Take to the water for the best excursions in Antigua

Every Caribbean island has its own vibe. A region that seems homogenous on first glance has a surprising variety of culture, landscape and tourism opportunities. Exploring that diversity is one of the strong points of a cruise, where you might get to five or eight different islands during one trip.

But sometimes, you just want to chill. My husband and I had worked all the hours we could in 2018 and by mid-summer could already anticipate total exhaustion by Christmas. We didn't want sightseeing. We didn't want to socialise with others. We just wanted a warm, picturesque place to recover. If we were doing the Caribbean, we wanted to settle into just one island, and we wanted it to be easy.

We'd visited Antigua on our 2016 cruise, and a great sightseeing tour across the island had softened us up for a return. It ultimately won our 2018 holiday investment because of:

• Direct flights from London that make travel convenient
• Well-priced package holidays at a range of resorts
• The much publicised 365 beaches (one for every day of the year...)
• An English legacy that skews toward British and Europeans tourists (sorry, Americans), and shapes the attitudes of the locals (the French islands can be hard work)
• It's suffered far less from recent hurricanes than other islands

Once settled at Ocean Point Resort, we admittedly didn't go out enough to offer any expert insight into the island. Our three excursions, however, gave us a good taste of a relatively small place. They were all fun and worth booking as packages, in our case all departing from and returning to our hotel. (Everyone we spoke to who'd rented a car regretted it; let the locals drive.)

CIRCUMNAVIGATION

My favourite day out involved circumnavigating the island aboard the Excellence. This is the middle option,  speed-wise, of three boats that do the same clockwise journey in and out of the capital and cruise port of St. John. You can go faster on a speedboat, or slow down on a catamaran, with length and number of stops adjusted accordingly. The Excellence is a big motorboat with an upper and lower deck and a good amount of shady seats on the lower for people with sensitive skin. If you are sitting outside, you'll go starboard to see Antigua's coastline, which is the main point of this sightseeing excursion. 

One of the crew gives commentary throughout. There's a bit of history, a bit of geology, and a lot of ogling the various resorts and neighbourhoods of the rich and famous. The more you cross the island's interior, with its shabby shacks and dubious infrastructure, the more you'll scratch your head at these Architectural Digest-worthy mansions overlooking the sea. Someone should study Antigua to refute the trickle-down theory of economics, because no public area we spotted matched the sleek prosperity of those private homes and resorts. Where do these wealthy residents shop and dine out? I never saw likely options.

The circumnavigation also teaches you the importance of offshore islands and island positioning for your holiday destination. On the Atlantic-facing eastern shore: strong winds, choppy waters. North (where we stayed) and south: not as rough but still subject to strong winds and tides sweeping through the channels that separate Antigua from neighbouring islands. (Barbuda to the North, Guadeloupe to the South.) It's the eastern, Caribbean-facing shore that offers the gentlest tides and the longest, most placid beaches. 

Offshore islands and deep bays can counter the Atlantic effect. We stopped for lunch and snorkelling half-way around Antigua at Green Island, a natural barrier between the Atlantic and Nonsuch Bay. The snorkelling wasn't very good ... a lot of dead coral and perhaps a dozen varieties of tropical fish, few bigger than a hand's length. But the small beach we'd edged into was exquisite.  After lunch, the Excellence continues around the island, making a short detour into Falmouth Harbour where you'll see how the other 1% lives. Yachts here rival anything in Monte Carlo. Mansions on the hills above are the domains of the super-rich. We briefly overshot St. John's to drop passengers at the Sandals Resort (we'd picked up there on our way out) and got back to St. John's at about 3:30.

ISLAND SAFARI

Our Island Safari showed us more of the interior of this 108-square-mile island. It left me with three enduring impressions. One: Antigua's roads are in deplorable shape. Even the main ones have potholes and undulations so severe it's like off-roading. I'm appalled that with all the port fees they must collect from cruise ships, nothing's been spent on such basic infrastructure. Two: Even though there hasn't been a major hurricane in years, it looks like one just came through. A third of properties seem abandoned, another third seem under construction. Our guide explained that property taxes are very high but are only assessed on completed buildings, so many locals live in places with derelict or unfinished bits. The result, sadly, makes much of the island look like a third-world charity appeal zone. Three: The stone towers of the old sugar mills are the most enduring things on the island. You'll see scores of them. Some are integrated into new buildings, one that we saw (at Betty's Hope Plantation) has been restored, and many stand as overgrown, roofless ruins around the island. Sugar is no longer produced here but its architectural legacy is strong. 

And maybe there is a fourth: Hell is other people. John Paul Sartre would have found copious illustration for his philosophy in the two children on our eight-person tour. About nine and seven, New York-raised daughters of English expats who seemed unfamiliar with concepts like "boundaries" and "discipline", these two took the stereotype of "spoiled brat" to new heights and could slip from happiness to screaming rage in a nanosecond if displeased. We waited for our tour driver for more than half an hour at the farmers' market from which we started and through it all, the younger shrieked at a pitch and decibel level I didn't think a human voice could sustain for that long. They were, quite simply, the most awful children I have ever been exposed to throughout my life. Fortunately they improved a bit once we were under way, but there were still traumatic explosions throughout the day.

Our remarkably patient guide and driver, Sherwin, carried on with aplomb. We crossed through several small towns, saw some of the island's earliest churches, skirted around Antigua's impressive cricket ground and paused above Falmouth Harbour for a gorgeous view, with a much needed rum punch. We stopped at the donkey sanctuary, which ... inexplicably to me ... is one of the island's big tourist attractions. There's a wild community here who often get into trouble, so they're brought to the sanctuary to recover. It's basically a muddy yard about the size of a football pitch occupied by 20 or so donkeys who nudge against you to request attention from the brush you've been given on entry. Perhaps exciting for city kids who like the idea of animals but never get close to them? Not the case for our little new New York fiends, who whined vociferously at the mud and flies.

Lunch saw us at the high ground of Betty's Hope Plantation, a partially restored sugar mill.  You'll see one restored mill (top photo) and the foundations of the barracks where British army officers once lived. There's an old barn with a small museum inside featuring a diorama of the place as it would have looked when functioning and display boards explaining the history of sugar and slavery in Antigua. The stop was too short to consume all the content and it's a shame that the displays are so basic. This is important history. But Betty's Hope is really just a pretty picnic spot for a variety of tour companies, who all converge here to dish up barbecued chicken, salad and beans and rice (the inevitable Caribbean excursion lunch) to picnic tables arranged under the trees. No culinary satisfaction for the little demons; the family were staunchly vegan. No wonder they were so bad-tempered.

Next was the departure point for Stingray City, which also fed our snorkelling and mangrove swamp tour.

The speedboat zipping us past promontories and offshore isles was great fun, and ended up at tiny, uninhabited Bird Island. Here you'll find a small, pristine beach within easy swimming distance of plenty of reefs. Even with changeable weather and lots of chop, this was the best snorkelling I did in Antigua and probably the best I've had in the Caribbean in the past two trips. The fish weren't large and there's still a lot of dead coral, but variety was wide and fish were swimming in big schools. I would have happily stayed here for the afternoon but part two of the aquatic bit of the safari was kayaking through mangroves.

