The Spectator’s supplements on Travel, since June 2011

The Spectator’s supplements on Travel, since June 2011

The Spectator Guide to Cruises — Autumn 2011 View online version  |  View print version 17th September 2011 The very idea of a cruise holiday sends shivers down some spines — and not necessarily shivers of excitement. There’s something about the stereotypical swirly carpets and afternoon dance classes that puts a lot of people off. However, what many readers may not realise is that the cruise industry has come on leaps and bounds: newer, smaller ships, not a swirl in sight, and cruises to suit everyone — whether that’s a music voyage down the Danube with private concerts in palaces and churches along the way, or a wine-tasting trip around the Mediterranean aboard a real sailing ship. Whatever your preconceptions, I challenge you to read this guide and not find an idea that inspires you.

The Spectator Guide to Adventure Travel View online version  |  View print version 4th June 2011 Even in a time of national austerity, the last thing most people are willing to forego is a holiday. The more stressful life is, the more we need to escape from time to time, whether it’s to a monastery in Bali or a B&B in Bournemouth. For this new-look Spectator travel supplement, our theme is adventure. By that we don’t necessarily mean bungee jumping over Victoria Falls or climbing Kilimanjaro, but the simpler thrill that comes from discovering somewhere new. All travel should embody a spirit of discovery — the fly-and-flop holiday has its time and place, but the sophisticated traveller is always searching for something more.

The post Travel appeared first on The Spectator.

www.costacruises.co.uk 0845 351 0552

Inspired by music, the colourful interiors of the Costa Pacifica characterise the lively atmosphere onboard. The Pacifica sails from Dover to Savona in Italy for a nine-night cruise calling at Guernsey, Vigo, Lisbon, Valencia, Barcelona and Monte Carlo. On board there is a Grand Prix Simulator, a spectacular outer deck with glass roof and night cinema, and a theatre with exceptional sound quality. For relaxation, there is the Samsara Spa. From £689 per person.

Cruise & Maritime Voyages

www.cruiseandmaritime.com 0845 430 0274

Britain’s newest cruise line, Cruise & Maritime Voyages, has two small ships, Marco Polo and Ocean Countess that sail from six different British ports. Both ships deal in sterling on board and the ships are geared for British clients seeking a ‘home from home’ style of leisurely cruising but with friendly and attentive service — there is one crew member to every two passengers.

The 800-passenger Marco Polo has built up a strong following with its Mediterranean cruises to Spain, the Balearic Islands, Portugal and Morocco. In 2009 she was voted the best cruise ship on www.cruise.co.uk. Marco Polo operates exclusively for adult passengers from her home port of Tilbury on the Thames, just ten minutes from the M25.

Following a £3 million refurbishment programme, the 800-passenger Ocean Countess (originally the impressive Cunard Countess) joined the fleet in April. She operates year round sailings from six British ports, plus Dublin in Ireland. The ship has a new main restaurant but has retained all the original deck space and sun terraces that were specially built for cruising in the Caribbean. In late September she will sail from Plymouth for the Mediterranean. Prices from £1,398 per person.

Great Rail Journeys

www.greatrail.com/cruises 01904 521 980

Great Rail Journeys don’t just arrive by rail, but choose the most convenient travelling times and the most comfortable trains, sometimes overnighting at a hotel en route. Passengers usually start their journey at London’s St Pancras International and go on to various British or European destinations. Because they operate with a range of partners, Great Rail Journeys offer a wide choice of cruise and ship, from a luxurious five-star cruiser to a small hotel-barge. A Great Rail Journeys group on board a ship usually consists of between 35 and 45 guests, benefitting from a dedicated tour manager (on the trip as well as the cruise) in addition to the ship’s staff. Some cruises, particularly on the smaller hotel-barges, are exclusive to Great Rail Journeys. A typical journey might last ten days and include a seven-night AMA Waterways ‘Premium Danube Cruise’ with shore excursions and wine at dinner included as well as return first class rail from London.

Prices vary tremendously, depending on the choice of cruise, but can start at £898 per person for a seven-day trip to the Scottish islands and lochs.

P&O Cruises

www.pocruises.com 0845 3 555 333

As P&O is based in the UK, all seven of its ships sail from and to Southampton with no flights involved. Azura, P&O’s brand new ship, launched by Darcey Bussell, has an Indian restaurant by Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar, and a wine bar by Olly Smith. It will offer Central Mediterranean cruises. Prices from £1,654 per person with £50 spending money.

Arcadia is an adults-only ship, featuring a restaurant with Gary Rhodes and an extensive spa with hydrotherapy pool and thermal suite with heated loungers. It will sail to the Canary Islands. From £1,137 per person.

Princess Cruises

www.princess.com 0845 3 555 800

Princess Cruises operates a fleet of 17 modern ships, renowned for their American-style luxury, that cruise to more places than any other cruise line: 330 destinations on all seven continents. They offer a range of innovative features, like Movies under the Stars and the adults only retreat, the Sanctuary. Princess Cruises was recently voted the Best Luxury Cruise Line 2009 at the British Travel Awards.

Onboard Grand Princess there are a variety of restaurants, including Sabatini’s Italian and the Crown Grill Steak House. There is even a wedding chapel.

Autumn cruises on offer include the ‘Mediterranean Medley’ and ‘Iberia’ from Southampton.

Shearings

www.shearings.com 0844 209 7143

Bookings were up nearly a quarter last year so Shearings has launched its biggest ever programme for 2011 and increased its fleet of ships to five with the introduction of two new vessels, the four-star MPS Da Vinci and the four-star MS Seine Princess. Twelve new itineraries bring Shearing’s total number of river cruises to 41.

