Dear Reader,

OF COURSE, footballers need a break from their £200,000-a-week jobs. The financial pressures on them must be enormous as they scrimp and save for a few beers in Ibiza, Mykonos or, in the case of Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, a trendy restaurant in London with reportedly not much in the way of ventilation.

But you do wonder why on earth their employers allow them to jet off wherever they please, with the prospect of facing two weeks of quarantine just as they’re meant to be back at work.

Their brains seem to work with lightning speed on the pitch but, off it, they can be dunces.

It reminds me of the time when Liverpool’s Ian Rush was invited to comment on his struggle to adapt to Italian life during a season at Juventus in 1987-88. ‘I couldn’t settle in Italy,’ he said. ‘It was like living in a foreign country.’

Still, they can at least visit Cuba, which is off the red list. But not Jamaica, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, all of which are the latest countries to record infection rates of more than 20 per 100,000 over a seven-day period — and, therefore, require us to self-isolate for fourteen days on our return if we go there.

But, as we report on page 59, it’s not all doom and gloom (and court cases in Syros — where Man U captain Harry Maguire ended up).

The Post Office has carried out an extensive survey of how prices have changed in 24 European cities since March — and only in Athens and Katowice, Poland, have they gone up. This means the likes of Rome (pictured) and Lisbon offer good value and, what’s more, you might not bump into too many sozzled footballers in, respectively, the Colosseum or the Jeronimos Monastery.

Closer to home, our cover story shines a spotlight on stately homes which are under-going a resurgence thanks to new, young and brave owners. In a normal year, these houses would make for sought-after trips by tourists from all over the world. All the more reason for the rest of us to visit and help keep their roofs on for a few more hundred years.