Tourism
The price of a cathedral
Deans are facing tough decisions to keep their beautiful buildings in good order
Courchevel
The last time I stayed in Courchevel it was in a tatty roadside chalet a long way down the mountain.…
South Africa
There are plenty of places to fly to for winter sun, but only one place that offers five-star hotels for…
Not so happy valley
Simon Barnes opens with a presumably true idea, that we are all in search of our own versions of paradise…
Real life
When in India, I always appal my highly educated tour guides. They despair of me, as they drag me round…
Lake Iseo
If you’ve never heard of Lake Iseo, you’re not alone. Nestling shyly between chocolate-box Como and glamorous Garda, the smallest…
The view from my Belfast bus: tribalism as the enemy of prosperity
At Stormont on Saturday, we observed a minute’s silence for the dead of Paris. Our conference group of Brits and…
The caliphate strikes back
Isis could be on the brink of creating a terrifying new world order
Diary
During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial…
Diary
‘Devon, Devon, Devon/ Where it rains six days out of seven.’ Nothing beats a British seaside holiday. And north Devon…
Antigua
‘Tourism, tourism and tourism,’ said my Antiguan cab driver, when I asked what the country’s main industries were. Still, it’s…
Diary
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
A twinge of fear, and a glimpse of a harsher world
I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local…
Florence
The British have always been in love with Florence. First visits cannot disappoint. One friend recalls being herded around as…
Trattoria tour
The Gatto Nero — or ‘Black Cat’ — is in Burano, a tiny island in the Venetian lagoon. It is…
North Cornwall
In a documentary filmed at the end of his life, Sir John Betjeman, who lived in the village of Trebetherick…
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
Napoleon didn’t think much of Antwerp. ‘Scarcely a European city at all,’ he scoffed. If only he could see it…
Barbados
Unusually, I didn’t leave the British Isles until I was 35, when I went to the Maldives for a fortnight.…
Square meal
The Portrait Restaurant lives at the top of the National Portrait Gallery, London. It is fiercely modern, but likeable. You…
Quarter
‘No quarter given,’ yelled my husband as he stabbed at a cushion with his stick, spoiling the cavalier effect a…
The first Spectator cruise
It’s a complete recipe for disaster of course. By which I mean being trapped at sea with The Spectator’s ‘Low…
Cuba Notebook
Sloppy Joe’s — which starred in the film of Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana — was always likely to…
Egypt
Egypt’s revolution of 2011 didn’t just get rid of President Mubarak: it did a pretty good job of clearing out…
A cemetery with cocktails
La Coupole, Montparnasse, is the grandest and most famous of the old pre-war Parisian brasseries; that is, if you have…
