Southampton Airport has me rethinking my aversion to budget airlines

 I haven't flown a budget airline in about 15 years. I swore them off after a horrific trip when the 80 miles from the arrival airport to the named destination caused serious stress, my mother was injured by young parents using pushchairs as weapons as they charged for those first-come-first serve seats, and I calculated the cost of driving to and parking at Stanstead as almost the difference between the "discount" fare and BA.

Easyjet and their ilk were false economies, not worth the extreme discomfort and hassle.

Of course, there was a big difference back then in the flight experience. My BA ticket included pretty much whatever baggage I wanted, I got seat assignments with my flight purchase, staff treated me like a treasured customer and even a short hop to Paris pampered me with a light meal and free drinks from a full bar.

Sadly, since then BA has been steadily slashing service and experience to lower themselves to the standards of their cheaper rivals. Without lowering price, of course. We kept defaulting to them because of frequent flier miles and the known comfort of Heathrow Terminal 5.

Then I had to fly to Geneva during ski season.

BA's outbound prices were laughable. A friend suggested trying Southampton Airport, given its convenience for public transport from Basingstoke. Easyjet had just introduced a route with timings that met my needs. So, fighting to keep nasty flashbacks from early experiences at bay, I gave it a try. And found the whole journey from Southampton to be so wonderful, I'm wondering where else we can fly from there to repeat it.

First, there's the transport. A quick hop to our local Basingstoke train station. Half an hour to Southampton Airport Parkway on trains that run four times an hour. The station isn't in the airport: you have to cross a small road. Here's the view from the train platform to the terminal building. I doubt it's more than 100 steps.

The terminal is tiny and easy to navigate. In the photo below, I have my back against one end, and you can clearly see the other.  Dropping bags took slightly longer than at Heathrow because the check in desk is also where they sell all their extras to you. I was stuck behind jolly skiers pre-purchasing champagne before the flight. I seemed to be the only person without skiis, too. All that additional baggage checking also added time.

Even with those extra disruptions, I was down to hand baggage within 15 minutes. Off to security. Here's the entrance at 7:20 on a Thursday morning. Note there are more staff members cleaning up a spilled potted plant than people in the queue. Taking my snow boots on and off consumed more time than the entirety of the rest of my progress through security.

I feared an airport so small would be bereft of shopping opportunities. Not so. There's a small but decent duty free well stocked with alcohol, make up and chocolate. Tiny compared to Heathrow but bigger than your average American airport version. There's also a basic WH Smith. You wouldn't want to kill hours here, but there's enough to survive.

Somebody has put thought into lounge design. There's only one, with 10 gates, but seating comes in a variety of colours and configurations. Walls feature full-bleed photographs celebrating Southampton's sailing heritage. There's a small Costa booth downstairs, with a larger Costa and some kind of exec lounge in a loft up the stairs..

 There's even a dedicated charging station and work bar for laptops.

Hand luggage is certainly more draconian than BA. Staff made me pack my purse into my laptop bag before getting into the waiting area ... one carry on means one. (Note to self: copious pockets are enormously useful.)

When it's time to board, you walk over the tarmac to your plane. The picture up top shows the distance from gate to plane. Everyone has seat assignments these days; none of the uncivilised scrum of memory. Inside the aircraft, the insubstantial garden chair feel of the seats, with advertising on the back of each, betrays that you're on a discount airline. But they were comfortable enough for 90 minutes, the staff was polite and efficient, and everything happened on time. The food and drink being peddled from the cart might be plain label rather than M&S, but you're still paying for it ... so there's no real difference to the travel experience.

It was all remarkably easy, fast and stress free compared to our usual airport departure. My Fitbit told the tale: home to my airplane seat was 1,700 steps, including a train journey. A Heathrow departure, even when driven to the airport by taxi, can easily chalk up 5,000 steps before buckling in. Bad on the exercise front, but otherwise a clear demonstration of improved efficiency. 

If you're one of those few remaining travellers who still have access to the premium lounges, and sit in those nice, wide seats at the front of the plane, you'll probably consider Southampton far too downmarket for you. (So no girls' trip departures from here, clearly.) For me? I've finally realised that neither BA nor Heathrow deserve the supremacy I've automatically accorded them all these years. It's time to pay more attention to Southampton timetables.

With parallels to Shakespeare and Mozart, Hamilton is set to take the Brits by storm

I gave my English in-laws Hamilton tickets for Christmas.

I'd owned the tickets for almost a year, and had dreamed about the success of my gift. They'd gaze at it in awe, then look at me with misty-eyed gratitude. "How did you manage to get these?" they'd gasp, aware that the show's initial London run had sold out almost a year before it opened. They would be amongst the first in London to get in on this phenomenon. I would be a hero.

It didn't work that way. Because on 25 December 2017, the London Bencards had never heard of Hamilton. The show had been drenched in good reviews on its official opening, but that was only four days earlier. They'd missed the news. The description of a hip hop musical about the United States' first secretary of the treasury raised sceptical eyebrows. They received my gift politely, but were unenthusiastic. And I wondered ... had I made a mistake? Would a show about American history resonate with Brits? Would the modern music element turn off the family with whom I was more likely to attend baroque opera or Gilbert and Sullivan? My musical-hating, pop culture-averse husband had already made it clear that he was an unenthusiastic attendee. As our show date approached, I grew worried.

My sense of relief as we left the Victoria Palace last night was palpable. They loved it. Even the husband admitted enjoyment. Hamilton's magic extends to grab those who are ignorant of, or resistant to, its weighty reputation.

And me? I adored it. Compelling music, gripping lyrics, a tremendously talented cast delivering a performance that hooks you from the first minute and doesn't let go. One powerful scene follows another at a breathless pace; even the quiet moments demand and reward your full attention. But that was as expected. I've been jealously watching American friends rave about the show for two years, am entranced by the Ron Chernow biography on which it's based and have been listening to the soundtrack for the past month. You could consider Hamilton the most successful journalist of all time, which gives him a special place in my heart.

