Accommodation Articles

A beautiful new seafront register office is one of the gems of Blackpool's regeneration

Consider Blackpool. It's a town that is hard to mention without a trace of a snigger, one partly snobbish and partly of the kind generally prompted by outdated engines of fun. It has its place in history as the country's largest ever centre of massed bacchanalia. It has grandeur and bathos, a huge, beautiful beach, some extraordinary buildings and some tottering shacks that barely cling to the wind-blown ground. Once, emulating Paris, it built a version of the Eiffel Tower. More recently it wanted to be Las Vegas (with less heat and no desert, but with sea), and was devastated and angry when its bid to host Britain's first super-casino , with all the life-transforming effects that would allegedly have brought, failed.

According to Alex de Rijke, of the architects de Rijke Marsh Morgan, and the new dean of architecture at the Royal College of Art, the town has "a highly developed mix of the familiar and the surreal; it has a great sense of the mock monumental". Sometimes Blackpool wears the forced grin and the heroic doomed upbeatness of a stand-up comedian who has lost his audience but keeps going even as the bottles hit the stage. But its decades of success, which peaked in the middle of the last century, have also left a feeling that there is too much there, in buildings, people and fantasies, for it to fade away.

In the past few years it has been the target of determined attempts at regeneration, including the revamping of the Blackpool Tower and the grandiose old Winter Gardens, and a new tram service. These stabs at improvement include some atrocious public art, such as an avenue of over-scaled shiny parabolas that hold up some street lights, but also the rebuilding of the esplanade as a series of broad terraces and ramps. It is impressively solid and well built (which, at a cost of Â£200m, it should be) and its shifting, dune-like slopes pleasurably connect the town to the beach.

The esplanade, designed by the landscape architects LDA Design, was also to be scattered with public art and pavilions, but budget restrictions have reduced their number â thankfully so, as Blackpool doesn't really need more bits and pieces. It already has its tower, its Victorian and Edwardian palaces of fun, its sub-Vegas iconography of giant fibreglass skulls and neon signs luring you into more-or-less clapped-out amusement arcades. Some of the art that survived the cuts is of the swooshing kind favoured by regeneration projects, emblems of positivity by official order. More unusual is the Comedy Carpet, a large square of paving decorated with the jokes and names of old performers â it could have been toe-curling but there is something in the quality of its design and making that carry it off.

The most intriguing of the new structures is Festival House, designed by de Rijke Marsh Morgan, where a short but perky gold tower rises above a long, low plinth in pinkish brick. It treads a line between civic pride and Blackpool's heritage of flamboyant trash, what de Rijke calls "B-movie architecture". It has echoes of such serious precedents as Frank Lloyd Wright, but also 1950s motels.

Its uses are a restaurant (currently awaiting appointment of an operator), an information centre and a register office for weddings. This last raises suspicion of yet more Vegas envy and it does indeed include a room where you can get quickies for Â£40, but the town council is quick to point out that it simply fulfils one of its responsibilities â to provide facilities for civic weddings. Any resemblance to the Nevada chapels where you can get quickly hitched is coincidental.

Most people, says de Rijke, "regard register office weddings as anticlimactic alternatives to churches", but here the aim was to create "a sense of occasion". So, compressed into what is a small building, the design makes a ceremonial route with as much event as possible. First there is a lobby with a window on to the sea; then a lift; then a waiting space with a balcony from which wider views can be had; then the room for the main event that, high and angular and orientated towards an altar-like table, has a churchy feel. Beyond the table a glazed cleft is filled with a view of the Blackpool Tower, which could be seen, if you fancy, as a bit of boy-girl symbolism appropriate to the occasion.

On leaving this room the couple are then presented with a view of the horizon, before descending a generous stair and exiting via a little garden with a luminescent heart in the paving. It flirts with kitsch but de Rijke says he "also wanted to talk about quality". Materials and detail are both considered and pioneering. The structure, visible internally, is of something called cross-laminated timber, out of which it's possible to make walls, beams, cantilevers, floors and stair treads. He calls it the "new concrete", in that it's as versatile as the hard grey stuff but more sustainable, and "people are more likely to like it".

The bricks on the exterior are made of concrete by a company called Lignacite, with glinting fragments of recycled glass thrown into the mix; again it is both sustainable and pretty. It is, says de Rijke, a "really solid building", and what gives him most pride is "the absence of what you usually see in public buildings: ducts and vents everywhere. There is an absence of crap. If it does feel like a noble space that's why."

It's hard to disagree with him. He and his practice have set out to create a rare thing â a place for civic weddings that is celebratory rather than bureaucratic. They have also sought to capture the spirit of Blackpool without being patronising or cliched. In both they have succeeded, and by offering various views â of tower, horizon, front and streets â as you progress through the building, they help you appreciate what is good about the town.

It remains to be seen if the hundreds of millions spent on Blackpool will give it the new future that everyone hopes for. I'd also like it if a strong wind blew away some of the more lame attempts at public art. But at least they've got a nice place for walking by the sea and a nice place to get married.

Rowan Moore

February 4th, 2012

Crawl like a bear, boy

Our writer puts himself in the hands of a superfit instructor to see if he can hack the 'outdoor gym' on the Isle of Wight

I've always had a rather unhealthy relationship with exercise. The more I've abused my body with life's little pleasures, the more I've tried to sweat it out with sporadic bursts of activity. My die was cast by my friend's late dad, who was a PE teacher at our school. Vic maintained a rigorous daily workout in his garden gym well into his 80s, but he also enjoyed sucking down his B&H cigarettes and his Burton ales. Although he regretted his lifelong love affair with the weed, he always said his aim was to "stay fit enough to enjoy my vices".

Which is why I'm on a Wildfitness course on the Isle of Wight. Because it's January, because I have a big birthday approaching and because I can't stand gyms.

I will never have anything approaching the constitution or discipline that old Vic had even in his 80s. I sense it is now or never for me and a healthier lifestyle. The fags have to go and the beer intake has to be reduced. But I know it isn't going to happen if I join a gym, as they've always left me feeling like a battery chicken on a treadmill.

I spend enough time cooped up indoors. What I need is a sustainable, free-range regime like Vic's with his battered old dumb bells and his weather-worn bench and the distressed punch bag hanging outside his back door. All I need is a kickstart.

Wildfitness appeared to fit the bill. Its website promised a fun training programme in the great outdoors coupled with a healthy diet and plenty of rest and recuperation that should leave me feeling re-energised and buzzing with "raw energy". The idea behind the holidays, dreamed up by Tara Wood in 2001, is to debunk outdated fitness methods, such as indoor exercise machines, and to re-engage with nature and the evolutionary principles that kept us lean and fit for thousands of years.

