Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-11-05T10:55:29.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Exploring Zambia, the star of BBC One's Kingdom
items: As seen on Apple TV's The Last Frontier: Discover Alaska the luxurious way
items: Only Murders in the Building season 5: NYC filming locations to visit
items: Whitstable Pearl offers a taste of the Kent coast – and the real star is the location
items: Jason Momoa's Chief of War pulls back the curtain on the 'real' Hawaii
items: Where to see the world's wildest animals from Apple TV+'s The Wild Ones
items: Walking The Salt Path like Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs
items: 5 travel spots where you can discover the dinosaurs of the past
items: The Great Wall of China steals the show in Race Across the World
items: Tour de Fred: Following Fred Sirieix's trail through Northern Ireland and Donegal
items: Inside Jeremy Pang's Hong Kong Kitchen
items: Why Jersey still steals the show in the new Bergerac starring Damien Molony
items: The White Lotus locations: Where to stay, eat and explore in Thailand
items: How Hugh Dennis tricked David Baddiel into a 500km bike ride
items: How to experience Costa Rica – without running from Bear Grylls
items: Griff Rhys Jones goes across the outback by rail on a great Australian adventure
items: Posso entrare? Exploring Naples with Trudie Styler
items: Taking a cue from Mark Wahlberg's Flight Risk: An Alaskan expedition
items: Amanda and Alan swap Italy for Spain in their boldest renovation yet
items: Branching out: The UK’s most enchanting treehouse retreats
items: A travel guide to 'The Road Trip’s' Gran Canaria
items: Vienna as seen in The Empress: tradition, elegance, and modern flair
items: Gary Barlow’s South African wine adventure: a tour of vines, views, and fine dining
items: Croatian delights - The Day of the Jackal
items: Perusing Peru like Paddington Bear
items: Why Vermont called Beetlejuice back for more
items: Inside the world's most extraordinary hotels with Monica Galetti
items: Napoleon in Paris
items: Van Gogh in Arles
items: Ditch the screens: Ed Stafford on reconnecting with nature (and your kids)

Exploring Zambia, the star of BBC One's Kingdom
type: item
date: 2025-11-05T10:53:40.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Drama, action, comedy – African wildlife has it all. So, how can you get exclusive access to the stars of Kingdom?
encoded: The elephant in the room here is an actual elephant in the room. I’ve popped back to my safari camp suite for a post-lunch nap, you see, and found a 900-stone pachyderm in my sitting area. (The Albida Suite has open walls and it turns out Nelly and friends like to wander in to drink from its plunge pool.) This is one of the perks of doing a safari in Zambia rather than more touristed destinations such as Kenya or South Africa – and is possibly why David Attenborough and the crew of Kingdom chose Zambia for its epic four-year shoot. The natural history blockbuster, which follows four animal families over almost half a decade, was shot in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, and that’s where I began my own, sadly rather briefer, safari. Nkwali Camp, which I’d booked through experts Robin Pope Safaris (robinpopesafaris.net), gazes aristocratically down over a hippo-filled river, its collection of breezy wood-and-thatch cottages seemingly playing hide-and-seek with each other in a forest of ebony trees. Browse this safari holiday from Newmarket Holidays & experience your own trip to Africa Game drives are undertaken in 4WDs with a couple of rows of seats fixed high on the vehicle’s back end – so everyone gets a great view, and in a further crucial contrast with the sometimes cattle-truck experience of a safari in such honeypot destinations as Kenya’s Maasai Mara or South Africa’s Kruger, it soon becomes apparent that we have the animals more or less to ourselves. When, within minutes of the beginning of my first drive, we come across a small herd of zebras, I wait for what I previously thought was the inevitable chug-chug-chug of a dozen other vehicles joining us – and it never comes. “Exclusivity” is a much-bandied word in luxury travel, but here it’s more than a mere snobbish refusal to holiday with Ordinary Folk. Without a ravening pack of Land Cruisers waiting to descend every time an animal is spotted, you feel as if you’re really interacting with the landscape an…

462GJ5JMB-ee69517.jpg
width: 6046
height: 4031

As seen on Apple TV's The Last Frontier: Discover Alaska the luxurious way
type: item
date: 2025-10-14T13:00:56.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Want to explore wild Alaska without the fear of frostbite? A cosseting cruise offers hot tubs and fine dining alongside spectacular scenery.
encoded: “This is Alaska,” says local lawman Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke) to his CIA counterpart as they consider the difficulties of rounding up 18 convicts on the loose across the state’s frozen wastes in Apple TV’s The Last Frontier. Daunting, sure, but “This is Alaska, too,” I think to myself as I accept some champagne and nibble a Princess Love Boat Dream – a “heart-shaped dessert with layers of chocolate-raspberry mousse and vanilla-raspberry cream on a shortbread cookie base” – on board the Grand Princess, where I’m experiencing Alaska in rather more comfort than Remnick or his 18 unwelcome guests. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday While The Last Frontier’s frostbitten felons check in (and, in some cases, promptly check out) when their prisoner transport plane crash[1]lands in the middle of a snowy forest, my Air Canada jet glides safely into Vancouver. There I spend a few very pleasant days among its excellent food markets, parks and beaches before boarding Grand Princess for my Voyage of the Glaciers cruise, which will wind its delightfully unhurried way north to Anchorage. Three ‘port days’ give me a flavour of the Last Frontier (also Alaska’s official state nickname); two ‘scenic cruising’ days provide spectacular views of glaciers and icebergs without my even having to leave the (extreme) comfort of my hot tub; and the itinerary’s single ‘sea day’ allows me to savour the ship’s spas, bars and even ‘Movies under the Stars’, where I happily goggle a Harry Potter on the open top deck’s huge screen, hunkered under a blanket with cookies. Slightly more adventurous are the 150-odd excursions available through Grand Princess (similar ones can be booked independently, of course). Options range from mild to wild, but each one drops you deeper into the landscape or lifestyle of Alaska than the ship alone ever could. Each port day, helicopters whisk passengers up to other-worldly icefields where huskies howl; floatplanes trace fjords and emerald i…

The-Last-Frontier-4083014.jpg
width: 2400
height: 1600

Only Murders in the Building season 5: NYC filming locations to visit
type: item
date: 2025-09-10T09:33:05.000Z
creator: Nick Redman
subject: Travel
subject: Disney Plus
subject: Hulu
description: Planning a city break in the Big Apple? Here are some must-see gems to pack into a long weekend.
encoded: Cole Porter may have made a song and dance about Paris in the spring time, but I’ve always had a thing for New York in autumn. What’s not to love, with the oaks turning bronze in Madison Square Park, and the Japanese zelkova trees deepening to purple along the upper reaches of Broadway. There’s an added reason to be in a New York state of mind this September. Hit comedy Only Murders in the Building (OMITB) returns to Disney+ for a fifth season. As before, it stars Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short as friends who live in a palatial apartment block, the Arconia. In each series, a grisly murder takes place in the property, which the three – keen sleuths who even begin their own crime podcast – set out to solve. Visually the drama is life-affirming, a love letter to the city’s rich, bohemian, art-loving Upper West Side, where so much drama unfolds that the best verdict I’ve read by a reviewer of the series is that it feels as if “Nora Ephron had made a murder mystery.” Mood-wise, it’s quintessentially Ephron (creator of screen romances When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, known for its saccharine denouement atop the Empire State); Woody Allen, too, come to think of it (see 1977’s Annie Hall, with Diane Keaton), only with corpses. The plot line may be fanciful, involving, in this series: “a dangerous web of secrets connecting powerful billionaires, old-school mobsters, and the mysterious residents of the Arconia,” but OMITB is a beautiful salute to the megawatt screen magnetism of Manhattan, bathed in autumnal light, with locations you could build your own long-weekend NYC itinerary around. I love almost everything about New York, having been lured back repeatedly by its rollicking nightlife and laid-back neighbourhood food scenes in the East, West and Greenwich villages. There’s the thrill of on-and-off-Broadway theatre and the photo-appeal of the seasonal farmers’ markets in squares and parks, piled high with fruit and veg in traffic-light colours. …

