Wooden chalets full of Christmas ornaments, towering Christmas trees, sparkling lights and the smell of log fires burning, roasting chestnuts and bubbling pans of Glühwein. Christmas markets have taken over Europe, and there are few cities which don’t have…
Cruise travel is big business. Over 27 million people will take a cruise this year, and numbers have risen by 20% over the last five years. More routes, bigger ships and better facilities on board have opened up cruising…
Volcanoes, black sand beaches and winter sun holidays – that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the Canary Islands. But as part of my cruise on board P&O Cruises’ Britannia, I got the chance to visit…
Before I went on my first cruise it wasn’t hard to find out about the ship, the destinations and practical things like what to pack. But one question that was a lot harder to answer was what’s it actually…
Cruising has shaken off the old stereotypes and is attracting a whole new audience – and I’m one of them. I loved my Eastern Mediterranean cruise last summer, but if you’re curious about cruising it can feel like a…
You might spot that this is a bit different from my usual accommodation reviews, being as that it’s a cruise ship rather than a hotel. But when you think about it, what is a ship really other than a…
Istanbul is up there with places like New York, Paris and London as one of the world’s great cities. Places where each different neighbourhood is almost a separate city in its own right, and where you could spend a…
On the western coast of Turkey, Ephesus has some of the Mediterranean’s best-preserved, grandest ruins. As a major port for trade routes to Asia it grew from a coastal town in the 10th century BC to the second largest…
Santorini is the classic Greek island – its shades of blue and white featuring on magazine covers across the world. But would it be as impressive in person? Docking in the port, we dodged the cable car queue and…
Celebrity athletes, elaborate construction projects, political infighting – when you think about it the Olympic Games haven’t changed all that much since they first started in Ancient Greece. All the way from Olympia 776 BC to Rio 2016, the Olympics…
Before going on my first cruise, it’s fair to say I was a complete cruise novice. Pretty much the only knowledge I had about cruising came from repeat viewings of Titanic (so I was paying particular attention when it…
Conventional cruise wisdom has it that when you get into port, you should be first off the ship to get as much time as you can in each destination. Great in theory, but it didn’t take into account that…
When I found out our cruise was departing out of Venice, I knew I’d have to try and fit in a glass of prosecco in Piazza San Marco on the way. But my plans were thwarted by a rainstorm…