It taps into the movement towards a reconnection with nature that has gathered momentum over the past decade with activities such as foraging, camping, wild swimming and barefoot running. "Humans spent 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers adapting to life on the savannah. We were tall, strong, lean, fast, agile and fertile, yet we didn't need supplements or equipment to keep us fit and healthy. Nature provided everything we needed," according to Wildfitness's blurb.

And that is how I come to find myself doing bunny hops across the springy, sodden turf of the southwest downs within an hour of arriving on the Isle of Wight. "Really?" I think as the fitness instructor Paul Ranson suggests we move on to a series of animal exercises after completing a gentle run up to the top of the downs. Bunny hops followed by a great lolloping bear crawl, a leopard stalking close to the ground and then an angry bouncing chimpanzee? All around us open fields roll out to the sea, and all I want to do is race down them. Paul, sensing my unease, coaxes me through the sequence. I do it, of course, all five minutes of it, and all through gritted teeth â because it is bloody exhausting.

As I soon discover, these animal exercises are merely a playful warm-up to more strenuous activity. But they are engaging muscle groups that my body had long since forgotten it had, and I am already beginning to regret my scepticism at what I assumed to be primary school PE exercises.

The Wildfitness programme is new this year to the Isle of Wight â its home camp is in Kenya, and there are other bases in Crete and Spain â and is being run by two irrepressible sisters who grew up on the island, Ro and Netta Pakenham-Walsh. They have mapped out an adventure playground after a lifetime of discovery along the beaches and the downs of the island. They source most of the ingredients for the meals from their parents' garden, including the honey from their hives. And they have secured the most magnificent of bases for what might otherwise pass as a somewhat abstemious, luxe-free break â NorthCourt Manor, a Jacobean pile set in 15 acres of gardens in which many of the activities take place.

Over the next two days, in the shadow of its imposing walls, I attempt to remine some of the iron in my soul by completing circuits within its grounds and using its natural features as an outdoor gym. One of these sees me running up a bank on all fours, crawling across a lawn, hopping up a series of steps, jumping from a tree stump, hanging from a branch, throwing and running to retrieve a big rock, crawling under foliage, weaving through a bamboo plantation before running with a log. Not just one circuit, but to be repeated for 15 minutes.

Preceding this was a dawn 5km run-cum-walk along the chalky cliffs overlooking Freshwater Bay, tracing a route from the Needles and peaking at Tennyson's monument. I have to confess to retching at the halfway point to the monument â a regrettable discharge of the light brigade. But that only served to sharpen my appetite for a breakfast of home-grown raspberries and yogurt and poached pears with honey, followed by a couple of Aga-fried eggs.

There was also boxing training in the music room â we used to fight when we were hunter-gatherers of course â that included skipping (of sorts on my part), plank presses, squats and burpees before a session pounding the pads. If it sounds exhausting, it really was. The programme is graded for all levels of fitness, and Paul and Ro are exceptionally encouraging and enthusiastic coaches. Even though it often felt like murder at the time, and my body was crying out for mercy, as soon as I caught my breath and stopped sweating I felt more relaxed and re-energised than I had for years.

Obviously science and machines have helped extend our life expectancy somewhat beyond that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors â not to mention the noticeable lack of threat from sabre-toothed tigers pacing the savannahs of our isles. Even so, I left a little righteous and a lot inspired. So much so that when I returned home I raced for the wilds of Tooting Common for the first time in years. And I aim to keep on going. After maybe one final fag. Just kidding. I hope.

Essentials

The first UK Wildfitness three-day break is 12-15 April, with prices from Â£650 for a standard shared room (020 3286 4886; wildfitness.com). Andy Pietrasik travelled to the Isle of Wight with Wightlink (0871 376 1000; wightlink.co.uk) on its 40-minute Portsmouth-Fishbourne crossing, one of three routes. A super-saver fare (for a car and four people) costs from Â£47 for up to four nights away

Andy Pietrasik

February 4th, 2012

Snowbombing in Austria, London during the Olympics and ...

The biggest and brashest festival in the Alps; how to find affordable accommodation in London this summer; and last-minute romantic breaks

Take me there: Snowbombing in Austria

Now in its 12th year, Snowbombing has snowballed to become the biggest, brashest and arguably the best festival in the Alps, attracting 6,000 revellers to the Tyrolean town of Mayrhofen for a week of live music, snowboarding and naked Jacuzzis. Dizzee Rascal has just been announced as the headline act (following a late cancellation from Snoop Dogg) and other highlights include a Fat Boy Slim street party, Arctic Disco in a huge igloo and ski lessons from Eddie the Eagle. Packages from Â£615 including accommodation, lift pass, festival wristband and return coach travel from London. Hurry, as tickets are expected to sell out (9-14 April; snowbombing.com).

Travel clinic: Where to stay in London during the Olympics

The dilemma We have friends coming over from Ireland for the Olympics. They've asked us to fix up their accommodation â something affordable that will give them "a taste of the real London". Help! Barbara and John, Warrington

Joanne replies A great way to get under the skin of a city and avoid rip-off hotel charges during the Olympics is to rent a private apartment. Two websites launched in the UK last year are making this easier â housetrip.com, which lists more than 700 apartments in London, and viveunique.com, which specialises in the city and has 200 vetted homes, from Hoxton loft conversions to Chelsea garden flats, with prices from Â£85 per night.

Would your friends consider a home swap? Come July there will be no shortage of Londoners looking to escape the Olympic mayhem. The recently launched lovehomeswap.com has a tantalising array of properties on offer, and the only outlay is the Â£99 annual membership fee.

If they are serious about seeing the city through a Londoner's eyes, they could opt for a home stay, renting a room or apartment in a private house. The website airbnb.com has 3,000 listings for London, with user reviews and prices from Â£20 a night.

â¢ If you have aÂ travel dilemma, email Joanne O'Connor at
magazine@observer.co.uk.

Three of the bestâ¦ romantic Valentine's retreats

Don't panic. There's still time to treat your sweetheart to a romantic break next week. Here are three quirky love nests which are available for Valentine's Day

1. Boulangerie, Paris
They don't come much sweeter than this suite in a former bakery near the Eiffel Tower. From Â£83 per night (holidaylettings.co.uk/149086)

2. The Three Sisters, Tallinn
The Old Town oozes romance and this historic hotel makes the ultimate cosy retreat. From â¬226 (threesistershotel.com)

3. The Boathouse at Knotts End, Ullswater
On the lake shore, this 19th-century boathouse makes a stylish, secluded bolthole for two. Â£185 per night (i-escape.com)

Joanne O'Connor

February 4th, 2012

Restaurant review: Viajante

Sometimes it's a fine line between bold cooking and food that doesn't work â and sometimes it's not such a fine line

Patriot Square, Bethnal Green, London E2 (020 7871 0461). Meal for two, with wine and service, gulp, Â£200

The problem with surprises is that not all of them are nice. A pink macaroon flavoured with Iberico ham served as a petit four is a complete surprise. It's definitely not a nice one. When you are left thinking: "I wish that had been lemon or raspberry or anything other than this", something is up. Sure, I can admire the technique by which all that hammy flavour is slipped into one of those sweet crisp meringue almond confections. That doesn't make it more pleasant to eat. Equally a tiny chocolate roulade with a sweet cream flavoured with ceps served as a dessert is eye-achingly clever. But that doesn't make either one pleasant to eat. When you find yourself reaching for the word "challenging" to describe your dinner and wanting to shout: "Who put all the bloody mushrooms in my pudding?", it's time to get your coat.