I had anticipated the problems long before we arrived. Balance. I don't have any. Simply sitting still in the damned kayak and keeping it from tilting over was terrifying. Adding movement was infinitely worse. We made it about one hundred metres, with me constantly wobbling and desperately trying to adjust my weight to balance the boat's precarious rocking, before I tipped the damned thing over. I didn't have enough upper body strength to haul myself back on board, especially when there's nothing to push off from. (If you step on the "bottom" of a mangrove swamp, you immediately sink up to mid-calf in soft mud.) I swam to the dock, while Piers managed to get into the kayak and paddle back. We prepared to sit it out and enjoy the view while the others explored the swamp. Unfortunately, the beastly children didn't like kayaking either, so we had to share our dock with them and their parents for half an hour. If I'd spotted anything carnivorous I would have thrown the little shits off without a moment's remorse. No such luck.

It is no surprise that Sherwin dropped the Anglo-New Yorkers off first, making the last half hour delightfully quiet as he brought the rest of us back to our hotels. Safari verdict: if you like both kayaking and snorkelling, this is a fun day. We should have gone straight for Stingray City, combined the rays with snorkelling and skipped the land-based exploration.

MIGUEL'S MAGIC

Our third excursion might have been the best, had the weather been better. Calling the destination Prickly Pear Island is being generous. It's more accurately Prickly Pear Rock, stuck in the middle of a fine stretch of reef, with a small beach and a wooden shack providing bar and shade. It was clearly visible from our hotel, and hard to ignore as visitors shuffled past us every morning on their way to the beach where the boat to ferry them over would pick them up. 

Though Prickly Pear is owned by the government and open to all (as are all beaches in Antigua), local legend Miguel and multiple generations of his family run the excursion and own the shack. They are wonderful hosts, giving us the warmest and most authentic experience we had on the whole trip. Our bargain package, just US$36 per person, included transport to the island, a cooler with snacks and drinks, and access once we were there to Miguel's open bar, with cheerful and well-behaved grandchildren (the antithesis of the New York brats) passing around trays of snacks. You can buy a different trip that includes lunch provided by Miguel's family. The hook-shaped beach is an idyllic stretch of powdery white sand, the view back towards the main island is fine and the reef is a 100-foot swim away.

Sadly, this was the worst weather day of our trip. Clouds and squalls didn't pass, but resolutely hovered in the area. Winds were strong and water choppy. I'm a confident swimmer and an experienced snorkeller. These conditions make snorkelling hard work, but you can see things. If they bother to come out. The fish were too smart for that. It was a bare reef. And the swells were big enough that you risked getting slammed onto the coral just below the surface. If you've ever had a coral cut, you won't risk getting another. So I let wisdom prevail and returned to Miguel's shack, wishing I hadn't waited until the last day of our trip to discover this little piece of magic. It's the only memory in Antigua that's really calling me back.

Overall, the island delivered the R&R we were looking for, but nothing extraordinary enough to cast a spell. Bonaire, the BVI or even a return to Puerto Rico would beat it on a list for the next Caribbean trip. Unless, of course, I happened to win a break at a little place called Hermitage Bay. For that extraordinary tale, check out my next post.

A perfect setting for Caribbean R&R, but Ocean Point's Italian soul can wear a bit

Companies talk a lot about exceeding expectations. The older I get, the more I'm convinced that the secret to success lies in setting them properly in the first place.

For exhibit A, I give you Ocean Point, Antigua.

The 69-room resort hotel on the North coast of this Caribbean island provokes a variety of reactions (both on Trip Advisor and during chats at the bar) ranging from delight to disappointment. Our expectations were modest. We were looking for a quiet place that offered complete relaxation. We were operating on a budget big enough to get us some winter sun, but not luxurious enough to reach 5 star. (Given that our beach holidays since marriage have been a Viking Cruise, the Maldives and Mauritius, we were tightening our belts significantly.) Given all of the options that fell out of my spreadsheet as too expensive, I thought Ocean Point looked the best for our budget at offering the R&R we wanted, but I expected it to fall below those other beach holiday experiences. And that's pretty much what we got.

Ocean Point is a small, adults-only property with pretty gardens, an enormous pool and two small, essentially private beaches. (Technically, all beaches in Antigua are public. But because access to both of these is through private property, you're unlikely to see anyone but your fellow guests here.) It's owned and run by an Italian family; in this lies both strength and weakness. The constant presence of the owners and their drive for quality ensures that the place is spotless, the service is cheerful and the whole experience has a cozy, personal feel. But Italian-run also translates to 50% or more Italian guests who are organised, Butlin's style, by perky and ever-present tour operators. Insipid Italian pop blares too loudly and too often from the bar's audio system, English is definitely the second language and the buffet is unremittingly Italian ... which may sound great but gets boring quickly.

If you believe, as I do, that a perfect beach holiday is built around working your way through a large stack of paperbacks, alternating your reading location from pool to beach to the porch of your room, with opportunities for view-filled swims between chapters, a source of rum-based cocktails nearby and ... of critical importance ... minimal noise to interrupt your contemplation, you will be happy here. Even though they were operating at full capacity throughout our stay, you could always find empty sun loungers (though the five umbrellas near the pool were always snapped up by 9am). Two beaches, neither more than 50 metres long, each curve behind breakwaters that calm the sea. There's no snorkelling off the beach and the sand gives way to see grass pretty quickly, but these are nice areas if you want a quick dip. I preferred the smaller crescent to the West of the bar and restaurant, its

20(ish) loungers rarely more than half full.

I was often one of only three or four people on the beach, and got into the habit of pulling a lounger right into the surf to let the waves lap at me while I read. Bliss. There's a third beach area that juts out into the water like a small peninsula between the two, amusingly decorated with three cannon facing out to sea. Given that the name of the bar behind is The Black Pearl, topped by a skull and crossbones and a cheerful statue of Long John Silver, one suspects they're meant to keep authorities away rather than pirates. The restaurant is also on this beach level, two of its sides open to the air.

Climbing a ramp, or taking a staircase through the open-air spa, brings you to the pool deck at the heart of the hotel, with an arched bridge across the water. The main hotel buildings curve around this space, recessed balconies gazing down like boxes in an old-style European opera house. The buildings wear bright Caribbean colours and are fronted by climbing bougainvillea, rambling hibiscus bushes, palms and other tropical delights. The gardens are exceptionally well maintained, with the crew amongst them constantly to trim aggressive ramblers and remove dead leaves and branches.

The main check-in area, rising once again to road level, is built around an old sugar mill. These round stone towers are a constant in Antigua. Most have been left to go to ruin but some, like this one, have been given a new life. The ample lobby behind this is full of comfortable bamboo furniture with beautiful tropical fabric-covered cushions; it's almost a shame that it sees so little use. People wait here for taxis or excursion pick-ups, but the real focus is the water, bar and restaurant beyond.

The rooms are basic, in a pleasant beach style. Tile floors, double bed, desk and chair of traditional style in pale wood, TV. Nothing special but the bed is comfortable, the air conditioning works well and the wi-fi, though not great, was good enough to stream Netflix for after-dinner entertainment. Most importantly is a balcony with a table, two chairs, a drying rack and a lovely view of the pool and the sea beyond. Unless there was a live band or a big party (which only happened once or twice a week), our room didn't pick up any sound from the restaurant or bar below. Prohibiting children helps to keep things quiet, but I think having the only bar next to the beach ensures it. The noise stays with the alcohol.

Our biggest frustration was probably the food. Which we expected. "All inclusive" often means low-end mass catering, and buffets naturally limit the quality of what you can serve. Trip Advisor reviews indicated Ocean Point's buffet would be better than average, and it was. But it could have been so much better. I had two main issues.

