Europe and Middle East

Exclusive guide to the best holiday destinations in Europe and Middle East. independent reviews from award-winning travel writers

Andy Mossack reports back on touring Menorca by bike with Freewheel Holidays.

Touring Menorca by Bike

It seems a Monday night is not the best night to look for a restaurant in Menorca’s capital Mahon (or Mao as locals call it), as most of them are closed. Perhaps not the perfect way for me to prepare for a week of touring Menorca by bike then, as I was looking forward to stocking up on a few carbs before the start of my bike tour.

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28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen

28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen. A restaurant that adores wine.

It seems 28-50 is not, as I first thought, the address of this Maddox Street restaurant. No, much more interesting than that. 28-50 is the geographical coordinates for the World’s most perfect wine growing latitude and if you are serious about wine then 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen is a pretty good name to have I reckon.

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Strasbourg

Guide to Strasbourg. Unmissable hidden gems to discover.

Little more than two hours from Paris by TGV, Strasbourg is an inspiring city with an age-old centre, a go-ahead culture, chic boutiques, High Street stores, and a wealth of fine dining and high-end restaurants serving imaginative offerings of regional and international dishes.

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Terry Marsh, our resident Shetland expert, offers up his own guide to Shetland.

Shetland. Discover brilliant Islands with Latitude

In 1999, when I first visited Shetland, I was presented with a certificate confirming that I had been farther north than 60°; it was a marketing ploy, but I was pleased to receive it – and still have it. Latitude, clearly, was anything but a geographical platitude to these people of the far north of Britain, closer, as they are, to the Arctic Circle than they are to London, and on a level with Hudson Bay in Canada, St Petersburg in Russia, Stockholm in Sweden and Helsinki in Finland.

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Rhubarb at Fenchurch at Sky Garden Sized44

Fenchurch at Sky Garden. Discover excellent dining and Sky high views

Just as well Fenchurch at Sky Garden is in the so-called walkie talkie building on London’s Fenchurch Street as security needed walkie talkies to manage the flow of people waiting to get up to the 35th floo

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Lucy Daltroff reviews Amsterdam's Grand Hotel Amrath and finds it a Dutch masterpiece.

Grand Hotel Amrath. Discover A Dutch Masterpiece.

Quite often when on holiday, I stay in a hotel and from there go and visit the local art galleries. This conventional way of doing things was rather turned on its head during a recent stay in Amsterdam, as The Grand Hotel Amrath is a piece of art in itself – a historic and architectural gem both inside and outside.

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