But what about the Brits, currently free of hype and generally strangers to the history on which this show is based? Here's why that won't matter a jot.

Hamilton is Shakespearean

Take a charismatic hero who reaches giddy heights, only to be brought down by his own hubris. Add sophisticated villains, Machiavellian plots and innocents unfairly wronged, all playing at personal dramas that will ripple outwards to change a nation. These are the same plot points and emotional hooks that make Richard II, Julius Caesar or Macbeth work. True, this is foundational American history. But the story no more needs an awareness of early American politics than you require insight into Medieval Danish history to enjoy Hamlet. Hamilton's plot line plugs in to some of the most enduring themes of human existence: ambition, desire, honour, legacy. And the one that drives us to the climax: envy. Hamilton belongs in an awe-inspiring box set with Othello and Amadeus as the best-ever examinations of how the little green monster can break colleagues apart and send them spiralling towards tragedy, carrying others with them as they go. In a country where The Bard is just as current today as he was 400 years ago, Hamilton's Shakespearean elements make it a comfortable cultural fit. 

Hamilton celebrates the English language
Confession time: pre-Hamilton my impression of hip hop and rap was of monosyllabic, profanity-fuelled rantings about base instincts and brutal lives, blasted out in an irritating percussive dim. Now I see them as valid art forms, closer to poetry than music, perhaps unique in their ability to pack meaningful words into a story with fast-paced density. This musical may be a child of our soundbite age, but rather than dumbing anything down, writer Lin-Manuel Miranda has delivered the weight of literature at high speed. Listening to Hamilton is like standing in front of a fire hose of artfully crafted words and phrases. There are poetic constructions (Hamilton's wife Eliza sings achingly of "palaces of paragraphs" when she describes how his love letters won her), literary allusions (Washington is the model of the modern major general, Hamilton is Icarus flying too close to the sun) and countless remarkably clever rhymes. Brits love their language, and wordplay with it. Hamilton delivers a rare gift for them to enjoy.

Hamilton has memorable music
I feared that a "hip hop musical" wouldn't be pleasant listening. Wrong. While the poetically lyric style of the rap and hip hop tradition run throughout, melodies range across jazz, r&b and soul. There are a few stonking love ballads and comic pieces that would, on melody alone, sit comfortably in older, traditional musicals. Few modern shows, however, send you out the door with such a broad choice of tunes to hum. Though the style may be modern, the musical virtuosity of Hamilton sends you back to the blockbusters of Rogers and Hammerstein, when every tune was both memorable and integral to the plot. Or you could go even further back. There are several points where different characters, singing their own melodies and stories, come together in an intricate counterpoint that finds its closest parallel in Mozart's operas. Even the most musically worthy (my husband and brother-in-law were debating the merits of various versions of Handel oratorios on the way in) will find plenty to like here.

Hamilton showcases London's artistic talent
This is the first version of Hamilton to run outside of the United States and, in line with the "young, scrappy and hungry" ethos, the cast is full of fresh, largely unknown actors. The kids won't stay that way for long. The quality of both voices and acting ... flawless less than four weeks into their run ... says a lot about the continuing strength of the UK's talent pipeline. Fresh out of drama school, Jamael Westman has been garnering raves for his performance in the lead role. The director has decided to split the glory, however, and on our night we saw the alternate, Ash Hunter (pictured above, in white). His Hamilton was charming, sexy and looks a bit like Aidan Turner, a useful shortcut to draw the Poldark-loving nation into the 18th century. His beautiful tenor ranged easily from the powerful to the poignant. While there's no real attempt to make the actors look older, his voice and acting do the work as Hunter takes us from bright, ambitious spark through crushed, tired power broker.   Rachel John's Angelica Schyler was the strongest amongst a trio of impressive female voices. Obioma Ugoala's Washington has a voice that drips warm honey.  It's unfair to call any individuals out, however, as the whole cast is equally strong. Several of them worked together on Motown: The Musical; a logical match for the vocal style. And Shakespearean experience ... him again ... is rife across the team. The director is on record saying that those comfortable with Shakespeare had the easiest time mastering the dense lyrics.

Hamilton is funny
From eviscerating wit to puerile slapstick, the English prize humour as one of the highest forms of human interaction. A favourite criticism of other countries is lack of it. The Germans such an odd sense of humour only other Germans get it, Americans don't grasp irony, etc. Hamilton is a proof point against those American criticisms while giving the London audience much to laugh at. Though it's a serious story, there is plenty of both clever, intellectual jibes and simple physical humour here. Thomas Jefferson's grand entry will have you in stiches, thanks to Jason Pennycooke's impish portrayal (above, in pink). The real show stealer, however, is Michael Jibson's King George (below). Though he's probably on stage as the monarch for less than 12 minutes total (otherwise Jibson's part of the chorus), his hysterically funny delivery of the song "You'll be back", meditating on the rejection of his colonies and their future without him, is one of the most memorable parts of the evening. Evidently this was one of the few bits of the show changed from New York, with a more splendid costume and staging to give "the local side" a bit to cheer for. Given the reaction of the audience, I'd say it worked.

Hamilton is topical

Political parties at each other's throats. Parties imploding from within due to strong personalities. Angry battles in the media with accusations of fake news. A time of enormous change with an uncertain future. Specifics of news stories might differ on either side of the pond, but these themes resonate in the UK just as strongly as in the United States.  If you consider the American revolution and its aftermath as one big Brexit analogy, Hamilton might actually be more topical here than in New York. (Sadly, I fear we don't have any brains as big as Hamilton's and Jefferson's to debate our future.) Hamilton and Lafayette's shared line before the battle of Yorktown ... "immigrants, we get the job done" ... got the biggest spontaneous cheer of the night. The politics connect across the centuries.

