Fans heading to the waterside stadium don’t have to pay the €5 tourist fee. And with the team fighting for promotion to Serie A, the atmosphere at the last home game of the season is electric Sunday day-trippers to Venice flashing their €5 entry ticket QR code to get through the turnstiles at the city’s main access points look bemused when football supporters simply show their match tickets instead. Attending a sporting event just happens to be one of the exemptions in the opaque regulations behind what locals see as an attempt to turn their town into a living museum. Anyone who joins the crow ..read more

With DJs, bouncers and bars, the Nuremberg train offers a complete clubbing experience for hundreds of ‘clubbers’– and some lovely views of the Bavarian countryside … ‘Do you ever get seasick?” Timm Schirmer, a 27-year-old DJ with a fabulous blond moustache, asks me shortly before we board the Techno Train. “When you’re dancing on the train it can feel like you’re at sea, because you can’t always see that you’re moving.” Worryingly, I have indeed spent many a past holiday retching on boats. But Timm’s question comes after I’ve paid €100 for a non-refundable ticket for what social media suggest ..read more

Forget what you think about the Costa Brava: this whitewashed town on a horseshoe bay was ‘the best place in the world’ for Dalí – and is still pretty much perfect today I have travelled all over Spain for both work and fun in the past two decades, but the Catalan seaside town of Cadaqués had somehow failed to register on my radar. Last year, my husband was working in Catalonia and when he had a few days off between jobs, I proposed an impromptu tryst. The brief: somewhere by the sea. I’m a map optimist, which can result in disappointment. I’ll spend hours tracing tantalising coastal roads, im ..read more

A buzzy town prom, plates of moules with chilled rosé and cycle rides to sandy beaches on Cap Ferret add up to happy holidays on the Atlantic coast The Bay of Arcachon, on the south-west coast of France, is a happy place. It must be, because I’ve been visiting it with my family nearly every year for the past 15 years. We usually rent a small apartment in Arcachon town for four or five days, but such is the draw that we have been known to make a two-hour drive just to spend the day there when we’ve been in that part of the world. Everything about it speaks of summer joy: the promenade thrumming ..read more

Pizzas, aperitivos and a big sandy beach add to the offbeat charm of this Adriatic resort town I hadn’t heard of Pesaro before my ex-flatmate sent me there in summer 2018. I was writing a book at the time, and Giulia reckoned the best place for me to do such work was in her grandad’s old flat, a modest unit in a block put up in 1946, during the short reign of Umberto II. It had lain empty since her nonno – Dottor Spinicci – died of liver failure, having failed to take his own medicine. The flat’s balcony looked on to a hot and dusty courtyard shared with the local police station. When, on my f ..read more

From the Turkish Riviera to the Île de Ré, we select quiet and unspoilt places to stay for sun, sand, snorkelling – or just snoozing There’s something quite particular about small but perfectly formed Assos – butterscotch and rose-pink houses line a horseshoe bay, with Venetian ruins scattered between the narrow alleys. There are two small beaches, but the real joy is to rent a motor boat and discover the small bays and coves that fringe this part of the Cephalonian coast. Walkers can follow the path out on to the headland to the ruins of Assos’s 16th-century castle; there’s not a huge amount ..read more

Seaside idylls from Île de Ré to eastern Crete feature as our tipsters report that even popular destinations such as Menorca and Sicily have their quieter spots Cala Galdana beach – and its neighbours – are spectacular. Turn off at Ferreries and take the attractive Me-22 road that brings you to a breathtaking horseshoe bay shrouded by pine trees. The golden sandy beach is peaceful, even on a busy day. There are beach toilets and a cafe. There are also water sports facilities if you want a bit more activity. Neighbouring Cala Mitjana, a beautiful beach a short walk to the east, is wilder, as is ..read more

The Egadi isles are said to have inspired the mythical islands in the Odyssey. Today, the largest of the group is a quiet place of blissful beaches, fresh fish, neon seas and ice-cream breakfasts I cycled into birdsong, into colour, the light glimmering against the white of the low stone walls. There was a spaciousness as I cycled, a lateral stretching of soundscape, big skies, birds fluting. I didn’t meet anyone else on the narrow lanes and had a sense of being completely alone on an island of 2,000 people. Is there anything happier than being on a bicycle early in the morning, heading to the ..read more

A 30-mile route has opened up along this spectacular river that’s great for beginners but has challenges for more experienced paddlers too It was a morning of brooding green banks and dark skies on the River Tweed. Heavy rains had hit southern Scotland and the waterway had turned into a fast flood, with the deluge sweeping our two-seater canoe downstream through farmland and fishing beats as fast as a salmon escaping a rod and reel. The river, usually easy to navigate and at times only a few feet deep, had swollen fat, the rush of water pushing out in oily swirls that ambushed us. Our pace was ..read more

A new website aims to offer a wide network of walking routes from British train stations, and is calling on hikers to add their favourites. Our writer accompanies the founder on a ramble to Bath Spa station A British railway station can be many things. A place of tended flowers and toytown paintwork. A concourse of shuttered ticket booths and overpriced pasties. A terminus, a meeting spot, a gateway to escape. It can be heart-lifting or drab, bathed in birdsong or heaving with commuters. It can also be the starting point for a properly good walk. National Rail serves 2,593 stations, their loca ..read more