The Crown Amersham
“Having had a simply ghastly European trip a couple of weeks ago, which made us feel that we and ‘abroad’ were destined to be strangers for the near future, we fancied somewhere quintessentially English, but with a twist.”
Browsing: The Explorer
One Night in Whipsnade Zoo
There’s nothing like a day at the zoo. But as Nick Hammond and family discovered, a night in one is pretty special too…
Madeira: The Original Island of Wellness
“There’s an overall palpable sense of history and mystique here, something that doesn’t come as too much of a surprise when you realise that Madeira was a preferred holiday spot to characters such as Winston Churchill.”
Twenty Days in June
“The road is like life in miniature, but stretched, extreme at both ends, much more so when one is flying solo. One moment you’re laughingly ecstatic, the next you’re so terribly low that it’s blackness all around, without end…”
Beside the Seaside
“Brighton is in a league of its own. As soon as the train pulls into the beautifully maintained station you know that this is not Margate, or Blackpool or Scunthorpe.”
Seychelles: The Princess and the Coconut
“THUD. I’m dicing with death here. That’s the third coconut to narrowly miss my head. In the Seychelles, more people die from falling coconuts than shark attacks.” Jess visits Desroches…
The Chocolate Box Desert
“As a kid I had a sentimentally-illustrated bible, depicting events in the Holy Land circa 2000 years ago. They were pretty, in a chocolate box kind of way, but somehow they didn’t make the place seem real.”
Scotland: Unveiling the Unmissable
“I could hear my heart pounding as we inched our way around yet another terrifying bend. I could only wish someone had told me how dreadfully nerve-wracking the Applecross Road is before we’d embarked on our drive.”
Hotel George V, Paris
Having fantasised about the meandering streets of Paris whilst reading French literature, and having fallen asleep listening to Peter Sarstedt singing ‘Where do you go to my lovely?’, I had arrived – and this was really arriving.
Moscow: A City Guide
“Moscow still remains the city that the world associates with iron-clad socialism, dodgy airline companies and the imposing Kremlin. Despite being only a short hop from London, it invokes a far-off, almost feral image.”
The Yeatman, Porto
“Seated a deux along the pretty paved harbourside of the terracotta-coloured UNESCO world heritage city of Porto, an inky Ramos Pinto Duas Quintas 2009 from the Duoro valley glugged into my wine glass.”
The Torridon
The low, moaning drone hummed through the glass of our hotel room in Inverness, immediately bringing an ironic smile to my lips. “It can’t be,” I mused to the boy. “It can’t be bagpipes. Can it?”