First, very little variety. Every lunch and dinner had the same range of make-your-own-salad components on one side, mixed cold salads on the other, two "pasta of the day" options prepared fresh at a hatch that led to the kitchen and a couple of steam trays full of protein and hot veg options. One was always a white fish fillet (though toppings would change), another a thinly-sliced meat in some sort of sauce. With the exception of one day of our 12, when someone went wild with some sweet and sour pork, there was no budging from Italian classics with some Caribbean additions. In frugal Italian style, one day's rice, vegetables or pasta ended up as the next day's arancini, fritters or salad. I love roast aubergine (eggplant), but if I don't see any for a month I'll be content. My husband, who can't see the point of cooking veg and then allowing them to go cold, found at least 20% of the offerings to be unappealing. (Though, happily, his tomato allergy proved much less of a problem than I'd feared.)

We've been on holidays where we've enjoyed buffets (admittedly at a higher price point) but they've alternated cuisines to keep things exciting. Indian night, Mexican, Southeast Asian, etc. Without that mix, by day 7 we'd tried everything in the chef's repertoire and by day 10 were bored silly. I understand that Italian is Ocean Point's "thing", and perhaps the Italian guests want the regularity, but the lack of variety is the main reason we wouldn't return to this resort.

New Year's Eve buffet

Getting really picky, I'd also point out that once you get past the cold salads, Italian isn't a cuisine that works naturally with buffets. The best Italian food is cooked quickly and goes from preparation to plate in seconds. It doesn't sit around. So while they tried their best, the reality is that mass-cooked pasta re-heated before serving is never going to taste as it should, and scallopini cuts of meat with sauce, while delicious straight out of the pan, turn into shoe leather when lingering on a steam table all night. The latter, sadly, meant that most of the meat and fish was pretty tasteless. Our first meal upon returning home will be a rare steak.

The irony of these culinary quirks is that I probably ate more healthily here than on any holiday inyears, with a daily diet heavy on roast aubergine, roast courgette and heart of palm salads. Whatever benefit I gained there, however, I suspect I lost at the bar. The all-inclusive wine was average and unmemorable (again, to be expected at this price point), but easily quaffable and the bartenders soon came to anticipate our nightly request of two plastic pint glasses of white wine to take to our room fridge, along with our full dinner glasses, to libate our evening's in-room entertainment. More notable for its flavour profile was a wide-ranging cocktail menu, all made fresh with generous pours from the alcohol bottles.

And what was the price point for this experience? Approximately £500 per day per couple. (It's hard to break out exactly, since we bought a package and Ocean Point doesn't publish a standard "rack rate".) Seeing that in cold print makes me wince, as that seems a lot for what we got. A Viking Cruise, however, is more like £750, while five-star resorts like those in Mauritius and the Maldives hover around £1000. We probably could have found more various food and a more central location but, at least on Antigua, that means being in enormous resorts that lack the quiet intimacy so essential to getting rest. Hiring a holiday home would no doubt be cheaper (and was an excellent option for us two years ago in Puerto Rico), but Antigua's not a great island for that and daily cooking and cleaning takes away from the R&R. There's always skipping the all-inclusive for restaurants, but ... again ... Antigua doesn't appear to be a great island for this and Mr. B and I can quickly destroy budgets when menus and wine lists get into our hands.

In summary: Sun, quiet, attractive surroundings, decent if unremarkable food, free flowing alcohol. For Brits, it also features the convenience of direct flights from London. If you're looking for a lazy retreat, Ocean Point is a decent option for Christmas sun and relaxation at a moderate price point.

A more pertinent question is probably: would we return to Antigua. Thoughts on that in my next article.

London has become one of Europe's great Christmas cities

London decorations have come a long way

My first Christmas season in London was a bitter disappointment. It was 1994, and like most Americans I'd grown up on a diet of English Christmas fantasies. Carolers, wassail, Victorian Christmas villages, Ebeneezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim ... it was as if all that was best at Christmas time came to us direct from Britain. I could hardly contain my excitement as the end of the year approached. If Christmas was a big deal in the USA, how much better would it be in the Mother Country?

Reality was crushing. Nobody decorated the exterior of their homes. No tradition of Christmas baking or cookie exchange. People swapped Christmas cards but only signed their names. No Christmas letters with chatty updates and no return addresses on envelopes. (How the hell was one supposed to do the annual address book update?) Christmas panto was inexplicable and in total contrast to the historic elegance I'd been expected of my English friends, though did get more amusing once one learned the routines and learned that it was all better when drunk.

Fortnum & Mason: Once and present store window champs

My first "Christmas Dinner" was a shock. The Brits lay on what Americans think of as Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas and most of the parties leading up to it. But because they only prepare turkey once a year they tend to overcook it; then wrap themselves in a masochistic pride as they exclaim how they hate the bird but suffer it once a year in order to be festive. What passed for stuffing was a strange amalgamation of finely-ground bread crumbs squashed into a ball; it was masticating cardboard. Even worse was some sort of gluey, oddly-spiced paste called bread sauce. Overall, food had already come a long way in England in the 1990s, but Christmas dinner was (and often still is) a throwback to days of culinary embarrassment.

The office party

Mayfair

London's Christmas store windows made an effort, but generally they were just advertising what was on sale: none of the dramatic, story-telling scenes that made windows at Marshall Field's or Saks Fifth Avenue reason for a road trip. Municipal decorations could only be called average in the American mind. Oxford Street was the only place in London that seemed to make a real effort, but the commercial sponsorship (often by someone launching a holiday film) seemed horribly tacky to me. And yet that adjective was most often used by the English in reaction to my Christmas jumpers. Spectacularly down-market! How horribly American! By the turn of the century I'd given them all to charity, including a rather magnificent cardigan embroidered with sledding polar bears dressed in Santa suits.

Giving it the "full American"

Certain things were better. Choirs performing the classical repertoire in church services delivered to a standard, and within architectural settings, that made Americans drool with envy. There was a surprising tradition of company-funded Christmas parties, often involving formalwear and glamorous venues. Mince pies can be tasty. (Though if, as most Americans do, you think fruit cake is disgusting, you may find English Christmas pudding even worse.) Mummers' plays and morris dancers in the English countryside delivered the old-world tradition I was looking for. But generally, as the last century drew to its end, I was relieved to get on a plane as December waned so I could return to proper celebrations Stateside.

Elegant Piccadilly Arcade

How things have changed. Christmas jumpers are de rigueur. European-style Christmas markets have swept across the country, while every town centre seems to have its own pop-up ice rink with festive music and hot drinks. Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park has its own carnival midway and draws visitors from abroad. Cards remain anodyne and address-less, and the horror of
the Christmas dinner hasn't improved much, but Christmas lights now adorn a hefty percentage of homes. Most striking are the municipal decorations. London, once at the bottom of the league tables for decking its December halls, is now one of the best of the European capitals to drink in festive cheer.

It's not just stores that have upped their game. Various shopping districts have gone for their own looks to differentiate areas. From peacock features and chandeliers along Bond Street to the snowflakes of Seven Dials to the remarkable flying angels flying to and from Piccadilly Circus, walking around central London on a December evening has become a joy.

The now famous flying angels

In most cases, I regret how American the UK is becoming with each passing year. But when it comes to Christmas, I'm glad my homeland has corrupted local tradition. Christmas 2018 runs rings around those gloomy days of 1994. Now, if only we could get people to start brining their turkeys...

