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Guernsey is a very nice island in the Channel. I go there on holiday because my Nana lives there. When we go there we stay at a campsite with a swimming pool, but it’s an outdoor one so sometimes it’s cold. I like the little chapel which is made from bits of broken pottery. It is a good place to play hide and seek and it is echoey. I also like the North Show especially the Battle of the Flowers parade as lots of people dress up and sometimes the costumes are funny. There is a very good beach called Petit Bot with lots of rocks and really big waves. There were some beach ducks and Mummy and me saw some ducklings eating seaweed and two walked right past Daddy’s foot.
There is a nice restaurant called Bruce Russell’s with a goldsmith’s next door and a playground for children. There is also a castle called Fort Grey. When I went there was a play going on and I was a French warship and went “La Boom! La Boom”. I made a cross face when the English won the battle.
From Eleanor Teather (age 9)
If you're visiting Chicago, please don't waste your time with this tourist trap! It's just a corporate-designed mall with no soul. Instead, see some of Chicago's neighborhoods, where the REAL Chicago lives. Head to Pilsen to see the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, to have some real Mexican food, to enjoy a cup of icy fresh mango spears from a pushcart. Head up to Devon Avenue, a crazy bazaar packed with sari shops, Orthodox Jewish delicatessans, and the best Indian food in the city. Try Andersonville, which used to be the Swedish neighborhood and is now Swedish and Arabic and full of wonderful boutiques and shops, not to mention great Swedish food. Wander around the botanic garden and greenhouse in Lincoln Park. Go to the zoo and rent a bike - take a leisurely ride on the many miles of bike paths along Lake Michigan.
Take one of the tours run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. You'll be able to go inside some of our greatest buildings. Or take their river tour by boat.
Avoid Navy Pier and Millennium Park. They have nothing to do with the real Chicago!
A museum with fascinating artefacts from every era of Spain's history - starting with prehistory.
Amazing Moorish and Visigoth exhibits. There are reproductions of the famous Altamira cave paintings in a specially constructed grotto outside.
The museum is also right by the Jardines de Descubrimiento with impressive modern fountains and sculptures celebrating Colombus' discovery of the new world. More famously this is where the Giant Flag flies - a Spanish national flag the size of a tennis court.
Just behind Jardines de Descubramiento, to the right.
M. Colon.
If you’re in Montmartre, don’t fail to come and look around this pretty square with its abundant trees and character shops and houses. The Art Nouveau metro entrance – one of the few remaining originals - was famously photographed and turned into a poster that became an icon of Parisian style. An early morning visit is probably necessary if you want to avoid the bustle.
Place des Abbesses
Nearest Metro: Abbesses
You’ve seen the Moulin Rouge, now go and have a look at a proper windmill and get a little exercise at the same time. This windmill and the nearby but less visible Moulin de la Galette were originally flour mills, but are now transformed into restaurants – though both are still considerably more picturesque than their famous cousin.
Rue Lepic
Nearest Metro: Abbesses
This is one of the world's great art galleries, with a masterpiece every few metres. The building is new (part of the Kulturforum) and is a pleasure to visit in itself.
The collection includes European painting and sculpture from the Middle Ages to about 1800.
Stauffenbergstrasse 40, a short walk from Potsdamerplatz (S and U-bahn) or Bus 200. Near the Berlinphilharmonie and many other places of interest.
Though climate change may alter the situation quite soon, this is the only vineyard to be found in the city and, by all accounts, the wine it produces isn’t that great.
Once a year, however, it’s sold for charity and therefore you can’t get hold of a cheap bottle just for the experience. Going to see the vineyard however will take you into the hinterland of Montmartre which is much more interesting than the touristy bits. On the opposite corner to the vineyard is the Lapin Agile tavern, a well known artists’ haunt.
Rue des Saules
Metro: Lamarck Caulaincourt
Superb small contemporary gallery with an excellent standard of exhibitions which change frequently. Could definitely teach UK galleries about presentation.
Astry Gallery
34. Tzar Samuil, Sofia 1000
tel.: +359 2 986 37 80
mobile: +359 885 23 07 17
www.astrygallery.com/
Having lived some years in Friedrichshain, I've witnessed the district's transformation from working-class but lively community into west German upwardly mobile professional's playground.
As with Prenzlauer Berg before, the property developers have moved in en masse, creating an upsurge in eigentumswohnungen (private flats) which has indirectly impacted upon the previously reasonable rents. The buildings were once "typically East German", but new riches have brought a splash of colour and penthouse flats of which real Friedrichshainers could only dream about.
