CITY

• In The FT, Jimmy Burns rediscovers Buenos Aires. “…the city elsewhere has been opening up, renewing itself. The middle-classes have been moving further north. The Palermo area has tastefully designed new apartment blocks and shops blending with the old. Its tree-lined cobbled streets have been restored, and once abandoned buildings gentrified. It is popular at night with a young well-heeled crowd that keeps talking into the early hours of the morning, when not setting off to dance somewhere.”
• “Back in the 1950s, Braamfontein, a suburb perched just north of Johannesburg’s Central Business District, was celebrated for three key cultural institutions — the Civic Theater, the Alexander Theater and the University of the Witwatersrand — which helped keep the quarter artsy, intellectual and mildly integrated even during the era of apartheid. Today, that troika still forms the backbone of Braamfontein’s cultural allure, though its street scene is far more vibrant thanks to a new generation of design shops, restaurants, galleries and residential developments.” In The New York Times David Kaufman explores the SoHo Style in Johannesburg, recommending cultural highlights along the way.
• Simon Calder in The Independent reports on a vast new attractions in the city-state of Singapore. ”Sentosa, a knuckle of sandstone draped in forest and perforated by respectable beaches, was once one of the most despised postings for British servicemen…But starting today, this island hopes to be on the map of thrill-seekers from across the globe. MegaZip, the suspense thriller that gives you more of a grin than a Singapore Sling, is a new Australian-run attraction. But it is a mere aperitif for the most exciting theme park in the tropics: Universal Studios…But unlike in America, once you have ridden your luck on the attractions, you can test your good fortune (and possibly lose one) in Singapore’s first casino. The city-state is betting that the year of the tiger will change its destiny – and reputation.” Singapore bling: Is the city-state ready to party?
• “People who haven’t visited Germany’s second largest city frequently dismiss it as a bleak, seedy industrial port. Those who come away are surprised to have discovered, yes, a city of seafaring grit, but also one of wide green expanses and beautiful canals, lakes and rivers.” Adrian Bridge recommends Hamburg, Germany: The Perfect Break. “Hamburg’s huge creative energy has always attracted media types and musicians. It is a place to shop, sail and feast on seafood. It is a place of thrillingly designed hotels.”

ESCAPE

• In The Guardian Philip Oltermann discovers “the real secret of this bit of Provence: the wilderness on its doorstep. The 10-mile stretch of coast between Cassis and the city of Marseille features not only France’s highest sea cliffs, but also a series of calanques: fjord-like inlets carved into the white limestone.” In a Walk on the Cote d’Azur’s wild side, Oltermann writes, “Despite its rugged appearance, this area, called the Massif des Calanques, is surprisingly easy to get to. The most easterly of the inlets, Port-Miou, is barely a 20-minute walk from Cassis’s promenade, and even walking to the little pirate bay at Port Pin and back will take you no more than half a day. As long as you don’t get too distracted by the views that present themselves at every corner…”
• “Mostly this makes for a fine place to do nothing; slow and calm and unruffled, you can feel Koh Kood subtly working its way into your bones. On an average day here I did little beyond loll about in the hammocks and deckchairs along the boardwalk, beneath the palm trees, and strategically positioned on the jetty to take in the sunset. I took a kayak across the clear blue sea to a small golden curve of beach; I took a quiet boat ride over to it the next bay. I swam, I slept, I read some Per Petterson, and amid the cool rooms and quiet corners, I felt my mind gently unwinding.” In The Guardian Laura Barton discovers Thailand’s last unspoilt islands: Koh Kood.
• “Postwar societies, no matter how peaceful or picturesque on the surface, are inevitably complex places that still bear the scars of war, though some less overtly than others. Sri Lanka is no different. Visitors will discover a tropical island teeming with exotic wildlife, white beaches and stylish boutique hotels. Yet they will also find internment camps, military checkpoints and a government accused by watchdog groups of undermining democratic principles as it tightens its grip on power.” Lionel Beehner in The New York Times reports from Sri Lanka: Checkpoints in Paradise. “But it is the country’s tranquil beauty that draws most visitors…Water buffalo graze beside Buddhist stupas. Elephants roam freely. And innkeepers warn guests to keep their windows closed to avoid pickpockets — not people, but monkeys swinging from the trees. Then there are Sri Lanka’s famed beaches, crescent-shaped coves of white sand framed by colorful bungalows and bamboo groves.”
• “For many, Goa is synonymous with hippies, hedonism and all-night dance parties held under a full moon. But India’s popular seaside destination offers more than deadheads and clichés,” writes Jeff Koyen in The New York Times. “For one thing, Goa is not a single beach, but a rich and varied state — one that offers 63 miles of coastline along the Arabian Sea. Beyond the beaches lies a lush landscape that conceals ancient temples, rich ecosystems and the hilly farmlands that proved irresistible to European spice traders. Centuries before the hippies, there were the Portuguese — and it’s their lingering influence, not the lax laws, that makes Goa such an alluring place.” This is 36 Hours in Goa, India.
• “The key to Mallorca, it transpires, is to forget about the beaches altogether,” says Matt Rudd in The Times. This Balearic island, “is beautiful and transformed and not chavvy at all, as long as you avoid the coast. Think of it not as an island, but as a landlocked part of Spain that just happens to operate at the pace of an island. Block out the pictures of beaches. Swap them for pictures of rolling hills of vineyards and almond groves, and towns that just happen to have fresh octopuses. Yes, that might be the Med in the distance, but that’s where you want to keep it. Part of the view. No more.” Rudds top tip…Avoid the water in Mallorca.

