Heather on her travels video

April and May are the Bluebell months in England but the April showers were also plentiful this year. For several weekends I’d been watching the bluebells in our front garden, wanting to get out into the Bluebell woods around Bristol but put off by the heavy rain. Finally we got a sunny da...

Hotel Valencia rises from the  San Antonio Riverwalk with a shades-of-ochre facade that is distinctly Mediterranean rather than North American. This luxury San Antonio hotel takes its design inspiration from an old world Italian palazzo although the teracotta roof tiles also reminded me of the S...

One ten-hour flight, two airline meals, three in-flight movies and a hire car pick after leaving London and I was thanking my lucky stars that we only had to drive 20 minutes from the airport before we arrived at the Park Inn Hotel in North Houston. One of the big selling points of this mode...

This is my daughter Sophie-Anne’s account of her trip to Auschwitz as part of the Lessons from Auschwitz project. The visit was arranged by the Holocaust Educational Trust who work to educate young people about the Holocaust so they can see for themselves  the terrible consequences of...

It was February, it was cold and threatening snow in Bristol but we were off to Wales to spend a weekend on the Gower and celebrate my husband’s birthday with the family. My oldest son has just started university at Swansea which is the gateway to the Gower peninsula in South Wales (th...

On the roof of the Hotel Elite Plaza in Gothenburg sits the statue of Mother Svea, the warrior princess who personifies the Swedish nation, with shield on one side and lions on the other, ready to repel all those who might dare to invade her beloved homeland. From our room on the 5th floor j...

” The style at Basement is rough food “, I was told by the head chef, Camilla Parkner – strange, I thought for a Michelin star restaurant! But she quickly qualified; “It’s stylish-rough – we take food that you might eat for Sunday dinner at your grandparen...

There seems to be a trend in Europe for painting public buildings with light shows, so we were pleased to find that Gothenburg hosts a Julfilm or Christmas film projected onto the facade of the Museum of Art. We were in Gothenburg in West Sweden for a short break in December to get into the...

Gothenburg has a well earned reputation as a gourmet destination offering everything from wonderful seafood to traditional Swedish dishes to cosy cafes to sip a hot chocolate or have a fika break with a strong coffee and cinnamon bun. Here are some of the Swedish tastes that you might enjoy...

When they renovated the Ibsens hotel in Copenhagen the bit they didn’t change was the iconic red neon Hotel sign and that just about sums it up; a little bit retro, a lot of modern design, a smattering of vintage and a big part of the neighbourhood.

Ibsens Hotel, Copenhagen...