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FROM THE EDITOR

LOOK ON THE
BRIGHTER SIDE

W
elcome to the new issue of The
Travel & Leisure Magazine. Once
again, this edition focuses very much
on giving you ideas not only for taking holidays
overseas but also things to do and places to see
in London and beyond.
The doom merchants have been having a
field day of late, compounding warnings about
the country’s economy with grim predictions
about swine flu. Thankfully, concerns over the
latter have eased and nerves in the travel indus- GETTING TO KNOW Pharaoh tales in Egypt 6
try are less frayed.
Yet despite all the dire news, the British
always take a very determined view. Holidays
TRAVEL UPDATE Travel news 15
and breaks are the one thing that many look for-
ward to as a way of escaping the daily grind of IN YOUR FLIGHT BAG 19
work and household worries. They have worked PLUS – Under-Eye Revival Patches giveaway
hard to save up for a holiday – and they are
determined to take it, come what may.
If you are looking for ideas, read on for some
IN YOUR SUITCASE 20
inspiration. We visit Egypt, flavour of the WIN – AfterBURN Sunburn Rescue Gel
moment thanks to its good value. There’s the
natural wonderland of Newfoundland in ESCAPE TO Reykjavik – Iceland’s capital of cool 23
Canada, where you can win a fabulous week’s
holiday for two. We also head off to another
current hot favourite destination – Reykjavik –
ALL ABOARD Caribbean cruising + Cruise News 28
where lower prices have made it affordable.
Then we look at holidays by train, which are OFF THE BEATEN TRACK Newfoundland 34
growing in popularity and scope, and we go
cruising in the Caribbean. LET’S TRY Great rail holiday experiences 42
On the home front, we focus on the Isle of
Wight and look at London festivals.
I hope you enjoy the read, and wherever your
PACK YOUR CLUBS Teeing up in Scotland 48
travels take you this summer, have a peaceful
and relaxing time. ON YOUR DOORSTEP The Isle of Wight 54
Peter Ellegard

4 The Travel & Leisure Magazine May/June 2009

L E I S U R E
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EDITORIAL TEAM
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Macefield, Dave Richardson, Paul Erlam and
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The Travel& Leisure M agazine 5
 Pharoah
venerable Mena House Oberoi hotel, right
next to the pyramids at Giza. I spent lunch
gazing in awe through the windows at the
mighty edifices.
With another meeting due later that after-
noon, I grabbed 15 minutes at the Great

tales
Pyramid of Cheops, one of the Seven
Wonders of the ancient world – most of it
spent haggling with a camel driver whose
lumbering steed I clambered aboard just long
enough to have my picture taken in front of
the pyramids and Sphinx – before jumping
back in the taxi.
Next stop was Sakkara, the necropolis for
Egypt’s ancient capital, Memphis, where his-
toric structures include the Step Pyramid.
The oldest of all pyramids, it lies some 30km
Egypt is flavour of the moment this year, and with good south of Cairo past timeless rural scenes, and
its lack of tourist hordes and nearby built-up
reason. Offering far more than just dusty old tombs and areas made it feel even more special than its
desert, it combines magical history tours with glorious Giza counterparts. But there was no time to
dwell. I was on a mission.
beaches, high-class resorts and much more besides. A guide took me on the briefest of tours,
Peter Ellegard fell under its spell long ago… enlightening me by pointing out that the fish-
shaped hieroglyph carvings were, in fact, fish

M
y first visit to Egypt mind as I was heading on to Luxor the next while the wavy lines above them represented
23 years ago was an day for some R and R, followed by diving in the Nile. I’d never have guessed.
adventure I will never the Red Sea at Hurghada prior to my flight After a fast journey back to Cairo for my
forget. I was in Cairo home. final meeting, I was dropped at the Egyptian
on a short business At least, that was the plan. Museum just 15 minutes before closing time.
trip, but managed to Renting a taxi for the day in Cairo (as Glancing at the statues on the museum’s
squeeze some whistle-stop sightseeing in cheap as a single journey I had taken in a ground floor, I sprinted up the stairs to reach
between meetings on my final day that would London cab), I set off for my pre- my ultimate goal – the exquisite, golden
have even exhausted a Japanese tour leader. arranged appointments. My mask and other funerary exhibits from
Time was ridiculously tight, but I didn’t lunchtime meeting was at the the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Main photo and below left: Egyptian State Tourist Office

Peter Ellegard

Peter Ellegard

■ The souk at Aswan ■ Al-Azhar Mosque minarets, Old Cairo ■ The Karnak Temple sound and light show

6 The Travel & Leisure Magazine May/June 2009


Not only was it the climax of that trip, it
was also the final highlight. That night, in
February 1986, security police conscripts
stormed out of their barracks in Giza, burn-
ing nearby hotels and businesses and clash-
ing with the army. Instead of flying to Luxor
the next morning I took refuge at an airport
hotel when the airport was locked down and
a city-wide curfew was imposed, and I
caught a special repatriation flight back to
the UK the following day.
I felt immensely sad, not just for my
unfortunate timing but also for what I feared
was the end of Egypt’s tourism industry. I
needn’t have worried. The insurrection was
quickly quelled, the capital soon recov-
ered and the tourists returned. In the
intervening years, Egypt has suf-
Peter Ellegard
May/June 2009
getting to KNOW
fered several harrowing terrorist attacks, as
have many countries including the UK, of
course. Yet each time it has bounced back
stronger than before.
Huge investment in its tourist infrastruc-
ture, with the development of classy, new
resorts and extensive leisure facilities, has
been matched by slick advertising campaigns
and, just as important, a strong security pres-
ence in tourist areas.
All have helped make Egypt more popu-
lar than ever. With prices in eurozone coun-
tries rocketing because of the weak pound, it
offers British tourists even better value for
money compared to
other holiday destina-
tions this year.
Far from put-
■ Pyramids at Giza, Cairo
■ Karnak Temple, Luxor
EGYPT
ting people off, the visible security measures
are a reassuring factor. On my most recent
visit, in December, I took a Nile cruise with
my wife. At night as our luxury ship cruised
downriver, two security guards manned a
machine gun on the stern. As I photographed
dawn over the Nile from the back of the ship,
they nodded in acknowledgement of my
smiled greeting and happily let me photograph
them and the gun
against the ris-
ing sun. You
can’t even
photograph
The Travel & Leisure Magazine 7
 ■ The Temple of Philae at Aswan

Did you know?

Starwood Resorts and Hotels

Photos: Egyptian State Tourist Authority
● The first pyramids were built in 2650 BC.
● Cleopatra was born in Egypt in 69 BC.
● Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. ■ Hot tub at the Sheraton Soma Bay
● The Nile flows for 915 miles through Egypt.
● About 96% of Egypt is desert
Pars and spas
Egypt Tourist Authority

● Flights from London take 4.5 hours to Cairo and 5.5 hours
to Red Sea resorts.
■ Left: Tutankhamun’s mask, the Egyptian museum
policemen without risk of arrest now in London.
One security measure which had been an
irritation to visitors had just been relaxed
prior to our visit. For the past 11 years,
coaches travelling between Red Sea resorts
and Luxor had had to travel in armed con-
voys, following the 1997 attack at the Temple
of Hatshepsut in which 63 tourists were
killed. That often led to long journey times
as vehicles had to wait at convoy points and
travel in line, and it also resulted in massive
queues at key attractions as busloads dis-
gorged at the same time.
We made the minibus journey from Red Sea
tourist resort Madinat Makadi to Luxor to join
our cruise in a comfortable four hours, and we
could stop when we wanted and go at the speed
our driver wanted – radar traps permitting.
Since my first, eventful visit to Egypt, I
have returned a number of times and seen
much of the country, both on land and below
the sea. Ever since I was a child, it had
always held great fascination for me. Few
countries make my spine tingle and get the
pulse racing in anticipation and excitement
as Egypt does, when I visit.
The great monuments the ancient
Egyptians and later civilisations left behind;
the tombs of the pharaohs with their wonder-
fully-decorated walls; vast expanses of desert
with their lush, hidden oases; stark moun-
Egypt may seem an unlikely golf
destination, but its three original,
century-old clubs have been augmented
by another 14 new facilities, taking the
beaches carpeting both the Red Sea and total to 17 across Egypt.
Mediterranean coasts; and the crystal clear You can tee off on courses in beach
waters of the Red Sea, rich in marine life. All resorts from the Mediterranean coast
make a visit to Egypt not just a magical his- to the Red Sea and from Cairo to
tory tour, but a holiday like you will experi- Luxor, site of ancient pharaonic capital
ence nowhere else. Thebes. You can even play in the
It has certainly made its mark on me. shadow of the pyramids at Giza, on the
These are some of the country’s key historic nine-hole course at the Mena
sights: House Oberoi.
A number of resorts have courses
Cairo with luxury spa hotels alongside or
Bisected by the Nile, Egypt’s frenetic capital nearby, so golfers can play while non-
is a city where the modern world collides playing partners can pamper themselves
with that of the country’s ancient past. Roads and enjoy the other leisure facilities.
and buildings have crept almost to the foun- Among them are Soma Bay, El Gouna,
dations of the Sphinx and the iconic pyra- Stella di Mare Golf Resort, at Ain
mids at Giza. Yet behind them the desert Soukhna, and Egypt’s newest course at
stretches out as far as the eye can see. A day Madinat Makadi Golf Resort, which
visit should be augmented with a return at opened in late 2008.
night to watch the atmospheric Sound and Other Red Sea resorts with courses
Light Show. are Taba Heights, Sharm el Sheikh and
Due to be replaced by a modern building Hurghada, while Porto Marina is a new
at Giza in the near future, the Egyptian addition on the Mediterranean coast. All
Museum holds some of ancient Egypt’s have a choice of nearby hotels.
greatest artefacts, the highlight being
Tutankhamun’s treasures. However, give
yourself more than the 15 minutes I had on
my first visit there as it has much else from
the pharaonic era to wonder at, including the
Mummy Room.
The imposing 12th century Citadel
Jaz Hotels, Resorts & Cruises

tains which glow pink at sunset; the hustle
and bustle of Cairo, modern and old; time-
warp towns and villages which line the ver-
dant Nile Valley, their markets a jumble of
sights, sounds and smells; glorious sandy
fortress was built by Saladin and looks out
across Cairo’s UNESCO World Heritage-list-
ed Islamic Quarter. At night the narrow
■ Madinat Makadi Golf Resort
streets of the quarter’s Khan el Khalili bazaar
come alive to raucous bartering and the cries

8 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 9
 Nile cruises
A great way to experience Egypt is on a
Nile cruise. You relax and enjoy the
facilities onboard while the timeless
scenery of farmers tending irrigated
fields and fishermen casting nets
constantly moves.
Most cruises operate the 240km
between Luxor and Aswan with
itineraries from three nights to seven
nights. Passengers can explore historic
sites at stops along the route, including
Dendera’s temple, the valleys of the
Kings and Queens, Karnak Temple,
temples at Kom Ombo, Esna and Edfu,
and Aswan’s Temple of Philae and the
High Dam.
Three and four-night cruises also
operate between Aswan and Abu Simbel
on Lake Nasser.
Peter Ellegard

■ Onboard the Jaz Regency

Nile cruise ships are like luxury
ocean-going cruise ships but much
more intimate. The largest have about
70 cabins; most have far fewer.
Traditional two-masted, wood-panelled
dahabiya Nile cruisers, with just six or
eight cabins, are featured by operators
including Bales Worldwide
(www.balesworldwide.com) and
Mosaic Holidays
(www.mosaicholidays.co.uk).
Facilities onboard ships generally
include a small swimming pool, spa pool,
sun deck, canopied deck, massages,
lounge, dining room and shops. Cabins
often have a TV, sound system and mini
fridge.
Ships are either full board or all
inclusive. Besides breakfast, lunch and
dinner, afternoon tea is also usually
served, with cakes and biscuits.
Locals, especially children, smile and
wave as you pass by their traditional
villages and age-old towns – and laugh in
delight when the captains blare their
horns with cascading notes resembling
the spaceships scene from sci-fi movie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind which
echo off the palm-fringed river banks.
of traders selling their wares. Nearby is the
1,000-year-old Al-Azhar Mosque, with its
graceful minarets and crenulated walls.
Coptic Cairo is the oldest part of the city
and includes the Coptic Museum, situated in
a garden of the Roman-era Babylon Fort. El-
Muallaqa Church is Cairo’s oldest Christian
church. Dating back over 1,700 years, it is
known as the “Hanging Church” as it is built
over a Roman gate.
A day trip can take in Sakkara’s Step
Pyramid.
Alexandria and the
Mediterranean coast
Founded by Alexander the Great and ruled
over by Cleopatra, Egypt’s last pharaoh,
Alexandria nestles on the Mediterranean coast
by the Nile Delta. It is steeped in history.
The Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria,
another Ancient Wonder of the World, was
the tallest structure on earth at 40 metres
high until an earthquake destroyed it in the
Middle Ages. Its harbourside foundations
now support a 15th century fort.
Greek and Roman ruins include the
Catacombs of Kom al-Shuqafa and Egypt’s
only Roman amphitheatre. The famed
Library of Alexandria, the ancient world’s
largest, disappeared long ago. Its latter-day
successor, the six-year-old Bibliotheca
Alexandrina, features modern architecture
including a raked glass roof.
Former royal palace Montazah, built by
the last Khedive of Egypt in 1892, is set in
gardens used for summer concerts and the-
atre performances. Another former palace,
Fatma el-Zahara, is now the Royal Jewellery
Museum. Other notable institutions include
the Graeco-Roman Museum and Museum of
Fine Arts.
The ancient city of Rosetta, 65km east of
Alexandria, succeeded it as Egypt’s principle
Mediterranean port after the Ottoman con-
quest in the 16th century. It is known for the
distinctive Delta-style Ottoman architecture
of its restored merchants’ houses. The Rosetta
Stone, discovered there in 1799 and now in
the British Museum, helped Egyptologists
decipher ancient Egypt’s hieroglyphics.
El Alamein, 60km west of Alexandria,
was the scene of a decisive Allied victory in
World War II. Now a burgeoning tourist
resort with luxury hotels, it has a war muse-

10 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 Jaz Hotels, Resorts and Cruises
Dive, dive, dive
The Red Sea is the closest coral sea to the UK and has been a favourite with British
divers for decades.
You can go diving all around the Red Sea Riviera. Many hotels have their own dive
centres and dive boats. You can go diving for the day or, if you are experienced, spend a
week on a liveaboard dive vessel, cruising more distant waters to dive less-explored
reefs and wrecks. The serious can go deep with Nitrox and other mixed gases.
The Red Sea is also a great classroom for those wanting to learn diving or just try it.
Centres regulated by PADI and other dive organisations offer learn to dive courses.
The waters of the Red Sea provide some of the finest in the world for diving, with
breathtaking coral reefs and abundant marine life. Top sites include Ras Mohamed
National Park, at the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, near Sharm el Sheikh, and the
Thistlegorm wreck which is accessible from both Sharm and Western Red Sea resorts.
If you prefer to stay above the waves, the Red Sea’s constant winds, which can reach 30
Peter Ellegard

knots, make it one of the world’s foremost destinations for windsurfing and kitesurfing.
The world’s biggest kitesurfing school recently opened in El Gouna, north of Hurghada.

