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…
Tag: UNESCO World Heritage
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…
Berlin: Palaces and Pride
In 2004 we went on our first holiday together, to Berlin. It was January, bitingly cold and snow fell periodically on a city that looked grey from morning to night. But I fell in love with it. We finally got round to returning to the German capital in July 2016, when we found a very different…
Life among the trulli of Alberobello, Puglia
Puglia is famous for its strange, conical-roofed trulli. They pepper the landscape, peek out from olive groves and stand lonely in the fields. But Alberobello is the place to see them in all their glory. In the heart of the town, nestled on both sides of a shallow valley, they pack the streets and alleys….
The magic of Matera
For an ancient Italian town perched on the edge of the Murgia National Park, Matera didn’t look promising when we drove into its unremarkable suburbs. But then came the historic centre and one of the most remarkable places I’ve been to anywhere in Europe… We’d driven up from the modest airport on the industrial edge…
The extraordinary amphitheatre of El Djem in Tunisia
The horror of terrorism in Tunisia closed much of the country to tourists in 2015, bad news for locals and holidaymakers alike. It meant that the glories of El Djem went undiscovered by many. The majestic Roman amphitheatre is one of the best surviving examples of its kind and even in the 21st century it…
The castle at Sintra in Portugal
Sintra’s an easy day trip on the train from Portugal’s wonderful capital Lisbon. Hilly, with great views and some fairy tale architecture, it’s easy to see why the rich, the famous and royalty built their mansions around the village as an escape from the city. Sintra itself is touristy and busy but the real attractions…
Northern Ireland: The Giant’s Causeway and Dunluce Castle
If there’s one thing I’ll remember about Northern Ireland, it’s that this relatively small part of the UK has such a variety of landscapes. The coast of County Antrim is one of the best and its star attraction is the Giant’s Causeway. Driving to giant Finn MacCool’s legendary domain on a warm, sunny day in…
Tenerife: A drive to La Laguna
If I learnt anything in Tenerife, it’s never to trust a sat-nav. After the traumas of getting to Teide, our expensive piece of tech managed to land us, somewhat embarassed, in the pedestrianised shopping streets of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of La Laguna. All I wanted to do was park the car but it…
Tenerife: The epic Mount Teide
When the clouds weren’t hovering threateningly over Tenerife we couldn’t miss the island’s magnificent volcano, Mount Teide. Descending from 35,000ft in our Airbus on that first day, we saw it dominating the island that it helped to create, its upper slopes covered in snow. And from our hotel grounds in the resort town of Puerto de…
Going weird: The ossuary at Kutna Hora
I’ve been around a bit and seen some weird and wonderful things. But the Sedlec Ossuary at Kutna Hora, deep in the Czech Republic, has to rank as one of the strangest. For those who don’t know, an ossuary is a resting place for human skeletons. At Kutna Hora, which we found about an hour outside…
Seville: The Alcazar and the Metropol Parasol
On days when the news is dominated by atrocities and stories of hate, I find it good for the soul to go to somewhere like the Alcazar in Seville. It is a place of beauty, the work of generations of craftsmen and visionaries from many races and religions. It was our first full day in Andalusia,…
The palace and monastery of El Escorial
Madrid is such a great city that it’s tempting to spend an entire visit deep in its wonderfulness. There’s so much going on, so much of a buzz and so much to see. But with our love of a good palace, we just had to visit El Escorial. The complex, which was both a palace and monastery,…
Croatia: Joining the crowds in the city of Dubrovnik
The fans of cliche tell us that travel broadens the mind. But it’s also a curse. There are times when we, as tourists, threaten to overwhelm and destroy the very destinations we’ve travelled so far to see. Dubrovnik’s old town is but one example. Croatia’s most popular destination, it’s a city under seige from swarms…
Japan: From Kyoto to London
The long journey home is invariably the worst part of any holiday. But this particular one promised to be more arduous than most, in part because we really didn’t want to leave Japan. With a planned morning departure from Narita Airport – situated well to the east of Tokyo – there was no way we’d…