Australia's 'wild west' coast

Australia's 'wild west' coast: Endless stretches of beautiful white beaches, crystal clear water and stunning marine life: the west coast of Australia is an adventurer's playground. The often uncharted shores of the island continent offer travelers a unique mix of thrills and indulgence.

Fly as condor

The company Condor offers interesting fly tickets from Germany. In December you can visit for example Funchal (Madeira) for 95€ or Bajjul for 199€ or Kilimanjaro for 279€.

In Transit Blog: (Very) Old Meets New at Manuscripts Show in London

In Transit Blog: (Very) Old Meets New at Manuscripts Show in London: A trove of medieval- and Renaissance-era illuminated manuscripts, collected by the kings and queens of England between the 9th and 16th centuries, is on display in London.

What should every traveller be able to do?

We continue at the presentation of interesting websites and articles. The page Marc and Angel Hack Life, which deals with practical tips for productive living, offers the article 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do. Readers can go through the list of activities (including instructions), that should be normally handle. Some of them are particularly important for travelers, such as build a fire, first aid, basic cooking or car parking.

What to do on the way around the world

You plan to make a trip around the world and you are afraid that you will get bored? For inspiration, look at the page 101 Things To Do Around The World.
The published list of works for short trips, too.

Winter getaways: six more great ideas

Winter getaways: six more great ideas:

From ice climbing in Italy to budget skiing in Switzerland and living in an igloo suite, here are six icy treats with a difference

Aurora hunting in Finland

According to Nasa, winter 2011/2012 is set to be the best for catching the Northern Lights for 50 years. But the aurora borealis is a notoriously fickle playmate. If you want to maximise your chances of seeing the lights, it pays to travel with an expert – especially if photographing them is high on your wish list. The Great Aurora Hunt is a small group tour to Ivalo, in Finnish Lapland, led by Andy Keen (aurorahunters.com). Aurora-hunting tours are accompanied by hot drinks and photo tuition.
Prices start at £1,295pp, including flights, transfers and four nights' half-board accommodation (specialisedtours.com)

Cheap and chic skiing in St Moritz

St Moritz may be where the likes of George Clooney, Kate Moss and Claudia Schiffer don their salopettes but you don't need a celebrity bank balance to hit the Swiss slopes. Berghaus Niederhorn, a mountain lodge just west of Interlaken, was given a radical overhaul last year and budget guests get a lot of bling for their buck. It is reached by cablecar from nearby Beatenberg and you can sledge, ski or snowshoe from the front door.
Dorm beds start at £20, breakfast £10 and meals from £17 (niederhorn.ch). A ski pass for the Beatenberg/Niederhorn/Boden areas costs £40 for two days and ski hire £44 for two days (interlaken.ch). Flights from Luton to Zurich, two hours' train ride from Interlaken (sbb.ch), cost £50 return with easyJet (easyjet.com)

Stay in a luxury igloo in Austria

One of two igloo hotels in Austria's Zillertal Valley, the icy suites being built by the Kristallhütte mountain inn will be the region's most decadent subzero sleeping option when they open on 3 December. Warm up after a day on the slopes with a session in the inn's sauna and a drink by the open fire, before fuelling up for the night with a five-course gourmet dinner at Kristallhütte's restaurant. At bedtime you'll be taken to your ice suite and tucked up in expedition-grade sleeping bags.
Prices start at €129pp pn, including dinner and breakfast (kristallhuette.at). Zillertal is around an hour's drive (tirol-taxi.at) from Innsbruck; flights from Gatwick start from £65 return with easyJet (easyjet.com)

Hut-to-hut skiing in Swedish Lapland

Fed up with paying for a ski pass? Slalom straight past the lifts and go ski touring instead. Equipped with loose-heeled skis, this off-piste form of skiing is having a real moment. Sales of ski-touring gear in America are up by 87% on last year, a trend forecasters predict to grow. If you're ahead of the game and already have some experience, head to its traditional home, Scandinavia, for a new challenge this winter. On a hut-to-hut ski trip along the King's Trail in Swedish Lapland, with specialists the Telemark Ski Company, you can ski from Abisko to Kebnekaise on a dramatic, guided, week-long route that takes in steep-sided valleys, glaciers, Sweden's highest peak, some of Europe's wildest terrain and some very scenic saunas.
The Telemark Ski Company's (telemarkskico.com) next trip leaves on 25 March 2012 and costs from £1,215pp, including transfers, equipment, full-board accommodation and luggage transfer (by husky sledge) but not flights