It is a shame our meal at Nuno Mendes's restaurant Viajante ended this way. Portuguese-born Mendes is an interesting chef: dark-eyed, intense, uncompromising, eager. A few years ago he attempted to bring his brand of playful modernism to a Hoxton pub. They advertised it as "fine dining in trainers". Few wanted his version of fine dining â curious flavour combinations, lots of sous-vide, liquids dehydrated unto clammy powders â regardless of their footwear. The pub dumped that menu, and Mendes moved on, eventually surfacing amid the grandeur of the former Bethnal Green Town Hall. Here, from an open kitchen, he serves "surprise" tasting menus of six or nine courses to gently hushed dining rooms.

It's not cheap. It's not on nodding terms with cheap. It couldn't even send cheap a postcard. Six courses is Â£65, and we could find nothing on the wine list below Â£30; a Marlborough Sauvignon that Majestic would flog me for Â£7.99 was listed at Â£32. For this money you get glorious moments and intriguing moments and moments that make you sigh and roll your eyes and want to stick a fork in the back of your hand.

At its best Viajante â it means "the traveller" â is very good indeed. Thai Explosion II may be a stupid name for a canapÃ©, but this rich mousse of confited chicken flavoured with lemon grass, sandwiched between squares of crisp chicken skin and a coconut tuile, was a "blimey" moment. Crunchy biscuits of toasted amaranth smoked over hay with a wood sorrel purÃ©e were dense and musky. There were very good breads with a killer quenelle of smoked butter crusted with walnuts. There was a slippery bit of squid with the most extraordinary jellified texture despite having been chargrilled. Of the more substantial dishes the most pleasing was some crisp-skinned but rare trout with bright orange roe and an acidulated julienne of crunchy vegetables. There was a perfectly cooked piece of lobster with leek and milk skin â Mendes likes fiddling with milk â and a curiously traditional dish of cod with parsley and potatoes which was soft and gentle and soothing.

Other things were less successful. Telling us that parsnips have been treated like meat doesn't make them meat, even when you serve them with smears of truffle and onion and squishy beads of vinegary tapioca. It just makes for a brown starchy plateful that looks like it's ready for the dishwasher before you've got started. Planks of pigeon breast cooked sous-vide had that gelatinous texture which, whatever the reality, made it feel uncooked. And when they grandly presented the Viajante olive, and it turned out to be something like a kumquat stuffed with cream cheese wrapped in an olive green gel (it could have been all of these things, or none of them whatsoever), you could hear my eyeballs rolling back in my head. And then came those odd desserts.

In its eagerness to be so very now and forward thinking, the food at Viajante manages at times to feel curiously dated; it recalls the first flush of Hestomania, when even he has moved on and is now cooking up big platefuls of heartiness at Dinner.

Modern techniques are great. They're brilliant. If you want to cook my steak by banging it round the Large Hadron Collider, be my guest. Dehydrate my pig cheeks. Spherify my nuts. But only do so if the result tastes nicer. At Viajante deliciousness is too often forced to give way to cleverness. And that really is the biggest surprise of all.

Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/jayrayner for all his reviews in one place

Jay Rayner

February 4th, 2012

The 'human safari' is an outrage to tribal feelings | ...

Unethical tourism needs to be stopped by stricter regulations and educating tourists

As the world has grown smaller while our passion for novelty has expanded, our curiosity about different cultures, particularly those relatively untouched by what we deem "civilisation", has grown exponentially. We come, we see and then we overrun wherever it is we have alighted.

The latest manifestation of our thirst for novelty as well as authenticity is causing some alarm â the "human safari". These are organised by unethical tour operators who exploit tribes in India, Central and South America and other corners of the globe who have hitherto had little contact with the outside world. The price paid for this type of tourism has been vividly described by Gethin Chamberlain in these pages over the past few weeks.

His reports on the Bonda tribe in the hilly regions of the state of Orissa in India and the Jarawa in the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, have triggered a huge response from readers of the Observer. The degrading manner in which the tribal people are bullied into dancing for the amusement of convoys of visitors, and members of the police who have a responsibility to protect these people from exploitation, is further illustrated by video evidence on the Observer's website today.

Stephen Corry of Survival International, which campaigns on behalf of tribal people, rightly says: "Tribes are not cultural relics nor should they be treated like animals in a zooâ¦ promoting tours by using derogatory terms such as 'primitive' and advertising their nakedness shows a clear lack of respect."

The national government of India apparently agrees. Recently, it has acted swiftly. Three tour operators have been charged with selling tribal tours "in an obscene manner". Two men face up to seven years in jail if convicted. Laws already exist to safeguard both tribes.

However, it is the failure in the application of such measures that is at issue. In 2002, the supreme court of India, for example, ordered that the Andaman trunk road that runs through the Jarawa tribal reserve should be closed. The ruling has been ignored.

The closure of the road would give choice back to the Jarawa as to how and when they wish to engage â or not â with the outside world. Stricter regulation of the tour operators working in both regions and the disciplining of rogue police would also set a valuable benchmark. However, this is not solely India's problem.

More than a billion tourists will be on the move across the world this year. International travellers and the tour operators that serve them also have a part to play. Some operators behave highly ethically protecting and strengthening indigenous communities. Others, however, are unrestrained in the ways they choose to satiate the fast-growing appetite for experiential adventures.

So where do we go from here? What is required, perhaps, is stricter regulations that cross national borders; tourists encouraged to become better informed and a much wider debate about what unethical tourism does both to fragile societies and those who pay to become spectators in the humiliation and decline of these tribal people.

February 4th, 2012

Viewfinder competition: win a Â£150 hotel voucher

Name the place and win a Â£150 voucher from Hotels.com, letting you stay at thousands of hotels worldwide

Observer

February 4th, 2012

Richard Quest: Why business travellers should get miles ...

Forgive me, but this article is really designed for a particular group of people: those of us whose professional lives mean we collect serious quantities of frequent-flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. We are the people who know our programme membership numbers better than our family's birthdays.

