Last week I died a truffle-hunting death and went to gastronomic heaven: the annual white truffle fair in Alba. There is no better introduction to the often-overlooked region of Piemonte than Alba’s truffle fair. The local tartufo bianco is Italy’s ultimate gastronomic prize: an elusive seasonal delicacy shrouded in gourmet mystique. Very expensive and unspeakably delicious. For […]

It has ‘royal’ in its name and it’s a palace—but Le Royal Monceau is anything but stuffy and uptight. I visited the hotel last week and was delighted with all that I saw. This is going to be an easy hotel to recommend. I’m generally wary of new hotels. Nothing works, the showers leak and […]

From the White House to UNESCO, the world of Flamenco has had quite a year. Here our Andalucian maestro, Sebastian Lapostol, explains how, where and when to get your fill. 2010 was Flamenco’s big brave year. First the Andalucian art form was nominated by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. […]

Arles is a perfect French town: architecturally beautiful, rich in history, full of great restaurants, lively beyond the tourist trade, and offering a brilliant privately owned and run hotel from which to base yourself: L’Hôtel Nord Pinus. Even the name tells you to expect something different. The poster in the Napoleon room tells me not […]

Paris goes quiet in August; the rest of France is a blur of activity. Nowhere does summer holidays like France, and nothing says summer holidays like a good old-fashioned fête de village. Living in the French countryside can get a bit quiet in the winter months, but that is more than made up for by […]

Clothes may make the man. But the car he drives… well, that will tell you all about him. Likewise, the cars of a country can provide entertaining insight into the character of the local culture. So, let’s say you’re planning a trip, you love cars, and you’re looking for a fun way to turbo charge […]

Paris hotels range from stately palaces like giant wedding cakes, to space-station-esque design disasters, to dives and dumps and dungeons. Quietly minding her business, tucked away on the Place des Vosges, is the true queen of the castle, the Pavillon de la Reine. We love the Pavillon de la Reine. You couldn’t claim it had […]

There’s a reason Grandma’s been hoarding the sherry. Turns out she’s been keeping the best drink in the cabinet all to herself. It’s time to loosen her bony grip on the Amontillado. Here’s everything you ever needed to know about sherry but were too young to ask. There are five horsemen of the sherry apolcalypse: fino, […]

If like me you groan at the mere thought of another Philippe Stark-designed hipster bar, or über-minimalist white-carpeted trend hotel where you can’t figure out how to turn the bathroom lights off, I bet you’ll love the un-hip un-cool not-at-all-with-it Parador hotels of Spain. King Alfonso XIII may have been the proud owner of the […]

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom for travel in Europe are: food, wine, architecture, art, music, landscape and experimental alcoholic concoctions. Overflowing in all of the above, it’s no wonder that Jerez is my latest crush. After a dalliance with Córdoba and a brief fling with Úbeda, I didn’t expect to be swept off my feet so completely by […]

A montage of doors and gateways from the neighbouring UNESCO World Heritage towns of Úbeda and Baeza in northeast Andalucía. Most people don’t make it up here on trips around Andalucía. The hordes head to the beaches. Hikers head to the sierra around Ronda. History buffs are spoilt for choice in the cities: Granada and […]

“You have destroyed something unique, to create something commonplace,” said Charles V, when his bishops crashed a Gothic cathedral right into the middle of Cordoba’s amazing 8C Mosque. The result was an amazing layer cake of Spanish historical flavour. I’m on a jaunt around Andalucia, getting to grips with the ebb and flow of Christian […]

Parts of Croatia and Montenegro’s Adriatic coast combine some of the most stunning landscape and villages in Europe, with the very worst that cheap mass tourism has to offer. How do you see past the café umbrellas and postcard stands, to the original character of the place? Since the likes of Dubrovnik and Kotor decided […]

It’s that time of year when any self-respecting Brit recognises his deep cultural debt to the sun-kissed city of Seville by rolling up his sleeves and sharpening his paring knife: it’s marmalade-making season. And perhaps the best time of year to visit Andalucia. What what?! You’re not British, or—worse still—you don’t make your own marmalade. […]

‘Marché’ means ‘market’. ‘Gras’ means ‘fat’. Welcome to the awesome ‘Marché au Gras’—the Ugolino’s Tower of every vegetarian’s worst nightmare, but the Bower of Bliss on my quest to understand authentic French country cooking. The Marché au Gras is where those of us who aren’t the wives of traditional peasant farmers buy our fattened geese […]

You’d never know it with a casual stroll through its charming streets, but Jerez de la Frontera, in Cadiz province, is home to perhaps the best flamenco scene in all of Spain, if not the world. If you are unfamiliar with this art form (i.e. if you think the Gypsy Kings or Ottmar Leibert are […]