Sophia Martelli

Eight of the best river cruises

While ocean liners are hardly butterflies, they have a habit of flitting carelessly between countries, often visiting several within a week. A river cruise, however, takes its (relatively few) passengers to the heart of a country, the aim being to seduce with dramatic, ever-changing vistas and evocative insights — cruises for the connoisseur, if you will. Because of its many different micro-cultures and magnificent backdrops, Europe is where river cruises thrive. So much so that the number of launches is getting ridiculous: earlier this year, Viking River Cruises launched 16 ships in 24 hours across three countries — which means it’s easy to find your perfect itinerary, whether on the sleepy sun-soaked Duoro (ten days from £1,645), the grand, cultured Rhine (eight days from £1,195), the wilds of the eastern Danube (11 days from £2,195) or on almost any waterway in between.

Exams: the great leap forward

GCSEs have already begun to change, and the A-level revolution comes next year. Sophia Martelli considers who benefits from the new rules – and who doesn’t A year from now, the new A-level curriculum will hit sixth-form classrooms; changes to GSCE have already been partly implemented. The exam reforms initiated by Michael Gove are hailed either as ‘much-needed’ or ‘carnage’ depending on who you talk to. Although controversial, most teaching professionals agree that a good sort out of exams is overdue, including Paul Redhead, a former head teacher who now works with the Council for Independent Education. Public exams have been ‘systematically devalued since the 1980s’, according to Dominic Cummings, Gove’s former special adviser.

South-west Ireland

Of course one feels free on a holiday: that’s what holidays are for. But I have rarely felt freer than when my younger brother, two wild Irish cousins and I, all aged 16 or under, drove across Éire to the south-west tip (with, I should mention, the permission and indeed encouragement of our respective parents). Setting off from Wexford in an ancient, definitely unroadworthy VW Beetle in the days before these vehicles had any classic cachet, with not even a provisional driving licence between us, it was a miracle that we arrived in Baltimore a day later — albeit decorated in mud and twigs after kipping the night in a ditch outside Cork where the Garda had passed their torches over us and grunted, leaving us to be the gypsies we so evidently were.

Sophia Martelli

Travel: Dublin, comeback city

The boom and bust have left their mark on Dublin. Cruising through the outskirts past the (industrial) estate of Sandyford — flimsy-looking buildings, each as nastily designed as the last but in wildly different styles — I double-take at a gigantic half-built multi-storey car park. There are ‘To Let’ signs everywhere and it’s all a bit reminiscent of a Joni Mitchell song. But the shiny new Luas tram which links this monument to property development greed to the centre of the city is quiet, efficient and fast — and Dublin is, thank heavens, still the ‘fair city’ of the song, the Liffey meandering unruffled and majestic through the middle of it. Many of the handsome Georgian buildings around O’Connell Street have benefited from a boom buff-up, with decrepit ceilings painstakingly restored and exterior brickwork properly pointed: their grandeur convinces any visitor of Dublin’s ‘second city of Europe’ status back in the 18th century.

Marseilles: Tough love

Arriving at Marseilles’s Gare St Charles in the early hours of a balmy October night, the first marvel of the city that is pointed out to me — both proudly and affectionately — is a large, well-fed rat that pours itself into a nook in the stone wall of the station. ‘Welcome to Marseilles,’ says Oliver, my laconic host, pushing his bicycle along the street to avoid running into a trio of high-cheekboned Maghrebian hip-hop devotees. As they saunter past, deltoids rippling, bouncing fluidly and elegantly on their toes to some innate city beat, Oliver adds, ‘Also known as North North Africa.’ With a population of 850,000 (1.6 million within the greater city limits), Marseilles is France’s second largest city, dwarfed only by Paris.

Top buttons

What does the uniform say about a school – and its pupils? Sophia Martelli investigates Every parent at some stage has to ask themselves: ‘Which school will suit my child?’ It’s a serious matter and no one — surely? — would consider it on the basis of the fetchingness (or not) of the school’s uniform. But it might be rather entertaining if one did. So which of the UK’s independent schools get top marks for style, and which are bottom of the class? It is, of course, a matter of taste, and some schools’ uniforms are wackier than others; whether these teach pupils fashion exuberance in later life is open to question. If they did, however, Tony Blair might have more interesting dress sense: pupils at Fettes College, Edinburgh, endure a brown blazer with magenta stripes, or a pale sea-green tweed jacket matched with a long, formal dark green tartan kilt (and that’s just for the boys).

Thursday

Eight of the best river cruises

Eight of the best river cruises

Thursday

Exams: the great leap forward

Exams: the great leap forward

Thursday

South-west Ireland

South-west Ireland

Thursday

Travel: Dublin, comeback city

Travel: Dublin, comeback city

Friday

Marseilles: Tough love

Marseilles: Tough love

Saturday

Top buttons

Top buttons