From £1,099 per person.

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Azamara offer upscale boutique cruises within the Royal Caribbean Cruise portfolio. Azamara prides itself on offering guests two or three nights in ports such as St Petersburg, Sorrento, Venice and Monte Carlo. Its two ships, Azamara Quest and Azamara Journey, take just 650 passengers each and are able to enter smaller harbours. Every cruise has a ‘destination specialist’ on board to give in-depth information about the ports of call.

In December Quest will sail from Singapore to Hong Kong and in January it sets out for a 14-night Chinese New Year voyage. In the spring it will sail from Dubai to Athens. In April Journey will make a transatlantic voyage and a seven-night cruise of the Adriatic coast.

Fred Olsen Cruise Lines

www.fredolsencruises.co.uk 01473 742424

Selected Fred Olsen cruises feature the ArtsClub, a programme of special interest cruises, hosted by lecturers from university professors to diplomatic service personnel. They may not be household names, but all ArtsClub lecturers have a proven track record in their subjects, as diverse as gardening, watercolour painting, dance, music and even computers for beginners. There is no charge for particpation and passengers are free to dip in and out as they choose.

A typical cruise might be aboard the 804-passenger Black Watch to Greenland and Iceland. On board the 15-night cruise, the ArtsClub offers lectures on all aspects of photography. From £1,649 per person.

Noble Caledonia

www.noble-caledonia.co.uk 020 7752 0090

In December, Noble Caldeonia is offering its Christmas ‘Power and Glory of the Roman Empire’ cruise, an 11-night voyage aboard MS Island SkyOne, from Malta to the Levant, including the Libyan coast. Nicholas Reed will lecture, as the ship voyages around the Eastern Mediterranean, visiting some of the most important historical sites, including Leptis Magna in Libya. Reed will be on hand to share his knowledge of the sites, dating from the founding of Rome in the eighth century BC to the defeat of the last Roman Emperor at Constantinople in 1453.

Also in December, the 120 passenger MS Clipper Odyssey will sail from the Bali Sea to the South China Sea by way of the Flores Sea, the Makassar Straight, Celebes Sea and Sulu Sea. The 17-night cruise will pass by these remote and beautiful islands and will end in Kuala Lumpur to see in the New Year. From £5,595 per person.

Swan Hellenic

www.swanhellenic.com 0844 871 4603

In November the beautifully preserved MS Minerva will depart from Malta for its Roman Africa cruise, on which passengers will learn about the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, Arabs and Crusaders who have sailed the route before. Minerva will stop at the elegant walled cities of Rhodes and Valletta, the ancient Greek city of Agrigento in Sicily, the ninth century medina at Sousse and ancient Paphos in Cyprus.

Prominent historian Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe will be on board, enlightening passengers on the history of these Mediterranean countries as well as discussing his numerous excavations and work as president of the Society of Antiquities. Sir Barry has been professor of European archaeology at Oxford University since 1972. Also onboard will be Christopher Bradley, a lecturer specialising in North Africa and the Middle East and the celebrated pianist Ferenc Matrai. From £2,100 per person.

Titan HiTours

www.titanhitours.co.uk 0800 988 5858

Titan HiTours, renowned for its specialist escorted tours, are now offering cruises on the river Nile in 2011. The 12-day Cairo, Alexandria & Nile Cruise itinerary combines a thorough exploration of these two historic cities with a seven-night cruise between Aswan and Luxor. There is also the shorter eight-day ‘Egypt’s Timeless Riches’ itinerary. From £1,395 per person and £995 per person respectively.

Voyages to Antiquity

www.voyagestoantiquity.com 0845 4379737

Voyages to Antiquity is a new cruise line, specialising in the history and culture of the Mediterranean. It aims to open a window into the origins and delights of Western civilisation. These expertly planned voyages are not just about history but also about experiencing the flavours and scent of the Mediterranean through its cuisine, wine and beautiful scenery.

The Aegean Odyssey is a premium class ship that is being rebuilt to cruise in the central and southern Mediterranean. Originally a mid-size vessel carrying up to 570 passengers, the new generous suites, junior suites and staterooms, many with balconies, means she now accommodates fewer than 380 guests.

Voyages to Antiquity offers a range of 15-day voyages. In September the ‘Sicily is the Key to Everything’ itinerary between Athens and Rome includes Nauplia, Taormina, Syracuse, Agrigento, Segesta and Selinunte, Palermo, Cefalu, Paestum, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Capri. In October its voyage, centring on Pompei, will leave Rome for Venice via Pompei, Herculaneum, Paestum, Cefalu, Palermo, Segesta and Selinunte, Agrigento, Syracuse, Taormina, Dubrovnik and Split. Another October itinerary, colourfully entitled ‘God Desired to Crown his Work and Thus Created the Kornati Islands’ will leave from Venice for Athens via Rovinj, Losinj, Zadar, Split, Trogir, the Islands of Korcula and Hvar, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Ithaca, Itea, Corinth, Nauplia, Mycenae, Epadaurus and the Corinth Canal. From £2,295 per person.

Voyages of Discovery

www.voyagesofdiscovery.co.uk 0844 822 0802

In January, Voyages of Discovery will leave Buenos Aires and following in the ‘Wake of the Beagle’. This voyage will cruise past the Falkland Islands before rounding the tip of the continent to Patagonia. Guests will experience the kaleidoscope of stunning natural beauty that leads the cruise to Valparaiso and Chile’s capital, Santiago. From £2,599 per person.

In the summer Voyages of Discovery will be sailing from Harwich and back to the White Sea and Archangel, cruising among the islands, inlets and yawning fjords characterising Norway’s coastline. Guests will experience the White Nights of summer solstice as they round the North Cape to follow in the wake of Arctic convoys to Russia and the White Sea.