OUTDOOR/ADVENTURE

• “I’m kneeling in a hole carved out of brick-red rock, my face a few inches from the floor. The sun is hot on my back and the sweat keeps running into my eyes. In front of me are the delicate, creamy-white and exquisitely delicate bones of a small, plant-eating dinosaur. We have just exposed them to sunlight for the first time in nearly 180 million years and my companions and I, sitting on this South African hillside, are the first humans ever to see these objects. It’s something of a rush.” Palaeontologist Dr Paul Barrett gets under the earth of The natural world: Fossil hunting in South Africa in The Independent.
• “Kashmir is an absolute jewel, even by Indian standards. The Mogul emperor Jahangir Khan, quoting a Persian proverb, declared that “If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” After trekking for a few days in the hills that are the setting for this jewel, I’m inclined to agree,” writes Ed Douglas in The Guardian. “If you want mountain bragging rights, go to Everest. If you want to see how people really live in the Himalayas, come to Kashmir. We seemed to have the mountains to ourselves, except for the shepherds, or pohol, who manage and shear the sheep that provide Kashmir’s famous wool. I felt wholly at peace.” Douglas reveals the highlights of Kashmir: paradise refound.
• In The Telegraph Henry Wismayer is at great heights in the Garhwal Himalayas: trekking the Curzon Trail. “Silence is sacred in the Garhwal Himalayas. Spread across the north of Uttarakhand, where India bumps into Tibet and Nepal, this is Hinduism’s spiritual heart: journey’s end for sun-blackened mendicants, home to various many-armed deities and birthplace of the Ganges…Nehru once wrote of the Garhwal that it was “extraordinary to be so near and yet so far from the rest of the world”. Wandering these valleys and passes it’s easy to appreciate this sense of quick immersion. Occasional encounters with civilisation do little to diminish the sense that we are witnessing things just as they were in 1905, when Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, first blazed this trail and left it with his name.”
• “On the blue tin plate in my lap lay a lake-trout filet that was all I had to show from six hours of fishing through a hole cut in two feet of ice. The temperature outside was zero, our warmest night yet by a good 10 degrees. This was a hard-earned meal.” In The New York Times Gustave Axelson writes Fresh Fish, Frozen Angler. “Our expedition was part extreme outdoor adventure, part purist fishing trip.”
• “Nearly 4,000 metres up in the Peruvian Andes and with a vast glistening peak filling the head of the valley, this is not ordinarily Jacuzzi territory,” reports Amar Grover in The FT, on his journey Lodge-to-lodge across the Peruvian Andes. “Mountain Lodges of Peru, based in Lima, claims to offer “the first trans-Andean lodge-to-lodge trek”, a four-day walk along the Salkantay Trail…Salkantay means “wildest place” in the native Andean language Quechua. Billowing clouds suffused with sunlight lent an ever-changing panorama of mottled peaks and ridges, seductive reminders that nature was firmly in charge.”
• “I am a reluctant visitor to the Falkland Islands,” writes Martin Fletcher in The Times. But, his “enforced stay proves enchanting…The distant relic of the British Empire has extraordinary wildlife, breathtaking scenery, historical relics and 700,000 penguins, 600,000 sheep and 3,000 charming human beings in an area half the size of Wales. Cruise ship day-trippers excepted, this archipelago of 740 islands off the tip of South America attracts barely 1,700 tourists a year.”  Fletcher is unexpectedly Having fun in the Falkland Islands.

