She stayed in Exeter at the Hotel Barcelona (01392 281000; ), which offers weekend breaks from £209 per couple.. Garden all year, 10.30am-5.30pm.Admission: adult £5.90, child £2.90, family ticket (two adults, three children) £14.70. Other highlights include the prototype power shower and a flushing loo. Me? After taking the local line through Vietnam from Hanoi to Saigon, I am keen to try out what this train's operators say is "the most exotic railway journey in the world".The Oriental makes a suitably sybaritic starter Joseph Conrad drank in the bar Somerset Maugham caught malaria here Nijinsky danced in the ballroom Today, sashaying staff anticipate your every move. The LN, who's "big" in chick-lit, I'm told, has set her latest work on the London-to-Venice Orient Express (typical romantic scene: "you lie on your back and let the motion of the train do the work") and is now researching the Far East via its even more exotic sister train.
I'm here not to gawp at the pelvic floor exercises, but because of the curiosity of the Lady Novelist.We're both staying, as it happens, at the Oriental Hotel, killing time before taking the Eastern and Oriental Express 1,260 miles south through Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore. Thud! The banana flies across the room and lands with Cruise-like precision on my companion's shoulder. So where should I hang out to guarantee the maximum star-spot potential?Try the Chateau Marmont, 8221 Sunset Boulevard (001 323 656 1010), the hotel in which John Belushi famously died of an overdose, and where the guest list reads like a Who's Who of Hollywood ?te. But this year, because of the war in Iraq, the organisers have decided to make the affair more low-key and not have the stars stopping for photographs and interviews.Anywhere else I should be going?Join the mere LA mortals who are usually found in the groovy downtown sports and lobby bars where all the monitors are tuned to the live telecast. Normally the stretch limos start arriving around 3.30pm so that the stars have plenty of time to stroll around the world's most famous red carpet in all their designer finery. It's guaranteed to be quite a scene with flashes popping and everyone screaming for Daniel Day-Lewis, nominated for Best Actor in Gangs of New York, and Julianne Moore, nominated for Best Actress in Far From Heaven, to turn around. I'm not going to be able to blag my way into any of these parties, so what should I do?The simple strategy for stargazing and wannabe paparazzi is to get there early and stand on the pavement until the limos pull up.
From the baron's entrance hall, with its channels of flowing water, to the bedrooms with their gilded ceilings, Star of Venus lives up to its name.Sadly, you will look in vain for a ribat or fort in Sidi Bou Said because, in the 19th century, the French demolished them to build the lighthouse on avenue Taieb Mehili There's also a truly stunning view of the Bay of Tunis. In 1912 he proposed a bylaw forbidding any other colour schemes.So taken was the baron with Sidi that he built his own home here, a palace known as Nejma Ezzahra (Star of Venus). The service is relaxed and its quiet atmosphere is broken only by the song of a caged canary.While the caf? interior has Islam's holy greens and reds, every other building in Sidi is painted in an attractive combination of light blue and whitewash. Two years later he was killed at the Battle of Verdun, but his watercolour of Sidi Bou Said has had an enduring impact. Today German, French and English tourists arrive in their busloads, trek past the stall holders on imasse Thameur and photograph Macke's view of Caf?es Nattes It is instantly recognisable.
Klee and Macke made some preliminary studies of a garden gate and, before shooting off to Carthage, Macke sketched the outside of a caf?ith a white rectangular minaret looming over it. On that afternoon, two Swiss artists, Paul Klee and August Macke, arrived in the cliff-top village of Sidi Bou Said. The most famous picture of Tunisia was painted quickly on Easter Monday in 1914. The tapas tour starts at €40 (£27) per head, based on a group of four, including some food.My Favourite Things (00 34 93 329 53 51, ) offers a range of tours, including food, history, architecture and design.
