Monocle Weekend
Edition: Saturday

This week, we ponder the political significance of US vice-presidential attire, receive a few words to the wise about Italian summers, shield ourselves from the dazzling sun with a pair of APC’s new line of sunglasses, while the Concierge whisks us off to Cyprus to sample the island’s hidden pleasures. But first, Andrew Tuck reflects on his 20-year love affair with Mallorca…

It’s been 20 years since we first came to Mallorca. On that initial foray, we stayed at the Portixol Hotel. It’s still there, sitting on a promontory by a small marina, a hospitality lighthouse. I remember that summer so vividly – the evenings when we would borrow the hotel’s bikes and cycle into the city, weaving through the narrow streets of the Old Town, the brightness of day giving way to peach-soft evening light.

With all that’s been going on over the past few days, we haven’t wanted to stray too far from our hound or the home that, 20 years on, we now have and cherish in Palma. So, leaving Macy in the coolness of the apartment on Monday for a few hours, we took our bikes and headed along the coastal pathway to the Portixol for lunch, for old times’ sake. It was 37C and the ocean dazzled. They gave us a table under the shade of an awning, where we had lunch two decades ago. Staff positioned a giant fan to keep us cool – or at least let us experience a 1980s pop-video wind-machine vibe. The hotel felt unchanged in a good way and it was nice to be back in the place where our island relationship began. We lingered. We talked. We had another glass. Sheltered.

Another place that has seen rather a lot of all three of us over the past few days is the Hotel Araxa. It’s a modest walk from our home and I love it for many reasons. It’s not fancy – a three-star hotel – but what it lacks in grandeur it makes up for with modernist beauty. The hotel was built in 1958 by architect Francesc Mitjans i Miró, who also designed the Palma Sport & Tennis Club, and sits in a mostly residential neighbourhood. Somehow, over the years, it hasn’t been messed up. Its white lattice screens still shade the walkways and its pool looks a little old-school Hollywood. In its verdant garden, it has a terrace where you can dine alfresco with a dog on your lap. Don’t go if you want statement cooking – most evenings, there are some nice old dears having a vermut and a piano player if you’re lucky. It’s unselfconsciously retro.

Sans pooch, we also selected another spot for lunch, in part because of the venue’s architect. Sixty years ago, Josep Antoni Coderch completed the Hotel de Mar, just outside of Palma in Cas Català, in a desirable spot by the sea. Coderch was a rising star at the time and is now regarded as one the century’s greatest talents. While the building’s interior is much changed, its exterior is the same, its walls still covered with glazed brown tiles that have lent the place another name – hotel de chocolate. We booked a table in the new Bombon pool club by Alberta Ferretti (only guests can use the tempting pool) and took in the lobby exhibition about Coderch and the hotel. Then we found a cove to swim in, looked back to shore and allowed the water to do its magic.

But the dog’s the thing and this week she has also found herself dozing under a table at the Patiki Beach restaurant in Port de Sóller. How what is essentially a series of lock-up garages transforms into one of the island’s hipper restaurants every summer is a miracle. Macy also joined us for dinner at Hotel Corazón, on the road from Sóller up to Deià. It looked as though all the guests had the same stylist. The table next to us was filled with Italians on the island for a fashion shoot; there was also someone who could have laid down a challenge to Sam Smith when it came to wardrobe decisions. It was just what we needed. Macy slept under my feet, oblivious to the cats that had the place staked out.

Then we drove back down the looping mountain road, the blackness broken by a prying moon. A chiaroscuro world. Happy, we drove in silence, holding on to this moment. Filing it away for future reference.

US presidential campaigns worry about what is called “balancing the ticket” – selecting a running mate who possesses attributes and qualities that the main candidate does not (writes Andrew Mueller). This year, Donald Trump, an elderly blowhard with weird ideas about women, has selected Ohio senator JD Vance, a younger blowhard with weird ideas about women. Kamala Harris, a woman of Jamaican-Indian heritage, has chosen Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, who is arguably America’s whitest man. The two aspirant veeps are in themselves a stark contrast, as different in their deportment as they are in their political views. For a start, Vance has a beard, an affectation rarely sighted in US politics. Give or take a goatee (with which Harry Truman experimented circa 1948), Americans have not knowingly elected a bearded president since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Every vice-president since the merely moustached Charles Curtis, who served from 1929 to 1933, has been clean-shaven.

A popular rumour also holds that Vance wears eyeshadow. This has been denied by his wife but it is nevertheless the case that, right down to the too-tight suits, Vance looks very much like a bass player who flounced from an early incarnation of New York rock band The Strokes to pursue what turned out to be an ill-advised solo career. As for Walz, he has smartened up a bit for the marquee appearances but his essential shtick – reasonable, middle-aged, Midwestern dad – will give Red Wing boots, LL Bean overcoats and Carhartt jackets a considerable amount of free advertising between now and polling day. The variance between the veep candidates neatly illustrates the US’s recent political inversion: one does not require a long memory to recall a time when the Republicans were seen as the party of ordinary Americans and the Democrats as the party of oddballs and kooks.