um and cemetery. Farther west, Mersa
Matruh has white beaches, azure seas and
rock formations – and the Rommel Museum.
Siwa Oasis, 300km south of Mersa Matruh
in the Sahara, can be visited on a tour.
Luxor
In ancient times, Luxor was called Thebes –
and more than 3,000 years of history are
spread across both banks of the Nile. On the
East Bank, Karnak Temple is the world’s
largest temple complex and has a spectacu-
lar nightly sound and light show. The Temple Aswan
of Luxor is close to the city centre and walk- Aswan is the gateway to Lake Nasser and
able from some hotels. Visit both tem-
ples early to beat the tour buses
which arrive from mid-morning
onwards. Dusk turns the sky
orange and pink over Luxor
Temple’s illuminated
columns and statues.
Across the Nile on the
West Bank is the Valley of
the Kings, where Ramses the
Great, Tutankhamun and many
other pharaohs were buried in
tombs where detailed carvings and ■ Luxor Temple
Egypt Tourist Authority
painted walls still amaze. Other beautiful
tombs can be explored in the Valley of the
Queens, below towering cliffs, and another
highlight is the terraced Temple of
Hatsheput.
You can view Luxor’s ancient sites from
on high on a dawn balloon trip from the
West Bank. Flights last up to 50 minutes.
For a true experience of the Nile, sail in a
traditional felucca or spend a few days on
a Nile cruise.
Abu Simbel, where the temples
and four colossal statues of
Ramses II were moved to
higher ground when the
Aswan High Dam’s
construction flooded
their original loca-
tion.
The High Dam is
one of the highlights
of a visit to Aswan.
Among other sights are
the Old Aswan Dam, the
Unfinished Obelisk and the Nubian Temple
of Kalabsha. The Temple of Philae, set on an
island, is bathed in lights with narration
about the legends of Isis and Osiris in a
sound and light show. You can sail in a feluc-
ca to visit Elephantine Island and Kitchener’s
Island, for the Botanical Gardens.
Agatha Christie wrote much of her Death
on the Nile novel at Aswan’s Old Cataract
Hotel.
Sharm el Sheikh and the
Sinai Peninsula
Located at the southern tip of the Sinai
Peninsula, Sharm el Sheikh is the mummy of
Egypt’s Red Sea resorts. It originally catered
purely for divers, drawn by sites such as Ras
Mohamed National Park on its doorstep. But
Sharm is now a top-class resort with appeal
for those wanting a beach stay with all mod
cons as well as for those who want to explore
below the Red Sea. Lively Na’ama Bay is
where to head for night-time fun and to
browse its shopping mall.
Excursions include camel riding, wadi-
bashing and 4x4 trips into the Sinai desert as
well as visiting Bedouin camps to take tea or

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 11

 Beyond that lies upmarket resort Soma
Bay. It has several hotels including La
Residence des Cascades, built in the centre
of Gary Player-designed The Cascades golf
course and housing the huge Les Thermes
Marins des Cascades thalassotherapy centre.
The “Little Venice of Egypt”, 20 minutes
north of Hurghada, El Gouna is a stylish new
resort laced by canals, with over a dozen
hotels, elegant private villas, a Mediterranean-

coffee or to dine out under the stars.
From Sharm you can also visit 1,500-
year-old St Catherine’s Monastery, built
around a chapel housing the biblical Burning
Bush. It lies at the foot of Mount Sinai,
where Moses was given the 10
Commandments. A popular option is to
climb Mount Sinai at night to witness the
spectacular dawn from the top.
Other Sinai wonders include the Coloured
Canyon, named for its brightly-hued sand-
stone formations, the White Canyon and sev-
eral oases. Among natural atractions is the
mountainous Abu Galum natural reserve,
where wildlife includes Nubian ibex, hyrax
and striped hyena.
At the top end of the Sinai Peninsula is
El Gouna Resort
■ The beach at Red
Sea resort El Gouna
Hasheesh features an Oberoi hotel with plans
to build several golf courses, more hotels and
an Atlantis-style sunken city viewable from a
boardwalk.
Madinat Makadi is a resort village with a
wide beach in nearby Makadi Bay. Its eight
hotels include the new, five-star Jaz Makadi
Golf hotel where Scary Spice Mel B and her
husband Stephen Belafonte renewed their
wedding vows in November. The hotel is
alongside Egypt’s newest golf course.
Egypt facts
When to go:
Summers are hot and dry and winters are warm, with
style marina lined with restaurants and bars, a
shopping centre, casino and art galleries.
There’s sailing and other water sports from its
extensive beaches, as well as diving.
At the top end of the Red Sea, near the
southern entrance to the Suez Canal, is the
developing resort of Ain Soukhna. It possess-
es a golf course and several hotels, as well as
one of the region’s largest spa and thalas-
sotherapy centres.
The Southern Red Sea is fast developing,
too. Popular with divers who want to reach
less visited reefs and wrecks, it includes the
resort of Marsa Alam and nearby Port Ghalib,
a new marina resort development. TL

Egyptian State Tourist Authority

Taba, across the border from Israel’s Eilat,
and the neighbouring, purpose-built resort of
Taba Heights. A sister development to El
Gouna, across the Red Sea, it is a collection
of hotels with stylish designer architecture
nestling against the Sinai’s mountains and
fronting the Red Sea. There is also a golf
course. Excursions from Taba Heights go to
the ancient city of Petra in Jordan with its
buildings carved into the rocks.
Other Sinai resorts include laid-back
Dahab and Nuweiba, much less developed
than Sharm or Taba.
Hurghada and the Western
Red Sea
The Western Red Sea’s largest and longest-
established resort offers an extensive range
of hotels appealing to a wide cross-section
little rainfall – making it the ideal time to go. Breezes
help keep Red Sea resorts cooler, while the
Mediterranean coast has a more temperate climate.
Getting there:
Direct flights to Cairo from London Heathrow are operated
by British Airways (www.ba.com), bmi (www.flybmi.com) and Egyptair
(www.egyptair.com). Egyptair also flies from Heathrow to Sharm el Sheikh,
while easyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies there from London Gatwick. Charter
flights operate from airports around the UK to Sharm, Hurghada,Taba, Marsa
Alam and Luxor.
Entry requirements:
UK and EU nationals travelling only to Sharm el Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and
Taba resorts in the Sinai for up to 14 days do not require a visa. Otherwise,
visas can be obtained at the airport on arrival into Egypt or from the Egyptian
consulate in London (020 7235 9777; www.egyptianconsulate.co.uk).
Getting around:
Egyptair operates internal flights from Cairo to points
throughout Egypt. Destinations include Luxor, Sharm
el Sheikh and Hurghada. Other internal routes
Peter Ellegard

of holidaymakers. It has a lively centre with
plenty of nightlife and an abundance of
sports and activities along its sandy beaches.
One of the region’s top diving destinations,
sites include offshore islands and the famous
wartime wreck, SS Thistlegorm.
Hurghada’s origins as a fishing village can
still be seen in the Old Town, now engulfed
by the modern, purpose-built resort.
South of Hurghada, fledgling resort Sahl
include Luxor-Aswan. Local taxis are inexpensive and
in plentiful supply in major cites and resorts.
Tour operators:
UK operators offering Egypt include Discover Egypt
(www.discoveregypt.co.uk),Thomas Cook (www.thomascook.com),
Monarch Holidays (www.monarchholidays.co.uk), Longwood Holidays
(www.longwoodholidays.co.uk) and Peltours (www.peltours.com).
Tourist information:
Egyptian State Tourist Office: call 020 7493 5283 or visit www.egypt.travel

12 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 13
14 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

Dads’ delight
H
otels are serving up
special offers to treat
dad for the Father’s
Day weekend. Luxury Family
Hotels (www.luxuryfamily
hotels.co.uk), part of the von
Essen Hotels group, has several
deals. A Papa Pamper Package
at Fowey Hall in Cornwall – the
inspiration behind Toad Hall in
Wind in the Willows – with
three nights for the price of two
and a spa session in the new
Aquae Sulis Retreat for half
price on Father’s Day (Sunday,
June 21), costs from £465 per
room including breakfast.
Children sharing their parents’
room stay for free.
Jacobean manor house
Woolley Grange, near Bradford-
on-Avon, has a two-night Friday
and Saturday package from
£360 per night for two adults,
including dinner, bed and break-
fast and a beer tasting session
with local brewery Bath Ales.
Guests staying for lunch on
Father’s Day can check out at
3pm.
And at Ickworth Hotel, set in
1,800 acres of National Trust
Tops down under
R
eaders of Diver magazine
have voted the Maltese
Islands the top dive desti-
nation in Europe and third best
globally in the publication’s
annual Diver Awards. This is the
first time such an award has gone
to a Mediterranean country.
Malta has diving to suit all
levels and interests and boasts
some of the best underwater con-
ditions anywhere in the world,
with year-round warm tempera-
tures, up to 30 metres visibility
and abundant marine life.
Dive sites range from shallow
M ay/June 2009
TRAVEL update
Not to be
sniffed at
Allergy sufferers can sleep a
little easier thanks to a new
room treatment service for
■ Woolley Grange hotels by the Healthy Sleep
Company. It
reduces
dust mites
and
associated
allergens by
up to 97.4%,
leaving rooms virtually allergy-
free.
Luxury Family Hotels
The Millennium & Copthorne
Hotel in Slough has become
the fifth UK hotel to add the
service, with four Healthy
Sleep rooms.
●More information on
parkland in Suffolk, shoot rab- stay overnight from £240 for www.thehealthysleepcomp
bits or pigeons on Father’s Day, dinner, bed and breakfast for two any.co.uk
then help prepare them for serv- people on the Sunday night.
ing as your “catch” for dinner in If you prefer shooting inani-
the hotels’ restaurant. The shoot- mate objects, von Essen’s Beware malaria
ing day, equipment hire and din- Congham Hall in Norfolk The Malaria Awareness
ner costs £175 per person, or (www.vonessenhotels.com) is Campaign, launched with
offering a clay pigeon shooting Malaria Awareness Week from
taster and Sunday lunch on May 11-17, aims to raise
Father’s Day. The half-hour shoots awareness of this easily-
cost £60 for dads and £35 for all preventable disease which
Von Essen Hotels
other family members, including affects hundreds of British
a three-course Sunday lunch. travellers every year, while still
Overnight stays cost from £125 encouraging people to take
■ Congham Hall
per room, including breakfast. long-haul holidays. It is
organised by GlaxoSmithKline
Travel Health, with the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office
and ABTA.Visit
www.malariahotspots.co.uk
■ Malta's
for more information and
waters are the advice.
best in Europe
Ferry fast
Ferry operator LD Lines’ new
high-speed ferry, Norman
Malta Tourism Authority
Arrow, becomes the largest-
ever fast ferry across the
English Channel with its entry
onto the Dover-Boulogne
route on May 29 after a three-
week delivery voyage from
reef dive sites for beginners to experienced. Tasmania.
reefs and wartime wrecks, as For more information, visit Visit: www.ldlines.com
well as night dives for the more www.visitmalta.com
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 15
 TRAVEL update

Check your cover

T
he recent swine flu outbreak has led
to an increase of up to 300% in the
purchase of travel insurance. Travel
insurance is a must for any trip, but it is
also essential to check the insurance you
buy, and what it covers.
World First Travel Insurance has pro-
duced a check list with tips to bear in mind
before you buy, including:

El Gouna Resort, Egypt

● Check the policy meets your demands
and needs, and check for limitations and
exclusions as cover varies from insurer to
insurer. ■ Ensure activities are
covered by your policy
● Check what is automatically covered or if
an additional premium is required, for
activities such as scuba diving or pre-existing medical conditions. The checklist can be found in full online at
kitesurfing. They may be covered by one ● Policies generally limit cover for any one www.world-first.co.uk/media/checklist.pdf.
policy but not another. item, normally £250, so see if you can You should also check your insurance provider
● Declare all medical conditions. Most extend your household insurance to cover is authorised by the FSA; go to
policies exclude claims that arise from jewellery, iPods, laptops or cameras. www.fsa.gov.uk/register/ to check credentials.

Green stays Cheap and

cheerful
remains one of the most
expensive with costs 16.7%
higher than in Spain.

H
otels are continuing to
improve their eco cre-
dentials.
The four-star country house
Wallett’s Court Hotel and Spa
near Dover in Kent has been
90-minute treatment. Upgrades Despite price increases in
to a four-poster room or suite Where is the Thailand and Egypt, they still
start at £40 per person. best value remain great value for money
For more information, visit holiday this overall.
www.wallettscourthotel.com year? The Post
Fingals, a luxury country Office’s annual
Go retro
Peter Ellegard

awarded a silver star rating in the
Green Tourism Business
Scheme (GTBS), the only certi-
fication scheme validated by
Visit Britain.
It is offering a three nights for
the price of two break until
September 30. Valid Sunday to
Thursday and costing £199 per
person, it includes breakfast
daily and dinner on two nights.
A three-night spa break costs
£269 per person and includes a
house hotel in Devon, has just
built an “Eco House” with a
wood frame from sustainable
sources and solar panels on the
roof. It features the contempo-
rary Stream Room, with a bal-
cony overlooking a stream. It
also has a new spa and a gym in
addition to a swimming pool,
grass tennis court and croquet
lawn. It costs £135 for two shar-
ing in May and June, including
breakfast. www.fingals.co.uk
■ Fingals’
Stream Room
Holiday Costs
Barometer Take advantage of the
has put ■ Belek tourism predicted hot UK summer by
Bulgaria,Turkey village, Turkey touring the country in a classic
and Croatia top of its list, after Volkswagen camper van.
comparing the cost of 10 Surrey-based
holiday items, including drinks CampinaVDub.co.uk
and meals. (www.campinavdub.co.uk)
However, price cutting in some has three retro-style VW
of the UK’s favourite eurozone campers for rent. All come
destinations means that fully fitted with bedding,
holidays could cost less than outdoor furniture, GPS
expected, despite the weak navigation,TV/DVD with
pound. Falling prices in the Freeview and a stereo system
Algarve in Portugal now put it with fully-loaded Ipod.They
second only to Spain, the also have full AA cover and
cheapest eurozone destination Camping and Caravanning
surveyed. Club membership.
Local prices have fallen in Prices range from £150 for
Greece and Italy too, while day hire to £750 for a week in
France – along with Cyprus – high season.

