Europe Media Project

1 Château de Bagnols near Lyons, France

It’s sort of demeaning to call the Château de Bagnols a sexy hotel. It’s a grande dame of a building: a 13th-century, painstakingly cared-for castle with important Gothic fireplaces and priceless frescoes. It’s a mini-fortress in a picture-perfect hamlet just north of Lyons surrounded by beaujolais vineyards.

This hotel isn’t thread-count-and-scented-candles sexy (though the sheets are the finest linen). The château has a moat and a drawbridge. It’s like saying Michelle Obama or Anna Ford are hot. But they are. And it is.

It’s not the antique four-poster beds, the Michelin-starred restaurant or the architectural details heaving with significance (though they all help), it’s the fact that the château feels intimate and discreet despite, on the face of it, being hugely imposing.

Simple pleasures are encouraged: in spring you might walk through its cherry orchard and allow the blossom to caress your cheek. In summer you could just sit in the shade of the renaissance courtyard or dive into the circular outdoor pool on the lawn. In winter you might take a whisky in front of your stone fireplace in one of the 21 rooms.

I thought I didn’t like the sort of service that means white tablecloths and too many types of cutlery. But here those jobs that, after all, have to be done are undertaken quietly, impeccably and are so artfully dealt with, you can’t call it fussy.

Hotness factor: All that Gothic stone and marble — darkly sexy.
Details: mrandmrssmith.com; tel. 0845 0340700; Doubles from £415, excluding breakfast. EasyJet has flights to Lyon from Stansted from £50

by Lesley Thomas

2 Axel Hotel Guldsmeden Copenhagen, Denmark
Trendy eco-hotel with a cool basement spa and minimalist rooms decorated in a Balinese style with bamboo furniture. There’s an excellent restaurant that uses fresh organic ingredients and has lots of vegetarian options. The superb penthouse has a roof terrace with great views and a secluded hot-tub.

Hotness factor: Organic food and superb penthouse.
Details: hotelguldsmeden.com. B&B doubles from £125. EasyJet flights from £49.

3 Three Sisters Hotel Tallinn, Estonia
Part of the Design Hotels group, Three Sisters consists of three 14th-century townhouses that have been transformed into a boutique hotel within Tallinn’s ancient city walls. Rooms are big, with exposed beams and large baths and all the high-tech gadgets that you could want. It feels a bit like a James Bond love-nest hideaway.

Hotness factor: Boutique love nest in the Old City.
Details: threesistershotel.com;balticholidays.com has two nights’ B&B from £193pp. Easyjet flights from £54.

4 Hotel Sacher Vienna, Austria
Sheer opulence in one of the most romantic cities in the world. Rooms manage to be seductively ornate, yet modern and slick at the same time. The blue-themed bar is candle-lit and discreet. The hotel is bang opposite the opera house, too.

Hotness factor: Seductive candle-lit bar.
Details: sacher.com. B&B doubles from £338. EasyJet has flights from Gatwick from £64

5 Il Salviatino Florence, Italy
The best reason to stay at Il Salviatino, an historic 15th-century palazzo in Fiesole, in the hills above Florence, is that you can see the sights and make a quick escape — on the complimentary shuttlebus — and find yourself on its peaceful terrace 20 minutes later with a glass of prosecco in hand, enjoying fabulous city views.

The hotel has large, high-ceilinged rooms and a handsome, central staircase. The overall feeling is understated and quiet — almost scholastic (the villa used to be the Italian offshoot of Stanford University). But I grew to like its sobriety and it only goes so far. What student has Bose speakers embedded in the ceiling of his study? Everything, from the linen on the beds to the solid-oak flooring, is top quality. No bling, no ostentation, no gimmicks: just beautiful materials.

A spa, offering the usual Thai treatments, and an outdoor pool, will be completed later this year. Food, delivered by the Florentine chef Saverio Sbaragli, is delicious. Typical dishes include home-made spaghetti and the tenderest beef I have ever eaten, braised in chianti. Your own “service ambassador” can be called for anything: breakfast, room service, even to accompany you to Florence — should you be short of a date.

Hotness factor: Luscious food.
Details: salviatino.com. B&B doubles from £433. Ryanair has return flights from Stansted from £34.

by Kate Quill

6 Hotel San Francesco Al Monte Naples, Italy
The views across the rooftops of Naples onwards to Mount Vesuvius in one direction and Capri in the other from this hotel on the slopes of San Martino hill are quite spectacular — especially from the rooftop pool. The hotel is in an old monastery and rooms have ornate, traditional decorations. Not flashy, but classy.

Hotness factor: Rooftop views of Vesuvius.
Details: laiholidays.co.uk. Three nights from £245pp, airport transfers included. EasyJet has flights from Gatwick, Stansted and Liverpool from £54.

7 Maison Moschino Milan, Italy
The hottest new hotel in Italy’s fashion capital has outlandish rooms with four-poster beds and scrumptious purple rooms with ballgown-shaped lampshades. Created by the Moschino fashion house.

Hotness factor: A red, dress-shaped bed for a scarlet woman.
Details: hotelphilosophycom. Doubles from £225. EasyJet has flights from Luton, Gatwick, Bristol and Edinburgh from £60.

8 Gastwerk Hotel Hamburg, Germany
Set in an old municipal gasworks with fabulous loft rooms and giant penthouse suites with vast beds, vibrant decorations and exposed beams. There’s a chilled-out spa and a lively restaurant and bar.

Hotness factor: Loft life with vast beds.
Details: gastwerk.com. Loft doubles from £134, suites from £245. EasyJet has flights from Luton and Gatwick from £54.

9 Propeller Island City Lodge Berlin, Germany
Perhaps the wackiest of our choices, this hotel has rooms with beds designed to look as though they are “flying”, a diamond-shaped room covered with mirrors (“caution: very sexy,” says the website), circular beds and sunken beds (you step down into them).

Hotness factor: Impossibly sexy beds.
Details: propeller-island.de. Doubles from £87. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £6.

10 Stage 47 Düsseldorf, Germany
An OTT, swanky hotel with a film and theatre theme: arty black-and-white pictures of stars are dotted throughout. The public rooms have a boudoir-like feel, with red sofas, black lampshades and hidden nooks for drinks. Rooms are large. Round the corner from the Savoy Theatre.

Hotness factor: Film star cachet.
Details: stage47.de. Doubles from £139. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £6.

11 Villa Kennedy Frankfurt, Germany This elegant five-star hotel, close to the River Main, is based in a mock Gothic palace built in 1904. The rooms are large with muted colour schemes and tasteful splashes of modern art. There’s a huge indoor infinity pool and a snazzy spa.

Hotness factor: Classy, Gothic love nest.
Details: villakennedy.com. Doubles from £207. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £17.99.

12 Hotel Haven Helsinki, Finland Opened last year, this stylish new hotel has a plush upmarket interior with marble floors, original modern art, cool fireplaces encased in glass and a quirky edge. Each of the bedrooms comes with underfloor heating (for the bitter winters). There are Elemis toiletries and Bang & Olufsen stereos. All very cutting edge.

Hotness factor: High tech hideaway.
Details: hotelhaven.fi. B&B doubles from £127. Easyjet has return flights from Gatwick and Manchester, from £59.

13 The Augustine Prague, Czech Republic
Not so long ago it was monks in robes wandering along these hallways. Now it’s guests in bathgowns, heading for the bijou basement spa, where “spiritual bliss treatments devoted to delivering purity, energy and balance” are on offer.

The Augustine, part of the Rocco Forte Collection and a year-old this week, is based in monastic buildings full of vaulted ceilings, parts of which date back to the 13th century. One detached wing, not open to guests, still houses a handful of Augustinian friars (none of whom we spot, although we can’t help wondering what they think of the swish new hotel).

Our room feels as though thought has gone into every detail — Olga Polizzi, the renowned designer and sister of Sir Rocco Forte — is responsible for the interiors. There are stylish chairs with V-shaped backs next to amber lights on sidetables on which the works of Dostoevsky and books of love poems are placed just so. Music by the Czech composer Dvorák is playing gently as we arrive and walk across a symmetrically patterned carpet and plain wood floor to a bedroom with a giant bed in the centre.

The ceilings are high and, this being a former monk’s cell, the walls thick, so there’s no worries about noise. After a day’s sightseeing — the Augustine is just below Prague Castle — the downstairs Brewery Bar, with its flickering candles and sense of (monastic) peace, is a great place to relax.

Hotness factor: Classical music in sumptuous converted old monk’s cells.
Details theaugustine.com. Doubles from £200. EasyJet has return flights from Stansted, Gatwick, and Bristol from £50.

14 Fitzwilliam Hotel Belfast, Northern Ireland
Next to the Grand Opera House, this is a slick contemporary hotel with rooms with lime green and striking zig-zag designs. Recently included in the Condé Nast Traveller’s “Hot List” of hotels. Highlights include a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Hotness factor: Slick design and Michelin starred restaurant.
Details: fitzwilliamhotelbelfast.com. Doubles from £100. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £18.

15 Avalon Hotel Gothenburg, Sweden
Rooms at the Avalon have a retro 1960s look — lots of bright designer chairs mixed with high-tech minimalism. The penthouse is vast and there is a lively bar and a restaurant serving nouveau cuisine.

Hotness factor: Retro retreat, lively bar.
Details: avalonhotel.se. Doubles from £134. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £41.

16 Hotel Amanda Haugesund, Norway
This hotel with a film theme is on the waterfront of this small port — a short drive from the western fjords. Rooms are large with beautiful views. Pierce Brosnan and Ronnie Wood have stayed during Haugesund’s summer film festival.

Hotness factor: Lovely North Sea views.
Details: choicehotels.no. B&B doubles from about £115. Ryanair flights from Stansted from £54.

17 Casa Honoré Marseille, France
You could easily miss Casa Honoré: it’s tucked away a couple of streets from the waterfront. Inside, there is a courtyard with a small pool, around which are set four minimalist rooms with designer bathrooms. It feels like a secret hideaway.