Arctic Spa sailing

It may sound like a scene from Skyfall, but you can live out your Bond fantasies for real on this group trip in Norway. Get together with 11 friends and, between February and April, you can hire the Arctic Spa Boat for three days of winter indulgence. Sail from Tromsø and spend your days skiing the Lyngen Alps and your nights stargazing from a deckside hot tub on board a 1950s fishing trawler while, below deck, the chef rustles up a gourmet dinner. Facilities also stretch to a wood-fired sauna, "zen lounge," hammam and a series of Scandi-chic cabins.
Prices start at £849pp for a three-day package, including full accommodation, guiding and equipment, but not flights. A 24-hour cruise, without skiing, costs from £399pp, on the same basis (magneticnorthtravel.com)

Climbing the Iron Way in the Dolomites

First constructed in the late 19th century to make access to popular climbs slightly less dangerous, via ferrata, or "iron ways", were also used during the wars to facilitate foot routes through the Dolomites and Alps. The iron handrails and wire ropes secured into rock are now seeing new service among adventure sports enthusiasts. Doing them in summer, though, is for wimps. Over the past few years, a new breed of via ferrata fan has started tackling the routes in winter and some resorts are offering the experience to visitors. One such destination is Cortina d'Ampezzo, in the Italian Dolomites. Here, anyone of reasonable fitness, aged over 14, can book a day tour along the via ferrata as long as they have a pro on hand to guide them.
Prices from €60pp, including equipment (guidecortina.com; dolomitiskirock.com). B&B at the Hotel Astoria from €40pp pn (hotelastoriacortina.it). Flights from Stansted to Venice Treviso from £40 return (ryanair.com), from where it's 3.5 hours to Cortina by bus or train (dolomiti.org for details)

• Winter sports

guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Back in the USSR

Back in the USSR:

A lot has changed in St Petersburg since Miranda Sawyer's mother first visited in 1965 – for a start the vultures have all disappeared, and nobody wants her jeans

St Petersburg has stately boulevards, frou-frou churches, pretty canals and loads of art displayed in vast halls of glorious excess. This gives it a familiar feel: of a Western European, weekend break, cultural-tick-box city. But, although it can remind you of Amsterdam, of Berlin, of Brussels, it's not really like any of those places. Because St Petersburg is in Russia.

Russia! My mum and I don fake-fur hats and pose outside the Winter Palace of Peter I. There is no snow and the sky is the colour of Tupperware. It is perishing. Weary-looking horses stand in front of golden carriages, puffa-wrapped schoolchildren cluster and bump like tethered balloons, men in khaki army uniforms stride about, young and raw-jawed. Behind them glitters the Barbie mansion that is the Winter Palace. It links into other palaces that make up the Hermitage museum, stretched along the bank of the River Neva. By December the river will be frozen and won't thaw until April.

My mum has been to St Petersburg before: in 1981, when was she was a teacher in Manchester, she took a group of schoolgirls. "Everyone kept wanting to buy our jeans and coats," she remembers. "And we went to a circus. That had vultures!" Before that, in the summer of 1965, she and my dad drove to St Petersburg, in a Mini. They went via Finland. I really can't believe that they did this, but there are photographs.

The main difference between 1965 St Petersburg and the city of 46 years later is, says Mum, the lack of cars. Back then, people formed crowds around the Mini, and ooh-ed and aah-ed over its transverse engine; during the communist years, no foreign cars were imported into Russia. Now, Ford, GM and Toyota all have factories close to St Petersburg and the centre sometimes locks into a static traffic jam.

