With its listed balcony hanging out over the sea wall walk, this blue-washed waterfront retreat is almost on the beach. Pole position for exploring St Ives’ charms from dawn to dusk and beyond.
High above the yacht-dotted River Tamar, the road west crosses from Devon to Cornwall. If many Cornish people, waving their black and white cross flags, had their way we would be entering another country. Also, in this land of Kernow, they would be speaking the Cornish language.
When Christopher Columbus set foot on an island he christened Hispaniola, “Little Spain”, in December 1492, he must have thought that this New World was paradise. He had discovered the richly fertile island that is now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Three half-timbered medieval houses and a coaching inn have combined to create the irresistibly historic Swan at Lavenham Hotel, creaking through the last six centuries in what is often described as England’s finest medieval village.
This is your private resort, exclusively for your party. Plan the menu with the head chef. Set your own dress code for dinner. Drop into the spa for a holistic massage. Create your own playlist for the beach. Whether you visit as a group of six or 28, the entire resort is yours.
Although the Isle of Wight only consists of a mere 147 square miles in many ways it is England in miniature. Visitors are impressed by the beaches, the downs, the forests, the acres of pasture and, of course, the iconic Needles.
In the 1830s, visitors flocked from England to Ventnor for its almost Madeira-like micro-climate. A small sleepy fishing village on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight suddenly became a bustling pioneer of health tourism. Land prices shot up from £100 to £1,000 per acre.
Blue and silver confetti drifted on the Rhine breeze. A bottle of Champagne cracked on the bow. The ship’s horn boomed across Dusseldorf. “It’s a beautiful day” played on the sound system and VIVA TWO was triumphantly christened.
Hood’s offers some of the best self-catering accommodation in Dorset. To turn off the road to Bridport, grass growing on a lane made for horse carts, is to step out of frenetic modern life into a blissful rural retreat.
“Cayos”, was the word exploring Spanish navigators used to name the archipelago of little islands that drifted south west towards the Caribbean. Over time, cayos has become adapted and Americanised to the Keys.
For most guests it seemed only hours since Celebrity Apex had sailed from Fort Lauderdale. First we had docked at Key West for an introduction to one of the USA’s wackiest cities. Then, we had cruised west across the Caribbean.
Making its maiden voyage in 2021, the Celebrity Apex still looks gleamingly new with state-of-the art high-tech. This is a ship that makes the most of technology to provide its 2,910 guests, served by over 1,300 crew, with a luxurious cruising experience.
Looking down on Chipping Campden’s slanting yesteryear high street, this elegant hotel is within yards of the town’s covered market. It was the tradition of the market, or the chipping as it was known in medieval times, that gave the town its name.
Set in Shakespeare Country, Billesley Manor Hotelis just five miles rural north-west of Stratford-upon-Avon. On the short drive in to Stratford, you will pass Mary Arden’s farm where Shakespeare’s father grew-up and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.
In the famous 19th century children’s book, when the shipwrecked Swiss Family Robinson have the opportunity to leave their treehouse on their isolated island, many of the family choose to remain.
Le Jardin des Douars is the traditional Moroccan kasbah stylishly reimagined, sitting high above Essaouira on Morocco’s Atlantic coast.
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