I have no doubt that Hamilton will settle into the same kind of institutional run that shows like Phantom, Les Mis and The Mousetrap have enjoyed for decades. In fact, so sure are the theatre owners of this fact that they totally gutted and renovated the Victoria Palace just for this show. The interiors are now sparkling as brightly as Hamilton's London prospects.

The current ticket release runs through late June and is sold out, though there is a lottery for returns every day. The next release of tickets goes on sale Monday, 29 July at noon UK time. In an effort to prevent the exorbitantly priced scalping that's plagued the show in the States, Hamilton in London only has electronic tickets. The person who purchased the tickets must be there with photo ID matching their name, and the credit card with which they booked. Once the door security checks your ID, a staff member with a hand-held printer gives you your tickets at the door. This means there's a big queue to get in, but it moves quickly.

Queen's Gallery captures lush and lavish world of Restoration

In a drawer awaiting my retirement lies the first two chapters and an outline for the rest of my novel, started at university and abandoned when real work got in the way. A sweeping historical saga charting an English Royalist family's attempts to survive through the Commonwealth and take advantage of the Restoration, it reflects my early and enduring fascination with Charles II. He's my favourite of all the British monarchs, and his court had a panache few others have equalled.

It's no surprise, then, that I was an early visitor to the latest show in the Queen's Gallery, London. Charles II: Art and Power shares my fascination, exploring how The Merry Monarch used art to validate his reign.

Charles chose his 30th birthday for his coronation (29 May 1660), celebrated with a blaze of magnificence.

His life up to that point, however, had probably been the hardest of any person to occupy the English throne since before the Norman Conquest. Though his father and mother kept a magnificent court, the tensions that exploded into the Civil War were present from his earliest memories. He was barely a teenager when circumstance forced him to the battlefield, 20 when Parliament executed his father, and by 22 was fleeing to exile as the Royalists lost their last battle at Worcester.

For the next eight years he lived off the generosity of friends and family on the Continent. The early years weren't so bad, hosted by his glamorous cousin Louis XIV. (Charles' mother, Henrietta Maria, was sister to Louis XIII.) But as the Commonwealth's grip on power tightened, France decided the benefits of trade with a current ... though illegal ... British administration outweighed the benefits of supporting a rightful heir with dwindling prospects. Louis asked his cousin to leave. By the late '50s, Charles and a tiny group of friends were living hand-to-mouth in freezing garrets in the Netherlands.

Had Cromwell been a bit less of a Puritan, Charles' story might have ended there. But history proves that few people like the restrictions brought on by religious fundamentalism; particularly not the English. When Cromwell died without an effective succession plan (his son Richard was a disaster), the head of the army took the initiative and invited the rightful heir back home.

Though Charles vaulted from pauper to king, his worries weren't over. He had to re-establish the business of monarchy from scratch when the Parliamentarians had sold off or melted down most of its trappings. He had to reconcile two sides in a society that had been in conflict for almost 20 years. European politics demanded military involvement, plague popped up and London burned down. Through it all, the treasury was never full and Parliament ... the organisation that murdered his father ... controlled the purse strings.

It's thus no surprise that Charles became a master of compromise. The Merry Monarch on the surface, he was a practical man of the people, scholar, scientist and secret Catholic at heart. He was the centre of a newly-glamorous court, but always managed on a budget. (His plans for a palace near Winchester to rival his cousin's Versailles never got funded. He made do with makeovers at Windsor that, while in the height of lavish fashion, were done on the cheap ... thus in poor enough shape by the early 1800s that most were swept away by renovations.) He was often quoted as saying that he had no desire to go on his travels again, thus would do whatever was necessary to keep the new status quo.

The objects on display here illustrate three storylines from Charles' life that have always fascinated me.

1. The role of the visual arts in what we now know as public relations, used by Charles to shore up his position and create a new story for his family.
2. Charles' career walking a knife edge between delivering the magnificence expected by both the public and fellow monarchs, while limiting spending and staying on parliament's good side.
3. How Charles managed his inner demons: coping with, and trying to redress, a tragic family legacy

We start in a room dominated by a somber portrait of the father, Charles' I, captured during his trial. The strange combination of intelligent nobility and pig-headed obstinance that drives so much of the Stuart family saga is obvious in his face. We move to the restoration of 1660 quickly, however. This is an art show, after all, and the dreary years of Civil War, Commonwealth and exile produced little. More often, it destroyed or eliminated art ... making it particularly appropriate that the first blockbuster display here is the plate Charles II commissioned for his coronation.

With the exception of the solid gold chalice and paten (the small plate used for the communion wafer), the collection of platters, ewers, candlesticks and a weighty mace is "only" silver plate. Still, it's enough to make a statement of serious bling. The royals were back, and livin' large. The work on these pieces is exquisite. (Check out the cavalier King Charles spaniel characteristically scrounging for scraps from the table of Jesus' last supper; sadly the only appearance I spotted in the show of the era's iconic.) Normally, this set lives at the end of the gallery with the crown jewels in the Tower of London, where you've been overwhelmed with other bling and you're buffeted by tourists. It's a delight to see it here, given its own space in a gallery generally free of crowds.

Though they initially pale before the glitter of all that gold, the prints and books that dominate the rest of this first large gallery provide a fascinating exploration of the Restoration world. The real artistic firepower, however, comes in the following galleries.

One, dominated by a ceremonial portrait of Charles II enthroned (pictured above), is mostly lush and lavish portraits of the key players in the Stuart court. There's no better way to drink in the spirit of this age than to revel in how its key players chose to be remembered: strong men, romantic women, everyone dressed in ridiculously expensive, lovingly detailed fabrics while they flash their bedroom eyes at you. The the real people couldn't possibly have been as attractive as the artists made them. Within the exhibition you can compare some early, and probably more realistic, portraits of Charles' Queen Catherine of Braganza with the sexy, oversized painting of her as a shepherdess. This is first-class image management for PR spin.