Also, she says, in 1965, "there were no signs". In order to do anything – visit sites, check into a hotel, change money, get petrol tokens – they had to get authorisation from the In-Tourist office. They had the address, but couldn't find it and had to beg a sailor, who understood a little English, to take them to the door. When they got there, it was entirely anonymous. No plaque, no display, no indication from the outside that there was anything non-domestic within.

Now, St Petersburg has plenty of signs. Not that we can read them, of course, though some words are easy to guess: KOPE for coffee. PECTOPAH means restaurant, says my mum, and we go to a Ukrainian one, where the waiters wear billowing silk trousers and everyone smokes. I ask for a vodka and tonic, and the waiter is genuinely puzzled. He brings me a glass of vodka, to be knocked back in one go, and a bottle of tonic for afters.

His trousers are fancy. Ours are not. Not one person asks us if they can buy them. This is because there are clothes shops everywhere and because our trousers are not desirable. Today's Russian woman is tall and gorgeous and dressed like a Selfridges Christmas tree. There is no part of her clothing that is plain: everything is stonewashed, or appliquéd, or has diamanté dangly bits, or is made out of actual leopard. Heels are killer. Make-up can be viewed at 100 paces. Our trousers – and us – are just too dull.

I wonder where these Swarovski-studded glamazons go when they hit 35. Because it appears that they are kidnapped and swapped for small, stout, grumpy lady trolls. After a while, I realise all Russian women contain within their DNA both ravishing supermodels and Rosa Klebb – like St Petersburg; like Russia itself. On the way from the airport, we passed mile upon mile of concrete housing blocks: relics of the Communist era and still the places most locals live. And yet, in the city centre, all is a Big Fat Gypsy Architect's wet dream.

With our tour guide, Natasha, we whizz around the city: go to the square that commemorates the Decemberists (nobles who died because they believed in the emancipation of serfs); the Church of the Spilt Blood where Alexander II was mortally wounded. And we visit St Peter and Paul's Fortress on an island opposite The Hermitage, a prime example of the Russian supermodel/Klebb combination.

First up, the cathedral in the centre, an imperious feast of gold and mosaic which contains the tombs of all the Romanov emperors and empresses from Peter the Great until the very last, Nicholas II. Peter the Great, the city's namesake, was a redoubtable dude. Standing 6ft 8in, in a time when most people struggled to get over 5ft 6in, he became Tsar at 10 and founded St Petersburg in 1703, when he was 28. He learned about city planning in Manchester, shipbuilding in Amsterdam and paid for European architects, artists and artisans to come and create his vision of a city: the vision that still brings in the visitors of today. St Petersburg has a population of 4.5m, but 5.5m tourists visit each year.

Peter the Great himself was skilled in various professions, including dentistry, though he is mostly remembered for his shipbuilding. He would go to the shipyards himself, often after a heavy night's drinking and two hours' sleep, and teach the locals. He was modern-thinking, changing the clock to European time, making his courtiers shave their beards off and encouraging the population to come to Russia's first-ever museum, not far from here. The museum housed a display of deformed embryos brought back by him from Holland, and Peter offered a drink and a pastry on entrance. Free cake and booze. There's an emperor who understood his subjects.

After Peter, the ruling Romanovs were, variously, vicious two-faced modernisers or vicious two-faced conservatives. Their tombs are in rows inside the cathedral: gilded, immovable. At a certain point, a law was passed banning females from the throne because they caused too much trouble. The final Tsar was Nicholas II, who was married to Alix, grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. Their tombs are in a separate room, at the back, away from the altar. They were murdered in 1917 on the orders of Lenin, their bodies and those of their five children thrown down a disused mine. Only in 2008 were the last two corpses found and identified by DNA samples. Natasha shrugs when she tells us this. "It is sad, yes," she says. "But I think worse for the ordinary Soviet people who lost their children to war or starvation."

Natasha is 28 and pragmatic. She thinks some aspects of Communist Russia were good. Education, for example. Everyone in the country could read and write. But now, Putin has announced literacy is too high, because there is no one willing to sweep the streets (other than immigrants). So he's proposing that parents pay for all their children's lessons other than the basics. This, and the fact that you have to pay for childcare, is putting Natasha off becoming a mother.

