HOLIDAY LIKE A WAG
BY LUCILLE HOWE
PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY
Footie’s biggest event is here and while some of us might be glued to our widescreens, waiting for the bit where they strip to their torsos and exchange shirts at the end (swoon!), others of us would rather take a long holiday.
Some of those gorgeous WAGs know how we feel and will trade football fields for sandy beaches to work on their tans. A good idea when England manager, Fabio Capello, has ordered the glamorous head-turners to stay away from South Africa and allow the lads to concentrate on their game. So, in the spirit of not distracting the boys, we packed our Juicy Couture track pants to bring you a comprehensive guide to where to holiday like a WAG… using some famous pap-loving WAGs as our muses.
Let’s start with Chezza Cole. Where do you go if you’re a “national treasure”, betrayed by a cheating ex and in need of a post-break-up blow-out with fellow single señoritas? Cheryl is a regular Marbella-ite and fan of the Ocean Club (Avenida Lola Flores S/N, www.oceanclub.es) and the jet-set marina of Puerto Banus is the perfect place to bag a new man. A few minutes’ walk from the front is the WAGtastic Buddha Beach Club (Villa Marina, Nueva Andalucia, www.buddhabeachbanus.com); all pristine white cabana beds and a VIP area with Jacuzzi. Last summer Tottenham players Aaron Lennon, David Bentley and Jermaine Jenas were spotted at the Balinese-inspired bar; Calum Best too (footie credentials: tick). If you’re there on 17 June, bring a hat, sip champers and watch Ascot Ladies Day with all your bessie girl mates; or between 2-11 July, watch the final stages of the World Cup perched at the tropical bar with a frozen margarita.
Single ladies may also like Barcelona’s Barceloneta Beach, with its volleyball players, capoeira hunks, and skateboarders and cyclists. Chiringuitos, or beach bars, pop up in summer, so you can flirt in the shade wearing a cut-out, fluoro, embellished swimsuit like Chezza’s £375 cozzie by designer Melissa Odabash. Opium (34 Paseo Marítimo, www.opiummar.com), Carpe Diem Lounge (32 Passeig Marítim, www.cdlcbarcelona.com) and Le Kasbah (1 Plaça de Pau Vila, tel: +34 932 380722) clubs are classy joints on the front and the Arts Hotel nearby is where Madonna stayed. Its Arola Restaurant (19-21 Marina, www.ritzcarlton.com) serves tapas made with ingredients from Barcelona’s La Boqueria Market.
If you’re in need of some yummy mummy downtime, your WAG to watch is Coleen Rooney. Wannabes should head to Levante Beach, toddler-waddling distance from the centre of Benidorm (about 45km north-east of Alicante) with a top blue flag rating. The sand slopes into the water gradually, making it perfect for little ones, while in the sea there’s an adventure platform for big kids, with swinging bridges, diving boards, rafts and slides. The council runs summer entertainment and bars screen kids’ films at siesta time, so you can leave baby with your mum and skip to award-winning Macrobiotic SHA spa (5 Verderol, El Albir, www.shawellnessclinic.com), 20 minutes away, for a day of watery pumelling in the hydrotherapy pools and lunch in the macrobiotic, organic, Asian-fusion restaurant.
If baby business gets tiresome, enjoy a meal à deux back in St Tropez, where Coleen was preggers. Yummy mummies should dine at the Caprice Des Deux (40 Rue du Portail Neuf, www.aucapricedesdeux.com). Part film-scene rustic glamour, part Parisian bistro, with dishes like zucchini flowers stuffed with lobster, it’s rated in every good-food guide and family owned.
And so to Victoria Beckham, the girl with a passport hotter than a Heston Blumenthal kitchen. Potential Poshes, we reckon Sardinia is your hotspot. VB has already holidayed on Sardinia’s Costa Smeralda, voted Europe’s Leading Beach in the World Travel Awards (voted by travel agents worldwide) and fellow former Spice Girl Geri has been larking around the coastline on a yacht with Henry Beckwith. The blingtastic Porto Cervo, at the centre of the Costa Smeralda, designed in the 1960s by the Aga Khan, is the place to window-shop for speedboats and dine in showy style.
If you lean toward posh Spanish glitz, it’s back to Marbella and the Puro Beach Club (Laguna Village, Playa el Padrón, Estepona, www.purobeach.com). Pick at lobster salad and spoon sorbet so it doesn’t disturb your Lancôme lip gloss. Posh wannabes should try the Californian massage (we know how much she loves LA!) at €87, then charter the private Puro jet to their sister club in Palma. Credit cards accepted.
Alex Curran is one of the new-breed WAGs and, with a column in magazine Closer, a career gal to boot. We reckon 9-5 escapees need a bit of old-school glam on their hols, so we’re sending Alex to Le Club 55 in St Tropez (Pampelonne Beach, Boulevard Patch, Ramatuelle, www.st-tropez-beach.com). This sultry beach club began in 1955, when Brigitte Bardot was filming And God Created Woman on Pampelonne Beach. The director asked a fisherman’s hangout if they could cook for the cast and the spot’s fate was sealed. Today the owner’s son is the chef and recommends a Niçoise salad. Wannabe glamour models will be thrilled to know the beach is liberal about topless sunbathing. The less brave may want to spend their time flirting with the moneyed to get them to charter one of the club’s yachts for hire.
Swap flip-flops for high heels at Café De Paris (Le Port, www.cafedeparis.fr), where Alex once spent (so we’re told) seven hours and drank five bottles of fizz, and Le Quai (22 Quai Jean Jaurès, www.joseph-saint-tropez.com), where she moved on to G&Ts. Once the hangover clears, she can drive her £175,000 Aston Martin (the same as the one driven by Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace) to Cannes for Electronic Beach nights, where DJs play a mix of breakbeat, house, funk and hip-hip on Festival Hall Beach from 7.30pm -12.30am on 13, 20 and 27 July and 3 and 17 August (www.plageselectroniques.com).
If pampering is your priority, then how about some model behaviour, Abbey Clancy-style? At the Audax Spa and Wellness Hotel (Cala Galdana, Menorca, www.rtmhotels.com), the previous winner of Britain’s Next Top Model and fiancée of Peter Crouch could enjoy 700m2 of preening, including three swimming pools with partly submerged “beds” fitted with massaging water jets.
With these über-glam WAGs as mentors, it’s easy to enjoy summer without even mentioning the F-word. And, if your fella brings back a shiny trophy for his efforts, you can show him your golden glow.