The last large gallery looks at Charles II's efforts to re-establish a Royal Collection after his father's was sold off. Though cursed with abysmal political instincts, Charles I was arguably the greatest single connoisseur of art in English royal history. As sensuous in their own way as the portraits, his son's treasures include pastel-perfect Renaissance scenes, photo-realistic Dutch old masters, magnificent tapestries and noteworthy furniture. Most impressive amongst the last is a rare silver furniture set. The table, matching mirror and pair of pedestal stands usually live at Windsor Castle, where they can be lost in the surrounding opulence. Here ... much like that Coronation plate ... their isolation in a plain background allows you to appreciate them for the magnificent items that they are. Especially as the whole set has just been cleaned and restored, shining with an almost eye-damaging gleam.

Three smaller rooms offer additional insight into Charles' re-assembly of royal treasures. There's ornate dining decor, including the magnificent Exeter salt; precious books, some of which demonstrate Charles' serious commitment to science; Old Master drawings (here's the source of the Royal Collection's wealth of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Holbein on paper); detailed portrait miniatures, jewellery and a blockbuster ivory and ebony altarpiece.

Overall, the exhibit does a fine job of capturing Charles' story and conveying the lush style of the court. Your £11 admission includes an interesting audio guide and the right to return to the gallery for a year. As with anything in the Queen's Gallery, the intimate spaces mean the show is digestible without being overwhelming, and you can appreciate items without big crowds.

It is, however, a solidly traditional exhibition and thus perhaps best for people who already have an interest in the topic. Last month I wrote about how the Opera show currently on at the V&A sets a new high bar in how to present culture and deploy multi-media. After that, the Queen's Gallery seems much more solemn, and like harder work. Charles II might have been famed for his common touch, but this show appeals to more rarified tastes.

Charles II: Art and Power is on at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 13 May.

York rolls out a magical Christmas shopping weekend

Good PR is a powerful thing.

Early last December I caught a TV news report from York, where a spokesman walked around the city and made a pitch that ... having recovered from and expanded since the city's devastating floods of 2015 ... they now hosted the best Christmas market in the country. Those three beautifully filmed minutes worked their way into my brain. I had to check it out.

Were the markets so much better than my local options that they justified the 5+ hours it takes to get there? Probably not. The news report had implied a series of markets stretching throughout the town. The reality is more compact and featured fewer vendors than I expected. York remains, however, one of England's most charming cities. While the markets didn't extend through the whole of the ancient walled centre, the tasteful decorations did. The weekend we visited also featured an ice sculpture trail.

York is a gorgeous town to wander through at any time of year, thanks to its rich history and sparse incursions by modern bad taste. Vast swathes of town look as they would have in the 1760s. Add Handel's Messiah in York Minster, a remarkable Georgian townhouse decked out for the holidays and what may be the best Christmas shop in England, and the combined experience kicked my festive mood into high gear. Here are the highlights.

THE MARKET
The main market runs for about 300 metres on pedestrianised Parliament Street, running from its start at Coppergate to St. Sampson's Square. There were between 60 and 80 traditional, Alpine-style chalets; it felt roughly twice the size of our local market at Winchester. Add a sprinkling of chalets at the centre of the modern Coppergate shopping centre, all the regular booths in the Shambles market and a pop-up marquee filled with arts and crafts vendors beside that, and the shopping possibilities start to get impressive.

With the exception of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds Saturday afternoon, it was a lot less crowded than Winchester. Most of the Parliament street stalls held the same stuff you can find at Christmas markets up and down the country: hand-crafted outerwear; specialty cheeses, small batch gins and fruit liquors; South American and African imports; Christmas potpourri; wooden kitchen items; star-shaped light shades; food stands serving up mulled wine, sausages and doughnuts. ( I sometimes think there's a factory in China churning this stuff out for similar markets around the world.) There was, however, a slightly higher percentage of local vendors than down South. My favourites included one lady who spent all year making decorations with gilt pine cones, ribbons and bows; a guy who created canine Christmas wreaths from dog treats and a small company that makes authentic Viking drinking horns and wrought iron stands at a fraction of the price you pay in museum shops. (York has a rich Viking history, making the last one deeply appropriate.)

Curiously, there were fewer food and drink options than at other markets. The favourite was clearly the Scandinavian-themed pop-up bar and restaurant called "Thor's TeePee", but the queue was so long every time we passed that we never even considered it.

JORVIK VIKING CENTRE
Distinguished in the UK for being the first cultural attraction to install a Disney-style ride, Jorvik is more of an interpretive centre than a museum. Though the entry is within an ugly 1980s-built shopping mall ... one of the few places within York's city walls blighted by modern architecture ... it sits on top of the actual excavation site of the Viking town centre. After buying your tickets you descend to a dimly lit room where a glass floor lets you walk over part of the dig. You can watch films of the excavations, which spread across a much larger area before the shopping centre came in on top of it. You then board the ride, which takes you through a highly-accurate reconstruction of 10th century Jorvik populated with animatronic people, dogs, chickens and pigs all created from specific skeletons that have been reconstructed from relevant finds. It's all very lifelike, complete with smells, sound effects and the characters speaking the wide range of languages that would have been in use then. You exit the ride into a gallery of display cases filled with actual artefacts of the world you've just seen.

I remember being terribly impressed the first time I visited in 1985, just a year after opening. After 32 years of experiencing advancements in museum display technology, and the past eight steeped in the Viking heritage and Danish travel that came with marrying into the Bencards, I'm less impressed. While the ride is still good, the gallery at the end is a disappointment. It's far too cramped for the crowds coming through. Too many display cases in the walls, where you have to queue up to get close to them, for example, rather than free-standing for 360-degree circulation around. The artefacts aren't particularly impressive, and they don't do much with technology to bring them to life. Jorvik is a very long way behind Denmark's Jelling Viking Centre. A real shame, since it's only recently reopened after 18 months of refurbishment from flood damage. They don't seem to have taken the opportunity for any significant improvements. So ... worth a visit if you like Vikings and haven't spent a lot of time in Denmark, but questionable value for your £10.25. (Although that does get you repeat admission for a year. Anyone want two adult tickets good 'til December 2018?)