Also, she explains, when Communism collapsed, it was decreed that private property was the way forward. Thus, everyone was deemed to be an owner of their flat (previously rented from the state). That's everyone who lived there, including children from the age of 16. Natasha lives with her husband, his mum and grandmother. Four adults, all property owners. But none of them can sell, because of everyone else's claims. There's no room for kids.

Natasha leads us to another part of the St Peter and Paul's Fortress: the political remand prison. Dostoevsky was imprisoned in the original jail, demolished in the late 1800s and replaced with the one we walk around. We poke our heads into dark, individual cells: Trotsky, Gorky, Lenin's brother all spent time here. The prison was carefully designed so that no prisoner ever encountered another; the identities of those incarcerated were even kept from the guards. No communication was allowed, though prisoners tapped messages to each other. The last one left in 1921.

In the evening, we go to the circus. Natasha says: "I would not allow you to go to a private circus. The animals are badly treated there, and I do not like it. There is a state circus in every city in Russia and all the animals are treated well. There is a cat theatre in Moscow. I love cats."

It's half-term, and we take our seats among hundreds of children. And we sit through – no, be honest, we enjoy – two hours of unbelievable entertainment. Goats that trot up and down stairs. Cats that stand on the back of dogs. Monkeys that ride bicycles, bears that do handstands, sea lions that play football, ostriches that, um, run around a bit. It is utterly mesmerising. My animal morals take a thrashing. It is hard to resist clapping a sea lion when it's clapping at you. It is even harder not to love a monkey in a bowtie and waistcoat.

When I was young, I was obsessed by gymnastics. My heroine was Olga Korbut, the first woman to do a standing back somersault on the balance beam. She was enchanting: thoroughly charming, astonishingly gifted, a crowd-pleaser. She was also being abused by her coach. And she's what I think about when I watch the circus in St Petersburg. I ask my mum if she enjoyed it. "Yes," she says. "No vultures, dear. A definite improvement."

We leave, and go into the cold night. Everyone is smiling, and well wrapped-up. The city is stunning and there's so much more to see.

Essentials

Miranda Sawyer and her mother travelled with Baltic Holidays. Their St Petersburg city break, with flights, transfers and four nights' B&B at the Dostoevsky Hotel, starts at £490 (08450 705 710; balticholidays.com)

• St Petersburg
• Russia

Miranda Sawyer

guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Holidays, festivals, carnivals... (2)

Last time we celebrated in South Korea, Spain and Thailand. Today we look at four interesting holidays that you can visit in English-speaking countries, India, USA and again in Spain.

• Holi (India) - most of the holiday is associated with the fact that you just get dirty. In India in late February or early March you can be covered by various colored powders. Of course, you do not need to visit India, justome hiduistic community in your hometown.
• International Pillow Fight Day - mud, water, tomatoes, colours but what about feathers? If you want to feel like in duvet, you must participate in an international day of pillow fight. It takes place roughly in 140 cities from London to Vancouver.
• Battalo del Vino (Spain) - back to the Iberian Peninsula, specifically to the city of Hero. First, let's go 29th June to worship and immediately to redwine battle. In the morning you can wring clothes directly into the bottles.
• Mardi Gras (Louisiana, USA) - the famous day in New Orleans, which is comparable to carnivals. We are still throwing something as during previous festivals and holidays. In case of Mardi Gras everybody is throwing almost anything - bears, sweets or roses.

T Magazine: France Nouveau

T Magazine: France Nouveau: Can Marseille, the birthplace of bouillabaisse, teach the French how to live in a melting pot?

Holidays, festivals, carnivals... (1)

Christmas, Easter or New Year? Are these festivals not enough for you? We have prepared a series of selected events that you should not miss during your travels definitely.

Songkran (Thailand) - between 13 and 15 of April (the start of New Year in Thailand) you have the chance to experience the world's biggest water battle (there is no relationship with current floods).

Tomatina (Spain) - last Wednesday in August in Buñol city you can throw tomatoes. It's definitely better than to be chasing bulls in Pamplona to celebrate Saint Fermin between 6 and 14 July.

