MUSEUM’S ACE PLACE FOR THE STOUT-HEARTED
three bars, a live music lounge, casino and Topgolf swing suite, provides an all-round holiday experience for the new influx of tourists.
But while the city revs up for a new era, its roots in motors and music remain its other major draws.
I take the $23 tour of
The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation where I find the limo
JFK was in when he was shot in 1963.
There’s also the bus Rosa Parks was riding in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat, sparking the Civil Rights movement.
Any fans of rap will know Marshall Mathers, AKA Eminem, hails from here. His face, inset below, along with other colourful street art, features in a city mural tour.
I also check out the Motown Museum – the Home of Hitsville USA where a tour guide sings some of the label’s most famous songs and tells stories of its biggest artists. Tales about the likes of The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes fall from her lips – as well as The Jackson 5 and their precocious youngest son Michael, whose fedora and sequinned glove now have pride of place. MADEIRA: How about enjoying seven nights’ B&B at the four-star Pestana Village Garden Resort Aparthotel in Funchal? You’ll fly from Gatwick on January 13 for
£249. Go from Manchester on January 14 for £252. Search travelrepublic.co.uk or dial 020 8974
7200. HAMPSHIRE: Irenic Lodge in Hamble-le-Rice is situated close to the village square. It sleeps four in two bedrooms with two pets welcome. Arrive on December 28. Pay £644 (save £150) for seven nights. Book at cottages.com or phone 0345 498 6900. Property reference UKC3707. GETTING THERE: Norwegian has a daily flight direct from Gatwick to Chicago. All flights are operated by a fleet of new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with two cabins, premium and economy. Fares start from £150 one-way and £280 return in LowFare economy, and £499 one-way and £909 return in Premium including all taxes and charges. Book at norwegian.com. WHERE TO STAY: Rooms at The Blackstone Hotel, Autograph Collection, from £142. See theblackstonehotel.com. Rooms at the MGM Grand Hotel (Detroit) from £120. See mgmgranddetroit.com. More info on the USA at visitthe
usa.co.uk. PARADISE ISLANDS CRUISE: A seven-night cruise on board Marella Explorer is from £1,335. Depart from Barbados and visit British Virgin Islands, St Maarten, Antigua, St Kitts and The Grenadines. Fly from Birmingham on January 6. Visit tui.co.uk/cruise or call 0871 230 2800. I STARE at the mechanical fish pedalling a bicycle…
“This advert is from the 1990s,” says our chuckling tour guide Colette.
“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle – it was one of our classics.”
I’m at Ireland’s top tourist attraction, the surreal Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.
The tour has a huge amount on offer for drinkers and non-drinkers alike. There’s the Guinness Academy that teaches how to pour the perfect pint of the stout, the Gravity Bar with a panoramic view of Dublin and an advertising archive that spans a whopping eight decades.
At the end of the tour I stop for lunch at the factory’s 1837 Bar & Brasserie and enjoy trout on a bed of mash washed down with a Black Velvet cocktail – stout and champagne.
Then I head for my digs, the grand Brooks Hotel where the suites are individually designed. Mine is on a calming watercolour theme.
Back out on the town, I board a hop-on, hop-off DoDublin open-top tour bus, one of a fleet that circles the city every 15 minutes. We pass landmarks such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Jameson whiskey distillery,
Dublin Castle, Dublin Zoo and the city’s Wellington Monument. I next hit the Fade St Social by award-winning chef Dylan McGrath. To start, I tuck in to duck liver pâté, followed by a juicy fillet steak with skinless fries. After dinner I wander into Bonsai, a Japanese bar set in a dainty townhouse, and marvel at its neon interior over a glass of prosecco. Next morning I hit the shops on Grafton Street, visit St Patrick’s Cathedral and enjoy an early lunch at the café inside department store Avoca. But I can’t get the black stuff out of my head so I set off down Dublin’s cobbled streets again in search of one last pint – and raise a farewell glass to this witty, charismatic city.