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For Christmas, The Aficionados have opened a pop-up: a short street of gifts gathered from the hotels, makers and heritage brands we know best. There are stays to give as hotel gift vouchers, crafted things to unwrap, and a few pages of our own, each one linking straight to the people who made it. The street is open until [date], and some of what is on it will not come round again.
The Aficionados have been pleasurably connecting the dots of creativity since 2009, and the pop-up is where the habit turns to gifting. Every door opens onto someone we know, and every purchase is made with them directly.
Our hotels are kept by accidental hoteliers: people who fell for a plot of land, a particular view or an old relic nobody else wanted, and followed it somewhere creative. A gift voucher hands someone a stay inside that story, bought from the owners themselves, who still answer their own emails. Each is valid for twelve months, and where a hotel sends its vouchers digitally, a late decision still makes it under the tree.
Alongside the hotels sit the makers we have gathered as kindred friends along the way: scented candles, a reworked kilt, the perfect hat, ceramics, chocolate. Small runs, materials worth handling, and names worth knowing. Each maker posts from its own workshop with its own last date for Christmas, so it pays to order in good time.
And a little of our own: the magazines, printed in Austria in limited runs and never reprinted, and the tote, made in Portugal and roomy enough for a picnic or a family’s worth of toys.
The word does double duty: the places are aficionados, and so are the people who read about them. Gifts, then, for the design-minded, the host, the reader, the traveller, the dreamer with a plot of land in mind, and anyone who seems to have everything already.
The pop-up closes on 24th December 2026. New arrivals and the next opening are announced first in the Sunday Edit.
A Christmas pop-up from The Aficionados: hotel gift vouchers, crafted goods, heritage brands and our own magazines, linking straight to the people who made them.
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Santa’s House: Christmas gift vouchers from independent hotels in The Aficionados collection, bought directly from the hotels themselves and valid for 12 months.
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Alongside the hotels sit the makers we have gathered as kindred friends along the way: scented candles, a reworked kilt, the perfect hat, ceramics, chocolate. Small runs, materials worth handling, and names worth knowing. Each maker posts from its own workshop with its own last date for Christmas, so it pays to order in good time.
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Perfect travel candy: thirty-six family-owned Mediterranean hotels, no two alike, pressed into 148 full-colour pages of sun, stone and shade. A summer magazine made to be savoured slowly, then kept.
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Get the insider news and lowdown on what we've been up to, where we've been, and who we've met along the way. Be the first to discover new places and get the scoop on our favourites.