Boryeong Mud Festival (South Korea) - if you want to visit all of the festivals this article, then you definitely do not allow this to the end. The ideal would be to cross over from Korea to Thailand, where you can wash yourself all the mud that sticks to you within two weeks of July. A little problem is that you must wait until April next year.

Las Vegas's best new attractions

Las Vegas's best new attractions: Sin City has been pretty quiet the past few years. But a jackpot of new attractions is bringing the excitement back to Las Vegas.

Colonial riches in Barbados

Colonial riches in Barbados:

It's a favourite with Simon Cowell, Michael Winner and local hero Rihanna, but historian Tristram Hunt thinks it's time to look at the other side of Barbados

"How a man's heart swells within him, when after sea and sky and sky and sea for nearly a month, he first sees the kindly land beckon to him over the salt waves! And that land tropical!" This was how Victorian writer Henry Nelson Coleridge responded to reaching Bridgetown in 1841. He particularly liked the fact that "Barbados is the most ancient colony in the British empire."

Today when we read about Barbados it usually has something to do with Michael Winner, Rihanna, or Simon Cowell's swimwear. This is the Barbados of the super-deluxe Platinum Coast – the western side of the island, stretching up from the capital Bridgetown towards Holetown and Speightstown, of fantastic beaches and crystal Caribbean sea.

And the real estate is something to behold: the Four Seasons hotel complex followed by the Sandy Lane beach resort, the swanky Cliff restaurant, and then up to the exclusive Port Ferdinand marina. No recession here, as engineers work around the clock to dredge another huge dock and carve out a gated community for the yachting classes.

But there is another Barbados. This island, the most easterly of the Caribbean, has a remarkable history stretching back, on the one hand, to the Amero-Indians of 4,000BC and on the other to the apex of British imperialism. And, unlike some former British colonies, it has enough confidence and sense of its own identity to explore this history in a creative and compelling manner. In Barbados you can combine the indulgence of the Platinum Coast with a rewarding account of the past.

On the route from Grantley Adams International Airport towards Bridgetown, you pass Bussa Statue – a heroic depiction of a slave breaking his chains, inspired by the so-called Bussa slave rebellion of 1816. It is a healthy reminder that the landscape of modern Barbados was laid out on the back of African slave labour. "The whole is a sweet Spot of Earth, not a Span hardly uncultivated with Sugar-Canes; all sides bend with an easy declivity to the Sea, and is ever green," was how one visitor described the island in the 1730s.

For Eric Williams, the Marxist historian and future prime minister of Trinidad, the Caribbean was the "hub of Empire" – the richest place on the globe thanks to its exponential export of sugar and molasses (for rum). Beginning in the 1640s, English planters transformed this island wilderness into an agricultural engine dotted by boiling rooms, windmills and furnaces. It delivered record profits for them and a miserable existence for the tens of thousands of slaves who worked and died in the cane fields.

All of which is expertly recounted at St Nicholas Abbey. Located at the end of an ancient mahogany tree avenue, the "Abbey" (in reality a private home) is one of the very few Jacobean plantation houses still in existence. Its whitewashed 1650s gabled frontage would instinctively put you in Dorset – but the surrounding cane fields, stifling heat and boiling-house chimney brings you back to sugar-and-slave country. Now owned by a wealthy Bajan architect, St Nicholas Abbey is a well-preserved museum successfully recreating 18th-century plantation life, complete with Wedgwood pottery and Chippendale furniture. In the tropics, the accoutrements of Englishness were more important than ever.

The abbey provides a riveting guide to the sugar economy underpinning the house's wealth, complete with an inventory of the slaves drawn up for compensation purposes following abolition. The planters expected $190 for the strongest workers as well as women of child-bearing age. But this isn't just an exercise in nostalgia. The abbey now has its own distillery, and in the cane-harvest months (January to March) you are able to watch that hot, intense process of crushing, boiling and fermenting which produces the glorious nectar of Bajan rum.