Covent Garden

Covent garden

A street of birds

Market in Leicester Square

Shakespeare seems happy

Starry night

Leadenhall Market

The Royal Exchange

Seven Dials

Seven Dials

Covent Garden

Covent Garden

The Strand

Two thought-provoking shows conjure delight from the British Museum's existing collections

I thought I knew the British Museum's collections from the ancient Near East well. And yet, almost every time I looked at the provenance of artefacts in the current I am Ashurbanipal exhibition, I was surprised. The label said it was owned by the British Museum, but I couldn't remember seeing it. Where had it come from?

The basement.

Turns out the British bought so much of what archeologists dug up of the ancient capitals of Assyria
and Babylon (thanks to disinterested Ottoman Turkish sultans happy to sell) that even the expansive, then-new British Museum building couldn't hold it all. The museum created additional galleries and excavated a vast basement to hold the treasures. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, when the cultures of the Ancient Near East were a popular source of design inspiration, these galleries were well-patronised. But public interest has drifted to other cultures in recent times, while museum funding plummeted. In 2006 they quietly closed the basement rooms. While some artefacts have occasionally been loaned out for other exhibits, this is the first time they've been on general view on their home turf since those galleries closed.

The time is right for a re-discovery of these glories. Ashurbanipal was the last and most powerful king of an imperial line that had held sway for 300 years over what was then the largest empire the world had known. By the time he was running things in the middle of the 7th century BC, he controlled all of what we now know as Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus. He directly ruled the whole Eastern coast of the Mediterranean and exerted significant influence on the other cultures starting to flourish around its shores. His empire was famed for its efficient administration and its brutal army. But Ashurbanipal also revelled in his reputation as a scholar and built a famous library. A towering display of its clay tablets is a moving centre piece of the show, and many sculptural representations show him with a pen in his belt along with his weapons. He was also fabulously wealthy, building a palace-cum-capital at Nineveh that was a wonder of the world.

Nineveh goes by a different name these days. Mosul. In the 170 or so years since ancient Assyria's wonders here were excavated, they've been caught in a lot of crossfire, but nothing so damaging as the past decade. Contemporary estimates say that 80% of what was left in situ at Ninevah was destroyed by ISIL during their occupation. Almost all of what's left of this ancient capital is in the British Museum. Anyone who doesn't understand why that's a tragedy, and why we must do whatever is necessary to save what's left, needs to spend some time in this show.
The Assyrians left behind images of staggering beauty. The fluidity of their lines and their ability to breathe life into their figures is exceptional for their time period.  If you have any doubt about that, just look at the second part of the exhibit that includes artefacts from Assyria's vassal states and partners. There are some beautiful objects there, too, but most of them look positively primitive beside the triumphal artwork of their overlords.

The Assyrians are at their best when depicting animals. Their lions are exceptional and there's a pair of hunting dogs here so real you expect them to leap from the stone that imprisons them. It's no wonder that the feline heads that once covered chair arms have been worn to a high sheen; they are eminently strokeable.

Most of what we have left of the Assyrians are shallow relief sculptures on giant gypsum slabs that once decorated palace walls. Some scenes are practically life-sized, like the jolly servants carrying in platters of easily-recognisable fruits and treats for a banquet, but most take place in strips like high-action comics. Today most are a sandy cream colour, but when people lived amongst them they were plastered and coloured. In several places the curators have done a dramatic job of using light to "paint" the walls to their original forms. Much more unusual, and precious, are fragments of furniture and jewellery. These, with the extraordinary decorative detail still clearly visible in the reliefs, give us a clear view into a culture obsessed with  tiny, nuanced detail. Even their cuneiform script has an exquisite symmetry to it, whether on clay tablets or large, multi-sided cylinders that were buried beneath building foundations to record the circumstances of construction.

You're looking at 2,600-year-old design innovations that have lasted. There's a carving of a rug that could easily be a CAD design for a modern weaver. You wouldn't have to look far in modern fabrics and wallpapers to find many of the designs that show up on the belts and borders of the people striding through those reliefs. This is a world of beauty.

At the same time, you can't avoid the reality that these were also brutal people. Ashurbanipal revels in killing lions and other beasts to demonstrate his authority. Death scenes are both gruesome and poignant, as if the artists are acknowledging the natural nobility of the animals dying beneath Assyrian blades and arrows.

There's no such empathy for enemies of the state. Here are some getting their tongues cut out. Others crushed under chariot wheels. Body parts get severed and stacked up like firewood. In one of the most perverse scenes here, Ashurbanipal and his queen sit in an exquisite garden, surrounded by beautifully detailed flora and dressed in ornate costumes. It's a vision of calming bliss. Until you realise that the ornaments hanging from the trees are the severed heads of enemies. It is one of the great paradoxes of the Assyrians that a people with such an eye for beauty and an intense respect for the written word were also savagely violent.

One suspects that Ashurbanipal didn't have to deal with much protest around Nineveh, given all the lavish public art leaving no aspect of its horrific punishments unimagined. For a look at those who did rebel, you can head upstairs for the British Museum's other special exhibition at the moment. I Object: Ian Hislop's Search for Dissent pulls a remarkable range of objects from across the museum's collections together to look at how people have used various creative arts to protest the establishment throughout history.

Given Hislop's long-time editorship of Britain's great satirical magazine, Private Eye, I had imagined that this show would be primarily about the British tradition of satirical cartooning, from Hogarth and Gillray down to Gerald Scarfe. While there's a nice selection of classic Georgian establishment-bashing, this show is much broader and at times surprising. There are defaced coins, subversive clothes and jewellery and messages of revolution designed into tableware. Some items ... like the collection of election buttons ... are blatantly public, while others stayed hidden for years. Most notable amongst the last was a medal designed to reward communist patriotism; only when she neared death did the artist reveal that the woman portraying a virtue on the medal's face was a portrait  of a girl who'd been unfairly killed by Stalin's regime.

There are times where you feel Hislop and the curators are working a bit too hard to make their point. Is an ancient Egyptian tomb artist's pornographic scribble really a protest against the pharaonic hierarchy, or just a bit of laddish fun? Is the word "sex" hidden in the engraved palm leaves on this bank note, or are people imagining things? Would the printer of a 17th century bible really risk his career (and maybe his life) for the puerile joke of leaving "not" out of the commandment about committing adultery, or was it just a particularly painful typo?

Like Hislop's magazine and Have I Got News for You appearances, this show works best when it makes you smile. There are plenty of such moments; we never lose track of the idea that humour is subversive. The best item of all is the show's parting shot. Seeming to be a fragment of neolithic cave painting, it's a modern hoax featuring a stick man pushing a shopping cart. British artist Banksy managed to hang it in the ancient British galleries here in the museum, complete with an accession number and a glorious label that sends up the pomposity of traditional descriptions. It was three days before anyone noticed it didn't belong there. That's British satire at its best.

Both Ashurbanipal and I Object rely on the museum's existing collections. In past reviews of major exhibitions I've had an issue when curators do this. When you're paying £12 and up to get into a show, you expect to see something new. Both of these are exceptions. With I Object, Hislop and the other curators are pointing out things you wouldn't normally notice, and are telling a story you simply wouldn't put together yourself ... especially since many of these items are quite unexceptional on their own. Ashurbanipal liberates treasures from long storage and with the help of dramatic lighting, powerful storytelling and a link to modern events gives us a visual feast.

In using their collections to illuminate the past, and then getting us to ask relevant questions about our present, the British Museum is once again delivering on what it does best.

10 bits of America I'm forever thankful are in my cultural DNA

Next year marks two decades since I moved to England. Since then, I've become a British subject, married a native and sunk my roots deep. But I haven't lost the accent. And at least once a fortnight, some well-meaning Brit with dreams of life across the pond asks me: "don't you miss it?"

