The Macau we discovered on our first night in the city is modern, glitzy and built for tourists, lined with hotels and casinos. Known as the Cotai Strip, it’s in stark contrast to the historic, atmospheric old town. That old town has elegant, colourful Portugese influences from colonial times, while its streets are crowded with…
Macau and Hong Kong – a special birthday trip
How should I celebrate a 50th birthday? Apart from hosting a drunken party for friends and family, I opted for a week-long trip to Macau and Hong Kong. Day one was never going to be one of the highlights of this special holiday. Eleven hours in a British Airways Boeing 777 is a bit of…
Flying a Boeing 737 – the ultimate birthday present
It’s not exactly travel, but I can’t resist writing about my 50th birthday present from the other half – an hour on a Boeing 737-800 simulator. And, in theory, I did travel to Innsbruck in Austria and Hong Kong. Sort of… The flight ‘took off’ from London Westfield in Shepherd’s Bush, where iPilot have their…
Christmas in Muscat, the capital of Oman
Where would we spend our first Christmas away from family and piles of roast turkey? A home from home in the UK? The snowy Alps? Or further afield? Our eventual choice was the capital of Oman, Muscat. An odd choice but a very good one as it turned out. Muscat is a city that by all…
A quick break amid the madness of Las Vegas, USA
I went to the gambling mecca of Las Vegas expecting to hate the place but ended up falling for it, despite the tackiness and materialism gone mad. We’d chosen it as the first stop of our American adventure because we love a gamble, but we’d also booked a trip to the Grand Canyon and Vegas is…
An Easter city break in Stockholm, Sweden
Easter isn’t the best time to visit Stockholm. The trees are bare and it can be drab and chilly, but the weather couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm for the Swedish capital. I actually had very few preconceptions about it. I knew it as a city of water, islands and ludicrously priced alcohol. I knew it as home to…
Walking in the hills at Braemar, Scotland
With our much-discussed British weather being so hopelessly unreliable, it’s easy to make an excuse and head abroad on holiday. But on our visit to Braemar and Ballater in Scotland we found the sun and fell in love with Royal Deeside. Braemar was stop number two, nestled in a landscape so spectacular I defy anyone…
Milizac, France. In search of Great Uncle Ray, World War Two pilot
Researching my family tree, I was keen to find out more about Great Uncle Raymond Finch. A bomber pilot, he was killed over Brittany in the Second World War and I wanted to pay my respects at his grave in a quiet French village. I’d long known that he’d been killed in the war but…
A few days in Naples, Italy
Naples is the gateway to southern Italy but my first experience of it back at the turn of the millennium had been pretty negative. It was dirty, the roads were appalling, the driving worse and there was an undercurrent of menace to the place. In some respects, it felt more like a Third World city…
Visiting the Desert Castles of Jordan
On our two-week visit to Jordan, we took a tour of the Desert Castles that lie on the arid plains to the east of the capital, Amman. The weather was bleak as we hit the highway out of the city, fresh from a night in the swanky Marriott hotel. There, I’d settled into the bar and…
A trip on the Napa Valley Wine Train in California
We couldn’t go to San Francisco without visiting wine country for a day. But not wanting to drive, and on the recommendation of a friend, we opted for lunch on the Napa Valley Wine Train. Our week in San Francisco in 2011 coincided with one of the hottest Septembers in years and it was another magical…
Istanbul: A long weekend in Sultanahmet
Sultanahmet is the historic heart of Istanbul, the most famous of Turkey’s cities. It may not be the capital but it’s the only city in the world that sits astride Europe and Asia. Just a few months after we visited Istanbul in 2013, it was gripped by the worst riots in years. Historic Sultanahmet escaped…
Walking in the hills around Morzine
The French Alpine resort of Morzine has grand landscapes and numerous summer walking paths but during our August 2013 weekend stay the weather was decidedly mixed – rain one minute, dazzling sunshine the next. We’re big fans of the Alps in summer regardless of the weather and had previously stayed at Kitzbühel in Austria and…
Morzine, Lake Montriond and the waterfalls
Just a few miles from the French Alpine resort of Morzine lies magical Lake Montriond and some spectacular waterfalls. The area is criss-crossed by walking routes and has magnificent views, making it an ideal spot to shake off a crashing headache brought on by mixing vodka, wine, beer and a mysterious local liquor in the…
A few days in Quimper, Brittany
Colourful Quimper is the oldest city in Brittany and many of its handsome medieval buildings remain intact, making it an attractive stop on the tourist trail. But it wasn’t exactly throbbing with life when we arrived at the start of our week-long holiday in the north-west of France. In fact, much of Quimper had shut…