16 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 17
 In Your FLIGHT BAG

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M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 19

 In Your SUITCASE

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20 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 21
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 21
 ESCAPE to…
REYKJAVIK

On top of the
world
Iceland’s weird and wonderful capital of cool, Reykjavik, is a upstairs bar at Kaffebarinn, where I was
teaching two Aussie visitors to love
feast for the senses – and the economic crash has now made it Brennivin, the Icelandic spirit brewed from
affordable for short breaks. For Laura Dixon, it was love at fermented potatoes and flavoured with car-
first sight, if not at first bite… away seeds, while sharing my spot at the bar
with the lead singer of Sigur Rós, a gaggle
of dancers from Björk’s show in neon tribal

E
thereal music drifted above
us into the pale blue cloud-
less sky, blonde-haired red-
cheeked children were on
their parents’ shoulders and
there was a worrying display
of woolly lopipeysa jumpers on Icelanders
of every age from 0 to 60, considering that
this city is famed for its cutting-edge fash-
ion.
Under the glare of the midnight sun, I
saw the cream of Icelandic music perform in
a festival celebrating the environment in
Reykjavik last year, and it’s one of the expe-
riences of my life.
It ended somewhat less poetically in the
make-up, and a transatlantic stag party.
When I collapsed into bed mid-morning, the
sun was still blazing through the window as
it had all night.
My love affair with Reykjavik started
long before the economic crash, when a pint
of beer still cost around £5 (it’s now about
£2). In January, The Economist’s annual

■ The Blue Lagoon

All photos: Iceland Tourist Board

■ The Northern Lights ■ Vatnajökull Glacier ■ Hot springs near Hverageri town – South Iceland

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 23

 Take a dip
Don’t forget your swimming kit –
Iceland is heaven for water babies.
Carved out of a black lava field, the
milky blue water of the Blue Lagoon
is a constant 37-39°C, and is
particularly good for the skin.
If you want to act like a local, head
to one of the city’s swimming pools.
They are geothermally-heated, open
air and are open come rain, shine or
snow. Most have hot pots and saunas
and are much cheaper than pools at
home, costing about £1.20 per visit.
Or if you’re feeling brave, take a
dip in the North Atlantic.The city
beach at Nautholsvik, near the city
airport, has imported white sand, hot
pools, a snack bar and an area of
heated water in the sea so you won’t
catch hypothermia.
How very Icelandic! ■ Getting steamy
in the Blue Lagoon

study rating the most expensive cities in
Europe put the city at 62, from a previous
position at number five, making it the lowest
featured city in Western Europe bar
Manchester.
It’s a real shock to the system – for years
the reason why people haven’t been visiting
the world’s northernmost capital city has
been the price, but now there’s no excuse.
Party town
Sure, Reykjavik has an outsized reputation
as a party town, but it’s barely as big as
Bath. In fact, the population of Iceland as a
whole is roughly the same as that of
Norwich, which gives you some idea.
Reykjavik is about half the size of that;
when viewed from the air it looks like
someone has scattered a handful of multi-
coloured dolls houses around a small lake.
It is really that tiny.
That makes the city a great destination
for a short break. Book a hotel in the 101
district and you can’t go wrong: all the city’s
main sights are on your doorstep.
The strange-looking concrete
Hallgrimskirkja (Hallgrims Church) is visi-
ble from nearly everywhere, and it’s worth
starting out here, taking the lift to the top
and looking at the city from above to get
your bearings.
You’ll see Faxaflói Bay, where you can
take whale-watching trips, Mount Esja, usu-
ally some kind of purple colour and topped
with snow, and then in the background, the
cone-shaped glacier on Snaefellsnes, where,
in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the
Earth, the explorers started their descent.
Icelandic cuisine
Wandering around the city itself is fun – it’s
lined with coffee shops and designer bou-
tiques as well as more traditional shops sell-
ing wool and wool products, stuffed
puffins, bags made from fish
skin and the like.
Bargain hunters might
like the Kolaporti mar-
ket, particularly the
fish market at the
back. There are two
delicacies that you’ll
find here but nowhere
else – Hákarl and
har_fiskur.
The first is a real spe-
ciality that you can try for
■ Food
free in the market. Word of
warning – don’t take too much. It’s made
from Greenland shark, buried in Tupperware
underground for three months to rot, and
then excavated and served when it is at the
right texture. The edges are slightly gooey
and centre is chewy; unsurprisingly, it hasn’t
taken off anywhere but here.
Har_fiskur is a dried and salted white
fish eaten a bit like crisps by the local chil-
dren. It still tastes of fish, though it’s
crunchy and salty, and takes some getting
used to.
That’s not all there is to say about
Icelandic cuisine – it’s a whole story in itself
– but suffice to say that you will find
restaurants where you can eat
grilled puffin, seabird’s eggs,
dolphin and whale and
boiled sheep’s head
among other strange
delights.
There was once a
McDonalds in the
centre of the city, but
it closed down
through lack of cus-
tom. It wasn’t just that a
meal cost £10; taste buds
and fun
are made differently up here.

24 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009


■ Skógafoss Waterfall - South Iceland
Modern art
While wandering round the city, drop into
the Town Hall, perched on a lake, which has
a relief map of the country in it and a cafe.
Nearby, the Harbour House art gallery is one
of the city’s finest if you like modern art. It
celebrates Erró, a 1960s artist who has a lit-
tle in common with Peter Blake (who creat-
ed The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album
cover) and is all high colour and shock fac-
tor. Downstairs are modern installations.
‘The population of
Iceland…is the same
as that of Norwich’
And if you’re intrigued to find out more
about modern art, don’t miss the Lost Horse
Gallery. Run by local artists, it’s got a mod-
ern flavour but tends to mix styles so you
never quite know what you’re going to see.
The gallery is actually an old animal shed
and has a charming history.
M ay/June 2009
■ Icelandic Horse
■ Lobster
path around the harbour and bay area, you
can’t miss the marauding past. Icelanders can
trace their genealogy way back to the Saga
times – the island wasn’t settled until 871 –
Back in the days before cars, farmers and the fiercely independent attitude of their
used to ride into town on their horses to do forebears has definitely filtered down.
business, and then, as now, successes were There’s a pride in being different, tough and
celebrated in the pub. The shed acted as in tune with the environment here that you
a kind of horse pound for the don’t feel anywhere else in the
owners who lost their hors- world, and you can see it in the
es due to reckless drunk- fashion, art, music and drink-
enness, and they had ing ability of the locals.
to pay to get them My favourite Viking
out. sight has to be
You can still see Thingvellir National
grooves in the floor Park. This area, outside
and hooks where the city but easily
they were tethered reachable on a day tour,
on the walls, is where the Vikings
although you won’t see held their meetings and
horses in the city today. the location says as much
But you can ride Icelandic ■ Hallgrimskirkja about them as anything else.
horses close to Reykjavik. A river runs through the valley
where dissenters were drowned and a large
Viking history black cliff rears up at its edge. There is a rift
History knits this city together. From the stat- in it that excites geographers – it’s the exact
ue of Ingólfur Arnarson, the first settler, on place where the American and European tec-
the hill overlooking downtown, to Sólfar, a tonic plates are pulling apart from each
sculpture of a Viking boat that sits on the other, at a rate of approximately 2cm a year.
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 25
 Reykjavik facts

When to go
It all depends on what you want to see. For
midnight sun, head north from June to mid-August.
For the Northern Lights, try November to March.
The spring and autumn months have a lot to
recommend them, but can be wet; bring an umbrella,
and expect a roughly-balanced night and day. Most
tourists visit from May to September when it’s
warmer and light (but expect showers and cold
winds). For nightlife, you need to be there on a Friday or Saturday night.

Getting there
Icelandair (www.icelandair.co.uk) and Iceland Express
(www.icelandexpress.co.uk) both serve Reykjavik, flying into Keflavik
Airport. Icelandair flies twice daily from London’s Heathrow, while Iceland
■ Swimming in Express moved its daily service to Gatwick on May 1.
Reykjavik
A bus runs to Reykjavik from the airport, taking about an hour, and costing
significantly less than a taxi (www.flybus.is).

Golden Triangle Accommodation and eating out

Thingvellir is one third of the Golden
Triangle, the three key sights to visit outside
the city. Gullfoss is another of these; the
golden waterfall, where Odin's horse is said
to have left a hoof print that formed into a
circular, many-tiered waterfall bringing gla-
cial water down to the land.
Rainbows play in the light
and its roar is deafening.
Geysir, the farthest
away, is the water
spout that gave
the world the
name geyser.
It’s actually a
collection of
spouts in a
geologically
active zone and
it goes off regu-
■ Vatnajökull Glacier larly, to the delight
of photographers and
onlookers.
A trip to the Blue Lagoon will round
things off nicely; it’s where nature, beauty
and the country’s strange energy combine to
create a swimming pool and spa like no
other in the world, whether it’s snowing,
sunny or blowing a gale. Enjoy the weird-
ness – that’s what Iceland is all about. TL
Reykjavik’s tourist board has good recommendations on where to stay on
all budgets – check out the city’s tourist office website,
www.visitreykjavik.is, or www.accommodation.is. Or visit www.i-
escape.com for boutique hotels and city centre apartments. A new youth
hostel opened by the old harbour this spring: www.hostel.is. Iceland’s
youth hostels rank in the top five in the world, according to Hostelling
International. For food, check out www.icelandgourmetguide.com for
the best unusual and gourmet places to eat.
Tour operators
Icelandair and Iceland Express offer some good value
long weekend packages. Other good package
operators to the country include Discover The
World (www.discovertheworld.co.uk), Regent
Holidays (www.regent-holidays.co.uk) and
Trailfinders (www.trailfinders.com).
Excursions
Day trips to the Golden Circle, Geysir,Thingvellir National Park and into
the countryside are available through the city tourist office or through
recommended tour operators Touris (www.tour.is) or Reykjavik
Excursions (www.re.is).There is also a bus that will take you to the Blue
Lagoon on the way to the airport – perfect for a long weekend – with
Iceland Excursions (www.icelandexcursions.is).
Getting around
The city itself is walkable, particularly if you’re staying in the 101 district in
the centre of the city.Taxis can be taken from the centre of Reykjavik,
outside the tourist information centre and are reasonable for short
distances within the city area.

Travel journalist Laura Dixon is the author of
Footprint Reykjavik. Her top tip in Reykjavik is to
try everything once – Brennivin, the hottest hot
pools and the rotten shark.
Tourist information
Iceland Tourist Board: www.icetourist.is
Reykjavik: www.visitreykjavik.is, Adalstraeti 2, 101 Reykjavik.
Tel. 00 354 590 1550; info@visitreykjavik.is

26 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 Calypso
cruising
Nowhere conjures up the spirit and romance of a cruise holiday Where to cruise
Caribbean cruises cover three areas: eastern
more than the Caribbean, with its intoxicating cocktail of Caribbean, western Caribbean and southern
island delights. Our own Caribbean Queen, Sara Macefield, Caribbean.
guides you through the multitude of choices… The eastern Caribbean is the most popu-
lar; here you’ll find the largest choice of voy-
ages which typically call at islands such as

I
f you’ve ever dreamt of sailing now arriving on the steady stream of cruise Barbados, St Lucia, St Kitts, the British
through a perfect tropical paradise ships that now ply these waters, making the Virgin Islands and Grenada.
with beautiful cobalt blue waters Caribbean the most popular – and at times the Western Caribbean voyages concentrate
dotted with sleepy, sun-kissed isles most crowded – cruising ground in the world. on Jamaica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
of dazzling white sand, then come to For British cruisers, the Caribbean is the top Mexico and other Latin America countries;
the Caribbean. cruising spot after the Mediterranean, attract- while southern Caribbean itineraries will gen-
One of the best ways to discover this idyl- ing around 230,000 passengers each year. erally include Costa Rica and the Netherlands
lic collection of 7,000 islands, stretching from The region’s tropical climate and sheer Antilles islands of Aruba, Bonaire and
the tip of Florida southwards to the coast of beauty of its surroundings coupled with the Curacao. Many of these cruises also transit
Venezuela, is on the water, reflecting the rich wide choice of islands where ships can moor the Panama Canal.
maritime history of this corner of the globe. up has proved to be an intoxicating mix that The length of such sailings can vary great-
Cruise the Caribbean Sea and you’ll be few cruise lines can resist. ly. Some cruises can be little more than week-
following in the footsteps of legendary Such popularity takes it roots from the era end breaks, lasting just two or three days and
explorers, bloodthirsty pirates and swash- of American Prohibition in the 1930s when only having time to visit the Bahamas.
buckling naval heroes. short booze cruises to the Bahamas Most commonly, they last one or two
After all, Christopher Columbus first became all the rage. The Caribbean weeks, which gives passengers plenty of
dropped anchor in these parts dur- cruise market has grown steadily opportunity to experience several different
ing the 15th century as he searched ever since, accelerating in the last islands.
for the New World, and he has been decade as the global cruis- Cruises that traverse the Panama Canal
followed by a long line of ing boom has taken hold. into the Pacific or cross the Atlantic between
adventurers ever since. As a result, there is a stag- the Caribbean and Europe can span three
But today’s visitors are seeking gering choice of cruises and weeks. Atlantic sailings take place in spring
riches of a different kind. Many are Princess Cruises
ships to be had. and autumn as ships are re-positioned for the

28 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009


Carnival Cruise Lines
■ Carnival Triumph
in the Caribbean
main summer and winter seasons. These
cruises are often extremely good value.
A few cruise lines, such as Norwegian
Cruise Line (NCL), Royal Caribbean
International (RCI) and Princess Cruises,
even have their own private islands, in the
Bahamas or off the coast of Haiti. They offer
passengers a desert island experience with
water sports and beach barbecues.
Where to cruise from
Most Caribbean cruises depart from American
ports and these are mainly in Florida.
M ay/June 2009
A llA BO A RD
Princess Cruises
The leader of the pack is Miami, followed
by Fort Lauderdale, Port Canaveral and
Tampa. Other options include Galveston in
Texas, New Orleans and even New York –
from where some ships sail to Bermuda,
1,000 miles north of the Caribbean.
But growing number of cruises now start
from Caribbean islands, with companies
including Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland
America Line and P&O Cruises. Passengers fly
directly to join their cruises on scheduled air-
lines including Virgin Atlantic or charter carri-
ers such as Thomas Cook or Thomson Airways.
Barbados is the most popular departure
point, followed by others such as Puerto Rico,
Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
Wind Star
■ Vessels such as Wind Star
can call at smaller islands
CARIBBEAN
Cruise tips
● Eastern Caribbean cruises tend to
give the most all-round flavour and
are the top choice for first-timers
who want to visit the main
islands.
● If you’re going in the winter
peak season, look for more
unusual itineraries which will
help you to escape the
crowds.
● Do some advance planning
before you book. Look at how
long the ship stays in port and
opt for those that depart later,
giving you more time to explore
or enjoy a sundowner in a local
bar.
● If you’re considering a summer
cruise and are worried about hurricanes,
pick a voyage to the southern Caribbean
as this is outside the hurricane belt.
The beauty of setting off from the heart of
the Caribbean means passengers don’t have
to waste two or three days’ sailing time at
either end of the cruise, enabling them to visit
more islands within the timescale and spend
a few days longer on the islands before or
after their cruise.
Who to cruise with
Do you want to go big or small? There’s no
end of choice among the cruise lines and the
type of ship you pick will determine your
Caribbean experience.
Major cruise lines such as RCI, Carnival,
NCL and Princess Cruises dominate these
waters, but the beauty of the Caribbean
means there is also room for smaller lines too
as they can call at islands that larger ships
cannot squeeze into.
Cruise customers looking for a more inti-
mate escape can opt for atmospheric smaller
vessels owned by the likes of Star Clippers,
Windstar Cruises and SeaDream Yacht Club,
safe in the knowledge that they need never
cross paths with the mega-ships and their
hordes of passengers.
While larger ships call at the bigger islands
of Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua which
have bigger ports to accommodate them,
smaller vessels can drop anchor in tucked-
away spots in the Grenadines or the British
Virgin Islands, where they may be the only
ship to sail in that day.
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 29
 ct s
C ar ib be an C ru is e Fa
ises:
Sample Caribbean cru w.princess.com) on a
nce ss Cr uis es (0845 3555 800, ww
Sai l off wit h Pri New York on July 8, calling
age abo ard Caribbean Princess from
nin e-n igh t voy before returning to New
Be rm ud a, San Jua n, St Thomas and Grand Turk
at
,595 and include flights.
York. Prices are from £1

(0871 781 9877,

Virgin Holidays Cruises

Carnival Cruise Lines

nine-
ru ises.co.uk) is offering a
www.virginholidaysc age abo ard
ludes a week’s voy
night package which inc mi
Ca rnival Valor, flights to Mia
Carnival Cruises ship e-n igh t ho tel
arts and a on
from where the cruise dep ssa u, St Th omas
call include Na
stay beforehand. Ports of
from £1,099.
and St Maarten. It costs
o-
/cruise) is offering a tw
8, www.thomson.co.uk
Thomson (0871 231 593 Januar y 3, 201 0.T he voy age
p,Thomson Destiny, on
week fly-cruise on its shi po rts of call include Barbados, St
n Republic and
starts from the Dominica es flights.
ts from £1,299 and includ
Kitts and St Lucia. It cos
Princess Cruises

