Virgin blind films
THE WELCOME We were greeted by friendly staff who showed us to our room after a tour of the restaurant and bar, with cosy stone fireplaces, tartan chairs and copper pans. I stepped over a snoring dog on my way. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD Romaldkirk is chocolate box perfect with a backdrop of rolling hills, stone walls and sheep. The Rose and Crown sits centre stage just off the village green. The kirk (old Scottish for church) itself is behind the hotel. The Bowes Museum, set in a stately home, is nearby and Durham city is 40 minutes by car. THE ROOM We stayed in one of the Courtyard Rooms in a converted stable block. It was decorated in a country style, with tweed bed hangings and a couple of matching squashy armchairs. THE FOOD The waitress responded well to a last-minute vegan guest, bringing over an impressively extensive veggie menu. The food was well presented and generously portioned – our favourite dishes were a delicately flavoured goats cheese mousse with poached beetroot and a spicy coconut curry. Breakfast was even tastier – a smoked haddock omelette with a sauce made with cheese from a nearby dairy. THE SERVICE The staff were always on hand when needed. They met our requests for a toothbrush and a newspaper without fuss. THE SCENE Romaldkirk is in hiking country, and our breakfast was served with a printed weather forecast – freezing – and a Walk of the Day. A notice in our room asked us to clean our rifles in the gunroom only – a lot of shooting must go on. LOVED The Molton Brown products in the bathroom and the sumptuous robes. HATED The bedding could have been posher. Its quality did not match the rest of the room. BOTTOM LINE B&B from £100 a night. CHECK IT OUT See rose-and-crown.co.uk. VIRGIN Atlantic is to become the first airline to offer entertainment for blind customers. New technology will help customers with sight loss enjoy the full range of films and TV shows with voice-overs and audio descriptions via specially adapted iPads. John Welsman, of charity Guide Dogs, said: “It’ll be wonderful to access entertainment without asking for help.” THERE’S nowhere like Prague for a bit of midwinter escapism. A city of music and storytelling, of castles and curious clocks and a medieval bridge that’s a piece of art. All at a good price, too. For decades Prague has been top of the pops for city breaks, thanks to its cracking good looks and genial atmosphere.
From January it will celebrate the 100th anniversary of an independent Czechoslovakia – with Prague as its capital – which divided peacefully in 1993 to create the Czech Republic.
The good news is that a new flight from London’s City Airport has just been launched by British Airways, the first time the city has been directly connected to Prague. So go as soon as you can – before it gets too crowded. Everyone gathers in Old Town Square, a cobbled space framed by an architectural encyclopedia of facades – from Romanesque to Renaissance, Venetian to Dutch. Behind looms the Tyn Church, spires topped with witches’ hats.
It’s very much a living space. Clockwork apostles chime the hours on the extraordinarily advanced astronomical clock, which dates from 1410. Music echoes across the cobbles, mingling with chatter from a ring of cafe terraces.
And all the while fire-eaters and living statues do their bit in the middle. If you’ve never seen a Smurf talking to Death, watched by an Angel having a fag, then this is the place. The pedestrian-only 14th century Charles Bridge links the Old Town with the peaceful and pretty Lesser Town across the Vltava river.
Swans and riverboats glide underneath, sombre gate towers guard each end, and artists and craft stalls line its length, along with 30 statues – many of which can be relied on to bring luck and health to those who touch them.
This is a magical place to be when dusk falls, when the lights go up on Hradcany Castle, the largest ancient castle complex in the world, which rises up above the Lesser Town.
Take a moment to drink in this vision of a city steeped in the past, with the prospect of an evening’s concert and a fine dinner ahead. Music has long been a big deal here, and there will be a choice of up to a dozen different classical concerts every day.
Even if you’re not a fan of the classics, the setting, the price and the popular programmes make a concert an essential Prague experience.
A website such as pragueticketoffice.com will give an idea of the range and locations, artist ar Ai Weiwei. Its main collection features with prices typically around £20, but don’t buy 19th 19 and 20th century European art – names in advance unless you have to as you can like lik Klee, Kandinsky and Kokoschka. The latter’s often bag a much better deal at the venue. highly colourised paintings of Prague are worth thT A particular favourite for chamber concerts the tram journey in themselves. is the 18th century Hall of Mirrors – an arched, frescoed, mirrored and marbled chapel in the former Jesuit college the Klementinum. It fills the horizon, and it will fill your whole weekend w if you let it – 800 years of history in a massive m complex of courtyards, with some halls used us for concerts and exhibitions.
You can choose to walk through without ne needing to pay any entrance fee, stepping into St Vitus Cathedral to see the stained glass and ad admiring the view from the steps down to the Le Lesser City. Better though to spend £9 on ticket B (of two choices, hrad.cz) and linger in the m medieval Old Royal Palace, pretty much un unchanged since 1487, and Golden Lane, whose ti tiny sweet cottages once housed the castle’s While the concerts – and to some extent the mime and puppetry-based Backlight Theatre performances – are carefully adjusted to appeal to tourists, Prague has a storehouse of uncompromisingly ambitious cultural spaces.
In particular the Trade Fair Palace (Veletrzní palác, ngprague.cz) in the hipsterish district of Holesovice, is home to the Czech national gallery. It currently has a massive and moving installation on the plight of refugees by Chinese