FOOD

In The Financial Times, Simon Kuper moved to rue Paul Bert in 2001 and stumbled upon The most gastronomic street in Paris: “Every day that you are allowed to eat lunch in this city is a gift, and I couldn’t possibly leave.” In Lahore stays linked to its past Ramachandra Guha believed, ”The Islam on display in Lahore is pluralistic, mystical and suffused with song and poetry,” even though the city is vulnerable to the austere and puritanical strain on the rise in Pakistan. For Jan Morris Bristol’s maritime heritage is extremely important but this city on the Avonmouth ‘retains an innate sense of ornament, giving it an altogether different character from its obvious peers…[as] it has been so many sorts of city in its time.’ Nicholas Lander found A taste of old Italy - Locanda Mincio – in Borghetto, near Verona: “The best rendition of eel that I have eaten outside Japan, where chefs take this ingredient very seriously indeed.”

In A Corner of Sydney Is Cooking, Michael Crewdson sampled ‘heady and welcoming food for an Aussie pub’ (for The New York Times) at a few places in Surry Hills, which is a booming culinary destination. Even though the country has been making wine for over a century it hasn’t made a blip on the foreign market, but with rave reviews by critics Uruguay’s boutique wineries find the world stage. Thomas Fuller followed a relatively unvisited stretch of the Mekong River, to see the impact of his French colonial great-grandfather on the region in Laos and Vietnam, Tracing the Path of a Colonial Ancestor. The paper’s weekend itinerary was for 36 Hours in Birmingham, as Alabama’s ‘largest city still retains a special ability to surprise the uninitiated…[with] enticing takes on Southern cuisine, a nationally acclaimed motorsports park and upscale shopping opportunities.’

The countryside on the border between Essex and Suffolk has hardly changed since John Constable painted it 200 years ago and is very accessible from London, so it made it into The Guardian’s series Great British escapes … the Stour Valley. With its incredible ancient archaeological riches, the Stage is set for Libya’s big entrance, but “Visiting the sites makes you realise how far Libya has yet to come in terms of tourism – and how fortunate this makes those of us who visit now.” David Vincent produced a short guide to Silver Lake – an Escape from LA-la land - which is ‘a scruffy place east of the 101 freeway that few tourists deign to visit, but a creative hub of Los Angeles for more than 15 years.’ New life is blooming in Crete’s hills where a recent agri-tourism project in Vamos ‘gives visitors insight into another side of Crete, where rural life and tourism peacefully co-exist.’ In Walking the wild gorges of the Cévennes, Dixe Wills found tranquility and welcoming accommodation: “We scanned the landscape for several minutes but found not a single sign that suggested that this part of the world had ever been populated.”

It was a thin week for The Telegraph, but Tessa Boase wrote an excellent article on Italy’s olive oil trail in the hills of Sabina to the north of Rome – the true heartland of olive oil in Italy: “It’s really special, the oil here…the thing is its freshness, which you conserve if you press immediately.”

In The Independent, Sankha Guha described the new Orient-Express hotel as An Inca goldmine, conjured out of thin air: “In this remote spot [the rim of Peru's Colca Canyon], lacking basic infrastructure, lacking even oxygen, a luxury hotel has been conjured up, seemingly out of thin air, to compare with the grandest hotels in Europe.” In The Complete Guide To St Lucia, Simon Calder argued that the island ‘offers possibly the best balance of places to stay, restaurants to savour, sights to see and things to do in the entire Caribbean.’ In French Guiana – Out of this world, Alain de Botton has a bizarre time sandwiched between the jungle and a space-exploration centre in this small part of the European Union (albeit on the northern coast of South America). With 48 Hours In: Turin, head to the first capital of modern Italy where ‘the vivid greens of the trees lining the Po and its riverside parks are a welcome sign of spring.’ And, blowing our own trumpet slightly, three out of five of these ‘alluring waterside hotels’ are already featured in Globalista reports: Five Aquatic Abodes.

In The Times, Susan d’Arcy goggled at the Mardan Palace in Antalya - The £1bn new hotel in Turkey - which is aiming to bring the glitz of Dubai closer to Europe: “The concept is that, like Istanbul, the hotel provides a bridge between Europe and Asia.” Even though there is now a road from Pokhara into the heart of Annapurna, in A Himalaya road less travelled, Martin Symington found the untouched Himalayas that he remembered from 22 years ago: “We climbed steeply through forests of pine and wild marijuana to reach a gentian-strewn meadow where a lone herder was grazing yaks. Christopher Somerville introduced a new series which features a selection of The best rambles in Britain because ”British walkers, let’s face it, are spoilt rotten.”