Usually, the answer is: "my friends and family, yes. The rest, not really." But the classically American holidays of Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July always leave me a little homesick. So as friends and family on that distant continent wake up to prep their turkeys, I'm thinking about the things I do miss.

The cynics amongst you will quickly note that each of these has a dark side. Others will point out that after 20 years of expat life my memories have been gilded; America's not like that any more. Maybe not, but I bet it's still more like that than other places. On this day of national reflection on our blessings, I'm lay out ten reasons why I am forever thankful that I grew up in the USA.

1. Optimism
I took it for granted that everyone believed that if you worked hard enough, you could achieve anything you want. Then I left the USA and discovered that in many parts of the world reality has either beaten that optimism out of people, or society never let it grow in the first place. The American belief that all things are possible is character-defining.

2. Can-do attitude
One of my early lessons in British management. A more senior leader in our London office pulled me aside and advised: "when you give an order, Americans will get to work. Brits will pick it to pieces, question your authority, complain about all the reasons you're doing it wrong, then ... after you've listened to them moan enough ... get to work. They'll both get to the same place in the end, it's just a different process." I keenly missed can-do attitude in the 15+ years I worked for British companies. Back under American management again ... even though I mostly work with Brits ... I notice and appreciate the shift in corporate culture.

3. Customer service
When I first moved here, this may be the thing I missed most. Service was surly, or incompetent, or haughty, or non-existent. But it was rarely cheerful, delivered with a smile and concluded with "have a nice day." Thankfully, the gulf on this one has narrowed significantly.

4. Road trips
It was 22 hours from St. Louis to our annual summer vacation spot in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida. Seems a long way. But those hours on the open highway, in close proximity to my parents, stopping at roadside diners and pestering for stops to see Rock City and Ruby Falls were precious. European friends tended to travel short distances or get on planes. They missed the magic.

5.  Patriotism
Flag-waving, cheerful, unadulterated pride in your country and its principles. A whole holiday devoted to it. And below that, the deep passion for being a Missourian (or a Virginian, Texan, Californian...) and a St. Louisan. I relish that deep sense of belonging that ties me to one particular version of "home" wherever I go, and the fact that in America I don't have to be embarrassed to feel that way. I still have an optimistic belief that the crazy experiment in liberal democracy that the founding fathers kicked off in 1776 is worth fighting for.

6. Baseball
I've come to appreciate cricket. I'll even admit that it's much more strategic. But I still love my home game. MLB.com brings it closer, but not a summer goes by that I don't think wistfully of hot, sticky nights in Busch Stadium.

7. Space
Walk-in closets. Two-car garages (in which you can fit the cars and all your other junk). Enough room between tables in restaurants not to be overheard. Enough personal space that nobody feels the need to press against you in a queue. The vast, cozy sprawl of suburbia, where we could ride our bikes for miles and roam the woods in complete safety. I've always suspected that a big land breeds big ambitions and big desires.

8. A hunger for history
Don't laugh. Europeans often denigrate Americans for their lack of history. But it's precisely this lack that makes them appreciate it more. Consider the American obsession with the British royal family and costume drama. Many Europeans couldn't tell you about their families before their grandparents; many Americans can take every branch back to the immigrant boats. My love of the past is what first brought me to London. The rest is ... history.

9. Alumni networks
These exist in different forms in Europe. (Certainly some form of the "old boys' club" must go back to pre-history.) But there's nothing quite like the American university alumni organisation. Ties back to Northwestern have eased my entry into every new city I've moved into, helped me find jobs, introduced me to some of my best friends and generally provided a steady backbeat to my life.

10. Thanksgiving
A holiday that's simply about coming together to give thanks for all you have. No religious affiliations to exclude anyone. No gifts to add pressure and expense. Just a time to be grateful. And humble ... in light of all of the blessings we have.

While these elements may not be unique to the land of my birth, they are highly characteristic of it. At least of the American of my memories, c. 1964 - 1999. Each is part of my cultural DN. This is the stuff inside of me that is still proudly American, despite a second passport and residence elsewhere. Thank God for that. Now, bring on the pumpkin pie.

Croatia: The Restaurant Roundup

Dubrovnik: The Taj Mahal, Forty-Four
Split: Bokeria

Will you eat well in Croatia? Yes. Is it a foodie destination? I'm skeptical.

This is contradicting the much-missed American food journalist Anthony Bourdain who, on a visit here in 2012, exclaimed "Croatia is the next big thing!" Perhaps, based on endorsements like that and on rising tourist numbers, they're just trying a bit too hard. Because while we found plenty of beautiful restaurants, revelled  in excellent service and ate well, I still can't tell you what on the food front makes Croatia unique. Nor did I see much evidence of the passion for seasonal eating and local produce that usually characterises great local cuisine.

Take, for example, the pomegranate. We saw them growing everywhere and it was obviously harvest time; tables in Split's market were groaning with them. I thought either the kernels or the syrup would  feature strongly but we never saw a mention on menus. Same for the exquisite cabbages (Diocletian, after all, famously retired here to grow them) and the huge numbers of oranges for sale on roadside stands between Dubrovnik and Split. We heard many boasts about the world-leading qualities of Ston oysters and the unique flavour of its sea salt, but didn't encounter either in restaurants. Given Dalmatia's historic role keeping trade open between the Islamic east and the Christian west, I thought we might find heavily spiced fusion dishes like those that turn up in Lebanon or Sicily. Nope. And considering the preponderance of big, bold zinfandels on the wine lists, I expected more spicy lamb dishes or rich beef stews, but most restaurants defaulted to local seafood and lighter dishes (most of which risked being overwhelmed by the fruity reds.)

Every restaurant we entered, with one exception, featured a menu that could have been designed by an international culinary consultant asked to create a generic Mediterranean experience to please all diners. All the meals we had were delicious. They just weren't distinctive.

The one exception wasn't Croatian at all, but Bosnian. You'll assume it's a curry house when you see its name, but the Taj Mahal draws from traditions much closer. Bosnia is only about an hour from Dubrovnik and, with the exception of a tiny piece of coastline, is mostly inland and mountainous. The Taj Mahal delivers all the exoticism of mountain dwellers existing between empires to the centre of old Dubrovnik. Here are the strongly-flavoured, smoky meats that paired perfectly with giant Zinfandels. Sensing our openness to new things, our waiter laid on a combination menu so we could try a little bit of everything. Bamija (a veal stew simmered with okra, tomatoes and garlic) fought with the house special (veal and turkey with mushrooms and cheese, baked in a pastry case) for dish of the evening. The sweets are familiar in description but distinctive in taste. Numerous people on Trip Advisor claimed their baklava was the best ever. It managed to preserve the honey, nuts and layered pasty of the familiar dish but somehow deliver it as something far lighter, more delicate and not so overpoweringly sweet; certainly worth ofthe superlatives. Half an apple, baked until soft then stuffed with a fine mince of walnuts, chocolate and honey was another winner.

Servers wear loose trousers and short, open-front waistcoats giving them a look somewhere between I Dream of Jeannie and Lord Byron's famous Albanian costume. The music is vaguely Arabic, but also reminds you of a Southern Italian tarantella or Spanish flamenco. The walls are covered with colourful Moorish tiles. It's all delightfully exotic yet comfortingly cosy, particularly on the sodden night from which we sought shelter. Even better, it was about half the cost of the meal the night before.