Hotness factor: Minimalist hideaway.
Details: i-escape.com/casahonore.php, casahonore.com. Doubles from £131. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £48.

18 Hotel Continental Oslo, Norway
This is a stylish hotel with brilliant original art on its walls. The downstairs café was once given rave reviews by Joseph Heller ... and the only Catch 22 here is the room rate (it’s expensive).

Hotness factor Upmarket, wonderful art.
Details: hotel-continental.no. Doubles from £213. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £18.

19 Pousada do Porto Porto, Portugal An 18th-century Baroque palace that has been turned into an ornate design hotel. There are public rooms full of art and sweeping curtains. Bedrooms are slick and modern. There’s a terrific infinity pool.

Hotness factor: Baroque, with cool pool.
Details: pousadas.pt/historicalhotels. Doubles from £216. Ryanair has return flights from Stansted from £59.

20 Hôtel Le Saint-James Bordeaux, France

I’ve never shared a room with a Harley-Davidson (or ridden one), . But I can’t resist clambering on to the beast and pretending to zoom through Bordeaux’s vineyards. I may not ride into the French wine capital, but I can see the way through the vines from the light wood bed, which is perfectly positioned to look out through a wall of picture windows. If I tire of this stunning view, a press of the button and the shades come down over the window. All 18 rooms and suites have the same vista, some beds built low to look through the vines, others high to look over them, and also taking in the hotel’s sleek pool.

Designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, who took his inspiration from tobacco-drying sheds, the metal grille exterior of this hotel, ten minutes from the airport at Bordeaux, rises up starkly from the vines. Inside, there are more treats, most notably in the form of Michel Portos, a two-Michelin-star chef who serves up gastronomic delicacies using locally sourced produce in the restaurant.But nothing beats the Harley — except perhaps the hot-tub suite, at the top of the hotel.

Hotness factor Rev yourself up for a Michelin-starred treat.
Details saintjames-bouliac.com or relaischateaux.com. Doubles from £188, Harley Davidson suite from £385. EasyJet has return flights from £50.

by Jane Knight

21 Corral del Rey Seville, Spain
Hidden behind studded Moorish doors, this bijou six-room hotel is minutes from the cathedral. Rooms are elegant and have DVD players and iPod docking stations.

Hotness factor: Bijou Moorish rooms.
Details: i-escape.com, corraldelrey.com. Doubles from £245. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £73.

22 Sumahan on the Water Istanbul, Turkey This opulent new design hotel overlooks the Bosphorus. Rooms have retro 1960s chairs and terrific views across the sea — some beds face out across the water. There’s a cool bar (appropriate as it’s set in an old alcohol factory), a lively seafood restaurant and a hammam spa.

Hotness factor: Lively, retro design hotel by the Bosphorus.
Details: i-escape.com, sumahan.com. Doubles from £170. EasyJet has flights from Gatwick and Luton from £66.

23 Hotel Misc Amsterdam, The Netherlands
This reasonably priced hotel has six funky, themed rooms. The Afrika room looks like it’s from Out of Africa, with colonial-style furniture. The Retro room has 1960s furniture and the Baroque room is OTT with chandeliers and gilded mirrors.

Hotness factor: Funky themed rooms.
Details: misceatdrinksleep.com. Doubles from £127. Bmibaby has flights from East Midlands and Birmingham from £39.99.

24 Hi Hotel Nice, France
Super-trendy icebox meets a living modern art installation. There are stand-alone baths, bamboo plants, spiral staircases, light projections on the walls of the bar (which attracts top Parisian DJs), and a minimalist overall feel. Cool rooftop pool.

Hotness factor: Hip hotel with DJ nights and marvellous minimalism.
Details: i-escape.com/hihotel.php, hi-hotel.net. Doubles from £191. Bmibaby from East Midlands from £77.99.

25 Il Sogno di Giulietta Verona, Italy
In the city of Romeo and Juliet, this is perhaps the most romantic hotel — complete with a balcony for tender exchanges of devotion. The ten rooms, named after lines in Shakepeare’s play, have elegant decorations and furnishings.

Hotness factor: O Romeo, Romeo!
Details: juliet-dream.com, kuoni.co.uk. Doubles from £177. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £56.

26 Hôtel Amour Paris, France
This hotel is a real love nest. Some of the boudoir-like rooms have ruby and black walls, others are lime-green or lilac with wacky modern art. The owner is a graffiti artist , which explains the art and the overall edgy feel. Close to Montmartre.

Hotness factor: Edgy Parisian love hideaway.
Details: hotelamourparis.fr. Doubles from £130. EasyJet has flights from Luton to Paris Charles de Gaulle from £49.

27 Hotel Rialto Warsaw, Poland
This Art Deco hotel, on a quiet backstreet, has a handful of rooms with neat 1920s and 1930s period pieces. Try the Big Apple or Black & White suites (the most romantic).

Hotness factor An Art Deco delight.
Details hotelrialto.com.pl. Doubles from £55, suites from £95. Wizz Air has flights from Luton from £75.

28 Arcotel Allegra Zagreb, Croatia
Wacky bedspreads and multicoloured lighting are to be found at this arty hotel. There’s also a top-floor hot-tub, a smart restaurant and a trendy cocktail bar. If it’s a special occasion, go for a suite.

Hotness factor: Trendy cocktail bar.
Details: arcotel.cc/allegra. Doubles from £56, suites £213. Wizz Air has flights from Luton from £51.

29 Mama’s Hotel Bratislava, Slovakia
From the rooftop hot-tub there are views across the Slovakian capital. Rooms are modern in a slick excecutive way with plenty of modern art. There’s a big indoor pool and an overall feeling of being tucked away from the hustle of the city.

Hotness factor: Giant indoor pool.
Details: hotelmamas.sk. Doubles from £145. Ryanair has flights from £30.

30 Hospes Palau de la Mar Valencia, Spain
This 19th-century mansion has been turned into a cool contemporary hotel in L’Eixample, the fashionable shopping district. Most rooms have splashes of purple art and big beds. There’s also a spa.

Hotness factor Fashion district retreat with a spa (and style).
Details hospes.com, i-escape.com. Doubles from £87. Ryanair has flights from Stansted from £47.

• All flight prices are for return flights and are correct as we go to press. See easyjet.com; ryanair.com; bmibaby.com; wizzair.com. Room prices are based on the cheapest rates in early summer.

• Tom Chesshyre is the author of How Low Can You Go? Round Europe for 1p Each Way (Plus Tax) published by Hodder, £7.99.

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Karin Holmstrom lives at the ends of the earth, but it’s easy enough to pay her a visit. Just give some kroner to a boatman in the village of Fjällbacka on the west coast of Sweden and he’ll run you 12 miles (20km) out to sea to a place where water and sky are broken by low, bare rocks that seem to inhabit the middle of nowhere. On one of these stark, treeless outposts, waiting to greet you at a little wooden jetty, is Karin.

I felt a bit queasy meeting her, to be honest. The boat-ride was so bouncy that I was thrown from my seat, and as I arrived the shadows of racing clouds were flying past with nothing to slow the wind except boulders. Karin hurried me to the warmth of her tiny hotel (there are few buildings on her island), poured me a beer and told me that she is never lonely because yachts and visitors come in their thousands, particularly in summer.

Here? Why? “The rocks and the sea have different colours in this light,” Karin said, smiling. “It’s very calm and very, very strange.” I finished my beer, zipped my coat, and walked out to see what she was talking about.

This encounter came during the final hours of a cruise along Sweden’s west coast, a remarkable slice of seascape that stretches from the broad, chic streets of Gothenburg to the Norwegian border, 200 miles away. It’s a region of weathered rock, low forest and wooden villages pasted into discreet harbours, and little else — except for 8,000 amazing islands. Big, small, gaunt, craggy, smooth, alluring, exciting, remote ... some are large enough to carry a few wooden houses, others so small you can barely spread a picnic blanket without getting wet. A few have trees, many are bare, all scattered along the coast like confetti after a riotous wedding.

My cruise was a test-run for a new two-day boating experience that will operate this summer and may herald something even more interesting. Entrepreneurs, supported by Sweden’s tourist authorities, hope to develop a freewheeling, hop-on/hop-off ferry service running from Gothenburg to Strömstad, near the border. Jump on, pootle a few miles, see somewhere you like, jump off, stay a couple of days, then climb back on board when the service next happens by.

It’s a liberating idea, and my cruise is as close as you can get to that experience at the moment. So what will you find if you go?

Our trip was designed to explore only the central section of the coast, so first we drove an hour north from Gothenburg to the fishing village of Ellös on the bridge-linked island of Orust. And here, a clump of footsteps across a jetty found us lining the rails of a genteel, 50-seater double-decker boat amid laughs and much picture-taking.

Next thing, we were pottering out to sea heading for the village of Fjällbacka as a charming guide named Eva told us about a region that was governed by Norway until the 17th century, nobody even speaking Swedish until it became obligatory in schools in 1840. And they still fish here, especially for lobster and oysters . . .

And so on. Interesting stuff, but it was the feel of the landscape and the islands themselves that gripped us. The villages we passed were built almost entirely of wood, dull rust-red roofs occasionally broken by a flare of yellow, green, whatever they had in the tin that wasn’t garish. I saw no neon. There were no visible advertisements, either. No lures. No rancid come-ons. No desperate pleas for yachties to come and make themselves at home.

Yet there were plenty of tiny, idyllic harbours, and locals told me that securing a permanent berth anywhere on this coastline meant joining a 20,000-long waiting list. Norwegians come down in flotillas of yachts each summer to feast at local restaurants and sunbathe on those rocks, and swim in pools, skinny-dip or take a kayak out between the islands.

At the height of July, villages such as Smögen are crammed with party-goers, but locals say that the feeling is cheerful, and anyway the crowds soon thin. Meanwhile, the place, the coastline, the islands and the villages all retain their stoic charm, their uncommercial grace.

