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The thing about Granada is that the people are probably the friendliest on the planet. The tapas is great wherever you go, though it pays to keep a weather eye on where the locals are hanging out (but that is the case wherever you go). As I was travelling on a budget the restaurants in that budget were not the Mae West (I once ordered a lemon sorbet and actually got a lemon milkshake, the fresh lemon juice curdling the milk beautifully) but you can live well on the tapas.
A great cheap breakfast is to have tostada e queso (basically cheese on toast) standing at the bar with your coffee. It is always cheaper to stand at the bar.
The sights are things you will remember all your life. The Alhambra set under skies of impossibly deep Andalucian blue are something that have to be witnessed and make your soul sing when you do. Even flying into the airport with the sun sinking behind the Sierra Nevada was a stunning way to start the holiday.
I don't remember one surly, rude or just plain moody person. And I can meet five on a trip to the shops here. I could enthuse about Granada for hours so I will now stop....
We took our daughter aged six months to Marrakech and were surprised by the number of friends and fellow travellers who commented on how brave we were. What they didn't perhaps realise was that a baby or small child is like a passport to the real Morocco.
We (or more accurately our daughter Emily) were treated like VIPs and invited into homes, given tips on how to survive the souks and all because we'd been cunning enough to come with a child! Kids make travelling easier, if you have the right attitude.
Marrakech generally
Cracking greasy spoon that attracts a high celebrity quota, possibly because of its proximity to London's once-and-future-trendy Shoreditch/Hoxton/Dalston.
Thankfully though, this is unreconstructed full English territory - irony, Day Glo and creative use of hairspray are firmly off the menu, as are the words organic and sustainable.
It's not a depressing relic, however, and its airy and cheerful design has carved it out a niche as a film location. Crews are often spotted filming in there on a Sunday when it's closed and the most recent flick to feature its hallowed interior was Notes on a Scandal.
For an added sprinkling of stardust on your gammon steak, check out the gallery of Polaroids behind the counter showing the legions of soap stars, presenters, actors and reality TV protozoa who have enjoyed a sarnie and a mug of something hot over the years.
Shepherdess Cafe
221 City Road
London
EC1V 1JN
+44 (0) 20 7253 2463
Founded in the 9th century and home to the oldest university in the world, Fes reached its height in the 14th centruries under Marinids, when it replaced Marrakesh as the capital of the kingdom of Morocco.
The urban fabric and the principal monuments in the medina where I was born - madrassas, foundouks - date from this period. The medina of Fes is indeed big! It's the largest and the oldest medieval in the world. The medina is huge like a maze and one should be accompanied by a guide, or so said my friends from Birmingham who are artists and like to do some painting work about Fes, its design, its people, its colours and its activities. My friends are totally right, even I was born here in the medina, I got lost many times when I used to go to the school because I tried to change the way that my father taught me...we were very hungry and I remember a small restaurant in a house in the heart of the medina in Al Asshabine At Haj Benkiran.
We had very nice fessi food: Vegetarian, chicken, kefta tajine, kebab magdour - it was delicious and the taste took me 40 years back...it's a magic place, nothing has been changed really. Narrow streets, toothless, grinning old men - a real adventure. I can see many English people who bought their beautiful houses and amazing riads and prefer to live here without stress with the local warm and friendly people in a real tolerance and multicultural atmosphere.
From the train station in the city centre of Fes, you take a red petit taxi and ask the driver to drop you in Jamii Palace Hotel that you have to visit also for its beauty and colourful design and you can ask there for a professional guide.
For any question or help please feel free to drop me an email from the website www.myasilah.com or call me on my mobile 00447951478813. I will be only too happy to help.
In the country that invented three classic rum-based cocktails (the mojito, daiquiri and cuba libre) it’s no surprise that you can get one in every bar in town. The bars of the city’s many historic grand old hotels are the best places for a pre-dinner sundowner (but eat in a paladar rather than the hotels — the food is rank).
