They married on an oriental beach, on the night the earth came closest to the full moon in 50 years. It sounds like the kind of exotic celebration that only a professional wedding planner could pull together, but Justin and Alison Freeden made all their own arrangements for their dream wedding on a Thai beach.

Chateau Golan is one of Israel’s top wineries, but also one of the country’s best-kept secrets. It is just down the road from the huge Golan Heights Winery, where Israel’s premium wine industry was born. But apart from the fabulous fertile soil of the Golan and the fact both make wonderful wines, they are as different as chalk and cheese.

Could we soon be asking for a nice glass of malvasia? It would not be the first time a beautiful and distinctive grape has put a whole new country on the wine map.

Georgia, nestling on the Black Sea’s south-eastern shore and blessed with a Mediterranean climate, is home to some of the world’s finest organic produce as well as original food traditions. The cuisine is one of the most exciting you can find, still pervaded by the influence of one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised to spot a row of Israeli flags lining an entire city block in the Argentine city of Mendoza. After all, Argentina has the world’s sixth largest Jewish population, even if most live in the capital Buenos Aires.

When spring starts to segue into summer, a different style of wine is called for — one with a bit of fragrance that seems to mark the change of seasons and with enough personality to work both as an aperitif as well as with food.

It's not every hotel that can boast a facade designed, it's rumoured, by Michelangelo. But then not every city is packed with the work of Michelango and other Renaissance greats who have attracted visitors to Florence for hundreds of years.

Those of us who remember Margate and Cliftonville from childhood seaside holidays now have a reason to travel back to the East Kent coast on a sentimental journey.

A massive investment is to be made in Israel's side of the Dead Sea to create a gleaming new beach-front-style resort.

When complete, it will emulate the spas and hotels on the opposite shore which are at the heart of Jordan's tourism success.

Last month, the Knesset decided to make the area a national tourism priority, with an investment of NIS 850 million over the next five years.

Israelis have been invited to decide whether their half of the Dead Sea shore should be redeveloped in keeping with its natural beauty or as a full-on, money-spinning concrete jungle.

Floating hotels, health spas and sprawling seaside malls are some of the more radical proposals put forward by the Ministry of Tourism, which wants citizens to help it decide how to spend a NIS 720 million investm

On the Kent coast, overlooking a sunset painted by Turner, you can tuck into a exceptional serving of salt beef. But it is not salt beef as we know it. Jason Freedman, chef-proprietor of The Minnis eschews brisket in favour of the finer-textured rib, and cooks it for hours at low temperature in a water bath rather than the long boil that bubbe would have administered.

He may be about to launch sophisticated Italian and pan-Asian cuisine in London, but it is not a vision of the perfect tiramisu or teriyaki which is misting up Arkady Novikov's eyes when we meet at his Mayfair restaurant.

"Kneidlach," he says, "is what gives me goose bumps. Stuffed chicken neck, matzo brei and other things my grandmother made me. Like gefilte fish - now, I make my own."