Sometimes we swished to within 30ft of land, weaving through weirdly configured island chains. Then the rocks would recede hundreds of yards into distant specks of mainland villages. When we stopped on one island to stretch our legs, it felt hugely exciting to be isolated from mainland Europe. In Smögen, we feasted on seafood at Skärets, a quayside restaurant on the edge of a tranquil harbour, ringed by islands and boats and emptiness.

I could detail other incidents, such as the intriguing sweep through Soten Canal, where the passing rocks were almost within touching distance, or the hotel in Kungshamn where I woke to see a fishing boat directly outside my window.

But the most revealing moment was the final visit to Karin’s hotel on the far-flung Weather Islands, 12 miles from Fjällbacka (Ingrid Bergman once lived near by). The cruise itself doesn’t officially include this side trip, but if a proper hop-on service does develop — which it really should — then you will be able to visit as many islands as you like on water-taxis from mainland villages. And if you do, you could end up 12 miles out to sea on an island barely a mile in circumference, zipping up your jacket against the wind.

Karin’s hotel is called the Väderoarnas Värdshus — a yellow wooden building in a cluster of others dating back to the days when pilots were stationed here to guide ships through the chain. But if you take about 15 steps civilisation disappears and what you can see is ... Well, the granite was grey and deeply fissured so you couldn’t walk a straight line; you passed spiky bushes in sudden clefts, trudged over swamps barely 3ft across, or leapt mottled ravines. Karin was right about the colours. The rocks changed hue from moment to moment, as did the sea, which was broken by lines of white-topped waves, and nearby clusters of empty granite and nothing else.

At the top of the island, by a simple cairn, the wind was so strong I couldn’t stop crying; but down on the lee side, in a tiny inlet, I sat for a moment on warmed, sheltered rocks and it was so peaceful I fell asleep. When I woke, I could see waves, rocks and cloud, the heart of Sweden, and this coast. It felt moving. And that’s it. That’s exactly the feeling you’re left with as you fly home.

NEED TO KNOW

A two-day cruise in Bohuslän costs about £190, including coach travel from Gothenburg to Ellös, boat cruise to Fjällbacka, coach return, with meals and one hotel night. See westsweden.com under “Holiday Ideas”, then “Island Hopping”. Details of island-hopping water-ferry services along the Bohuslän Coast will appear on this website as they develop.

Stay

Elite Park Avenue hotel, central Gothenburg Doubles from £105 (elite.se).

Strandflickorna Hotel, Lysekil Boutique mainland hotel 50 yards from the sea, run by owners who style themselves as “the beach girls” and often dress identically for the amusement of guests. Doubles from £105 (strandflickorna.se).

Hotel Smögens Havsbad On the mainland-linked island of Smögen. Large, tranquil, modern hotel with spa facilities, surrounded by rocks. Doubles from £140 (smogenshavsbad.se).

Väderöarnas Guest House and Restaurant Cheerful, basic but comfortable hotel on the Weather Islands, £150 pp/pn, including all meals. Add about £26 for ferry costs (vaderoarna.com; website is in Swedish, owners speak English).

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1 Perivolas, Santorini, Greece

Cool factor Most photographed pool

If you’ve seen a pool grace the cover of a travel magazine, it’s likely it was shot here. Images of the pool, melting into the Med with volcanic Santorini’s two lava islands in the background, have graced the covers of Sunday Times Travel, Condé Nast Traveller and many others.

Details B&B double studios from £355 a night; 00 30 2286 0 71308, perivolas.gr

2 Fullerton Hotel, Singapore

Cool factor Skyscraper setting

The Fullerton used to be a post office, but has been rather grandly revamped. In theory its pool should be nothing special — not that long or wide — but its location has a wow factor that few hotels can match. Doing lengths while staring at skyscrapers is the most jetlag-zapping experience we know.

Details Trailfinders can book the Fullerton from £206 per double per night (room only), based on four nights’ stay; 0845 0505871, trailfinders.com

3 Gansevoort Park Avenue New York

Cool factor Great for urban posing

Opening in July, the rooftop playground on this 249-room hotel spreads over three levels with an indoor-outdoor pool, and is for urbanistas more into posing than paddling. It is hotel guests only during the day, but opens to the public at night. You can eat lobster rolls or peanut butter and jam-flavour ice cream sandwiches.

Details Room-only doubles from £280 a night; 00 1 877 426 7386, gansevoorthotelgroup.com

4 Sea Temple Port Douglas, Australia

Cool factor From room to water in a hop

At this resort in North Queensland, the pool, or rather the lagoon, is the centre of attention — all 3,000 sq m of it, weaving throughout the grounds and gardens, interspersed with bridges and waterfalls and lots of tropical foliage. On some ground-floor rooms you can jump into the pool from your veranda. There’s a golf and country club, too.

Details Bridge & Wickers can book a two-bedroom Swimout Villa (sleeping four adults, room only) from £394 a night; 020-7483 6555, www.bridgeandwickers.co.uk

5 Axel Hotel, Barcelona

Cool factor Pink paradise

Being able to take a rooftop dip seems to be the in-thing in Barcelona. OK, so the pool at the Axel is small, but then so is much of the swimwear at this hotel that chases the pink pound (and euro and dollar) but describes itself as “hetero-friendly”. Looking great is de rigueur. Weekend pool parties heat things up with killer cocktails and DJs spinning tunes.

Details Room-only doubles from £103; 00 34 93 323 9393, axelhotels.com

6 Copacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro

Cool factor Great celeb-watching

The hip kids may have moved to Ipanema beach, but the Copacabana Palace still exudes an air of glamour — and that goes for the pool, where presidents and pop stars do lengths, too. Come the weekend a mix of American yummy moneys and young locals pose around the shallow end sipping cocktails. And those people who look gorgeous enough to be models? That’s because they probably are.

Details Room-only doubles from £305; 0845 0772222, copacabanapalace.com

7 The Big Texan Steak Ranch and Motel Amarillo, US

Cool factor Swim across America’s second-largest state

Is everything bigger in Texas? Not if you spend too much time in this pool shaped like the Lone Star state itself. Hungry? Well, there’s a steakhouse alongside — if you can eat the 72oz (2kg) monster in less than an hour, it’s yours free. This being Texas, you can stable your horse, too.

Details Room-only doubles from £49; 001 806 372 6000, bigtexan.com

8 Four Seasons Hotel, Hong Kong

Cool factor Rooftop retreat

It can get pretty steamy in Hong Kong, so if sightseeing gets a bit too much, retreat here to the rooftop pool — with music piped under water — where you can swim and sunbathe with stunning views across the harbour to Kowloon. There’s a spa, too, free for hotel guests to enter (you pay for treatments, of course), and once a week there’s a morning poolside t’ai chi class.

Details Room-only doubles from £397 a night; 00 800 6488 6488, fourseasons.com/hongkong

9 Cambrian Hotel Adelboden, Switzerland

Cool factor Alpine idyll

High on a hill, goatherds wouldn’t be so lonely if they had whirlpool baths, spas and infinity pools. The outdoor pool here has a bubbling massage bed, but best of all is the view of the mountains. The hotel has 71 rooms, a spa and restaurant serving “new Alpine cuisine”. It’s a five-minute walk from lifts and cable cars.

Details B&B doubles from £185 a night; 00 41 33 673 8383, thecambrianadelboden.com

10 The Olsen Melbourne, Australia

Cool factor Glass bottom

This hotel claims to have the world’s largest glass-bottomed pool, so be careful what you wear lest the shoppers on Chapel Street below start pointing. If you would rather explore the Victorian capital, the hotel rents bikes from £3 an hour.

Details Black Tomato books room-only doubles from £135; 020-7426 9888, blacktomato.co.uk

11 Huvafen Fushi Maldives

Cool factor Night-time galaxy lighting

It might seem strange that pools feature in a place that has beaches on which Bounty Bars dream of retiring, but not everyone likes sand in their cossie. Each of the 44 bungalows and pavilions has its own plunge pool, but the star is the infinity pool (26m long). Lit with fibre optics at night, it also has tables and chairs for a unique dining experience.

Details Elegant Resorts can book seven nights’ B&B in a beach bungalow from £2,282pp (two sharing), including flights from Gatwick and transfers; 01244 897881, elegantresorts.co.uk

12 Jongomero Tanzania

Cool factor Added wildlife

Not one to do laps in (too small), but, still, there aren’t many pools where you can watch buffalo wander by. Situated in Ruaha National Park, the pool makes a welcome stop-off after a safari drive.

Details Expert Africa offers nine-day Tanzania safaris that include Jongomero from £3,226pp (two sharing) with Heathrow flights, transfers and most meals and activities; 020-8232 9777, expertafrica.com

13 Duinrell Wassenaar, Netherlands

Cool factor Ten waterslides

Waterparks are great for keeping children amused, but only the bravest will tackle the 70-degree slide at Tiki tropical waterpark.

Details A week’s break for a family of two adults and up to four children in a two-bedroomed mobile home costs £1,084 with return Dover-Calais crossings; 0844 4060319, keycamp.co.uk

14 The Scarlet hotel, Mawgan Porth, North Cornwall

Cool factor Chemical-free zone

A living reed bed and plants act as a natural filtration system for the outdoor pool. The indoor pool is also chemical-free and looks out on Mawgan Porth beach.

Details B&B doubles from £270; 01637 861800, scarlethotel.co.uk

15 The Mardan Palace Antalya, Turkey

Cool factor Shark “infested”

Swim with sharks in safety (a clear acrylic divider keeps them at bay) in a 900sq m swim-reef filled with saltwater.

Details Four-night B&B stays from £1,550, including flights from various UK airports. 020-7722 2288, elixirholidays.com

16 Las Ventanas al Paraíso Los Cabos, Mexico Cool factor Pools in paradise A serpentine network of six pools winds its way through this super-luxury resort, finishing in a beachfront infinity pool. Sit back, grab a margarita and look out on the Pacific.

