- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook collapses: Last-ditch rescue talks fail, leaving 21,000 jobs at risk
At 11.30pm on Sunday night, Thomas Cook sold a package holiday to Greece: a bargain £187 for a week in Corfu in October.Just after midnight, the firm’s Twitter account reassured a passenger booked from Manchester to Cancun on Monday morning: “Our flights and holiday operations are operating as normal.”
- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook: Essential advice for holidaymakers following collapse of travel giant
Thomas Cook, the original package holiday company, has closed down.The struggling travel firm has appointed administrators after failing to secure refinancing.
- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook: Holidaymakers left helpless as last-ditch talks to save debt-laden travel giant continue
Hours before their flights to the sun are due to take off, thousands of Thomas Cook customers still do not know if they will be travelling on Monday morning.At 5am, a pair of Airbus A321 jets belonging to Thomas Cook Airlines are due to depart from Manchester airport to the Greek island of Corfu and the Bulgarian resort of Bourgas.
- StyleThe Telegraph
The Italian city with art, history and fabulous food – but no crowds
Mantua is that rarest of things – a sublime Italian city that is still untroubled by crowds. Why is hard to know, for the rule of the Gonzaga family from 1328 to 1707 and their rich court attracted painters, sculptors and architects who left treasures that are the equal, and – in the case of the Gonzagas’ palace, the 500-room Palazzo Ducale, and its Mantegna frescoes – often the superior of anything in more celebrated cities.
- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook set for last-ditch rescue talks today as MPs urge ministers to step in
Britain’s original package-holiday company will begin the most critical negotiations in its 178-year history at 9am on Sunday morning.Thomas Cook, which is heavily in debt and seeking refinancing, will meet its lenders and the Chinese conglomerate, Fosun, at the City law firm Slaughter & May.
- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook: Holidaymakers in Tunisia 'told to pay again or they cannot leave'
*/ Dozens of Thomas Cook holidaymakers about to fly home have reportedly been told by a hotelier in Tunisia to pay again before they are allowed to leave.Staff at Les Orangers Hotel in the resort of Hammamet were reported to have demanded payment of sums equivalent to as much as £2,500 before they were allowed to leave for the local airport, Enfidha.
- StyleThe Independent
Thomas Cook: Hundreds of passengers stranded amid fears company is about to collapse
Hundreds of Thomas Cook passengers were stranded overnight at airports in the eastern Mediterranean – but not because of the company’s dire financial problems.Britain’s oldest package holiday company is in last-ditch talks to try to secure a refinancing deal with its creditors and other partners.
- StyleThe Telegraph
The world's most beautiful art gallery (but nobody goes there)
The film version of Donna Tartt’s novel, The Goldfinch, which is released next week, is unlikely to prove popular with the world’s museums. The story begins with an art lover’s nightmare – a terrorist’s bomb exploding in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It then centres around a 17th-century painting of a goldfinch that one of the surviving victims removes from the rubble.
- StyleThe Telegraph
What's behind Japan's curious love of cleanliness?
It’s been dubbed the seven-minute miracle: teams of high-speed cleaners, with wide smiles and plastic flowers clipped to their hats, leap on board Japanese bullet trains and carry out a meticulous cleaning routine, before the next batch of passengers come on board.
- StyleThe Telegraph
From intermediate cruiser to gnarly expert, how to become a better skier
Ahh the end of another great day on the slopes. Sliding from restaurant to restaurant admiring mountains outlined against an azure blue sky, swooping gracefully down runs at the top of your game. Skiing is bliss isn’t it?
- StyleThe Telegraph
7 stylish boutique hotels in Moscow, including futuristic designer pads to Art Nouveau mansions
Despite its legacy of Soviet architecture and passion for luxurious bling, Moscow can be a surprisingly stylish place. There are plenty of design stores throughout the city, a Design Week since 2010, and many hotels adhere to Western standards of interior chic. The Standart, the country’s first Design Hotel member, certainly raised the bar when it opened in 2015, but others have been offering chic or minimal interiors for a while along with traditional dames with elements of intimacy and personalised service. Here's our pick of the best boutique hotels in Moscow.
- StyleThe Independent
Ryanair strike: Pilots call off five days of walkout
In its second about-turn in three days, the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa) has called off five days of industrial action at Ryanair.The union is in dispute about a wide range of concerns, including pensions, loss of licence insurance and maternity benefits.
- StyleThe Independent
Want to arrive on time? You’ll need to pay extra for that, says easyJet
Two weeks ago I was on an easyJet flight from Toulouse to Gatwick that arrived on the wrong day.On Wednesday my easyJet flight from Edinburgh to Gatwick was set to take off on the wrong day, too.
