The results are in and we have a winner! Thanks to everyone who entered the Been there Emirates competition - it was a challenging task to narrow it down to ten finalists but we eventually decided on the ten tips below.

The winner, as chosen by the Travel editor, is Lesablack, with a top tip on experiencing Italian community life when visiting Venice, by staying on nearby Murano. Lesablack wins a return flight for two to any Emirates destination.

Lesablack's winning tip:

Renting an apartment on Murano
Posted by lesablack
Venice is magical, there's no denying it, but space on the main islands is at a premium and therefore accommodation tends to be very pricey. On our last visit we chose to stay on the island of Murano, and rented an apartment from a local there. It cost us less than £30 per night (for the apt, not per person!) and it was fabulous.

For a start, the vaporettos (water buses) run all night, and it only takes 15 mins to get to Venice on the boat, on the most beautiful route you could imagine, past the stunning cemetery island. Secondly, although it is home to plenty of tourists during the daytime, (visiting the glass factories), they are absent in the morning and evening, and you really feel like a member of the local community. There are lovely grocery shops, a supermarket, and a fruit boat - to buy all your fresh food. And there are some great local restaurants to eat in should you not feel like venturing over onto mainland Venice for dinner.

It's also really easy to get to from either airport, as the boats run straight there from Piazzale Roma. It's the perfect counterpoint to the chaos of Venice's main islands. Finally, it's also closer to Burano, the beautiful island nearby, which is home of the amazing restaurant Il Gatto Nero. Do it. You won't regret it.

Getting there: Murano next to venice - go hunting on google, you'll find accommodation!


Finalists (in no particular order)


Semuc Champey
Posted by iwishiwasstillatuni
Semuc Champey is called the eighth wonder of the world by locals. We were cynical because of the hundreds of other 'Eighth Wonders' we've encountered on our travels, but this is truly breathtaking.

Semuc is a series of natural sparkling turquoise pools in the middle of the jungle, that form a bridge over a buried river which shoots out the other side. If it's hard to imagine, that's because it is just so unbelievable it beggars description. It's worth the detour from the main backpacker trail.

Swim, lounge, hike to a viewing point in the jungle or follow a local guide who will show you which rocks are safe to jump from. We tried a terrifying 10m dive from a cliff. This place is absolute paradise.


Etsha Community Mokoro Camping
Posted by bladeaway
While lots of the camps in the Delta are upmarket, there are some great community-based rough camping options. You just pitch up on an island with locals as polers and guides, and share this natural wonder with its elephants, hippos, eagles, tiny frogs and dark camp nights with a million stars. It's an assault on all your senses and as far from city life as you can get.

Etsha, on the west road, is a string of small, friendly villages set up by former Angolan refugees, and the community trust runs trips of as many days as you want to stunningly beautiful locations away from any car, plane or motorboat. Our Etsha guides knew everything there was to know about the place and how best to experience it. We went from Guma Lagoon camp, 11km off the metal road, but there are other places to be picked up or to get help arranging things.

Getting there: Etsha Villages midway on the road between Caprivi and Maun. Easily reached too from Namibia.


Hanjiang bathhouse
Posted by relala
Beijing bathhouses are fascinating places, and hours can be blissfully whiled away getting clean, being scrubbed and massaged, and lounging in front of someone else's choice of bizarre TV. On top of massage, exfoliant and other treatments, many offer food and drink, and you can sometimes stay overnight at no extra charge.

Ranging from gaudy-baubley hangouts for China's newly-rich to the unassumingly traditional, my favourites are somewhere in between. The best of these that I've been to is Hanjiang, with great staff, good treatments, basic surroundings and an interesting mix of clientele.

Getting there: Xiaoyun Lu - from the junction with the third ring road, walk five to ten minutes northeast and Hanjiang is on the left side of the road.