■ Princess Cruises’
Grand Princess ntacts:
Other useful cruise co 0556,
Ca rni val Cruise Lines (0845 351
uis e.c o.u k)
www.carnivalcr
What to do 456 1520,
Celebrity Cruises (0845
On stepping ashore, cruise passengers can cru ise s.c o.uk)
www.celebrity
P&O Cruises

take their pick from no end of diversions or es (01 473 746175,

Fred Olsen Cruis
s.com)
they can simply flop into a sun-bed on one of www.fredolsencruise
the many powdery sand beaches for which Lin e (08 45 351 0557,
Holland America
o.uk)
the islands are famous. www.hollandamerica.c
A popular option is to take an island tour, 7412, www.m scc ru ises.co.uk)
either through the cruise line or one of the MSC Cruises (0844 561 0, ww w.ncl.co.uk)
(0845 658 801
cheaper deals offered by local taxi drivers that Norwegian Cruise Line ce an vil lageholidays.co.uk)
0032, www.o
Ocean Village (0845 075 ruises.co.uk)
gather outside the cruise ports. 772344, www.oceaniac
Oceania Cruises (01344 om)
In Jamaica, daredevils can choose from 0014, www.pocruises.c
canopy tours that skim the treetops or white- P&O Cruises (0845 678 841 4, ww w.royalcaribbean.co.u
k)
nal (0845 165
Royal Caribbean Internatio dreamy ac htc lub.co m)
water rafting. One of the most popular, and 00 783 1373, www.sea
fun, trips is to climb the iconic Dunn’s River SeaDream Yacht Club (08 cli pp ers .com)
029, www.star
Falls. Star Clippers (01473 292 w.w ind sta rcruises.com)
7292 2387, ww
Windstar Cruises (020 ises.co.uk
In Antigua, enthusiasts can swim with iation: www.discovercru
stingrays and visit Nelson’s Dockyard, the Passenger Shipping Assoc
Georgian dockyard where the young Horatio
Nelson was based in the 1700s, while in St When to go ricanes are comprehensively tracked by
Lucia they can go quad-biking or take a heli- You can cruise the Caribbean all year various meteorological and hurricane cen-
copter sightseeing trip. round, though October to March is regard- tres, they can take action long before the
The islands also have their fair share of ed as the best time as the weather is stable storm actually hits.
stately buildings, old sugar mills and historic and there are few alternatives for This ensures ships can stay well away
plantation houses dating back to the times Europeans and North Americans looking from bad weather, but if they do get caught
when some were under British rule, and these for sunshine. out, cruise ships will change course, drop-
make interesting diversions. During the summer, there tend to be ping planned port calls, and literally run-
Alternatively, there is a huge range of boat fewer ships in the Caribbean as many have ning for cover. It is very rare for cruises to
trips at most ports of call, offering the chance sailed to the Mediterranean, Alaska and get cancelled and if they are, cruise lines
to go snorkelling or spot dolphins, whales and northern Europe. will refund the cost of the cruise and often
turtles. While this means the islands are less give discounts off future bookings. TL
Sports fans can take advantage of the mobbed by cruise ships, the downside is
Caribbean’s excellent sporting credentials to that May to November is hurricane season
A travel journalist for 20 years, Sara Macefield
go diving, fishing or play a round or two on when the weather is unpredictable and the decided to drop anchor and specialise in cruising.
some of the top-rate golf courses to be found days are more humid. She now sails the world, writing on the subject
for the Sunday Telegraph and Conde Nast Traveller
on islands such as Barbados, Jamaica and the Cruise companies keep a careful eye on among others.
Bahamas. the weather and as tropical storms and hur-

30 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 CRU ISE N ew s
CRUISE CLIPS
Who would you like to sail
off with? A survey by Co-
The price is right
B
operative Travel revealed that ritish holidaymakers may ities and facilities?”
be strapped for cash in With so many new ships,
these credit-crunch times, cruise companies are battling
but cruise companies say it hard to attract customers, so this
makes 2009 an ideal time to try means there are more bargains
a cruise. to be had.
With so much included in the Not only are prices lower, but
price, a cruise makes it easy for lines are also offering more free
holidaymakers, and particularly extras such as upgrades to more
families, to budget in advance. superior cabins, free car parking

Carnival Cruises
After all, as food and even at UK departure ports, reduced
BBC Pictures

some drinks are free of charge supplements for single cruisers,

the most sought-after
companions that Britons want
to cruise with are James Bond
star Daniel Craig, actress Julie
Walters,TV hostess Myleene
Klass and BBC QI host
Stephen Fry (above).
More Brits are cruising than
ever before, according to the
along with entertainment, kids
clubs and most onboard activi-
ties there isn’t much extra to
fork out for.
“This is a good time for us to
explain the fantastic value of a
cruise to consumers,” said Phil
Nuttall, director of Blackpool-
based cruise travel agency the
Cruise Village.
“Compare the price of a two-
onboard credits and even free
■ Most onboard activities and facilities are flights on some fly-cruises.
included in the price of a cruise Another big bonus is that tak-
ing a Mediterranean cruise on a
week cruise to the Canaries, British cruise line such as P&O
with all the meals and entertain- Cruises, Fred Olsen Cruise
ment, to two weeks in a four-star Lines or Thomson Cruises
hotel in Tenerife. And remem- means you can explore Europe
ber, if it rains what is there to do without getting hammered by
in a hotel compared to a cruise the strong euro as the currency
ship with all the organised activ- on these ships is in sterling.

Family favourites
latest figures from cruising
body, the Passenger Shipping
Association, which showed
that nearly 1.5
million took

A
a cruise nyone who thinks cruis-
last year. es are just for fuddy- ■ Cruise ships
RCI

now boast some

If you want
to gen up
on cruises,
take a look at the Passenger
Shipping Association’s newly-
revamped website Discover
Cruises at www.discover-
cruises.co.uk. It has details
of the major cruise lines, plus
information about different
cruising destinations around
the world.
If you’ve never cruised
before, why not try a four-
night short break offered by
Holland America Line
(www.hollandamerica.com)
on July 6 from Dover to
duddies should think of the best
again. children’s facilities
More and more families are you will find
discovering the attractions of
spending their holidays afloat
and cruise companies have
invested millions of pounds in
gleaming new ships that boast
some of the best children’s
facilities you’ll find.
But passengers need to
make sure they choose family-
friendly ships – once they do
it’s plain sailing.
Royal Caribbean
International is launching a
push to attract even more fami-
lies by improving its Adventure
Ocean youth programme and
RCI

Zeebrugge, Cherbourg and expanding children’s dining

back to Dover. It costs from options.
£379. It has also started a Babies 2 organic baby food, wipes and sengers – delivered to the fami-
Go programme providing nappies for its youngest pas- ly’s cabin on arrival.

32 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 33
 Close
encounters
A visit to the western part of
Canada’s Newfoundland saw
Peter Ellegard come across
whales, moose, Vikings, an
iceberg and TV star Billy
Connolly – not to mention
jaw-dropping scenery
T
he Atlantic rollers crashed
into the base of the cliffs far
below us, throwing up blue-
white spume to contrast the
slate-grey ocean. Thankfully,
the mist and drizzle which
had cloaked Quirpon Island the previous
night had been chased away by the brisk
August wind, against which my fellow
explorers and I were protected by several lay-
ers of warm clothing.
We had clambered across lichen-covered
rocks to reach the high promontory from
where we now scanned the waves with binoc-
ulars. Looking back, the green lamp of the
white and red lighthouse on the island’s north-
ern tip glowed brightly in the still-gloomy
morning light. The leaden sky also made it
hard to spot our quarry as we gazed out to sea.
Then in the distance, my eye was caught by
a telltale spout. I focused my camera’s zoom
lens on the spot and, sure enough, moments
later a jet of spray erupted from the water, fol-
lowed in quick succession by another.
“Thar she blows!” I yelled, excitedly. At
least, I meant to. I think it came out as just a
strangulated: “Tha…” And in fact, it wasn’t
34 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
■ Humpback whale breaching
off Quirpon Island
one whale – but two, side by side.
Quirpon is a windswept dot off the far
north of Canada’s most easterly landmass, the
island of Newfoundland. This is where the
world’s largest population of humpback
whales, 5,000 of them, pass on their annual
migration.
Iceberg Alley
Just weeks earlier, these same waters had wit-
nessed another amazing spectacle. During
late spring and early summer, huge icebergs
shed by Arctic glaciers are carried past the
Newfoundland coast along what is called
“Iceberg Alley”, coming so close to Quirpon
at times they get stranded in its bays. As they
drift south, they meet the whales heading
north.
As our two whales approached us one
began breaching – spectacularly leaping out
of the sea with its flippers outstretched and its
belly uppermost – to land in a massive splash
alongside its partner, the noise reverberating
off the cliff. “That’s got to be a male
showing off to
his girl-
Peter Ellegard
friend,” one of my companions – a lady –
wryly noted, adding: “Typical!”
We watched the whales continue their jour-
ney past us and on towards the lighthouse and
headland, with one breaching and the other
gracefully breaking the surface every so often.
I raced back through the rock gullies, past the
beacon and one-time lighthouse keepers’ cot-
tage, now an inn and where we were staying,
to reach a rocky ledge just above the shoreline.
The whales had already swum by but were so
close I felt I could almost touch them.
Converted into accommodation in the
1990s when the lighthouse was automated, the
inn is a cosy refuge from the elements in one
of the most amazing settings imaginable. You
can watch for whales and ice-
bergs from your bedroom win-
dow, or sit in the special view-
ing hut set on the cliff edge
with its floor-to-
ceiling win-
M ay/June 2009
 Off the Beaten Track
NEWFOUNDLAND

Did you know?

Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism

● Newfoundland & Labrador together
form Canada’s youngest province,
joining in 1949.
● The province is as large as Japan and
has its own time zone, GMT -3.5
hours.
● Provincial capital St John’s is on the
same latitude as Paris.
● The Flat Earth Society claims that
Newfoundland is one of the four
corners of the world.
● The Vikings established a settlement
in Newfoundland in 998 at a site
now called L’Anse aux Meadows.
● Explorer John Cabot named it “New
Founde Land” when he set foot on it
in 1497.
● Marconi received the first
transatlantic wireless transmission
Peter Ellegard

from England at St John’s

■FBilly Connolly and latter day Viking in Newfoundland Signal Hill.

dows. Above it, the helipad is great for view- cloudberries everywhere else, they were won- Newfoundland English with
ing in good weather. derfully sweet and juicy. words found nowhere else. For
Eight of us had arrived the previous after- example, tickle is a narrow
noon after a precarious trip, our boat climbing Traditional dinner saltwater strait: hence the
watery mountain peaks before plunging into At the inn our friendly co-hostess, Madonna, Dark Tickle Company, which
deep valleys. It had to dock some distance served up a traditional Jiggs’ dinner of salt harvests the local berries as
away in Pigeon Cove, leaving us a half-hour beef, boiled potatoes and cabbage and then jams and jellies. Even pro-
hike across the boggy island interior. Along regaled us with tales of the island. I could nunciation is a world apart,
the way, our captain and guide, Jerry, point- have listened to her talk for hours, for her as in Quirpon being pro-
ed out small orange berries growing by wonderful local accent and the idiosyncratic nounced Kharpoon.
the track. Called bakeapples up Newfoundland dialect. So unique is its lan- Having bade a sad
here in Newfoundland, but guage that there is even a Dictionary of farewell and trudged back
to the boat, the return jour-
ney was just as memorable

Peter Ellegard

■FWalkers at Quirpon

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 35

 Ice, ice baby
Newfoundland affords some of the best
opportunities to see icebergs close-up.
These 5,000-year-old cathedrals of ice
take two years to reach Newfoundland
after calving from Greenland glaciers,
drifting on the cold Labrador Current
along “Iceberg Alley” – the Titanic struck a
berg 400 miles south of the island in
1912.
Icebergs come in all shapes and sizes –
from 10-million-ton giants to piano-sized
“growlers” and “bergy bits” – and their
blue-white appearance is from frozen
meltwater while part of the parent glacier.
Almost 90% of icebergs are under water.
Berg-watching season is late spring and
early summer, when the whales visit.You
as the one out. Not just for the rollercoaster
waves, but also for bow-waving dolphins, a
humpback alongside us and another which
breached right behind the boat.
That whale experience was not my only
notable close encounter on the trip. The inn’s
owner, local tour operator Ed English, was
waiting as we docked. He was heading there
to help prepare it for the arrival of comedian
Billy Connolly and a TV crew, who were vis-
iting as part of filming a series tracing the
Northwest Passage route.
I had a strange feeling I would bump into
him that day, and I did – almost literally.
The only authenticated Viking settlement
in North America, L’Anse aux Meadows is a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. Whereas
Quirpon is striking for its cliffs, crashing
waves and spectacular visitors, this is a bleak
yet hauntingly-beautiful coastal spot of undu-
lating grassland and stunted fir trees.
The Vikings didn’t stay long before
returning to Greenland. Today, the recreated
Norse settlement features a longhouse with
costumed interpreters. It was here that I
came across Billy Connolly, interviewing
36 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
■FIceberg watching
can take boat tours, watch from vantage
points such as Quirpon Island or go
kayaking to see both.
Besides the 5,000 or so humpbacks
one of the “Vikings” on camera. With their
matching bushy beards, the pair could have
been brothers.
Silly billy
Having gone inside the longhouse to take pic-
tures, I saw Billy standing just beyond the door
as I walked back out – distracting me so that I
didn’t notice the low doorway. The cracking
sound when my head made contact must have
been loud, as he came over to see if I was OK.
I felt a real silly billy! But hearing my Essex
accent, he guessed I wasn’t a Newfie and we
got chatting. I told him I knew he was going to
Quirpon and whetted his appetite about the
whales, and the hairy boat trip.
Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula is
awash with reminders of its Nordic settlers.
Close to L’Anse aux Meadows, the Norstead
living history site has demonstrations of Norse
lifestyle and a mid-summer Viking Festival in
late July. The Norseman Restaurant is worth a
stop for its tasty fare, which includes Caribou.
I had driven almost 500km up the west
coast of Newfoundland, travelling on Route
430, known as the Viking Trail. It is the only
Peter Ellegard
■FThe Viking Trail – today
Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism
which migrate along Newfoundland’s
coast, its waters are visited by 28 other
marine mammal species including blue
whales, orcas (killer whales) and dolphins.
way there, save for a cross-island stretch of
road to the east coast which I took for an
overnight stay at the gloriously-situated
Tuckamore Lodge, near Main Brook. It was
only the day before Quirpon, but I had
watched the sun setting over the adjoining
lake, beer in hand, in shirtsleeves. Such is the
fickle nature of the weather up here.
Talking of nature, I also encountered my
first Newfoundland moose that day. You are
almost bound to see them as you travel
around. With more than 110,000, the island
has more moose per square mile than any-
where else in the world. I would see another
five during my visit.
VikingTrail
The Viking Trail is a route to savour, dotted by
picture-perfect fishing villages, harbours and
drop-dead gorgeous views of the Gulf of St
Lawrence. In the distance, off the coast of
Labrador, I even spotted an iceberg – a flat-
topped monster resembling a white supertanker.
But the west coast’s crowning glory is Gros
Morne National Park, another UNESCO site.
It is a natural wonderland, with awe-inspiring
geological features such as the stark
Tablelands, Gros Morne Mountain and
Western Brook Pond, a glacier-carved fjord
with 2,000-foot-high walls where you can take
a sightseeing cruise, and wildlife such as
moose, caribou and bears.
The park envelops communities including
the coastal village of Trout River, with its
quaint timber houses, lines of brightly-
coloured, knitted socks and gloves, and wood-
en boardwalk lining the crescent-shaped
beach. Three youngsters were braving the
M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 37