1765210447R-6cb0ac3.jpg
width: 3000
height: 2000

Whitstable Pearl offers a taste of the Kent coast – and the real star is the location
type: item
date: 2025-08-12T15:30:56.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: Inspired by the Kent-set crime drama Whitstable Pearl, our writer takes you to the real Whitstable – a working harbour town where salty breezes, shingle beaches and freshly shucked oysters are the stars of the show.
encoded: Kerry Godliman pioneered it, but I’m naming it. Whitstable Pearl is “seafood noir” – and if it hasn’t yet inspired a whole copycat TV genre (which it probably will), it has certainly inspired a few visits to its real-world milieu. The crime show, set on the Kent coast, is currently into its third series of salty, sinister murders and lingering glances across the shingle, with Godliman as the seafood-slinging sleuth. But the true star is the location: real-life Whitstable has all the bobbing oyster yawls, creaking hulls and fresh-fish-fuelled charm of the show, but without simmering suspense between mussels and main course. Browse our tours of the UK and Ireland here Truth be told, you don’t need a murder mystery to find intrigue in Whitstable. A short hop from London – under 80 minutes by train – it’s long on seaside appeal. The harbour is still working, the high street still hosts actual marine supplies stores among the Breton-top-toting boutiques, and there’s still the sense that locals would be here with or without the influx of weekenders and the occasional TV camera crew. Start, as Godliman’s Pearl Nolan herself might, with a wander along Harbour Street. It’s a pick ’n’ mix of vintage stores, artist-run galleries and those irresistibly browsable little shops where everything seems to smell of driftwood and lavender. A few steps farther is the Harbour Market, where oysters are shucked to order for just £2.50 each, and you can pick up nautical knick-knacks. It’s either delightfully authentic or one puff of wind away from twee, depending on your mood and how many Whitstable Brewery Oyster Stouts you’ve had from the open-air bar next to the oyster-shuckers… The beach itself is no golden-sanded sprawl; instead, it’s a salt-tang shinglescape, fringed with candy-coloured beach huts and shaped by centuries of North Sea breezes. It’s a beach for dog-walkers and daydreamers, not for sandcastles or sunbathing, though when I visited last month the water was warm enough for…

whitstable-pearl-80a5917.jpg
width: 3840
height: 2160

Jason Momoa's Chief of War pulls back the curtain on the 'real' Hawaii
type: item
date: 2025-07-22T14:58:53.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
subject: Apple TV
description: If you want to get a taste of authentic island life away from the tourist hotspots, head this way…
encoded: As new Apple TV+ drama Chief of War was conceived by Jason Momoa to shed some light on the indigenous experience of Hawaiian tribes, and tells the little-known story of the bloody campaign to unite their warring kingdoms, I felt some sense of responsibility to echo this in my trip – albeit with some high-thread-count bedding. The first rule was to avoid Honolulu, surrounding island Oahu, and ‘The Big Island’ (Hawaii itself)… because thar be Taco Bells. The second rule was to try and glean some sense of an authentic experience whilst enjoying that comfort blanket of luxury. Tourism images often show a version of Hawaii filtered through social media, while Chief of War offers something different: a dramatic retelling of actual events through Native eyes, set against Hawaii’s own landscapes. A complete novice to Hawaii – which is quite common among Brits due to the length of the journey – I elect to spend some time in Lāna‘i, and Kauaʻi. The former, one of the least visited, is also the smallest: no traffic lights, one school for all ages, and just 30 miles of paved road. The latter is more a locals’ island: rainforest, strip malls, beach culture... and home to celebrities who no longer need to have LA on their doorstep. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday An 11-hour flight from New York under my belt (yes, we are talking about 20 hours total from the UK here), I lollop through Honolulu Airport to be met by a valet, who escorts me to my 12-person plane for the half-hour flight to Lāna‘i. Would it be this seamless if I weren’t staying at the Four Seasons (fourseasons.com) resort? Well, yes, this is a locals’ plane too – the choppy waves so loved by the global surfing community make inter-island boats quite the challenge. Four Seasons now makes up the majority of employment on Lāna‘i, which was once a pineapple plantation. In their two locations – the sprawling resort down at the beach, and adults-only Sensei located at an old lodge house in the …

ChiefofWarPhoto010104-eea9937.jpg
width: 5951
height: 3967

Where to see the world's wildest animals from Apple TV+'s The Wild Ones
type: item
date: 2025-07-01T15:30:37.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: Seeing animals in their natural environment doesn’t mean you have to compromise on comfort...
encoded: If you usually take an ex-Royal Marines sniper with you on holiday, you can stop reading now. For you, it will be enough simply to watch The Wild Ones (which starts on Apple TV+ next week) and copy the exploits of its presenters – wildlife cameramen Declan Burley and Vianet Djenguet, plus the former Royal Marines Commando who’s keeping them safe, Aldo Kane. From the deserts of Mongolia to the frigid oceans off Canada, the trio visit unpromising and inhospitable environments in search of tigers, whales, leopards and more, returning with the most amazing footage. But if you’re more “mild one” than Wild One, there are easy-breezy versions of each of their six trips – even as effortless as easing yourself onto a cruise ship… SO YOU WANT TO SEE... Tigers THE WILD ONES WAY Find the Malayan tiger (one of the world’s most endangered) in the rainforests of Malaysia. THE MILD ONES WAY Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan is one of the best places on Earth to see wild tigers (tourism.rajasthan.gov.in). Just a few hours’ drive from Jaipur – and its maharajas’-palaces-turned-luxury-hotels – this former royal hunting ground is now a protected sanctuary, where Bengal tigers prowl amid lakes, ruins and banyan forests. Guided jeep safaris run daily, but the best time to visit is between October and March, when the weather’s cooler and animals cluster near shrinking waterholes. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday SO YOU WANT TO SEE... Bears THE WILD ONES WAY Use thermal night imagery to track the Gobi bear across the Mongolian desert. THE MILD ONES WAY Alaska might sound even more extreme than Mongolia – except, of course, that it’s easily done by cruise ship (try princess.com). Almost all Alaska itineraries (by boat or car) include a stop in Ketchikan, from where you can take a short seaplane or coach ride to nearby spots such as Anan Creek or Neets Bay, where brown and black bears gather in summer to feast on salmon. Elevated viewing platforms mean you’ll…

28TheWildOnesPhoto010405-08232e6.jpg
width: 8192
height: 5464

Walking The Salt Path like Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs
type: item
date: 2025-06-03T15:53:01.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: You don't need to walk all of the South West Coast Path to appreciate its wonders.
encoded: Join one travel writer’s gloriously half-hearted homage to The Salt Path – the extraordinary true story of Raynor Winn and her husband Moth’s 630-mile trek along the South West Coast Path, now a major film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. In contrast, this luxury-loving imposter tackles just 40 miles (some by bus), fuelled by hot tubs, fish and chips, and samphire-scented hand cream. From cliff-hugging trails and Cornish pasties to barefoot beach walks and indulgent dinners, it’s a long-weekend escape that proves you don’t have to rough it to feel the magic of the coast. I’m a cheat. A charlatan. A fraud. Raynor Winn and her husband Moth – played by Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in new film The Salt Path – walked the full 630-mile length of the South West Coast Path, flimsy eBay tent on back, after Moth was diagnosed with terminal brain disease and they were made homeless. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday I, on the other lavishly moisturised hand, am doing about 40 miles – several of them by bus – over four days, based at a luxury hotel (hence the grapefruit-and-samphire-scented mitts). Dishonesty never tasted so good, though, I reflect as I demolish my first ill-earned cardboard carton of fish and chips… or so necessary. It took Raynor and Moth two summers to complete the Path, between 2013 and 2014, and the official recommendation (southwestcoastpath.org.uk) is to allow 52 days. I’ve only got a long weekend, so have lasered in on a section in Cornwall that bulges like a badly stuffed backpack with clifftop drama, sheep-nibbled meadows, irresistibly paddle-able beaches… and great public transport links for if/when I need to bale out of a walk and head back to the Watergate Bay Hotel (watergatebay.co.uk) for a sole-soothing spell in the sunset-view hot-tub and a Huckaback IPA. In fact, it’s an effort to get off public transport. The train from London (gwr.com) arcs within splashing distance of the sea in places, with Panavi…

