Traveling Home

Traveling as a family can be a great way to explore new cultures and become closer to one another. But how does a family stay on budget, not fall into debt or even make money while traveling?

We’ve rounded up expert advice from 10 family travel bloggers on optimizing family trips for finances and functionality. From traveling with infants to pre-teens, these tips can help families with kids of all ages make smart financial decisions on the fly. Or the drive. Or the hike.

1. 1. Open frequent flier accounts for your kids
      If you fly as a family, open up frequent flier accounts for your kids as soon as you are able, suggests La Jolla Mom. While many airlines do allow for this, Flying with a Baby warns that certain airlines may have restrictions or age minimums. For example, Emirates requires children to be two years old.
   2. Always spend in local currency
      When you’re about to pay with a credit card in a store or restaurant abroad, you might get asked if you want the charge to go through in U.S. dollars or in the local currency. Travel Babbo suggests to always choose the local currency because choosing U.S. dollars opens you up the exchange rate, over which you have no control.
   3. Splurge only if it’s important
      Alyson Long of World Travel Family and her family will splurge on certain experiences. They spent five expensive days in Dubai but said that experience was better than staying “a few extra weeks sitting, doing not-much” elsewhere.
   4. Make money to offset travel costs
      Let’s be real, traveling with kids is expensive. From additional tickets to more food being eaten, traveling with a family can add up. Suitcases and Sippy Cups reminds us that “saving money” is only one half of the financial equation. The other half is making money. Find an income stream that can be dedicated solely to travel funds.
   5. Choose the right travel credit card
      Travel Babbo reminds readers that the right travel card can make a major difference on costs. Find a card with no foreign transactions fees or one that earns you rewards. For some ideas, check out our best travel credit cards of 2018.
   6. Get outside to cut costs
      Consider doing something outside with your family to help keep everyone entertained and the costs down. No Man Before gives us serious hiking inspo, and is a great reminder that hiking with babies is doable. In fact, Madison of Our Vie Adventures even hiked and road-tripped throughout her pregnancy. If you’re near the ocean, visiting the beach is also a great option.
   7. Travel off season
      If you have little ones, this tip is easier before those children are in school. It’s a Lovely Life says that traveling off season not only means lower costs, but fewer lines and less waiting.
   8. Bring the grandparents
      Some families opt to bring the grandparents along as an extra set of eyes and hands. Travels with Baby mentions that this can be a great way to help with costs, but to be upfront about expectations. Make sure things like a date nights (for both couples!) are talked about in advance so everyone has a good time.

   Ultimately, traveling with family is about spending time together. These words by Space In Your Case are a great reminder: “Rather than trying to pack in lots of sights and destinations, take time to settle in one place and really explore all it has to offer…. Not feeling pressure to do everything can be incredibly relaxing and leave you more time to just be together.”

   How to maximize your rewards

   You want a travel credit card that prioritizes what’s important to you. Here are our picks for the best travel credit cards of 2018, including those best for:

   Planning a trip? Check out these articles for more inspiration and advice:
   5 family vacation planning tips I learned on the fly
   15 free activities for kids and families
   Our family vacation: 10 states, 12 nights and $3K in an RV

　アエロフロート・ロシア航空（AFL/SU）は、利用客が航空券購入時に支払う燃油特別付加運賃（燃油サーチャージ）について、10月発券分を据え置く。

10月からの燃油サーチャージを据え置くアエロフロート＝PHOTO: Yusuke KOHASE/Aviation Wire

　日本発着の国際線で、10月1日から11月30日発券分が対象となる。ひとり1区間片道あたりの燃油サーチャージは、成田－モスクワ線と、モスクワ以遠のサンクトペテルブルク、ロンドン、パリ、ローマの各都市を1万4000円に据え置く。

　そのほかの都市行きも、1万6500円を継続する。

関連リンク
Aeroflot

・アエロフロート、成田に777　19年夏から大型化、プレエコ設定（18年8月28日）
・アエロフロート、燃油サーチャージ引き上げ　18年8-9月分（18年7月16日）

Delta Air Lines (NYSE : DAL ) today reported operating performance for August 2018. The company carried 18.3 million customers across its broad global network, a record for the month of August.