Peter Ellegard
■ Colourful socks
at Trout River
freezing water to go swimming with body-
boards, making me shiver. They obviously
breed them tough in these parts.
Taking in the view from my room at the
hillside Red Mantle Inn, in Shoal Brook, I
watched clouds spill over the top of Gros
Morne Mountain across Bonne Bay inlet
while the dawn sun lit up a three-masted
schooner moored at Woody Point. I drove into
the town and got chatting to a visiting Harley-
Davidson biker and his family as we admired
the vista, before photographing the wooden
lighthouse on a ridge above town.
Romantic sunset
Across the inlet, I visited pretty Neddy
Harbour and Norris Point, and tucked into
fish and chips at Rocky Harbour after a beau-
tiful dusk – preceded by a truly romantic sun-
set at nearby Sally’s Cove. Hugged by a tree-
covered bluff and flanked by some fisher-
men’s huts with boats hauled up alongside,
this deserted strip of boulder-edged beach is
to die for. And it nearly was for some.
Ed English’s grandfather famously ran the
SS Ethie ashore here in a hurricane in 1919,
saving all 92 aboard. Rusting remnants of the
vessel were being washed over by gentle
waves on the rocky shoreline in the setting sun
on my visit, in a tranquil scene far removed
38 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
Newfoundland facts
When to go
May to September is the island’s tourist season. In summer, daytime
temperatures can reach 20ºC but the weather is very changeable, so be
prepared and take layers of warm clothing as well as waterproofs. Also take
sunscreen and mosquito repellent. In winter, you can go skiing at Marble
Mountain Resort, near Deer Lake, as well as snowmobiling and ice fishing.
Getting there
Air Canada (www.aircanada.com) serves Deer Lake and St John’s
airports via transatlantic gateways including Toronto.
Getting around
Renting a car is the best way to see Newfoundland. But
you need to book well in advance to guarantee a car,
Peter Ellegard
especially in high season. Rental companies include Avis
(www.avis.co.uk).Watch out for moose while driving.
Accommodation
Hotels are smaller than in other areas of Canada, but are good quality and
often family-run.Western Newfoundland options include Quirpon
Lighthouse Inn (www.linkumtours.com/site/inns_quirpon.htm),
Tuckamore Lodge in Main Brook (www.tuckamorelodge.com) and Red
Mantle Lodge in Shoal Brook (www.redmantlelodge.ca).Villas at
Humber Valley can be rented from Visit Humber Valley
(www.visithumbervalley.com).
Tour operators
Frontier Canada (www.frontier-canada.co.uk/newfoundland) offers
several packages to western Newfoundland and a wide range of product
throughout the island. Other operators include 1st Class Holidays
(www.1stclassholidays.com), Audley Travel (www.audleytravel.com),
Canadian Affair (www.canadianaffair.com),Titan HiTours
(www.titantravel.co.uk),Tailor Made Travel (www.tailor-made.co.uk)
and Windows on the Wild (www.windowsonthewild.com).
Tourist information
Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism:
Peter Ellegard
www.newfoundlandlabrador.com
Western Newfoundland & Southern Labrador:
www.westernnl.com
from the horrors of that day. tub at Humber Valley Resort, a lovely leisure
I ended my trip where I had started it, at complex with a superb golf course, spa and a
Deer Lake airport, just half an hour from Gros beach on which I sat and drank beer in front
Morne park. My first few days had been spent of a log fire with a Swiss mother and daughter
in a luxury villa complete with outdoor hot from a neighbouring villa.
Sadly, Humber Valley’s parent company
went into administration soon after and the
■ Woody Point and
Gros Morne Mountain resort closed, ending direct charter flights from
the UK. With the Humber River being one of
the world’s finest salmon fishing rivers and
Gros Morne’s glories on its doorstep, it can only
be a matter of time before the resort rises again.
In any event, I will cherish the memories
of this very special island. If anywhere could
claim to be a slice of heaven on earth,
Newfoundland is surely it.
Peter Ellegard
● The DVD, Billy Connolly – Journey to the
Edge of the World, is available from stores and
online merchants, priced £19.99. TL
M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 39
 COMPETITION

WIN a seven-
day holiday to
Newfoundland
for two people,
worth £4,000!
Courtesy of Newfoundland and Labrador
Tourism, Frontier Canada and Air Canada

F
ollow in the footsteps of Vikings
and win a fantastic seven-day
holiday for two to the eastern- quent sightings of wildlife such as bears, cari-
most part of Canada, the natural bou and moose. You can also hike along pris-
wonderland island of tine coastal trails, climb Gros Morne Mountain,
Newfoundland. or explore the charming and colourful fishing
Your prize will include Air Canada flights to villages tucked into quiet bays and coves.
Deer Lake, gateway to the unparalleled natural You will then drive north to St Anthony,
beauty of Gros Morne National Park, a which will be your base for the next three
UNESCO World Heritage Site on the island’s nights, allowing you to explore the recreated
west coast. You will spend three nights in the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows,
park where you can take a boat ride on the another UNESCO World Heritage Site at the
spectacular glacier-carved, land-locked Western northern tip of Newfoundland, and take a
Brook Pond fjord, seeing waterfalls cascading whale or iceberg watching tour. The Viking
from 2,000 feet, billion-year-old cliffs, and fre- Trail encompasses a medley of communities
Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism / Barrett and MacKay

Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism

■ Kayak up to
giant icebergs ■ Lobster feast

40 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 How to enter
For your chance to win this fabulous
prize trip to Newfoundland, just
answer this question:
Question: What is the name of
Newfoundland's Viking settlement site?

To enter please go to
www.choicetravelinfo.com and
click on the competitions &
giveaways button.

Closing date is June 30, 2009.The

first correct entry drawn will win.

dotting the coastline along the Great Northern

Peninsula, such as Main Brook, St Anthony,

Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism / Barrett and MacKay

Port au Choix, Conche and Rocky Harbour –
all of which have a part to play in
Newfoundland’s Viking saga which began
over 1,000 years ago.
There will also be a chance to extend the
holiday (at your own cost) and stay in the
lighthouse keepers’ cottage on magical
Quirpon Island, where Billy Connolly stayed
in his Journey to the Edge of the World series
■ Glacial-carved fjords in on ITV. From there you can watch migrating
Gros Morne National Park
humpback whales and towering icebergs at
close quarters, depending on the time of year.
Your last night will be in Corner Brook, at
the mouth of the Humber River – one of the
Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism / Barrett and MacKay

best rivers in North America for fishing wild

Atlantic salmon. The holiday will also include
a rental compact car for seven days.
Newfoundland is a stunning destination –
and specialist tour operator Frontier Canada
knows it well. Visit their website, www.
frontier-canada.co.uk/newfoundland, for
lots of holiday ideas and packages. You can
also email them on canada@frontier-
■ L'Anse aux travel.co.uk or telephone 020 8776 8709 for
Meadows Viking site further advice and bookings. TL

incomplete entries. promotion accept no liability for any loss, damage

Terms & conditions 5.This competition is open to all UK residents over or injury caused by, or to, the prizewinner or their
the age of 18, other than employees of Frontier guest, or their property whilst taking the prize.
1.The prize includes two return economy-class tickets
Travel, Air Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador 9. Passports and any required visas are not included in
from London Heathrow to Deer Lake,
Tourism and Travel & Leisure Magazines, their the prize but are a requirement of booking the
Newfoundland, including all known taxes, seven
families, agents and anyone connected with the holiday and must be obtained by the winner prior
nights’ room-only accommodation as specified
draw. to travel.
based on two people sharing and seven days’ basic
6.Winners must adhere to Frontier Travel’s standard 10. Dates of travel subject to availability.
rental of a compact car.The holiday can be
booking conditions, available on request. 11.There are no cash alternatives available and the
extended, at the winner’s expense.
7.The prize is exclusive of transfers to UK airports, prize is non-transferable.
2. No purchase necessary.
connecting flights to London Heathrow and any 12.The promoters are not responsible for any delay
3.The closing date for entries is June 30, 2009 and the
services other than those mentioned. or cancellation of any element of the prize or for
winner will be notified by email shortly after.The
8. Holiday insurance is not included in the prize. any inability of the prizewinner or their guest to
judges' decision is final. No correspondence will be
Adequate travel insurance must be in place to take up the prize.
entered into.
cover the winner and guest.The partners in this 13.The prize is valid for 12 months from June 30, 2009.
4.We cannot accept responsibility for any lost or

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 41

All photos: Great Rail Journeys

I From left to right: the Ghan, Palace on Wheels, and Coast Starlight passing Mount Shasta

Going
loco
Whether you want to relive the golden age of trains or
experience stunning scenery in effortless comfort, rail holidays
are the perfect antidote to today’s stressful world. And as Dave
Richardson reports, there are plenty of tempting loco motives…

M
y most guilty train train travel in the 1980s, when the BBC
experience came one screened its first Great Railway Journeys
morning as I enjoyed of the World programme. Some people have
a champagne break- ticked off every journey in the four series,
fast on the British following in the tracks of Michael Palin,
Pullman while pass- Clive Anderson & co.
ing through the London suburbs. Downcast You don’t have to be a champagne-
commuters gazed enviously as I raised a guzzling wannabe aristocrat, as there
glass, before piling into their are several styles of rail holiday. You
sardine cans. can spend over £5,000 on a trip
I felt like royalty. Ever just around Scotland, or rough it
since I steamed off as a child with ordinary folk taking their
on the Red Rose express from chickens to market. Most journeys
Liverpool, I’ve been fascinated by fall somewhere in between, either
trains and travelled as far as Australia on privately-operated tourist trains
to ride in them. But there are still or reserved carriages on national rail
many famous trains I’ve yet to try, networks.
and the range grows every year to
satisfy public demand to travel in style. Land cruises
Orient-Express, operator of several Many tour operators are now involved,
luxury trains including the British although there are only a few rail spe-
Pullman, brought back the golden era of cialists. No wonder these holidays are

42 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 ??
?
? let’s TRY…
RAIL EXPERIENCES

sometimes described as land cruises, as they

share many characteristics including a
leisurely pace to enjoy the views, sumptuous
food and “shore” excursions. On some trains
you sleep onboard in cabins which convert to
seated accommodation by day; others oper-
ate day trips only, or with accommodation in
hotels.
An example of the latter is Canada’s
Rocky Mountaineer (www.rockymoun
taineer.com), its main route being between
Banff and Vancouver with one night spent in
Kamloops. Gold Leaf class passengers enjoy

I The Golden
Pass Line train

the best views in glass Dome Carriages, as

the train crosses the Rockies and descends
to the Pacific or vice versa.
Australia’s most iconic trains criss-cross
this vast country – the Indian Pacific from
west to east (Perth to Sydney); and the Ghan
from north to south (Darwin to Adelaide, via
Alice Springs) (both www.gsr.com.au).

‘You don’t have to

be a champagne-
guzzling wannabe
aristocrat’
The Ghan was named after the Afghan
camel herders who first beat a path into the
Outback, and the route was extended from
Alice Springs to Darwin as recently as 2004.
You sleep onboard these trains, with
staff converting the seats into beds as you
dine. You can have a reclining seat rather
than a sleeper berth, but that’s not recom-
mended on long journeys (68 hours from
Perth to Sydney!) when you’ve reached a
certain age.

Whistle stops
The scenery is not as attractive as in Canada,
but the bar and lounge carriages are con-
I The spectacular Flam vivial and some of the journey is in dark-
Railway in Norway ness. “Whistle Stop” excursions are avail-

May/June 2009 The Travel & Leisure Magazine 43

 Luxury
trains
Orient-Express (www.orient-
express.com) was the modern day
pioneer of luxury rail travel, reviving a
name made famous by Agatha Christie and
which epitomises the decadent lifestyle of
the rich in the 1920s.
It revived the original name but not the
original route, as most trains operate from
Calais to Paris and Venice with the
connecting British Pullman from London
to Folkestone. One departure this year, on
August 27, operates on the old route from
Paris to Istanbul.
On Orient-Express trains you are
expected to dress smartly for dinner, with
jacket and tie a minimum requirement for
gentlemen. On the European train, many
opt for a dinner jacket although this is not
compulsory. Both this and the Eastern &
Oriental Express, from Bangkok to
Singapore, are sleeper trains.
A good way of seeing if luxury train
travel is for you is to try a day trip, usually
to a stately home or event, or possibly just
a round trip for lunch. Orient-Express
operates both the British Pullman and
Northern Belle, with departures from
stations throughout Britain.
Top of the range is its Royal Scotsman
able along the way, including the ghost town
of Cook in South Australia (on the Indian
Pacific) whose population is just four.
The Blue Train (www.bluetrain.co.za)
is a luxury experience running from Pretoria
to Cape Town in South Africa, with cabins
onboard and an observation lounge at the
rear for uninterrupted views. There are sev-
eral other trains in southern Africa, includ-
ing the Pride of Africa, which takes a longer
route between the same cities.
44 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
I The Royal Scotsman
– passengers relaxing
in the lounge
sleeper train, carrying a maximum of 36
passengers on scenic itineraries north of
the border, with private visits to castles
and distilleries. Minimum price is £1,840
all-inclusive for a three-day trip from
Edinburgh.
Several luxury trains around the world
In India, the only comfortable way to trav-
el overland is by train, so why not travel like a
Maharaja in the Palace on Wheels
(www.palaceonwheels.net)? This also has
cabins onboard, operating a circular tour from
Delhi via Jaipur, Jodhpur and Agra, for the
Taj Mahal.
A very different experience awaits on the
Trans Siberian Express across Russia, and
there is now a luxury alternative to the
rough-and-ready service train that links
I Orient-Express British Pullman carriages
being hauled by the Flying Scotsman steam
engine in Great Wishford, Wiltshire
All photos: Orient-Express Hotels,Trains & Cruises
Ron Bambridge
I Lunch on the
Northern Belle
I Eastern & Oriental
Ian Lloyd
Express – drinks in
the observation car
follow the same successful formula, such as
South Africa’s Blue Train, India’s Palace on
Wheels and the Golden Eagle Trans
Siberian Express. But in most cases they
use modern carriages, whereas Orient-
Express has truly brought back the great
trains of yesteryear.
Moscow with Siberia, Mongolia and China.
GW Travel (www.gwtravel.co.uk) oper-
ates a private train called the Golden Eagle
on the Trans Siberian route, and also offers
tours on the Pride of Africa, Canadian
Empress, Deccan Odyssey (India) and
Shangri-La Express (China/Tibet).
Service trains
Many of the most popular rail holidays are on
regular service trains, but on an escorted tour
M ay/June 2009
 All photos: Great Rail Journeys
everything is done for you while you interact can start their trip
more with “ordinary” passengers and the often- with Eurostar from London St Pancras to
bustling scene at stations. Popular trains in the Paris or Brussels.
US include the Coast Starlight (Seattle-Los The Alpine countries are especially popular,
Angeles) and Southwest Chief (Chicago-Los with Switzerland’s Glacier Express
Angeles) operated by Amtrak (www.glacierexpress.ch) narrow-gauge train
(www.amtrak.com), while the Copper Canyon offering a lovely trip between Zermatt and St
railway in Mexico is another very scenic run Moritz via the Oberalp Pass (6,670 feet). This
(Chihuahua-Los Mochis). is a day trip, and one of several scenic Swiss
In Europe most holidays are on regular lines that can be combined on a rail holiday.
service trains, but standards are high and I A waiter on South Africa's Blue Train Norway also has some very scenic rail-
people who want go green or avoid flying ways, including Oslo to Bergen with a side
trip on the Flam Railway (www.flaams
bana.no/eng) – one of the world’s most
Rail Holidays facts steeply-graded routes which descends to a
fjord. It can be combined with the Arctic
Sample prices: Circle Express, a sleeper train to Narvik fea-
Great Rail Journeys (01904 527110, tured in the BBC documentary Joanna
www.greatrail.com), the biggest specialist, has Worldwide Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights.
and European brochures plus a lower priced Treyn Holidays
programme.The six-day Glacier Express & Swiss Highlights Closer to home
tour by Treyn costs from £695. You can enjoy scenic rail journeys much closer
Titan HiTours (0800 988 5853, www.titanhitours.co.uk) is one of the to home, especially in the Scottish Highlands
operators featuring the Blue Train in South Africa. A 14-day holiday including which you can reach by sleeper from London.
two days onboard costs from £3,275. The highlights are the West Highland route
A one-way, two-day trip on the Orient-Express from London to Venice from Fort William to Mallaig – where the
costs from £1,550 (0845 077 2222, www.orient-express.com). A day trip steam-operated Jacobite train (www.west
from London to Bath costs from £285. coastrailways.co.uk) operates most days
Railtrail (01538 382323, www.railtrail.co.uk) operates a seven-day from June 27-August 30 – and the “Road to
Queen of Scots tour using service trains, including the Jacobite steam train the Isles” from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh.
(pictured below) and Kyle line, from £979. Kyle is where my love affair with scenic
railways began, as I gazed across to Skye
Other useful contacts: and realised that the sea was crystal clear
 Ffestiniog Travel – See the World by Rail (01766 unlike in my home town of Liverpool. And I
772030, www.festtravel.co.uk) got there before Michael Palin! TL
 GW Travel (0161 928 9410, www.gwtravel.co.uk)
 Explore (0844 499 0901, www.explore.co.uk)
 French Travel Service (0844 84 888 43, www.f-t-s.co.uk) An interest in railways led Dave Richardson
 International Rail (08700 841410; www.internationalrail.com) into travel and transport writing 30 years ago.
Going to his first engine sheds and acquiring
 Railbookers (0844 482 1010; www.railbookers.com) his first model railway at nine, he has been
slipping down the gradient ever since.