24Credit-Steve-Tanner--Black-Bear2-90f5818.jpg
width: 8605
height: 5737

5 travel spots where you can discover the dinosaurs of the past
type: item
date: 2025-05-20T14:45:53.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: BBC
description: Want to walk with Earth's ancient inhabitants in real life? Here’s how to discover your own inner palaeontologist.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. If the new Walking with Dinosaurs has got your inner child – or actual child – roaring with excitement again, we’ve got some brontosaurus-sized news for you. The scarily well-rendered CGI brutes on screen are more lifelike than in their last outing, 26 years ago, but still nothing beats the real thing – walking where T rex once stomped, or staring into the fossilised face of a triceratops or two. And it’s surprisingly easy to do: here are five prehistoric holiday hotspots for which the word “roarsome” was (nearly) invented... Dinosaur Provincial Park – Alberta, Canada Alberta’s Badlands look like someone let a T rex loose on a giant chocolate cake: all jagged ridges and sticky, swirled mudstone. This Unesco World Heritage Site (albertaparks. ca/dinosaur) has coughed up more than 50 dinosaur species – even casual hikers can trip over fossils. The park offers guided fossil safaris, where palaeontologists let you dig up 75-million-year-old bones. You can’t keep them, but you’ll leave with the kind of smug dinner-party anecdote no one can top. (“Oh, you went to the Maldives again? I found a hadrosaur femur.”) Base yourself in nearby Drumheller, home of the excellent Royal Tyrrell Museum (tyrrellmuseum.com), where the exhibits look like Hollywood sets but come with scientific credentials. Request a brochure and get inspiration for your next holiday Lark Quarry – Queensland, Australia When the new Jurassic World film hits cinemas in July, it will be hard-pushed to offer more drama than Lark Quarry – home to the world’s only recorded dinosaur stampede. Here in the Queensland outback, one day about 95 million years ago, 150 tiny two-legged dinos were ambushed by a predator – and panicked, leaving behind over 3,000 footprints in the mud. That mud hardened, time passed and now it’s like standing on an ancient film still. The on-site interpretive centre (dinosaurtrackways.com.au) is brilliantly informative, but it’s the foot…

22GettyImages-520026455-685675c.jpg
width: 5025
height: 3338

The Great Wall of China steals the show in Race Across the World
type: item
date: 2025-04-29T16:32:46.000Z
creator: Nick Redman
subject: Travel
subject: Magazine
description: The contestants on Race Across the World are seeing some impressive sights on their travels – but will anything beat the Great Wall of China?
encoded: I first saw the Great Wall of China years ago, on a boiling blue April Sunday at the tail end of a work trip. I’ll always remember the three-hour drive north from Beijing, still bleary from the craft beers of the night before. We had been up late at a tavern called Great Leap Brewing, among the drinkers crammed out front, chatting and swilling in the muggy street heat. Perhaps that explained the mirage-like aspect of my first glimpse. After an age, with the road traversing monotonous tan plains across which giant pylons strode with menace, the landscape segued. The view grew steep and craggy, the way narrower. Through the windows came the perfume of chestnut, cypress and pine. Sprays of white jujube flowers coated the inclines. Casually, the looping road revealed lightning glimpses of coiled, crenellated wall hundreds of feet above, silhouetted on the sky, before we hairpinned and the forest closed in again. Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here We came to a car park and boarded a bubble-car transit lift, that floated almost vertically over dark woods for a while before disgorging us at the summit. And there it was, zigzagging off to the horizon: Jinshanling, widely considered to be the Wall’s most beautiful stretch of all. It was a pinch-me moment: the Great Wall of China was never something I felt I would ever really see. Sure, it was always crystal clear in the mind from drawings in childhood books, yet somehow it was mythic, too, like Atlantis or the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The contestants of Race Across the World must have felt something similar, setting off from a section called Huanghuacheng, to cross China into Nepal then hurry to southernmost India and the finish line. No matter who wins, they will surely all agree that the first bit was the best. The Great Wall of China is quite dizzying to contemplate: a barrier against Mongol raiders, with piecemeal origins in BC times, knitte…

518069-3215863-e1744717232984.jpg
width: 4285
height: 2857

Tour de Fred: Following Fred Sirieix's trail through Northern Ireland and Donegal
type: item
date: 2025-03-26T17:38:41.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Follow Fred Sirieix's tracks around the north of Ireland – taking in wild seascapes, walks with alpacas and a pint of Guinness.
encoded: I look at my companion’s skin and contemplate, accidentally aloud, how warm it would keep me. “We’ll soon be selling beanie hats made out of it,” nods John, our guide. In my defence, I should perhaps point out that it is very windy indeed here on Ireland’s Atlantic coast – and that the companion whose hide I’m eyeing up is an alpaca, like a llama but with softer, more wool-like fleece. John keeps 50 of the sweet-natured beasts on a ruggedly beautiful patch of emerald upland called the Knockamany Bens, leading guests on hour-long walks with them (wildalpacaway.com). On mine, I rubber-neck furiously, torn between the photogenic furballs themselves and the breath-robbing views – the honey-coloured beach of Five Fingers Strand one-way, dramatic cliffs the other. We’re on the Inishowen Peninsula, the northernmost sliver of Donegal, where a quirk of cartography means Northern Ireland shares an east-west border with the South. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners I’m following in the footsteps and tyre-tracks of Fred Sirieix, whose Tour de Fred: Northern Ireland reaches its finale here (and can be viewed on ITVX). The five-part series sees the broadcaster and former maître d’ cycle round from Dublin to Londonderry before crossing back into the Irish Republic for a taste of Inishowen. It’s a trip that’s really easy to replicate, even if you’ve no intention of straddling a saddle. Sirieix arrives in Dublin by ferry (irishferries.com), which has a certain romance, but there are cheap flights in and out of Dublin, Derry and Belfast. Hiring a car will open up some of the most dangerously scenic drives in Europe, but for safety’s sake bring a co-driver to share with, because it’s impossible to keep your eyes on the gorgeous road around, say, the Causeway Coast or rolling uppy-downy country roads of Antrim. Accommodation takes in everything from wee ma-&-da B&Bs to grand country-house estates; mealtimes will leave you satisfyingly stuffed whether it’s local livesto…

tourdefredsr1ep502-5fc8160.jpg
width: 6240
height: 4160

Inside Jeremy Pang's Hong Kong Kitchen
type: item
date: 2025-03-19T17:13:30.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: ITVX
description: Chef Jeremy Pang knows all the best places to find the authentic flavours of Hong Kong.
encoded: Feeding chicken’s feet and so-called thousand-year-old eggs to famous people might sound more like a bushtucker trial on I’m a Celebrity... than a travelogue-cum-cookery show, but they’re all on the menu in Jeremy Pang’s Hong Kong Kitchen, new on ITVX this week. The six-part series features Pang taking his guests – from TV presenter Mel Giedroyc to chef Simon Rimmer – on a foodie adventure amid the flavour-saturated streets of Hong Kong. Pang – familiar to viewers from appearances on Ready Steady Cook, Saturday Kitchen and his own show, Jeremy Pang’s Asian Kitchen – hails from three generations of Chinese chefs, so he certainly knows his way round a wok. So, where does he eat in Hong Kong himself, and how can visitors ensure that their trip is truly delicious? Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here Touch down and tuck in “Flights into Hong Kong usually land quite early in the morning, so I drop my luggage off with the hotel concierge then go straight to a roast meats place until my room is ready. You can just Google 'roast meats central Hong Kong' and they’ll all be pretty good, because it’s a real HK thing and there’s a great deal of competition. “The way to order is to pick two meats, which will come on a massive bed of rice with a little sliver of vegetables. I usually add half a salted duck egg, then take the little bits of that to put into my rice to season it. “When I arrived for our recent filming trip, I went straight to a place on Queen Victoria Street called Lung Kee, which is brilliant.” ... Or try some fast food “If you want to ease yourself in to Hong Kong food, the fast-food joints you find in the shopping centres are really good – chains like Maxim’s or Fairwood. They have big picture menus up on the wall, so you can see what you’re getting, and you just give the number of what you want to order. “You’ll be well fed for a fiver, and it’s good, freshly made food: roast duck, ba…

