Marbella, not for adults only

This exquisite tourist resort on the Costa del Sol is friendly and accessible — even if you have kids in tow

Most people have wonderful memories of their childhood holidays. Mine are of the many summers I spent on Spain’s Costa del Sol at my grandparents’ apartment in the Marbella urbanization of Guadalmina.

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Top Tenerife

The Spanish holiday island proves an unexpected hit

Tenerife. It’s not really a word I’d ever uttered, except perhaps ironically, nor a destination I’d considered, except (you’ll excuse the pun), as a last resort.

A bit, you know, touristy. Frankly, I blanched at the thought; even my passport flinched. I’ve no tattoos, I don’t like beer and I’m not from Gravesend. How would I blend?

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Strictly Balearic

We go star-gazing in Majorca, largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands

Apparently, Majorca is one of the best places in the world to see the stars. And we’re not just talking celebrities from Coronation Street and Big Brother, some of whom were spotted on the island this summer.

No, cast your eyes upwards on a clear Majorcan night and admire the stunning astronomy on show — you might even spot a shooting star.

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Costa lava

We find a volcanic corner of Andalucia that is almost untouched by tourism

It seems hard to envisage: clear blue waters lapping against a big, beautiful Spanish beach on a warm autumn day, yet no crowds to mar the peace.

Even more bizarre is to stroll over to one of the charming, slightly run-down beach-side bar-restaurants nearby and discover that it’s essential — unless you already speak Spanish — to take a phrase book.

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Good reef

We dive into the warm blue waters of Australia’s Barrier Reef

‘A slice of paradise between the reef and the rainforest.” That is how the marketing blurb describes northern Queensland, and it really is hard to argue. The day mama nature was distributing her bounty, tropical Queensland was at the front of the queue.

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Laud Melbourne

The city named for our 19th-century PM is well worth a detour

Until 25 years ago (when both superlatives were snaffled by Sydney), Melbourne was Australia’s biggest and most important city.

Stinging from, among other things, Melbourne’s selection as host city for the 1956 Olympics, Sydney set out to become Australia’s first city. (In theory, that honour belongs to the federal capital, Canberra, but like Brazil and Turkey, Oz suffers from its capital being eclipsed by a more famous non-capital city).

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Oz 'pitality

A vast country of jaw-dropping beauty, Australia is the perfect antidote to the jaded tourist

Sleek, stylish, endowed with great natural beauty and architecturally innovative, Sydney is perhaps the most beautiful modern city on the face of the earth.

It is also welcoming, efficiently run, a treasure trove of visual, cultural and gastronomic delights and Australia’s commercial hub.

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A taste of Italy

We enjoy heritage, history, healthy food and heart-breaking scenery in a visit to Umbria

Throwing open the tall, shuttered windows in the morning, my eyes were dazzled by sunlight. Through the glass the countryside shimmered in a verdant haze.

Light flooded into the bedroom of the Umbrian villa where I was staying. If music had broken through the silence and credits had begun to roll revealing this was a Merchant-Ivory film, I would have been only slightly surprised.

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Upon my Sol!

To our great surprise, we find that the Costa del Sol’s leading resort is not Romford with sunshine...

Sometimes, travel doesn’t just broaden the mind, it completely blows it away.

Despite being the only person on the planet never to have visited Marbella, I “knew” just what to expect. It would be garish, charmless, tacky, flash and irredeemably becky: all the men would have earrings; all the women would sport tattoos. The lingua franca would be estuary English and any girl not from Essex would think herself accurs’d she was not born in the county.

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So so Sorento

We relish the serenity and old-fashioned charm of Sorrento

Perched high on dramatic cliffs that rise out of an azure sea, at the very start of the Amalfi coastline, Sorrento has been described as the land of colours, mermaids, myths and legends.

It is on these shores that the sirens tried to lure Odysseus’s ship onto the rocks with their song, and the Romans chose it as the perfect place for their holiday-making.

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