Far from the madding crowd: my personal pilgrimage on the quiet paths of Thomas Hardy’s Dorset

My mother wrote about the meandering trails from the novelist’s cottage, through countryside loaded with literary references – now I’m following in her footsteps

I got lost in Morocco’s maze of medinas – and loved every minute

The medinas of Fez and Tétouan offer a welcome chance to ditch the GPS – and a return to random encounters

Falling for Alassio – the rebirth of an Italian resort

The former fishing village on the Ligurian coast was once a favourite with the wealthy British set. Now instead of tennis and tea parties, it offers scenic treks and seafood feasts in glorious spring sunshine

10 reasons to visit Italy in 2025: the best new holidays and cultural events

Walking and cycling tours, family holidays, great places to stay, blockbuster exhibitions and more launching this year

Exploring Siena, Tuscany’s other artistic masterpiece

A major new exhibition at the National Gallery puts the spotlight on the Tuscan town’s artistic heritage. But nothing beats exploring its historic neighbourhoods on foot

A ‘gorgeous medieval’ town in Tuscany and other readers’ tips across Italy

From a Sicilian city brimming with life to serene Dolomite villages, our tipsters share their Italian highlights

Where tourists seldom tread, part 15: three more UK towns with unsung stories

Our tour of unheralded towns continues with Black Country legends in Dudley, Renaissance-style architecture in Enniskillen and Middlesbrough, birthplace of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sète: the seaside town with year-round sunshine in the south of France

Surrounded by canals, a lagoon and the Mediterranean, the port town has fabulous seafood and some quirky cultural traditions

Merchants of Venice: 10 of the city’s most beautiful historic shops

From an elegant apothercary to a jewellers in a baroque salon, these stores all have atmospheric interiors and a history of exquisite craftsmanship

Mardi Gras the Balkan way – alternatives to Venice carnival

In Croatia, Montenegro and Albania, the legacy of Venetian occupation lives on in a series of spectacular carnivals that these days have a local twist

When in Rome … go where the Romans go, not the tourist crowds

The Eternal City’s monuments and museums are busy at the best of times, but there remain myriad treasures to explore that are well off the beaten track

Alternative wonders: why Yemen’s ancient terraces are a supreme human creation

The soil, treasured for centuries, turns steep Yemini slopes into fertile and productive land. Coffee grown here was served at London’s first coffee house in 1652

Alternative wonders: why the stone citadel of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka is my rock of ages

The landscape is not the dead relic of a foregone age. It is a living reminder of how knowledge tailored to the local ecology is essential

Alternative wonders: why Egypt’s Colossi of Memnon are my giants of history

Emerging from the heat shimmer, these two enormous statues in Luxor appear completely otherwordly – like giants in a wheat field

Alternative wonders: why Tibet’s Samye monastery is my spiritual inspiration

The region’s first Buddhist monastery is a complex of chapels and stupa towers from a vast mandala – a symbolic and spiritual representation of the whole universe