… a walk along the River Otter WE can’t fly anywhere and all our favourite places in Scotland are booked up into 2022, so it’s day trips for us this summer. When we read about guided walks to see beavers on the River Otter, we booked up for one immediately. The best holiday we…
WE can’t travel to our favourite places, thanks to Covid-19, but we can still dream. Take a virtual tour of some of Europe’s most beautiful areas and finest vineyards, courtesy of Property Guides online, which has drawn up a list of ten top locations for wine. Stunning landscapes and fascinating history often go hand-in-hand with…
IF you were born with the name Codd, raised by a loving, close-knit circle of family and friends, grew up by the sea on the Dorset coast and swam like a mermaid, the last thing you would expect is to develop an all-consuming fear of the creatures that live in the ocean. What are the…
WE went up to Edinburgh for a concert at the festival (John Eliot Gardiner conducting West Side Story, if you are interested, and it was brilliant) and stayed somewhere new to us – Portobello. On the Forth coast, between Leith and Musselburgh, Portobello is a slightly faded 19th century seaside resort that has not been…
IF you thought Sardinia was just about sun, sea and sand, think again. It’s got all those glorious holiday basics, of course, but this Mediterranean island has plenty more to boot. It’s part of Italy, after all, so it was certain to have layers of history beneath its shiny surface, but it can also boast…
SOME of the country’s finest cheese makers, including Montgomery and Westcombe, will be featured on a special five-day tour, Cheese Journeys, introducing cheese lovers to the unique culinary culture of Somerset. The Cheese Journeys visit in April 2019 will include cheesemarkers and affineurs, and begins at London’s historic Borough Market, including a visit to Neal’s…
THE beaches of Normandy may resonate around the world with the history of the D-Day landings but before and since those momentous days of 1944, its sands have been associated with happier events. Just along the coast from the likes of Omaha and Sword, the little town of Trouville – correctly Trouville-sur-Mer – and its…
Philippa Davis doesn’t just cook for clients – she also eats, adventurously and enthusiastically. She has recently returned from a working visit to Singapore and South East Asia – here are some of her recommended culinary do’s and don’ts… UNDOUBTEDLY it is as important to know what to eat as where to eat, especially if…
OVER the years, whether we have been travelling in Europe, America, the Middle East or Western Australia, we have found that the best advice to find unusual historic buildings, extraordinary landscapes, great places to eat, quirky shops or galleries or other hidden gems, has come from people we have met. We use maps (not GPS)…
PHILIPPA Davis, the Shaftesbury-based private chef, is passionate about the food that is grown, produced and cooked in the various parts of the world that she visits. Towards the end of 2017, she was in Italy, and visited the San Miniato Truffle Festival as well as Pisa and Florence … “Darling, I am taking you…