Some of the best are the elegant garden at the Nacional and the rooftop bars of the Moorish-style Sevilla (the setting for Our Man in Havana) and Ambos Mundos (where Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls). The two more famous Hemingway haunts (Floridita and La Bodeguita) are just tourist traps these days.
This is a funky little bar in Montmartre. It's got a laid back atmosphere, lots of comfy cushions, quirky décor and possibly the best mosaic decorated toilet in Paris!
Drinks are reasonable for Paris, this place is well worth stopping in at, on your way up the back streets to Sacré Coeur. Open 4pm - 2am.
24 rue Durantin, Montmartre, on the corner of rue Durantin and rue Burq. Nearest metro: Abbesses
+33 1 42 54 88 08
The Café is the best in Calais for lunch or for a wee drink. The staff are friendly and professional - it is not sloppy student service. Okay, Calais is definitely not the most beautiful place in the world but this place makes you really feel that you are in old France. It is simple and unpretentious.
Fantastic mussels and chips (and the chips are hand cut, none of the frozen crap), excellent steak tartare and plat de jour/ grillade.
The square in front of the café was partly destroyed twice in the two world wars and they threw up bits of concrete, but the café is an original - benches and wood panelling. We go every time we visit our journalist friend who works for the local tele.
The staff try their best to speak English, although a svp and a merci goes a long way.
They have a simple kids' menu but I really advise mussels. They might find it strange, but they will always remember it. My kids eat anything, at least once without force - then it gets more complicated.
I'm sort of regretting this as it has almost been an English free zone.
Watch out for the lovely old girl who drinks a coffee and then sings a chanson or two on Sundays - she loves Scots.
All in all, if you have an afternoon or a booze cruise - this is the best of Calais. And you can walk along the front after and see the White Cliffs of Dover on most days. Go up to the lighthouse!
Place Armes. Walk down from the station towards the sea and after the "grey" tower (not the townhall)on your left.
Fabulous atmospheric ruins of an ancient city where Hinduism meets Brahamism meets Buddism. Slightly off the beaten track so not many tourists - take the bus from Hoi An.
Crumbling intricately carved temples and columns being swallowed up by the jungle. Well worth a visit.
A setting so contained, so peaceful, so much part of the landscape of emerald fields and air that sparkles, that it changes the way one looks at the world. Just being here clears the mind, heals the spirit.
Very difficult to get to. No train. Bus from Carmarthen.
Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla? Of course. But try Almeria, a city with friendly people, wide avenues, an impressive alcazaba, a fortified cathedral and a long beach.
And, if you don't know where to stay or eat, look no further than the Plaza de las Flores, a Torreluz hegemony. In this tiny square (no flowers I'm afraid) Torreluz gives its name to a four-star hotel, a two-star hotel (which we thought very good value for money, but try and get a room overlooking the square), a separate block of apartments, an upmarket restaurant, a very acceptable modern cafeteria where guests of the two-star hotel take their breakfasts (which were very good) and, best of all, a traditional bodega full of atmosphere and people, who spilled out onto the square, serving good value and good quality dishes. All you want in one square right in the centre of town.
Plaza de las Torres, near Puerta de Purchena, the main square, Almeria. Torreluz enterprises etc
This cafe is rough and raucous, with the most varied clientele ranging from footpads to intellectuals, musicians, businessmen, down-at-heels actors, students and dons from the nearby AUC (American University in Cairo). This is one of the few places left in Cairo that savours the city's past and colourful diversity, but it's a past that is firmly in the present. It's a great place to have a beer and thrash out the issues of the day, practise some Arabic or simply to make contact with a real cross-section of Cairo life. Moving among its French decor - faded mirrors, marble tables and creaking ceiling fans - is Saad, the wonderfully eccentric barman and a real character who will welcome you warmly with wonderful Egyptian humour. This place is a must for the adventurous but not for the fainthearted. I loved it throughout my twenty years in Cairo and know I still have a place there whenever I return.
The Hurreya Cafe, Midan Bab al-Khalq, behind the AUC. It's on the corner, across the square from the market.