Details B&B doubles from £380; 00 52 6241 442 800, lasventanas.com

17 Jade Mountain, St Lucia

Cool factor Views to dive for

There’s an infinity pool with every room here. As a quirky touch, the recycled tiles used on each of the infinity pools are iridescent, with fibre optics illuminating them at night. Each one has a shallow water lounging area and a swimming area.

Details A week’s room-only stay is priced at £3,295pp with flights from Gatwick; 01306 747002, kuoni.co.uk

18 Verdura Golf & Spa Sicily

Cool factor Double-decker infinity pool

Overlooking the seafront, the two-tier infinity pool is 80m (262ft) long and 45m wide — said to be the largest in Europe. At night the lanterns that surround it are lit.

Details B&B doubles are from £590 a night; 00 800 7666 6667, roccofortecollection.com

19 CastaDiva Lake Como, Italy

Cool factor Poolside arias

This “floating pool” is suspended in the waters of Lake Como. By night it is covered up and becomes a platform for a fantastic show of lights, fountains and waterjets.

Details Four nights’ B&B costs from £950pp, including flights from Heathrow; 01488 689700, baileyrobinson.com

20 Feversham Arms & Verbena Spa Helmsley, North Yorkshire

Cool factor Perfect outdoor winter pool

You don’t come to Yorkshire for a tan so it’s good to know the outdoor pool here is heated to 32C (90F) all year (and open all year round) and is south-facing, so perfect for catching the rays in the summer.

Details B&B doubles from £150; 01439 770766, fevershamarmshotel.com

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1 Eco Fisherman’s Cottage, Lanzarote, Spain This solar-powered fisherman’s cottage on the seafront in the pretty fishing village of Arrieta, northeast Lanzarote, is a stone’s throw from a sandy cove. It sleeps two adults and two children, and has been lovingly converted: wood furniture, cream throws, plants and paintings, a fully fitted kitchen, two bathrooms and lounge opening out on to the promenade. The balcony has superb sea views and the shaded courtyard is perfect for alfresco dining. There are good coastal walking and cycling trails from the doorstep, and the mountain village of Haria is just a short drive away.

Details From € 770 a week (€ 193pp); 00 34 9 2882 6720, lanzaroteretreats.com

2 House on a rock, Italy Perched atop a rocky outcrop in Cefalù, a medieval town on Sicily’s northern coast, Il Gabbiano is a three-bedroom property (sleeping five) with 360-degree views of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Whether you’re kicking back in the living room, with its wood beams, sofas and huge picture window, or on one of the three terraces (one of which has a barbecue and dining area, another is backed by a garden), you can’t escape them. Follow the private path down to two sandy coves, or head to the longer beach in the centre of Cefalù, 20 minutes’ walk away.

Details From £3,400 a week (£680pp); 020-7377 8518, thinksicily.com

3 Quiet retreat, Greece Step through the patio gate and you’re on one of the most peaceful, uncommercial beaches in northeast Corfu. Simple but homely, Villa Varvara sleeps four and has an open-plan lounge/kitchen/dining area and a sea-facing veranda — a perfect spot for watching the sunset over the mainland. Take a walk to nearby Avlaki beach, where there’s an excellent English-run dinghy sailing school as well as horse-riding facilities. Or head to the bustling harbour town of Kassiopi, just a few miles away.

Details From £1,620 a week (£405pp); 020-7401 1026, cvtravel.co.uk

4 Roman Villa, Croatia This traditional Dalmatian-style property is built on the foundations of a 4th-century Roman villa on the island of Brac. Inside you’ll find two simply furnished bedrooms (each sleeping three) and an open-plan lounge/kitchen/ dining area with exposed stone walls, low beams, a wrought-iron chandelier and open fireplace. Outside is a walled garden filled with pine and poplar trees, and a covered barbecue area. The village of Postira, with its weekly food market, is within walking distance — perfect for stocking up on local hlap (lobster) and jastog (crayfish).

Details From £809 per property a week (£135); 020-8888 6655, croatianvillas.com (ref BC036)

5 Funky cottage, Spain Set in the natural park of Punta Paloma, near Tarifa, El Paraiso is a three-bedroom property (sleeping six) with its own private pathway leading to a sandy beach. Beautifully decorated with richly coloured rugs and cushions, funky lamps and chunky wood furniture, the cottage has spectacular sea views. Admire them from the lounge, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, the porch or the roof terrace. Or head to the garden gazebo and kick back on the cool white sofas. Tarifa, with its castle and numerous kitesurfing centres, is a short walk away.

Details From £2,220 per property per week (£370pp); holidaylettings.co.uk/127907

6 House party villa Portugal Villa Ciete is a stylish house on a cliff top in the Algarve, with views of the Atlantic and gardens that sweep down to a secluded sandy cove. It sleeps 12 and is ideal for large groups or families, with a spacious sitting room, a games room with pool table, outdoor swimming pool and barbecue area. Take rugged clifftop walks leading to more hidden coves, or visit the nearby village of Gale, home to the Algarve’s only two-Michelin-starred restaurant, Vila Joya.

Details From £7,605 a week (£634pp); 020-7401 1044, cvtravel.co.uk

7 Agriturismo Italy On the southeast coast of Elba, off the Tuscan coast, Bio Elba is made up of four bungalows, dotted throughout 33,000 sq m of forestland. Our favourite is Casetta Sogno, which sleeps five and is surrounded by pines, with its own path to a secluded beach. Organic provisions, including goose eggs, olive oil and home-made wine and honey, can be purchased directly from the owner. Don your walking shoes to explore the island’s hilltop fortresses and medieval villages.

Details Casetta Sogno costs from € 940 per week (€ 188pp); 00 39 05 6593 9072, bioelba.it

8 Stylish house Turkey Set at the foot of the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, the best thing about Sans Yildizi in Kalkan is its freshwater infinity pool, which overlooks the sea and is surrounded by elegant wrought-iron sofas and potted plants. The decor is simple yet stylish, with two bedrooms plus a sofa bed in the lounge (to sleep six in all), which has a DVD player with an extensive DVD library, iPod docking station and opens on to a terrace. A few minutes’ walk away is Kisla Cove, with its gently shelving Blue Flag pebble beach, which is great for snorkelling. Patara beach, with its ancient ruins and nesting turtles, is only a 15-minute drive away.

Details From £500 a week (£83pp); pureholidayhomes.com (ref. 1423)

9 Secret hideaway Spain The name says it all. Tucked away in a cove above a little-known shingle beach near Soller in Majorca and backed by rocky cliffs, El Secreto feels like a secret paradise. Sleeping nine, it is perfect for families: while the kids explore the gardens and play on the football table, PlayStation and piano, parents can follow the path down to the beach, where two restaurants serve top-notch local fish and Majorcan wine. The clear water is great for snorkelling, and there is a path that leads to the Sa Pedrissa watchtower. Deià, one of Majorca’s chicest villages, is 1km away.

Details From £1,873 a week (£208pp); holidaylettings.co.uk/65061

10 Listed cottage France Lostmarc’h is a stone cottage at the end of the Crozon peninsula, a few minutes’ walk from one of the the most beautiful beaches in Brittany. Sleeping six, the renovated property combines elegant modern furnishings with original features and has a good-size garden with terrace. Explore this unspoilt region by bike (two are provided) or head to the seaside towns of Morgat and Crozon, both 3km away.

Details From € 1,350 a week (€ 225pp); 00 33 2 98 55 29 26; frenchberry.fr

11 Amalfi gem Italy Set on a cliff top above Positano, Villa Lighea provides breathtaking views of the Amalfi coast. It is set over two storeys and sleeps ten in five bedrooms, all of which have sea-facing balconies. Outside are landscaped gardens and terraces, a hydro-massage pool, solarium and barbecue area. A short stroll from the front door and you’re on sandy Arienzo beach.

Details From £5,400 a week (£540pp); 00 39 089 875863, villalighea.it/en

12 Two converted boat houses Greece Each of these boat houses sleeps two and has a simple open-plan sitting room and kitchen leading to a veranda with views towards Peristera island. Ten minutes’ drive away is the small port of Steni Vala, with its shops and bars, while Kalamakia village can be reached in two minutes by boat (hired locally).

Details Sea Horse Cottage from £972 a week, Fisherman’s Cottage from £1,042; 020-8232 9780, greekislandsclub.com

13 Spacious beach house Cyprus Walk past the pool of the Beach House in Larnaca and through the garden and you’re on the Blue Flag beach of Faros. The house sleeps eight and has a spacious open-plan living and dining area that opens on to a large covered veranda. Drive into the Troodos Mountains (about an hour away) for walking trails with spectacular views or check out the buzzing bar scene in Ayia Napa (30 minutes away).

Details From £995 a week (£124pp); holidaylettings.co.uk/87608

14 Rustic retreat Spain Casas Karen in Los Caños de Meca in southern Spain is made up of 11 cottages and straw-and-bamboo chozas, hidden in a garden of pinewoods and sand dunes a few minutes’ walk from the beach. The pick of the bunch is Choza Grande, which sleeps two. It’s rustic but cosy, with a seating and dining area downstairs and a bed on a wooden platform. Massage and yoga can be arranged, and there is trekking, canoeing and scuba diving near by.

Details Choza Grande costs from € 760 a week; 00 34 956 437 067, casaskaren.com

15 Hillside house Italy Porto Ulisse on the north coast of Sardinia is ideal for families: the main house sleeps ten and has a well-equipped kitchen and huge sitting room with an open fireplace; a separate annexe sleeps two and has a kitchenette and sitting/dining room. A pathway leads to two small sandy beaches, where a small boat — hired from the nearby fishing port of Palau — can be moored, for excursions and lunches.

