Getting the flavour of…
Playing 007 in New York
If you’ve ever fancied yourself as the next James Bond, there’s a place you can test your mettle. Spyscape in Hell’s Kitchen is “part museum, part interactive challenge”, says Lizzy Dening in The Independent. Visitors are given a wristband on entry, which records their performance and assigns them a “spy career” at the end. There are six main zones – Encryption, Deception, Surveillance, Hacking, Special Ops and Intelligence – with games to complete in each. In Encryption you’ll use a virtual enigma machine to “save an undercover agent”; Special Ops has a cat’s cradle of green laser security beams to dodge; and in Deception you’re filmed telling “porkies” to expose your “tells”. The museum is “packed with tips” for would-be spooks, along with sobering reminders that we are all “always being watched”. Visit spyscape.com.
A night in an Alpine piste-basher
In the Alps, piste-bashers are usually only used to “groom the snow”, says Stephen Bleach in The Sunday Times. But at the French resort of La Plagne, they’ve taken one of these “mountain-going combine harvesters” and turned it into a love nest, with “mood lighting”, champagne and a picnic in a basket. There’s a faux animalprint bedspread from the “Hugh Hefner by Sainsbury’s range”, on which sits a “Lovebox”, containing a silk blindfold and “feather tickling stick”. Yes, it all sounds a bit tacky, but it is “tremendous fun”. Each night, two guests are driven up the mountain. There’s a “childlike thrill” to the trip, as you power up an “implausible incline” with a “low, muffled roar”. But if you’re expecting to spend the night in an “Alpine wilderness, think again”; the vehicle’s parking spot is by the ski lift, next to the public loos. Over the Moon (la-plagne.com/overthemoon) costs £290 per night.
A hint of the Caribbean in Spain
Spain’s Costa Tropical is a “little stretch of Cuba in the Med”, says Annie Bennett in The Daily Telegraph. A “quirk of climate” creates subtropical conditions on this patch of the coast, warmed by winds from North Africa, which allows the cultivation of “exotic” crops like bananas, mangos and sugar cane (and the production of local rum). Running along Spain’s southern coast, east of Málaga and west of Almería, it is dotted with hilltop towns, and the Alhambra is only an hour away. Many of the beaches have coarse sand and high cliffs; these keep the crowds away and create “superb conditions” for snorkelling and scuba diving. For some much-needed winter sun, you don’t need to go to far-flung destinations when there’s this “Caribbean flavour” a short-haul flight away.