Travel
Look beyond ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in The Hague
What a fate it is to be hung next to the most famous painting in a gallery. To be overlooked,…
Max Hastings’s diary: How sporting tourists play into Nicola Sturgeon’s hands
During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial…
Tristram Hunt’s diary: The rainy glories of Devon – and a cold political climate
‘Devon, Devon, Devon/ Where it rains six days out of seven.’ Nothing beats a British seaside holiday. And north Devon…
Theatre, gossip and Guinness: the craic of Dublin
What a delight it is to toy with a wooden newspaper-holder rather than a smartphone, tucked away in the cosy…
Escape Antigua’s tourists (but be ready to confront some grim secrets)
‘Tourism, tourism and tourism,’ said my Antiguan cab driver, when I asked what the country’s main industries were. Still, it’s…
Dear Mary: Is there a tactful way to tell a dear cousin she needs a lump removed from her face?
Q. How can you tactfully tell someone that the large skin tag or blob they have grown in the centre…
Wealthy, cosmopolitan – and sometimes rough: the secrets of Hamburg (and my grandmother)
‘What was it like growing up in Liverpool?’ a journalist asked John Lennon. ‘I didn’t grow up in Liverpool,’ he…
Prue Leith’s diary: When did weddings stop being for parents?
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
Tripe, pale tawny port and LSD: the delicious flavours of Oporto
‘When he’s away, the thing he misses about Porto is the tripe.’ I was talking to Eduarda Sandeman, wife of…
The wonders of the Muslim world that my children will never get to see
I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local…
The graveyard where old Glasgow lives on
A wet walk in a Glaswegian graveyard might not be your idea of fun, but then you might not have…
The first things you should do in Florence
The British have always been in love with Florence. First visits cannot disappoint. One friend recalls being herded around as…
Venetian restaurants know I’m English from the back
The Gatto Nero — or ‘Black Cat’ — is in Burano, a tiny island in the Venetian lagoon. It is…
Susan Hill’s French notebook: My struggle to avoid local cuisine
An overnight stop on the Ile de Ré taken between the St Malo ferry and the Quercy, where we always…
Would Betjeman recognise anything about today’s north Cornwall?
In a documentary filmed at the end of his life, Sir John Betjeman, who lived in the village of Trebetherick…
Let's fight terror - by holidaying in gorgeous, welcoming Tunisia
It needs – and deserves – British visitors more than ever
Woe betide you if you try to speak French in Flanders
Usually, one of the first indications that you’ve entered a bilingual country is that the road signs are in two…
A Victorian sailor is the new love of my life
Jenny Balfour Paul is an indigo dye expert. She has written two books on the subject, and lectures around the…
Country house picnics (with some ace opera attached)
I stole a blanket last night. Rather a nice one, in fact. I feel bad about it, of course, but…
You don’t have to be super-rich to enjoy St Moritz in summer
Here’s a tip: when travelling to St Moritz, it’s best not to mention the name of your final destination to…
Calling all British tourists — Ukraine needs you!
Kiev ‘What the hell’s going to happen to your poor country?’ I ask the man in the flea market not…
Antwerp: the compact, charming capital of a country that doesn’t quite exist yet
Napoleon didn’t think much of Antwerp. ‘Scarcely a European city at all,’ he scoffed. If only he could see it…
The pleasures of getting lost in Marseille
If you haven’t been lost in Marseille then you can’t have been there. As Alexandre Dumas wrote, this is a…
‘Was the baby naughty?’: Gory frescoes, spectacular cliffs and herring with a toddler in Denmark
The sky over the island of Møn, which is at the bottom right of Denmark, was cobalt and the whitewashed…