Shomben Yokocho or Piss Alley
Posted by jaimebell
The rather delightfully named 'Piss Alley' might not be the most delicately-named place to enjoy your dinner but the noodles here are truly fantastic. Navigate some of the divinely old-style Japanese 'corridors' of alleyway shops and restaurants and nip into one of the tiny hole in the walls to get your piping hot noodles and aromatic flavours of Japan. Only really able to accommodate a couple of people so you're likely to squeeze in with a hurried commuter and maybe a couple of old ladies but the atmosphere is pure magic in the ramen shops. All in all, thankfully modern plumbing but old-style eating experience!

Getting there: Tokyo, Shinjuku station


San Liberato Monastery and Ristorante
Posted by VinniForno
We walked through the Sibillini foothills from Sarnano to San Liberato Monastery near to the hang gliding school and Gabella Nuova; the views up to the mountains and down across the rolling hills to the sea were stunning. San Liberato was a follower and friend of Saint Francis of Assisi and this was one of a number of monasteries built throughout Le Marche by their followers the Frati Fioretti di Jesi.

The monks are renovating all of the monasteries (don't know where they found the capital!) and trying to make them self-sufficient, opening ristorante, bars, hotels, and hosting wedding and functions. The monastery is open daily for visitors and adjacent to this there's a bar, which is stocked with a great selection of wines and a menu of quality Belgian beers. The ristorante menu is really seasonal and quite different from anything else available locally. At the moment in November and December there's a robust menu based around game, chesnuts, truffles and wild mushrooms - you can go a-la-carte or take a tour de force plate of everything (€35 inc wine, coffee and grappa).

Getting there: It's open most lunchtimes and Saturday and Sunday evenings (phone in advance on 0733 694103 or 071 977128). There's also a website with more information on the monasteries and potential itinararies. www.terradeifioretti.it There are many comfortable hotels locally or you can rent stylish apartments just outside Sarnano at www.villasanraffaello.com. Flights to the area - Ancona and Pescara 1.5 hrs, Perugia & Rimini 2hrs, Rome & Bologna 2h45mins. San Liberato Monastery, Gabella Nuova, San Ginesio, Macerata, Le Marche


Bamboo Inn, Puriscal
Posted by donalicia
A family-run affair of two cabinas, simple, but well-equipped and super clean, in the hills one hour from the capital San Jose. To see the real Costa Rica, not the meretricious zip lines and canopy tours offered by exploitative ex-hippies, stay with Don Freddy and Dona Barbara. He has reasonable English and French, comprehensive knowledge of local wildlife and can show you how real local people live their lives. There is even a frequent bus service if you don't want to drive, as far as the capital for just over one pound each way.

Don't overlook San Jose either. Chaotic it is, but has some interesting backwaters like Barrio Amon; see the areas south of the Central Avenue before they get developed. Great little sodas (cafes) abound and, if you want upmarket, then try the Argentinian restaurant near La Solidad church; a timbale of green apple and prune accompanying a pork fillet in brown beer and honey sauce is worth taking the trip!

Getting there: Bamboo Inn 1 kilometro al suroeste del cementario (porton verde), Barrio San Martin, carretera a San Juan, Santiago, Puriscal, San Jose; email bamboo_inn_puriscal@yahoo.com


The Sydney Pylon Lookout
Posted by pb52
Everyone wants to complete the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, but at $180 a pop (around £90) each, plus paying for their photographs (you are not allowed to take a camera with you) not everyone can afford it.__An equally good option, but one which is little advertised, is the Sydney Pylon Lookout. This involves climbing the interior of the concrete tower of the Harbour Bridge and is the tower nearest the Opera House.__It has three floors of exhibits and a film show but best of all, the view from the open top is only a few feet below the top of the bridge and is equally as stunning.__You can stay as long as you like and take your own photographs. And it is only $9.50 each - under a fiver!

Getting there: Use the 'Bridge Stairs' from Cumberland Street in The Rocks for access.


Staying on the 'other side' of the river
Posted by chaosclaire
Stay on the opposite side of the river to Hampi Bazaar. The accommodation is better value (you may even get a swimming pool if you're lucky!), cleaner and quieter than in Hampi Bazaar. There are some lovely places, some with circular rooms and beds, some cottage-style rooms. We paid about Rs350 (£4-ish) for a double. We could see women working in the paddy fields while we had our breakfast, whereas in our place in Hampi Bazaar we were regularly woken by shouting and hollering.