February 4th, 2012

Great Getaways: Madeira, Barcelona, Chicago, Barbados

Madeira

February 4th, 2012

Globejotter: Thompson hotels, The Atom digital radio and ...

The hotel

February 4th, 2012

UK holidays: Self-catering cottage class in the Cotswolds
A self-catering country retreat in the Cotswolds turns a family weekend into a trip to savour.

February 4th, 2012

Tallinn, Estonia: readers' tips, recommendations and travel ...
Readers offer their most useful advice and tips for a stay in Tallinn, the Estonian capital.

February 4th, 2012

Weird wellbeing - the womb spa

Can 'returning to the womb' at a spa in Gran Canaria chill out a caffeine and deadline junkie? Or will it just make her see red?

If the purpose of going to a spa is to relax, the "womb" spa in Gran Canaria has taken the concept to its conclusion because it wants to return you, metaphorically, to the womb, where there is no heartbreak, no dry skin, and no advertising. Unborn babies are always relaxed. According to its publicity blurb, this spa has a room designed to look like a womb â whose womb in particular, I know not. Maybe they asked a wombologist to design a photogenic womb â I don't know that either. But spas, like all luxury services, are expanding, so you cannot blame them for ever more bizarre marketing tics.

Gran Canaria is a sun-blasted rock, dedicated to impersonating the neon bits of London. It reminds me of a freestanding Trocadero, but surrounded by the Atlantic. If there is an "old" bit, I do not see it, because I am driven to a strip of huge and grandiose hotels, all standing together, like giant women preparing for a hen night. It is fiercely luxurious and modern, with a smorgasbord of Europeans wearing leisurewear. Everyone looks like Tom Jones and wife.

I am staying at the Lopesan Villa del Conde Resort & Corallium Thalasso â big name, big hotel. It has an enormous, double-turreted entrance building â Xanadu in Citizen Kane. The guests, mostly in bathrobes, are dwarfed by the surroundings. Outside they lie by the meandering pools, in the sort of sun that blisters you if you stick your hand in it, so quite a few people are striped, like raspberry zebras. I am no particular fan of resort living, but this is lush and glassy. The hotel could swallow me. Even the children's screams â in German, French, Italian â are muted.

The spa is a series of private pools overlooking the ocean. I am scrubbed, massaged and stuck in a pool until I feel like a large, well-cared-for fish. This feels ridiculous to write, but spa living exhausts me, possibly because I am not used to it, preferring a diet of caffeine, deadline and anxiety. Every treatment drains a little more energy, until I end up feeling like Joan Didion contemplating the Vietnam War â and in a spa. What else to say? I'm wet now.

A car is sent, in case a five-minute walk past more monumental hotels is beyond me. I am driven to a neighbouring but seemingly identical hotel â the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort, Corallium Spa & Casino â bigger name, bigger hotel. The spa, I realise, is actually a theme park. It is a series of rooms, numbered on a map like at Thorpe Park, and the rooms are ever more bizarre. It is called a "hyper-thermal circuit", where you experience both hot and cold, and it is "inspired by the volcanic conditions on the island", the real volcanic conditions being too unsafe to spa in.

It is arranged around a dim hallway, with pot plants and Moorish lamps. Apart from the couples in bathrobes holding hands and rehydrating together â and the lack of a piano â we could be in Rick's bar, Casablanca. There is no particular order for doing the rides, I mean rooms, because this is Gran Canaria, not Austria. (I say this because I have been to an Austrian diet clinic where, if you touched the dining room door handle, you got an electric shock.) First I bathe my feet in a sort of wall installation, with icy water. This would be profound and therapeutic, except that I can see the check-in desk, and they can see me.

One room is made entirely of rock, with hanging rock formations , and a warm, dark pool of water. But I cannot just sit in the pool, because I have decided, thanks to terrible films like Conan the Barbarian (not even the original, the remake), that there may be a mythical sea beast in the pool, and it may eat me, or just kill me and not eat me, it being full of other spa victims. That is what happens when spa designers try too hard. When you spa, you are in quite a vulnerable place emotionally, and thus prone to primal fantasies of annihilation.

Another room has a floor coated in salt, which I am tempted to steal, just as I am sometimes tempted to steal toilet paper. Another has backlit crystal walls and a vast, glowing crystal in the centre; the photos promised naked men waving, but there are none. And so back to the womb, a journey I've never actually wanted to make, except perhaps in the company of a skilled psychotherapist. I mean â I like my mother. I don't really want to bash my way in again, even in metaphor, because I am 37, and it would be rude.

Anyway, it is a large, curved homage to expensive carpetry, with red-draped waterbeds and very red walls. I wish I had been privy to the meeting when they chose the exact hue of red â "No, that's not a womb, that's a telephone box. No, that's worse, that's salmon!" The entrance is pink carpet, to evoke an 8ft vagina. (All misogynists should be sent here, as punishment. It should be the designated spa for men who hate women.)

And here are my fellow babies, lying on the waterbeds, looking not, obviously, like babies, but like affluent European professionals, being aggressively quiet. Twenty minutes, I lie there wobbling. I am not sure how relaxing it actually is. The spa design evokes, in no particular order, Egypt, the tropics and the North Pole. You wonder if, psychologically, you need air miles.

â¢ The womb room is part of the Corallium Spa at Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort (+34 902 450010, lopesan.com/en). Doubles from â¬684 room only for a four-night stay. Lopesan Costa Meloneras is part of Gran Canaria Spa, Wellness & Health (+34 928 367508, grancanariawellness.com). For flights to Gran Canaria, see flycheapo.com

Tanya Gold

February 3rd, 2012

Set in stone: Sicily's quarry villa

It sounds like a gimmick, but a luxury villa in a Roman quarry on a tiny island off Sicily makes inspired use of its setting

Beds in concrete sewer pipes, converted prisons and factories, hotels made from ice or old railway carriages ... over the last decade or so the travel industry has thrown up more and more bizarre ways for us to be accommodated.

These wacky places to stay may be entertaining, but usually they're the accommodation equivalent of fancy dress â funny for five minutes, then you wish you were in something more comfortable. A villa in a quarry sounds like another example of quirk over quality â not really somewhere you'd want to hole up for long.

On the tiny, sleepy Egadi island of Favignana though, staying in a quarry is a stylish prospect. Since Roman times, tufa, a pale limestone was excavated here for buildings across Sicily, and islanders have incorporated the remaining holes and blocks into developments. Now a gorgeous rambling seaside villa, Zu Nillu, built into a disused Roman tufa quarry that has been turned into a spectacular garden, is newly available as a holiday let, exclusively through specialist operator Think Sicily.

