Julia Roberts travel tips

For years I had been hearing about the island of Pantelleria, the craggy, hard-to-get-to Eden with middle-of-nowhere tranquillity that sits 89 miles southwest of the island of Sicily and about 50 miles east of Tunisia. Luca Guadagnino’s 2015 film “A Bigger Splash” painted a seductive idyll of mud baths, romantic ruins and secluded swimming coves. Celebrities like Madonna, Sting and Julia Roberts visited, drawn to the striking, Africa-meets-Italy ambience, along with Giorgio Armani, a part-time resident since 1980. The fact that nobody was impressed by them added to the allure.

It’s winter, and I’m in the only queue that doesn’t make my blood boil: the line for the Eurostar en route to Paris. Behind me, a couple begins having a heated tiff about who should be carrying a particularly bulky suitcase. In a moment of post-breakup schadenfreude, I can’t help but feel a little smug about the fact that I’m making this journey alone, with a relatively tiny bag and the person who would never have offered to carry it left firmly behind in London. To be honest, I need the reassurance. I’m newly single and heading for the most romantic city in the world. Will this be an uplifting journey of self-discovery, or am I just running away from my problems? Or, worst of all, am I plunging headfirst into a lonely holiday with only unwanted memories for company?

Cinematic Naples lives to eat, but there is far more to this southern Italian city than scoffing pizza margherita at Da Michele like Julia Roberts did in the 2010 movie Eat Pray Love, or frequenting the pizzeria where Sophia Loren flipped ’n fried dough on screen in the 1950s.

In less than a year, Hilton has gone from announcing its push into the economy segment of hotel chains to opening the first hotel.

The “dreaming spires” of Oxford have starred in many a film (The Italian Job, Howard’s End, The History Boys), but it’s the college of Christ Church that’s most recognizable in the Harry Potter films, doubling up as the inimitable Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. From the cavernous wood-clad Great Hall and the echoey sixteenth-century staircase to the spooky cloisters and quadrangles, Christ Church makes the perfect setting for magical escapades.