Travel

Not a good hotel experience in Edinburgh today. Place booked at the Bank hotel, sight unseen through Expedia, but they bumped me to a ‘sister’ hotel called the Three Sisters. Sister hotel as in ugly sister. Stuck down on Cowgate, in the lee of Castle Mound, the outside area is

The National Rail website has vastly improved its journey planner.

Jane and the kids are off to Jávea at the end of next month. Valencia, the nearest city, is a wonderful place, and I’m sorry not to be able to head over there with them. One of the best things on the web about Valencia is the website of

Not from this trip, but from Frommer’s Budget Travel.

A wonderful evening with Jane in Paris this evening, while Liz sat the kids back at the hotel. Since 2003, every August, Paris has set up a beach environment on the right bank of the Seine, called Paris Plage. It’s a wonderful idea, particularly for this city, which half

More spots around Paris: Eating: Le Beaupré brasserie, av. de Suffren, near the Eiffel Tower: adequate bistro, with overfriendly staff a bit too ready to try English, German, Italian, etc. on foreign-looking visitors. Thanks, but we do speak French. Chez Paul, Rue de Charonne, 11e.: Excellent and very traditional French

One evening in Chambery, capital of Savoie, en route from Verona to Paris. It was quite a pleasant spot – our soulless but comfortable hotel, the Mercure, was right opposite the railway station. I got the feeling, wandering round in search of food, that there were a lot of people having

Venice was as wonderful as it always is, with the usual hordes of tourists around the Piazza thinning out nicely as we walked round past the Goldoni theatre and la Fenice to Campo S. Stefano. The pistachio ice-cream at Paolin’s there is a good thing. Jane slipped into a

I am posting this from a hotel (with wifi) apparently scientifically situated in the middle of nowhere, somewhere near Marseille. This is thanks to SNCF voyages who, while good at booking rail tickets, are apparently absolutely incapable of understanding the concept of a hotel being close to their own railway

A pleasant stay in Paris at the Hotel Patio St. Antoine, on the rue Faubourg St Antoine, metro Faidherbe-Chaligny. Also, right by the metro, a lovely friendly cafe callled Le cafe Faidherbe.