YORK MINSTER
It's one of England's blockbuster cathedrals and, as its archbishop is 2nd only to Canterbury, regularly holds services and events of national importance. Since English cathedrals charge admission (£10 for York, good for 1 year), it's always worth checking the event schedule. Pay for a concert, have a wander for free. We stumbled onto a glorious performance of Handel's Messiah. The only drawback: the last available seats were in the back row, where regular gusts from the door lowered the temperature in an already frigid building. This is, I suspect, is the most I've ever suffered for art. It was worth it. When everyone stands and the strains of the Hallelujah chorus fill the air, it's a religious experience in any setting. Hearing in a great cathedral makes it that much better.

Before the concert and at the intermission we were able to wander around. York has some of the cleanest lines of England's great cathedrals. There are no chantry chapels, sparse carved decoration, few paintings. Just white walls, a mostly-white ceiling and soaring gothic arches. It's a study in elegant simplicity. There's more detail to take in around the crossing beneath the spire. The choir screen is a magnificent genealogy of the Plantagenet kings. The restored roofs of the transepts feature some gorgeous bosses, and there are colourful Victorian neo-gothic chapels built into the arches of the transepts. The round chapter house is well worth a look. At this time of year, the most magnificent sight is the giant advent wreath, complete with real candles the height of a man, hanging below the crossing.

KATH WOHLFAHRT 

Perhaps the best Christmas shop in the world, and certainly a testament to the idea that nobody does this holiday better than the Bavarians. This German Christmas experience is even more fun because it  happens inside a rambling, historic half-timbered English town house from the late Middle Ages. Even if you don't want to shop, it's worth having a wander to check out the marvellous historic interiors. 

There are nutcrackers, cuckoo clocks, candle-driven spinning pyramids, incense smokers, nativity scenes and holiday linens ... in addition to at least four large rooms of tree decorations. There's one just for the kind of hand-blown, hand-painted glass ornaments brought back into fashion by Christopher Radko, portraying a staggering variety of subjects. All staffed by helpful ladies in dirndls and loden jackets. It's the company's only outlet in the UK. The only thing that could make it better? An adjacent German beer hall. (York is full of charming pubs, but we couldn't get a seat in any of them on this packed Saturday.) 

My husband proved a frustrating, though ultimately useful, restraint. Without him, I would have easily laid out several hundred pounds on Christmas decorations we don't need. Instead, we spent £20 on a blown glass tree topper we did. Everyone was happy.

FAIRFAX HOUSE

It takes either extreme audacity or supreme confidence to hang the claim that you are England's best Georgian townhouse outside your door. There's a lot of competition, and I was skeptical that anyone could beat Bath's No. 1 Royal Crescent. But I'll give my vote to Fairfax House. It's a slightly older style than Bath's restrained neo-classicism. Fairfax House's decoration dates from the 1760s and feels 20 years older: there's a heavy whiff of Baroque here. (Unsurprising for a proud, provincial Roman Catholic family.) It's worth visiting for the progression of ornate plaster ceilings alone.

The house is beautifully restored and furnished to the state it would have been in when the last Viscount Fairfax did the place up as an urban party palace in an attempt to entertain his way to a fiancé for his daughter. He didn't succeed, and she sold the place after his death. So the furnishings are representative, mostly from a collection that chocolate magnate Noel Terry willed to the house on his death in 1980. 

It's a fluke that the place still exists at all. Used as a club and cinema in the 1930s, it suffered removal of interior walls and suffocation of those glorious ceilings with high gloss paint. While the removal took thousands of painful hours, curators think the synthetic coat preserved exquisite details. A quirk of leases and local government saw the house shuttered, but unable to be occupied or torn down, through the '60s and '70s. Probably another lucky escape. Its rediscovery and reconstruction in the '80s is a fascinating story that well-informed room stewards will be happy to tell you. They also spin tales of Fairfax family history and have deep knowledge of how the furnishings would have worked in every day usage. I was completely captivated; my top sightseeing pick in York.

WHERE WE STAYED: NOVOTEL

Novotel is a pet-friendly hotel chain. They don't publicise it, but all members of the chain allow dogs for an extra fee of £10 per pet. This one has ample parking, generously-sized modern rooms, speedy free wi-fi and is a 10-minute walk to the centre of town. Even better for dog owners, it's also on the River Ouse and opens at the back onto a long river walk complete with street lamps and rubbish bins. Everything a dog owner could want.

V&A's opera show is a wonder of modern storytelling

There was a point so outrageously fabulous during the V&A's new opera exhibition that I found myself quivering with the pure, unadulterated joy of a small child on Christmas morning.

It's in the section devoted to Handel's Rinaldo. The exhibit displays wrap around a disused stage with early18th century scenery piled in the wings, ropes and pulleys hanging from the rafters. Suddenly, you hear the hubbub of crowd noise, the tap-tap-tap of a baton, and scenery moves into place. As the overture rises, layers of canvas-on-wood waves ... one behind another to a painted horizon ... churn in a circular motion, creating a remarkably convincing illusion of a swelling sea. Rinaldo's boat crosses from one side, a sea deity rides from the other, while scenery clouds part to reveal a sun shining down on a glittering foreign city. It is magical. And exactly the way the London audience would have seen it upon its debut in 1711.

It's one of many moments in this blockbuster show that stirred powerful emotions from glee to dread. Great opera should make you feel, and this masterful collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Opera House does that with aplomb. This is a great exhibition because of the way it sheds light on its topic, and because of the objects it brings together, but mostly because it has combined design and technology to give us an immersive experience that embodies the very best of modern storytelling.

You know you're in for something special when you get given a set of top-quality wireless headphones with your ticket, head towards a lavish red curtain and find Tony Pappano, music director of the ROH, welcoming you in. From there, you wander through seven operatic experiences, exploring each production in tandem with the city in which it premiered and thus the political and social trends of its time. These spaces spiral around a final, central area where a series of large screens show off the state of opera in the modern world.