North Atlantic voyager and natural scientist Peter Mawby will be on board to discuss wildlife that will be found on this trip. Historian Professor Ian Beckett will be guest lecturer on the first world war. From £1,899 per person.

Windstar Cruises

www.windstarcruises.co.uk 020 7292 2369

Windstar Cruises operates three sailing yachts known for their unpretentious luxury and their ability to visit hidden harbours and secluded coves. Carrying between 148 and 312 guests, the luxurious ships cruise to nearly 50 countries calling at 100 ports throughout Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas.

This January, Windstar Signature Collection Host Series is offering guests the opportunity to learn gardening secrets from award-winning British garden designer Anthea Guthrie on a seven-night Caribbean voyage onboard Wind Surf, that takes 312 guests and has deluxe, oceanview staterooms, four restaurants, two pools and a spa along with unlimited yoga and pilates classes.

Guthrie will also host an exclusive Windstar shore excursion to the Soufrière Estate Botanical Gardens on the west coast of St Lucia.

Wind Surf’s seven-night voyage will depart from Barbados calling at Bequia, St George’s in Grenada, Mayreau, Portsmouth, Dominica, Pigeon Island and St Lucia. From £2,845 per person.

National Cruise Week

The Discover Cruises website is a one stop shop for everything cruise, whether it’s for a family travelling for the first time, a couple looking for adventure, or a solo traveller in need of a relaxing spa break. Offering ultra luxury, deluxe, river and specialist collections, Discover Cruises gives visitors access to the latest on destinations, what’s new on board and a wave of exciting and innovative excursions and activities.

For further information please visit www.discovercruises.co.uk

The post Enrichment – Best of the Rest appeared first on The Spectator.

Enrichment is not a matter of sophistication, nationality or class and certainly not one of wealth: one does not need to be rich to be enriched. Indeed the all-inclusive nature of cruising can offer remarkable holiday value. Once the passage fee has been paid, hardly a pound, dinar, rupee or dong needs to be spent. And with many enrichment cruises, the fee pays for onboard lecturers of real quality: people of the calibre of John Julius Norwich, for example, who have the ability to throw open the doors of antiquity.

The day before a ship offering enrichment docks at a site, an onboard specialist lecturer provides guests with a background briefing on the history and significance of the place they are about to visit. Before arriving at Kusadasi in Turkey, for example, an expert on the Roman Empire might describe the history of Ephesus, alerting passengers to the magnificently preserved library — and to the existence of the tunnel running from the library to a brothel. ‘Just popping down to read the latest scrolls, dear,’ was apparently the excuse. A specialist in the travels of St Paul might also illuminate the evangelist’s great struggle to convert the Ephesians.

In addition to these ‘destination experts’, authors and celebrities are invited to speak on anything from cannibalism to graphology; talks on wine and gastronomy by famous chefs are invariably popular. Some ‘enrichment’ programmes are not so predictable, however. On our cruise to Norway, we were softened up for the shore expeditions with a discourse on Norse mythology so graphic that it should have come with an X certificate. Our fellow passengers, a distinctly cosmopolitan group, were united by a high degree of literacy — that, and a taste for adventure, which was tested by expeditions to climb the waterfalls at the foot of the Trollveggen, the highest vertical face in Europe. As one might think, our group was younger and fitter than is often the case on a cruise ship.

Not every cruise lecturer is a success. After a century or more of experiment and passenger evaluation, even the cruise lines don’t always know exactly what makes a speaker ‘enriching’. Obscure academics have been found to succeed brilliantly, while other more celebrated and popular minds fail. It cannot be entirely attributed to mal de mer.

There can be little doubt, however, that the standard of onboard lecturing is getting much better. There are now perhaps 500 guest lecturers on the books of the agencies that supply the luxury cruise lines, experts in subjects as diverse as archaeology and espionage, Byzantium and the Vietnam War. Some are distinguished academics; others are former ambassadors sharing their insights into recent postings. Statesmen — and women — are also being cajoled aboard for cruises organised by university alumni or similar groups. On board Silver Wind, which sails from Istanbul this month, Mikhail Gorbachev and former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will be among the speakers.

The roster of lecturers signed up for next season’s cruises looks to be the best yet, and you don’t have to be a member of any elite club to join them: virtually all of these educational expeditions are open to booking by anyone with a credit card.

Among the lecturers regularly invited back aboard these cruises is Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, formerly of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, an engaging purveyor of geographically relevant tales. ‘You would be surprised how many destinations have an intriguing spy connection, and not sites of battles,’ he says. Both war and esponiage will be subjects to the fore on this October’s Black Sea cruise by Hapag-Lloyd’s flagship, Europa, consistently the most highly rated ship in the ultra-luxury sector. Trenear-Harvey offers an insider’s tip: if the subject interests you, invite the lecturer to dine with you on board; he or she is bound to be even more forthcoming in person — and less discreet.