Forty-Four delivered our most expensive meal of the trip, and the one that felt closest to that design-
by-food-consultant concept. Which might not be too far off the mark, given that the place is owned by a professional athlete. Bojan Bogdanovic is a local boy made good in America's NBA, currently playing small forward for the Indiana Pacers. He wears No. 44, thus the restaurant's name. The place is blessedly free of sporting memorabilia, but in the premium priced-menu of steaks, lobster and fine wines it follows the template of sporting stars' restaurants around the world.

On Halloween night we were the only ones in the place, so maitre d' Goran (photo, top) made us the centre of his existence. And he delivered a memorable experience. We started with a platter of local seafoods ... most notably slightly pickled fish roe, otherwise a straightforward array ... with fresh breads dipped in local olive oil. While the menu felt generically Mediterranean, the producers of all the olive oils and wines seemed to be either Goran's cousins or neighbours. Croatia, he reminded us, is a small place.

The accompanying white Pošip wine came from Grgić, perhaps Croatia's most internationally famous winery. Croatian-American maker Mike Grgić shot to fame when his Napa Valley Chardonnay beat the French in the blind tasting now known as the Judgement of Paris in 1973. He went on to notable success in the States and in 1996 decided to return to the "old country" to invest in wines there with his daughter. His endorsement has been a shot in the arm for the wine industry across Croatia. Naturally, we had to try their Plavac Mali with the main course. This big, fruity descendant of Zinfandel probably overpowered the seafood that came next, but was delicious.

Or was the lobster, plucked from its tank and prepared just for us, overwhelmed by the sweet tomatoes, cognac or truffle that accompanied it in the home-made pasta? The dish, finished table-side by Goran, was an indulgent mix of pricey ingredients. Delicious but, truth be told, the delicacy of the lobster was wasted. The prawns that filled out the dish's protein profile and would have made more sense as the sole fishy ingredient. (Wild boar, which we were told roamed the wooded hills but never appeared on any menus, would have been even better.)

Without dessert, the two courses and two bottles of wine cost us £100 each, by far our worst value-for-money meal of the trip. I suspect this is a place crafted to appeal to the growing influx of wealthy visitors, especially the super-yacht passengers that tie up here every summer. It's clearly popular, pulling down five stars on Trip Advisor. We enjoyed it, but this wasn't the authenticity I look for.

Bokeria in Split came closer, and had the rare distinction of enticing us into a return visit. On short trips we like to try as many places as possible, but the meal, experience and price were such a good combination on our first visit we decided to make our farewell dinner a sure thing by returning here.

You can certainly make the generic Mediterranean, designed-by-consultant accusation here as well. You could pick Bokeria up and drop it easily in London, New York or Rome. There was nothing particularly Croatian about it. The name is a give-away; it's inspired by the famous market in Barcelona.

But it was good. Great, in fact. The kind of modern bistro with a rotating menu and exceptional service you dream about finding in your local neighbourhood. Given the enormous number of locals enjoying themselves here, they appreciate their luck. (This was the biggest difference between Dubrovnik and Split. In the former, all the restaurants seemed to exist solely for the tourist trade. In Split, we were appreciating places that succeeded or failed based on repeat local trade.) Our waiter insisted that this was the place that had transformed Split's whole food scene. Before its opening in 2014, everything was heavy and uninspiring; now, everyone else is chasing Bokeria's star. That may be another example of Croatian elasticity of truth, but it's great to see staff so enthusiastic about the place they work.

Over the course of our two visits we managed to sample a gazpacho everyone proclaimed was amongst the best we'd ever had, beef carpaccio, a heritage tomato salad and burrata that was a work of art on the plate. Our favourite mains were a thick, hand-rolled pasta with a creamy mushroom and truffle sauce that could be the definition of comfort food, a much healthier swordfish on a roasted red pepper sauce and a classic gourmet burger. Delicious desserts included a cake and ice cream dome rich with pistachios and a moreish chocolate eclair. The most Croatian thing about Bokeria is an extensive wine list that covers all the growing regions of the country. The waiters know their stuff, giving good advice and offering tastes to get us to the right choices.

Perhaps what's truly Croatian is an extreme elasticity to deliver what sells. We saw that characteristic in every tour guide, hotel and shop. Why not in restaurants, too? Croatia may not send you on an exotic journey of culinary discovery, but it will please your palate. And if trends change in years to come, I rather suspect that Croatian menus will change with them.

Seductive Split brings history alive

Dubrovnik interested me, but Split seduced me.

If Venice and Florence had a secret love child, then abandoned it to grow up in the ruins of ancient Rome, you'd get Split. It's gorgeous and haunting. Compact. Beautiful and mysterious. A place where the margins between the present and the distant past seem very slim indeed.

This magical time-shifting is most obvious in the peristyle, a rectangular public space at the heart of the old palace that forms the historic town centre. (I hadn't fully appreciated the reality until I got here. I knew the palace of Diocletian was in Split; I didn't grasp that the old town was actually in the palace.) In the peristyle, the Emperor Diocletian's visitors would have found a magnificent garden surrounded by a colonnade of towering columns of various colours, assembled to show the rich variety of empire. The greatest glories of the palace connected here. To the right, the temple of Jupiter (whose incarnation Diocletian claimed to be on Earth). To the left, the magnificent octagonal mausoleum that would someday take his earthly body. Straight ahead, a round vestibule where Diocletian would receive visitors, draped in imperial purple and haloed by light that came in from windows aligned to the sunrise and sunset, then bounced off gold-leaf covered walls.

It's a little less showy these days, but all those elements survive. The peristyle is now a rectangular piazza known as Split's living room. The garden is long gone, now paved with white stone buffed to a mirror-like sheen by centuries of foot traffic. The mausoleum now stands, but as what must be one of the world's smallest cathedrals. The vestibule is an echoing ruin, now often occupied by musicians entertaining tourists and flogging CDs. Buildings have completely filled in the West side of the peristyle's colonnade, dominated by a bar and restaurant called Luxor. Their cushions cover the stone steps. While most visitors followed their guides through here, stopping, snapping photos, then moving on, we settled here at least once a day for cold beer and hot people watching. As dusk falls and the tour groups disappear, it's a magical place to while away the hours.

Tours aren't a bad idea, however. Beautiful as the old town is, it can be hard to piece its story together from your own observation. Informative guidebooks are remarkably absent. You can by a copy of Diocletian's palace modelled in white chocolate, but good luck finding one of those books that superimposes a coloured acetate onto a modern photo to give you a picture of then and now. There are a handful of plaques up on buildings, but nobody has bothered with a city trail that allows you to navigate around the old town's lanes understanding how they started. We hired history teacher Dino Ivancic to make it real for us. (Approx. £95 for two hours.)

Dino is either a remarkably good judge of character or an acquired taste to be approached with caution. I'm going to guess it's the former; he figured we already had a good understanding of basic history, were comfortable with wry wit and a bit of ribald humour. The resulting tour was half serious explanation, half history-based stand-up routine channelling Monty Python and Blackadder. So I didn't get quite the level of Roman history and architecture I would have liked (probably to the relief of my friends) but we were richly amused.

After a short walk out to the harbour to get a look at the full span of the palace walls, we plunged into its most remarkable feature. The basement. Yes, really. In order to level a sloping site, and put Diocletian's private apartments safely above sea level, the architects built an impressive sub-structure of lofty arched and domed rooms that matched the pattern of the palace above. The "barbarians" who moved in after the fall of empire couldn't figure out the underfloor heating, and thought the subterranean spaces would be more useful as cesspits. Their shocking mis-use of the space led to its preservation; the rooms weren't dug out by archeologists until the late 20th century, providing new understanding of the palace above and lots of museum-worthy artefacts that had been entombed in the mire.