While opera combines many art forms, the music comes first. So giving this exhibit a stirring soundtrack is the foundation of its success. The sound quality is excellent, the choice of musical excerpts beautiful and the technology that shifts you automatically from one audio element to the next is almost flawless. (There were a few times when I stood too close to a section divider and had the next opera cutting in prematurely, but you quickly get the hang of coming back into the main path.)

There are plenty of fascinating things in cases to look at, from beautiful instruments to lavish costumes and original scores. Set design has always been a critical part of opera, and it plays a significant role here. In the Marriage of Figaro section, they've brought in a whole wall from the set of the ROH's highly acclaimed production. In the bit on Strauss' Salome, heavy with Freudian associations, you can take a seat on an oversized version of Freud's famous, Turkey-carpet covered couch to watch the action. Labels on the walls of each section capture key points in snackable bites; design for the social media generation. A risky move ... it could have seemed a cheap attempt to get down with the "yoof" ... but it was actually a beautifully conceived way to get essential facts across quickly and simply. This is worlds away from the dry, academic labels that usually accompany worthy museum shows.

In each case, there are videos of real performances to add to your understanding. Beyond the exhibition, the BBC has produced a two-part show with Lucy Worsley on the same topic. The V&A's web site is full of additional information and short films. The seriously keen can even sign up for classes at the museum. This is the embodiment of the modern, multi-media, multi-channel exhibition.

It's not all perfect. The format of seven premiers in seven cities is an interesting concept, but ultimately creates a rod for their own backs. It works beautifully for the early operas. We experience Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea at the same time the decadent opulence of Venice gives birth to the art form. Handel's Rinaldo in London sees opera grow up and move beyond Italy as the English capital grows to world prominence, while Mozart's Marriage of Figaro puts Enlightenment trends in Vienna on stage. Verdi's Nabucco premier in Milan is unquestionably linked to the Italian unification movement, but we start to lack balance here as this part of the show becomes more about the politics than the opera. (Although I found one of my favourite displays here: a photographic wall of 150 Italian opera houses, backlit and shining like precious jewels.)

We really slide off the rails when Wagner's Tannhauser gets paired with Louis Napoleon's Paris. True,  a quirk of history did throw this opera and city together; but it's an uncomfortable forced marriage. Wagner and his work was so inextricably linked to Germany, and the role of "Mad" King Ludwig is one of opera's greatest off-stage stories. To do Wagner and his enormous impact on the art form justice, we deserved one of the Munich premieres. Instead, it felt like the curators wanted to avoid the troubling German nationalist legacy, and needed to wedge Paris in somewhere, so pushed the two together.

Then it's on to Dresden, where I actually enjoyed exploring Strauss' Salome more than I thought I would. Though the Dresden tie seemed completely incidental; most of the trends we were talking about here came out of Vienna. While I'm still not enough of a convert to want to see a full production of this challenging (both musically and topically) production, linking it to the world's growing awareness of female sexuality and teenage angst was fascinating. Oscar Wilde's play and Beardsley's prints (beautiful but disturbing) show how Salome's story was so much bigger, and on trend, than the one opera.

Unfortunately, the final section on Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (paired with Leningrad) risked destroying all the joy that had come before. The plot is distressing, the political reality of Stalin's Russia horrible and the music so discordantly awful that I had to take off my headphones. Porgy and Bess would have been a much more satisfying, and palatable, take on the move toward modern opera, but I assume its launch in Boston ... hardly a world-renown opera town ... took it out of contention.

Sadly, I was so disturbed by the Shostakovich that I didn't have the mental energy to spend much time in the final room with the screens exploring opera since 1945. Having resumed my headphones, I entered to a blast of discordant notes, violent images and ugly, industrial set design that reinforced my ingrained prejudices that the art form has steadily gone to hell since the death of Puccini. I would have liked to have been convinced otherwise. My greatest complaint about the otherwise wonderful show is that they didn't use this fantastic opportunity to change my mind.

Instead, I slipped quickly back into the Wagner section, closed my eyes and listened again to the overture to Tannhauser. Then I took off my headphones and walked through the modern bit in silence.    Emotional equilibrium recovered, my final verdict remains overwhelmingly positive. This unique exploration of the art form will intrigue anyone who's even mildly interested in opera, while the topic, format and design will delight people fascinated by how we tell stories.

Opera: Passion, Power and Politics is on at London's Victoria and Albert Museum through 25 February. It's a good idea to book tickets in advance, especially on weekends or for Friday night openings.

Guggenheim Bilbao makes modern art accessible, powerful and fun

The Northwestern Girls' Trip has been taken by a trio for 15 years. Brought together by our university, we discovered that we share remarkably similar styles in the pace, composition, favoured destinations and hotel styles of our holiday destinations. Trios can make accommodation tricky, however, so we've always been open to the addition of a fourth. But where to find her?

This year, we welcomed Suzy Christopher. Though not a Northwestern graduate, I hired her out of Cardiff's excellent journalism programme back in 1999 and she worked for me for years at both my PR agency and BT. She's also become a dear friend. And since, during those working years, I passed on everything I could about the art of journalism, we all decided to convey upon her an honorary degree from the Medill School of Journalism so we can officially call her a "Northwestern Girl". As her initiation into the clan, she's guest-written today's blog post.

As we arrived in Bilbao, the Guggenheim rose up on our right like a slightly bonkers, silver-scaled galleon. We learned from our guide later on that its architect, Frank Gehry, drew his inspiration from the city’s sea-faring/fishing heritage, which makes this first impression rather apt. The building is stunning ... a work of art in its own right ... and merits closer inspection. 