My favourite part of Cairo is the area where the tentmakers work. It is about a kilometre walking from the Khan el-Khalili market. It is the walk there that is full of unbelievable experiences. You walk down a busy, narrow road teeming with Cairo life. People are friendly and helpful and will often show you things that boggle the mind. It is a route that is laden with surprises that embody the richness of the city's history. You walk past buildings that have been there for thousands of years, mosques, momorials and one of the old gates to the city. Climb the towers of the old gate and get wonderful views over the city. Stop and explore, listen and follow your nose. You could spend months in this area, be constantly fascinated and still not see everything. Eventually you'll find the tentmakers in an area that is brimming with atmosphere and people whose skill at making complex geometrically-designed appliqued tent panels is awesome. I found a 70-year old man who had been hand-sewing these panels his whole life and he had such a sense of contentment about his life's work. I was inspired.
Walk down the road that passes the Khan el-Khalili, cross over the pedestrian bridge and find the alley that goes past the mosque on the opposite side of the road. Follow your nose for about a kilometre.
This is the oldest hotel in Cairo, with a really cool bar and a manual elevator. It has a nice, genuine colonial atmosphere.
Windsor Hotel, 19 Alfi Bey Street. near the cinema.
Tel : +20 2 591 5810
www.windsorcairo.com
To get a real flavour of the celebratory nature of the locals and the town, it is a good idea to visit just before or at Christmas time, when the Christmas fair is on in the city centre. It brings alive the kid in you with a ferris wheel, a very enchanting fortune teller and other rides. Besides, you can gorge on mulled wine every evening and eat scrumptuous street food while you browse through local knick knacks at the German market or empty your purse at the high street big brand sales. Very memorable!
Various locations in the centre of Edinburgh;
www.eventful-edinburgh.com/events/christmas.html
Late afternoon in dark and dreary November. Wreaths of smoke and mist swirl around the glistening damp blocks of sour granite. Echoes of footsteps ring off the high walls of the close, while dark forbidding doorways watch impassively.
Not much has changed since Burke and Hare stole along these passages in the nineteenth century with fresh, or not so fresh, bodies for the medical students in the Infirmary to practise their dissection skills on.
The worn flags underfoot wind deeper into the labyrinth of narrow alleys, or closes, made all the more intimidating by the haloed lights glimmering through the raw air. A doorway suddenly opens, but it is warm ochre light that floods out with the welcome sound of voices and laughter and music. Inside the Tam O’Shanter, glowing coals in a grate, the scrape of a fiddle and a dram of Glenfiddich soon chase away the gloom.
Auld Reekie, home to Dr Johnston, the Fringe and shopping for Christmas. Princes Street and all the other little streets off it will soon drain your pounds, euro, dollars...
A great pub with a fab patio, that gets very crowded with local people for a good reason. A cheeky (honestly, it is cheeky) menu offering home-cooked food in enormous portions, always with freshly baked bread on the side. I can't tell you how good it is, you just have to try it. It's a Brighton thing.
13 Middle Street, Brighton; tel: 01273710444;
pen: Mon-Sat 12pm-11pm, Sun 12pm-10.30pm
Mint is a great restaurant in Mohandiseen. The atmosphere is brilliant, the international dishes are all cooked perfectly and the decor just finishes the experience off. It is a bit difficult to find but don't give up - it is well worth it.
Mint restaurant, Gezirat El arab street, Mohandiseen.
Tel : 00 20 (2) 345 5510/2
Although there are around 450 bridges in Venice, only four cross the Grand Canal. The most famous is the Rialto, the district around it once the most important financial centre in Europe when the Republic was at the height of its power. Although the banks and bordellos of the renaissance have gone, what makes the Rialto worth visiting, apart from the bridge itself, is the market concentrated around a few tiny alleys and on the quayside. For a thousand years, housewives, servants and chefs have bought their daily supplies here, from a handful of scampi from the lagoon to fresh fruit from the Veneto. This colourful and animated spectacle has to be the best free show in Venice and is open every morning apart from Sundays and holidays.
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