Macanese cuisine borrows from a host of exciting culinary cultures and the A Lorcha restaurant still gets a rave review in The Financial Times in its 21st year in Macau’s hybrid east-west cooking. Nicholas Lander has never been anywhere with “Such an appetite for food that can be satisfied at so many small, relaxed and inexpensive cafés.”  Lençóis has a ‘feel of genteel decline’ (it was a 19th-century boom town), and Richard Lapper understands why people still live in this town in Brazil’s Diamond Highlands: “The families of Lençóis enjoy the numerous swimming holes carved out of the rock by water carrying swirling gravel and diamonds.”  In search of poetry in Chile to the bucolic Elqui Valley in the middle of Chile, which inspired Gabriela Mistral to become the country’s foremost female poet, even though “Picturing Chile as a snake…it’s the country’s bulging eye [the Atacama Desert] and swishing tail [glaciers] that attract the visitor.”

Golfing in Egypt by the Great Pyramid was almost too much of a distraction for Gerald Eskenazi in The New York Times at the Mena House Oberoi outside Cairo.  In London, New Cross and Deptford Attract the Hip: Off most people’s radar (not just visitors to London) this corner of the city’s south-east is a “boisterous concoction of blue-collar aesthetics and intermittent hipsterism.”  And this week there is a guide to a day and a half in the home of the Al Jazeera network and the Gulf’s cultural hub with 36 Hours in Doha, Qatar.

The Guardian picked up where The Independent left off last week with horse trekking with gauchos in Uruguay, except in this case the trail was on the Atlantic coast: literally Riding the Atlantic’s waves.  Kate Graham stayed at Chiiori, a sixteenth-century Japanese farmhouse which gives A new look at the ways of ancient Japan on the island of Shikoku, the smallest and least populated of Japan’s four main islands.  In An all-American getaway on Orcas Island, Rebecca Gardner found a great place for a quiet active holiday on one of the islands of the San Juan Islands archipelago in Washington state.  South Africa’s oldest game reserve is the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve near Durban, which also has the perfect August holiday climate for Sandy Balfour.  In Shanghai swing, Tessa Thorniley sampled a few of the glamorous Chinese city’s jazz clubs, which are “multiplying across the city at a rate not seen since the decadent 1930s.”  The Guardian also gave a quick run-through what to do and where to stay in Malaga in Easter Week in Instant weekend … Malaga.

John Gimlette’s family holiday in The Telegraph included a tantalising sneak-preview of the New Acropolis Museum, due to open in June and gladly concluded that Athens basks in its ancient glory.  The names of Frederiksborg, Rosenborg and Ledreborg might been nothing to the casual observer, but in Glorious homes of the great Danes all of these castles amazed Lucinda Lambton with their “firework display of oddities and excellence.”

In Welcome back to Sarajevo it took Sankha Guha of The Independent a while to see the remnants of the 90s destruction beneath the surface of new hotels and shiny buildings in the Bosnian capital, but the Tunnel Museum is a glaring reminder of the siege.  The paper also looked at the Serbian capital and concluded that it’s the place to be for smokers and party-goers: Belgrade has risen from the ashes.  In Knoydart: Britain’s last wilderness Simon Calder visited a part of mainland Britain in western Scotland, which is only accessible by boat, but there is still an 80-strong community and a pub… The royal glasshouses at Laeken (just outside Brussels) are open 18 April to 10 May this year, but don’t expect a welcome from the Saxe-Coburgs according to The growing attraction of Belgium’s botanical marvel.  Beethoven’s spirit lives on in Vienna and in Note perfect Phil Grabsky visited several significant places for the great composer, including his apartment in Pasqualati House which still contains the piano on which he composed his Fifth Symphony.  The paper also had The Complete Guide To: The Virgin islands. Not sure whether to go for the US or British variation? The Independent covers them all: “No resorts can claim ownership of their beaches, so even the inhabited ones are yours for the taking.”  And finally, Simon Calder walks you through two days in Portugal’s second city in 48 Hours In: Porto.

The John Dory reviewed by AA Gill in The Times: the critic sampled the sister restaurant to the much fêted Spotted Pig in New York and was wowed. In Tokyo: on the trail of Kuniyoshi, the paper’s travel editor Kathleen Wyatt explored the impact of the 19th century woodblock artist on contemporary Tokyo: “Lay Kuniyoshi’s work on to Tokyo and you will glimpse a culture so elaborate and beguiling that you will struggle to leave it behind.”

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