Details £8,355 a week (£696pp); 020-7401 1039, cvtravel.co.uk

16 Windmills Greece The Windmills in Santorini are a ten-minute walk from quiet Pori beach, known for its striking red rock formations. Each property sleeps up to five and is set over three floors, with brightly painted wooden shutters and door frames, floral prints and shelves stacked with books. Each has its own terrace, a hydro-massage pool, shaded seating area and sweeping views of the hills. The cliffside village of Oia is a few miles away.

Details From € 2,660 a week (€ 532pp); 00 30 22860 25207, windmill.gr

17 Salt warehouse Spain Once an old salt warehouse, Casa do Sal is in the fishing town of Combarro in Galicia. Small but cosy, with low beams and exposed stone walls, it sleeps up to three in one double (on a mezzanine floor) and a sofa bed.

Details From € 465 a week (£155pp); 00 34 986 691530, holiday-rentals.co.uk/p434585

18 Solar-powered villa Croatia This beachfront house is the only property on Zakan island, part of the Kornati archipelago in Dalmatia. It may not be the most stylish of houses, but it’s ideal for families, with one double bedroom and two rooms with bunk beds. You can rent a little boat to explore nearby islands and islets. The nearest restaurant is on the island of Ravni Zakan (five minutes by boat) and the nearest supermarket is on Panitula island (25 minutes by boat).

Details From £1,002 a week (€ 167pp), plus boat transfers of about £100 per group; 020-7385 7111, www.croatianaffair.com

19 Designer chic Italy Positioned on the brow of a hill on Sicily’s southwest coast, Casa d’Eraclea is a four-bedroom, architect-designed house (sleeping up to nine) that bags the title for having the most spectacular terrace: an infinity pool, surrounded by hammocks and panoramic sea views. Inside, the style is modern and bold — white and orange walls, yellow and blue furnishings — and there’s a spacious sitting room and (though most wouldn’t dream of it on a beach holiday) a gym. Stroll down to the sandy beach, a few minutes’ walk away, visit the Valley of the Temples archaeological site, or just relax by the pool and enjoy the views.

Details From € 3,450 a week based on six sharing (additional charge for extra persons); 020-7193 0158, solosicily.com

20 Romantic idyll Spain Perfect for couples looking for an away-from-it-all retreat, Casita La Laguna, near Tarifa, is a one-bedroom beachside cottage tucked among sand dunes and umbrella pines at the end of a private track. It is eco-friendly (electricity is from wind and solar energy, water from springs) and chic: decorative Moroccan objets d’art, Indian bedspread, brightly painted bedside tables and lots of candles. A narrow footpath leads to the beach where you can saddle up one of the adjacent farm’s horses for a ride through the surf. Or head 30 minutes south to Tarifa, home to one of Europe’s best windsurfing beaches.

Details From £896 a week (£448pp); 0117-942 8476, i-escape.com

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1 Villa Pia, Lippiano, Umbria, Italy

The setting is an artist’s dream of rolling hills and cypress trees — and the food is sublime, served by white-bonneted Italian mammas on long communal tables. But you come to Villa Pia on the border of Tuscany and Umbria for the laid-back, house-party feel of it all. There are 17 simply-furnished rooms, and every family-friendly accessory you can think of. Parents can enjoy spa treatments while the children take cookery classes. If you tire of the adventure playground, tennis, two pools, trampoline and soft play room, Villa Pia is within an hour of Florence and Assisi.

Details From £70 per day for adults and £25 for children (2-12), on full board including drinks, from October to mid-May (excluding half-terms). Week-long summer stays £675-£860 per adult and £250-£430 per child; 00 39 0758 502027, www.villapia.com

2 Caserio del Mirador, Valencia, Spain

The joy of staying in one of the five apartments in this large villa halfway between Valencia and Alicante airports is that you can decide how private or communal you want to be. The simple but chic apartments have cooking facilities but five days a week the English owners, Sarah and Johnny, who live on site, cook for anyone who wants it. The delicious meals feature local produce — squid, morcilla (the local blood sausage), lentils and steak. There is an outdoor pool, a trampoline and other play items tucked into strategic corners around the grounds, along with rabbits, goats and ponies. Although the beach is about 35 minutes away and Benidorm with its theme parks about 40 minutes, you’ll want to spend plenty of time just gazing at the stunning view down the valley at the Caserio.

Details Apartments for four for £750-£1,300 a week. Meals €20-€25, children’s tea €7.50; 00 34 965 973024, villajalon.com

3 Almyra Hotel, Paphos, Cyprus

No one blinks an eye as you wheel your buggy through the sleek, minimalist hotel lobby, with its white marble floor and picture windows opening on to the sea. There are buggy ramps everywhere and the crèche accepts babies from four months old. The hotel lets you book up everything from nappies to a buggy, so you don’t have to carry it with you. There’s a fantastic slate-lined pool and a restaurant serving a Mediterranean menu with a strong Japanese influence.

Details €100pp per night, B&B, 00 35 726 888700, thanoshotels.com

4 Château Rigaud, Mouliets et Villemartin, France

Take one gorgeous château in France, kit out a 50ft gallery with toys, and add a cinema room with five sofas and chapel bar for parents, and you have one of the most chic places for family stays. The château combines boutique hotel luxury with a house-party feel — delicious meals with free-flowing wine are served on the long wooden dining table. The English owners, Anna and Andrew Barwick, who originally targeted families with toddlers, are starting to offer activities for older children, such as tennis and French lessons and the possibility of supervised camping in a wigwam in the garden. The downside is that there is no availability this year until December.

Details £350-£450 per room for two adults and two children, including all food and wine; 00 33 5 57 40 17 99, chateaurigaud.co.uk

5 Europe’s 1st Baby and Children’s Hotel, Carinthia, Austria

A long waterslide leads into the outdoor pool of this hotel, which also has a large soft play area, a bouncy castle and go-karts around the grounds. There’s a Mini parked outside the restaurant for children to play in, and a character kangaroo makes a daily appearance. The hotel features child-friendly accessories such as potties, microwaves for heating milk and free childcare. All you eat and drink, apart from aloholic drinks, is included in the price.

Details From €95 per room per night, plus €33-€40 per child, full board; 00 43 47 32 23 50, babyhotel.eu

6 Clydey Cottages, near Boncath, Pembrokeshire

One of the best cottage clusters in the UK thanks to its five-star accommodation, spectacularly scenic setting and enough facilities to keep little ones occupied for hours, from farmyard feeding and egg collecting to an indoor pool opening on to a sundeck. Because there are only ten pretty stone cottages, each with a blend of contemporary fixtures and original character, you get a fairly private feel.

Details £350-£2,000 per week (1-4 bedrooms); 01239 698619, clydeycottages.co.uk or babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk

7 Country Kids, near Montpellier, Languedoc, France

Country Kids blends the facilities of a luxury resort with the attention to detail and charm of a boutique hotel. For a price that compares very favourably with a week in a five-star resort, the hotel offers a complimentary crèche/kids club, run by qualified English-speaking staff, three activities per person per week, from kayaking and rock climbing to vineyard tours, a petting farm, most meals and two evenings of babysitting a week.

Details Two and three-bedroom apartments at £1,700-£4,400 per week, including most meals and activities; 00 33 4 67 97 18 94, country-kids.fr or babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk

8 Finca de Arietta, Lanzarote

Tucked about 300m back from the coast, this 30-acre estate is a glorious eco-retreat offering glamping at its best. Kids will adore it here: they can help themselves from the organic vegetable plot, feed the chickens, ride the donkey or splash about in a pool carved from pumice. They will especially enjoy the big adventure of camping in luxury eco-yurts. The yurts are furnished with elegant Indonesian day beds and exotic floor cushions and have decked terraces with hammocks and cushioned loungers. There are even granite worktops in the outdoor kitchens and a stylish wooden bath in the private bath house that comes with each yurt or cluster of family yurts.

Details Rentals from € 840 a week; 00 34 696 982 873, lanzaroteretreats.com or babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk

9 Number 29 B&B, Yeovil, Somerset

With the help of her daughter, who is qualified in childcare, former restaurant manager Angela welcomes sleep-starved couples with home-made tea and cakes, coos over the baby while they settle in and then packs them off for the short stroll to the local bistro while she or her daughter babysit. The pièce de résistance is the lie-in babysitting service. Parents duck back under their duvets for a well deserved lie-in followed by a long lazy home-cooked Sunday brunch.

Details Three-night breaks from £200, babysitting from £7 per hour; 01935 420046, number29.biz or babyfriendlyboltholes.co.uk

10 Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall

Comfortable and unpretentious, Bedruthan Steps has the best mix of children’s facilities, activities and entertainment I’ve yet seen in a British hotel, as well as a fantastic location above Mawgan Porth beach. There’s an indoor and outdoor pool, tennis courts, soft play area, play room with games and painting; outdoor play area including trampoline, swings, mini assault course and pirate ship and a daily programme of activities which in school holidays includes survival skills and treasure hunts on the beach. Excellent children’s clubs, divided into five age groups, cost £20-£25 for a three-hour morning session.

Details “Villa” rooms with a garden start at £310 per night, half board, based on two adults and two children sharing; 01637 860555, bedruthan.com.

11 Bowood House, Wiltshire

Bowood Hotel, tucked away in the grounds of 18th-century Bowood House, opened last summer and while it attracts a big golfing crowd — thanks to the 18-hole course on its doorstep — it’s also family-friendly. Trade an hour in the stately home (stuffed with unexpected treasures such as Napoleon’s death mask, and the lab where Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen) and a gallop through the wonderful gardens for an afternoon in the adventure playground where there’s a full-size pirate galleon, high-up walkways and an almost 20ft vertical-drop slide. At the hotel, there’s a spa pool that admits children at certain times and a restaurant that does good brasserie staples.