Rather than JCBs and rusting shopping trollies, this verdant Escher print of a quarry features small square lawns, shady quadrants full of orange and pomegranate trees, cacti and palms, with raised platforms and sun-terraces interconnected by stone walkways and zigzagging staircases, some several metres above the ground (not a place for young children). Two main buildings sleep eight, and descend from ground level into the sunny garden, but several freestanding monoliths are being turned into extra rooms, and hidden away in secret corners are an open-air bathroom under a cacao tree, and a fabulous pool set into the quarry walls.

It is owned by an Italian actor and film director, Ricky Tognazzi, who has decorated it with unusual antiques (sculptured day beds, Moorish tiling, decorative masonry). His name meant nothing to me, but it became apparent during my stay that Tognazzi is famous â perhaps the Italian equivalent of Mike Leigh â¦ or at least Michael Winner. When I sunbathed on the flat roof of the main house I would hear the excited peal of Italian tourists below, posing for photos outside our celebrity's front door. They could never see my boyfriend or I in our secluded confines behind the high walls or below ground level, but I could excite them further by shouting inside to "Ricky" in my best Eeee-talian scorchio! accent.

Ricky Tognazzi seems to have a rather nice life here, and it was lovely to borrow it for a while. Like a heated up version of the Scilly Isles, the Egadis are incredibly peaceful and undeveloped. Pedalling off on hire bikes with snorkels, books and rolled-up towels in our baskets each morning, we cycled quiet dusty roads around the butterfly-shaped island, which lies four miles off the west coast of Sicily, a short ferry ride from Trapani â plenty of visitors just go for the day. Favignana is only seven square miles (its neighbours, Levanzo and Marettimo, are even smaller and more sleepy than this soporific little place) and flattish but for a few small mountains, and it resembles a half-completed game of Tetris in parts, with oblong pillars and square holes left by the excavations.

Seafront quarries have left fantastic platforms to dive from at Bue Marino, Cala Azzurra, and our own Cala Rossa, the island's (some say the Mediterranean's) most beautiful cove, where Zu Nillu is the only building. On calm days people would flock there â I counted 37 yachts in the bay one day â but the Italian sun-worshippers seemed to follow a secret law that certain weathers called for certain spots, and a breeze made them abandon Cala Rossa for a more sheltered spot.

We took advantage of the culture of conformity, but could always find peace anyway in our private, sea-facing walled garden across the road from the house, where we took lunches of smoky ricotta with peaches and honey, papery salami and Sicilian white wine. We had expected a lot of the food on this old Sicilian fishing island. Tuna and sardines were once hugely important, though much is exported now and tuna has become something of an artisan product â tins of it cost â¬20 and more in the gift shops. Bottarga, dried tuna roe, featured in many of the islands' delicious pasta dishes (the villa provided a guide to restaurants, such as the highly recommended El Pescadore, and a concierge on call to make bookings) but we were disappointed to see many restaurants used frozen fish in some dishes (marked on the menu), and found most a bit overpriced, charging â¬15-â¬20 for a grilled tuna steak. Our favourite find was the cheap arancini shop Girarrosto Rosticceria, where fried rice balls filled with aubergine, cheese or sausage cost a couple of euros. Another brilliant bargain was at the almost Ibiza-esque bars of Monique and Camarillo Brillo in Favignana town, which had free aperitivo buffets in the evening. The stylish Hotel delle Cave (hoteldellecave.it, doubles from â¬80 B&B) also has a garden in a quarry, and is lovely for drinks and perhaps to stay. But we couldn't resist the lure of a rooftop sundowner in our labyrinthine home â which did almost feel like our home by the end, Ricky's no longer.

â¢ A week at Zu Nillu costs from Â£2,530 for two or from Â£5,040 for eight, including cleaning and welcome pack, with Think Sicily (020-3131 2912, thinksicily.com). EasyJet (easyjet.co.uk) flies to Palermo from Gatwick

Gemma Bowes

February 3rd, 2012

Skiing with a toddler

Wondering how and when to introduce your toddler to
the joys of a ski or snowboard holiday? Here's our pick of the best family-friendly ski destinations

As someone with a sky-high level of snow obsession, who timed my pregnancy around winter and spent more time than is reasonable Googling Inuit baby names, I didn't for one second consider skipping a snow trip because we'd have a seven-month-old in tow. Yet that first holiday, in terms of cost, the sheer admin involved and the amount of time my husband and I actually got to snowboard came as something of a shock. Each morning in our rented flat, eyes hooded from lack of sleep, we'd tussle over whose turn it was to enjoy a lone powder day or whether we could justify any more â¬15-an-hour nanny time. There had to be another way, so this winter I did some research and came up with three different options.

THE BABY-FRIENDLY CHALET

If you're with the right group, a chalet holiday is one of the most reasonable, not to mention raucous (in a good way) ways to experience a ski resort. But how does that work if you bring kids? Come 6am the next day when your toddler is screaming, other guests, some of whom may have only been in bed for an hour or so, are going to catch on and you're going to feel bad. Cue the baby-friendly chalet.

Sian Williams, founder of Baby Friendly Boltholes (babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk), says: "We've encouraged owners to add elements that will make their breaks appeal to young families too. Our 'flagship' offering is the gorgeous Chalet Chambertin in Morzine, which offers dedicated Baby and Toddler Weeks. This boutique hotel-style chalet is run by Ollie and Emma, a lovely British couple with two young kids of their own. The package includes two-to-one childcare by experienced nannies from 9-5 each day, a driver, chef making daily breakfasts, afternoon teas, kids' supper and adult dinners, plus a baby hamper with nappies, wipes, creams and plenty of toys so you don't need to run the gauntlet of low-cost airline baggage allowances."

The chalet is small, the vibe friendly and while you make the most of the excellent skiing in Morzine, Avoriaz and beyond in the Portes du Soleil, kids will spend their days watching Disney films, baking cookies, dabbling in arts and crafts, or playing outside making snow angels and sledging.

Sian adds: "If your dates don't fit one of the Baby and Toddler Weeks at the chalets, don't be afraid to use our 'Ask the Owner' button to check whether there will be other guests with little ones staying on the dates you are interested in."

â¢ With Baby Friendly Boltholes (babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk) prices are Â£580 (adult), Â£495 (child under three) and Â£575 (child aged three to 12), including return transfers from Geneva, half-board accommodation, childcare 9am-5pm Mon-Sat, baby hamper, but not including flights, lift passes or kit rental. The next Baby Week is 3-10 April

Alternatives

Abode, St Martin de Belleville, France
Another Baby Friendly Boltholes property (tinyurl.com/abodebelleville, good availability), this is a four-bed chalet with stunning views for the parents, a chef who will do kids' meals, in-chalet nanny service and all the baby equipment you need to minimise airport lugging. A week's accommodation, including most meals and drinks, costs Â£3,285 for a family of four â though flights, lift passes, kit passes and transfers are not included, and aren't for any of the three alternatives below.