"+r+"

"+i+"

"+i+"

For the first time ever on expedition, I carried a personal locator beacon – something I hadn’t done walking alone across the mountains of Iran or paddling the length of the Amazon. The device was programmed to check-in all OK, to summon emergency rescue, or an acceptable middle option for me: call Mum. Failing outright or being overcome by the river was painful, but having to trouble emergency services due to my folly didn’t sit right either.

So, as night slowly lifted, I pushed a button on my device. ‘Need pick-up, non-life threatening,’ the pre-determined email pinged off to my family, exact location attached.

Another night by the river could be fatal. Surely, to die out there would be far more embarrassing and shameful than being rescued by Mum?

Searching my maps, I could see that the river – after endless kilometres, twists and turns – ran within a couple of hundred metres of a dirt track, which would go on to meet a road. If I could reach there, perhaps I could flag down a passing truck.

Laboriously, I broke camp and loaded my SUP board under the punishing mid-day sun. Too weak to stand, I sat and paddled off downstream, questioning my actions. Leaving the place where I had activated the beacon could prove to be a mistake. However, I knew it would be easy to activate it again later.

My progress after a couple of hours was painful; even seated, several times I almost toppled off the board into the water. Reaching the road that day began to seem ever more unlikely. Another night in the bush loomed.

At 4.00pm, still far from hope, still deep below the high river sides, the faintest of sounds drifted down to me: a motorbike. I didn’t know or care if they were looking for me. As fast as could be managed, I scrambled up the steep bank and called out, yelled and yelled, but nothing. The noise faded and then silence. Some expletives later I was back on the river, paddling and poling.

Half an hour later it was back. Almost immediately I spotted a motorbike, a man sitting astride it, some way back upriver. I waved my paddle overhead and he called out: ‘Around the corner. Water pump. River right. Stop there.’ I signalled my understanding and set off. Sure enough, a bright yellow pump sat on the river’s edge with a water pipe snaking up and away into the bush. Sitting beneath a tree above the river, feeling exhausted beyond words, I marked my position on my GPS and sent another beacon transmission. All I could do then was wait.

Time passed. My watch said 45 minutes. I opened my eyes at the sound of a vehicle and saw a 4WD bouncing along a dusty track at speed towards me. It came to a halting stop and Farmer Scott jumped out, accompanied by his young daughter, big smile on his face. He had been looking for me.

After shaking hands, my first question: ‘Don’t tell me, the coppers are on their way, are they?’ He laughed; yep they were. Sure enough, within 10 minutes a police vehicle and the local volunteer emergency services crew drove up.

More smiles and laughter. I had a feeling that my family had alerted them to my whereabouts, and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that I’d involved them. One of the police officers just laughed. He told me he was just happy to find me alive. Two weeks before, they had searched for a woman who had left a vehicle and walked into the bush. They found her three days later, dead.

The Basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine Hill in Rome is often described as the best preserved example of Paleochristian architecture in the city of the Popes, providing a visual reference for what other churches and basilicas from its time must have looked like, such as St. Peter’s first basilica. But visitors admiring this splendid church may fail to notice a number of oddities and interesting secrets.

The Basilica of Santa Sabina was built by one Peter of Illyria during the reigns of Popes Celestine I (422-432) and Sixtus III (432-440), as testified by the magnificent golden mosaic inscription opposite the apse. This is the only surviving mosaic, as many others would have decorated the space between the arcades and the clerestory.

Upon entering the basilica from the original narthex (and not the present-day side entrance), attentive visitors will spot a magnificent door made of cypress wood dating back to the fifth century, surrounded by a marble door frame. Historians believe this door frame and the 24 Corinthian-style columns that line the interior nave (the third on the left has a mysterious inscription that says “Rufeno”), may have been spolia from a pagan temple to Juno Regina, also located on the Aventine.

This door, restored in later year, presents a number of scenes from the Old and New Testaments including what is believed to be one of the oldest representations of the Crucifixion. Another interesting feature is the face of the Pharaoh who is seen leading his troops across the Red Sea in his desperate and final attempt to prevent Moses from reaching the Holy Land. There is evidence to believe that when the doors were restored in the early 19th century, the Pharaoh’s face was carved to look like that of Napoleon, a hated celebrity at the time!