13JPHKKTX1MELUNITSTILL65-c064678.jpg
width: 5472
height: 3648

Why Jersey still steals the show in the new Bergerac starring Damien Molony
type: item
date: 2025-03-11T08:00:58.000Z
creator: Sarah Baxter
subject: Travel
description: The new U&Drama show could reboot the island as a holiday hotspot.
encoded: Hard to say who was the bigger star of Bergerac back in the 1980s: John Nettles, who played the series’ namesake maverick detective; or Jersey, the show-stealing island on which he did his detecting. Sign up to our mailing list to receive more content like this from Radio Times Travel, Shop and Money - click here It was a counterintuitive phenomenon. A crime epidemic so rampant, on an island only nine miles by five, should have elicited a Foreign Office no-go warning. But instead Bergerac enticed visitors to Jersey in droves. The original drama, which ran on BBC1 from 1981 to 1991, beamed the largest Channel Isle into millions of living rooms, rendering skullduggery at its most alluring. Viewers were willing to overlook a spot of murder because the beaches looked so golden, the lifestyle so glamorous, the cars – Jim’s burgundy Triumph Roadster! Charlie Hungerford’s white Rolls-Royce! – so very snazzy. In a recent interview, Nettles distilled the show’s appeal: “At the end of the day, Bergerac was all about pictures. It was about beautiful islands and unlikely villains beating each other up on cliff tops in bright sunshine.” This month, the detective and his Roadster are back, with Jim played by Irish actor Damien Molony, previously seen in Being Human, Ripper Street and The Split. And it means Jersey is back in the spotlight, too. Just as Bergerac has changed during the intervening 34 years – the reboot is darker and grittier – so too has Jersey. Visit Jersey - Bergerac's Island with Just Go! Holidays You can still pay for your luscious Jersey Dairy ice creams with one pound notes (this is the only place in the British Isles where they’re still legal tender), but the rise of cheap flights to more exotic climes has put a dent in the tourist industry, and finance is the biggest business here now. However, the island hasn’t lost any of its good looks. Indeed, the creation of a National Park in 2011, which encompasses 12 per cent of Jersey’s landmass, including most of …

Bergerac-afedfaf.png
width: 1177
height: 678

The White Lotus locations: Where to stay, eat and explore in Thailand
type: item
date: 2025-02-25T08:00:35.000Z
creator: Hannah Summers
subject: Travel
subject: NOW
subject: Sky
description: Want to re-create the high life as seen in the latest season of The White Lotus? Here's how to visit Thailand either in luxury – or as a "mere mortal".
encoded: Settle into your sofas (or sun-loungers) because hit HBO drama The White Lotus is back for season 3, with director and creator Mike White offering us what he calls a “supersized” version of the show, one that’s “longer, bigger and crazier”. And this time, the backdrop is the beaches, Buddhist temples and bars of Thailand. If you haven’t seen any of it yet, do set aside some time to binge. Watching the 0.01 per cent as they holiday at one of the world’s most luxurious resorts, The White Lotus, is compulsive viewing. And although it’s entirely fictional, White has clearly taken some inspiration from the high-maintenance real-life guests he’s seen on scouting expeditions to Four Seasons resorts (the luxury hotel brand’s resorts have been used as locations for all three seasons). Keen to live the Lotus life, with fewer dead bodies and more bang for your buck? Filming for season 3 was stretched out over many months, taking in three main parts of the country. Choose one or try them all... Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners KOH SAMUI for glam hotels and splash-out meals The White Lotus way: Koh Samui is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand that’s packed with luxury hotels, one being the Four Seasons Koh Samui (fourseasons.com), a sprawling resort tumbling down the hillside of a former coconut plantation. It’s the most luxurious location yet – with prices starting at £1,000 a night. For that you get a seriously plush villa, each with its own private pool (plus monkey statues perched on the side, naturally), and a breakfast that’s not just the best in Thailand but quite possibly in the world. It’s the long, palm-dotted pool area and beach bar, CoCoRum, that take centre stage in hotel scenes, along with the peachy-sky panoramic sunset views at Koh Thai Kitchen. You don’t have to be a guest to eat there, so do splash out on one of the best meals on the island. The “mere mortal” way: Knock off a nought from that price tag for a stay at Tembo Beach Resort (tem…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/02/10WHITE-LOTUS-FL07TheWhiteLotusS03-fe4dac0-e1741013462597.jpg
width: 1620
height: 1080

How Hugh Dennis tricked David Baddiel into a 500km bike ride
type: item
date: 2025-02-18T14:53:05.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Interview
description: David Baddiel explains why he agreed to cross France on two wheels with Hugh Dennis in More4's Two Men on a Bike – he got to go electric...
encoded: You’re doing an epic bike trip, David? Why? It’s a good question. Hugh Dennis is a very old friend of mine. For about two years he’s been trying to get me to go on this cycle ride in France with him, and I’ve been saying “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Then suddenly he announces it’s getting commissioned as a TV show, and I wake up and ask, “Sorry, how long is the journey?” He says, “Oh, just 500km,” and I say, “No.” Then I ask if I can do it on my electric bike… So you cheated… I was, basically, on a moped. My e-bike has a “turbo” button, and if you use that, you’re expending no effort at all – you’re essentially on a two-wheeled Tesla. Hugh’s incredibly fit, and has actually ridden the open stage of the Tour de France, so if I’d used a normal bike, it would have been just him talking and me panting. Which would be a shame, because the show is partly about us having a lovely chat, and friendship, and men finding a way to talk to each other. It’s funny but also affectionate, and not horribly blokey. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners Weren’t you and Hugh deadly rivals in your respective comedy duos, though? There definitely was some tension across the divide on The Mary Whitehouse Experience [the '90s BBC comedy show that paired Baddiel with Rob Newman, and Dennis with Steve Punt], but that was because of Rob always wanting the show to be just the Newman and Baddiel show. After a while it did get tense, because Rob was not an easy person, but I always got on really well with Hugh. It’s like Celebrity Double-Act Wife Swap! That’s a good idea for a show. Who’s my dream comedy partner? Well, Eric Morecambe is the funniest man who’s ever lived, but I’d be putting myself very much in the straight-man role there. Bob Mortimer would be great, and he’s already done one “wife swap”, switching from Vic Reeves to Paul Whitehouse. Or maybe “The One Ronnie” – me and Ronnie Corbett would be fun. We’d look like a shortish version of the Proclaimers. Would you take Ronnie cycl…

Hugh-Dennis-David-Baddiel-Two-Men-on-a-Bike-e4e398e-e1739888804928.jpg
width: 4747
height: 3165