For F. Scott Fitzgerald, the sleek ocean liner was an embodiment of the Jazz Age expressed in the distinctive style of Art Deco. It is, perhaps, no accident that Art Deco motifs still pervade the interior designs of ultra-luxury ships. For in the best of them, experience is enriched by an evocation of past riches and history brought to life by the best-qualified lecturers in the world. l

Crystal Cruises www.crystalcruises.com

Silversea www.silversea.com

Hapag-Lloyd www.hl-cruises.com

White Star Cruises offers independent advice on cruising with all luxury lines 0845 643 1878 www.whitestarcrusises.com

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Hate crowds? Haven’t booked your summer holidays yet? Want to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth just this once? If so, let me make a suggestion. Instead of going to the south of France or Puglia this summer, why not try the Caribbean? It may sound perverse, going when the mosquitoes, jellyfish and hurricanes are at their worst, but if you pick the right island, you may find the climate and conditions pretty much the same as they are in high season, with the added bonus of swimming in sea water which, unlike the Mediterranean in August, is relatively sewage-free. Think! The satisfaction of getting a holiday for £2,000 than it should be! The bliss of not bumping into either Michael Winner or a biggie while swimming in the sea! Really, I can’t see why everyone doesn’t do it, although I am very glad they don’t.

Of all the luxury five-star Caribbean resorts out there to rattle around in, the one I would pick, having been there at Easter, would be Carlisle Bay in Antigua, which was opened by Gordon Campbell Gray in 2003, the sister hotel to his One Aldwych in London. Situated on the undeveloped south side of the island on a crescent-shaped bay, this 82-room resort is lucky enough to get cooling breezes all year round and can be flown to directly from Gatwick in less time than it takes to drive to Cornwall on a bank holiday Friday.

In one respect, Carlisle Bay is all that you would expect, with the tropical cocktail on arrival, the air-conditioned gift shop selling high-rise Prada bikinis and British Vogue for £10, the rose-petal-strewn spa… but contrary to what our snotty Notting Hill friends warned us against, there was no retired dentist couple from upstate New York at the next table celebrating their sixth wonderful stay here. And no, the steel band at the Wednesday night all-you-can-eat beach barbeque did not play ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’.

Campbell Gray has a lot of taste, as anyone who has ever been to One Aldwych would know. Each of the simple but luxurious suites is stocked with Gaggia coffee machines, Dean & DeLuca cookies ’n’ cream chocolate bars and Molton Brown products in the massive marble bathrooms. Charles and Camilla, who were there the week before us, would, I’m sure, have appreciated the very decent rosé in the kitchenette fridge and the fluorescent-lit Mary Fox Linton-designed library, which I read in while the kids played Playmobil and looked at YouTube on the two computer screens. Meanwhile the Just Gay Enough cuisine is perfect for everyone. There are two restaurants: one, East, for grown-ups wanting to give the old sparkly kaftan an outing and serving good old pan-Asian dishes like seared tuna tataki and Thai green curry. The other, Indigo, on the beach, serves proper American pancakes, Oscar Mayer-style bacon and maple syrup for breakfast; ‘Kobe’ beefburgers and fries and the old ‘supermodel diet’ staple, grilled mahi-mahi and salad, for lunch. There are nine tennis courts (should you want to play, which we didn’t), a leather-seated screening room which shows three films a day, and then there’s a masseuse at the spa called Cassandra, who I swear gives a better lymphatic drainage than either myself or my babyfather has ever, ever experienced back home. Perhaps the best thing of all for me, being nanny-less, was the fact that we were ten yards from the beach, ten yards from the restaurant, ten yards from the library, which meant the kids, for once in their lives, could pretend they were independent.

Would I recommend it to anybody? Not necessarily. What’s the point, some might think, of going somewhere with the express purpose of not making friends, of not doing any sights (we did venture out once, to see Nelson’s Dockyard, but so shouldn’t have bothered), of not learning a new watersport (you can, we didn’t), and being tucked up in bed well before ten? But, you know, the kids love it, you being on their schedule, not being hauled out of bed every morning to do something constructive, not having to compete for attention with their parents’ drunken friends. And another thing. When one lives the kind of high-octane W14 life that we do, a bit of social/cultural/physical indolence is sometimes a much-needed thing. For the first time in ages I came back from holiday feeling like I’d had a holiday. The only slightly bitter taste is that on our fifth blissful day the manager came up to us on the beach and wondered if it was at all possible for our five-year-old to put his swimming trunks back on. He was very apologetic. Nothing to do with him. One of the other guests had complained, which of course had us wondering exactly who for the rest of our stay. Wouldn’t happen in Puglia.

In this respect only would I think twice in booking Carlisle Bay for our summer hols.

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We were halfway to Rome and I was reading the user manual for the apartment we had taken for the weekend. It ran to 11,652 words and was beginning to do my head in.

Most of it was about keys. Mrs Odile Taliani, who owns and manages the apartment and wrote the manual, has a thing about keys. She also has a thing about capital letters. For example:

‘….AND THEN TURN YOUR KEY ONCE TO DOUBLE LOCK SECURELY. OTHERS WITH KEYS THEN ONLY HAVE TO OPEN BY TURNING THEIR KEYS TWICE INSTEAD OF ONCE.’ And: ‘….it is essential always to shut shutters and windows especially those which give on to balconies/terraces, and TURN THE FRONT DOOR TOP KEY (SEE ABOVE) TWICE IN THE LOCK EVEN WHEN YOU GO OUT OF THE HOUSE EVEN FOR QUICK SHOPPING and especially when you leave, for the absolute safety of your and our things — for which we accept no responsibility for the duration of your stay — and above all for your peace of mind!’

Nor does Mrs Taliani suffer fools gladly: ‘We do NOT run a hotel with a hall porter. We run SELF-catering apartments. It is necessary to look after oneSELF and think for oneSELF.’

I was being tested, I reflected miserably as the gas-guzzling Ryanair 737 prepared to land at Ciampino. And I was going to fail. But I didn’t. I passed, thanks to Bruno, Mrs Taliani’s driver, who picked us up at the airport (E65).

