Essex is not all about TOWIE – it’s a great place for a family summer day out

Travel with kids

Last Updated on 03 August 2014

tracybrera

Let’s just park the myth that Essex is all like TOWIE.

Recently the county has unfortunately been pigeonholed as offering little more than tanning salons, nail bars and nightclubs – but there is so much more to it than that, and the summer holidays is an ideal time to come and explore.

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Travel with kids: The south Oxfordshire canal at 5mph

Travel with kids

Last Updated on 15 July 2014

Ed Rose

Fancy spending time afloat this summer? Thought so. Your timing is spot-on. Sales of super-yachts to British buyers have jumped this year, and demand for chartering boats in the South of France and Caribbean is also booming. A week might cost you GBP 250,000 for a top-of-the-range craft sleeping 12, but you are guaranteed to be rubbing shoulders with celebrity aficionados like Lewis Hamilton and Simon Cowell. And, as each yacht comes with its own crew, you won’t need to lift a finger as you laze in the on-board spa and sip chilled champagne on deck. What could be better… or more unlikely?

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Travel with kids: A hidden quarter of Paris

Travel with kids

Last Updated on 15 July 2014

Ed Rose

France is the world’s most visited country; its capital a tourist magnet.  How is a truly Parisian experience possible at the height of the holiday season?

Try the Canal St Martin, which bisects the 10^th and 19^th arrondissements in north-east Paris.  It is a part of the city overlooked by mainstream visitors, and by other Parisians, lending it a raffish, slightly undeveloped air.  Still very French in feel, it just doesn’t attract those who prefer to shop on the Rue du Faubourg-St Honore or recline in hotels along the Champs-Elysees.  The canal unmistakeably remains the haunt of the student, the artist, the flaneur.

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