Written by My sister and I are lying on slabs like flounders in a fishmonger’s. Instead of a bed of ice, though, we’re stretched out on heated marble. We move between three hot rooms, each resembling little chapels with vaulted ceilings, chatting quietly in the cooler one, applying face and hair masks in the middle one, and simply lying still, […]
Wakefield Actors say “rhubarb” to appear to be chatting. It’s easy to say the word quietly. Here in the national capital of this tasty perennial the stalks are – right now – growing, blushing, sweetening silently in the dark. The harvest season starts in mid-February, when shed doors are prised open and the gathering-in commences, […]
If you walk along the south banks of the Douro River in Vila Nova de Gaia, opposite Porto city, towards the sea, the scene will be classic Portugal for a while: a lot of waterside restaurants, a lot of grilled chicken, some stalls selling unlikely items made of cork (aprons?). A little further back are […]
‘Joyce and Hemingway loved lingering here. I can see why’: readers’ favourite small cities in Europe
Winning tip: Trieste, Italy I got off the train to Venice last summer in Trieste, planning to spend a few hours there, but was so knocked over by its beauty that I stayed for a few days. Tucked away in the north-east of Italy, it’s a crosscultural cocktail of Hapsburg, baroque and Slavic views and […]
I step out the door of Guirdil bothy at 2am to the guttural roar of a stag and the sound of the ocean lapping on the beach before me. It’s the height of the rut here on Rum, a Hebridean island where red deer outnumber people, and stags have been bolving all night. The skull […]
You couldn’t make it up. As early autumn darkness deepened around Whistlewood Common – tealights a-flicker, guitars twanging around the campfire – I found myself sitting between Peter Wood and Gill Forrester. It was a pincer movement of nominative determinism: Wood, a woodworker and teacher of heritage crafts; Forrester, community and wellbeing manager at the […]
Pulling a wheelie case along the stone streets of Bath, I feel I may as well be wearing a sign reading “tourist on a mini-break”. But when we check in to the Roseate Villa – a 15-minute trundle from the station – and the man who greets us asks for our car registration, I get […]
I still remember the excitement of buying my first vinyl aged 11, Duane Eddy’s great 1962 single (Dance With the) Guitar Man, and that bug has been with me ever since. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of digging through the racks and finding that elusive wishlist record. When I retired, I made it my […]
Glenfinnan House Hotel, the Highlands Glenfinnan House Hotel, overlooking Loch Shiel and the Jacobite monument, is one of Scotland’s most celebrated properties. On a clear day, you can see Ben Nevis from here, too. Glenfinnan viaduct, which attracts Harry Potter fans hoping to glimpse the steam train, is a short walk away. The family-owned country […]