Bruno taught me key management in one easy lesson. Here’s the deal: you stick the key in the lock, turn it once, and, hey presto, the door opens. There is nothing more to worry about; you can throw away the user manual. ‘Wow,’ I said to Bruno. ‘That’s amazing.’ He shrugged and smiled, and said: ‘No problem.’ Then added affectionately: ‘Mrs Taliani!’

The dear woman richly deserves her admiring exclamation mark. So do her apartments (which I found in The Spectator classifieds). In fact, ‘apartments’ hardly does the accommodation justice. Ours was one of four in Villa Habsburg, all Mrs Taliani’s majestic pile on the Coelian Hill. It had two double bedrooms, both en suite, a dressing room, a kitchen and a big sitting room that opened on to a terrace and the scent of jasmine. It was bliss. My wife grabbed the big easy-chair and settled down for a good read. (Why must she read all the time? Why can’t she just stare into space like everybody else?) ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘This is just like Tuscany.’ She hadn’t said that since we were in the Western Cape last year.

A few steps from the terrace, in front of the villa, is a perfect lawn. In one direction you can see the dome of St Peter’s; in another the Baths of Caracalla. Beyond the lawn is a paddock filled with poppies (in May) and beyond that — at the back of the villa — is a steep path lined with palm trees that leads to the entrance to the estate. The path is bordered on one side by the Aurelian wall, built in the third century as a protection against the barbarians. At the gate wild, whimpering, one-eyed cats stare reproachfully at you. A local woman feeds them.

It is ridiculously lovely and, at a special rate of £130 a night, ridiculously good value. (It can be quite a bit more expensive at busy times of the year, however; go to www.valleycastle.com and check details.)

Within a few minutes’ walk of the apartment are a bakers, a supermarket and a shop where you can buy buffalo mozzarella shipped in daily from Campagnia for E1.50 a ball. It’s a perfect place to chill.

The Baths of Caracalla, built in the 3rd century, are just down the road (actually, a fearsomely busy highway), and they are stupendous. I’d not been there before, and I was overwhelmed by their size — the main building was 750ft long by 380ft wide and 125ft high with room for 1,600 bathers at a time — and by the intricate mosaics (bulls, boats, fish, dizzying 3D patterns).

A few minutes’ walk in the opposite direction is the basilica of SS Giovanni e Paulo, built in ad 398, beneath which are Roman ruins (some from the 1st century) with gorgeously pretty pagan and Christian frescoes.

Rome central is a short bus ride away, though you can walk to the Colosseum in ten minutes and to St John Lateran in five. I did not get the hang of the buses, though — sheer laziness — so we did a bit of foot-slogging (and snarling). One epic yomp was to the Quirinale. It took about 45 minutes to get there, and I was in a muck sweat by the time we arrived. On this occasion we had a lunch date with a Jesuit from Indiana — let’s call him Fr Brown — who is the friend of a friend in Washington, and, unusually for a Jesuit, is a conservative.

He took us to a restaurant near the Trevi Fountain and turned out to be an amusing and entertaining companion. We talked about gays, guns and the old Latin Mass. My wife, who is a bit wet, became agitated when Fr Brown suggested, mildly, that if the students at Virginia Tech had been armed there would have been no massacre. ‘Excuse me,’ Mrs Reid said sharply, ‘but you are just using logic to make absurd points. And if you don’t mind my saying so, your arguments are so male.’

There was silence for a moment. The sun went in. The tourists at the Trevi Fountain froze in their trainers. Then we laughed and moved on.

The next day, Sunday, was our last day in Rome. I twice tried to go to Mass at St Peter’s. Both times I was driven back by the queues. It’s no good telling one of the bouncers that you are a left-footer and want to keep the Sabbath just a tiny bit holy. He’ll just shrug politely and indicate that you have to wait your turn behind the tourists.

Later, I popped into St John Lateran for the midday liturgy, but left in disgust. It was a circus — soppy music, soppy smiles, dancing girls, scores of priests concelebrating in the name of global solidarity (what’s wrong with Roman universalism?), Filipino nuns with digital cameras, people swigging from bottles of water and soft drink.

So I went to Rome and didn’t go to Mass on Sunday. Next time I’ll head for San Gregorio dei Muratori (St Gregory of the Builders), in the Via Leccosa, where they say only the unreformed rite (at 9 a.m., 10.30 and 6.30 p.m.) and there are no bouncers or tourists and, of course, no dancing girls. It’s not far from St Peter’s, either, so you can pop into the basilica after lunch and gawp at the Pietà.

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Call me a hippy (I’m not), but there really is an element of magic about this enchanted isle. Yes, it’s the clubbing epicentre of Europe, but off-season it is a haven of tranquillity and calm. They say the rock of Es Vedra gives off some kind of mystical energy (something to do with Odysseus and an alleged magnetism that makes navigational tools go haywire).

So perhaps it was that, perhaps it wasn’t, but we had a ball. Resolved to capitalise on familial generosity and our good fortune, we packed some books, rented a car and bought a map: the island was ours.

The beauty of Ibiza in May is a distinct lack of ‘Brits on tour’. The clubs aren’t open and the sea is still pretty chilly — quite enough to keep Wayne and Waynetta away. Instead, fellow holidayers were mostly Spanish — much my preferred choice of beach companion. Lying on a beach with not an Adidas-wearing lobster in sight or an English voice within earshot is some kind of heaven.

Our days took on a pretty simple routine. After some minimal household maintenance (the finca’s refurb coming pretty low on our list of priorities), we’d head to our local village of Jesus for a café con leche and pick up a carton of gazpacho and some quiches from the bakery before heading seaward.