Across from the magnificent door, a hole in the wall reveals a secret cloister and an orange tree, often associated with the original tree planted by St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, whose headquarters are in Santa Sabina. The nearby park with spectacular views over the city is also called Garden of Orange Trees.

In the corner to the left, there stands a dark, polished stone resting on a column. This was most likely a Roman scale-weight but local legend claims that this dark stone was the lapis diaboli, the Devil’s stone, which was hurled at St. Dominic while he was praying in the church.

Another interesting feature is a small, isolated column, set at a lower height in a niche. This unusual feature shows how much lower the floor of the previous structure would have been; this may have belonged to Santa Sabina’s original house or, in any case, another earlier Roman structure.

Be sure to look toward the ground, too, as the marble pavement of the basilica is interspersed with tomb-slabs, the most spectacular (and extremely rare) of which is that of a Master General of the Dominican Order from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 14th century, which is lavishly decorated with a stylised representation of the man buried therein, in a mosaic style.

It’s day trip time again. I’ve gotten a lot of emails lately asking what the best day trips from London by train are, so I want to dedicate a blog post to the subject today. I hope you find it helpful for your travel planning, not to mention exciting for your London itinerary.

Day Trips from London by Train

One of the reasons I’ve never written about day trips from London by train before is that almost any day trip from the UK capital can be done by rail. That said, some are easier to do than others.

Windsor Castle is a good example. It’s accessible by train, but the trip requires a change en route and if you miss your connection—which is not uncommon and happened to me earlier this year—it can add a lot of time to your journey. Similarly, the Cotswolds can be reached by train, but once you’re there it can be tricky and slow to get between towns and villages by taxi or bus.

So today I want to focus on the day trips that have direct train connections from London and stations in the heart of the action.

1. Cambridge

Like Cambridge. Not only is Cambridge easy to get to by train from multiple London stations, but it’s also less than an hour’s journey from the capital if you take a fast service. That makes this university town one of the easiest day trips from London by train, which is great if you’re pressed for time.

Add to that beautiful architecture, rich history, and stunning streets, and Cambridge is hard to beat for a day out from London. There are colleges to explore and lots of little lanes to wander down, and one of my favorite things to do in Cambridge is go punting on the river behind the colleges. It’s an idyllic—not to mention quintessentially English—way to spend a sunny afternoon.

2. Oxford

Cambridge’s academic rival, Oxford is another great option for spending a day away from London. It too is only 60 minutes from London by train and is served by multiple trains every hour.

Oxford has more of a city feel than Cambridge, but its colleges and architecture are just as beautiful. There are covered markets to explore, shops to visit, and bridges to sigh over (or under). And Cambridge doesn’t corner the market on punting, either. There’s plenty of that to be done in Oxford, too.

3. Bath

West of Oxford, Bath is another of the most popular day trips from London by train. An hour and a half away, it has a slightly longer journey time than the universities but is still a straightforward trip.

And it’s worth it, too. Traveling to Bath is like stepping straight into a Jane Austen novel. The architecture is stunning, the yellow stone glows in the afternoon light, and there’s romance in the air. Add to that a Roman spa, an abbey with a gorgeous fan-vaulted ceiling, and bridges with arches, and it’s hard to beat Bath for beauty.

4. Brighton

Speaking of Jane Austen, Brighton is another easy day trip from London by rail. Trains leave from multiple stations in the capital and the trip takes an hour or less in many cases.

This seaside gem isn’t just somewhere young girls from Austen’s novels go to chase after their love interests, either. It’s just as fun for modern day travelers. With an opulent 18th-century pleasure palace, an amusement park on a pier, wide beaches, and little lanes crammed with shops, Brighton was created with hedonism in mind.

5. Margate

Margate is another seaside town that’s easily accessible from London by train. Over on the Kentish coast, it’s around an hour and a half from the city and is conveniently served by a couple of London stations.

Often referred to as Shoreditch-on-Sea, Margate brings cool east London style to the waterfront. With a hip amusement park and lots of vintage shops, it’s a great place to play hipster for a day. If that’s not your thing, Margate has a world-class art gallery, beautiful historic houses, and sweet cafes.