How to experience Costa Rica – without running from Bear Grylls
type: item
date: 2025-02-12T13:24:36.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Netflix
description: There's no need to rough it like Bear Grylls – Costa Rica's riches are there for all to enjoy.
encoded: No one needs to drink their own urine at the Four Seasons Resort Peninsula Papagayo. You might think that goes without saying in a hotel where rooms cost £5,000 per night, but it may nonetheless be reassuring to those who’ve been watching Celebrity Bear Hunt on Netflix. In the show, adventurer and ex-SAS man Bear Grylls has set up camp in the jungles of Costa Rica, where he teaches an assortment of A-to-C-listers survival skills – including, yes, the important role your pee can play in keeping you alive – before trying to hunt them down in the wilderness. Holly Willoughby – at a safe distance and dressed down by the usual, glamorous standards of Dancing on Ice – is his co-presenter. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners Even with all Grylls’s tripwires and man-traps, however, Costa Rica’s tropical rainforest looks resplendent on-screen, and it’s eminently accessible to those of us who prefer piña coladas to, well, what’s being served at Bear’s bar. The Four Seasons – which, incidentally, is where Grylls stayed during time off from filming (fourseasons.com/costarica) – is just one of many accommodation options in Guanacaste, the coastal province where the show was shot. On my last visit, I took the more affordable route, basing myself just 15 miles up the coast, at the Riu Palace Costa Rica, where you can get seven nights all-inclusive, including flights and transfers, for £1,839 (tui.co.uk). It was a few days until I could be prised off the lounger; the beaches here, along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, are softly sanded, scalloped coves, the colour of the inside of a Milky Way bar. If you’re fortunate and patient enough, you can watch sea turtles flopping ashore at night to lay their eggs. Alternatively, you can watch surfers doing their thing in the waves – or join them, since board hire and some seriously laid-back tuition can be had at little boho seaside villages, such as Tamarindo, for the price of a couple of beers. Beyond the beaches, around 30 pe…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/02/CelebrityBearHuntnS1E800392711-2ed32bc-e1739787103906.png
width: 1622
height: 1080

Griff Rhys Jones goes across the outback by rail on a great Australian adventure
type: item
date: 2025-02-05T11:07:52.000Z
creator: Griff Rhys Jones
subject: Travel
description: The broadcaster is entranced by the vast emptiness of Australia, which you can really only appreciate by train.
encoded: I first got the Oz train bug when I was in Adelaide, 15 years ago. I had, of course, flown to that southernmost city – but I then discovered there was a railway called “the Ghan” that crossed through the middle of the continent, trundling through the Red Desert (the one that roasted early explorers like ants in a frying pan) to tropical Darwin. Goodness, I longed to go; but, ironically, another route got me first, equally bizarre and enticing. This was the Indian Pacific – east to west, 4,352km, three nights, from Sydney to Perth, across a huge swathe of nothing. It is even called “nothing”: the “Nullarbor” Plain means “no trees” in Latin. Not just no trees, though; not much of anything else, either, for half the trip. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners I was going home from Sydney and wanted to take a nonstop flight back to Britain, which you can only do from Perth, in Western Australia. I realised I could take this train to get there. And, as I rattled off through Sydney’s Blue Mountains, I discovered I was about to see the real Australia. “But you can’t go anywhere except up to the dining car and back, mate,” people said. That is the point. You enter a limbo. You are going nowhere, while going somewhere. Socialise a bit if you want, but you’re in the rolling stock sensory deprivation tank. And “outside” becomes the thing. I remember I sat gawping at the Nullarbor Plain for hours on end. Yes, no trees but plenty of blue-tinged, low scrub. It never alters. Flat, unchanging and mesmerising. After an hour, I went back to my book. “Oh look,” said my wife Jo, “an emu!” “What?!” I threw down the reading. I stared intently, much more intently this time, for another three hours. Nothing. Null. Just that scrub. Not a tweet of emu. No wallaby. None of the huge wild camel population. No sheep even. No birds and certainly no trees. If you take to the air, you don’t get a dose of the gritty certainty of this hopelessly vast and empty place. But rattle through …

7Unknown-d57ad46.jpg
width: 6720
height: 4480

Posso entrare? Exploring Naples with Trudie Styler
type: item
date: 2025-01-28T13:32:01.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
subject: Disney Plus
description: Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples is available now on Disney+.
encoded: Say it sotto voce, but Trudie Styler – who’s just made a feature-length documentary about Naples – had only visited the city once before starting work on the film. Worse, she and her husband Sting spend every summer at their place in Tuscany, just five hours’ drive away. So... Why on earth did you make a film about Naples? Well, I’m not a stranger to Italy: I did three movies back to back in Rome in the 80s, I gave birth to a child in Pisa in 1990, Sting and I bought a beautiful but run-down home in Tuscany and created a vineyard and a winery we go to twice a year, and I run a business from there. But, like a lot of people, I had only ever passed through Naples briefly – people go on their way to the Amalfi Coast, for instance – and I was incredibly curious to discover it, because what we all do with cities that have question marks over them is minimise them. In the case of Naples, we say, “Oh, it’s too dirty and too dangerous,” but that’s not really good enough, because it’s actually an incredibly complex city, with a rich, 3,000-year history of 12 conquests and Spanish, Byzantine and Bourbon DNA there, which the Neapolitans are very proud of. Have a read of our latest travel brochure & plan your next trip That phrase in the title, posso entrare? What’s that about? It means “May I enter?” and it’s because everything began, really, by me knocking on shutters and asking if I could come in. Many of the street-level homes in Naples – bassi – have no windows, just shutters, so you can see right in and glimpse all the activities going on in the home. So I’d tap on the shutters, ask to come in, and be greeted by the lady of the house with open arms and coffee, and she’d sit at the table with her kids and tell me her story or her travails. Neapolitans love to engage in conversation; they’ve all got something to say. In fact, there’s a famous old song there that goes “Naples is a theatre”. The city does have a reputation for being dangerous, though. Can visitors feel safe? …

RT-travel-week-six-image-e44825c.png
width: 1068
height: 684

Taking a cue from Mark Wahlberg's Flight Risk: An Alaskan expedition
type: item
date: 2025-01-21T12:00:09.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: While it’s tense onboard the plane in Flight Risk, the surrounding Alaskan landscape is simply serene.
encoded: I was nervous enough even without Mark Wahlberg trying to kill me. In his new film, Flight Risk, the actor plays the pilot of a tiny light aircraft plying the routes above Alaska’s icy, mountainous wilderness; and I was about to board an identical six-seat Cessna for the 30-minute hop over the snowy state’s towering Wrangell Mountains. In the movie, it’s no spoiler to say passenger safety is not Walhberg’s first priority – he’s carrying a criminal about to testify against his mobster boss – so I’m a little unnerved to find my pilot, Oren, could be his twin brother: identically handsome, laconic, baseball-capped and casual as the small plane is buffeted by winds whipping off the glaciers and fogs as thick as the forests on their lower slopes. A few mid-flight lurches aside, I survive unscathed and am free to continue my road- (and air- and ship-) trip around the southern, more accessible reaches of Alaska. I’d started in Anchorage, after taking a cruise up from Vancouver, then headed east out on Alaska Highway 1. That may sound like a six-lane super-highway, but it dwindles into a looping strip of narrow blacktop that unspools between milky-blue glacial lakes, glimmering-white peaks and Christmas-tree-green forests. The settlements it links are tiny, frontier towns – at Butte, for instance, there are pretty much just two businesses: the Git N’ Go liquor store and Mountain Taxidermy (this is huntin’ country). Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners I shoot a bear myself, in fact, but only get its bottom – I’m just not quick enough with my camera phone. So the grizzly ambles off into the forest, and I amble off to bed at Alaska Glacier Lodge (akglacierlodge.com). It’s a “heli-lodge”, which means its log cabins come with nine choppers sitting on the lawn out front. On my visit, the weather’s too bad for their usual heli-hiking, heli-fishing or flightseeing trips (and this is in August! Welcome to the Alaskan summer!), so I roll back out onto Highway 1 and ea…

