Spectator Life

Standing on the quayside beside the River Rhine, gazing at the happy teenagers swimming in the dark water down below, I wonder where the last forty years have gone. Forty years ago, I was one of those teenage swimmers, swept along by the fierce current through the centre of this ancient city. Now, half a

Better located, conveniently compact and free from busloads of tourists, the city of Lucca is emerging out of the shadow of Florence. Tourists and holiday home buyers are discovering that the northern Tuscan province is an excellent alternative to Chiantishire.  Within an hour of both Pisa and Florence airports, it’s the perfect weekend getaway, but

Want a taste of the Andes without forking out for the trans-Atlantic flight? There is a herd of delightful llamas to be found in the fields behind The Merry Harriers Inn in the quaint village of Hambledon, Surrey, in which you can walk under the guidance of the equally delightful young llama handler, Clara. Afterwards,

I love my adopted hometown of Brighton and Hove – I moved here in 1995 and I still feel like I’m on holiday. I love everything about living here. The obvious thing is the sea. Although I hear what our local Surfers Against Sewage say, nothing’s going to keep me out of the briny. The

They are expensive to maintain, plagued by tourists and influences seeking picture-postcard holiday snaps and cost more per square foot than houses in some of London’s most affluent neighbourhoods – despite lacking basic amenities such as running water. And yet such is the allure of the traditional seaside beach hut that, amid an otherwise shaky

Nairobi is blossoming. With its vibrant art world, nascent farm-to-fork restaurant scene and unique hotels, east Africa’s biggest city is increasingly on the radar of international travellers. ‘We’re definitely seeing people wanting to stay longer in Nairobi,’ says Rose Hipwood of the Luxury Safari Company. ‘It’s absolutely a cosmopolitan city now. Rather than flying in

I have been reading Ronald Blythe’s Next to Nature which came out in October, just a few months before the great man’s death aged 100. And so a weekend holiday in Suffolk was calling to me. I went to Aldeburgh, on the coast, north of the river Alde. The town appears to be thriving –

Tourism is well and truly back in Japan, with packed flights and full hotels during the popular sakura (cherry blossom) season last month. And from today, all eyes will be on Hiroshima as it hosts the 49th G7 summit – an event that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has promised will showcase the ‘charms of

Standing at the security check-in at the Passport Office in Peterborough, my hands felt suddenly clammy, despite having been made to wait outside in a chilly wind until my allotted appointment time. This moment had been a long time coming – but from eavesdropping on others in the queue I knew it could all yet go

The first time I set eyes on a Brompton, well over a quarter of a century ago on the Lincolnshire coast, I thought it was a child’s bike. When the owner returned, he took great delight in demonstrating its folding mechanism, untangling the metal tubes and cables. I decided I wanted one but delayed making the

There’s something rather wonderful about the idea of settling down for the night in the spot where one of your favourite writers once slept, played or dreamed up a plot. There are a range of hotels across London with a vast array of bookish associations: some have played host to writers both famous and infamous,

Somewhat by accident, I’ve become a professional glutton. The sort of person who’ll traipse for an hour in the wrong direction, just to try the breakfast burrito that a friend of a friend’s chef boyfriend won’t shut up about. By some miracle, I get to write about it. I’m often asked about the best thing

As the pandemic roared through India, I wondered when tourists like me would be able to return to a country so central to the traveller’s imagination. When we did return, would it show the scars of the hideous death toll and extreme burden of suffering? Would we feel safe? Finally, nearly three years since I

Hitchhiking has always seemed to me a good way to get about. It is cheap, some drivers even treat you to coffee or a meal, and it is always companionable. What’s more, the knights of the road who stop for you are often people you would otherwise never meet. My first experience was when I

Three days on Madeira can feel like a week – not because time ­­drags, but because the place is so varied with its many different weathers. From the aeroplane you could be circling over the Caribbean, an impression given by the lush scrambling vegetation and orange rooftops jostling up the mountains. We landed at Cristiano

Berliner Luft is a popular peppermint-flavoured shot downed in the city’s bars. It also means Berlin Air and is a colloquialism for the city’s spirit of unfettered freedom and rebellious abandon. Given what this city went through, reduced to rubble by the furious Russians at the end of world war two, and then rent in

Whether it’s train fares, energy bills or the supermarket shop, prices are rising and belts are tightening. But if you’re desperate to get away from it all, it’s still possible to have a break on a budget – however many people you’re taking with you. From cosy couples’ cabins to beach houses big enough for

Watching the narrative arc of the Sturgeon family campervan – removed from the drive of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law as part of an SNP fraud probe – is an opportunity to review the campervan. Or motorhome, if you prefer. The Mrs Murrell model is a stylish Niesmann + Bischoff ‘iSmove’, priced at £110,000 or thereabouts (her

I remember the ephemera at the back of St Barnabas. The church stands in Oxford’s suburb of Jericho, near the University Press. It had proper church clutter: stumps of candles, dogeared pamphlets and reminders of long gone diocesan initiatives. St Barnabas – a beautiful Italianate monstrosity, plonked by the high Victorians, with their classic tact,

When you hear the word flamenco you probably think of a lady dancing in a polka-dot dress, stomping her feet, accompanied by guitars and singing. And in the fair capital of Andalucía, Seville, you would have no problem finding such a sight. All across the old town, around the cathedral and in the lee of

As the pandemic gently recedes into history, many of us have been embracing the liberties that have followed. For anyone whose work relied on a desk, a chair and a computer, video-conferencing services such as Zoom left us questioning long-held assumptions about the need for those increasingly anachronistic offices to which we once trudged. The

While many travel addicts went into hibernation during the pandemic, as public health scolds around the world turned our joyful compulsion into a sin, I kept roving despite the hassles. On an Easter Week trip to the Dominican Republic in 2021, I watched police battalions forcibly remove masked people from the streets of Santo Domingo

‘Côte d’Ivoire, eh?’ said the businessman in the seat next to me on the Air France flight from Paris to Abidjan, as he flicked through the wine list. ‘Perfect place to have an affair.’ Seriously? I’d had endless friends prior to my departure sniggering that I – middle-aged white female – was tragically going to

The first thing you should know about Montenegro is that it is wildly more dramatic than you might imagine. It would be frankly rude not to pull up on its precarious mountain roads and gawp. In summer the Adriatic shines; in autumn the mountains compete with New England for glorious, rich colours. The second thing

Why is it that the world of critics, gallery-goers and art-lovers is so overwhelmingly enthralled by Johannes Vermeer? His subjects – quiet interior scenes with women writing letters or playing music – are hardly the stuff of radical innovation or surprise. He wasn’t even that original: his works often have a similar focus to those