Winds that blow onshore can bring swarms of jellyfish so, after a couple of semi-painful stings, we wised up and learned to plan our choice of beach accordingly. If the wind was blowing in from the south, we’d head to one of the beaches up north like Benirras, a popular hippy beach brilliant for snorkelling. In the south we favoured Es Cavallet and had our first foray into nudey sunbathing. Everybody does it and so did we, until the experience of a lingering Italian asking for help applying sun cream to certain parts of his anatomy sent us running for our bikini bottoms.

Fleeing such flagrant lechery, we took refuge in the beach’s restaurant and had amazing spaghetti with clams and sardines. Full of beautiful people and generations of Spanish families, it also boasts a fantastically eccentric grande dame — think black lace gloves and plastic surgery — who bossily told us we had ordered too much and refused to bring us an extra salad to accompany our fish. She was probably right.

We caught a ferry to Formentera — an island three miles off the southern coast of Ibiza — and decided to be retro and rented bicycles, rather than mopeds, to get us around. Formentera is inhabited but tiny, with no airport and few proper roads — in short, paradise. Here the sand is Caribbean-white and the sea completely crystal clear. We submerged ourselves in natural mud baths — better detoxification than any urban spa — and though there are restaurants and bars, we again took a picnic and spent the whole day by ourselves, indulging in the relative solitude.

As good Catholic girls, on Sunday we headed to church in Santa Eulalia and chanced upon what must be the only happy-clappy service on the island. After half an hour listening to a guitar-wielding and bearded English priest, we escaped back to Jesus only to discover a beautiful church and a traditional Mass just coming to an end.

Despite being off-season, parts of the island are still vibrant and buzzing. We had cocktails on huge white-curtained beds at the bar on Cala Jondal, people-watched during an expensive lunch at the Jockey Club, and hit Pacha — the only super-club open all year round — at the weekend for some really terrible music and token dancing.

Still, off-season or not, my advice is to avoid San Antonio, in all its high-rise hideousness. The town’s only redeeming feature may be Café del Mar and a sangria at sunset, but even that has become a bit of a cliché, and taking a bottle of rosé to any of the island’s other proper beaches (the sand at Café del Mar is imported) was our chosen sundowner every evening with unwavering regularity.

Ibiza town itself maintains all the charm San Antonio so lacks. High up behind the old city walls is the magnificent cathedral with views out to sea. After that one token bit of culture, we ambled through the cobbled streets and browsed among shops selling white linen (pretty tablecloths, old-fashioned nighties — I told you I wasn’t a hippy) and leather bags, briefcases and belts to die for. There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from but we hit upon La Oliva for more squid, it having become our staple diet — a la plancha (grilled) or a la romana (fried) and always with punchy aioli — but this time served in its black ink with linguine.

After two weeks, we left with barely a beam painted and the pool still green but with clear heads and healthy bloodstreams. People rush to the famous ‘fantasy’ island either to rent posh villas and emulate the likes of Jade Jagger or to cram themselves into cheap apartments, but definitely to get out of their skulls and dance in day-glo until well past sunrise. But not us. For us it was a place to chill out, to unwind, to swim for hours, to read, to sleep, to chat; a place for restful, almost medicinal, relaxation rather than chemical obliteration. We knew our Ibiza was pretty different to the one ‘Uncovered’, with all its club reps and pill-popping revellers, but ours it was. And really, why have it any other way?

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The Croatian Tourist Board has struck the right balance on the island of Vis, 30 miles south of Split on the Dalmatian coast. The beaches are magnificent: great sweeps of pretty white pebbles that tickle the rocky toes of the hills. The little clumps of corrugated plastics somehow emphasise the beauty of the shores.

Inadvertently, I started a clean-up operation by taking home swabs of tar on my back, legs and swimming trunks. Three weeks on, there is still an oily tattoo under my left foot, I think.

According to travel experts, Vis is the place to go at the moment. Since Croatia emerged as an independent state in 1995, its popularity has boomed and boomed. Too much so, in the opinion of many travellers and locals, who frown at the crowded beaches and staggering stag-weekenders.

Yet Vis remains, by and large, unspoilt and accommodating. Its tourist trade is in just the right phase: enough travel agencies and souvenir shops to keep the snobby purists away, yet not so many that the visitor feels harassed. It is clear that the authorities have invested heavily to transform the island; fortunately, though, their enthusiasm has not yet spread to the locals.

Indeed, there is an endearing incompetence about the place. My friend and I hired a jeep without difficulty, only to be told there was no petrol for sale, so we would have to cope on half a tank. ‘In ten years, there will be no such problem,’ said the man, with a just-you-wait-and-see nod. Very encouraging. As it turned out, we had enough fuel, though we cut the engine at the top of every slope to make sure.

The island’s promotional literature is refreshingly barmy. A pamphlet for a boat trip promises ‘swimming, fishing, team-building exercises’. A booklet, entitled Vis Informator, features advertisements for restaurants, wine makers and a dentist. Perhaps after team-building exercises, some holidaymakers require root-canal treatment.

All the brochures insist on the matchless delights of the Blue Cave, on Vis’s small sister island, Bisevo. We tried to go on two wonderfully clear and calm days, but on both occasions were told: ‘There is vind, too much vind.’ Well, at least it looked very pretty in the pictures.

For all this inefficiency — or because of it — Vis retains a powerful appeal. The island was used as a Yugoslav naval base after the second world war and shut off from visitors until 1989. Today it seems to have awoken in a good mood from a long and heavy snooze, dozily careless to the outside world. The largest towns, Komiza on the west coast and Vis on the east, feel like a throwback to the Côte d’Azur in the 1950s.