Placed in hogshead barrels, the sugar was exported via Bridgetown – the port city which became, in the 18th century, "the London of the West Indies". This was the cultural capital of the Caribbean, with theatres, newspapers, clubs and a statue of Admiral Lord Nelson. Today it's more about tax-free shopping, diamond stores and catching a deep-sea diving rig, but the history here is equally worth exploring. The synagogue, dating back to the 1650s, highlights the early impact of the Jews in Barbados, fleeing the Inquisition in Brazil and bringing with them their knowledge of sugar-cane cultivation and slave financing. The nearby Parliament building (established in 1639) houses an excellent account of the history of democracy in Barbados, while the National Heroes Gallery shows footage of the Queen knighting cricketer Garry Sobers at the Savannah racecourse.

Among those drawn to Bridgetown in the 1700s was an impressionable young land surveyor from Virginia. Hoping the sea breezes would help cure his half-brother Lawrence of tuberculosis, George Washington spent a bucolic few months riding across the plantations, visiting the theatre and taking in colonial society. He also took note of the British defences at James Fort and Charles Fort, guarding the entrance into Carlisle Bay.

The George Washington House Museum overplays its hand when it suggests you cannot understand the American revolution without the Barbados connection. But what this museum does emphasise – in another fine 18th-century domestic setting – is how Barbados and the Thirteen Colonies of America formed part of a broader Atlantic Empire. There were strong commercial and cultural connections between Virginia, Massachusetts and the Caribbean right up to 1776. And then, after a suitable pause, trading resumed again with an independent America.

On the other side of the Garrison district, where the 15,000 British army forces used to billet, the Barbados Museum provides the official history of the island. Located in a former prison block, this is a museum in need of refreshing. However, it does provide a proper account of Barbados's African heritage – the thousands of slaves taken from Angola and the Congo across the murderous "middle passage" and into the cane fields. With skill and scholarship, these galleries trace a cultural inheritance systematically eliminated.

Beyond the museums and galleries the wonder of Barbados is the historic fabric still in existence. You need to see it soon, because the old cane fields are being turned into golf courses and the chattel houses knocked down for condominiums. But the plantation houses, urban villas, Bridgetown warehouses and, above all, a proud array of Anglican churches remain a remarkable testimony to an imperial past. And there is a great sense of ownership about them. The Barbados Museum, the island's National Trust and the tourism and planning departments all understand the value of this heritage.

Of course a trip to Barbados might ultimately be about the sea, the sun and the rum. But it can also be about a series of overlapping Amero-Indian, African, American and British pasts. The island was made rich by its industrial exploitation of sugar cane. Its economy is now dependent almost entirely upon tourism and it has found in its colonial heritage an equally valuable asset which it is exploiting with similar effectiveness.

Tristram Hunt is currently working on a book about the cities of the British Empire

Essentials

British Airways (britishairways.com) flies from Gatwick to Bridgetown, from £498 return. Tristram Hunt stayed at the Colony Club (colonyclubhotel.com). Doubles from $242 per night. For more information, go to visitbarbados.org

• Barbados
• Caribbean
• Slavery
• Museums
• Michael Winner
• Rihanna
• Simon Cowell

Tristram Hunt

guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Triptomatic

Triptomatic is another of the services offering travel planning and experience sharing. There are three simple steps to find your travel destination and create a plan:

1. Find a destination
2. Pick sights and attractions
3. Printing and sharing of the created plan

We tried the Czech Republic (the system also offers separately cities such as Prague). And our experience? You work at Google maps, and the system offers minimal support - just putting attraction into day, finding the shortest path and must-see list.

Our conclusion: Triptomatic can be a useful tool, but it would not be good to use it as a single or pricipal source.

Let's celebrate

Christmas is coming, but travelers can celebrate during the year. There are many world and international days related to travel. These days are often connected to bonus offers or various discounts or free tickets.

• Earth Day (22/04)
• World Environment Day (05/06)
• World Tourism Day (27/09)
• World Sight Day (13/10)
• International Mountain Day (11/12)

T Magazine: Into the Wild

T Magazine: Into the Wild: Two country inns in England's magisterial New Forest are putting a twist on the foraging trend.

