Travel Ideas from Adrian Mourby

There are still some countries in Europe where dining rooms hide the fact that they are part of a hotel. It’s taken the Italians in particular decades to accept that one can dine well in a hotel. Even so they usually still give the restaurant a different name from the hotel.... more

Not long ago taking a room over a pub was what the traveller did if there were no hotel or boarding house nearby. In the twenty-first century however the British pub with rooms has taken off as a place to stay. The transformation began when pubs opened their doors to a wider... more

The big transition from one year to the next is essentially an arbitrary matter. One day we are in this year and the next day we're in another but they're still just two 24 hour days. Nevertheless New Year carries huge significance, it is also an opportunity to take stock,... more

Cocktail bars, as opposed to pubs and private drinking clubs, used to be very much a big-city phenomenon in Britain, but the modern hotel has brought what was once a very exclusive drinking experience within reach of most of us.

It was London’s Savoy that first... more

Traditionally summer is when the British go to festivals. Shortly after World War II Edinburgh’s International Arts Festival made August synonymous with a celebration of culture. Then in 1970 Glastonbury showed that pop festivals were also big business. Ever since, more and... more

Summer is finally upon us which means, if you are British, that you’ll probably be thinking of a trip to the seaside. This nation has a curious relationship with our storm-tossed coast. We love it and it in turn has reciprocated over the years by protecting us from many... more

It’s only when you try hiking in other countries that you realise how very blessed Britain is with its National Trails. I’ve walked down footpaths in Greece that terminate abruptly in someone’s newly built villa or strolled down footpaths that come to a dead end in America... more

My home is in Oxford which can sometimes feel like living in a film set. It’s a familiar experience to find the road you want to walk down closed off by a lighting van and location caterers. But the whole of Britain is a gift to film makers. One reason is the extraordinary... more

There is something about water – lakes, lochs, rivers, and the sea itself - that answers a very deep need in us all. We are drawn to it. We want to swim in it , sail across it or just walk alongside it listening to the sounds of benign burbling. A day spent walking along a... more

I proposed to my first wife above a launderette in Middlesbrough and to my second in the tiny kitchen of my Oxford flat. Neither location was inherently romantic but the end result - in both cases - was positive.

These days however it's becoming common practice to... more

Soon it will be New Year and all over the country Drinkcember will give way to the hairshirt self-denial of Dry January. Anything that seemed celebratory over the Christmas period is out, and we will become a nation of herbal tea-drinkers and carrot-stick munchers. If all... more

Christmas shopping shouldn’t be a chore.

Many years ago I worked out there are two ways to make it pleasurable. One is to collect presents for people throughout the year as you see things they’d like. This means that – as long as you can remember where you... more

Autumn is the only British season that gets us all quoting poetry. Keats put it well with his “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” and all those “gathering swallows” twittering in the skies.

Autumn is certainly the time of year that inspires us to put away... more

In the opening to his novel The Portrait of a Lady, American author Henry James declared, “under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea”. James then went on to set his perfect scene with... more

This month Alice through the Looking Glass is released in the UK, yet another British film that makes the most of our countryside and its historic buildings. Not surprisingly a lot of classic hotels have featured in British films too. It’s not uncommon for a film crew to... more

One of the best ways to see the British countryside – if not the best – is from the back of a horse. The view is different up there, you can see over hedgerows and walls, you can go through fields without getting your feet muddy, and there’s sufficient exercise involved in... more

After the toxic delights of Drinkcember and our Christmas bacchanalia, comes Dry January and everyone telling us ‘Tis the Season to Detoxify. For many years January was as joyless as a 31-day hangover with nothing pleasurable on our grey wintery horizon except the hope of a... more

I’ve long had a theory that there are tribes when it comes to alcohol. There are beer people, there are whisky people, there are white wine people and red wine people (two sub-tribes) and there are gin people. It’s not to do with how much you drink -or being an alcoholic-... more

As the seasons change we often cling on to the last of the summer sunshine. Sometimes I think the British are still pagan, fearing that the shortening of the days means the sun will soon disappear never rise again. While some of us book late summer holidays to cram in a... more

Once upon a time a hotel was just somewhere to lay your head if you didn’t have a club to go to or friends in town. Now hotels are visions of a better life, a refuge where we can live in greater luxury than any lord, a building whose decor has cost many millions and where... more

It wasn’t until I had two cats of my own that the words “pet friendly” suddenly began to leap out at me from hotel web pages. What a discovery! While most hotels usually mean well-behaved dogs when they say “pet”, there are also quite a few that will take house-cats like... more

It’s that time of year again when, if we aren't enjoying the delights of Britain during the summer, we head off abroad. As we plan our trip to the airport we realise that our flight is so horribly early we’d better book into a hotel nearby. And while there are some very good... more

Summer is almost upon us, which means that across Britain there will be a host of festivals of many different kinds. Last year I wrote about some of the biggest and best UK festivals and where to stay if you were attending them. This year I’m looking at a more eclectic... more

Not all countries have great country hotels. I’ve travelled in parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans where you always aim to get to a city by nightfall because rural accommodation is very basic. But in Britain we’re very fortunate that so many old country houses have been... more

The only way to really enjoy Christmas shopping in my opinion is to book into a really good hotel and breakfast well then shop for an hour or so, come back for coffee and put your feet up before another bout of shopping ahead of lunch. After a snooze in your room - or in... more