Yet Vis has its own stories. In 1944 an eccentric British military mission, consisting of Fitzroy Maclean, Evelyn Waugh and Randolph Churchill, arrived on the island to woo Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav partisans. They had been dispatched after Winston Churchill had satisfied himself that the communist partisans would be better at killing Germans than the Chetniks under General Draza Mihailovic, a Serbian and a royalist.

Waugh was obsessed by the fantasy that the secretive Tito was a woman. Somehow, the leader heard that the novelist had been propagating this theory and, upon meeting him, demanded an explanation. ‘Ask Captain Waugh,’ he said to Maclean, ‘why he thinks I am a woman.’ Waugh stuck determinedly to his line. Informed later that Tito had been seen visiting a woman’s room on successive nights, he replied: ‘Well, we always knew she was lesbian.’

Waugh would no doubt have approved of the island’s unshakable Catholicism, which survived decades of state-imposed godlessness. The faith casts a gentle, silent authority across Vis, even if during our trip a surprising number of churches did not appear to be open to tourists.

There were nonetheless plenty of nuns trotting about. With the demise of communism, they seemed to have taken over the role of state police, frightening outsiders with disapproving glances. Last year, on another Croatian island, Krk, a bishop was so appalled by the amount of flesh on display that he persuaded the local authority to ban bikinis. In Vis, you felt, the sisters had matters under control without the arm of the law.

The emphasis on the spiritual occasionally extended to an unworldly indifference towards food. A tuna steak in one restaurant was so disgusting that I administered it to a stray cat, which amazingly survived.

The next night, though, we went a little bit upmarket to the Restaurant Kaliopa in Vis town, where we devoured slices of delicious raw fish and chunks of lobster in the charming gardens of the Garibaldi palace. Even the sight of an elderly Australian couple passionately molesting each other in a nearby hedge could not ruin the experience. I would travel all the way back just to eat there again.

In fact, getting to Vis is not much of an ordeal. One can fly to Split quite cheaply with easyJet. From there, two or three ferries a day will take you to Vis in two and a half hours. If you have to wait in Split, then an inspection of what’s left of Diocletian’s great palace takes up an hour or two.

So, unless you have a strong hatred of beach rubbish, Vis is a terrific place to spend a short holiday. Be sure to pack some baby oil: I am told it helps remove tar.

The post Vis-à- Vis appeared first on The Spectator.

The Sopranos are New Jersey gangsters with suburban issues. The show finished its US run a few weeks ago and the adventures of Tony Soprano, an obese but strangely sexy Mafia boss, are now sleeping with the fishes — but the fans take longer to die. The last episode will air in Britain in September and I am on the Bada Bing Bus (the Bada Bing is Tony’s lap-dancing club) with a damp assortment of English, Dutch and Australian coach-potatoes. None of us has seen the last episode yet, but already we’re in mourning for Tony & co. It is raining great pasta pots.

Before we head off to the International House of Pancakes, Joseph Gannasacoli, who played a gay mobster called Vito, appears on the coach. Gannasacoli has written A Meal to Die For, ‘a cookbook novel about a chef who cooks for the mob’. He wrote it to celebrate losing 160 pounds of fat after stomach surgery. ‘Hello, my friends,’ he says, and produces copies of his book. So we pay him $25 dollars for his cookbook novel; he smiles uneasily and leaves. ‘OK,’ says Marc (‘OK’ is his favourite word). ‘We are now going to play the credits for the first episode.’ The credits roll on the bus’s TV and we clap like idiots as we head for New Jersey.

New Jersey looks like a monumental Croydon — all flyovers, dystopian bridges and waste. ‘Jersey is the No. 1 producer of chemicals in America,’ says Marc, ‘and it is also the diner capital of the world. Why are New Yorkers depressed all the time?’ He adds. We shake our heads. ‘Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey.’

We draw up outside a building. We cannot see anything through the rain, but Marc tells us it featured in the credits scene. ‘Normally there is the most amazing view of Manhattan from here,’ says Marc. ‘But not today.’ The next stop is the White Manna diner. Again we can see nothing. ‘Elvis Presley ate here once,’ says Marc. ‘He had a cheeseburger and his guitar was stolen from his car. It is also the place where Tony’s wife Carmela told her son AJ to ‘act like a good Catholic for 25 f***ing minutes. Is that too much to ask?’

‘OK,’ says Marc. ‘No one here knows what happens at the end of The Sopranos, right? So let’s discuss some possible endings. How about — Tony dies?’ A woman at the back screams. Women love Tony Soprano. He is a spaghetti-sucking Mr Rochester, all huge knuckles and ennui. ‘Tony is super hot,’ says Kim from Iowa, who is sitting next to me. ‘You just want to make him love you.’ We go on a Tony-themed reverie, stopped only by Marc saying, ‘OK. How about Tony goes to jail?’ This has a few takers, from Essex and Amsterdam. ‘Maybe…’ they mutter. ‘Or,’ continues Marc, ‘how about he enters Witness Protection like Henry Hill in Goodfellas?’

We argue while Marc entertains us with Sopranos trivia. If you answer correctly, he throws a packet of pasta at you. Why is the gangster ‘Big Pussy’ called ‘Big Pussy’? (Because Tony’s No. 3 was the best cat burglar in Jersey.) What animal did Christopher, Tony’s nephew, kill? (He sat on his girlfriend Adriana’s dog.) ‘OK,’ says Marc. ‘We are coming up to the Muffler Man. Get ready.’

We turn and see a giant fibreglass redneck. Then we see the Pulaski skyway ramp. Next we admire a misty sanitation building called Barrone International Waste Management. Then — oh joy! — Big Pussy’s backyard: a graveyard called the Holy Name Mausoleum. Next are the batting cages ‘AJ and Big Pussy have a talk in’, the driving range where Tony takes his first ever Prozac pill.

