With the five-day quarantine requirement for travellers from the UK now lifted, we pick gorgeous affordable hotels, villas and farm stays on the coast, mountains and islands
Continue reading...Category Archives: Europe holidays
10 of Croatia’s best crowd-free places in for a
With Croatia set to go on to the green list, we pick quiet islands and beaches for a post-lockdown escape
Last summer, visitors who managed to make it to Croatia had a taste of what the country was like before the days of mass tourism. And it tasted good. But while honeypots such as Dubrovnik were unrecognisably quiet, there have always been parts of the country where you don’t have to wade through crowds.
Places where things move at a less hurried pace, where Croatian life can be savoured, where you get a flavour of what the Dalmatians call fjaka – the art of doing nothing. These islands and mainland destinations are what you want in a post-lockdown escape: peace, beauty and the chance to discover why Croatia is such an enticing country.
Continue reading...Holidays from hell: Naga Munchetty, David Baddiel, Jon Snow and others on their worst breaks
We’re all so desperate to get away. But were our summer trips as good as we remember? Famous travellers tell their sorry tales
Continue reading...New network of European sleeper trains announced
A French start-up aims to run ‘hotels on rails’ from Paris to 12 cities across Europe, including Edinburgh, from 2024
Less than a decade after Europe’s night trains appeared to have reached the end of the line, a new French start-up has announced plans for a network of overnight services out of Paris from 2024.
Midnight Trains is hoping post-Covid interest in cleaner, greener travel will generate interest in its proposed “hotels on rails”, which aims to connect the French capital to 12 other European destinations, including Edinburgh.
Continue reading...Where is everyone? Covid and Brexit empty France’s north coast resorts
The resort of Saint-Valery on the Bay of the Somme normally sees thousands of British and Belgian visitors, but this year its restaurants and hotels are half-empty
With the approach of the summer holidays, the two French seaside towns of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and Le Crotoy would normally be gearing up for the annual wave of tourists from neighbouring Belgium and, above all, from the UK.
The resorts sit opposite each other across the majestic Bay of the Somme, a wetland of shifting sands and tides where the tranquil river suddenly expands into a spectacular estuary opening up into the Channel. The bay is a popular stop-off for British travellers heading to Paris and the south of France, as well as a place of pilgrimage for its war memorials, museums, cemeteries and battle sites.
Continue reading...‘The city is buzzing again’: Marseille reduces curfew hours after winter lockdown
In a Mediterranean city where summer is lived outdoors, residents delight in revelling in the streets once more
In a city as boisterous as Marseille, a summer curfew can be considered something of an affront. Summer is when the Marseillais live outdoors. From May to September, a post-work apéro can easily stretch well into the night. And at the weekend anything goes. As the days became sunnier, France’s second city began to chafe under an early evening curfew that had been in place since October. But on Wednesday there was some respite, with the nightly national curfew moved from 9pm to 11pm.
The city centre squares where the Marseillais come to play – Cours d’Estienne d’Orves, Cours Julien and La Plaine – heaved with revellers delighted to be out beyond sunset. Around the Old Port of Marseille, happy crowds converged on bars, shisha cafes and restaurants. On the corniche, joggers took advantage of the cooler twilight air. The Maghreb-inflected rap for which the city is famous drifted from passing cars.
Continue reading...Spain to drop Covid restrictions on British visitors from 24 May
Spanish PM says negative test not needed even as Boris Johnson warns against travel to amber list countries
Spain will allow British holidaymakers into the country without the need to provide a negative Covid test from 24 May.
In a move aimed at restarting the country’s battered tourist industry, the Spanish government has announced that visitors from the UK will be free to enter Spain “without restrictions and without health requirements”. The same applies to visitors from Japan. All arrivals are still required to fill out a health form.
Continue reading...British tourists to EU may have to quarantine even if vaccinated
UK could also face travel block due to India variant and own incoming rules if altered EU policy stands
Fully vaccinated Britons could still be told to quarantine at their EU holiday destination due to concerns over the Covid variant first detected in India and a failure to allow Europeans to visit Britain freely, according to a policy agreed in Brussels.
