The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in Somerset. The plan was to pick and convert a mound of sugar-rich Redstreaks — about 400 kilos — into a rather special vintage. We would pour the apple juice into an oak hogshead, freshly emptied of its
We’ve all been there, I’m sure. You work your pan off to get everything done in time. You count down the days until you can break out of the madhouse of pre-Christmas London. Then you’re brought down by the dreaded lurgy. I was all for cancelling our travel plans and spending Christmas under the duvet.
The first time I checked in to a French hotel with a golden retriever — his name was Gregory, predecessor of the incumbent Douglas — I left him, clearly unhappy, in the bedroom when I went to dinner. Then I realised that every other party already in the dining room included a dog, in some
Fate occasionally leads travellers to places they had never planned to visit. Into this category, for me, fell Malta. I went to Valletta to see my sister, who was at a nursing conference. I wasn’t expecting a wild party; the island has a reputation for being fairly dry compared with its Mediterranean sisters. Yet for
For a melancholy example of the power of celebrity, head to the Alps. Since Michael Schumacher’s accident last December in Méribel, the use of ski helmets has soared in the mountains. My skiing instructor in Verbier, in the Swiss Alps, said the Schumacher effect was particularly acute among the young and the old — it’s
The British overseas territory of Gibraltar, or, as some would have it, the wart on the bottom of the Iberian peninsula, is not an exciting place for a holiday. You don’t go for the food (mostly English pub grub and pizzas), or the nightlife (there isn’t any) or the beaches (overcrowded, with sand imported from
My husband and I stay for a week most summers in Portmeirion, the strangest and loveliest ‘village’ in the world. Built amid 20 miles of woodland on the peninsula of Tremadog Bay in Wales, it was called ‘a home for fallen buildings’ by its creator Clough Williams-Ellis, a local landowner. It was opened in 1926,
Driving up the west coast, from Bridge-town to Speightstown, you soon see why people around here call this the Platinum Coast. It’s not just the colour of the coral sand — it’s the colour of the foreign money. These seafront lots sell for millions, prices few Bajans can afford. Yet once you head inland you
Napoleon’s birthplace, Casa Buona-parte, in Ajaccio, Corsica’s capital, is pretty grand. It has high ceilings, generous, silk-lined rooms and a gallery that could double as a mini-ballroom. The house fits Napoleon’s upper-middle-class roots, as the son of a lawyer and Corsica’s representative to the court of Louis XVI. But the odd thing is, the home
The days when horses and humans lived cheek by jowl in the capital are unarguably over. Brewers’ drays have disappeared, and most people would argue that the black cab does a far better job than the hansom cab ever did. But the ghosts of horses past still inhabit the city. Statues of kings atop their
I’m not sure what took me to Salvador Dalí’s house in Port Lligat, but it sure as hell wasn’t admiration. As a public figure, I hold him alone responsible for the look-at-me culture that gives contemporary art a bad name. And as a painter… don’t get me started. Sceptics slag off conceptual art as a
However the sand got into Sandwich, it did Deal a big favour. As the Cinque Port’s harbour silted up from about 1500, the merchant ships out in the downs, protected by those hidden shallows from the Channel’s full fury, began to offload their cargo into small boats called hoys that came out from Deal. A
I have a friend who is perhaps best described by that old-fashioned phrase ‘ladies’ man’. He’s not a cad or a bounder — quite the opposite, in fact. He’d never leave a lady in the lurch, or lie to her, he simply enjoys the company of women — quite a lot of women — and
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Sicily is anything like the Isle of Wight: it’s 70 times the size, and mountainous. Despite some beautifully engineered roads, it always takes longer to get around than one expects. Even my Sicilian friend has to stop to ask the way. Autostrade are closed, bridges under repair. It
It was poker night. Five yuppies crammed round a table in a room at the back of a south London semi. Tumblers and water were on the table. Conventions had developed. The host cooked the food (or so he said) and the four guests each brought a bottle of whisky. The guests rotated between four
On our second night in Seville we got lost. We’d been to a flamenco concert, my first, a little way out from the centre. Eight musicians sat in a horseshoe on a plain stage. Deep plaintive wails of the campo pierced a surface of jangling guitars. Men in the crowd murmured ‘Olé’ to applaud moments
It’s a terrible moment, the realisation that you’ve spawned a monster. Parenthood, it becomes clear, has wiped stylish holidays off the agenda for a good few years. Somewhere like St Moritz, for instance, won’t thank you for polluting its elegant slopes with Bratbot 5.1. Then you stumble across Nira Alpina, and your desperation disappears. The
The heat was still sweltering as we headed off at dusk towards the hide to watch wildlife with our enthusiastic guide, Leonie. My wife and I were on our first ever safari — or rather ‘stayfari’. No, we weren’t in deepest Africa, but in deepest Gloucestershire. And we weren’t on the look out for lions
Pity the folk at Gleneagles. They have the misfortune to host the Ryder Cup this year. Nothing, surely, can surpass the drama of the previous contest between the United States and Europe, held at Medinah Country Club near Chicago in 2012. The Yanks dominated for two days before Ian Poulter, an Englishman who plays golf
When Queen Victoria came here for her summer holidays, Lucerne was already a bustling tourist destination. Today it’s just as popular. It’s easy to see why. When you emerge from the busy train station (Lucerne is far too civilised to have an airport), Switzerland’s loveliest lake lies before you, framed by a ring of mountains.