There are a few key terms that you’ll need to know if you’re heading to Italy this summer (writes Ed Stocker). The first is the concept of bollino rosso or nero, which gets bandied about in the Italian press as soon as the mercury rises and everyone decides to converge on the nation’s beaches at the same time. Meaning “red” and “black mark”, the terms describe how heavy the road traffic is, with the former being pretty bad and the latter being Armageddon.

Italians recently celebrated Ferragosto, a national holiday that marks the culmination of summer. In parts of the south, it’s apparently deemed bad luck to swim on that day. Ferragosto provides Italians with a useful opportunity to take advantage of a ponte – another piece of vocabulary that you should know. Literally meaning “bridge”, it refers to the practice of linking, say, a midweek holiday to the weekend by taking off the intervening days.

My advice? If you want to avoid the stress of the dreaded bollino, don’t follow the masses south and make for the mountains of northern Italy instead. You’ll whizz past the endless lines of cars queuing for the Liguria exit as you steam ahead, a clear road in front of you.

The Monocle Concierge is our purveyor of top tips and delectable recommendations for your next trip. If you’re planning to go somewhere nice and would like some advice,click here. We will answer one question a week.

Dear Concierge,

I’m taking my brother-in-law, wife, three grown children and three grandchildren to Cyprus. We love lying in the sun, jumping off cliffs, swimming and eating mouthwatering food. We would love some guidance about what’s good and what to skip. Thank you very much.

Tucker Braddock,
USA

Dear Tucker,

If you’re after sun and swimming, it’s a good thing that you chose Cyprus. May we direct you towards the town of Protaras in the eastern part of the island? Its abundance of sandy beaches, family-friendly facilities and laid-back tavernas is bound to tick all of your boxes. When it comes to a place to stay, you would be better off renting a villa than booking into a hotel: there are great options near Serena Bay or Ayia Triada beach.

Since you enjoy adventure, Cape Greco is unmissable. One of the most beautiful natural sites on the island, it offers plenty of spots for cliff jumping and diving. For gentler kinds of relaxation, head to the nearby Konnos Bay, which is surrounded by trees. Go early to secure yourself some sunloungers; when you need a break from the heat, retreat to the nearby kiosk for a light lunch of freddo espresso, the locals’ favourite iced coffee, and a halloumi and lountza (cheese and cured pork) sandwich.

There’s just as much to choose from in the evenings. Start with an aperitivo at Cliff Bar in the Grecian Park Hotel and proceed to Kalamies for a seafood feast or Kalifi in nearby Paralimni to enjoy traditional souvlaki and live music. If you can brave the heat, set aside a day to explore the capital city of Nicosia: walk around the old town, stop for a Cypriot coffee and cake at Yiayia Victoria café, and take in the city’s unique cultural blend. It’s also worth visiting the military border on Ledra Street, which divides the northern and southern parts of the city; here, you can get better acquainted with the island’s history and politics. Conclude your stay with a dinner at Beba, a favourite among residents, and a drink at Bálza rooftop bar, which offers panoramic views of the city. Enjoy!

Musician and record producer Mick Harvey spent 25 years as a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He has also collaborated with the likes of PJ Harvey, Anita Lane, The Cruel Sea and The Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster. Later this year he will tour with a reconvened version of Australian punk rockers The Saints. Harvey’s latest solo album, Five Ways to Say Goodbye, is a mix of originals and cover versions.

It has been almost 50 years since you met Nick Cave at high school and started a band. How plausible did an international career in music spanning more than a half-century seem in 1970s Melbourne?
There was no plan like that at all. It was just a fun thing to do, though I did see its potential to become something valuable if we ever got good at it. It was probably punk coming along that gave us focus. Some things happen quite by accident – you find yourself in a particular place at a particular time and things take shape. If we had been two years older, it wouldn’t have happened.

When you were playing in arenas and stadiums, were there a lot of “How did we get here?” moments?
One of the reasons why I left the Bad Seeds is that we were heading down that path of playing in bigger and bigger places, and I didn’t want to do that. Festivals are difficult but sometimes they’re alright. But when you’re doing your own show in a basketball stadium in front of 10,000 people, it’s just hell.

But for almost everyone who straps on a guitar, that’s surely the dream?
I don’t understand that. I saw The Bad Seeds a couple of years ago in Berlin and the show was great but when it went into the more intimate songs, a couple of times it was really lost. That’s the problem with those places. There’s a requirement just to power through and you lose a lot of the subtlety.

So do you feel liberated as a solo artist?
I probably do. Maybe as you grow, you become quite accepting of a lot of things and you find yourself having your time in the sun in a funny way, though I’m more frustrated with humanity as every day goes by. But apart from that, personally, I feel that things are really interesting. And I’m amazed that I have continued making music this long.

APC is best known for its immaculately cut T-shirts, timeless knits and Japanese denim but it has expanded into accessories, starting with an eyewear launch earlier this year. The new line of sunglasses consists of four models in various colours crafted in Japan using matte metal and acetate. Each style is named after a member of pioneering rock band The Velvet Underground. “With sunglasses, there’s always a possible hint of deception but these frames bring a dash of style and mystery without the arrogance,” says APC’s founder, Jean Touitou. “From the most utilitarian to the edgiest, there’s something for everyone.” Our pick is the Sterling, a spin on the classic aviator silhouette that pays tribute to the band’s guitarist and founding member Sterling Morrison.
apcstore.com

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