Edinburgh is the windy city (messing up your hair and making your nose run and that’s even in the summer) and it’s full of cobbles (making walking in heels a struggle) but it’s also a very pretty city, so you can forgive it these things. I cut my clubbing teeth in Edinburgh, and what better city to do it in than one where you can quite literally drink round the clock. Various establishments (that maybe too grand a name) open at 6am for er the postmen. Invariably you get a mixture of clubbers and old men alcoholics, and, in some, a soundsystem banging out hard house. Of course Edinburgh is the ill-famed setting of Trainspotting yet as with every city it has it’s extremes. The rich are rich and the poor poor. It boasts the amazing Edinburgh Festivals, when the whole city is literally turned into a performance. Now when I visit I love to stay at Rick’s where the bar is truly second to none.  Edinburgh is truly bohemian, great for vintage clothes shopping and for a great selection of vegetarian restaurants.  It has a huge park in the middle of the city and a great selection of art galleries and theatres.  I do love Edinburgh.

The famed University City of Cambridge is one of the more beautiful cities of England, particularly in the summer time.  My parents live a short drive away from Cambridge so have spent many days exporing the countryside.  Lord Byron studied at Cambridge, his statue stands outside Trinity College and you can swim, in the summer, in Byron’s pool, now a local nature reserve.  It’s a place of exquisite English beauty.  I spent one very memorable birthday in the nearby Tuddenham Mill.

Punting on the river in the summer time provides hours of entertaining for both participants and observers.  And if you don’t want to punt yourself the guided punts are often worth paying for just to here the sometimes ridiculous stories that they come out with.  And of course not forgetting the boat race, rowers are often seen out on the River Camb, the main event, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race taking place at the end of March each year is always an exciting affair.  There’s things to do year round, even if it’s just to wander round Cambridge and admire the beautiful buildings, of which there are many.  One of my favourtie galleries there is Kettle’s Yard a lovely little gallery which always seems to have innovative exhibitions.  If you’re there are Christmas the Christmas service as Kings College (if you’re lucky enough to get tickets) is so movingly beautiful.  All in all time spent in Cambridge is very memorable indeed.

Finally a politician worth listening to – Gordon Brown consider yourself well and truly told.

I’ve never been to Paris, and I really want to go AND I already know where I want to stay. Combine two of my favourite things – luxury travel and water and you have the Murano Resort Paris (why oh why have ‘resort’ in the name? For me it is synonymous with tacky) however after checking out the Murano Resort Paris website oh la la this place is anything but tacky.  It is stunning and, well quite frankly, it should be at the price (up to €2500 per night that is truly luxury stuff) but what I really love about this hotel is that two of the suites have their own private little swimming pools.  I really love that.  However for a trip to Paris I have had my eye for sometime now on the Christian Lacroix designed Paris Hotel du Petit Moulin and even with the swimming pools at the Murano, I don’t think I could stay anywhere but the Lacroix.  I mean just look at that bathroom, and what with the Moulin Rouge being one of my all time favourite films.  The Lacroix hotel is just so flamboyant, so decadent and even sans pool i think it is still going to be my residence of choice when one day I finally make it to Paris.  I expect that it will be worth the wait.

How fab… MAC cosmetics does a limited edition Hello Kitty range. I adore.

So this guy asks if he can take me for dinner, nothing unusual there but there’s a geographical issue in that we’re  in different countries and so I ask ‘which country?’  and he says ‘how about Venice?’  (neither of us live in Venice) and while I know Venice is technically not a country, lets not split hairs.  Venice is, after all, a city of romance, of art and of beauty (and one that is sinking) that aside it’s one that sounds quite perfect and suitably overindulgent for a first dinner date.

A lover of lovely hotels I had a look as to what Venice has to offer.  Naturally there are many fine places to stay in Venice, DD724 caught my eye, sharp modern lines, simple-yet-stylish decor and of course wifi (a girl can not travel sans wifi) only thing is it doesn’t have a spa.   But then I saw IQs… a home from home with entrance straight from your gondola wow.  Now a gondola may be a little on the tourist-tacky side, but I don’t think you can go to Venice without going on a gondola.  As for the hotel… it’s not lady’s choice so will just have to see what my dinner-date in Venice has in store.

The only problem with remembering Dublin is that ummm my memories are somewhat hazy. I know that we weren’t intending to go, but you know how it goes with good intentions. It was a last minute trip to The Pod to a Chemical Brothers DJ set. It was a saturday night out, that turned into a Sunday morning trip to Dublin. Now my girlfriends and I really weren’t planning on going (there was a coach leaving the nightclub in Manchester in the early hours of the morning) yet of course, we did. These are, after all, the sorts of adventures that you’re supposed to be having when you’re 18 and at University. Lectures on Monday? What lectures?! Leaving Sankeys at about 6am on board a private coach with a collection of fellow adventure seeking clubbers we decamped to Dublin for a further 48 hours of fun.

I hope to return to Dublin someday, perhaps staying somewhere a bit more like the Morrision and perhaps seeing a bit more of the city than The Pod. I forget where it was we did stay. But since we were at The Pod for most of the night and when you’re 18 and having an adventure these things matter less, the adventure more.