A Time Traveler’s Guide to Amsterdam

Most people know Amsterdam as the city of legal weed and the Red Light district. But that’s not all – or the most interesting – that Amsterdam has to offer. Amsterdam’s historic city center houses many old buildings – most of which have been around for many centuries – rebuilt and repurposed to fit the needs and preferences of each…

Here’s the Secret to Feasting your Way Through Italy like a Local

You’re invited to local food feasts all over Italy – if you know the magic word, that is. Sagre! That’s Italian for festival, one that centres around the annual harvest, celebrating local culture and most importantly – food! So what’s your weakness? Pizza? Pasta? Truffles? Fritto misto alla Piemontese? Whatever your preference, somewhere in Italy,…

Mansion of the Month: Miami’s Villa Viscaya

It rose from the mangrove swamps of Miami; an Italian Renaissance paradise surrounded by dense tropical forest in Coconut Grove, the city’s oldest continuously inhabited neighbourhood. They called it the “Hearst Castle of the East”, even though Villa Vizcaya came first. James Deering was heir to a harvesting fortune, a lover of the arts, an antiques…

Tango on the Seine, for Strangers in Paris

As long as the weather is good, tango enthusiasts (advanced and never-before-danced) gather at the mini amphitheatres along the Seine in the 5th arrondissement, to dance seductively until twilight. If you don’t want to join in, sitting with a bottle of wine on the steps, watching these dancers is still absolutely mesmerizing and incredibly atmospheric. A little old…

The Chateau You Should Visit Instead of Versailles

Chateau de Versailles can keep its 7 million visitors a year. I’ve got my own little-known gem of the Parisian countryside that you’d find if you drive 15 minutes further up the road from the sun king’s famed royal residence. The garden is filled with 18th century follies that would have made Marie Antoinette green with envy,…

Manhattan’s Last Farmhouse

In the midst of towering apartments and neon-lit bodegas, you’ll find the Dyckman Farmhouse, Manhattan’s oldest abode and only farmhouse. The white clapboard cottage has been perched on a hilltop on present-day Broadway for 234 years, slipping under the radar of tourists and New Yorkers alike and looking like a bit of a mirage in its…

A French Chateau Hoarding the World’s Largest Private Collection of Fighter Jets

At no other chateau in all of France will you find a Soviet helicopter parked on the back lawn. Or a 1970s hovercraft. Or a record-breaking collection of World War II fighter jets for that matter. Not to mention a warehouse full of vintage firetrucks, 200 antiques motorbikes, 36 racing cars – and the list…

The Vault

Don’t be a Tourist Mini Guide to Belgium

Belgium gave us Audrey Hepburn, great comic books and the Communist Manifesto. It’s barely the size of New Jersey but it produces more than 220,000 tons of chocolate per annum and it’s home to about 125 breweries. And those are just the fun facts. Cooler than you think, stranger than you think and more impressive…

Pssst! You've stumbled across content that is exclusive to Nessy's Keyholders.

There’s a new way to access the really special stuff from Messy Nessy Chic …

Hidden beneath the surface layers of the internet, there’s a place where we keep our most secret addresses, untapped archives, creator’s inspiration, collector’s guides, explorer’s manuals, obscure research and much more… And it’s made for our keyholders only!

Apply now to unlock the Vault

Keyholder Login

Where they make the Machines from Jules Verne’s Dreams

Behind the walls of an old shipyard’s warehouse in Nantes, a French troupe of artisans has been welding and hammering and carving away at something unprecedented for twenty years, building a strange mechanical universe you thought only existed in the pages of a Jules Verne novel, or in the sketchbooks of Leonard Da Vinci. Celebrating…

Drink and Dive into Europe’s Underwater Wine cellars

Nearly a decade ago, south of the Aland archipelago, between Sweden and Finland, a 200 year-old shipwreck was discovered to be holding 168 sealed bottles of Veuve Cliquot produced between 1839 and 1841 at the bottom of the sea. Divers had the first taste, and found that the wine was not only drinkable, but good; dare…