There are several large sculptures around its perimeter, including Jeff Koons’ Puppy – a huge floral west highland terrier ‘sitting’ at the gallery’s entrance plaza. Admittedly we couldn’t see him in all his spectacular glory on the day of our visit, as he was getting a new coat of flowers! But the hoarding around him, shielding the gardeners at work, showed us what we were missing. 

Walking down some steps to the left of the main entrance, towards the riverside, we came across a tower of silver baubles ... Anish Kapoor’s Tall Tree ... and in the distance we could see one of Louise Bourgeois’ spiders. As a self-confessed arachnophobe, I admit that I didn’t want to get too close to that one! 

Above it we could see the bridge we’d driven across minutes earlier. We learned from our guide Mikel (read about him and the rest of our day with him here) that the red-arched structure over the bridge ... clearly visible from our vantage point by the river ... is also an art installation. This is clearly a city that takes modern art seriously. 

Moving inside the gallery, I, for one, felt that the exhibits couldn’t be as interesting as the exterior of the building. But I was very happy to be proved wrong. 

We started on the third (top) floor with the ‘masterpieces’ – a permanent collection. On first glance this is a sparse collection of pieces that could easily seem a little ‘so what?’, but on closer inspection and quiet contemplation the collection is much richer. It includes signature works by leading post-war and contemporary artists including Mark Rothko, Yves Klein and Anselm Kiefer. 

(The collection is well chosen for those wary of modern art. Even the more challenging pieces are visually beautiful, while the audio guide that comes with your admission gives excellent insight. Klein's Large Blue Anthropometry is a gorgeous celebration of blue and white: he captured movement by having naked models lie and roll on the canvas. Kinky, but lovely results. Getting to know local sculptor Eduardo Chillida was a joy: he combines natural rock with smooth planes and uses what's not there (the air itself) as another element for beguiling results. Keifer's The Land of the Two Rivers (above) was my favourite in the museum and I'd happily come visit it regularly if I were a local. Using heavily encrusted blue. green, white and black paint, he creates something between painting and sculpture that's a representation of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. There are sophisticated levels of political commentary here, but you can also just stand and get lost in the beauty of the landscape, which actually seems to get less abstract the more you stare at it. Modern art at its best. -Ed.)

When we visited (28th October 2017) there were also two visiting exhibitions: Bill Viola and Anni Albers. I confess I only bobbed my head into the Albers exhibition, but lingered a while in the Viola show. It proved intriguing. 

The first room I entered really challenged me – there was a revolving screen in the centre of the room, spinning 360 degrees on an axis, which forced me to flatten my back to the wall. The images on the screen depicted open heart surgery. Both the physical and visual discomfort led me to move quickly into the next room. The screen here showed a man-made pool in a lush, green environment that reminded me of a rainforest or tropical retreat. After watching in silence for what seemed like a five minutes, but may have been a minute or less, I witnessed a man walking up to the edge of the pool and then – several frames later – jumping. The image of the figure in mid-air hung motionless for several seconds and then I saw ripples in the pool below – it was like a magical ‘Harry Potter’ image. 

My final and most impactful memory of the Viola exhibition was a video piece with two screens, side by side. One (on the left) captured a beautiful, serene scene of a woman lighting candles in the darkness ... almost church-like in atmosphere ... while the second screen (on the right) showed a man in the distance, again in darkness, walking forcefully towards a fire which was right in the foreground of the screen. I sat for a while on a bench in front of both screens and as the sequence progressed, the woman had lit all the candles and walked towards the camera, seeming to cross a shallow pool of water, and the man walked up to – and through – the fire towards the camera. I wondered if it was meant to depict heaven (on the left) and hell (on the right) but what surprised me most was that I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I don’t know why exactly. But isn’t that the point of art? To evoke emotion in the viewer? 

After feeling quite overwhelmed by Viola I headed down to the ground floor to experience the largest exhibition within the gallery – Richard Serra’s The Matter Of Time. Made up of eight ginormous steel structures that fill the entire ground floor space, these sculptures elicit shrieks of delight and wonder from the visitors moving through the various coils and waves that make up each piece. I saw visitors of all ages – from 70 years to seven months old – enjoying the experience. 

I couldn’t think of a more exhilarating way to finish a gallery visit. I experienced sheer delight and left beaming. Suffice to say we were all surprised that we’d enjoyed the interior of the Guggenheim and the exhibits we’d each, individually, chosen to spend time with, more than we thought before we went inside. 

The photographs really don’t do it justice – please go and discover for yourself what moves/surprises/excites you.

Bilbao & the Basque coast is a tour that will leave you wanting more

It was a travel company's mistake in Iceland that first opened my eyes to the exquisite treat of travelling with a private guide. Since that adventure with the stalwart Viking Halle, the annual girls' trip has splurged where possible on local experts to give us deeper, more meaningful experiences than we can create ourselves ... even with our prodigious combined travel experience.

Mikel and Ikusnahi Travel now join our list of precious memories. If you are heading to the BasqueCountry and are up for investing in something beyond the ordinary, these are the guys to call.

In Basque, the company name means a desire or willingness to see; a perfect summary of the ethos of this born-and-bred locally team. We peppered Mikel with questions all day, ranging across areas as diverse as modern politics, geology, religious history, architecture, food and art, and he never missed a beat. Once he realised we were curious about pretty much everything, he was a steady font of information. In fact, had we booked Ikusnahi for Day 1, instead of Day 3, I suspect we might have been trying to arrange a second session in the same trip. We all came away with loads of ideas for the next excursion.

The one we booked, however, is probably the most obvious for the first-time visitor to San Sebastián (Donostia in the native Basque): A visit to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, plus a few charming villages along the coast.  Sure, you can do that on your own, but you'll have to get to the bus terminal, take the long and tedious bus ride, make your way to the museum, deal with the ticket queue and then make your way home. Without any picturesque coastal drives.