6. Winchester

Back inland, Winchester is one of my favorite day trips from London by train. It’s an hour or less by rail from the capital and the station is a quick and easy walk from the heart of the city.

Once in Winchester, there’s a wealth of heritage sites and beautiful places to explore. The cathedral is stunning, King Arthur’s round table is legendary, and the ruins of the medieval bishop’s palace are haunting. Add to that the bucolic river walk and gardens of the Hospital of St Cross, and it’s hard to want to take the train home.

7. Birmingham

Birmingham is another city that’s easy to access from London by train, but for some reason not many day trippers do. It’s less than an hour and a half on fast services, though, and there are multiple train stations right in the heart of Birmingham’s city center.

Birmingham is full of historic architecture and covered shopping arcades, and has a great museum and gallery with diverse collections of everything from art to antiquities. Its library is a feat of contemporary architecture with sweeping views, and at Christmas the markets bring the streets alive with seasonal cheer.

8. Leicester

If Birmingham is overlooked, Leicester might as well not exist in most people’s minds. Which is a shame, because there’s a lot to love about this city. So much so that I’ve been twice. And at just over an hour from London, it’s easy to travel to.

So what is there to do in Leicester? There’s an abundance of historic treasures to discover, from Richard III’s burial site to Roman ruins and a beautiful cathedral. There are pretty streets to explore, of which the pedestrianized New Walk is particularly lovely. And there are museums like the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, which has a great collection of Arts and Crafts Movement pieces.

9. Dover

Back by the sea, Dover is another of the best day trips from London by train. Out on Kent’s south coast, it’s served by a number of London stations and the fastest services arrive in just over an hour.

Once in Dover, there’s everything from the legendary white cliffs to the hilltop castle to explore. The castle itself has extensive history featuring a Roman lighthouse, Anglo-Saxon church, and Napoleonic War-era tunnels that were used as an Allied command center in World War II. And that’s to say nothing of the views across the channel to France.

10. Whitstable

Another Kentish coastal highlight, Whitstable is equally easy to get to from London by train. It’s served by more than one London station and the fastest services reach the town in less than an hour and a quarter.

Whitstable is famous for its seafood, and for the annual oyster festival that it hosts each summer. But it’s a great place to visit at other times of year for its delicious fresh catches, pretty beaches, and sweet high street full of shops.

11. Canterbury

Inland in Kent, Canterbury is just as simple to reach as its neighbors on the sea. There are direct trains from London and the fastest arrive in just under an hour and a half. The two stations in Canterbury are both in easy walking distance of the center, too.

The cathedral is the main event in Canterbury, and it’s worth a visit whether you’re religious or not. It’s huge, beautiful, and inspiring, and once you’re done inside there are gardens and cloisters to see outside. But it’s not just the cathedral here. The surrounding streets are full of shops, cafes, and hidden surprises to discover.

12. Bristol

Heading west, Bristol is another of the best day trips from London by train. Less than an hour and a half from the capital, this city on and around the River Avon is easily accessible by rail and makes for a great day out from the Big Smoke.

Bristol has a lot to see and do, from large museums to small shops and cafes. There are stunning bridges, colorful houses, and little lanes to explore, and there’s a fantastic zoo as well (the red pandas are adorable!).

13. St Albans

I’ll end with what might just be the easiest day trip from London. St Albans is less than 20 minutes by train from some London stations and is a great choice if you don’t have much time or don’t want to spend too much of it in transit.

St Albans has a lot of Roman history, and is an ideal place to visit if you like Roman ruins. But it has a contemporary side, too, with shops, street markets, and restaurants in town. It also has something in between with St Albans Cathedral, which dates back to Norman times, and the Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, a pub that claims to be the oldest in England.

Whichever day trip you choose, remember to buy tickets well in advance. Prices go up the closer you get to the date of travel, so booking ahead can save you a lot of money.

Also keep in mind that departure times and stations can change, so make sure to look for the most updated information before you travel.

And finally, remember that delays, maintenance work, and cancellations are common so leave yourself plenty of time if you have a connection to make or evening plans in London when you get back from your day trip.