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.”

The Financial Times had a Travel Gastronomy special this weekend.  In case anyone could quibble with the morality of eating well as a tourist in a country with as much poverty as India, Ashutosh Khandekar got straight to the point in Authentically Indian and argued ‘to get to the heart of India…you have to go via the nation’s stomach.’  Feasting in Morocco is not an outdated thing by any means.  Miranda Green had a traditional ‘diffa’ involving tens of dishes and numerous courses.  Rather tongue in cheek it seems, the paper also visited the World of Coca-Cola Museum, Atlanta’s ode to Coca-Cola, which literally boggled the mind. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it – the The Double Club in Islington – for Congolese food at a ‘pop-up’ restaurant.

The New York Times had an Asia-Pacific special this weekend, which included a review of a strange gallery-shop-think-tank called ‘The Shop’ in Beijing.  At Se Wong Yee in Hong Kong, the paper invited you to eat snake soup with the locals and 36 Hours in Shanghai told you what to do with a day and a half in mainland China’s most cosmopolitan city.  Banishing the Ghosts in Cambodia is now possible on the southern coast of Cambodia, where you can explore ‘the unusual pleasures that occur at the intersection of the luxurious present and the ravaged past’…by staying in one of the new crop of luxury resorts.  Moving off the mainland of Asia, in Savoring the Tastes of Bali With a French Accent, a French-American chef at Mozaic restaurant in Ubud tantalises Jen Lin-Liu with unlikely but intelligent fusion cuisine, such as foie gras with cherries and cocoa.  The paper also took a peek at Nakameguro, ‘one of Tokyo’s hippest neighborhoods, a harmonious melding of old and new, urban and rustic’: Still Hip After Blossoms Fade in Tokyo.  A glut of new restaurants and hip places to stay enticed the paper to the old wharf area of Walsh Bay in Sydney in A Return to the Classics in Sydney.

In The Guardian, Gavin McOwan retraced some of the journey made by the drag queens in Priscilla Queen of the Desert (just opening as a musical in London) and stopped over in the bizarre opal-mining town of Coober Pedy in Queens’ land.  Terrible weather in the Atlas Mountains nearly ruined Esther Addley’s holiday, but Jacqueline Brandt – the host at Riad Samsara – changed all that by anouncing, ‘This is your Moroccan home…’.  The newly-opened Free Store, just around the corner from Ground Zero in New York store asks ’shoppers’ to only take what they need, but Don’t pay as you go.  Fiona Campbell reveled in a “Single is Beautiful and Tasty Too” cooking course at the glamorous Villa San Michele on the outskirts of Florence, even though all the other participants were married!  The ultimate recipe for amore? And in case you needed it, a quick reminder why it’s always the time to visit Rome:  Instant Weekend … Rome.

It was a thin weekend for The Telegraph’s travel features section, with mainly promotional articles.  There is always Manchster: A girl’s guide to lighten your spirits though.

The Independent pried into Chris Patten’s Life In Travel, in which he has picked up an “intimate knowledge of the insides of hotel bedrooms, which all look the same.”  The paper featured a series of articles on the Midi-Pyrénées region of France, with this search for fauna in the Pyrénées National Park the pick of the bunch: The hills are alive in the Ariège.  Uruguay is dwarfed by its neighbours Brazil and Argentina, but Lucy Gillmore was happy to take advantage of the plentiful space to go on a horse-trekking and hiking holiday in beautiful surroundings in The gaucho club. Even though Guinea-Bissau is probably not on your list of future holiday destinations, in Trail Of The Unexpected: Wild in West Africa Gill Harvey had a wild adventure island-hopping on an overcrowded boat as well as taking in the carnival at Bubaque.  It is good to know that Schnitzel and chips is off the menu in Pula: This now-Croatian city on the Istrian peninsula is successfully playing to its strengths by promoting itself as a gourmet tourism destination, according to Adrian Mourby.

In Cuba’s revolutionary mountains in The Times Zoë Barnes concluded that if you are a committed historical tourist then trekking in the Sierra Maestra (to see Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s hide out) is worth it, but if not you should stick to the piña coladas on the beach.  In the same paper, it was surprising to find that the renowned chef and owner of Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons pays as much attention to the eclectic details in the 32 rooms of his hotel as he does to the dishes on his menu: Raymond Blanc: the cook, the restaurant and his hotel rooms.