I got a PCR test ‘two days’ ahead of the flight, which was declared technically out of date by the check-in staff at the airport. I must have got the exposure off here because the scene came out looking far more gloomy than I was expecting. I might have been lucky enough to visit during the tourist season, in a period where there weren’t actually too many tourists.3 The old city reveals a surprising amount of public space in the form of mini-squares and little alleyways to explore. One day I went for a little excursion on the train to see Torremolinos, the most obviously touristy part of the Costa del Sol. The little plastic figurines hanging above the street here were done by the sculptor Chema Lumbreras. Here are some boats. Along with this, the country is the home of golf, which means there are fantastic golf courses dotted across the country. There was a Covid health check, someone in medical overalls scanned my travel authorisation, asked what country I was from, and waved me through. They were so good that even as I ate the most delicious meals there, I felt a pang of despair because I knew that my country simply didn’t possess the interest or the infrastructure to pull off a similar achievement.
A stunning barn conversion near Whitby, The Byre has expansive views of the North York Moors through the picture windows in its open-plan living room and a spacious kitchen for whipping up family meals. I liked the brickwork around these windows. I got time to pursue some of my own fun projects, spend long afternoons drifting through the art museums, sit in cafes. Learn more about Christmas with our Christmas trivia quiz and fun facts below. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, “White Christmas” has sold more than 100 million copies around the world. There were posters all over advertising a comic book exhibition in the lower level of the Aurora shopping mall. There were these life-size statues of Marvel heroes, along with glass display cases full of comic book paraphenalia. But without the full art package, the cabinets that housed Jamma-based arcade games were usually ugly things that merely relied on the game’s attract mode to draw in players.
A few weeks back I wrote about Automatic Services and the arcade cabinets that a group of us were able to acquire, after its owner Mark Shepherd passed away. She was crying. She’d been detained long enough that her onward connection to Italy had passed. Cats gather on the sides of the path in the evenings, they seem semi-feral, but also well-fed and groomed enough that someone has to be taking care of them. Attendees of the annual Vancouver Christmas Market will find plenty to do in the European-style outdoor village, including shopping for locally made gifts, watching holiday entertainment on the Flying Stage and taking pictures with Santa Claus, Holly and Jolly – the official mascots of the Christmas Market. You can find new static caravans for sale in the UK for anything between £15’000 and £100’000, and used ones for between roughly £5’000 and £50’000, though, of course, you can rent one, too.
Whilst arcades were of course popular over here, especially in seaside resort locations, we tend not to find many images online. Torremolinos is visited by a different kind of tourist, older British people who’ve invested in seaside apartments. She’d been fully vaccinated, she had two tests, she was showing me the Austrian government website which clearly states that British citizens are allowed to enter, provided they have been tested and vaccinated. Online forums dedicated to caravan and tent camping across the UK can be very useful as you can read other people’s experiences, get information, and are an invaluable resource in planning your holiday. On pebbly East Beach, Seabank is a converted 19th-century railway carriage cottage with four bedrooms, a snug living room and a kitchen with fenced garden – all about as close to the sea as you can get. At the bottom of the garden is the mile-wide Stour estuary, forming the Suffolk-Essex border, with walks to Holbrook Bay and beyond. Some of these look like the exposed remains of interior courtyards. “Many of these customers are likely to have substituted planned holidays abroad for staycations,” said John Worthington, Mintel’s senior travel analyst – and it remains to be seen if they will go again as overseas travel opens up, albeit against the backdrop of a cost of living crisis.