It’s a country pub in a city. That’s my thinking as bartender Michael O’Donovan lets my pint of Murphy’s settle on the counter, pausing for an intuitive amount of time before topping off the stout’s creamy crown. There are licks of flame in a tiled fireplace nearby. The wood spits and crackles as the conversation eases into gear.
The Castle Inn is on South Main Street, a stone’s throw from Cork’s main drag. A pub has stood on the site since the 1870s and has been run by the same family since the 1930s. It’s a traditional pub with a small snug inside the window, timeworn red-and-cream wood panelling and little tubs of snuff for sale behind the bar. Walls are galleried with old beer ads and black-and-white photographs of sports legends like hurler Christy Ring, wearing a flat cap in the days before helmets. The interior design here is timeless.
Outside, night is falling and streetlights reflect off rainy pavements. Inside, it’s brightly lit, warm and cosy. I pay for my pint and join in the chat softly orchestrated by the bartender around his counter. We talk hurling and high gas bills and taxis and technology. Anything and everything. The man beside me has placed his glasses on a rolled-up newspaper.
I ask if I can photograph the fireplace, and O’Donovan nods, telling me how the chimneys connect like secret passages through the old house above. “If these walls could talk,” he says, smiling.
Cork is Ireland’s second-largest city, but it walks and talks like a small town. Set by a huge natural harbour, split by the River Lee, its quays and waterfronts give it a classic, open feel. But there are also tight-knit alleys and steep hills to navigate. Its English and Marina markets are world-class, a high percentage of its fascia-boarded shops and restaurants are independently owned, and the colourfully canopied Princes Street has led Ireland’s new wave of outdoor dining.
It’s a post-pandemic city, too. You’re never more than a few steps away from spots of dereliction and flashes of crumbling heritage. Compact but cosmopolitan, it feels both inward and outward looking. ‘Ireland is like a bottle’, as a mural painted on an electrical cabinet on Parnell Place begins. ‘It would sink without a Cork’ it ends.
About 100 bars are dotted around the city, and they perfectly encapsulate the split personalities and rebel spirit of the place. Choices range from old-school pints at The Castle Inn or Mutton Lane to swanky salons like the Glasshouse rooftop bar at The Montenotte hotel. There are hip haunts such as Arthur Mayne’s, a former pharmacy turned wine and tapas bar on Pembroke Street. Or the Franciscan Well Brewery & Brewpub — be sure to try a pizza in its backyard beer garden, washed down with a pint of the Hazy IPA.
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London is an expensive city to visit and one that’s large and sometimes difficult to navigate. But, it's also packed with fascinating historic sights, bags of culture, world-class museums, parks and wide-open spaces with excellent playgrounds, and plenty of things to occupy kids of all ages.
Airfare prices change regularly throughout the year, but if you know where to look, it's possible to find a bargain to even the most popular destinations — especially if you're able to be flexible with your travel dates.
Majorca, the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands, has been a classic summer destination for Europeans and Brits for decades. But long before the big resorts sprung up along the coastline and villas came with helipads, the island’s hilltop villages attracted artists, musicians and writers in search of year-round sun and solitude. Among the best known of those early visitors were the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and the French novelist George Sand, who spent the winter of 1838 in the town of Valldemossa, in the mountains above Majorca’s northwest coast. By 1929, when the British writer Robert Graves and the American poet Laura Riding arrived in the nearby village of Deià — at the recommendation of the American writer Gertrude Stein — and later built a home there, that picturesque hamlet of stone houses and olive groves was already a fledgling artists’ colony. In 1956, the Barcelona-born artist Joan Miró and his family moved to the outskirts of Palma. Plenty of artistic talent was homegrown, too, nurtured by generations of weavers, glassblowers and ceramists. One of Spain’s most prominent contemporary artists, Miquel Barceló, grew up on the island painting landscapes with his mother and her friends. Among the island’s many signature local crafts is the , or cloth of tongues, a style of ikat believed to have arrived from Asia centuries ago via the Silk Road. And it’s that deeply rooted artistic tradition combined with an extraordinary natural beauty that’s attracting the latest influx of creative types. In the last few years, a number of artists and designers have left larger cities in Europe and moved to Majorca. Some of these new arrivals are renovating old houses and farms in and around the country towns of Sóller and Deià or choosing to base themselves in Palma’s Old Townwhere Gothic spires loom over the port, and there’s a fresh wave of contemporary art galleries and idiosyncratic shops dedicated to supporting local artisans. All over the island, new or newly revived hotels compete for the most impressive views.
I hear the balti before I see it. It leaves the kitchen sizzling in a blackened metal bowl. It’s a curry to behold — a thick, fiery swamp of spices. A charred, pillowy naan is placed next to it as cutlery. I inhale, set aside any sense of decorum and start tearing and scooping almost before the server turns their back.
Tom Houghton picks up a pair of binoculars from the sand-covered desk and slowly scans the beach in front of him. It’s June and things are starting to get busy at one of Cornwall’s biggest beaches. Stretching for more than two miles up the county’s north coast, and backed by craggy cliffs and rolling dunes that reach nearly a mile inland, Perranporth attracts crowds of sunbathers, swimmers, bodyboarders, surfers and dog walkers.
Landscapes as green and lovely as everyone says. Literary giants in Dublin; Titanic history in Belfast. A pint and good craic in a traditional pub. The lure of Celtic legends.
Smaller than Wales, Belgium’s southern, mainly French-speaking region may be compact but packs a diverse punch. Wallonia is a jewel of a destination that sparkles with centuries of history, architectural splendour, glorious nature, fascinating culture, wonderful gastronomy and beautiful cities, towns and villages.
For somewhere as fabled as the ‘birthplace of British tourism’, the narrow, steep lane leading to Symonds Yat’s waterfront was remarkably quiet. In fact, it almost felt like a dead end until I turned a tight corner and there was the River Wye, spread out before me in all its glory.
In Willemstad, the capital city on the island of Curaçao, the waterfront is dotted with buildings the color of tropical fruit: mango orange, banana yellow, kiwi green. Paired with the bright blue water in nearby bays, it’s almost a full kaleidoscope of color. Originally, the structures were limestone white, but an 1817 law forbade white facades on buildings to protect islanders’ eyesight from the bright reflections of the Caribbean sun – but locals joke that it was a money-making bid on behalf of the island’s only paint supplier.
Most people think traveling from the US to Europe means crossing the Atlantic Ocean, usually on a six-plus-hour flight. However, there’s a whole other part of Europe smack in the middle of the ocean that melds the green, rocky hillsides of the UK with the Mediterranean vibes and culture of Portugal.
Colourful Australian slang, or strine, has its origins in the archaic cockney and Irish of the colony’s early convicts as well as the adoption of words from the many Aboriginal languages. And for such a vast country, the accent barely varies to the untutored ear; from Tasmania (“Tassie”) to the northwest you’ll find little variation in the national drawl, with a curious, interrogative ending to sentences fairly common – although Queenslanders are noted for their slow delivery.