If you want to stay somewhere truly spectacular, Beaconsfield would probably not be the first place you would look.
Yet, situated five minutes from the M40/M25 junction is the little Buckinghamshire town in whose heart nestles one of the UK's most extraordinary and ultra-discreet hotels – the Crazy Bear.
A glance through the hotel's statistics reveals nothing unusual: ten bedrooms, three meeting rooms, conference building, terrace, bar and two restaurants. But prepare to be wowed.
The English restaurant looks like the dining room from a SuperYacht – wood so highly polished you can see your face in it, hand-applied gold leaf everywhere and it serves high quality food and drink that includes a great vegetarian menu. You can dine in public or in an intimate, plush private booth.
There's also a Thai Restaurant, whose chefs are trained at Thailand's Royal Palace, and a bar decorated in a heady mix of crystal and mirror that serves almost 100 different cocktails.
The terrace, with outdoor pool and Jacuzzi has large canopied lounging areas. Running off it are the meeting rooms, each with its own unique theme. All can be used for private dinner parties, but are well kitted out for business.
Hotels, however, are all about the accommodation. Having experienced the public areas, you wonder what awaits in the bedrooms. The Crazy Bear does not disappoint.
The rooms are beautifully appointed. Each has its own style and colour, but common to all are top quality sound and vision systems, fresh fruit and flowers and beautifully sumptuous furnishings, curtains and linens.
The bathrooms are more like large walk-in wet rooms, all with cushioned flooring, because everything at the Crazy Bear screams "indulgence," and every bedroom offers the Crazy Bear's signature feature, a large free standing copper bathtub, which fill with water that tubmles from the ceiling.
If you want to celebrate a special occasion or escape from the real world for a day or two and still be almost within tube distance of Central London there are few, if any, places that offer an experience quite like it.
Cheap the Crazy Bear is not, but a midweek stay is surprisingly affordable for somewhere so special.
Words can only begin to describe what it's like being a guest at the Crazy Bear, it really, truly, needs to be experienced first hand.