All visitors get some exposure to these cellars as they walk from the main harbour-side entrance up to the peristyle. Craftspeople have set their stalls up here to form a picturesque shopping mall on the main tourist route. But for a small fee you can ramble though the whole atmospheric complex. Game of Thrones fans will get an extra thrill discovering the sets where Daenerys incarcerated her dragons and Barristan Selmy met his death.

Back up top, guides like Dino help you to decipher what the place looked like in the 3rd century and how it would have functioned in Diocletian's time. For example, standing us at the Iron (Western) gate today the path narrows quickly into a lane between shops. He pointed out the telltale marks in walls that reveal the width of the original road; the decumanus, where ten soldiers could walk abreast. Dino showed us how more modern centuries layered onto the Roman world, borrowing walls and integrating bits of ancient sculpture into their decor. He also exposed us to the historic Jewish quarter, not much mentioned in official guides. Similar to stories we heard in Dubrovnik, the people of Split didn't care much about religious differences as long as everyone made a good profit. This was a point of refuge for Jews getting kicked out of Spain at the time of the Inquisition, and Split boasts one of Europe's oldest continuously operating synagogues.

After leaving Dino we looped back to go inside the cathedral and the temple of Jupiter (joint admission ticket). Both are magnificent buildings. I found the cathedral both amusing and fascinating for its layering of the pagan and Christian. The frieze around the top, thankfully far too lofty for iconoclastic early Christians to do damage, has a shockingly profane theme of putti enjoying earthly delights of drinking and hunting. No doubt exactly what Diocletian planned to be doing in the afterlife. Successive generations have added a magnificent pulpit (very medieval Tuscan in style); pointy gothic side altars, a wildly opulent baroque altar that's a masterpiece of marble inlay work and a rather distracting choir. Despite all of this, it's still a resolutely Roman interior.

The temple of Jupiter, now the Baptistry, has seen less tampering. Other than a baptismal font cobbled together from gorgeous early Christian altar panels (almost Viking in their sinuous abstraction) and a hideous modern sculpture of John the Baptist, the space has been left bare. All the better to appreciate one of the most magnificent ceilings still intact from the ancient world. It's a coffered barrel vault, each coffer with a different decorative element at its centre and glorious foliage around its edges, held up by a ridiculously ornate, multi-levelled cornice. (Photo above) It was so magnificent I paid to see it twice.

For a separate fee you can clamber up the bell tower outside the cathedral. If its lines look a bit sleek, despite its Romanesque design, you're right to spot an aberration. It's one of the most modern things inside the place walls, being a 1908 reconstruction of an earlier tower that came down in an earthquake. I thought about this a lot as I made the vertigo-inducing climb. Pierced by stories of arched windows and entirely empty inside, the tower is ascended by metal stairs bolted to the interior walls. With nothing between the stair treads. Climbing feels like you're hovering in mid air. Descending is even worse. And I don't have an issue with heights. The view from the top is worth it. Be brave.

Streets immediately outside the palace walls are a pleasing melange of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Neo-Classical. Many old palaces have a decidedly Venetian feel about them, with twisted columns and fanciful pointed windows. There's even an enormous piazza loosely based on St. Marks, with one side open to take in sea views. (Locals tend to drink here rather than in the peristyle). Other bits feel like you're deep in Tuscany (particularly the decidedly un-Italian sounding Narodni Trg square). There's a magnificent fruit and veg market out the Eastern gate and a fish market out the West; both will make foodies wish they had a kitchen.

Despite the antiquity, Split feels like a vibrant, modern town. Squares and restaurants are full of locals. Children play ball in the streets. There are trendy wine bars with rooftop gardens. We found restaurants we'd welcome, and repeatedly visit, if they existed in London. (Of that, more in my next story.) The shopping scene goes far beyond the expected tourist items; Split is packed with boutiques with locally designed clothes, dramatic jewellery and stand-out accessories. Most were a bit too high fashion for my style, but window shopping was a joy and we all agreed that the women of Split were some of the most fashionable of any city we'd ever visited. People watching was a catwalk show with good architecture.

There's no doubt this is a living city, not a stage set for tourists. That was obvious when we got out of town for our wine tour at Kovac. From Anton's vineyards we could see the sprawl of a very big, very busy place. "All the creative industries are here," our tour guide Andrea told me. "Government and the law are in Zagreb. Dubrovnik lives on tourists. We make things."

It's also a jumping off point for additional exploration. We gazed enviously at the day trips we wouldn't have time to take. Excursions inland to a national park famed for waterfalls. Jaunts to islands with exquisite beaches and picturesque towns. Winery tours (we'd done one, but there were more to be sampled.) The Medieval town of Mostar, just over the border in Bosnia, with its legendary bridge. Even Dubrovnik was accessible from here. The more I learned of Split, the more I marvelled that Dubrovnik is the go-to destination for most visitors to Croatia. This is the place I'd want to come back to, and use as a base for a longer holiday.

One of my great heroes felt the same way. If we dropped back two centuries ... still fairly modern for Split ... we'd find it a star on an extended Grand Tour trail thanks to now-legendary architect Robert Adam. In 1764 he'd printed a lavishly illustrated guide to the Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia. The first few pages are packed with the names of the aristocrats who subscribed to fund its production, topped with the king and queen. Thanks to a digitisation project at the University of Wisconsin, you can follow the preceding link to look at the whole thing online. Exquisite drawings go into obsessive detail showing architectural features that are, for the most part, still there and on regular view. He includes more "modern" fortifications and neo-classical buildings as well. Though scholarship has moved our understanding on since Adam's time (he believed the Mausoleum was the Temple of Jupiter, and the Temple of Jupiter one to Aesculapius) the  power and the beauty of the architecture hasn't changed.

And it will all look very familiar. Because this was one of the source books Adam used in his designs for the grand buildings of London and aristocratic country houses across Britain. Which were then copied across the world in government buildings, museums and grand residences. The creative spark we found in Split has travelled the world; most people just aren't aware of it. I'd encourage anyone who enjoys history and architecture to spend time here. They'll fall in love.

Oysters and Zinfandel top our Croatian culinary experiences

After five days of serious research into the topic, I still couldn't tell you what's distinctive about Croatian cuisine. The locals don't help much.

"It's very Mediterranean."

"We like a lot of fish. And vegetables. But if you like meat ... we have meat, too."

We sampled a procession of beautiful food and wine throughout the country. But if you served it to us in a blind tasting back in London, the restaurant serving it could have been Spanish, Provencal or Italian. Palate pleasing, for sure, but not differentiated. We found two exceptions: oysters and red wine. (Not, of course, consumed together!)

The Croatians take their bivalves very seriously. Their coastline is a perfect breeding ground for this category of seafood. There's no sign of industrial pollution. Fresh water comes cascading down limestone mountains to meet the crystal-clear Adriatic, screened from too much disturbance (and many predators) by a long chain of islands. Most of the coastline functions as a giant tidal lagoon. As filter-feeders, bivalves like oysters, clams and mussels reflect the taste of the water they live in; the terroir of the sea. This unique Croatian waterscape produces bivalves that are subtler, more nuanced and complex than usual, particularly in the case of the famous Mali Ston oysters.