Travel itineraries

Today my StumbleUpon.com have found an interesting page containing travels itineraries. You choose 6 trips across Europe as well as New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Asia or America. And the name of the page? How to Travel the World (section On the Road). 

T Magazine: The New New List for Travel

T Magazine: The New New List for Travel: Tracking the latest ideas in travel and where they'll take you next.

In Transit Blog: How to Save Money on Train Trips in Italy

In Transit Blog: How to Save Money on Train Trips in Italy: A selection of top train discounts available this season in Italy.

Europe Cheap Flights

Just a short message: Ryanair offers cheap flights for December and January across Europe to Thursday 10th 11th The 2011th.

Coming home to the Yorkshire Dales

Coming home to the Yorkshire Dales:

Brontë country, Christmas gift workshops and three of the best after-dark tours

Andrea Arnold's moody adaptation of Wuthering Heights looks set to inspire renewed interest in the Brontë sisters when it opens this week. The Brontë Parsonage Museum (bronte.info) in Haworth will be putting on special events to coincide with the launch, including two evenings dedicated to Emily Brontë (16 and 23 November) and a talk by the film's screenwriter, Olivia Hetreed (9 December). But for the ultimate Wuthering Heights experience, check out Cowside, the newest self-catering property from the Landmark Trust (landmarktrust.org.uk). Set in the Yorkshire Dales north of Haworth, this remote 18th-century farmstead has flagstone floors, an inglenook fireplace and a backdrop of rolling hills. A more perfect retreat for aspiring Heathcliffs and Cathys would be hard to find.

Joanne's travel clinic: Christmas gift workshops

The dilemma I'd like to have a go at making my own Christmas gifts this year. Can you recommend any suitable craft workshops? Tricia

Jo replies Where once a dash around Debenhams would do, now, thanks to programmes like Kirstie's Handmade Britain, nothing less than a hand-knitted bobble hat is required to show we care. The creatively challenged should check out local National Trust or English Heritage properties, many of which are running craft events in the run-up to Christmas. At Saltram (nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-saltram), a country house near Plymouth, throughout November you can learn to make gifts, from a gingerbread house to a frosted vase. The Forestry Commission (forestry.gov.uk/whatson) has festive classes at some of its visitor centres, making use of natural materials: try a wreath-making workshop at Alice Holt Forest in Hampshire (on 6-7 December). Other ideas include a felt-making workshop at the London Wetland Centre on 27 November (wwt.org.uk/london) and stained-glass making at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket, Suffolk, from 12-13 November (eastanglianlife.org.uk). And if it goes wrong, there are always gift vouchers.

Three of the best: after-dark tours

The clocks may have gone back, but these magical after-hours tours by lantern and candlelight will brighten even the darkest winter evening

1. Sir John Soane's Museum, London On the first Tuesday of each month enjoy a candlelit tour of the 19th-century collector's paintings, curios and antiquities. Free (soane.org)

2. Muncaster Castle, Cumbria Lights, music and special effects transform the gardens in December, with candlelit tours on selected dates. Tickets £15/£6.50 (muncaster.co.uk)

3. Alwnick Garden, Northumberland Tour gardens and water features by the light of a willow lantern from 10 November. Music, food and flowers. £8.50/£6.80 (alnwickgarden.com)

If you have a travel dilemma, email Joanne O'Connor at magazine@observer.co.uk

• Anne Brontë
• Charlotte Brontë
• Emily Brontë
• Yorkshire
• United Kingdom
• Europe
• Christmas

Joanne O'Connor

guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

War of Airlines

We would like to point out a current competition of airways in Germany. Companies such as Emirates, Qatar Airways or Etihad offer very interesting prices to South Africa, Asia and Australia. Check out the current discounts and make your holiday longer.

6 Tips for Holiday Travel with Kids

6 Tips for Holiday Travel with Kids: If you are taking the kids on a flight this holiday season, there is a bit more prep work involved. Don't worry, we make it easy for you.

The 5 Most Dangerous Airports in America

The 5 Most Dangerous Airports in America