L'Anima's a pale spirit next to Locatelli, while Smiths impresses with the simple

Every country I know in the Western world has succumbed to the appeal of television chefs, but I wonder if they are quite as dominant anywhere else as they are in Britain? Rarely does a night go by there's not a cooking show on one of our major channels, all starring cooks ... and, usually, restaurant owners ... who've become familiar friends in many a foodie's sitting room.

There's plenty of fine dining to be had across the country, but Britain is a small place and the bulk of the restaurant scene is centred in London. Thus if you're dining out in the capital, it's hard to avoid the influence of television on restaurant choice and style of food. It was something I couldn't help pondering as I enjoyed business lunches this week at two restaurants featured recently on the BBC.

First, Smiths of Smithfield, owned by John Torode. For the past few months John's been omnipresent on my TV as the MasterChef judge who whittled down more than one hundred amateur cooks to one brilliant winner. I've never been one for reality TV, but this ... for me ... is compulsive viewing. It seemed that anyone who liked food at all was gripped by MasterChef fever, and by the end of all those episodes you practically feel that you know John and his fellow judge Greg Wallace. So what could make more sense than heading to Torode's place soon after the series wrapped?

I'd been here many times before, but rarely to eat. Smithfield Market is a stone's throw from my company's headquarters, and its casual, warehouse-style bar and cafe on the ground floor is one of "the usual suspects" for leaving drinks or quick work lunches. We rarely hit the staircase, however, which ascends to wine tasting rooms on the first floor, a casual dining room on the second and formal on the third. I met colleagues on the second, which is boisterous and casual, yet still upscale enough and with efficiently brisk service to impress on a business lunch. Torode is most famous for his way with beef, and Smithfield itself takes its place in history as London's main meat market. Thus I kept it simple.

Sirloin steak. Chips. Spinach. The beef was cooked to a perfect medium rare, as requested. Flavourful, tender, obviously of the highest quality. But I have to say, the show stopper was the bowl of chips, which ... besides a cone of golden perfection served with mustard-mayonnaise sauce by an old street vendor in Bruges ... may be the most perfect I've ever tasted. Crispy with mouth-delighting fat on the outside, soft and floury inside. A monument to the power of culinary simplicity. For a bit of variety, I'd started with the baba ganoush, the cold, mashed salad of eggplant (aubergine) and spices common throughout the Arabic world. It was as competently handled as the classic British main. I suspect the menu's sticky toffee pudding would have been a crowning glory to the meal but fortunately a busy afternoon saved my waistline from that particular indulgence.

Much deeper into the city is L'Anima. Chef Francesco Mazzei has been getting a lot of fabulous press lately, regularly mentioned in the same breath with Giorgio Locatelli, long London's king of gourmet Italian cuisine. Mazzei was recently tipped to win his first Michelin star for L'Anima; his failure to make the list earlier this year started a debate about whether restaurants cooking anything other than French are disadvantaged. It was that story, broadcast within a fascinating BBC show on "Michelin Madness" that pointed me toward trying L'Anima, rather than returning to Locatelli's place, when a push-out-the-boat dining invitation came along. The verdict? A lovely meal, but with patchy elements and lacking some of the magic that makes Locatelli still reign supreme for me.

That said, it's fabulous to see a southern Italian (Mazzei's Calabrian) raising what's long been considered humble peasant food to high art, and many of the flavours were exquisite. I started with a veal and pistachio ragout on stracci, a flat, broad, hand cut pasta similar to papardelle. I thought of the Michelin show as I considered that menu description. If a chef's so keen to celebrate his native cuisine, why's he using the French "ragout" rather than his native "ragu"? Is it a bid for sophisticated polish? One bite, frankly, and I didn't give a damn. I could have stopped here and been happy. This dish was everything spectacular about southern Italian cuisine. The intense flavour of the veal in a bright marriage with sweet, ripe tomatoes, made slightly exotic by the toasted accent of the nuts. The soul-soothing, childhood-evoking comfort of al dente pasta. The lift of sharp, pungent aged cheese of the highest quality. I could eat a bowl of this every day for the rest of my life. (And, I suspect, I have ancestors who did.)

I moved on to Sicilian rabbit. Essentially a simple stew, moved to a higher plane by the gorgeous presentation ... deconstructed, with each bit of meat and every beautiful vegetable arranged as a work of art on the plate ... with a knock-your-socks-off sauce that captured and intensified the essence of this little used meat. (And set me to wondering whether I can get some at my local farm shop. Surely we should be cooking with this more.) I should have stopped there, because it was on the sweets that Francesco let me down.