Flight-seeing-721a083.png
width: 846
height: 622

Amanda and Alan swap Italy for Spain in their boldest renovation yet
type: item
date: 2025-01-14T05:00:27.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Amanda Holden and Alan Carr are swapping Aperol for sangria as they renovate a “big but do-able” house in Andalucìa.
encoded: After two series renovating rundown old properties in Sicily and Tuscany, you two have decided to switch to Spain. Why, was it something the Italians said? AMANDA No, we’d just drunk them dry! Basically, they ran out of Aperol so we had to leave. ALAN Some people might use the word “deported”… But no, Spain is a genius move, as it’s still the show people love to watch – where Amanda and me do up an old pile in the sunshine and sell it on, with the proceeds going to Comic Relief and Children in Need – but different, because there’s no pasta this time. AMANDA So different! The house is in an Andalusìan village called Moclín, and we had no idea about the Moroccan influence down there, as well as the whale-watching, the skiing, the waterfalls, the Sierra Nevada mountains, Granada… I feel like not enough people go to Granada for the weekend. Everyone b****rs off to Madrid or whatever, but Granada is just beautiful, and the tapas bars are amazing. ALAN We fell in love with the place on the first day of filming, didn’t we? We got off the plane and drove straight to an orange grove, and by six o’clock that evening we were up ladders picking oranges. You have to stuff them down your top, so I looked like Dolly Parton or Cupid Stunt [a spoof character from the late Kenny Everett’s TV show]. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners The property you’re renovating looks like quite the challenge. In the first episode, Amanda, you describe it as “Big, but do-able. Like Alan.” ALAN Oh, that stayed in the cut, did it? AMANDA It’s a compliment! But yes, we upped the ante for this series: it’s a much bigger building and we decided to turn it into a B&B and sell it as a business. So, when Casa Al-Amanda takes its first guests, who is making the beds and who is making the bacon and eggs? ALAN Amanda’s got form in the B&B business, as her family used to run one, and she was the chambermaid. She’s really happy folding up linen and plumping up cushions. I’d be more front of hous…

4493914-10f5344.jpg
width: 4032
height: 3024

Branching out: The UK’s most enchanting treehouse retreats
type: item
date: 2025-01-07T05:00:40.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Sleeping among the branches in a treehouse is utterly enchanting — and doesn’t mean skimping on comfort.
encoded: Note to (s)elf: I must, despite obvious similarities, resist comparing Sandi Toksvig to a woodland sprite. The trouble is, she’s so very pixie-ish. The half-pint height, the chuckling good humour, the eyes-wide enthusiasm for all things forested – once you’ve seen her Great British Woodland Restoration, it’s impossible to ignore the sylph/Sandi parallels. Which is why, when I recently took my kids to stay at one of the country’s newest and loveliest treehouse hideaways, they saw gnomes and goblins and will-o’-the-wisps every time the dusk breeze moved a frond glimpsed from the corner of their eyes, and I kept catching an imagined glimpse of Toksvig. Elves aside, it’s impossible not to fall at least a little under the enchantment of the woods when you spend the night among its branches. Toksvig’s new series certainly catches some of the magic of the UK’s trunkscape, but even for those who have not seen it, the idea of a treehouse stay remains redolent with memories of childhood escape, illicit adventure and cosy charm. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners And TreeDwellers (treedwellers.co.uk) doesn’t disappoint in any of those aspects. Set in a lovely copse of tall Scots pines in the middle of the Cotswolds, it consists of seven individual one- or two-bedroom retreats. Inside they’re all eco-feel, wood-and-pale-palette soft furnishings, with luxurious bathrooms and cute mini-kitchens. From the outside they’re more sci-fi habitation pod than kitschy Hansel and Gretel log cabins, with curving walls and wide-screen windows that look like spaceship cockpits. In short, they would be a blast to stay in wherever they were – but put them three metres up in the treetops, and they’re magical. In the early morning mists, the site feels like a primordial land that time forgot; as evening creeps and spreads from beneath the branches of the trees, and soft lights beckon you home to your treehouse after a long walk, it’s all more Lord of the Rings. And you will want …

Spa-Treehouse-drone-at-dusk-landscape-16fce85.jpg
width: 5464
height: 3640

A travel guide to 'The Road Trip’s' Gran Canaria
type: item
date: 2024-12-27T05:00:28.000Z
creator: Kelly-Anne Taylor
subject: Travel
description: Follow the cast of new TV drama The Road Trip, and find your own adventure on Gran Canaria.
encoded: There’s so much sunshine in the new six-part Paramount+ drama The Road Trip, you can almost soak up the vitamin D through the screen. Based on the bestselling novel by Beth O’Leary, it follows Addie (Emma Appleton), a spirited 20-something who’s spent two years living on her sister Deb’s couch after a romantic break-up. Now she’s taking a ferry from Bristol and driving through Spain in her campervan to get to a wedding at which her ex, Dylan (Laurie Davidson), will also make an appearance. But even before she’s cleared the border, a car accident forces her to allow Dylan – and his mate Marcus – along for the ride, together with her sister and a fellow wedding guest, Rodney. The drama flip-flops between two timelines – the tumultuous road trip through Spain, and the early days of Addie and Dylan’s relationship that, coincidentally, begins as a holiday romance in Málaga – and it’s set against a backdrop of mountainous terrain, coastal drives and quaint pastel-coloured villages. It’s the perfect sunny summer holiday, served up on a television-sized platter. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners Following in Addie’s flip-flop prints – on Gran Canaria, where the show was shot – I arrive at the resort town of Maspalomas, and savour those famously reliable rays of Canary Island sunshine on my skin. I’m staying at Seaside Palm Beach (hotel-palm-beach.com), a five-star resort on the coast, where pristine white umbrellas shade sun-kissed retirees sipping cocktails and completing crosswords. I dive into the turquoise blue pool and swim to the island in the middle; looking out, green-topped palm trees and clear blue skies are the only things I can see. In the evening, I stroll through the “Little Venice of the Canaries”, Puerto de Mogán. It’s a picturesque marina and the sunset burnishes its beauty, reflecting the yachts in the glittering water. The harbour front is alive with vibrant restaurants and the delicious scent of meat grilled over charcoal. The surroundi…

https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2024/12/2GettyImages175491781preview-b040df7.jpg
width: 1600
height: 1067

Vienna as seen in The Empress: tradition, elegance, and modern flair
type: item
date: 2024-12-05T06:00:24.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
description: The elegance of The Empress’s Austria is everywhere today.
encoded: Once at the centre of Europe, both culturally and politically, Vienna has never strayed from its reputation as a sophisticated, traditional city of neoclassical or baroque buildings, heavy food and old-school class on every gilded corner. Indeed, ostensibly, that’s why I’m here: to experience the Vienna of Empress Sisi – the Austrian Princess Diana, the tragic Queen of Hearts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course the subject of hit Netflix drama The Empress, back with a much-anticipated second season. Season one of the German-language series would have pulled you in with the cake-decoration aesthetic of the city, the finery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at its peak, with the frivolities that went along with it… and it’s all still there in the modern metropolis, albeit with more hot-dog stands, less international clout, and a clean and efficient metro system. The museums, galleries and grand hotels scream out for a nosey. The famous finery, craftsmanship and price tags can be located at such long-established nooks as footwear manufacturer Scheer, silversmiths Jarosinski & Vaugoin and piano-maker Bösendorfer. But you already know this version of the city – in fact, so many people know this side of it that the queue to visit the Sisi Museum in the Imperial Palace can be up to an hour long. Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners Fortunately, among the schnitzel, strudel, concertos, whirls and wieners, there is an incredibly buzzy, modern, sophisticated, citizen-friendly metropolis out there. This modern luxury is summed up in my accommodation, Hotel Amauris (theamauris.com). Opposite the State Opera – built in the neoclassical as opposed to baroque style – it houses forward-looking Restaurant Glasswing, which uses ingredients from local producers. The hotel decor nods to the sumptuous past while being airy and contemporary. Another excellent example of the modern lying just beneath the surface is Pramerl and the Wolf. Appearing as a traditional Vie…