Chalet Les Arolles, Les Coches, France Booked through Family Ski (familyski.co.uk, good availability), this is in the Paradiski super-ski area, sitting on the side of a blue piste just 10m from the crÃ¨che. Children from three months to four years get the Powder Pups service, with heaps of toys, games and arts and crafts on offer. A week's full-board costs Â£1,596 for a family of four. Powder Pups costs Â£275 for six days' childcare.

Etoile des Beaux Arts, Les Houches, France
This self-catering apartment sleeps seven, plus two cots, and is available through Tots to Travel (totstotravel.co.uk, available 3-30 March, from Â£725). It's officially "child-friendly" so there won't be any unguarded hot tubs lurking in the living room or precipice-style balconies. This trad chalet is in a central but quiet location with great views and an enclosed deck for snowman construction. Cots and cot linen are provided, but you'll need to organise your own childcare, though Tots to Travel has a list of companies it would recommend.

Chalet Marta, Selva Val Gardena, Italy
This is one of Esprit Ski's larger properties (espritski.com), set within a pretty, family-friendly resort. It has large en-suite family rooms and an in-house nursery. Care ratios are excellent, with one nanny for two babies under 12 months, and kids from two to five can also join the evening Mini Cocoa Club for bedtime stories. From Â£798 for a family of three, including most meals and drinks. Childcare for kids from four months to 40 months for six days costs from Â£285.

THE HOTEL PACKAGE

Just because you have your own kids doesn't mean you'll necessarily like hanging out with other people's. In fact it often means the opposite, which sometimes puts parents off family-friendly hotels. But Club Med (clubmed.co.uk) has been in business since the 1950s, and they are pros, so you can bet that any scenario you throw at them, be it logistical or emotional, they'll have seen it all before. Plus it's also undoubtedly relaxing to know that all your costs have been covered up front. Laurent de Chorivit, Club Med UK's MD, says: "Club Med's all-inclusive packages include accommodation, flights and transfers but also ski tuition and ski passes, meals, drinks and snacks. No extra costs, no surprises."

Childcare is extra, but you're paying for quality. With highly qualified staff and small group quotas, Baby Club caters for children from four to 23 months with activities including early-learning games, outdoor strolls, cuddle breaks and of course naps. From two-three years children go into Petit Club Med, where the focus is more on discovery, with games and songs as well as outdoor play with their peers and an introduction to snow sports and activities.

Valmorel in the Savoie region of France is the newest resort in Club Med's portfolio. The baby restaurant is open from 6.30pm so babies and parents can dine (in the loosest sense of the word) together and you can borrow buggies, high chairs, cots, baby baths, change mats and bottle warmers to avoid the faff of bringing everything with you. Babysitting can be organised in your room for an extra cost, should you want to take advantage of the resort's open bar.

â¢ Club Med's Valmorel resort (tinyurl.com/valmorelclubmed) charges from Â£5,708 for a family of four, including return flights, meals, an open bar, ski passes and group lessons. For a week's childcare, Baby Club Med costs Â£250 and Petit Club Med Â£200

Alternatives

Babyhotel, Carinthia, Austria
Austria's network of 34 much-lauded family-only Kinderhotels (kinderhotels.co.uk) includes the Babyhotel (babyhotel.eu) in Carinthia, southern Austria. Children can charge around the two-floor softplay "Pirates' Land" with ball pool, while adults ski or relax in the hotel spa, and in the basement there's a cinema and swimming pool, with a baby pool and slide for toddlers. The price for a family of four for a seven-day stay, without lift pass but including food and childcare is from â¬1,605.

Hotel Arlberghaus, ZÃ¼rs, Austria
Powder Byrne (powderbyrne.com) offers a complimentary creche service at this four-star hotel for those travelling out of school holidays and wanting to introduce their young to the birthplace of skiing. Activities include snow play, finger painting and bubble pictures, with quiet time guaranteed too. Three-year-olds can take their first steps on skis as part of the Yeti Primer programme. Powder Byrne charges from Â£2,119 (adult), Â£560 (child of two years plus) and under-twos travel free. This is for a week in a superior room, including seven nights' half-board, return flights from London and transfers. The Yeti Primer, including two hours of ski tuition, costs from Â£495 per week; creche (six months-four years) costs Â£450.

Chalethotel Christina, La Plagne, France
This Mark Warner hotel in La Plagne (markwarner.co.uk/ski/france/la-plagne), right opposite the ski lift, has a warm and welcoming vibe. A great feature for parents, especially of babies or younger toddlers, is that you keep the same nanny all week, rather than having your children passed around carers. They'll also be happy to follow your child's routine, should they have one. They work with the OxygÃ¨ne Ski School, which takes kids from three years old to play in their Snowman Kindergarten. A week from 18 March for a family of four costs Â£3,220, including half-board accommodation, flights, transfers and childcare.

Hotel Bruxelles, Soldeu, Andorra
The comfy, convenient Hotel Bruxelles (tinyurl.com/hotelbrux) is one of Neilson's most family-friendly hotels (along with its flagship, the Hotel Aalborg in Les Deux Alpes). Under fours will be hooked up with the resort's creche â it can't be pre-booked, but Neilson says there's usually no problem with availability. There's one week free at this popular resort, from 18 March, which costs Â£1,369 for a family of four, including flights, transfers and half-board accommodation, but not the creche, which is from â¬125 for five days.

MORE FAMILY-FRIENDLY RESORTS
When it comes to snow parks, ski lifts, service and even snowfall, US resorts quite simply do things better. If you can face the travel, that is. For even without cost considerations, the prospect of a 10-hour flight plus transfer with a Tasmanian devil-type creature that doesn't understand the phrase sit still, let alone have any desire to enact it, is not for the faint-hearted. But if you do make the trip, it's unlikely your toddler will be disappointed as creches â or daycare, as they call it there â in American ski resorts take child-centric fun to a whole new level.

The Treehouse in Aspen (treehousekidsclub.com), in Colorado, is possibly the standout facility of the bunch. In its fourth season, and as the name suggests, themed around nature, this vast 25,000-square foot space at the base of Aspen Snowmass is open to children from eight weeks to four years old (or until they're ready for ski school) from 8am-4pm. As Sue Way, director of children's programmes at Aspen Snowmass, says: "TVs and DVDs are banned and instead the focus is on activity; we spend as much of the day outside as possible, either in strollers, on our snow mover ride or, when they can walk, in our fenced-off playground. We see it as a way to start their relationship with snow from a very early age. And when the weather is bad we focus on dramatic play inside, where we have a climbing wall with a padded floor."