You need to get a coracle back and forth to access Hampi Bazaar (and the bulk of the famous ruins) and they do stop at about 10pm - but there's plenty going on over that side of town, films, etc, and you can even get alcohol there. (It's prohibited in Hampi Bazaar for some reason).

We took a bicycle out and explored that side of the river (way past the Hunamyan Temple!) and had one of the nicest experiences of rural India in our whole 5 months there. My partner had little kids pushing and pulling his bike along for most of the way from village to village. There really were very few non-Indians who ventured in that direction. We were a bit of a novelty to say the least! There's at least 10 guest houses over that side - all budget at around Rs300-400.

Getting there: Go to Hospet station. If you arrive during the day, get the bus to Hampi Bazaar (the taxis all know you're giong in that direction and charge a fortune. I think the bus was Rs30 (40p). You then need to find the river and take a boat across (Rs50 if I recall correctly).


The Hombroich Museum Island, Neuss
Posted by ALPHONS
Situated to the south-west of Düsseldorf in the small town of Neuss, this is quite simply a Garden of Eden here on Earth. Forget the uninviting title- Germans are masters at finding off-putting names - and put this on your list of 'must-visits' immediately.

The idea for the museum - based on an original idea by the French 19th century artist Paul Cézanne of showing art in parallel with nature - came from a Düsseldorf collector by the name of Karl-Heinrich Müller. In 1982 he came across Hombroich Island, an uncultivated park on the banks of the River Erft, and called in a Düsseldorf sculptor by the name of Erwin Heerich to help him turn it into a park containing an orangery, a wonderful empty glass building overlooking a section of the river called the Graubner pavilion which I, and other visitors, used as an echo chamber (!), and an art gallery.

In 1984 Müller bought up a larger area of land, and had it specially landscaped to contain classical and modern sculptures, a cafe and various other exhibition buildings. Here you can see works by Arp, Calder, Cézanne, Chillida, Corinth, Fautrier, Klein, Matisse, Picabia, Rembrandt, Schwitters, as well as classical Asian works. The Düsseldorf painter Gotthard Graubner helped Müller develop a special exhibition concept, whereby the exhibits are not chronologically ordered but presented according to styles. Almost the best feature of the concept is the refusal to provide any accompanying explanations to the works of art. At first this might prove irritating, but after a short while I found it remarkably liberating as it threw me into a direct confrontation with the work of art without the interpretational crutches of a so-called expert.

By placing traditional Asian art alongside modern European works without any commentary, the exhibition makers have succeeded in creating an exhilarating atmosphere which allows visitors to react to the works intuitively rather than on intellectual theories. The site also contains at least one contemporary artists’ workshop, placed in the midst of the wood like something out of a fairy-tale. The day I was there the autumn sun was beaming down on a glittering dew-drenched golden landscape, and I wandered around in a trance of joy at the sheer beauty of it all. I was assured by other visitors that it’s an unalloyed pleasure at any time of the year, even and especially when it’s covered in snow. There are plenty of benches along the way enabling you to rest and enjoy the view; and the central café- with outside tables and chairs when the weather’s fine - serves up food and drink free of charge. Allow yourself at least two and a half hours because it’s a large site. To prevent you getting lost, all visitors are provided with a map, showing the gravel paths. Sturdy shoes are recommended, children under the age of 6 have free admission, but dogs are banned.

To protect the landscape, visitors are asked to keep to the gravel paths and picnicking is not allowed. Be warned: after you leave the box office area, you will come to a staircase with no less than 45 steps, so whatever you do don’t bring a pram!

Getting there: Address: Minkel 2, 41472 Neuss-Holzheim. Tel: (02182) 2094. www.inselhombroich.de
Open: Daily, April to the end of September: 10.00 - 19.00; October 10.00 - 18.00; November to March 10.00 - 17.00. In summer you can stay in the park till 21.00. Minkel 2, 41472 Neuss-Holzheim. Tel: (02182) 2094.