Hotel Inspector to Starboard
05/08/09 00:53 Filed in: Cruise Hotel
From The Mail on Sunday (2 Aug 2009)
By Sarah Turner
"Restaurant afloat on the Thames as it comes under the critical eye of TV's Alex Polizzi
SITTING on the deck of the boat, with the sun about to set, we meander sedately downriver. It is a Wind In The Willows experience but less rushed: Jerome K. Jerome without the sense of urgency. On this stretch of the Thames, there are no roads, just farmland, an occasional walker on the towpath and a series of grand houses with lawns down to the water. Just one boat passes us. After a while, Andy Cowley, the skipper and owner of the African Queen, turns the boat around and we head back to its tree-fringed mooring at Mapledurham, near Reading. Nothing much daunts Andy. When he bought the African Queen in 2004, he sailed it across the Irish Sea and has done battle with numerous officials to breathe life into his gloriously eccentric dream"............
"It’s mildly eccentric, very enjoyable: a barge holiday with high production values. It offers the quintessential holiday pleasure of doing nothing. The centre of London is 27 locks and three days away. Reading is a few minutes away. ‘Reading isn’t so bad,’ says Andy, who is passing through. ‘Especially from the water,’ adds Alex. ‘There used to be 1,500 hire boats between Windsor and Oxford but now there are only 70,’ says Andy. Just as you think that there are no hidden parts of Britain – especially a spot just six miles from Reading – you can be surprised. Ironically, that’s the African Queen’s problem. It’s gorgeous, undiscovered and overlooked, but Alex Polizzi is planning to do something about that."
To read the rest of this article please click on the PDF links below.
Click here for a PDF of this article (Part 1)
Click here for a PDF of this article (Part 2)
By Sarah Turner
"Restaurant afloat on the Thames as it comes under the critical eye of TV's Alex Polizzi
SITTING on the deck of the boat, with the sun about to set, we meander sedately downriver. It is a Wind In The Willows experience but less rushed: Jerome K. Jerome without the sense of urgency. On this stretch of the Thames, there are no roads, just farmland, an occasional walker on the towpath and a series of grand houses with lawns down to the water. Just one boat passes us. After a while, Andy Cowley, the skipper and owner of the African Queen, turns the boat around and we head back to its tree-fringed mooring at Mapledurham, near Reading. Nothing much daunts Andy. When he bought the African Queen in 2004, he sailed it across the Irish Sea and has done battle with numerous officials to breathe life into his gloriously eccentric dream"............
"It’s mildly eccentric, very enjoyable: a barge holiday with high production values. It offers the quintessential holiday pleasure of doing nothing. The centre of London is 27 locks and three days away. Reading is a few minutes away. ‘Reading isn’t so bad,’ says Andy, who is passing through. ‘Especially from the water,’ adds Alex. ‘There used to be 1,500 hire boats between Windsor and Oxford but now there are only 70,’ says Andy. Just as you think that there are no hidden parts of Britain – especially a spot just six miles from Reading – you can be surprised. Ironically, that’s the African Queen’s problem. It’s gorgeous, undiscovered and overlooked, but Alex Polizzi is planning to do something about that."
To read the rest of this article please click on the PDF links below.
Click here for a PDF of this article (Part 1)
Click here for a PDF of this article (Part 2)