Details Rooms for a family of four from £235 per night, including breakfast for the adults; 01249 822228, bowood.org

12 Family Resort Werfenweng, Austria

This all-inclusive eco-resort is great value for money. Superbly run and as child-friendly as it could be without turning into a crèche, it’s small enough for children to make friends but big enough to keep them entertained, with two swimming pools, playground and kids’ clubs with activities during the day and evening — they’re in German but in the summer holidays there are usually enough British kids for a posse. The big eco-bonus is a selection of electric vehicles that can be borrowed to pootle around the resort and up to the nearby lake, as well as a programme of activities — hiking, mountain biking, riding and so on — as well as excursions to the Hohenwerfen Fortress and Salzburg, about an hour away.

Details Family rooms from £192; 00 436 466 4500, werfenweng.at

13 Anassa, Cyprus

If you’re looking for five-star family pampering with gorgeous rooms, dreamy sea views, well-run children’s clubs, a clutch of London-standard restaurants and attentive staff on tap, the Anassa ticks all the boxes. Set in deliciously scented gardens, it also has probably the best location in Cyprus, near the Akamas peninsula nature reserve and away from the crowds. Children, naturally, won’t care about this — what they will enjoy are the indoor and outdoor pools, the huge breakfast buffet, coconut milkshakes at the poolside bar and canoeing off the beach. There’s also a new Hercules club specifically for teens that will include sailing, tennis, scuba diving, movie nights, kayaking and a local market trip.

Details B&B in two interconnecting studio suites costs £595 a night for two adults and two children over 6 and under 12; 00 357 26 888 000, thanoshotels.com.

14 W Barcelona, Spain

The shiny, sail-shaped W towers over the waterfront and has quickly become a Barcelona landmark. It’s a brilliant base for a summer trip — on the beach at the end of the Barceloneta boardwalk — with a great outdoor pool. Book one of the “Wonderful” rooms on one of the upper floors to wow even the most blasé child. Floor-to-ceiling windows with views over the Med; huge comfy beds, curtains that close at the touch of a button and ever-changing mood lighting will keep them happy, as will Wave restaurant, which serves an excellent burger.

Details Rooms for three from £272 per night; 00 34 932 952800, w-barcelona.com

15 Tuscan View Apartments, Tuscany

A perfect base from which to explore the hill towns of San Gimignano and Certaldo, this beautiful working estate has loads to keep families happy, from tennis and horse riding to a full-blown spa. Several trails wind through the estate, which you can explore on foot or by mountain bike. The stylish apartments are located in a dozen restored farmhouses, each group of buildings clustered around its own swimming pool.

Details Two-bedroom apartment is £440-£770 per week, including Dover-Calais ferry crossings; 01653 617004, www.inntravel.co.uk

16 Casa Olea, Priego de Córdoba, Andalusia

Halfway between Córdoba and Granada, this luxurious six-room guesthouse is surrounded by ancient olive groves. The nearby riverside woodland is teeming with wildlife — the only sounds of nightlife are nightingales, frogs and owls. Casa Olea is perfect for a walking or mountain-biking holiday exploring local villages, so would particularly suit families with older children. Home comforts include stylish bedrooms, a swimming pool and a sun terrace.

Details From €79 per B&B double, plus €10 for an extra child’s bed and €5 for a cot; 00 34 696 748209, casaolea.com

17 Gwel an Mor, Portreath, Cornwall

At this cluster of stylish timber lodges with their hot tubs, wood-burning stoves and snazzy kitchens, parents can pamper themselves at the spa while kids head for the putting green, indoor pool and adventure play area. A restaurant serves delicious Cornish produce and there is a tailor-made booking service for activities ranging from surfing to horse riding. But the best day out is at Gwel an Mor itself, where local ranger Gary Zammit leads walking safaris in search of slow worms, slugs and sparrowhawks. You can also go pond dipping, rock-pooling, badger watching and — best of all — meet Gary’s rescued foxes and fly his barn owl, Sly.

Details Two and three-bedroom lodges from £399 a week; 01209 842354, gwelanmor.com.

18 Flying Boat Club, Isles of Scilly

Tresco, in the Isles of Scilly, famous for its white sands, turquoise waters and exotic plants, has 12 beachfront cottages ideal for families. With no cars on the island, kids can roam around safely, beaches are usually empty and there is a sailing club and boat trips to the other islands. Everything’s close to hand: there’s a cycle shop hiring out bikes for all ages, a shop that’s more like a mini Waitrose, and the restaurant is just behind the cottages. There is a new spa for weary parents and a fabulous indoor pool with wide shallow steps perfect for youngsters.

Details Cottages sleep 6-10 and are priced from £197 per night. Book through i-escape (i-escape.com/flyingboatclub.php) and receive a free bottle of wine with dinner at the Clubhouse.

19 Pristava Lepena, Slovenia

This cluster of simple but comfortable chalets is in an alpine meadow in Slovenia’s Triglav National Park. It’s perfect for active children — loads to do, with much of it included in the price — tennis, table tennis, mountain biking, archery, small swimming pool, riding lessons and trail riding. The chalets are ideal for families, with extra twin rooms and pull-out beds and kids are welcomed in the restaurant in the evenings.

Details Chalets sleep 3-8 and are priced from £139 per night; i-escape.com/pristava-lepena.php

20 Casas do Sal, Portugal

Eight enormous former workers’ cottages make up this colourful rustic bolt hole down a long sandy track cutting through a vast 2,000-hectare estate, past cattle grazing beneath ancient cork oaks. Each has a terrace and kitchenette with shiny gadgetry. There’s a big games room, swimming pool and tennis court, and with horses and a boat down on the lake this place is made for kids. Babysitters can be arranged in advance so parents can slope off for an evening out to Alcácer.

Details Apartments for four from £80 a night. Book through i-escape (i-escape.com/casas-do-sal.php) to receive a basket of fruit, jar of locally made honey or a bottle of wine on arrival.

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The week before last I walked the sea walls of Canvey Island. No one would call this shore of the lower Thames conventionally wild — there were fuel tankers in the channel and oil refinery flames in the sky. But there were also skylarks singing, shelduck feeding on the mudflats and reed buntings nesting along the ditches. The wild and the workaday were co-existing very nicely on the RSPB’s brand new West Canvey Marsh Reserve.

As we have become tamer, more urbanised and less in touch with the natural world, our fascination with the wild has grown. We long for contact with wild places, wild life and wild experiences, just to keep sane. When we step outside, we find to our relief that Britain has not been tamed by concrete and health-and-safety.

Wildness and walking — they’re synonymous. It doesn’t matter if it’s the margins of a ploughed field or a Scottish mountain-top, a salt-marsh in the middle of an RAF bombing range or a tangle of ancient woodland. The hare in the furrow, the storm-shattered crag, the curlew over the mudflats or the toadstool in the leafmould: they are all “other”, they are not us. You can get where they only are by walking there.

Here are 20 walks in the wild. Wildlife reserves, seawall paths, an ancient forest, a flowery limestone wilderness. These evoke the wild places of the imagination — druids and wicked witches, Norse legends, real-life tragedies. And there are uplands, hills, moors, mountains. Pen-y-fan, the crown of the Brecon Beacons; Glen Doll in the Angus glens; a windswept and captivating circuit of the Isle of Iona.

Which brings us back to Canvey Island. Wildness is all around; you just have to open your eyes to it. These 20 walks are wild and wonderful — but there are 20 more outside your back door. Stick a sandwich in your pocket, grab an OS Explorer map — and go.

Guide to difficulty ratings

1/5 A gentle, largely flat walk requiring little effort and ideal for those who want to start walking in the countryside

2/5 This walk requires moderate effort and has one or two modest ascents

3/5 Those after a moderate challenge will enjoy these walks: the terrain may be rough, there will be some ascents/descents

4/5 These are aimed at experienced walkers who enjoy demanding routes that are long and/or require physical effort; may require specialist hill-walking gear

5/5 For very knowledgeable walkers: parts of the route will not be marked by a path, there will be several steep ascents/descents and correct outdoor kit is essential

Walks

1 Whernside, North Yorkshire

2 Blanchland and Rookhope, Co Durham

3 Rough Tor and Brown Willy, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall Pages

4 Croaghan, Co Antrim

5 Slaidburn, Whitendale and Dunsop Bridge, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire

6 Dunsyre and the Covenanter’s Grave, South Lanarkshire

7 Gedney Drove End, Lincolnshire

8 Wayland’s Smithy and White Horse, Oxfordshire

9 Barbury Castle, Swindon, Wiltshire

10 Pen-y-fan and Cribyn, Brecon Beacons

11 Isle of Iona Inner Hebrides

12 Swine Sty and Big Moor, Peak District, Derbyshire

13 Ebbor Gorge and Priddy, Somerset

14 West Canvey Marsh RSPB Reserve, Essex

15 Glen Doll and the Den of Altduthrie, Angus

16 Pagham Harbour, West Sussex

17 Grassington Moor, Wharfedale, North Yorkshire

18 Hutton Roof Crags, near Burton-in-Kendal, Cumbria

19 Bedford Purlieus, near Wansford, Cambridgeshire

20 Wistman’s Wood, Dartmoor, South Devon

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Restrictions to UK airspace were mostly lifted this morning as a change in wind direction pushed the volcanic plume further north but passengers were still delayed as airports struggled to deal with the backlog from earlier closures.

Passengers flying with British Airways are also expected to face problems because of strike action by cabin crew from midnight tonight.

In its latest update the National Air Traffic Service, (NATS) said: “The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has lifted the no-fly zone that has been affecting flights at Heathrow and Gatwick this morning. The decision comes following further information from the Met Office about the nature and location of the ash cloud.”

But the skies above much of Northern Ireland and the Shetland Islands remained shut as the ash cloud linguered. There was a shifting picture in Belfast however as the International Airport was reopening from 1pm but just 20 miles away Belfast City airport remained closed.

Other airports in Scotland, Wales and Ireland will reopen at 1pm after a south-westerly wind swept the cloud out of airspace above most of the UK earlier than anticipated.

