Don’t settle for a boring hotel in Madrid. Groovy new hostels and revamped palaces have cool roof terraces, top restaurant chefs and cocktail lists so tempting that you may never leave the bar. Wherever you choose to stay, you can drop into any of the places on this list for a drink or dinner and get some inspiration for…
There are strikes on the London Underground this weekend, expected to be one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year. The Central line, London’s busiest tube line, will close on Friday 21 December from around 21.00. It will be closed all day on Saturday 22 December and will resume service at around midnight for the…
A lively jumble of cobbled streets, photogenic canals and gilded landmarks, Bruges is a corker of a medieval city. The best way to see it is on foot, although hopping on one of the little boats ferrying tourists up and down the canal is also an excellent way to get your bearings. You could easily…
Valletta has enjoyed its year in the sun as European Capital of Culture in 2018. The final flourish of refreshed heritage in the Maltese capital is the opening of MUZA: the new National Museum of Art. The collection occupies the Auberge d’Italie, a 16th century mansion built to house Italian-speaking knights of the Order of St…
The 1980s advertising campaign for Campari boosted sales of the aperitif, but it did Luton airport no favours. An elegantly dressed woman, sitting on the patio of a Mediterranean villa, is asked by her admirer: “Were you truly wafted here from paradise?”. “Nah,” she responds in glass-shattering cockney. “Luton airport.” The Bedfordshire airport’s dismal image…
My journey into Ladakh took two days on a decrepit green-and-chrome bus that honked and gasped its way over death-defying passes. I arrived in this land of scorched desert and brilliant-white monasteries – locked high in the Himalayas between Tibet, Pakistan and Kashmir – too knackered to know where I was. That was more than…
The pound edged near to parity with the dollar at some UK airports this week, meaning tourists buying currency would only get just over $1 for every £1. Travellers flying from Heathrow were being given exchange rates as low as £1-$1.05, with some outlets also offering just €0.92 to the pound, reported the BBC. Sterling…
British travellers will have to pay €7 to visit the EU after Brexit, the European Commission has confirmed. From 2021, UK citizens will have to pay the fee every three years to pre-register for an electronic visa waiver, a system similar to the Esta scheme used by the US. The pre-authorisation fee will be waived for travellers under 18 and those…
When you start to look like your passport photograph, the saying goes, it’s probably time to come home. But at Moscow airport on Wednesday evening I was trying my best to match the sleep-deprived grump depicted on page 2 (and, in lower resolution, page 3) of my travel document. At that very moment, Britain’s governing…
If you’re suffering from the mid-winter blues, you might want to reconsider your holiday plans for 2019 and make a beeline for the happiest place in the world: Tokyo Disneyland. The “Most Magical Place on Earth” was named the “happiest geo-tagged place in the world” by Instagram in its 2018 year in review, based on the number of…
Authorities from Trinidad and Tobago have said they will block a “sex island” holiday that organisers claim is planned for the Caribbean country this weekend. The four-day event, organised by adult firm Good Girls Co, has been advertised as promising “unlimited sex with two girls per day”. When it was first promoted last year, it received widespread criticism over…
“They called us the world’s last colonial museum,” says Guido Gryseels. He is director-general of what is now the AfricaMuseum, the reincarnation of the Royal Museum of Central Africa which closed on 1 December 2013 for refurbishment – and a complete change of philosophy. The “Palace of the Colonies,” as it was called upon opening in 1910,…
Unlike many places in Mexico, Puebla is not a Mesoamerican city; it was a new city, built by the Spanish alongside the Pre-Columbian town of Cholula. A river divided it, with the Spanish on one side and the indigenous population across the water. Nowadays, while the divide and the river no longer exist, the famous…
A hard Brexit would be “devastating” for holidaymakers, according to Sir Richard Branson. Speaking at the launch of the new Virgin Departure Beach in Barbados, the Virgin founder said that if a hard Brexit were to take place, “it would be disastrous for all of us”. Chief among the issues for travellers would be the price of…
The Highland Council has raised the possibility of introducing a tourist tax. A “transient visitor levy” could raise between £5m and £10m a year, according to a new report from the council. Councillors will vote on whether there should be a public consultation on the tax next week. Tourism is the most valuable industry in…