If it hadn’t have been for the biting wind chilling us to the bone and grey skies being all wintry and grey, Dublin could easily be mistaken for a continental city.  Euros and kilometres aside, it has the relaxed and friendly air of a European capital: during the day, people stroll around enjoying the road furniture and stop to chat …

Champagne tasting in Champagne is just as good as it sounds.  Reims is a bustling little town that is famed for its magnificent cathedral built by grateful champagne-growing benefactors, pink Fossier biscuits, and, of course, champagne – the two of which go together in a typically French way – it would naturally be just too prosaic to dunk biscuits in …

  Walking around Bruges, or Brugge as it is known in Flanders, is like walking around a fairy tale.  The town is simply enchanting, with beautiful houses with delightfully stepped roofs (no boring triangles here), picturesque cobbled lanes, charming bridges spanning leafy, tree-lined canals and, more importantly still, chocolate shops occupying every fourth shop in sight.  Shop numbers one, two and …

In search of the Northern Lights