Travel

Why go to all the trouble? By which I mean a Mediterranean summer holiday with spiralling temperatures, lengthy traffic jams and overcrowded flights for the holiday that never really stands a chance.

A flotilla of boats trailed in the wake of a fleet of traditional long-keeled yachts and their skippers, competitors of the Golden Globe Race 2022 (GGR); all were heading through the now iconic ‘Channel’ connecting Port Olona’s race village to the open sea, leaving the ‘capital’ of ocean racing ‘Les Sables-d’Olonne’ to melt away into the landscape. 

Costa Blanca Fiestas

Costa Blanca is famous for its various fiestas, they run all summer and are simply unmissable. Whole towns devote days and weeks to staging exquisite extravaganzas, celebrating the Christians and the Moors, winemaking, local craftsmanship, sailing, fine food, giant fireworks displays and of course bull runs. See here for a list of Fiestas on the Costa Blanca with dates.

Seacave Kayak and Snorkel Tour Javea

If you want to mess about on the water in perfect luxury, with lots of interior space and superior stability, even in choppy seas, then a catamaran is the way to go. Here’s a selection of the best new luxury multihulls from some of the best design studios out there.

Excellence Luxury Villas give us their Top Tips for booking a luxury villa or chateau this holiday season.

Renting a Chateau in France or renting a luxury Villa in Italy is always a challenge, which is why we take all the pressure off and help you to find the best luxury villas for rent anywhere in the world.

There is nothing quite like Paris in the spring/early summer and particularly the 6th and 7th arrondissements. These two marvellous “Quartiers" lie on the Left Bank and are famous for the numerous painters, writers, photographers, sculptors and philosophers who called them home. The perfect spot for a romantic weekend “a Deux”.

Cascais is located just 20km from Lisbon airport between the picturesque Sintra mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. For the ultimate personalised service and privacy, you can fly into Tires airport just 15 minutes from central Cascais.

Lunch at The House Lounge at Heathrow was the perfect way to start our trip to Ozen By Atmosphere At Maadhoo Island in the Maldives. We had wisely picked our flight times to make the trip as comfortable as possible and to get the maximum time in the Maldives. The outbound flight to Male with Qatar Airways was at 15.05 with a 55-minute stopover in Doha. This meant we would arrive at 9.00 in the morning at Male and have the whole day to get over the jet lag and get acclimatised.

There are getaways and there are hideaways. And it was on Arran, an isle separated by the Firth of Clyde that I had chosen to come, to avoid the hassle of Covid, the endless paperwork and all those wretched travel passes.

So I took the ferry from Ardrossan to Arran’s Brodick Bay and then drove beyond a heathered wind-swept mountain graced with roaming deer.