GettyImages-84228561-1d0ecda.jpg
width: 737
height: 473

Gary Barlow’s South African wine adventure: a tour of vines, views, and fine dining
type: item
date: 2024-11-19T05:00:28.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: Gary Barlow is back on tour — but not with Take That. He’s indulging his passion for wine on a trip to South Africa’s finest vineyards.
encoded: Introducing his new TV series, Gary Barlow announces: “I’m ambitious with a pair of undies, apparently.” He’s talking about his holiday wardrobe, it turns out (“My wife reckons I underpack”), but in fact the Take That frontman has ambitions in all sorts of directions. Not content with having singer, songwriter, record producer and OBE on his CV, Barlow is now also a “wine entrepreneur” and has sold the equivalent of ten million glasses of the stuff since he started his label in 2021. He was a natural choice, then, to guide viewers around the wineries (and eateries) of one of the world’s leading producers, in the ITV series Gary Barlow’s Wine Tour: South Africa (now available to watch on catch-up service ITVX). But you don’t need any great expertise – or an OBE – to enjoy a plonk-powered trip round the Rainbow Nation. Wine country starts in Constantia, which is just the other side of Table Mountain from Cape Town (a no-jetlag direct flight from London). Heading the other way, but still just a 40-minute drive (on the left!) up the N1 or N2 motorways, are the big-hitters of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, with other, more under-the-radar regions dotted prettily around the country, too. The views are as good as the booze: bottle-green vineyarded hills roll away into the distance in all directions, punctuated by cute Cape Dutch villages, with the dramatic Hottentots Holland Mountains in the background. For foodies, there are seafood feasts and plentiful farm-to-table outfits, and the Winelands are easily combinable with a safari, or the forest-fringed, beach-bordered whale playground of the Garden Route. Here are four of our favourite wine regions for you to sample… Request a holiday brochure from one of our partners CONSTANTIA SERVE WITH… A SLICE OF HISTORY This is the oldest wine-making region in South Africa – its Vin de Constance was Napoleon’s daily comfort when he was exiled to St Helena – and it’s particularly famous for its sweet wines. A 30-minute drive south from…

Simonsberg-mountain-c16629c.jpg
width: 612
height: 376

Croatian delights - The Day of the Jackal
type: item
date: 2024-11-11T14:21:18.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
description: Continuing Thursday Sky Atlantic/Now
encoded: Croatia is no stranger to the emerging trend of “set-jetting”. (See what they did there?) Both Dubrovnik and Split, in the south of the country, are inundated with Game of Thrones fans, all trekking down those steps looking to re-create their favourite scene. The north, however – its regions sitting roughly on the same latitudes as Venice or Bologna, across the Adriatic – has remained relatively unexplored… Until now. But Eddie Redmayne and his cast-mates descended on those northern provinces last autumn in order to film the big-budget TV version of The Day of the Jackal. The original novel, though mainly based in London and Paris, galloped across Europe, following the exploits of an assassin for hire. As it’s brought up to date for Sky Atlantic, we’ll see most of the Croatian scenes in the later episodes. But it’s immediately obvious why this country is so appealing to location scouts: sure, there are the tax incentives, which means productions as diverse as Doctor Who, James Bond, Succession and the aforementioned Game of Thrones have been drawn here – but it’s the stunning, unusual and diverse landscapes that keep them returning. I start with a couple of nights in the capital, Zagreb, its architecturally striking airport posing as an Andalusian terminal in The Day of the Jackal. Zagreb feels like a quieter Berlin – northern European architecture, riddled with history on every corner – still on the long road of healing from a war of independence that only ended in 1995. I base myself in the Sheraton (marriott.com), a hotel that serves as a useful metaphor for the city: grand architecture, incredibly welcoming and still undergoing renovations. The place has a real bar and café culture, with the Michelin-recommended Pod Zidom Bistro (podzidom.hr) signalling its trajectory: local, seasonal, innovative and friendly. The unlikely cultural highlight is the Museum of Broken Relationships (brokenships.com) – dedicated to failed love. Its exhibits include personal objects …

GettyImages-1486525753-bd57f5a.jpg
width: 2000
height: 1498

Perusing Peru like Paddington Bear
type: item
date: 2024-10-29T05:00:01.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
encoded: When I tell the concierge at my Lima hotel that I’m heading to Iquitos in a few days, she replies, “I’ve never been. Too much green.” I’ve never heard the Amazon rainforest described so succinctly before, but she’s right: there is a lot of green. I’m here to get to know the homeland of a certain polite bear – our hero returns to his home country for his latest movie, Paddington in Peru. But before I get to “Darkest” Peru (supposedly so called because, in some spots of the rainforest, only two per cent of sunlight makes it to the ground), there’s the country’s capital, Lima. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel I’m bookending the actual jungle with the concrete one – a sort of urban comfort blanket where I don’t have to worry as much about mosquitos. And since Lima is fast becoming a serious foodie centre – with several Michelin-recommended restaurants, not to mention the street food and coffee – I take a tour. Friendly cafés run on local coffee beans, thriving local markets stock the bounty of the rainforest and the ocean, and we finish at a street food vendor who helps us prepare our own causa – a sort of sandwich made with potato instead of bread, filled with chicken and avocado. The cuisine here goes way beyond marmalade sandwiches. Next day, it’s back to the airport en route to Iquitos, one of the most remote cities on the planet – and all that green. River tributaries snake through the forest on their way to join the mighty Amazon. In this new, third Paddington film, the Brown family charter a riverboat to navigate the jungle, and it’s an idea I’ve run with. Our coach trundles for two hours through dense forest, down one of the only roads in this region, finally arriving at our boarding jetty. At its end is the Marañón river, an Amazon tributary, where our riverboat, the Zafiro, awaits. This is the Amazon Riverboat Adventure (gadventures.com) – six nights drifting down the river basin back to Iquitos. Skiffs will take us into the depths o…

45JXJN6Kpreview-f65972c.jpg
width: 1600
height: 1063

Why Vermont called Beetlejuice back for more
type: item
date: 2024-10-22T04:00:03.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
description: The Green Mountain State is famously friendly, so what drew Tim Burton to film his comedy horror sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in the land of Ben & Jerry?
encoded: As one travels up the east of the USA, it’s safe to say that things become more liberal as you go. From the humid conservatism of Florida, via the political swamp of Washington DC, through the anything-goes (as long as you can afford it) of New York, and the liberal academia of leafy Massachusetts… until you reach Vermont, where both conformity, and the country itself, are almost on their way out. Perhaps that’s why Tim Burton – hardly a name synonymous with fitting in – chose to return here instead of opting for a sound stage in order to film the exterior scenes of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the long-awaited sequel to, well, Beetlejuice. It was in Vermont, just outside the small town of East Corinth, that the original was filmed, too – including the cartoon-like gothic house erected on a hill especially for the movie. The original film has such a cult following that during shooting for the sequel, Vermont police were investigating two thefts: one of a large lamppost topped with a distinctive pumpkin decoration, and the other an abstract art piece taken from the vicinity of a cemetery. I have come here to understand what attracted the director to the state, and why it gives its visitors a wholly alternative take on Americana. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel After a five-hour drive from Boston, through increasingly green, hilly vistas, I arrive at the state's largest city, Burlington. This isn’t the American city of your imagination, all skyscrapers, steaming manholes and traffic chaos. Instead, especially in the heat of a lazy summer day, it has the air of somewhere like Stratford-upon-Avon or York. Perched on the edge of Lake Champlain, it’s a township built for quality of life, with the outdoors, gastronomy, and culture all given a serious crack of the whip. Most importantly though, this is a state known for its breweries. I happen to be in town on the weekend of the Vermont Brewers Festival. I savour an appropriately sensible number of s…

