In the Netherlands, they know for certain when Winter ends and the Spring arrives. In April and early May, almost every field in the province of Holland is covered in brightly coloured flowers. These are the bulb flowers most often associated with Spring. There are deep blue hyacinths, white and golden yellow daffodils and narcissi, but mostly brash, bold and colourful tulips.

Tulips come in a wide range of colours. They can be the purest white through yellow, orange and red to…

It was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, and I was about to check out of my hotel. My flight from Barajas Airport wasn’t till 6 o’clock that night. So, how was I going to fill in the intervening day, considering that I hardly knew the city at all?

The guide book had some suggestions. I don’t want to give the impression that art galleries, museums and cathedrals bore me, but I really didn’t want to spend such a lovely day shuffling around them.

‘Why don’t you try the Madrid…

I was in the shower when the postman rang. Hurriedly, I threw on a dressing gown, and went to see what he wanted. Nice dressing gown, said the postman, as I signed for my Recorded Delivery parcel.

So it is. A Chinese silk one, which I bought in Singapore a few years ago. That’s a city in which it’s possible to pub-crawl, shop and look for somewhere to eat all at once, and the dressing gown was bought on just such an expedition. We ended that evening with the Singapore speciality,…

While Naples has a lot going for it as a holiday destination, it’s not the ideal port of call on a cruise. There’s just far too much on offer; we had to make a choice from nine ‘excursions’, the most of any port on our cruise.

‘I’d like to take the funicular railway on the Isle of Capri’

‘I’d rather see the ruins of Pompeii’

‘Capri’

‘Pompeii’

A short pause, and then:

‘We’re not joined at the hip. You go to Capri, and I’ll go to Pompeii’

‘I don’t speak…