Any visitor to Paris who’s been brave enough to rent a car knows all about the problems of driving there (try negotiating the giant roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe in the rush hour!) And then there’s the parking. If you happen to choose a forbidden area, you could find a dreaded sabot de Denver (‘Denver boot’ or wheel clamp) when you return. And don’t think it’s any better for the locals. One anonymous car-owner, apparently fed up with looking for a place to park his car, has paid 470,0... Read Full Story

There are ambitious multi-million pound plans to transform Northern Ireland’s oldest prison into a four-star hotel. Armagh jail, which is a listed building, has stood on a prime site in Armagh city for 230 years, during which time it hosted numerous executions. It closed as a prison in 1986. It was one of the key detention centres for women prisoners during the sectarian unrest (‘The Troubles’) that blighted Northern Ireland for more than thirty years. Bernadette Devlin, who was jailed the... Read Full Story

Congratulations to Venice’s first woman gondolier – 23-year-old mother-of-two Giorgia Boscolo. The business has been all-male for some 900 years but Ms Boscolo passed the rigorous course, which involved propelling and guiding the 35-foot long gondola, navigating the city’s winding waterways and predicting treacherous tides and currents. She had to undergo 400 hours of instruction. The course was introduced in 2007 after centuries during which the trade was handed down from father to son. Tw... Read Full Story

Picture the scene: you’re travelling on London Underground’s Piccadilly line (the dark blue one) towards Heathrow Airport and the driver’s public address system crackles into action. You’re expecting no more than the standard ‘mind the gap between the train and the platform’, or ‘change here for the Northern line,’ but what you hear is: ‘without music, life would be a mistake’. Alternatively, it could be ‘to live is to dream’, or ‘beauty will save the world’. It’s the latest idea to ease the... Read Full Story

One of the giants of the hotel business is retiring this summer after more than 40 years running the celebrated Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. Kurt Wachtveitl, who’s 72, took over the Oriental in 1967 after completing hotel school in Switzerland and working at several European hotels. He became General Manager of an establishment with a proud history. Founded in 1876 by two Danish sea captains, the Oriental’s A-list crowd in the early days included the cream of the literati, including ... Read Full Story

The Italian airline, Alitalia, has apologised after its in-flight magazine printed a map which left out the island of Sicily. Sicily is Italy’s largest region and the biggest island in the Mediterranean, but a passenger noticed it had disappeared from the route map as she was on a flight to that very place. Smaller islands such as Sardinia were correctly marked. The magazine’s editor, Aldo Canale, said it was a simple printing error: “We have run lots of editions on the beauty of Sicily and ... Read Full Story

As summer gets into full swing over here in Europe, I return to a rather prickly subject – jellyfish. A warning has gone out on the beaches of the Costa del Sol in Spain about the arrival of the potentially deadly Portuguese man o’war. This creature has tentacles that can be 30 yards long and are barbed with a sting ten times stronger than an ordinary jellyfish. Xavier Pastor, from Oceana, an ecological campaigning group, said: “The Portuguese man o’war hasn’t been seen in the Mediterranea... Read Full Story

As surveys go, this one is pretty gross. Our friends at Tripadvisor.com have come up with a top five tourist attractions that could be bad for your health as they’re so germ-ridden. Here they are in reverse order: At number 5 is the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where celebrities leave their hand- and footprints for posterity. Apparently, it’s covered in grime from the countless visitors who see if their hands and feet match those of the stars. St Mark’s is a beauti... Read Full Story

The latest character created by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is about to hit the big screen … and Austrians are bracing themselves. After Ali G and Borat comes Bruno, an outrageously camp fashion reporter who wants to be the ‘most famous Austrian since Hitler’. The movie is, according to one reviewer in the UK ‘deeply offensive and very funny’. Austria, however, might not see the joke. There are fears that the country could have a similar experience to Kazakhstan, which is still rec... Read Full Story

Coastal erosion is threatening Byron Bay, one of Australia’s most popular tourist areas. Severe storms and tides have combined to push the shore at Byron Bay back by 20 yards in some places. The local council has closed paths on some of the town’s beaches and has warned that the weather has created dangerous vertical sand dune escarpments of up to 16 feet along the shore. Situated on the north coast of New South Wales, the Bay is a favourite stop-off for backpackers on the route from Sydney ... Read Full Story