44AJ8M38-d479637.jpg
width: 5600
height: 4418

Inside the world's most extraordinary hotels with Monica Galetti
type: item
date: 2024-10-15T04:00:05.000Z
creator: Isabelle Aron
subject: Travel
encoded: As the name suggests, the locations visited by hosts Monica Galetti and Rob Rinder in BBC2’s Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby are anything but ordinary. From a remote, mountainous lodge in Bhutan, to a resort built into a quarry in Shanghai and one deep in the Malaysian rainforest, they have checked in — and mucked in, helping staff with their jobs — at unique hotels around the globe. As this series comes to a close, Galetti — also known to viewers from MasterChef: The Professionals, and to diners as one of London’s leading chefs — reveals the most unusual jobs she’s turned her hand to, what she’s learned along the way and what frustrates her most about travelling. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel Which was your favourite hotel in this series? They’re all so different! In Shanghai [at the Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland], we were in the bottom of a quarry where you can’t see the sky. It’s almost like waking up in a cave. In Bhutan [at Gangtey Lodge], we were up in the mountains below a monastery: you open the curtains, and there’s nothing but a valley and mountains – beautiful. But my favourite thing of all was when I took the guests up in a hot air balloon in Turkey [at Argos in Cappadocia]. I’ve never been in a hot air balloon before, and it was gob-smackingly beautiful; I couldn’t stop grinning! That part of Turkey looks like a biblical land – you’re out there and there’s no one else, no other noises, you’re just drifting and seeing the beauty of the world. It was very special. You take on lots of tasks on the show — which are the most memorable? We do the craziest jobs! In Malaysia [at the Datai Langkawi], the hotel was built in a rainforest, and in the lobby, they have a massive lily pond that’s full of frogs. Someone’s got to clean it, so I got in and I was collecting all the frogspawn – and then I went to set them free in the rainforest. It needs to be done because if there are too many frogs in a pond, it invites snakes i…

Monica-Galetti-9a7de53.jpg
width: 4284
height: 2856

Napoleon in Paris
type: item
date: 2024-10-08T08:43:56.000Z
creator: Matt Charlton
subject: Travel
description: Napoleon: the Director's Cut Available to stream now on Apple TV+
encoded: Paris can be a bit of a museum. Romantic, sure, but without the youthful energy, vibrancy and buzz of other world cities. Thankfully, history is the reason I’m here this time – on the trail of Napoleon, recently portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s epic biopic, the director’s cut of which is now available to stream on Apple TV+. It’s my intention to lean into the rich historical culture that the City of Light shows off so well, and discover the Paris of one of the most infamous military strategists and “short man syndrome” sufferers in history. The French emperor had quite a hand in the Paris we know today – many of its landmarks and boulevards have his finger-prints on them. And even if they don’t, the torrent of money brought into the French capital as a result of his campaigns still runs through the veins of the city. Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel Take Gare du Nord, for example, where my Eurostar (eurostar.com) arrives after a seamless submarinal trip. The famous terminus is a result of Napoleon III, Bonaparte’s nephew, campaigning for greater infrastructure, and the French railways themselves owe a debt to Boney, too. In 1814, engineer Pierre Michel Moisson-Desroches proposed building seven national railways from Paris in order to travel “short distances within the Empire”. The emperor assented, and France got a half-decent rail network. My accommodation, 25-hours Hotel Paris Terminus Nord (25hours-hotels.com), is just next door, and festooned with decorous touches and Parisian joie de vivre (or whatever the French version is). But now into the city… For a greater insight into Bonaparte’s influence on Paris, I take a two-hour walking tour (parisology.net/rise-of-napoleon-paris-walk). Our guide, Thierry – talking with his hands as much as his mouth, bien sûr – takes my small group to where Napoleon married the love of his life, Josephine, at 3 rue d’Antin, followed by his favourite dinner spot, and then where he saved the F…

42EG5A54-1-49a158c.jpg
width: 5208
height: 3472

Van Gogh in Arles
type: item
date: 2024-10-04T09:23:08.000Z
creator: Michael Hodges
subject: Travel
description: With a major exhibition at the National Gallery, now is the time to visit the city that inspired Van Gogh’s greatest work
encoded: Vincent van Gogh is back in Britain, and the streaming services are here to help us welcome him. As a National Gallery show celebrating the Dutch painter’s history-making stay at Arles between 1888 to 1890 attracts rave reviews, Netflix has two shows that reference his time there: the Dutch travelogue Het Schildersleven van Vincent van Gogh (The Painting Life of Vincent van Gogh) and an episode of The Great Painters of the World dedicated to him. Over on MGM+, there’s the 2018 film At Eternity’s Gate, starring Willem Dafoe as the famed painter. And on BBC Sounds, an episode of In Our Time from last year gives a superlative overview of the great artist’s life and art, and hones in on those incendiary two years in Arles Ear-chopping, mental breakdown and all those incandescent paintings (over 200 in two years) – you can see why the painter’s time in the Provençal city on the edge of the Camargue speaks to film-makers. But does it still speak to visitors? And can we get a sense of the real artist behind the troubled genius of modern legend? The answer is yes, especially so if you go in autumn when the holiday crowds and temperatures have abated, and if you can visit the National Gallery’s once-in-a-lifetime show before you go. Why not let Van Gogh be your guide? Arrive, as he did, at the railway station in the Cavalerie district just outside the ancient city walls – there are direct trains from Marseilles airport that take 40 minutes. If you turn left out of the station, you’ll come to the broad sweep of the River Rhône and a sign that marks the spot where Van Gogh painted Starry Night. The roundabout behind you used to be public gardens outside the famed Yellow House, which Van Gogh briefly – and calamitously – shared with Paul Gauguin. Here, Vincent completed some of his most famous paintings, including Bedroom in Arles, Van Gogh’s Chair and his second Sunflowers series. Allied bombing in the Second World War destroyed the Yellow House, and the park has largely gone,…

Arles-France-GettyImages-2151824963-922ff6e.jpg
width: 2121
height: 1414

Ditch the screens: Ed Stafford on reconnecting with nature (and your kids)
type: item
date: 2024-09-26T15:59:32.000Z
creator: Ed Grenby
subject: Travel
description: We need more adventure and less screen time in our lives, explorer Ed Stafford learnt on his new show in Belize
encoded: Chucking kids across waterfalls, feeding them spiders, making them sleep with jaguars – it’s a wonder Ed Stafford wasn’t detained by Belizean social services while filming his latest show out there. But that’s the whole point of Into the Jungle with Ed Stafford: the Guinness World Record-holding explorer took six British children and their dads into the wilds of Central America on a challenging but hopefully bonding trip. Here’s his guide to what we can all learn from the experience. KIDS NEED TOUGHENING UP A BIT “The problem is, modern life’s a bit easy. I’m a big advocate of risk and adventure and challenges and toughing it, because you need those to evolve as a person. But I don’t think there’s enough of that in everyday life. You can just go to the fridge and get food, you can turn the tap on and get water – you can be very broken and still exist in this life. I think I’ve evolved as a human being because I’ve gone on lots of adventures. Not because I’m now super-tough and can kill a snake, but because it’s humbled me and allowed me to work through stuff that I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been sitting in an office.” Request a FREE travel brochure here from Radio Times Travel ANYONE CAN HAVE AN ADVENTURE “We did this show with dads, but it could all definitely work with mums, too. We haven’t talked about doing it with nannas yet, but you never know! And really, anyone can be adventurous. In one of the programmes, we abseil 160 feet down into a sinkhole, and we’ve got this 12-year-old girl, Immie, who was born with limb difference, so her arm ends at her elbow. “Abseiling is intimidating in any case, and she was so distraught at the top of it. I thought, ‘Have we taken this too far?’ But her dad’s help and kindness and utter love got her through it, and she was so elated when she got to the bottom. One of our safety crew, an ex-SAS guy, came up to me and said, ‘That’s the most impressive thing I’ve seen in my whole life.’ It was beautiful, and I’m choking up jus…

Jungle-3f2e464.png
width: 879
height: 519