The current picture for airports in the UK is:

* Belfast City and Londonderry airports shut until further notice. As are Shetland and Orkney

* Arrivals will begin at Gatwick from 1pm. Airport otherwise open

* Heathrow warned of delays and cancellations with limited arrivals until 1pm

* Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea to reopen at 1pm

* Glasgow and Prestwick open. Belfast International open

* Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds Bradford, East Midlands, Carlisle, Doncaster and Humberside open

* Dublin closed until at least midday

* Passengers still advised to contact their airline before setting out.

Heathrow and Gatwick had been forced to close overnight because of the ash and partially reopened early this morning. Over 160 flights to and from Heathrow were cancelled and passengers experienced delays of between 20 and 30 minutes. Eurocontrol said 1,000 flights would be grounded across Europe today.

Airports in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland were also closed and remained shut throughout the morning.

Additional capacity was made available on alternative transport from Scotland to London, including an extra 7,000 seats on Virgin Trains. The tourist firm Steam Dreams, which runs steam train trips for enthusiasts between Edinburgh and London, also offered an extra 50 seats to passengers who were unable to fly this morning.

The Department of Transport has warned there may be restrictions across different parts of the UK until tomorrow when a change in wind direction is expected to blow the ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano away from Britain.

Philip Hammond, the new Transport Secretary, said test flights have taken place over the weekend to see if higher levels of ash can be tolerated by aircraft engines. “We are gathering more evidence all the time,“ he said.

“They are looking at what inspection regimes they can put in place that would allow safe flying through a somewhat higher threshold of ash.

“If we can do that the likelihood of volcanic ash disrupting flights will obviously diminish.”

The CAA told The Times that they were working to extend “red zones” in which planes can fly through ash as long as there are enhanced checks and inspections on the aircraft. Last week the “buffer zone” around high concentrations of ash was deemed unnecessary.

The airline industry has lost hundreds of millions through ash related shutdowns. BA has also been hit by strikes from its cabin crew.

The lastest BA strike was due to start at midnight but the airline was seeking an injunction against the first of a series of five day strikes in the High Court this morning.

An agreement has been reached in principle between the Unite union and the airline but the parties reached stalemate over reinstating travel perks for crew who went on strike over jobs and working practices last month.

Tony Woodley, the joint leader of Unite, said: “BA has said this was a battle for the long term future of the company, to have the right cost base and restructuring in place.

“All of these requirements have now been agreed, at least in principle, with Unite. Customers, shareholders and the BA board should now be asking why this strike is still going on.”

BA said it had endured two years of record annual losses and “must” reduce costs to ensure long-term survival, as many staff had accepted.

The Transport Secretary, who is meeting both parties today said both sides held “intransigent” positions.

“I don’t believe that it can be in the long term interests of the cabin crew at Heathrow to bring this airline to its knees,” he told Sky News.

“At a time when the airlines are already being disrupted by the ash cloud the last thing that we need is this. .. layering one problem on top of another.”

Last month the ash cloud caused millions of people to be stranded and airlines lost $1.7 billion, according to the International Air Transport Association.

The volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland has been erupting with no sign of the explosive activity ending and the ash plume has reached heights of 25,000 feet (7,620 metres), according to the Met Office.

Who decides to close the skies?

The Met Office produces forecasts and charts of the ash’s progress. These then go to the Civil Aviation Authority which decides where a no-fly zone should be imposed as a result of the position and density of the ash. The CAA then sends its charts and decisions to the National Air Traffic Service. They authorise the closure of airports but the final say on no-fly zones belongs with the CAA as regulator.

The CAA is working with manufacturers and airlines to expand the areas classed as “Red Zones” where aircraft can fly through ash so long as there are enhanced checks and inspections after the flight.

The CAA are advising Eurocontrol (Europe’s air traffic control service) on whether it is safe to fly. “We are closest to Iceland and our airpace is most affected so we have been able to lead the way with this,” a CAA spokesman told The Times.

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Professor Dumbledore is speaking to me in his study, the Hogwarts headmaster’s holographic projection so real that I feel I can touch it. The corridors of the school for wizards are lined with talking portraits, the final chamber filled with floating candles, and Harry Potter himself appears, urging me to follow him on a magical journey.

I am on a preview of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the latest attraction at Universal Orlando Resort, in Florida, which opens its gates to muggles, or those of us with no magical powers, on June 18. And from the minute that this particular muggle strolls through the village of Hogsmeade, I feel as if I am walking through J.K. Rowling’s imagination.

Although Rowling has not yet visited the Wizarding World she has been consulted on the finest details. With her input, people who created the films, including the production designer Stuart Craig and the art director Alan Gilmore, have spent three years translating them into an extraordinary experience. “Authenticity is paramount for us,” says Gilmore, pointing out that with the use of perspective, they have been able to make Hogwarts castle look even more imposing than its height of “several hundred” feet.

Although there are, perhaps disappointingly, only three rides in the 20acre park, the queueing system has been imaginatively designed to make it part of the enjoyment. It is a long journey through, and makes you wonder just how long the queues will be, although Universal says that they should be no longer than an hour.

So on the way to Dragon Challenge, a revamped ride previously called Duelling Dragons, I walk past both the original crashed Ford Anglia from the film and the Nimbus 2000 broomstick flown by Daniel Radcliffe and into the world of the Triwizards Cup tournament. Then I take my place on one of two intertwining rollercoasters where, at speeds approaching 60mph, we seem to come close to crashing before being flipped into mid-air.

The only part of the Wizarding World that I am not allowed to see is the final part of the signature ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which starts with the Hogwarts tour. Universal is keen to keep this under wraps for now because it uses a novel sequence of animatronics, robotics and the latest technology as riders fly over Hogwarts to a Quidditch match and an encounter with the happiness-sucking Dementors.

The ride and the park are due to open from May 28 — for the first three weeks exclusively to those booked with the Wizarding World’s official travel company, Virgin Holidays, which has also secured complimentary breakfast in the Three Broomsticks. It is in this atmospheric pub that I sip my first Butterbeer, the wizards’ brew that magically retains its froth until the last mouthful.

“It is a secret recipe; the formula is locked in a safe,” says Ric Florell, Universal’s senior vice-president, who is proud of the theme-park fare. At Honeydukes sweet shop, I sample a particularly nasty onion variety of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean.

Down the street, at Ollivanders (Hogsmeade branch), where wands are stacked higgledy-piggledy up to the ceiling, the wandmaker picks someone from the audience to help to enact the scene in which Harry Potter is chosen by his wand. The shop, though, can only hold about 30 people and you can imagine how devastated children will be if they are not the one singled out by the wandmaker.

You can buy a wand, a broomstick or a Sneakoscope to test for dark magic among an array of merchandise — though it will cost you a fortune — or just stare at the mesmerising shop window displays. You can also send letters with a Hogsmeade cancellation in the Owl Post.

In this magical land, even the toilets have been given a touch of imagination: echoing through them is the plaintive wail of the ghost of Moaning Myrtle, who haunts the Hogwarts girls’ lavatory.

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Iquestion if there be a room in England which commands a view of mountains and lakes and woods superior to that in which I am now writing.” If you read that in a holiday-home company’s blurb, you might dismiss it as a touch flowery. But when you learnt that the copywriter was a Mr Coleridge, you’d sit up and take notice. You might even want to stay there. And you can.

Samuel Taylor’s Cumbrian bolt hole is just one of many used by famous scribes. Writers like to write in nice places, and people like to go on holiday to nice places: put those two facts together and it’s not so surprising that you can take a break in a bunch of houses where our greatest authors lived and worked. Like their erstwhile occupants, each is inspiring in its own distinct way, and each offers a particular insight into their work. Enjoy — and, if you go, don’t forget to pack a good book.

JOHN KEATS
26 Piazza di Spagna, Rome

Given his prodigious talent, the tragedy of Keats’s early death captures the imagination as much as his life and work. Enfeebled by tuberculosis, he was in no state to appreciate it, but the great Romantic chose a beautiful place to go: this 17th-century building by the Spanish Steps looks straight up to Santa Trinita dei Monti. The flat for rent is a floor above the one in which he died in 1821, but it’s identical in layout and hardly altered, with period furniture and the same spectacular views; downstairs is a museum to his life. Sleeping three, it starts at £291 per night (three nights minimum) with the Landmark Trust (01628 825925, landmarktrust.org.uk).

GEORGE ORWELL
Barnhill, Jura

One for the purists, this. It’s hard to imagine the all-seeing eye of Big Brother reaching to this remote croft (nearest paved road five miles; nearest shop 25 miles), and perhaps that’s one reason Orwell chose to write Nineteen Eighty-Four here. The other would be his taste for asceticism — Barnhill is fairly basic, with a grumpy generator for power and a Rayburn for heat, but wildly beautiful, too, with deer on the lawn and seals in the bay looking over to Loch Crinan. In private hands, it sleeps six, with prices starting at £600 a week: this year’s full, but to ask about bookings, email lennieston@aol.com.

LAWRENCE DURRELL
The White House, Corfu

Durrell loved Corfu, and Prospero’s Cell, the book he wrote in this simple cube perched by the water at the edge of Kalami’s pretty little beach, is a hymn of praise to the island. The house suited him well: “The windows give directly on the sea, so that its perpetual sighing is the rhythm of our work and our sleeping. By day it runs golden on the ceilings,” he wrote in the 1930s. It still does, as you’ll find if you stay in the top-floor apartment: sleeping eight, it starts at £455pp per week, including flights, with CV Travel (020 7401 1026, cvtravel.co.uk).

ROALD DAHL
The Cabin, Tenby, Dyfed

The potent mix of adventure and subversion in Dahl’s books has kept children engaged for decades, and here, in his childhood holiday home, it’s easy to picture him up to some highly imaginative mischief. He came to Tenby with his family every year from the age of five, staying at this apartment in a Grade I-listed building that rises straight from the sea wall, and later wrote fondly about taking donkey rides on the beach and eating freshly gathered winkles. Sleeping six, it’s still perfect for a traditional family holiday: the high position means you can keep an eye on what the kids are getting up to on the beach from your window. A week from July 17 costs £1,243 with Coastal Cottages (01437 765765, www.coastalcottages.co.uk).