Above all, I hope you have a great day out and that this post has helped you discover some exciting new day trips from London by train. Writing this post has inspired me to book two, so stay tuned for blog posts about them in the coming weeks.

New here? Join thousands of others and subscribe to the A Lady in London blog via email or Bloglovin’.

Pin it!

You might also like

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

IAG member carrier Level has announced its second short-haul base, with three A321 aircraft to be based at Amsterdam Schiphol airport.

The low-cost airline will launch flights from Schiphol to Rome and Vienna on April 6, followed by London Luton on April 7, and Barcelona, Lisbon, Milan Malpensa and Fuerteventura “over the coming months”.

Fellow IAG carrier Vueling already operates flights between Luton and Amsterdam Schiphol – it’s not clear whether these services will be transferred over to Level (Business Traveller has asked for clarification) but it seems unlikely that the two carriers would operate in competition to each other.

The new Level service will also compete against Easyjet on the Luton-Schiphol route.

Level started as a low-cost long haul carrier in June 2017, operating transatlantic flights from Barcelona and later Paris Orly to destinations including Buenos Aires, Boston, Newark and San Francisco.

Last year a short-haul subsidiary of Vueling was set up (Anisec Luftfahrt), trading under the Level brand out of Vienna, with routes including Gatwick, Barcelona and Paris CDG.

Tickets for the new routes from Schiphol go on sale at flylevel.com today, with one-way lead in fares to London starting from €19.99.

There will be up to two flights per day to Rome and London, daily services to Vienna, Barcelona and Milan, six weekly flights to Lisbon, and a weekly service to Fuerteventura.

Commenting on the news Krassimir Tanev, Level’s Managing Director said:

“Amsterdam is one of the most important markets in Europe and is the perfect choice for Level’s shorthaul expansion.

“This will strengthen Level’s presence in Europe building upon the success of our operation in Vienna launched last year. We will serve the Dutch market with low-cost flights to highly popular destinations for both leisure and business travellers.”

flylevel.com

We are on the midnight plane to Georgia. In various stages of inebriation, me and Dave WhatsApp this to our grown-up children. It’s not our fault. Nothing ever is. Our Georgian Airways flight, the last one out of Gatwick, is delayed. What else is there to do but dutiful duty free?

Dave is my compadre, the finest travelling companion a woman could wish for. The best thing about her is that she will go absolutely anywhere but also has no idea where anywhere is. Except France – which she has taken against to such an extent that even French people speaking French near her makes her extremely annoyed. She can sniff out pretension at 100km, not that she knows what a kilometre is. And God help anyone she calls “piss-elegant”.

Suffice to say, when we arrive in Tbilisi, I have to prod her awake and try to enthuse her, though I feel very rough myself. “All airports are the same. Why are we even here?” she asks.

We are in Georgia mostly, I remind her, because she loves post-Soviet places and last year when I was in Armenia to do a story, everyone kept saying: “Don’t go to Georgia. There are big men with swords there who will kill you.” So it’s a must.

We arrive at Rooms Hotel in Tbilisi, a former Soviet-era publishing and printing house. I should say we partake of the city’s immense cultural riches, but we go to bed and order burgers and chips on room service because we know how to live. When we come to, we realise we are actually in a completely fantastic place.

Stylewise, this hotel is the business. Outside, it has kept its industrial facade, all steel and wood. Inside, however, it is a gorgeous mixture of styles put together by someone with an incredible eye. There are Georgian antiques mixed with contemporary paintings, chandeliers, 1970s sofas, beautiful parquet flooring, original tiling and strange oversized ceramics. It shouldn’t work but it does, partly because the staff are so easygoing.

All this overlooks a courtyard with garden and bar. Or you can sit outside on a deck overlooking the street as cars go by blasting their music. All around, people are having “liaisons” and meetings. It feels like Shoreditch House without the twats – and with much more inventive design.

This hotel, with its melange of styles and periods, mirrors Tbilisi itself. It’s a happening place which combines so many influences that every time you think you have a handle on it, there is something new to see. Alex from the hotel takes us on a walking tour. There are brutalist Soviet buildings next to Orthodox churches. We go down alleyways to find ancient communal courtyards with rickety wooden stairs that look like film sets. Then there are super-modern, strange empty buildings. When Björk stayed at Rooms, they tell us, they put lots of plants on her balcony so she wouldn’t see all the metal and scaffolding. But we love this industrial look and it’s amazing to see buildings used this way, to remake the Soviet past.

