What a week: a night at Germany's most sustainable place to stay, the Green City Hotel in Freiburg's Vauban quarter; a day in the Alsatian town of Colmar, with six concurrent festive markets; and a moment to gasp at the resurrected interior of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. I started the week intending to enjoy all three, and failed to reach any of them. My plan to fly out to Saxony and travel to the Seine survived first contact with Storm Darragh. Although the latest tempest triggered the cancellation of hundreds of flights, my Ryanair Boeing 737 landed in Leipzig less than an hour late. I travelled via the city's exquisite main station – the most beautiful in Continental Europe – to Chemnitz. Next year this proletarian east German city, formerly known as Karl-Marx-Stadt, will be European Capital of Culture. Alongside the more celebrated cities of Dresden and Leipzig, it completes a perfect triangle of intrigue and indulgence. As Karl Marx surely said when travelling on German Railways: you have nothing to lose but your plans. After yet another Deutsche Bahn misconnect from Nuremberg, my schedule curled up to die in a corner of Stuttgart's unfinished Hauptbahnhof (a station now rivalling Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona for the European title of Slowest Completion of a Major Project). Too late to finish the journey to Freiburg and, next morning, cross the Rhine to Colmar. So I gave up for the night in the small and friendly city of Pforzheim. Not only does it host the far-from-rough Hotel Ruf – Pforzheim is also surely Germany's Yuletide capital, thanks to a full-on Middle Ages Christmas market. |
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Temple to the train: Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, dressed up for Christmas |
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| | From Malaga to the Canary Islands, escape the chilly UK weather with a Spanish getaway. Read more. |
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| Whether you want to go wild or wind down, you'll find it all on this chic and sophisticated Greek island. Read more. |
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| With sea storms and an unfixable ship, things did not go to plan – yet this voyage was still magnificent. Read more. |
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These turbulent days, every traveller needs a plan B – and often plans C and D as well. After a cheap and cheerful night in Pforzheim, I strode up to the station to continue my journey west to Paris – only to find the line blocked, with no apparent hope of escape for the rest of the morning. "Always ask," is the best advice in travel. Fellow frustrated passengers whispered of an S-Bahn "tram-train" that might be heading in the general direction of Karlsruhe (where expresses were said to be running) by a little-used route. The overstuffed conveyance duly meandered towards the middle of the handsome city – whose main station is miles from the centre. Advice from more locals helped me escape from a tangle of tram-trains heading in all the wrong directions and reach the Hauptbahnhof. I climbed aboard the TGV to Paris, only for it to sigh to a halt somewhere in the southern suburbs of Strasbourg for a half-hour breather. All the way to the French capital, I tried to secure a ticket to visit Notre Dame during what the cathedral authorities calls an "octave of reopening" – eight days of carefully controlled entry, which continues to Sunday. I was mesmerised by a countdown clock on my phone that promised I was 42, then 13, then 3, then 7 minutes away from securing admission. Forget Oasis or Taylor Swift: the hottest ticket in town this week is to access Notre Dame, the spiritual and geographical heart of Paris. When finally I was admitted to the virtual box office, every ticket had gone. I paid my respects outside in the rain as a line of lucky winners had their holy QR codes checked on the way in. Fortunately the marvellous Musée de Montmartre is just a brisk uphill walk away and welcomes visitors every day of the year, including Christmas Day, with no need to wait in a virtual ante-chamber. Its home is the 17th-century Maison du Bel Air, where Auguste Renoir and Suzanne Valadon painted some of their greatest works. I will resurrect my plan to visit Notre Dame early next month. By then the initial surge of excitement will have subsided, and with the first big tour groups of the year yet to congregate, there may be room for a few passing tourists. And if not? This is Paris, where you can eat, drink and wander to your heart's content. |
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Four days to save on Interrail |
Buy an Interrail "global pass" by 17 December and save 25 per cent on normal prices. With a quarter off, the cheapest "Global Pass" for an adult between 28 and 59 costs €213 (£178). This buys any four days of travel within one month in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Scandinavia and almost all of eastern Europe. With some care, you can also travel for no additional cost in France, Spain and Italy – though many express trains require a reservation and a further payment.
Those under 28 or 60-plus pay even less. No need to start travelling immediately: you can choose to start using it up to 11 months after purchase. The promotion represents excellent value for those seeking low-cost, high-reward travel next summer. Many rail retailers sell Interrail; through All Aboard, the ticket is fully refundable if you can't use it. |
Swerve a National Park fee |
While many US National Parks are free to enter, all the big hitters charge a fee. At Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, it is $35 per vehicle. Travelling to and within the US isn't getting any cheaper, so you should try to time your visit to a National Park to coincide with one of the six free-admission days just revealed for 2025: January 20 – Martin Luther King Day April 19 – First Day of National Park Week June 19 – Juneteenth National Independence Day August 4 – Great American Outdoors Act Signing Day September 27 – National Public Lands Day November 11 – Veterans Day
The best National Parks to visit |
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What are the best things to do in the course of a week in Sharm El Sheikh in February? |
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For most holidaymakers visiting Egypt's premier resort, the beach and its hinterland of bars, restaurants and all-inclusive resorts are the main attractions. But Sharm El Sheikh and its surroundings on the Sinai peninsula offer much more. A small but significant proportion of visitors are here for the diving, and make straight for the reefs and wrecks on specialist trips. On land, pay a visit to the Heavenly Cathedral, about halfway between the ever-popular Naama Bay and the Old Market. This Coptic Christian place of worship is vast, cool and mysterious, and the top cultural attraction in Sharm El Sheikh. Most other activities involve leaving the resort. I recommend against the quad bike trips through the desert on the grounds of risk, and against the "day trip to Cairo and the Pyramids" on the grounds of exhaustion. Northeast along the Sinai coast, Dahab is a much quieter and more relaxed resort than Sharm El Sheikh. You can get there on a regular bus. If, like me, you can't dive but you can snorkel, Dahab provides the chance to dip down through turquoise, translucent water to view colourful coral. The ultimate experience is to ascend Mount Sinai. Plenty of companies compete to offer trips in which you climb in the early hours and watch the sun rise from the summit. |
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| Make journeys more relaxing with this handy inflatable travel pillow, now only £17. |
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| Looking for the perfect gift for a young adventurer? Disney's Book of Maps is reduced to under £8. |
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