The coastal geology is perfect for grapes as well. Steep slopes with a limestone bedrock, not too much rain and thin, free-draining, not-too-rich soil are exactly what vines like to drive their roots deep and suck the best out of the Earth. Regular sea breezes keep the threat of mildew low. Though 68% of Croatia's overall wine production is white, most of that comes from the continental heartland. The Dalmatian coast's most dependable white wine is Pošip, a remarkably flexible grape that can remind you of anything from a rich Chardonnay to a light Pinot Grigio depending on what the maker does with it, but is generally closest to a mid-market Sauvignon Blanc. But mostly, this part of Croatia is all about big, bold, fruity reds. Early in this century, scientists tracing grape vine DNA determined that this region is the birthplace of Zinfandel. That, and its descendant Plavac Mali, will keep wine lovers very happy throughout their visit.

Both the oysters and the wines come in very limited quantities and are so famous that they sell out before their producers ever need to think about export markets. If you want to taste these uniquely Croatian delights, you'll have to get on a plane. And, naturally, the closer you can get to the source, the better.

THE GREEN LAGOON
Our day in Ston was, no doubt, radically affected by going out of season. The number of restaurants, shops and excursion boats makes it clear that in summer this place is heaving with tourists. On 2 November we had it almost to ourselves. We felt like explorers stumbling upon some lost city enchanted in time.

Because of a strategic position for both transport and agriculture, Ston has been occupied
continuously since the classical period. It acquired its present, remarkably romantic appearance in the 14th century due to a period of intense civil war. Residents protected themselves with a circuit of walls more than four miles long, encompassing the towns of Ston and Mali (little) Ston, harbours, fortresses and acres of agricultural land stretching up a lofty hill. The walls are a remarkable sight ... in some ways far more impressive than Dubrovnik's because of their isolation. The locals claim Ston's is the longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China. Not even close ... but that doesn't take away from their majesty.

(It's worth a quick aside here to explain that the Croatian tourism industry has an almost Trumpian flexibility with facts. You'll hear a lot of big claims, like that Wall of Ston boast, that you'll want to take with a grain of salt. Such as the idea that Trsteno is the world's oldest botanical garden ... many other's make that claim ... and the assertion by everyone in Split that the US White House was built with Croatian limestone. White House historian William Seale has proven that the stone came, far more logically, from a quarry in Virginia. And while he acknowledges that there's a possibility that some Croatian stone might have found its way into interior renovations in the 20th century, he's been unable to find any records that validate it.)

Mali Ston, on one corner of those rambling walls, is now just a cluster of ancient stone buildings ... almost all restaurants ... sitting next to a tiny harbour with a few old-style wooden boats. Beyond is an emerald-green lagoon of startling clarity, framed by the mountainous coastline and tiny islands, and dotted with buoys marking lanes of oyster cultivation. We set off on the good ship Bogutovac, a traditional wooden craft plying these waters since 1954, for a cruise around the beds. While she normally takes up to 50 passengers, we had her, her captain and first mate all to ourselves. The last had worked the oyster beds of New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina destroyed the industry and sent him home, so not only was his English excellent but he could talk about the differences in taste, harvesting and cooking between Europe and the USA.

I have no doubt that the standard, high-season tour is good value for money. A boat ride, a little talk, a shot of local liquor, 3 oysters and a glass of white wine in an hour. For our €30 each, we not only had the boat to ourselves but took a lengthy pause at a floating harvesting station in the bay, where we could climb aboard to take an up-close look at every aspect of oyster production as the first mate talked us through the steps. Our slow return saw the four of us seated in the prow of the boat feasting on a full plate of six oysters each, all of which had been hanging off a rope in the lagoon just 15 minutes before. Beverages were all we cared to drink, with shots of traditional plum rakia or myrtle liquor on the way out (I think these shots were as close as I got to anything that was truly Croatian) and Pošip on the return journey. The sun was shining, the world was almost silent and we felt like queens as we made our slow, stately return. None of us checked the time but I suspect their usual hour's excursion turned into two.

Obviously, we tipped generously. If you want to follow in our footsteps, go here.

ANOTHER SUNSET, ANOTHER VINEYARD
Our evening at the Kovac Winery was only slightly less private and just as magical. While winemaker and owner Anton will host up to 18 tourists on any evening, on this off-season Saturday night there was only one other guest. As some strange trick of cosmic fate, we soon discovered that her father had graduated from Northwestern (our generation, but none of us knew him), so she slotted into the girls' trip like family. Fortunately, she shared our delight in both learning about wine, and drinking it in memorable places.

Kovac is about half an hour outside of Split in Kaštel Sućurac, on the bay on the North side of the Split peninsula. Thankfully, given both for the hassle of transport and because of the generous amounts of wine involved, the evening's £70 fee includes pick up and return to Split's Golden Gate. (In this case Anton driving one car and the terrifically informative Andrea in another.) In older times Anton's home town was known as Putalj, and that's the name Anton puts on his labels. Given that he says his family has been making wine here for 1,000 years, it's a logical throwback.

The tour starts in the vineyard itself, where Anton is well aware of the majesty of his view. He's constructed a pavilion at the top of his slopes, from which serried rows of grape vines and olives descend to the town below. Beyond that is the bay of Kaštel and beyond that the peninsula on which Split sits. (Though Diocletian's palace, on its far side, is out of view.) The slopes face South and slightly West, setting you up for a gorgeous sunset. At this time of year it was a long, lingering one. We sat in the pavilion watching shadows lengthen and the limestone peaks to our left start to glow in pinks and golds. We helped ourselves to bottles of rosé and nibbled from plates of local cheese as Anton spun tales of the local industry: the history dating back before Roman times, the range of little-known local grape varieties, the boon of the Zinfandel discovery, the challenges of keeping the industry going through the disasters of phylloxera and communism.

Ironically, it's capitalism that's causing Anton his biggest problems at the moment. He sells everything he can make. Keen to expand, he regularly makes offers on adjoining parcels of land (often owned by cousins). But in a post-communist reaction against taxation, Croatia has decided not to levy property taxes. The result: people have no incentive to sell family lands. But few have the money it takes to create new wineries. So most of the slopes around Anton are picturesque, but lay fallow.

As we waited for sunset we grabbed our glasses and wandered the rows of vines, now blazing autumnal red and yellow in the dying light.

Once the sun had dipped below the horizon we headed back to the cars, then drove down to Anton's house and small but perfectly-formed winery. Here he did the usual wine tour overview of the production process and, uniquely, gave us a taste straight out of the vats of 6-week-old zinfandel that had just finished fermenting. Drinking too much of this would knock your head off, but it was an interesting contrast to the finished, aged Zinfandel and Plavac Mali we were comparing. Those related wines were so close I think even professionals would have a tough time judging if their difference came from the grape or from the makers' vinification. We thought the Zinfandel was smoother, richer and fruitier, but the Plavac Mali had more complexity and a sharper tannic edge that would work better with rich foods. At £18 each we bought all we could carry home on the plane. (Sadly, given that I was travelling light, I could only manage a bottle of each and one of Anton's freshly-pressed extra virgin olive oil.)

Business done, we retired to Anton's tasting room to drink far more than was wise, though enough to make the per-person price of the evening excellent value for money. He even opened a bottle of his prized 2014 Zinfandel, sadly no longer for sale.

That's another oft-validated lesson from years of girls' trips: the more intelligent interest you show in someone's wine, the more likely they are to break out the special stuff. The same general rule works across all of tourism. You might not always be able to pull off the magic of a private tour, but the more interested you are in your hosts ... and the more personal a connection you can make ... the more special your day is likely to become.

If you want to book your own evening with Anton, you can do it here