- StyleThe Telegraph
Better beds, fewer robots: are inventors close to creating the perfect hotel room?
As the first person ever to have stayed in the Pool Suite at Sweni Lodge in South Africa, I had my work cut out. “I’d love you to do a snagging list,” said the manager – a checklist of design flaws to correct before the first paying guests arrived. Self-consciously, I set about testing everything in the room ergonomically, from the shower controls to the Nespresso machine – discovering, for instance, that the circular stone basin was so wide I couldn’t see myself in the shaving mirror behind it.
- StyleThe Telegraph
The best boutique hotels in Hong Kong, from sleek suites to heritage hideaways
Hong Kong is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world so it makes sense that the majority of its 80,000 hotel rooms are found in big shiny skyscrapers. But dig a little deeper and you'll uncover a clutch of stylish small hotels, which add a more personal neighbourly touch. From swanky sky pads and minimalist hideaways, to heritage numbers and city centre boltholes, here's our pick of the best boutique hotels in Hong Kong.
- StyleThe Telegraph
Where is the best place to see the Northern Lights in the UK and what is the best time to see them?
Think of the Northern Lights and you’ll probably picture an icy trip to Scandinavia, Canada or Iceland. But did you know you can catch their colourful displays in the UK (and not just in Scotland’s northernmost points)?
- StyleThe Independent
Why train is the cheapest way to get from London to Edinburgh
At Euston station, platform 6, the train to Edinburgh is boarding. This is the 6.43am express that will take me from London to the Scottish capital. But not just yet.First, I must step aboard the adjacent train, on platform 7, to field test some research. It contradicts the oft-quoted notion that it is cheaper to fly between key British cities rather than to travel by rail.
- StyleThe Telegraph
Book It: Four of the best hotels for a short-hop holiday in Europe
These four fabulous Europe minibreaks are all a hop, skip and a jump (or, err under two-hour flight) away
- StyleThe Independent
Exploring Japan’s soy sauce island
After two hours on Japan’s Shodoshima Island I know I’ll never look at a bottle of soy sauce in the same way. In fact, I’ve already made a mental note to bin the bottle of Kikkoman that’s languished in my kitchen cupboard for the past decade.There are several reasons this mountainous, forested island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea has such a rich history of soy sauce production, and I start my investigation at Marukin Soy Sauce Museum. Shodoshima-based Marukin is one of Japan’s top soy sauce brands, and at its tiny museum, documents dating back to the 1600s reveal how the presence of an enormous salt pan made Shodoshima the perfect spot for soy sauce production – a process which requires salt, wheat, soybeans and water (obtaining these other ingredients was easy, due to Shodoshima’s proximity to the port of Osaka).
- StyleThe Telegraph
Explore charming colonial towns and Mayan ruins – what to do from the Mexico cruise port of Progreso
Progreso is a pleasant, if sometimes bustling, small port town and balneario (seaside resort), with snorkelling, swimming, windsurfing and boating on offer to daytrippers. It’s just 43km (40mins by bus/taxi) north of Mérida, one of the loveliest and most unsung of cities in Mexico. Before Cancún was developed, Mérida had north Yucatán’s main airport; now, it’s more like a quaint, convivial provincial town with some pretty colonial architecture and the airport is very quiet.
- StyleThe Telegraph
Low prices, fewer crowds and no screaming children – the off-peak adventures to discover right now
The new shoes have been shined, the book bags packed, the ‘first day’ photos posted dutifully to Facebook: school’s definitively in for autumn. Which means big kids can rejoice! Because, from now until Christmas – with a brief late-October busy-blip for half-term – all those theme parks, beach retreats, activity havens and wild places that have shouted and screamed FAMILY FUN! all summer have emptied out at the turn of a calendar page.
- StyleThe Telegraph
Where is the best place to see the Northern Lights in the UK and what is the best time to see them?
Think of the Northern Lights and you’ll probably picture an icy trip to Scandinavia, Canada or Iceland. But did you know you can catch their colourful displays in the UK (and not just in Scotland’s northernmost points)?
- StyleThe Telegraph
Inside the iconic Italian film studio where Harry and Meghan will be partying this weekend
Cinecittà – Rome’s Cinema City – is Europe’s largest film studio, an entire metropolis dedicated to movie-making. Twenty-five years ago I lived in Rome and longed to visit, but back then it was a forbidden city where only the chosen entered.
- StyleThe Independent
Last-chance Europe: The best beaches to visit before Brexit
Summer may already feel like an age ago, but there’s still a window to catch some sun in Europe before the winter sets in (and we potentially crash out of the EU come 31 October...).Here’s our pick of the best beaches on which to relax, unwind and forget about the oncoming storm.