Representatives of the 27 member states on Wednesday provisionally approved a change of the policy under which anyone from a non-EU country could travel if they were able to prove they had been fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...‘The beginning of normality’: Algarve welcomes back British tourists
Unemployment rose by 70% in the past year in the Portuguese region most reliant on tourism, so locals are delighted to see Kevin Rushby and today’s other arrivals
The mood at Faro airport was buoyant. Camera operators and photographers jostled to take pictures of smiling tourists, perhaps not as many as hoped, for but more are on the way. João Fernandes, head of the Algarve tourism board, was there, too, greeting arrivals while his staff handed out face masks, hand gel and sprigs of lavender.
“I feel good,” said Fernandes. “The British tourists are a very big part of our economy. In 2018 half of the passengers coming through this airport were from the UK. They stayed for six million overnights out of a total of 16 million for international visitors. And on our golf courses, 83% of visitors were British or Irish.”
Continue reading...‘Green list’ guide: the countries travellers from England can visit
The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed
- Countries put on England Covid ‘green list’ with trips allowed from 17 May
- England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know
The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.
Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know
Continue reading...The city my grandfather used to call home no longer exists – except in our minds
After his death, I wanted to know more about his life, and the city that made him and very nearly killed him
Every Hanukkah through my childhood, if I was visiting my grandparents’ Liverpool home, my Grandpa Oskar told me the exact same story. With a pickle on his side plate – my grandma serving up his favourite dinner of latkes, vusht (smoked sausage) and eggs – he’d recount the night during this very Jewish festival in 1937 that his family – our family – fled for their lives from the Nazis.
The preparations for their escape might have been secretly in motion for weeks, but the first he knew of the plan was as it was happening: he arrived home from school to be told he and his brother were going on a trip that very December night. They’d be travelling with their mum; their father – my great-grandpa – would meet them on their journey. It was only later that he’d learn their destination was England, a new permanent home for our family, now refugees.
Continue reading...Walking around Menorca: my lockdown project is never staying still
Having ‘washed up’ on the island due to travel restrictions, our writer finds joy in hiking the Camí de Cavalls coastal trail and swimming in secluded coves
I’m walking along a sandy path through a forest high above the flashing kingfisher-coloured coast. It smells of hot pine and wild rosemary. The sound of bells deep in the wood stops me in my tracks. Have I finally lost my mind, after months of piloting solo through the pandemic on this small island far from home?
From between the trees step a herd of cows, as if from a child’s picture book, caramel coloured, soft noses, liquid eyes and each with a collar from which a large bell swings. Mystery solved, I pick up my water bottle and keep going.
Continue reading...I spent lockdown on a Portuguese island
Armona, off the Algarve, has been home since Covid’s second wave – and I’ve grown to love its beauty, simplicity and kindness
The sun is slowly rising over the Atlantic and I sit watching from the house I have rented overlooking dunes on the small Portuguese island of Armona. The sound of fishing boats heading out marks the pre-dawn, a time known as the blue hour, now a time when many are awake, having thrashed the bedding during another fretful pandemic night. I try to meditate and do breathing exercises to settle myself down. “It will be all right,” I say. And the sun says it back.
Continue reading...Kate Mosse: My journey of discovery in medieval Amsterdam
While researching her latest novel the author spent weeks walking the canals and streets, and unearthing the Old Town’s hidden history
February and it’s not yet quite spring in Amsterdam. Soon, the buds in the rose garden in Vondelpark will start to blush pink and yellow; the leaves on the trees surrounding the lake will begin to shimmer with silver and green. Soon, at least in a normal year, people will gather again at the bandstand and the Blauwe Theehuis, the blue teahouse, in this elegant 19th-century park named after the poet Joost van den Vondel, and the diagonal paths that cross the museum quarter between the Rijksmuseum and the Concertgebouw – once a region of small farms and market gardens – will be filled with conversation and bicycles again.
But our focus lies not in the 19th-century city – nor the 20th century with the Anne Frank House beside the Westerkerk – but rather in the old medieval centre of Amsterdam. I should be there now, conducting a walking tour for English and Dutch readers around the canals and overlooked alleyways that inspired my latest adventure novel, The City of Tears. I should be explaining how, in the bloody aftermath of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in Paris in August 1572, my imaginary first family, the Jouberts, flee persecution to the city of tears itself, Amsterdam, to build a new life for themselves.
Continue reading...Will Scotland become the new ski destination?
With British skiers nervous about booking holidays in Europe, travel specialists are predicting an exodus to the north
The Scottish mountains may be an unlikely beneficiary of the Covid-19 pandemic. With British skiers nervous about committing to a package holiday with a tour operator in one of the main European destinations, travel specialists are predicting the rise of the DIY ski trip, which could be good news for the Cairngorms.