46 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

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M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 47

 Perfect days
in the home of golf
With over 500 courses,
Scotland offers golfers the
perfect golfing escape. A
recent visit took Peter
Ellegard to the
“undiscovered” Aberdeenshire
coast and on to where it all
began – St Andrews

T
he benign North Sea waves
were gently caressing the
wide, sandy beach to my
right with a rhythmical mur-
mur as I stood on the 7th tee
at Aberdeen’s Murcar Links
and lined up my drive. Ahead, the hole
plunged down to a fairway criss-crossed by
the two-pronged Serpentine burn and
edged by a huge dune thickly carpeted in
bright yellow gorse.
My ears were still ringing from the warn-
ing of a playing partner, a near-as-damn-it
scratch golfer native to north-east Scotland,
when we were climbing up to the tee box of
the 423-yard, par-4 hole. “This is one of the
hardest holes of golf in Scotland,” he had said.
My drive somehow went arrow-straight,
soaring high into the cloudless sky and end-
ing in prime position on the fairway.
Amazingly, my next shot was also a peach,
coming up just short of the green and setting
Peter Ellegard

up a chip to secure a rare par. Rare for a 23

handicapper, that is.
It was the highlight of my round. But the
real stars were the wonderful but testing old
links course – which celebrates its centenary
this year and which uses the contours of the
sandhills to create a delightfully natural lay-
out with superb views from its elevated tees
– and the astonishing weather. This was the
I Drive time at Cruden Bay
beginning of April, and yet we were in shirt-
sleeves as though it was mid-summer. To
borrow Visit Scotland’s new promotion slo-
gan, it was a perfect day for golf.
Similar balmy weather had greeted us the
previous day at nearby Cruden Bay. Another
gem of a course set right on the coast, its
present layout dates back to 1926 although
golf is reputed to have been played here
since 1791.
But our luck ran out the following day at
the prestigious Royal Aberdeen Golf Club.

48 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009


Peter Ellegard
I The 18th hole on the
Old Course at St Andrews
Peter Ellegard
I Dalhousie Castle
A chilly fog had blown in overnight off the
North Sea, shrouding everything in a murky
embrace and steadily soaking us with the
drizzle being borne on the fresh breeze. The
weather could not have been more different.
Yet Royal Aberdeen lies cheek-by-jowl with
Murcar, to the point where as you make the
turn after the front nine and head back to the
clubhouse you walk by Murcar’s 4th tee.
You could easily carry on playing the
adjacent course if you weren’t paying atten-
tion. Indeed, we were told that a group of
Americans had done just that while playing
Royal Aberdeen a few years ago. Instead of
turning for the back nine, they accidentally
continued onto Murcar’s holes – only realis-
ing their mistake when they finished at a dif-
M ay/June 2009
Pack your CLUBS
SCOTLAND
ferent clubhouse, and sheepishly had to get
a taxi back to Royal Aberdeen to retrieve
their car.
Both Royal Aberdeen and Murcar are just
five minutes by road from Scotland’s third
city and Europe’s oil capital, Aberdeen. Yet
this beautiful, rugged coastal stretch of gorse
and heather-covered sandhills – where
American tycoon Donald Trump has won
permission to build his huge, controversial
Trump International Golf Links golf course,
housing and luxury hotel project – is a world
away from the hustle and bustle of the
Granite City.
Originally founded in 1780 as the Society
of Golfers at Aberdeen, the Royal Aberdeen
Golf Club incorporated the society on the
Golf at St Andrews
Golf has been played at St Andrews for
at least six centuries.
The St Andrews Links land was
granted to the people of the town in
1123 by King David I for them to use
for recreation. By 1457 golf had
become so popular, King James II
issued a warrant banning it because he
was worried it was distracting his men
from archery practice.
The Society of St Andrews Golfers
was established in 1754 to organise an
annual competition. It became the
Royal & Ancient Golf Club 80 years
later.The Open was first staged at St
Andrews in 1873; it returns to the Old
Course in 2010 for the 28th time.
Today, St Andrews Links is still public
land. It consists of seven courses, five
of them 18 holes, plus a nine-hole
course.Three of them, including the
New Course, are over 100 years old.
Others include highly-rated Kingsbarns
and recent addition, the Castle Course.
All are run by the charitable St
Andrews Links Trust.
eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and is
the sixth oldest golf club in the world.
Historic relics adorn its clubhouse, and golf-
ing history permeates the air.
Golf's five-minute rule was first intro-
duced here, in 1783, setting golfers a time
limit of five minutes to find their ball before
it is declared lost. It was a rule I did not
bother taking advantage of each time my
ball disappeared into a clump of gorse, my
lack of ability having been found out by the
tough, tight Balgownie Links layout and the
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 49

Peter Ellegard
I Gleneagles
miserable, dreaky conditions.
This was my first visit to Aberdeenshire;
previous golfing forays north of the border
had taken me to the west coast and around
central Scotland. I had joined a group trip
discovering the golf delights and other
attractions of the Grampian region coast
before going off by myself to revisit one of
my favourite areas, the Trossachs, followed
by a long overdue pilgrimage to golf’s Holy
Grail – St Andrews.
Less celebrated than many of Scotland’s
other courses, this Aberdeen trio is as fine a
collection of golf links as you will find any-
where. And the city and surrounding area
has much else to offer besides.
This part of Scotland is synonymous with
whisky-making and the Highland village of
Old Meldrum, just 12 miles from Aberdeen
Golf galore
With more than 500 courses, Scotland
has golf galore wherever you look.
Besides those I played on my trip, there
are some household names which host
the Open. Among them are Carnoustie,
where Jean van der Velde famously went
paddling and lost the title, Prestwick,
Troon and Muirfield.
Another Open host course is
Turnberry, which reopens after major
renovations in time to stage the 2009
Open, from July 16-19.
Other top courses include the likes of
Royal Dornoch, Nairn, Machrihanish and
Loch Lomond.
Recent additions have included Spey
Valley and the Castle Course in St
Andrews, while projects due to open
soon include Machrihanish Dunes.
50 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
Airport, has a distillery which has been pro-
ducing single malt Scotch whisky for more
than 200 years. Part of Japanese-owned
Morrison Bowmore, the Glen Garioch dis-
tillery (www.glengarioch.co.uk) has had a
chequered history and reopened for produc-
tion as recently as 1997, having been closed
two years earlier.
Guided tours are offered daily from
10am-3pm, Monday to Friday, including
whisky tasting. Our tour guide pointed out
some village buildings downwind of the dis-
tillery’s huge, now-redundant chimneys
which he told us once housed the local alco-
hol rehabilitation centre. Talk about being
cruel to be kind.
Another tradition in the area is short-
bread; you can tour the factory of family-run
Dean’s of Huntly (www.deans.co.uk),
Peter Ellegard
I Murcar Links
Did you know?
G Scotland was named Destination of
the Year in the annual industry awards
held by top-selling golf magazine, Today’s
Golfer, beating the Algarve and Ireland.
G The Old Course is a public course.
Anyone can play, provided they have a
handicap of 24 for men and 36 for ladies.
G The Royal & Ancient Golf Club’s
clubhouse is not open to visitors, and
women guests are only welcomed on St
Andrew’s Day.
G Limited tee times on the Old Course
can be booked, up to a year in advance.
G Most golfers get tee times through the
daily ballot, by calling the St Andrews
Links Trust (01334 466666) on the
morning before they want to play.The
ballot results are posted on
www.standrews.org.uk
G Individual players can also queue at
the starter’s hut to join a two-ball or
three-ball game.
which produces some of Scotland’s finest
shortbread biscuits, using recipes created by
Helen Dean in her kitchen in the 1970s. Her
son, Bill, runs the factory today.
Aberdeen makes a great base to play the
area's courses, with fine eateries including
the Albyn, offering French-Scottish cuisine.
The Marcliffe Hotel is a five-star sanctuary
in the city with a putting green to practice on
before your round and a spa to ease aching
muscles afterwards..
After Aberdeen, I headed south to revisit
Gleneagles, one of my favourite golf resorts
and venue for the 2014 Ryder Cup. This
grand old lady, set in 850 acres of beautiful
Perthshire countryside an hour’s drive from
Edinburgh and Glasgow, was built 85 years
ago. A recent £70 million makeover has
included the addition of a new wing with 59
rooms, many featuring balconies and cosy
fires, and 10 luxury Spirit suites.
There are three courses at Gleneagles.
The Ryder Cup will be played on the newest
of them, the PGA Centenary Course (for-
merly the Monarch’s Course) which was cre-
ated by Jack Nicklaus. On my previous visit
I had played the Queen’s, enduring a night-
mare round straight after a video lesson at
the golf academy and then witnessing a
playing partner achieve that rarest of feats –
a hole in one albatross on a par four.
On this occasion I took on the tougher
King’s. Getting the first tee time of the day,
I had the course to myself, save for the
M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 51
 pheasants, curlews and deer which graced it
throughout the round. It felt more like a
wildlife ramble than a game of golf.
Sadly, there was no time to try the resort’s
many other leisure facilities, among them its
chic Spa by ESPA and outdoor experiences
such as off-road driving, shooting and fish-
ing, falconry and an equestrian school.
I took a break from golf to live like a laird

Royal Aberdeen Golf Club

for a day at Dalhousie Castle, a fabulous
13th century fortress south of Edinburgh
I The 18th hole now part of the luxury von Essen Hotels
at Royal Aberdeen group. While it has no golf course alongside,
there are numerous courses in the area.
There can’t be many hotels where you
Scotland GOLF facts dine in a vaulted dungeon, with a suit of
armour standing guard!
Perfect golf breaks My final destination was St Andrews.
Enjoy a perfect golf break in Scotland this year during the An important trading centre for many cen-
Homecoming Scotland campaign, celebrating Robert Burns turies, the town oozes history from every
Peter Ellegard

250th anniversary.Aberdeenshire, St Andrews and Perthshire are stone. A Greek monk is said to have
among destinations to enjoy a golf break in the home of golf. brought the relics of St Andrew, who
Tourist information became Scotland’s patron saint and whose
For more information or to plan your break to Scotland, go to: saltire cross was adopted as the national
www.visitscotland.com/perfectday or call 0845 22 55 121. For golf flag. Stately ruins tell of centuries of influ-
information, go to: www.visitscotland.com/perfectgolf ence, power and strife.
Getting there I played two rounds while at St Andrews.
Flights operate from London region airports to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and My first was on the Kittocks Course at
Glasgow.Trains also operate from Kings Cross on the National Express East Fairmont St Andrews, one of two courses at
Coast line to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Leuchars (for St Andrews) and the luxury golf and spa resort which has just
Gleneagles. undergone a £17 million refurbishment pro-
Green fees/passes gramme – the other being the Torrance
Green fees vary from course to course and by season. High season (May- Course, which reopens in July after major
October) green fees for Royal Aberdeen are £100 weekdays/£120 redevelopment. The course hugs the cliff
weekends. For the Old Course, high season costs £130 per round, and at edge, giving wonderful views to the town on
Gleneagles, high season green fees for all three courses are £110 for some holes, and features double greens and
residents and £155 for visitors. Passes are available for some areas of tough bunkers.
Scotland. On my last day in Scotland I got to fulfil
Golf tuition the dream all golfers harbour; a round on the
You can hone your game alongside the Old Course at the St Andrews Links Golf most hallowed piece of turf in golf, the Old
Academy (www.standrews.org.uk). It boasts one of Europe’s foremost practice Course. Having got my tee time from the
and teaching facilities, with a 51-bay centre and video and digital swing analysis.The starter and joined a group of three golfers
Gleneagles Golf Academy boasts a 320-yard, double-ended driving range. from Bristol, I nervously teed my ball up in
front of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club –
Courses Hotels the governing body for the rules of golf in
Royal Aberdeen Golf Club The Marcliffe Hotel, most countries.
The Marcliffe Hotel

www.royalaberdeengolf.com Spa & Restaurant I’m not sure how, but I didn’t duff my
www.marcliffe.com tee shot. Nerves got the better of me for
Cruden Bay Golf Club much of the round but I did manage to play
www.crudenbaygolfclub.co.uk Gleneagles a few good shots, including the daunting
www.gleneagles.com drive on the 17th – the infamous Road
Murcar Links Golf Club Hole – where you have to flirt with the old
www.murcarlinks.com Dalhousie Castle railway sheds by the Old Course Hotel. I
www.vonessenhotels.co.uk also managed to avoid Hell, the notorious
Gleneagles and cavernous bunker on the 14th. And we
www.gleneagles.com Fairmont St Andrews all stopped for the obligatory photo of each
www.fairmont.com/standrews other standing on the famous humpbacked
St Andrews Links Trust Swilcan Bridge, bathed in sunshine on the
www.standrewsgolf.org 18th fairway.
A perfect end to a memorable golf trip. TL

52 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 Little
gem
Isle of Wight Tourism
Famed as much now for rock
music as for royal heritage,
and with adrenalin activities
offering a counterpoint to its
genteel resorts, the Isle of
Wight has revamped its jaded
bucket and spade image.
One-time deckchair attendant
Paul Erlam revisits the tiny,
diamond-shaped island and
finds it sparkling

I
t was once the ultimate bucket and
spade resort, remembered fondly
from family holidays or school
trips. When I was a deckchair atten-
dant in the 1960s families would
return year after year to the same
beach, even trying to bag the exact spot on
the sand they had the previous year.
When foreign holidays became accessi-
ble and affordable the island’s resorts took
on a “past their sell-by-date” air. Let’s put
this politely: they looked a little frayed
around the edges, in need of a good lick of
paint.
I have known the island all my life – I
grew up there – and return regularly. The
good news is that the island has definitely
pulled its socks up.
Sure, it is still a great place if building
sandcastles and stretching out on a sunbed
is your idea of an activity holiday. With its
numerous long sandy beaches it could not
help but be so. There is also beautiful
countryside.
Isle of Wight Tourism

