Monthly Archive:: October 2011

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Peru in style: Luxury options in the Andes

Peru offers a wide variety of holiday styles for the traveller depending on their taste and budget. While the country has long held an attraction for the adventure traveller keen to scale the mountains to reach the ruined city of Machu Picchu or to travel through the

Celebrating St Lucia Day in Sweden

December 13th is a special day in Sweden. On this day in churches, schools and homes around the country, a young girl parades with ‘light in her hair’ while snacks are shared and greetings exchanged. St Lucia Day is a distinctly Swedish occasion and is a highlight

Highlights of West Sweden

Stretching north from Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city, to the Norwegian border, the West Coast has hidden gems and picture-postcard scenery at every turn. Interspersed between the archipelago of 10,000 islands and the dramatic coastline of colourful fishing villages, visitors will find sites of natural, literacy, historical and

24 hours in Florence

Florence Tuesday 11th October 2011 With a few hours on our hands we decided to take a short walk around some of the principle sites in the city. Starting from our hotel (Hotel Paris), we headed down Via dei Banchi towards the centre. Nothing quite prepares you

Guest blog – Dust tanning and the moral blight of filtered olive oil

Alentejo Day 3 – Tuesday 30 Aug 2011 Vila Galé Clube de Campo, Beja Vila Galé Clube de Campo was a startling contrast to Malhadinha Nova. At more than four times the size (weighing in at a whopping 1,620 hectares) the estate is owned by the Vila

Guest blog – So quiet you can hear the sky

Alentejo Day 2 – Monday 29 Aug 2011 Malhadinha Nova, AlbernoaTranquillity. Alentejo redefined the word for me. Bouncing along a bone-rattling dust track, seemingly no civilisation in sight, even our trusty satnav had given up telling us to ‘turn around where possible; you are not on a

Guest blog – We lose our hearts and waistlines to migas and presunto

Alentejo Day 1 – Sunday 28 Aug 2011 Herdade dos Grous, Albernoa We headed up a long drive, flanked by a blue lake, the deeply etched trunks of old olive trees, and up ahead was the pristine white and blue of the restaurant, startling against blue sky,

Guest blog – Blue and yellow lines

Alentejo Day 1 – Sunday 28 Aug 2011 The airport, Beja I was warned before we set off that everything in Alentejo is slow. ‘Don’t expect anything to happen in a hurry.’ Not true. The little Beja airport, plonked in the middle of nowhere, is square, awkwardly

Dancing in the streets: Buenos Aires and the Tango

Buenos Aires is often described a very European city. Although the label ‘Paris of the South’ is a bit wide of the mark (the buildings of Recoleta provide the only passable likeness of its Northern Hemisphere twin) Buenos Aires does have its own sense of style that

Honeymoon destinations for 2012: the hottest (and coolest) places to go

A piece of advice I heard before our wedding was that you should spend no more on your wedding than on your honeymoon. This worked very well 20 years ago, although with the price of weddings these days you’d have to spend a fortune on your honeymoon