JOHN BETJEMAN
43 Cloth Fair, London EC1

The avuncular poet laureate lived in this 17th-century house near Smithfield market from 1954 to 1971, and you can see why he loved it: simple, elegant, in one of the few corners of the City unvandalised (as he would have put it) by strident tower blocks. It’s now also one of the trendiest, with an organic Italian restaurant on the ground floor and nightclubs down the street. He might have rather enjoyed that. You can rent the top two floors, toast your toes by the gas coal fire and read “Come, friendly bombs...” on the little roof terrace. Prices start at £607 for a three-night weekend with the Landmark Trust (01628 825925, landmarktrust.org.uk).

AGATHA CHRISTIE
Greenway, Devon

Miss Marple would feel right at home in this solidly unfussy Georgian detached, although Poirot would no doubt find plenty to be suspicious of. Looking down over the Dart estuary, this sunny, benevolent and terribly English spot was Christie’s summer home for 38 years, and she set three books here. (Five Little Pigs features a gratifyingly nasty murder in the garden.) It’s now open to the public, but the National Trust has used a big chunk of the first and second floors for a holiday apartment, sleeping 10, all furnished in the 1930s style Christie would have known. There’s a private garden with a pool in which to hide from the hordes. A week in September is £2,167 (nationaltrustcottages.co.uk).

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Greta Hall, Cumbria

He just couldn’t stop raving about it. “The room in which I write commands six distinct Landscapes — the two Lakes, the Vale, River, & mountains, & mists, & Clouds, & Sunshine make endless combinations, as if heaven & Earth were for ever talking to each other.” The room in question, then Coleridge’s study, is now the master bedroom of the Coleridge Wing at Greta Hall, in Keswick. He lived here for six years, wrote the second part of his epic poem Christabel here, and entertained Wordsworth, Southey, Byron, Shelley: a sort of Romantic poets’ love-in. Now Grade I-listed, the place still has the appeal that drew them all (he wasn’t exaggerating about the views). The wing sleeps six; a week starts at £480 with Cumbrian Cottages (01228 599960, cumbrian-cottages.co.uk).

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Treasure Island Cottage, Deeside

Ah, Jim lad: it was in this very stone cottage that Stevenson came up with Jim Hawkins, Blind Pew and Long John Silver. Admittedly, he let his imagination wander a little — Braemar is a long way from the Caribbean — but there’s Boy’s Own adventure aplenty to be had in the glens of Royal Deeside all around, and the scenery is superb (despite the lack of palm trees). It’s a cosy place, sleeping four, with a wood-burning stove in the vast stone inglenook and some canny pubs nearby. A high-season week costs £395 with Ecosse Unique (01835 822277, unique-cottages.co.uk).

Sant’Antonio, near Tivoli, Italy

Okay, it’s hard to be certain that this is the site of a villa belonging to Rome’s greatest lyric poet — the academics are still squabbling about it — but two things are beyond dispute: the walls of Sant’Antonio, once a monastery overlooking the hills near Tivoli, date back to a bang-on 60BC, and have the mosaics and Latin inscriptions to prove it; and a holiday here, in simple rooms with wondrous, unchanged views, has a sense of timelessness that chimes perfectly with the poet’s world-view. The wine’s great, too. Sleeping 12, it starts at £311 per night (three nights minimum) with the Landmark Trust (01628 825925, landmarktrust.org.uk).

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18.00
While everyone naps before dinner, you’d be wise to chalk up some crowd-magnets: on a Saturday, the Guggenheim is open until 7.45pm (guggenheim.org ); while on a Saturday, the MOMA closes at 8pm (moma.org). Or begin queuing now to ascend the Empire State Building– this is about as short as the line gets; alternatively, the last lift is at 1.15am (esbnyc.com).

18.30
Liberty Helicopter’s 20-minute New York New York tour swoops past the United Nations and Chrysler Buildings, the Yankee Stadium and Times Square; the last flight leaves at 6.30pm (libertyhelicopter.com; £150), as the sky adjusts itself to dusk. Of course, there are views to electrify which don’t cost your dinner money; advance to Manhattan by foot on the stately Brooklyn Bridge by taking the subway to Jay Street or High Street in Dumbo.

20.00
The porterhouse at Peter Luger Steak House will set you up for the night, but if you eat it with German fried potatoes and creamed spinach, there’s a chance you’ll be asleep before the Late Show with David Letterman (peterluger.com; mains from £21). If you’d rather not give proper dinner the time of day, grab a burger at the legendary joint tucked behind a velvet curtain in the atrium lobby of Le Parker Meridien - you’ll spot the queue before you spot the curtain (parkermeridien.com/eat4; burgers £4.50).

21.00
The Bowery Poetry Club hosts raucous literary evenings in the style of the legendary Bowery of old, a street which was historically all flophouses and whiskey joints. Behind the sound booth, the Art Wall hosts changing exhibitions; at the bar, cocktail ingredients are written out in poem format. Check the schedule for poetry slams, film screenings and bingo nights (bowerypoetry.com; 308 Bowery).

23.00
Whether you want a hot dog or not, your next stop is Crif Dogs on Saint Mark’s Place (crifdogs.com). Once within, look left and step inside the phone booth, through which you might be gruffly admitted to PDT, an annexe-like bar. If you really want, you can order deep-fried dogs from next door to nibble with your Brooklyn beers and cocktails (001 212 614 0386, pdtnyc.com, 113 St Marks Place).

00:00
For big fun and frolics around bedtime, NYC’s newest bowling lanes have it all. Brooklyn Bowl is set in a renovated Williamsburg iron foundry, with 16 lanes, live music and Brooklyn Brewery ales. Await your turn on brown Chesterfields in the bowler’s lounge with fried chicken platters and Bourbon-Nutella milkshakes. In coming weeks, look out for hip hop karaoke nights, a Snoop Dogg gig, and the Lebowski Fest. Open until 2am (4am on Saturdays). brooklynbowl.com, £33 per lane per hour.

02.00
Take it down a notch on what is set to be Midtown’s hottest rooftop; Upstairs at the Kimberly,is due to open any time soon. It has beauty (bundles of foliage, bronze panelling, dark leather furniture and strings of incandescent lighting), plus brains (retractable glass ceilings and heated floors). kimberlyhotel.com, 145 East 50th Street

03:00
Midnight feasting can be a tricky business, but if you’re in Soho, trust in Bruce & Eric Bromberg’s Blue Ribbon brasserie, which was originally aimed at working chefs. The menu is as dashing a late night catalogue as you’re likely to encounter, with lobster and sweetbreads set among burgers and a duck club sandwich (blueribbonrestaurants.com; mains from £13). More conventional, stodgy bites can be found at the very yellow, macaroni-shaped Macbar, which serves mac’n’cheese flecked with all-sorts, including duck confit, lobster or mushroom (macbar.net; from £3.90).

04.00
Located on the famous street of the same name, The Bowery Hotel offers low lighting for slinking in unnoticed, a glamorous lounge for winding down, and the restaurant’s soul-reviving baked eggs (theboweryhotel.com; doubles from £210, room only). In SoHo, the new Crosby Street Hotel is the home you wish Kit Kemp would design for you, complete with ravishing drawing room, snug screening rooms and afternoon tea for tomorrow. When the sun threatens to rise, get to bed; the bedroom windows show off the magnificent, pinky SoHo sky (firmdale.com; doubles from £325, room only).

Laura Goodman is the editor of the Thrifty Gobbler food blog

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Mexico Can’t do cold water? Then the Sea of Cortes should tick your boxes; the average temperature in the briny here is 25C . You will be based on Espiritu Santo island in Baja California, and the swimming during the week-long trip (about 6km each day) is along beaches and through coves and bays where you may be an object of curiosity for inquisitive sea lions.

Details Trips take place this October and cost £845, including accommodation, guiding and most meals, but not flights. Swimtrek, 01273 739713, swimtrek.com

Wales Enthusiastic novices who fancy giving wild swimming a go can simply turn up at Bala in Gwynedd on July 10 for a 1km lake swim — bring a cozzie, cap, goggles, registration fee and some Vaseline (to stop chafing). A Thermos of hot tea for afterwards might be a good idea, too. There’s another “turn up and swim” event for amateurs at Lynn Regis, Norfolk, on September 18.

Details British Long Distance Swimming Association (0191-526 4215, bldsa.org.uk).

Finland Taking lazy swims in lakes and rivers under the midnight sun is the attraction here, as well as being able to warm up afterwards in a traditional sauna. You are based in a rural, 19th-century manor house in Kormu, and there is also some walking during the week.

Details Swimtrek (see above) runs two tours in July ( full for 2010 but you can register for next year) for £785. For DIY options, see visitfinland.com.

Ireland On July 24 you can swim for 2km along the Lee river through the centre of Cork, along with 350 or so fellow enthusiasts — there are several age categories, including ones for 12-17 and 80 to 84-year-olds, but the time limit for finishing is 1 hour 15 minutes..

Details corkmasters.ie. Online registration is €35 (about £30).

Egypt Chase away the winter blues by swimming in Sinai. Based in the popular dive spot at Dahab, you can glide over coral and around the Blue Hole, which has an 80m drop-off only 5m from shore. There is also a camel ride one day to reach one remote swim, and you certainly don’t get that down at the council pool.

Details Swimtrek (see above) runs tours in November and February, from £615.

Alcatraz, USA “Escape from the Rock” across the 2km stretch of water that separates the infamous former penitentiary from downtown San Francisco. You will need expert guidance, a knowledge of the tides and a wetsuit. Local swimmer Gary Emich has zipped across, sans ferry, more than 500 times so is definitely the man to organise the trip.

Details Emich (001 650 359 3773, lanelinestoshorelines.com) can organise an Alcatraz swim for $370 (£255) for up to five swimmers with at least 65 days’ advance notice. The water is warmest in late August to mid-October.