And it really does have the best of the

country’s weather. Shanklin on the island’s
■ Walking the south-east coast has regularly held the
Tennyson Trail
record for most hours of sunshine. No won-

54 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009


Isle of Wight Tourism
■ The Isle of Wight is famed for its sailing
der it is known as the Sunshine Isle.
You can sometimes stand on the island’s
downland in bright sunshine and see the
mainland, just a few miles away, cloaked in
grey clouds. So mild is the climate you will
see plants growing in Ventnor Botanical
Garden on its southern tip found nowhere
else in the country.
Contrasts
But the Isle of Wight is more than just sand
and sun. Despite its size – just 13 miles by
22 – it is a place of contrasts.
It is a place where Charles I and Jimi
Hendrix made their mark – for different rea-
sons, you will appre-
■ Carisbrooke Castle
M ay/June 2009
on yourD O O RSTEP
ciate. You can get an intimate glimpse of
Queen Victoria’s private life just a few miles
from daredevils paragliding over cliffs or
surfing waves.
Residents and visitors agree the pace of
life slows down when you cross the Solent.
If you come by car, forget motorways. There
aren’t any. There is one dual carriageway but
it is no more than 300 yards long.
Proud of its past, the island has adapted
to the present demands of tourism without
losing its charm – or its sense of history.
There is no better example than Dinosaur
Isle at Sandown (www.dinosaurisle.com)
– a state-of-the-art museum showing fossils
and life-size reconstructions of dinosaurs.
The island is the most important site for
dinosaur remains in Europe
thanks to erosion
along the coast.
Fast forward to
English Heritage
ISLE OF WIGHT
Did you know?
● Nearly half the island’s 147 square
miles have been designated Areas of
Outstanding Natural Beauty.
● Travel to the island and you may pass
19th century forts in the Solent.
Built at enormous cost with huge
technical problems, they never fired
a shot in anger and were named
after the Prime Minister who dreamt
them up: Palmerston’s Follies.
● Canned beer was first produced on
the island by a brewery at Newport
so it could be sent to troops in
India.
● The first hovercraft was developed
at East Cowes. Now the island is
one of the few places in Europe to
be served by regular hovercraft
services.
● Ryde Pier claims to be the first
seaside pier in Britain.Today it is
terminus for the Island Line, on
which old London Underground
trains run to Shanklin.
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 55
 Isle of Wight
festivals
Walking Festival
The largest of its kind in Europe. Over 300
walks. Even a Speed Dating Walk.
May 9-24, throughout the island
www.isleofwightwalkingfestival.co.uk
Isle of Wight Festival
One of the major music festivals of the
season.
June 12-14, Newport
www.isleofwightfestival.com
Cowes Week
World-class sailing – and much
partying.
August 1-8, Cowes
www.cowesweek.co.uk
Garlic Festival
Not to be sniffed at. Originally
Isle of Wight Tourism
Roman times and superb remains of a villa
at Brading (www.bradingromanvilla.
com) are described as one of the finest
Romano-British archaeological sites in the
UK with beautifully preserved mosaic floors
and an extensive collection of coins, pottery
and tools.
Royal connections
Oh, and that earlier reference to Charles:
800-year-old Carisbrooke Castle is where
the unfortunate king was imprisoned before
his execution. According to popular myth,
he tried to flee only to get stuck in the win-
dow through which he was trying to escape.
Houdini he was not.
The new Edwardian-inspired Princess
Beatrice Garden, celebrating Queen
Victoria’s daughter who was Governor of the
Isle of Wight, opens in June at the castle,
which is one of the properties on the island
administered by English Heritage
(www.english-heritage.org.uk).
Another is Osborne House, and this is
a real gem. Queen Victoria fell in love
with the island as a young princess, say-
ing: “It is impossible to imagine a pret-
tier spot”. After her marriage to Prince
Albert, the couple built Osborne as a
country retreat.
Step inside today and it as though the
couple have only recently left. Wander
through the Queen’s bedroom, the couple’s
study and the amazing Indian-themed
56 The Travel& Leisure M agazine
celebrating the island’s garlic growing
industry, now a much bigger food festival.
August 15-16, Arreton
www.garlic-festival.co.uk
Bestival
Quirky music festival with
varied acts.This year’s dressing
up theme is Space.
September 11-13, Robin Hill
Country Park, near Arreton
www.bestival.net
Durbar Room, a reminder of when most of
the world map was coloured red.
The royal couple’s love for the island cat-
apulted it from sleepy backwater to trendy
resort. Think of a 19th century St Tropez or
Nice to which the rich and famous flocked.
People like the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson,
the Victorian equivalent of a media star,
commemorated by Tennyson Down near
Freshwater (there are spectacular views of
the West Wight from here). His home,
Farringford, is now a hotel.
Railways and seaside holidays
If the royals did wonders for the island’s
image, then the coming of the railways creat-
ed the institution of the seaside holiday. The
Isle of Wight Tourism
Isle of Wight Tourism
■ Bestival
International Charity Classic Car
Show Extravaganza
Everything from vintage vehicles to wacky
racers.
September 19, Newport; and September
20, Ryde
Cycling Festival
From a leisurely ride to the 14-hills
challenge.Yes, as gruelling as its sounds.
September 19-27, locations across the island.
www.sunseaandcycling.com
beaches loved by Victorians and Edwardians
are numerous and still attractive today. Among
them are twin resorts Sandown and Shanklin,
where the long, sandy beaches are some of the
safest for swimming. Ventnor, the most
southerly resort, has a fine beach at low tide.
Freshwater Bay, in the west, is small, charm-
ing but pebbly, while the sands of Colwell Bay
and Totland are softer on the feet.
Seaview is an upmarket seaside village
with a sailing tradition. Talking of sailing,
Cowes is an international centre, home of the
Royal Yacht Squadron, probably the poshest
yacht club in the land, and venue for Cowes
Week (www.cowesweek.co.uk) – one of the
premier events on the yacht racing calendar.
Alum Bay has a bit of a wow factor. It
boasts cliffs of multi-coloured sands which
as children we could collect in bottles. Amid
concerns for erosion and, I guess, health and
safety, you can no longer do that – sand for
sale is imported. But you get a spectacular
view of the Needles, the much pho-
tographed chalk stacks which have come
to symbolise the island.
Music festivals
A few miles away at Afton Down is a
natural amphitheatre in the chalk
downs, and one of the original sites of
music extravaganza the Isle of Wight
Festival. The third such festival, in 1970,
was the venue for the last show by one of
rock’s greats – Jimi Hendrix – just a fort-
M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 57
 night before his death. Others at early festi-
vals included Bob Dylan, The Who and The
Doors.
Revived in recent years and now located
near Newport, the island’s capital, the Isle
of Wight Festival (www.isleofwight
festival.com) is the first of the season in the
UK festival calendar. Performers this June
include The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx,
Pendulum, The Ting Tings, The
Stereophonics and Neil Young.

English Heritage
In recent years it has had an island rival,
Bestival (www.bestival.net), staged in
September at Robin Hill Country Park in ■ The Durbar Room, Osborne House
the middle of the island. This year’s acts
include Lily Allen and Mercury award
winners Elbow. appeal, the island offers a range of opportu- is.co.uk) and Wight Waters (www.wight
nities to learn a skill or get your adrenalin waters.com) offers courses in surfing,
Adrenalin activities pumping. X-Isle Sports is one of the UK’s windsurfing, bodyboarding and kayaking.
If neither festivals nor lying on a beach biggest kite-surfing schools (www.x- Medina Valley Centre at Newport
(www.medinavalleycentre.org.uk) and
Isle of Wight facts the UK Sailing Academy at Cowes
(www.uksa.org) provide sailing courses.
Getting there But don’t get the impression it is all surf-
There are six ferry routes from the mainland to the island. ing and rock music. The Isle of Wight has
Wightlink (www.wightlink.co.uk) operates two car ferry managed to update itself without losing its
Isle of Wight Tourism

services: Portsmouth to Fishbourne and Lymington to family-friendly appeal. Children’s attractions

Yarmouth. It also operates a fast catamaran service between range from Blackgang Chine, the country’s
Portsmouth and Ryde. first theme park, to a model village at
Red Funnel Ferries (www.redfunnel.co.uk) operates both a car ferry service Godshill, and from the Isle of Wight Zoo,
and the Red Jet passenger service from Southampton to Cowes. where ITV’s Tiger Island was filmed, to the
Hovertravel (www.hovertravel.co.uk) operates hovercraft passenger steam railway at Havenstreet.
services from Southsea to Ryde. Being such a small island you are never
far from the sea. Do not leave without
Accommodation and information sampling the seafood. The village of
The Isle of Wight has a range of accommodation from luxury hotels and guest Bembridge is as good a place as any. You
houses to self-catering and caravans.The Isle of Wight Tourism website can take up a fishing rod for a trip with the
(www.islandbreaks.co.uk) has details, an online search facility and email optimistically named Catchalot Charters.
booking service as well as informaon about the island. Nearby, and with an even catchier name, is
Tip: Many places offer discounted ferry tickets when you book The Best Dressed Crab in Town, a shop
accommodation so it’s worth enquiring before you arrange a crossing. selling shellfish straight off its own fishing
boat. A short distance away the aptly-
Attractions named Crab and Lobster is one of many
Among the island’s main attractions are: fine pubs on the island.
Osborne House (www.english-heritage.org.uk/osborne) – The island is still that little bit different – not
Isle of Wight Tourism

Queen Victoria’s holiday palace and gardens. quite abroad, yet not quite England. And, as an
Carisbrooke Castle (www.english-heritage.org.uk/ old islander told me with a line he probably
server/show/nav.14466) – 800-year-old castle and the new spins to many a visitor, the reason it is dia-
Princess Beatrice Garden, from June. mond-shaped is because it is a little gem. TL
St Catherines Oratory (www.english-heritage.org.uk/stcatherines) –
14th century octagonal lighthouse, known locally as the Pepperpot.
Brading Roman Villa (www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk) – one of the finest Although freelance journalist and TV news
Romano-British archaeological sites in the UK. producer Paul Erlam grew up on the Isle
of Wight he is not really a caulkhead. His
Dinosaurisle (www.dinosaurisle.com) – Britain’s first purpose-built dinosaur
family only moved there when he was six
museum and visitor attraction. months old, while caulkheads are third
Isle of Wight Steam Railway (www.iwsteamrailway.co.uk) – five miles of generation islanders. Despite that, he writes
track with rides by historic locomotives and carriages. extensively about the island

58 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 59
60 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 61
 Out about
& What’s on... and where

Steam off
on summer days out
and WIN a copy of
the Steam Heritage
Guide 2009
Planning days out this
summer?
Get all steamed up
with the Steam
Heritage Guide 2009.

Anyone for polo?

It is the only
publication to cover
heritage railways,
industrial archaeology,
transport, ship,

I
aircraft and military t may be known as the Felbridge Hotel & Spa,
museum sites and “Game of Kings” but which is offering polo
contains over £100 of polo is no longer just breaks throughout the
discount vouchers for travel and admission. the stomping ground of summer. The package
This compact guide is ideal for carrying in your those with cash. includes an overnight in a
bag or pocket or leaving in your car glove box, The Sussex Polo Club luxury double room with
giving you constant inspiration for unique and in Rowfant, West Sussex, breakfast and a polo les-
exciting places to visit which are perfect for days encourages people to son for just £168.
out for families, friends and couples.There are take up the sport and in Partners who don’t fancy
over 1,000 events and hundreds of locations order to try and lose the the polo part can stay for
listed and categorised by date, attraction type, game’s exclusive tag; just £73.
geographical location and alphabetically. their club motto is: Time your stay to
The Steam Heritage Guide 2009 is available now “More new blood, less coincide with a tourna-
from Tee Publishing at blue blood”. ment and you’ll get to see
www.teepublishing.co.uk/steam_heritage.php Anyone from six years September. Go to experts playing, with
or to order call 01926 614101. old upwards can learn to www.sussexpolo.co.uk ponies galloping at
● To win one of five Steam Heritage Guides go play the game with pri- for further information. 35mph and balls being
to www.choicetravelinfo.com and click on vate or group polo les- Anyone not living in hit at 100mph.
competitions & giveaways.Terms & conditions sons available for riders the West Sussex area can To book this package,
apply. Closing date July 3, 2009. and non-riders alike, still enjoy the experience call 01342 337700 or visit
from April through to thanks to a link with the www.felbridgehotel.co.uk

62 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 Out and ABOUT
Take a hike Walk on
– for Get ● Walking is free! A mile is
less than a 20-minute walk
Walking Day so you could save money
by walking instead of using

W
alking group the the bus or your car.
Ramblers is calling
everyone in Britain ● Walking keeps your body
to get on its feet – no matter fit and your mind healthy –
what age or ability – to cele- and burns as many calories
brate its free walking festival, as jogging over the same

Get Walking Day 2009.
Hundreds of carnival-spirit-
ed short walks are taking place
all over the country, in cities and
the countryside, to help people
of all ages discover the joys of
walking. Each walk will be less
than five miles, is open to
everyone, and will take place
over the weekend of May 30-
June 1 in England, Scotland and
Wales. Many will include
refreshments and special events.
Now in its second year,
national Get Walking Day
aims to help people discover
the joy of walking and pro-
Tony Carney
distance. It also boosts
happiness and reduces
stress.
motes the huge mental, physi-
cal and mood-boosting bene- ● Walking is good for the
fits that walking can bring. To environment. If we all walk
find a Get Walking Day walk more and use our cars
near you, visit the walks finder less, we will significantly
at www.ramblers.org.uk/ reduce carbon emissions.
campaigns/GWD

Festival fun in Guildford Jam-packed June at Hylands

The 2009 Guildford
Summer Festival, running
from June 19 to August
1, promises to be the
biggest yet with over
100 events covering a
huge variety of activities,
including sports, drama,
music, art, tours,
workshops and shopping
as well as a wide array
of fun events for the
whole family.
With so many events
to pack into the festival,
many of which are free,
the Festival Brochure is
bigger than ever; more
than 20 new events are
included in this year’s
festival. Copies of the
brochure can be
obtained from the Tourist
Information Centre and
other information points
around Guildford from
the end of May.
Guildford Summer
Festival events book up
quickly, so to celebrate
your summer in style,
you should book tickets
as early as possible.
Full details can be
obtained from the
Tourist Information
Centre on 01483
444334 or visit
www.guildfordsummer
festival.co.uk and join
the mailing list.
Events are also listed
on the site, along with
information on planning
your visit, transport links
and accommodation.
H
ylands Estate in Chelmsford
hosts a series of events this
June including ones reliving
the 1940s.
British Armed Forces and Veterans
Weekend (June 27-28) kicks off on the
Saturday night with a concert of dance
music from the Roaring Forties by the
Memphis Belle Swing Band. Take your
own seating and enjoy a picnic on the
back lawn of Hylands House. Advance
tickets cost £15; £12 for concessions.
On the door ticket prices are £17 and
£14 respectively.
As part of the same weekend, British
Armed Forces and Veterans Day is on
Sunday, June 28. Celebrate our history
and heroes on this day, dedicated to vet-
erans past and present. From 10am-
5pm, activities and attractions include Caprice Orchestra finishes off the
the Essex Military Vehicle Exhibition, a weekend on Sunday June 28, 7.30–
full-size Spitfire replica, Chindit Burma 10pm. Take a picnic again to make the
Mules and various talks and exhibitions most of an evening of stirring classical
inside Hylands House, on veteran music. Advance tickets are £12, or £10
groups and Hylands’ own history dur- for concessions. On the door tickets
ing World Wars I and II. cost £14 or £12. Tickets can be booked
Donations from this event will go to through Chelmsford Civic Theatres Box
veterans’ associations and the charity, Office by calling 01245 606505.
Help for Heroes. Entry to Hylands For more information about these or
House costs £3.60, or £2.60 for conces- other events at Hylands Estate, call
sions; under-16s and veterans go free. 01245 605500, or go to
Last Night of the Proms with the www.chelmsford.gov.uk/hylands