As we head to the Pork Store — a meat-market and coffee bar where the Sopranos crew discuss mob business — our bus gets trapped on a water-logged road. To distract us Marc puts on episode 1 and promises us all a refund. ‘Look how skinny Tony was at the beginning of the show,’ he says. ‘Is everyone OK?’ And so we sit, watching the pilot episode of The Sopranos in industrial New Jersey, as the rain rises to the door.

For details of the Sopranos Bus Tour go to www.sceneontv.com/tour.php/sopranos/

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Flying into Heathrow last month I was pretty much off my head with joy. Gazing down as we circled over a rich tapestry of scruffy fields and housing estates stitched together with arterial roads and gravel pits, I felt a rush of affection for the landscape, coupled with a surge of relief to be home. It takes a lot to make a person’s soul sing out at the sight of Hounslow. In my case, it takes spending the best part of three weeks in China.

This is not to say that China isn’t a fascinating place. I spent most of my time on an island off Xiamen, an industrial hotspot at the mouth of the Jiulong (Nine Dragon) River roughly equidistant from Hong Kong and Shanghai. The scene at the end of our garden put me in mind of what the Clyde or Mersey must have been like at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Some days there was such a multitude of boats, from supertankers and oil rigs to junks, ferries and trawlers passing by through the smog that one worried that there might not be enough water to accommodate them all. My favourite sailor was a particularly eccentric local who rowed himself out into the shipping lane on a plastic garden chair lashed to an old wooden door and proceeded to fish for his supper by casting a hook and line into the churning polluted waters. At night my bedroom shook as the hills at the far side of the estuary were dynamited to make way for yet more electronics factories. The city fair throbs with its inhabitants’ urge to work hard and get rich.

But it is important not to fool yourself into thinking that you will have a holiday in China. You won’t. You’ll have an experience. In my case an experience that deposits you back at Heathrow with a phobia of ever again going to a party where jellied sea worms are being served as canapés and an ankle so swollen with infection that you can’t get your shoe on. The low point came when my doctor looked at my leg, by now a lurid confection of bed-bug bites poisoned from scratching and a drunken fall into an open latrine, and wondered out loud if there might be pupae breeding in my wounds.

You’ll also realise that however utopian it might look, actually living in the sort of rural Chinese idyll of bamboo groves and paddy fields conjured up in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is about as comfortable and stimulating an existence for its inhabitants as being a peasant in merrie old mediaeval England. On a road trip into the tea-growing region in the hills further north in Fujian province, I discovered that the lifestyle which looks so picturesque from an air-conditioned car would be a nightmare to do for real. Living in a hut and spending your days tilling cabbages and picking tea on a terrace in the uppermost reaches of a remote valley with a baby strapped to one’s back like a little emperor doesn’t enrich one’s life or one’s pocket.

As a result most peasants are desperate to get to the big smoke. And they don’t much mind what they have to do to get there. One Chinese lady I met told me that the most interesting thing she had discovered on her first trip to England was the view from her Birmingham hotel room of ducks swimming on a canal. ‘I asked around and nobody owned these ducks,’ she said. ‘That was so surprising to me. In China if people see something like that going free they get it and eat it or sell it.’ The analogy doesn’t stop at wild ducks. From what I could discern, most Chinese don’t have problem with laying motorways through villages, littering beauty spots or wiping out rare species so long as it gets them an inch closer to a mobile phone and a satellite telly. One expat I met put this down to extreme short-termism. ‘Taxi drivers here won’t switch on their headlights at night,’ he said. ‘They would prefer to risk a head-on collision and preserve their car battery. Anyone who is confident that China is going to heed the calls of the industrialised global community to slow growth and combat climate change should spend a week here.’

Once people have made their way to Xiamen, the most popular way of passing time for all but the city’s oldest inhabitants (who hang out at geriatric playgrounds gossiping in the open air as they swing their legs and work their arms on ancient-looking iron turnstiles and seesaws) is at internet cafés. According to a friend who works for a local partner of Coca-Cola — using his perfect Mandarin to persuade shopkeepers to remove the plates of raw meat and string bags of live toads from their Coke-sponsored fridges so he can put a few cans in to cool — it is commonplace for people to spend 14-hour stints playing poker and elaborate battle games from the squashy chairs and gloomy darkness of these cafés.

I heard about a growing cult of clandestine lock-ins at internet cafes where surfers try to look at sites that the government hasn’t blocked or censored. Yet, frustratingly, it was impossible to speak to any of my fellow café-users about this as we languished in front of our screens drinking warm fizzy drinks and eating monkey nuts — to my surprise, apart from one delicious dumpling house, the food in China is generally worse than the most bog-standard fare served up by Chinese restaurants in Britain. This lack of communication was not because people feared official reprisals. They might well have, but I never got that far because after failing dismally over the course of two weeks to pronounce the phrase for thank you so that it sounded like thank you rather than train, far, near, vagina, cheap, expensive and a host of other things, I reconciled myself to not being able to communicate with anyone directly.

Yet looking back, for all its discomforts and tribulations, my expedition to China has served an extremely valuable purpose. It has made me appreciate the workaday pleasures of staying put in Blighty. It’s true what they say about going east, going west, but home being best. A couple of months on I still skip to work in London glorying in being able to read road signs and make myself understood to my fellow commuters who, joy of joys, prefer to blow their noses rather than hawk phlegm on to the pavement.

I’ll never ever go back to Xiamen of my own free will. But one of these days I might summon the courage to order a Chinese takeaway and think about an interesting, if deeply unrelaxing, time I had there.

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