Our visit to the Chinatown Heritage Centre in Singapore, a museum that revealed much about the lives of the poorest of immigrants to the city state, prompted memories of my favourite museum in New York City. The Tenement Museum in the bustling and traditionally working class Lower East Side explores the experiences of German, Irish and…
A date at the Grand Ducal Palace in Luxembourg
Our final day in Luxembourg was a bank holiday back in Britain but the city that had been our home for the weekend was going back to work as we packed for the flight back to London. However, before leaving we’d got a tour of the Grand Ducal Palace lined up. After checking out of…
A visit to the abbey town of Echternach
Plans to visit the picturesque castle that stands on a bluff overlooking the village of Vianden in rural Luxembourg were scuppered by that old favourite of a British weekend, railway engineering works. So we found ourselves in the city’s central station trying to work out what to do with our Sunday. I didn’t want to…
Exploring Luxembourg old town
Small but perfectly formed, Luxembourg is one of the Low Countries, a founding member of the EU and our choice for a hot and sunny August bank holiday weekend. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is equally modest but turned out to be a real charmer, easily walkable and attractive. Our first day in town was spent…
Italy: A day out in the Tuscan city of Siena
Famous for its architecture and the terrifying horse race the Palio on the broad Piazza del Campo, Siena heaves with visitors doing the grand tour of Tuscany. I was as keen to visit the city as a recent James Bond movie location as for its history. It’s in the otherwise disappointing Quantum of Solace that Bond, in…
Exploring Singapore’s Chinatown
I’ve been to good museums and bad, but among the best have been the ones that reveal what life was like for the poorest of the poor back when the Georgian and Victorian rich were living the high life. There’s the excellent Tenement Museum in New York, for example, which offers a compelling account of how poor…
Singapore’s glorious gardens and luxury hotels
We could never be accused of taking it easy. On just one sweaty Singapore day we visited the Botanic Gardens, tucked into a fine afternoon tea at the legendary Raffles Hotel and spent an evening gambling at one of the city’s most extravagant new destinations, the Marina Bay Sands. It was another hot and humid day so it was a…
Singapore’s National Museum and Fort Canning Park
There’s variety in Singapore’s weather. One minute it’s hot and sunny, the next there are downpours and crashes of thunder. On the day we were planning to visit the Botanic Gardens, it chucked it down and the buildings we’d got used to seeing from our bedroom window were lost in the murk. So we opted for the National…
Exploring Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore
There’s something ridiculous about going for a walk in a hilly Singapore nature reserve when the weather is so hot and humid. But we were never going to find out much about the country jumping from one air-conditioned building to another. So visiting the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve stayed on our list of things to do. However, our planned trip to…
Singapore’s stunning Gardens by the Bay
Singapore has spent a fortune making itself a city in a garden rather than a city with gardens. And one of the stars of the transformation is the amazing Gardens by the Bay. It’s the city-state’s answer to the Eden Project in Cornwall, but on an even grander scale, and it was top of my list…
First class to Singapore and Little India
As upgrades go, it couldn’t be better. Arriving at Heathrow for our business class flights to Singapore, we were told by the check-in assistant that we were going to be enjoying the 13-hour flight in First instead. I could hardly believe our luck! With better food, better champagne and a better bed, it was going to…
Copenhagen’s crown jewels
There’s much to see and do in Copenhagen, but somehow we managed to go overboard on the royal attractions during our long weekend. Take our last day in town. We chose to spend much of it enjoying the treasures of Rosenborg Palace, including the state’s Crown Jewels, before tearing ourselves away for something rather more egalitarian at the Botanical Gardens. With…
Copenhagen: From a palace to a commune
Copenhagen has much in common with London – drunks, litter, too much homelessness, and old men who don’t think twice about peeing up against a wall in front of passers-by. But it’s also relaxed, vibrant and welcoming. It’s easily walkable, is packed with history and has some fine modern architecture as a contrast to the old….
Danish design and royal knick-knacks in Copenhagen
We couldn’t go all the way to Copenhagen and not indulge our love of Scandinavian design. So with rain falling on our first full day in the city, the Designmuseum Denmark was an obvious destination. Despite getting on the wrong bus and having to walk further than we expected in the showers, we eventually found it in…
Copenhagen: Red lights and hearty food in Vesterbro
Much is written about hygge, the Danish word that translates into something like comfort, cosiness or warmth in English. It’s said to be one of the reasons why the Danes are among the happiest people in the world. But are they? Is hygge a myth? Is their happiness more to do with their work-life balance? Their welfare state? Their…