Instead, Mikel picked us up from our hotel in a generously sized van that gave the four of us room to sprawl. He filled the hour to Bilbao with fascinating overview information about Basque history and culture, noted points of interest along the way, and prepared us for the striking first sight of the museum as you emerge from a tunnel. It's one of the most photographed buildings in the world, but nothing can really prepare you for the outrageous, awe-inspiring statement it makes, dominating the scene like some alien princess' castle.

Guggenheim Bilbao
We hopped out right in front and had our first look while Mikel parked the van. I knew that architect Frank Gehry chose the undulating shapes and metal scales to mimic the fish that made Bilbao's fortune. It's one thing to know, another thing to experience. As the clouds scud across the sky, they
reflect on the metal and the whole building seems to writhe like a school of cod dancing away from Basque fishermens' nets. It's extraordinary. Mikel walked us around the outside while explaining the history of the town, the building, and how they influenced each other. Today, it's hard to imagine that this vibrant, art-filled riverwalk, enlivened by clarinet-playing buskers and within view of a long line of gracious mansions, offices and public spaces, was once a derelict industrial district. And then, though the magic of Ikusnahi, we slipped in the riverside group entrance ... skipping a queue that stretched at least 500 metres by the time we left.

To my great surprise, the inside is just as good as the outside. Not just architecturally. This is a joyous, fascinating and carefully curated collection, presented in a way to make it accessible to all.

Frequent readers will be dropping their jaws in shock at this point. Yes, I dislike modern art. I've never been to a modern art museum that filled me with anything but a desire to leave quickly. (Unless I'm heading to the Tate's restaurant. Excellent views.) Until now. I could have stayed for at least another hour. For me, that's a revolutionary statement.

To read more about why the Guggenheim is so magical, check out the next story, when my guest blogger Suzy Christopher will offer her take.

But we couldn't stay. We had a date with a movie set.

Zumaia
Turns out Dragonstone is on the Basque coast. Game of Thrones fans (three of the four on our trip) will swoon with jealousy. The familiar set is actually a pastiche of two sites. Gaztelugatxe, a small islet off the coast, is connected to the mainland by a madly-winding stone bridge that ... on television ... leads up to the brooding castle and has been the site of so many dramatic conversations in Season 7. The atmospheric, cliff-lined beach lying at the foot of those stairs that is home to the cave with the White Walker paintings and the dragon glass hoard is actually in Zumaia. It would have been impossible to do both and our final destination for the day, as they're separated by about 80 kilometres of coast with no fast road connections. So we headed for Zumaia.

The reason the producers picked this place is immediately obvious. It's a geological blockbuster. Famous for a particular rock formation called flysch, these layers of compacted sediment were pushed upwards in a violent meeting of continents millions of years ago. The result is other-wordly, jagged strips of the rock, as if the cliffs had been constructed of giant sheets of blackened, upthrust mille feuille pastry. Horizontal lines of stone continue out to sea and cut back from the cliff tops. On the heights, however, they're softened by rich green grasses and shrubs. The tiny, ancient chapel of San Telmo perches on the headland, a waypoint on the ancient pilgrimage route to Campostella.

This was the second place we had to leave too soon. Zumaia deserves a day. A morning to scramble down onto that magnificent beach. Time to poke around the shops in the charming town below the cliffs before a lingering lunch. Then an afternoon's hike along the cliff tops.

But there was more to do. We headed east on the N634: a beautiful, winding thread suspended between cliff base and water. I suspect you could spend many happy hours simply driving this coast. We stopped half an hour later in Getaria, where a picture-postcard medieval village clambered up a hillside above a sheltered harbour.

Getaria

There's a unique Romanesque church here, built so that the whole place slopes precipitously back and down from the altar. Legend has it that the ruling nobles, parachuted in from Spain, insisted on the unusual architecture so that they'd always be physically above everyone else. I've never seen another church like it. Nor have I seen another place where the church actually bridges the main street: you walk through a tunnel beneath it towards the harbour, able to peer through grates into the crypt.

Cobbled streets wind past shops, prosperous old merchants' houses and nobles' palaces. This was the home town of Juan Sebastián Elcano, the first ship's captain to circumnavigate the globe, and they've honoured him with two statues. One stands proudly above the harbour, looking out to sea. Another stands before the town hall, looking South towards Spain. Is that a smirk of superiority the sculptor crafted into his face? Probably. The town's other famous son is fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga. There's a museum to him here. Yet again, a place that could have beguiled us for hours.

The real point of our visit, however, was a late lunch. (The exploration came after.)

On a coast already famous for its cuisine and its seafood, Getaria is where the locals come to eat fish. It's also known for some of the finest txakoli, the gently sparkling local white wine. (Indeed, the Txomin Etxaniz we had here was the best of the trip.)

We ate at Kaia Kaipe, where the highly-polished wooden panelling and the expansive views over the harbour made it feel like we were inside a luxury super yacht rather than an ancient stone building. For the first, and only, time on our trip we were entirely surrounded by locals ... including a family group of about 30 around one enormous table, celebrating a couple's anniversary with gifts and songs.

Two decades ago, when I was still a full-blooded American pursuing high-intensity tourism, I couldn't have imagined taking two hours out of the heart of a sightseeing day to linger over lunch. Nor paying for a private guide to share than down time. Now, I see it as an essential part of the experience. Mikel knew the menu and the owners. Explained the local nuances. Ordered stuff that was off the menu, including an enormous whole turbot the five of us shared as our main course. We'd been doing a great job exploring local cuisine, naturally. But eating with a local made the experience that much richer. And the turbot ... which had doubtless still been swimming happily the day before ... was exceptional.

By the time we finished our stroll around town and stopped in a gourmet shop to buy txakoli and some of the famed local salt, it was time to head back to Donostia. One last advantage of our own guide: he could drop us wherever we wished. The day had been so wonderful we weren't ready to head home. So Mikel dropped us at the Gintoneria (already covered here), where we plunged into another round of exotic cocktails and reviewed the wonders of our day.

Mikel gave us a glimpse of a whole new world. Every one of us agreed we're keen to return and discover more.