We walk past houses that could be in Barcelona or Italy, over a bridge where people sell tat and through parks until we end up in another unexpectedly groovy place all leather sofas, fusion food and graphic designers. This is not at all what I was expecting.

The next day, we make the 60-mile “pilgrimage” to Gori, Stalin’s birthplace. It’s all very odd, to be frank, a massive but grand whitewashing effort. There is an entire museum dedicated to Uncle Joe, full of paintings and tapestries of him holding small girls (weird) and photographs of him with Churchill and Roosevelt, and even his death mask. As none of it is in English, we perve over pictures of him when he was young – murderous dictator and all that, but great hair. There is one small room roped off, with some blurry pictures of conflict. This is the only nod to the fact that perhaps he did not deliver heaven on Earth. The gift shop is pretty crap, so we buy some fridge magnets off a street vendor outside. (When I get home, however, there is some resistance to me covering our fridge in pictures of Stalin.)

Back in Tbilisi we seek out good food. This is not difficult. Georgians love to eat and drink. We follow some of the late Anthony Bourdain’s recommendations. In his Parts Unknown programme on Georgia, Bourdain was clearly impressed by the cuisine but exhausted by the drinking, the endless toasts with chacha (pomace brandy). Cafe Littera, which he loved, is hard to find – a beautiful garden behind what looks like a garage. Here, a hot young chef, Tekuna Gachechiladze, is ramping up traditional Georgian food with lighter and vegetarian options. We eat plates of amazing mushrooms and have also discovered that Georgian wine, which is “natural”, is irresistible and also good on the hangover front.

Lots of people come to Georgia for wine tasting, the posh person’s version of a pub crawl. But we haven’t. For some reason we are heading off to Batumi on the Black Sea, 250 miles away. Dave wants to go there because she thinks it will be weird. And she is right. All the way there, the driver keeps crossing himself.

After the laid-back style of Rooms, we are now in some Russian-owned hotel called Intourist Palace. Batumi is a mini Vegas where all sorts go to gamble. It is full of casinos and Russian girls selling themselves. Russian hospitality seems to be about mainly being ignored. We wander around looking at strange modern buildings and a not very impressive beach. There is a fake Venetian Square. Of course there is. There may be nice restaurants but we don’t find one. Instead, we sit drinking gin and tonics, even though gin makes Dave cry and she ends up weeping about the fact that everyone will die. I demand some food from a grumpy man in the hotel bar and we just get bread and cheese.

I hear there are better places up the coast and I see families enjoying themselves, but I can’t wait to get back to Tbilisi. The capital’s Stamba hotel is more luxurious than Rooms: it has gold baths and showers and a casino and they are building a rooftop pool. But it’s a little too American Psycho shag pad for me. Everyone raves about the sulphur baths in Tbilisi, so we go to one called Orbeliani, a pretty tiled one that looks like a mosque. It’s not hot enough to be steamy and I don’t enjoy it much. There is a menu where you can get a beer and “sausage assortment”, but it all feels a bit touristy. A large women comes in and scrubs us with a loofah. I find this deeply unpleasant and several layers of dirt and skin that I’d prefer to keep appear to have been removed. Dave likes it. Some people do. Masochists. We go for khinkali after, the big, warm, soupy dumplings.

The highlight of the trip is a drive on the Georgian Military Highway from Tbilisi to Stepantsminda (formerly Kazbegi), a route into the High Caucasus established in the first century. Green velvet mountains, azure lakes, fresh figs and honey sold by the roadside – totally stunning. I have been in the Himalayas and the Andes, but this is mind-blowingly gorgeous. ‘f’

We stop at the huge semi-circular Russo-Georgian Friendship monument, and gaze in awe. Then it’s on to Rooms Hotel Kazbegi in Stepantsminda, another wood-and-glass brutalist structure that was once a Soviet spa. My God, it is fantastic, with decks all around so everywhere you look there are the mountains, one with Gergeti Trinity Church on top. Some big wedding is going on and Georgian aristocracy is being helicoptered in. The men are in traditional dress with swords (and none makes any attempt to kill us). Swoon. We lie on the deck and staff bring us blankets and anything else we desire.