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 63

64 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009
 COMPETITION

£1,500 of WIN
Pride of Britain vouchers
and take your pick from the cream of Britain’s private hotels

H
ow would like to stay in one of
Britain’s best private hotels?
Enter this competition, and you
could win £1,500 worth of Pride
of Britain vouchers valid at any
Pride of Britain property. Pride
of Britain is a collection of the finest pri-
vately owned hotels in Great Britain, of
which there are currently 37 including the
ship, Hebridean Princess. ■ Dormy House, Worcestershire ■ Northcote, Lancashire
You could pick the beautiful Dormy
House, which sits high on a hill in the heart
of the Cotswolds, between the charming vil-
lages of Broadway and Chipping Campden.
This is a lived-in, much-loved bolthole
where nothing is too much trouble. Crisp
bed linen and plump pillows add to the feel-
ing of comfort.
Choose from the elegant rooms and
suites of the main house, or the Danish
Court rooms, with their flower-filled patios ■ Eastwell Manor, Kent ■ Plumber Manor, Dorset
and landscaped garden. Newly-refurbished
deluxe double rooms have modern features
such as flat screen television, broadband and
scene-setting lighting. The eight suites have
large separate living areas and offer views
over the hotel’s grounds. Dormy House also
has a fine selection of four-poster bedrooms.
In the kitchen, high-quality, locally-
sourced produce is transformed into simple
yet elegant dishes where the flavours of the
key ingredients shine through, and are served
■ The Nare Hotel, Cornwall ■ The Torridon, Wester Ross
alongside wine from the world’s leading
regions. You can also work on your wellbeing
in the Moroccan sauna and steam room or
gym. You may want to play traditional bar bil- How to enter
liards in the games room. There is a nine-hole To win £1,500 worth of vouchers, valid for one year and redeemable at any current
putting green or croquet lawn if you want to Pride of Britain property, simply answer the following question.
practise your skills outside in the sunshine.
There are properties from distinguished Question: How many properties are there in the Pride of Britain collection?
city hotels to country house hotels to
choose from in the Pride of Britain collec- To enter please go to www.choicetravelinfo.com and click on the competition &
tion. For more information go to giveaways button.
www.prideofbritainhotels.com or call Closing date is July 6 2009.The first correct entries drawn will win.
0800 089 39 29 to make a reservation or Terms & conditions apply.
order a free pocket directory. TL

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 65

66 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009
M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 67
 Get bowled over by
Lovebox

Something Fun ● All Star Lanes boutique bowl-

Lovebox, Victoria Park, July 18-19
Lose yourself in London’s Victoria Park this
summer when London’s award-winning
Lovebox festival returns on July 18-19.
From chart-topping bands to barn-storm-
ing hoedowns, Lovebox offers something for
everyone with headliners Duran Duran,
Groove Armada and N*E*R*D. A second
wave of artist bookings, including legendary
punk rockers New York Dolls and
Manchester’s epic rock-trio Doves, has also
been announced. Acclaimed modern folk
quartet Noah and the Whale will also be
joining the line up.
As well as great music, some of
ing – the first-ever outdoor
bowling championship at a UK
Festival. With multiple bowling
lanes, delicious cocktails, the
best milkshakes, classic
American dining and guest DJs
playing the jukebox all day.
● thelondonpaper Sourced Market –
the largest farmers’ market of any UK
festival. Traders, handpicked from
Borough and other London-based farm-
ers’ markets, will be selling a range of
mouthwatering delights.
● Heavenly Healing – a fully-comprehen-
sive tented village of massage and com-
plementary therapies to help you kick off
your weekend in style and enjoy some
Tickets are available from
both www.lovebox.net and
www.ticketmaster.co.uk
or by calling 0844 847
2436.
They can also be pur-
chased in person from
Stargreen Box Office,
20/21a Argyll Street, London, W1F 7TT.
Ticket prices: £42.50 + booking fee per
day ticket; £75 + booking fee per weekend
ticket.
Now, WIN a pair of tickets for the award-
winning Lovebox festival.
To win a pair of tickets to Lovebox on
Sunday, July 19, go to www.choice
travelinfo.com and click on competitions
& giveaways. Terms & conditions apply.

★
Lovebox’s highlights will be: outdoor pampering.
★
Champagne stars ★
Something Special
Hampton Court Palace
Festival, June 2-13
Enjoy a sophisticated summer
evening at its best as the
Hampton Court Palace
Festival returns. Now in its
17th year, the Hampton Court
Palace Festival combines his-
tory and music with a series
Closing date June 26, 2009.
of concerts in its stunning
grounds. Stars include José
Carreras, Jools Holland,
Beverley Knight and Level
42, as well as a spectacular
firework finale.
The palace grounds are the
perfect setting for a pre-con-
cert picnic. Take your own or
you can pre-order a delicious
Carluccio’s hamper and glass
of champagne.
There are 10 concerts with
an eclectic line-up of stars
from the worlds of classical,
pop and jazz music, including
these highlights:
● Jose Carreras with Anna
Leese and Faryl Smith –
the chance to see one of
The Three Tenors joined by
13-year-old singing sensa-
tion Faryl Smith.
● Jools Holland and his
Rhythm and Blues
Orchestra with special
guest vocalists – see Jools
Holland light up the stage

68 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009


North
heads
south
Something Different
City of London Festival
June 19-July 9
Various venues
Celebrating the trading places of
60º North, the City of London
Festival will feature artists and
music from Orkney, Oslo,
Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn
and St Petersburg. Highlights
include the Norwegian saxo-
phonist Jan Garbarek with the
Hilliard Ensemble (St Paul’s
Cathedral, June 23), the great
Swedish trombonist, conductor
and composer, Christian
Lindberg, and his Nordic
Chamber Orchestra (Guildhall
Great Hall, July 1).
This year, the number of free
events in the City’s open spaces
(June 19-August 7) has expand-
ed, with spectacular open-air
performances including theatre,
music, dance and processions.
Highlights include: the Art of
with his lively performance.
● Russell Watson – the Brit
Award winner will perform
alongside the City of
London Orchestra.
● Beverley Knight and Lemar
– chill out to some smooth
sounds with these award-
winning soul singers.
● Beethoven Festival Finale fea-
turing Chloë Hanslip and
Freddy Kempf – the closing
concert will celebrate the
works of Beethoven performed
by the Royal Philharmonic
Concert Orchestra.
M ay/June 2009
LO N D O N Review
FESTIVALS
No need to splash out
The Thames Festival
Something Free
September 12-13
Nearly half a million people
attended the Thames Festival last
year – and this year’s event is
expected to be just as big.
Taking place between
visitlondonimages/ britainonview/ Pawel Libera
Westminster Bridge and
Tower Bridge, the festival
is at the heart of London,
open to all and free!
Londoners of all ages will
be out to enjoy free
entertainment in a lively,
festival atmosphere, with
everything on offer from street art
and river events to pyrotechnics and circus performances. The
Thames Festival is London’s biggest free, outdoor arts festival
Robert Piwko/arenapal.com
and a highlight event on the London calendar.
The Night Carnival invites a colourful parade of dancers,
costumed performers, musicians and revellers to take over
Victoria Embankment and Blackfriars
Bridge.Thousands of people join
the Night Carnival in a vibrant
Recycling Opening Procession procession of lanterns,
visitlondonimages/ britainonview/ Pawel Libera
(June 19), featuring 1,000 young costumes and floats,
Londoners; The Leviathan, guaranteeing a memorable
(June 21) a large-scale piece of final day of the festival.
music performance art for 800 The Thames Festival
saxophonists created and direct- literally ends with a bang,
ed by John Harle; and The Street with a massive fireworks
Pianos Project, which sees 15 display beginning at 9.45pm.
second-hand pianos dotted Tens of thousands will be out to
around the City for the length of see one of the most spectacular
the festival. displays of the year, lighting up the Thames
Box office: 0845 120 7502; in a dazzling display of light and colour.
www.colf.org www.thamesfestival.org
For further information go to
www.hamptoncourtfestival.
Something Else
com
Tickets can be purchased June events
from Seetickets, on 0844 811 June 3: Oyster Festival at Billingsgate Fish Market
0050, or Ticketmaster, on 0844 June 7-19: Spitalfields Summer Festival
847 1638. Booking fee applies. June 8-July 4: Orwell celebrations at Trafalgar Studios
Prices vary depending on June 8-14: Coutts Jewellery Week
which concert you see. June 25-28: Greenwich & Docklands International Festival
Tickets may be purchased in June 11-17:The Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair
person daily from 10am-3pm June 13-14: Open Garden Squares Weekend
from Hampton Court Palace June 13-14: Bike and Kite Festival, Blackheath
(Welcome Centre), Surrey, June 18-21:Taste of London, Regents Park
KT8 9AU or Tower of London June 20-28: Croydon Fashion Festival
(Welcome Centre), London, June 25-28:The Tennis Ball in Wimbledon Common
EC3N 4AB. Go to www.visitlondon.com for more information.
The Travel& Leisure M agazine 69
 LO N D O N
NEWS & WHAT'S ON
Review
See behind the scenes at the Royal Albert Hall Ne w on st age
– and WIN a pair of tour tickets Sister Act

A
front of house tour at the Royal Albert London Palladium,
Hall will take you on a personal journey Argyll Street
through one of London’s most iconic From June 2
buildings, bringing to life its fascinating history. Stars: Sheila Hancock, Patina
Watch as the venue prepares for one of its 350 Miller and Ian Lavender
events or witness rehearsals for that evening’s per- Produced by: Whoopi

Marcus Ginns
formance. Goldberg and Stage
The one-hour tour covers all front of house Entertainment
areas, including the auditorium and the Queen’s
suite, the Royal Retiring Room. As a working Adapted from the 1992
venue, tours may include opportunities to see ing the run of The King and I. As well as getting a Golden Globe-nominated film
rehearsals or technical preparations for a show. chance to view the cast’s wardrobe and dressing starring Whoopi Goldberg,
Tours run daily, except Wednesdays, from 10.30am rooms, you’ll also be able to step out onto the Sister Act follows the story
to 3.30pm. Visit www.royalalberthall.com for Royal Albert Hall stage! of disco diva Deloris Van
more information. Available throughout the day, tours will last 90 Cartier. When Deloris
For an extra special treat, and for only one date minutes and cost £12 per person, including 50p witnesses a murder, she is put
this year, you can enjoy a behind the scenes tour at booking fee. To book, call the Box Office on 0845 in protective custody in the
the Royal Albert Hall. Head backstage to witness 401 5045. one place the cops are sure
the venue’s unseen workings and see the dressing ● To win one of two pairs of front of house tour she won’t be found – a
rooms used by stars such as The Beatles, Frank tickets go to www.choicetravelinfo.com and convent!
Sinatra and Pavarotti. click on competitions & giveaways. Terms & con- Disguised as a nun, she
The backstage tour takes place on June 15, dur- ditions apply. Closing date: July 3, 2009. turns her attention to the
convent’s off-key choir,
helping the nuns to find their
new exhibitions – Cosmos & true voices and breathing
Culture and Watt’s Workshop. It new life into the rundown
is also launching a £1 million neighbourhood but her cover
fundraising appeal and will com- could be blown for good.
memorate other anniversaries With the gang giving chase, is
including the 40th anniversary of time running out for Deloris?
the moon landings. Or have they underestimated
The museum’s centenary the power of her new found
website includes details of how Sisterhood?
the public can get involved in the Street – A Taste of Spain 2009.
celebrations, and site visitors The fiesta will showcase the Box office: 0844 412 2704

Ton-up museum can share their favourite memo-

T he Science Museum is cel-
ebrating its impending cen-
tenary with a year-long pro-
gramme of celebration events.
The Museum became an
independent organisation on
June 26, 1909. And to mark the
100th anniversary it will be:
hosting a three-day public birth-
day party (June 26-28) with spe-
cial science shows, events and
performances open to school
groups and the general public;
unveiling a new Centenary
Journey trail; refurbishing two
major galleries; and opening two
ries of the Science Museum.
● Entry is FREE to the Science
Museum. For more information,
visit www.sciencemuseum.
org.uk/centenary or call
0870 870 4868.
Open daily, 10am-6pm.
Nearest tube: South Kensington.
Fiesta time
C elebrate Spanish lifestyle,
food and culture in
London on Sunday, May 31,
when Regent Street will be traf-
fic free from 12-6pm for a fab-
ulous street festival: Regent
very best of Spain as live music
and dance performances includ-
Ticket prices: £17.50-£60
Nearest Tube: Oxford
ing flamenco and traditional
Spanish bagpipers take place on
the main stage.
Circus
Nearest Train: Charing
Cross
Stores will be organising
shopping promotions and com- Restaurant suggestion:
petitions, while Heddon Street
and Swallow Street will have Cape Town Fish Market
live Spanish performances to 5-6 Argyll Street,W1F 7TE;
entertain al fresco diners.
Entertainment for the fiesta will
0872 148 1907.
A lively restaurant, fish market,
come from 12 Spanish regions,
including dancing horses from
Menorca, a fashion show from
teppanyaki and sushi bar with a
big South African wine list
Average price for three
Andalucia and giant paellas courses: £40
from Valencia.
www.regentstreetonline.com

70 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

Travel and Leisure Directory
Berkshire Essex Republic of Ireland

Canary Islands

Hampshire

Isle of Wight Norfolk

Norfolk

Cyprus

Channel Islands Somerset

ALDERNEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS
L’HARAS GUEST HOUSE
Newtown Road,Alderney
Channel Islands GY9 3XP
All rooms have CH, H&C water,
tea/coffee-making facilities and colour TV;
most are en suite.Contact Mrs Jansen.
Tel/Fax: 01481 823174
lharas@internet.alderney.gg
www.internet.alderney.gg/lharas/
WESTON HOUSE COTTAGES
Weston House, East Chinnock, nr Yeovil, BA22 9EL
Three superb cottages set in the courtyard of a
Jacobean farmhouse. Oak beams, log fires, linen
provided, hot water and heating included. Shared
garden area and barbecue. Ground floor bedrooms,
one cottage wheelchair friendly.
Brochure available. Open all year.
Three units sleep 2, 4/5. Weekly rates from £250–£595.
Tel: 01935 863712 Mob: 07884 214 768
Email: sue@westonhouse.net
www.westonhouse.net

M ay/June 2009 The Travel& Leisure M agazine 71

 Caravan & Camping

Motorhomes
If you would Motorhome hire in Scotland
like to advertise 2, 4, 5 and 6-berth motorhomes.
Ideal for touring within Scotland and further
afield. All vehicles are fully equipped
please call (bedding optional). Our package includes
unlimited mileage, full insurance, AA cover.
End-of-season motorhome sales
020 8477 1529 For brochure contact
Brown’s Motorhome Hire, Garrion Bridge
Larkhall ML9 2UD (nr Glasgow)
Tel/Fax: 01698 886255

74 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009

 Caravan & Camping

Motorhomes
If you would Motorhome hire in Scotland
like to advertise 2, 4, 5 and 6-berth motorhomes.
Ideal for touring within Scotland and further
afield. All vehicles are fully equipped
please call (bedding optional). Our package includes
unlimited mileage, full insurance, AA cover.
End-of-season motorhome sales
020 8477 1529 For brochure contact
Brown’s Motorhome Hire, Garrion Bridge
Larkhall ML9 2UD (nr Glasgow)
Tel/Fax: 01698 886255

74 The Travel& Leisure M agazine M ay/June 2009