The child to carer ratio for children under one is 2:1 and for those over one it's 4:1, and the daily meal and snack menu consists of lots parent-pleasing fresh fruit and veg.

Sue says: "We get a lot of repeat visitors to the Treehouse. Parents book a vacation according to what is best for their child, and if their child is happy they're more likely to come back." The high snow quality and epic skiable terrain at Snowmass and Aspen's other resorts could also have something to do with it. Treehouse costs $149 for a day, $99 a half-day. To rent a condo, visit stayaspen.com.

Alternatives

Storklinten, Swedish Lapland
Scandinavian ski resorts are frequently praised for their child-centric ethos and Storklinten in Swedish Lapland is no exception. It's a small, chilled out place, where families stay in log cabins and reindeer roam about at will â sure to excite any toddler. There's an outdoor snow play area, and husky trips can be organised. And though there is no creche for babies or younger toddlers, mini skiers are well catered for, with dedicated lines on the mountain. Simply Sweden (simplysweden.co.uk/storklinten.php) offers five nights for a family of four from Â£2,995 including flights, car rental and five nights' self-catering accommodation.

Keystone, Colorado
Keystone (keystoneresort.com) has a permanent outdoor snow fort as part of its Kidtopia setup, which also includes face-painting, cookie decorating and arts and crafts â though beware, "Unattended parents are fed to the snow dragon". Ski Independence (ski-i.com/usa/keystone) has one-bed self-catered condos, River Run, for seven nights, including flights and transfers, from Â£2,968 for a family of four.

Halte-Garderie creche, Vaujany, Alpe d'Huez, France
Vaujany is a pretty, peaceful village neighbouring Alpe d'Huez. The Halte-Garderie creche in town takes babies from six months for indoor and outdoor play and is described by the Ski Club of Great Britain (skiclub.co.uk) as "amazing" â a day's childcare costs Â£26. Peak Retreats (peakretreats.co.uk) has availability from 24 March for seven nights' self-catering in a two-bed apartment at La Cascade, for Â£679 (sleeps five-seven). The price includes a Eurotunnel crossing for a car and passengers.

Obergurgl, Austria
This resort is free from the aprÃ¨s-ski hordes who go to nearby Solden, which keeps it nice and quiet for your kids â plus there are no reminders of what you're missing out on. It's small and easy to navigate, and children old enough to ski will get on well with the friendly English-speaking instructors and enjoy the Alpine safari and magical forest â both runs designed specifically for children. Esprit Ski (espritski.com/resorts/obergurgl) has family packages from Â£1,799 (two adults, two children under 12) staying at Chalet Alpenblume, which include flights, transfers, breakfast and most dinners and a baby listening service. Esprit nursery care for children from four months to 40 months is Â£285 for six full days, and three- to four-year-olds can join the "spritelets" for half-days of ski play (Â£199 for five afternoons).

Sam Haddad is the editor of Cooler (coolermag.com), a snow and style magazine for women

Sam Haddad

February 3rd, 2012

European big freeze: transport networks on alert
The latest on potential air, train and road disruptions resulting from the Siberian weather front.

February 3rd, 2012

Cruises: Lines to give away thousands of free flights
Caribbean Cruise Lines and Celebrity Cruises are giving away thousands of free flights to those who book by the end of the month.

February 3rd, 2012

Travel advice: changes to flight times and dollar bills in ...
Gill Charlton advises on keeping abreast of changes to flight times, learning the language in Spain and taking dollar bills to Burma.

February 3rd, 2012

Out of Africa, into Spain: photographs of the Cabarceno ...
African animals at the Cabarceno wildlife park in Cantabria, Spain.

February 3rd, 2012

A taste of old Japan

One of Japan's best foodie destinations is the Maruhachi Ryokan, hidden away in the tiny mountain village of Maze, near Takayama. Rebecca Milner makes the culinary pilgrimage

The Japanese clearly value tradition, yet for one reason or another â fire, natural disaster, the second world war, an enthusiasm for progress â there aren't many towns left that truly encapsulate the way things were. Kyoto has its temples, but in between them is a thoroughly modern city.

Takayama is different â an old castle town in the mountains of central Japan. You can still see the ruins of the 17th-century castle in the town's Shiroyama Park, but Takayama is much better known for its townscape of narrow lanes and low wooden buildings stained the colour of espresso. With its steep hills the town couldn't produce much rice, so it produced artisans instead. Many were carpenters, who would go on to work on the palaces and temples in Kyoto, then return to construct their signature lattice-front buildings for local merchants.

Takayama has a few beautifully preserved streets, now filled with perpetually crowded tourist shops, and there is also a slow encroachment of Disneyland-esque additions on the edges â new "old" buildings are sprouting up. To really get away from it all, you need to head deeper into the hills, to a tiny village like Maze. Consider it a pilgrimage: Maze happens to shelter one of Japan's best hidden culinary destinations.

Maze is 40km south of Takayama, enveloped by a bucolic nothingness of rice paddies and hills. A slick two-lane highway makes easy work of those hills, though considering there's hardly another car in sight one has to wonder if its construction was really necessary.

Its star, the Maruhachi Ryokan, doesn't advertise; and has almost zero online presence. The inn gets by entirely on repeat customers and word-of-mouth, and this is the way that the owner Chikako Hora prefers it. I get the sense that she agreed to let me write about her inn only because she believes that nobody would bother to travel from a foreign country to Maze (yes, that's a dare).

It looks like a classic Japanese country villa, with a low, horizontal frame capped by slate-coloured tiles. But it isn't a time capsule. The walls are crisp white planes, the tatami mats are silky and fresh and the futons are wonderfully fluffy. Along one highly polished wooden corridor, glass cutouts in the floor look down over the carp swimming in the pond below.

Most of Maruhachi's customers are anglers â when the wisteria starts to bloom in summer the fishing season begins in earnest. The fishermen arrive armed with long rods to fish for ayu (sweetfish), a river fish native to east Asia with delicate white meat that Japanese people will tell you tastes like watermelon. It doesn't; but it is light and sweet and perfect in the summer when skewered and barbecued over hot coals, seasoned with sea salt and eaten head to tail off the stick like an ice lolly.

But the spring months, before the anglers arrive, are the region's most spectacular â clumps of purple wisteria hang over fast-moving mountain streams teeming with amago (red-spotted trout) and iwana (white-spotted char). Unruly tufts of bright yellow-green foliage are run through with rivulets of dark evergreen.

Spring is also the season for sansai, mountain vegetables. These are the ferns and shoots that nose up through the ground when it thaws and sprout from the tips of branches. There are half-a-dozen or so more common ones, like kogomi (ostrich fern) and taranome (Angelica tree shoots). It's a foragers' paradise. In Maze, housewives with baskets pillage the mountainside for edible greens to sell at roadside stands. With only 1,500 people in the village, there aren't enough to do too much damage.

