night we ate at a hotel where they emphasise the efforts they have gone to provide a made in Spain – and in particular Mallorca – experience. There’s lots to admire. Yet a quick flip of the plate reveals the mark of an Italian crockery company, the glasses are etched “made in Slovakia”, the pepper grinder is German.

Just down the road from our home in Palma is an example of what happens when a hotel is created by people who want you to flip the plates – and read the wine label, ask where the food is grown, even who made the sofas.

The Terreno Barrio Hotel, which opened this year (we have reported on the project), is owned by hotelier Lydia Piñero and was developed through a series of creative conversations with friends and designers. She was figuring out how to build a hotel that was truly of place and which could be of benefit to its neighbours (this would lead to adding co-working places, an outdoor gym now used by locals). And she signed Ohlab architects, an ambitious practice run by Jaime Oliver and Paloma Hernaiz, to deliver the scheme.

Instead of going to fast-turnaround contract furniture companies, Ohlab commissioned island makers to create as much as possible in Mallorca. It wasn’t easy, took time and required businesses to rescale. But as I sat at the rooftop bar the other night – drinking local wine, eating Mallorcan olives – I realised that there is a subtle manifesto about the future of hotel design in every fibre of this building.

There’s another take on this idea down the road in the new Mandarin Oriental resort at Punta Negra, which also featured in the supplement of our just out Med, Mountains & More newspaper. This Hong Kong-anchored hospitality player could have docked with a property that gave just a few nods to local talent to appease guests – but it hasn’t. And one of the best things they did was to hire the art advisor and curator Paloma Fernández-Iriondo, who filled the resort with specially commissioned artworks by artists based or born in Spain and whose stories reflect Mallorca’s history as a cultural crossroads. She installed works – such as Fran Aniorte’s tiled Balearic Constellation – that are riven with meaning but also fit with a Mediterranean hotel vibe. Fernández-Iriondo focused on finding artists without representation and located many of them by driving around the island, knocking on studio doors. It’s commendable – it took time and required them to ignore the easy path.

I don’t want to put Italian crockery makers out of business. But as hotel brands offer up increasingly elaborate stories of provenance, it’s important that they are true, that their stories withstand scrutiny. We need brands to do the hard work, to be genuine. Otherwise, the plate flippers will catch them out.

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