Xmas as a pedaller in Med
five acres of beautiful gardens. The true circumstances of her disappearance were never made clear. Her biographers suggest she had some kind of breakdown. These days s the hotel – still with Victorian elegance – offers ffers murder mystery weekends, nds, with dressing up encouraged. Dinner, B&B, £105 per person. See classiclodges.co.uk. This is an archetypal Christie setting – an isolated hotel on an island cut off from the mainland by the tide, though you can still make the crossing by sea tractor when the water is high. The location may FOR those who can’t bear Christmas at home, Freewheel Holidays has just the tonic – cycling the olive groves of Sar Sardinia’s Costa del Sud. Bikes are provided, l luggage is moved on to the t next stop op and you get a accommodation ation with explain ex why Christie wrote And Then There Were None N and Evil Under The Sun while staying here.
The art deco hotel is still firmly immersed in the 1920s 19 and 1930s in both its interior and exterior, and an is regularly used as a location by film and TV.
The BBC’s 2015 dramatisations of Christie’s le lesser-known Tommy and Tuppence stories were fi filmed at Burgh Island, and you may still meet a film cr crew coming down the corridor. Dinner, B&B, from £2 £210 per person. See burghisland.com. Christie wrote much of her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, at Moorland House up by Haytor, on Dartmoor. The hotel, which is breakfast as you take in pristine bays, finishing in Pula, renowned for balmy beaches and breathtaking coastline. Prices from £549 for adults, children from £279, increasing for teens. Details and dates at freewheelholidays.co.uk. undergoing renovation under new management, has a big lounge and bright dining room with a view across the moor and distant coast. Rooms may be available on request but the bit that is most certainly open is the Agatha Christie bar and the unusually named Tinpickle and Rhum brasserie. A Devon cream tea is £5 there. See tinpickleandrhum.com. The M Midland is an absolutely picture-perfect Chr Christie-type property, which is why sev several episodes of Poirot were filmed he here. The hotel is a superb example of st streamline moderne art deco, and is set in a great location right beside M Morecambe Bay. There is no evidence that tha Christie stayed here, but Noel Cow Coward and Laurence Olivier certainly did. WE want to go skiing in Austria. Can you get there by train, like you could years ago? YOU cannot go there direct, but the major resorts can still be reached by rail.
Start with a Eurostar to Brussels, followed by an ICE or Thalys train to Cologne and then a Nightjet sleeper train to the Tirol where skiers wake minutes from an array of great ski resorts.
Daniel Elkan, founder of rail-ski guide Snowcarbon, says going by rail is great if you make it part of the holiday experience and adds that the trains are lovely too.
Return rail fares for adults start from £215. For more information on this and other journeys visit the website snowcarbon.co.uk.