Dinner at Maruhachi is a feast of all of this. The 11-course meal is served in a private dining room on a low black lacquered table with mother-of-pearl inlays of dragons and flowers. Guests sit on floor cushions. With each course, the waitresses go through the ritual of opening the sliding paper doors, kneeling on the tatami and explaining the details of each dish.

The iwana is served as sashimi (raw and thinly sliced), rare for a river fish. It has a cool, clear flesh traced with silver that looks like the river in the sun, and just enough fat to give it a richness of flavour and texture. The leaner amago is skewered and grilled at the table. Sansai appear lightly swaddled in tempura, seasoned with matcha (green tea) salt. There is also homemade tofu spiked with yomogi (mugwort) and new potatoes dusted with egoma (wild sesame seeds). By the time the top-quality hida-gyu steak arrives, at around course number six, we're in heaven.

Midway through the meal, we are greeted at the table by Chikako herself. As the okami, the mistress of the inn, this is her role. It was a role that she was born into â her mother was the okami before her. There are inns that can trace their lineage back 10 generations; Maruhachi is comparatively a child â only two generations old.

She's graceful and charming, wearing a formal silk kimono; you'd never suspect that she's spent all afternoon in the kitchen. We invite her to stay and chat with us, to tell us about growing up in Maze. While making sure our sake cups stay full, she talks about her beloved river and the effects of the new road that make it easier to get in and out of the village (Chikako could do without it).

"There's nothing here!" she says, laughing. "Unless you get that, and in your heart really want that, you certainly wouldn't want to come all the way out here."

She has no idea how wrong she is.

â¢ To get to Takayama from Tokyo station, take the Nozomi Shinkansen to Nagoya and change for the limited express Wide View Hida train to Takayama. The journey takes four hours and costs Â¥14,200 (around Â£118) return. The same train stops at Gero, the nearest station for Maze; the trip between Takayama and Gero takes one hour and costs Â£17. A night at Maruhachi Ryokan (+81 576 47 2502) is Â£96 per person, dinner and breakfast included. Find a Japanese speaker to make a reservation, as no English is spoken at the inn. Guests will be shuttled to and from Gero station.

â¢ Rebecca Milner is a writer based in Tokyo

February 3rd, 2012

Where in the world?
Identify the location of this photograph for the chance to win a suitcase.

February 3rd, 2012

The best of Sign Language: January 2012
Our favourite weird and wonderful signs sent in by readers during the past month.

February 3rd, 2012

The world's best places for whale watching
Baja California is a whale-watching hot spot, but there are other great places to spot the giants of the sea too.

February 3rd, 2012

Hundreds stranded after Malev grounds flights
Hundreds of passengers have been left stranded after Malev, Hungary's national airline, ceased operations this morning.

February 3rd, 2012

Freight train derailment halts Euston trains

A freight train derailment caused major disruption to travellers on one of Britain's busiest rail lines today.

February 3rd, 2012

Open Jaw: 'Central London will be full during the Olympics'

Fun and Games

February 2nd, 2012

Worldwide wonders: Travel Photo of the Year competition

The results of our Travel Photo of the Year competition, held in conjunction with 'Wanderlust' magazine, reveal spectacular destinations and dramatic encounters.

February 2nd, 2012

My Life In Travel: Zane Lowe, DJ and BBC Radio 1 presenter

First holiday memory?

February 2nd, 2012

Simon Calder: Tyranny and the tourist's conscience

You probably have a travel boycott or two of your own. I first flew on Ryanair 20 years ago. After a mix-up at Dublin that cost me Â£40, I vowed I would never fly on the airline again. That boycott ended the moment I needed to get from Stansted to Prestwick, but I have had more success in spurning the Venezuelan airline Viasa, Tirana's grim Hotel Kalaja and Middlesbrough on a Saturday night, following unfortunate experiences with each of them. (My vow never to fly on Viasa again, prompted by inflight poisoning, was made easier when the dismal airline went bust.)

February 2nd, 2012

Spiritual travel for atheists: Do pilgrimages have a place ...

Few activities are nowadays more venerated or form the subject of more involved daydreams than travelling. Alongside love, travel lies at the heart of secular notions of happiness, though, unlike love, it is is generally assumed to be a straightforward process entailing few conceptual or philosophical conundrums.The travel pages of newspapers and magazines present the chief hurdles as identifying good hotels, finding things to do after dark, and locating small, authentic restaurants.

February 2nd, 2012

Today: The world's largest winter carnival is taking place in QuÃ©bec City. The annual event has been running since 1894 and continues with night parades, snow sculptures, sleigh rides, husky races and an Arctic Spas Village in the Canadian city until Sunday 12 February(carnaval.qc.ca).

February 2nd, 2012

Find a passion for cruising this Valentine's Day

LOVE will certainly be in the air on February 14 if you surprise your partner by booking one of these enchanting voyages, says LYNN HOUGHTON.

January 11th, 2011

Mediterranean meanders

THERE'S lots to savour on board a European cruise this summer. EMILY BAMBER previews the latest liners as they get ready to set a course for destinations old and new.

January 7th, 2011

Five wonder walks of Britain

BLOW away the cobwebs on a winter ramble with a pub or country hotel fi nish. NORMAN MILLER picks his favourite trails.

January 7th, 2011

Artistic gem puts Metz in the picture

A NEW gallery has placed a lesser-known area of France on the map, says ANDREW EAMES.

January 7th, 2011

Wellington, the city that rocks

THE small yet perfectly formed capital is New Zealand is quietly making its mark on the world stage, discovers TERESA LEVONIAN COLE.

January 7th, 2011

Schwarzenegger back in Austria amid infidelity scandal

Disgraced ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER has returned home to Austria after putting his movie comeback on hold as he deals with the fall-out from his infidelity scandal.

January 7th, 2011

Revel in the sanctuary of South Africa's majestic trunk road

ALEX BARTLEMAN is inspired by the scenery and wildlife along the country's new Elephant Route.

December 31st, 2010

Safari chic's the name of the game in Kenya

LIZZIE CATT leaves her fears behind as she dons khaki for a five-star experience in the magnificent Samburu National Park.

December 31st, 2010

Discover a world of wonder and excitement during 2011

THIS year is set to be a spectacular one in travel. MARK HODSON previews the attractions ahead for those in search of a holiday or experience to remember.

December 31st, 2010

Oz capital of cool

MELBOURNE, which hosts England for the Boxing Day Test match, is the undisputed sporting capital of Australia. But, as ESTHER SHAW discovers, the city is also a hub for everything from food to fashion.

December 18th, 2010

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Essentials

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Three of the bestâ¦ romantic Valentine's retreats

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Three of the bestâ¦ romantic Valentine's retreats