“There’s clearly still an enormous amount of uncertainty about what will happen across the winter season,” said Rob Stewart, founder of Ski Press PR, who represents clients in the ski industry. “The general view is that December – and I’m talking about for UK skiers – will be a write-off in regards to skiing. This is mainly due to uncertainties on when resorts will really start to open up and, of course, the quarantine and Foreign Office advice against all but essential travel.”
Continue reading...Canary Islands added to UK travel corridor list
Holidays to the Spanish islands will be on sale in time for half-term. The Maldives, Mykonos and Denmark also added to list
Last-minute holidays to the Canaries will be back on sale in time for a half-term getaway after the islands were added to the UK travel corridor list.
Holidaymakers will be able to visit any of the eight main islands in the archipelago without the need to quarantine for 14 days on their return. The move comes into effect from 4am on Sunday (25 October), the transport Grant Shapps confirmed on Twitter on Thursday.
Continue reading...What should I do if I have a holiday booked to France? Q&A
As France is taken off the government’s travel corridor list and new quarantine rules come into play, should UK holidaymakers cancel trips?
The UK government has removed France from its list of travel corridors, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers scrambling to rearrange their travel plans. A 14-day quarantine on return to the UK from France will come into effect from 4am on Saturday (15 August), leaving a window of little more than 30 hours for travellers to get home if they want to escape the measures.
The UK criteria for removing a country from the list is based on per capita case numbers. If these go above 20 per 100,000, the UK government categorises that country as high-risk. This Wednesday France reached 30.4, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with significant numbers in recent days: 2,524 new cases were reported on Wednesday, up from 1,397 on Tuesday, and over 2,000 a day last weekend.
Continue reading...Fingers crossed at France’s brasseries and cafes as tourist quarantines loom
Numbers of foreign visitors are already down – and the fresh surge of Covid cases could spell the end for the holiday season
In a normal August, the much-loved miniature tourist train in the French port city of Sète would be full of tourists from Britain and elsewhere, enjoying the ride.
Optimistically, the manager, Romiy Priore, took steps to make his attraction safe for Covid times. “With the virus, we decided to order disposable earphones for the start of the season on 23 June – 100 of them,” he says, huddling behind a Perspex screen in a cool cabin on the quayside. “It’s August, and I still have 70 left. That tells you how many foreign tourists we currently have.”
Continue reading...Riding the giant: big-wave surfing in Nazaré
A small fishing hamlet in Portugal has become a magnet for the world’s most fearless big-wave surfers. Tim Lewis reveals how Nazaré became the ocean’s Everest
Everyone you meet in Nazaré tells you the waves here are different: heavier, more powerful, less predictable, somehow menacing. So, on my last afternoon in the Portuguese town in February, I went out on the back of a jet ski piloted by Andrew Cotton, a big-wave surfer from Devon, to see for myself. Cotton is easygoing, with cropped, gold-tipped hair and pale eyes, but he turns serious as we leave the harbour. He explains that jet skis are set up differently in Nazaré: the kill switch, which cuts the engine if the rider is thrown off, is not attached to the driver’s wrist as usual because… I miss the exact reason as Cotton guns the engine and sea spray covers us and I’m distracted, wondering if they really had to call it a “kill” switch. I’m already freaked out enough that I’ve promised to check in with my family as soon as I’m back on dry land.
Nazaré, specifically Praia do Norte or North Beach, is home to the biggest surfable waves on the planet. Ten years ago, it was unknown even in big-wave circles, but that changed when Garrett McNamara, a 52-year-old Hawaiian who is one of the pioneers of the sport, was given a tip-off by local bodyboarders. He came to Portugal for the first time in 2010; the following year, he rode a monstrous wave measured at 23.77m (78ft) and entered the Guinness World Records. In 2017, also in Nazaré, Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa nudged up the mark to 24.38m (80ft). If one day someone conquers a 100ft wave – a holy grail of surfing – almost certainly it will take place in Nazaré.
Continue reading...Spain or the UK: where are you safer from coronavirus?
Spain has criticised the UK’s restrictions on the grounds parts of Spain have low infection rates. What do the figures say?
Sudden changes to travel guidelines between the UK and Spain have provoked criticism from the Spanish government and upended travel plans between the two countries for thousands of travellers. Here are some of the key figures that indicate how Covid-19 is being managed in the UK and Spain.
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