Moreover, the bars and cafes are almost exclusively of the "Ballermann" package holiday variety (cocktails, palm trees, water-pipes), geared towards German tourists and the easyJet mob. Decent bars and restaurants are few and far between.
If this were not enough, the area around Frankfurter Tor has seen numerous neo-Nazi attacks on tourists and anyone vaguely foreign-looking in recent months (Friedrichshain is edged by the Lichtenberg and Marzahn housing estates where, sad to say, right-wing sentiment is the order of the day for the largely disaffected and unemployed youth).
So, all in all, great if you're wearing blinkers.
Visting Melbourne's Chinatown - the oldest area of continuous Chinese settlement in the western world is a great way to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon. Lots to see (as the history of the area dates back to the 1840s and 1850s), plenty of places to have a bite and while there, visit the Chinese Museum.
Melbourne's ChinaTown
along Little Bourke Street City
plus the alleys which link the area to Bourke St and Lonsdale St
www.melbournechinatown.com.au/
Museum of Chinese Australian History
22 Cohen Place Melbourne
Victoria 3000 Australia
Phone: 9662 2888
www.chinesemuseum.com.au
A superb collection of art all based on Don Quixote ranging from modern sculptures to classic paintings. In my nine month gap year it was one of my top five highlights, it really is that good.
Artists with work on display include Picasso and Dali.
Manuel Doblado 1
Phone: +52 (473) 732 6721 and 732 3376
Fax: +52 (473) 732 6117
E-mail: mquijote@guanajuato.gob.mx
Cute cafe and wine bar in North Beach run by a Brit. Cold beer and decent wines. Free Wi-Fi, Premiership on the telly, great sandwiches, delicious fondue. On Mondays and Fridays local musicians and poets perform.
www.melt-cafe.com
Melt!
700 Columbus Ave @ Filbert
San Francisco
Tel: (415) 392-9290
The neighbourhood to be in Berlin. Typically East German buildings now house “multi-kulti” inhabitants.
Rents are relatively cheap so it’s the preferred area of students, making it very lively and full of bustling clubs and cafes.
East Berlin
Berlin’s equivalent to the Tate Modern, housed in a beautiful old train station. A great place to while away a few hours surrounded by an extensive mix of German and international modern art.
Invalidenstraße 50-51
10557 Berlin-Tiergarten
The Stadtmuseum cafe is worth a look - modern and minimalist, with tables in the leafy courtyard in the summer. It has a huge selection of international papers and magazines, because journalists from the Süddeutsche Zeitung often come here for lunch. The cakes are among the best in Munich and there's a decent selection of wines by the glass.
Serves a daily changing menu of light modern European food, e.g. excellent fresh cheeses, alongside some Bavarian staples.
The "filmmuseum", consisting of an inexpensive rep cinema and restoration/research department is located in the basement. There are retrospectives year round, along with the Munich film and documentary festivals.
St.-Jakobs-Platz 1
80331 München
This theatre company is an exciting organisation set up to give touring experience to gap year students and recent graduates.
I've seen all three of their productions so far - Talking Heads, Canterbury Tales and Aesop's Fables, and the standard is seriously high, especially given how young and inexperienced they are. Their productions are simple, relying on well-acted plays rather than fancy effects and costumes, and are well worth a look.
These are former slate mines which have developed amazing and ever-changing natural colouring through the constant dripping of mineral rich water. The caves were rediscovered in the early 20th century and became a tourist attraction. This part of Thüringia is also well worth exploring for its attractive forests, rivers, walking tracks, culture and hospitality.
www.germany-tourism.de/ENG/destination_germany/master_tlregion-id143-fs2.htm
GO, it's wonderful!! Fly to Kochi or Trivandrum - both are great to visit anyway, especially the fascinating town of Kochi. But best of all, take a journey by boat through the backwaters and drop in on village life. It's magical. And you'll never get better food!
It's a very moving experience to visit the railway built by POWs during World War II and which claimed the lives of about 115,000 men.
It's also beautiful countryside. Try and find time for the excellent (private) railway museum next to the main war cemetery in Kanchanaburi.
It keeps in the fine tradition of Indian bookshops the country over of stocking a wildly varied selection of books in English, Tibetan, Nepalese and Hindi, and some in other European languages.
The English selection is excellent, with a large number of books on Tibetan religion and other issues, on Himalayan wildlife as well as a really decent fiction section.
Modern classics, proper classics and airport novels all sit happily together. Plus you can get second-hand books too. And they'll buy the books back off you too.
Don't talk politics with the old guy behind the counter - I made an off the cuff remark (something non-offensive and conciliatory towards the position he was outlining) and got a book thrown at me for not agreeing enough.
Smack bang in the centre of town
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