Downstairs there is a pool spa but all I want to do is lie on that deck and look at the mountains. It is one of the most gorgeous places I have ever stayed in, and the nearest I have ever got to meditation. With wine. I would go back tomorrow. Why is Georgia so special? It’s not about gold taps and bellhops. It’s about warmth and hospitality, and feeling you can do what you like. That is what luxury travel is. That and, of course, having someone to travel with who will take a chance with you, wherever you end up.
• Accommodation was provided by Design Hotels in Rooms Tbilisi (doubles from £175 B&B), Rooms Kazbegi (from £144 B&B) and Stamba Hotel (from £242 B&B). Georgian Airways flies from Gatwick to Tbilisi from £165 return

Fabrika
This former Soviet sewing factory has been transformed into a multifunctional space with cafes and bars, artists’ studios and shops, a hostel, and a courtyard that hosts one-off events. It’s a great place to meet up with friends for the evening.
• fabrikatbilisi.com

Mtkvarze
One of the first clubs in Georgia was established in 2012 in this 1950s fish restaurant by pioneer DJ Bero. The club is on the left bank of the Mtkvari River, and when you get tired of dancing to house and techno, you can head to the balcony and watch the river.
• On Facebook

Pepperboy
A newcomer that has quickly established itself as the coolest place to eat in town, Pepperboy looks like a cosy izakaya [Japanese dining pub] with cyberpunk wall art and neon lights. The food is pan-Asian: pho, kimchi and ramen served with sake, soju or tea.
• On Facebook

Kikliko
Another new spot, Kikliko, serves brunch from 8am to 3pm. It’s named after the traditional Georgian breakfast that’s a piquant version of french toast using spicy ajika sauce, but it also serves other staples such as sulguni (semi-soft cheese). It’s the perfect place to start the day.
• On Facebook

Amodi
This bar has a huge terrace with amazing views over the city. In a big house with period furniture on Narikhala Hill, it’s the perfect place to catch some live music while eating traditional food such as beef stew with pomegranate sauce, fried potatoes and Georgian hummus.
• amodi.business.site

Dramatically located in the mountains of Lazio, this beautiful abbey was the first monastery of the Benedectine Order. It was established in 529 by Saint Benedict of Nursia, the patron saint of Europe, who is considered the founder of monasticism in the West. In the nearly 1,500 years since then, Montecassino Abbey has experienced more than its fair share of traumatic events.

Less than 50 years after its construction, the abbey was sacked by invading Lombards and the residing monks fled to Rome. The monastery was reestablished in 718 but it was abandoned again in 833 after being sacked and burned down by the Saracens (a medieval term for Muslims). The abbey was then rebuilt—again—at the behest of Pope Agapetus II in 949. During the 11th and 12th centuries, it became one of the most important religious buildings in Italy, acquiring a large secular territory. One of the richest libraries in medieval Europe was housed here during this time, and some of the oldest testimony of the Italian language come from this period and were written in this monastery.

The abbey entered a period of decline in the 13th century and was destroyed again, this time by an earthquake, in 1349, and it was rebuilt 20 years afterward During the 17th century, a large renovation work made the building a prime example of Neapolitan Baroque architecture. Yet in 1799 the abbey was sacked again, this time by the Napoleonic army. The monastery was then suppressed in 1866 and became a monument and museum, but its troubled history didn’t end here.

In 1944, during World War II, the abbey was the site of one of the most tragic battles of the European theater of the war. The Allies mistakenly suspected that German troops were hiding inside the abbey and heavily bombarded the monastery, which actually housed many civilians who had sought refuge inside the building. Tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of civilians were killed during the infamous battle.

After the war, Montecassino Abbey was rebuilt for the final time. It remains perched at the top of the mountain overlooking Cassino. It is a working monastery and active pilgrimage site, housing the remains of Saint Benedict and his twin sister, Saint Scholastica, which have managed to survive the events of the abbey’s long and turbulent history.