Italians, I will admit, do not rank amongst the best dessert makers in the world. It's far more traditional to end a meal with fruit, or some sweet wine and simple biscuits, than anything from a pastry chef's kitchen. Southern Italians do have a few aces up their sleeves, however, most notably cannoli (ricotta or cream stuffed tubes of fried pastry), cassata of ricotta and dried fruit and zabaglione (a marsala-laced custard). Mazzei's menu was steering clear of local tradition here, with only one option close to that familiar list: Liquorice zabayon. Thinking this an odd combo, and again irritated by the French spelling, I opted for the Gianduja cake with fior di latte ice cream. This was, sadly, deeply average. The cake was so lacking in flavour it was only its colour that hinted to me I was supposed to be getting chocolate. The ice cream was good, but there wasn't enough of it to compensate for the disappointment of the main event.

But it was more than a bad dessert choice that keeps me from raving in delight about L'Anima. The atmosphere is unappealing. Stark, white and clinically modern in the ground floor of a characterless modern office building, with acoustics that send noise rocketing around the place and make conversation difficult. The big problem, however, is service. It's slow, disjointed and with a cool disaffection. There was little interest in us, no chat, few smiles, little effort to explain a menu filled with interesting tit bits. Their gravest offense, however, was on the drinks front. We were never offered a pre-meal drink, and it took three requests before a wine waiter turned up to take our order. Yes, that beautiful veal ragu was laid in front of me before I had even had the chance to order the bold red wine that tradition and common sense said it demanded. This was even more criminal because L'Anima has perhaps the best Italian wine list I've ever seen, allowing me to go for a delicious and rarely found Greco di Tufo (suspected by historians to be the "Falernian" so loved by the ancient Romans). Fortunately, the wine waiter was quick once he got to us, and my veal didn't remain unaccompanied for long.

In summary, L'Anima has great food but is let down by it's soulless atmosphere and service. A pity, since "soul" is precisely what the restaurant's name means.

Spring, royal love and African serenity, all to the strains of Handel

Easter is the time when London starts to shake off its winter gloom, rousing itself from the quiet, dark hours to tease our eyes with promises of spring and fill our social diaries with activity.

It's still cold, but there have been a handful of wonderfully sunny days filled with the promise of future warmth. The daffodils and hyacinths are out (though a bit late, due to the unusually harsh winter) and flowering trees are starting to decorate the roadsides. Hallelujah.

Which is exactly what the Royal Choral Society was belting out on Good Friday at Royal Albert Hall. They've been doing Handel's "Messiah" here for the holiday every year since 1878, and are reckoned to have sung this piece more than any other choir in the world. Handel's music is so magnificent it's hard for anyone to do badly, but when you have experts at this level, performing in such an august venue, it's truly sublime. The music ranges from quiet and contemplative to dramatic and celebratory, giving opportunities for the large chorus, each of the four soloists and the orchestra to have their own bits of the spotlight.

The Hallelujah chorus must be one of the best known pieces of music on Earth. But how many people have sat through the whole "Messiah"? I'd never managed it. A shame, because it was a delight. There's many a musical experience, whether pop concert, classical symphony or opera, where you go to hear one bit and are actually disappointed by the rest. Not so with the Messiah, which has several little-known sections that are almost as stirring as the famous chorus, while the chorus itself is enriched by being heard in its intended context.

Equally uplifting, though visually rather than audibly, are two of the current exhibitions on in London at the moment.

"Kingdom of Ife", on at the British Museum until 6 June, brings together sculptures from an ancient and sophisticated civilisation that once dominated what's now Nigeria. Their bronze casting is amongst the most sophisticated ever done anywhere in the world, and would have been positively jaw dropping to the late Medieval artists of Europe who were working at the same time. It is so stunningly beautiful, in fact, that early white explorers couldn't believe such art could be created by Africans, casting about for evidence of lost tribes and visiting European craftsmen. Fortunately we're all a bit wiser these days, and it's a real treat to see something so beautiful and rare from a continent that's still a mystery to many of us.

What was most striking to me about this exhibition was the serenity. The Ife people believed that the ultimate quality a leader could possess was calm. These portrait heads manage to convey a quiet confidence, of competence and benevolent unflappability. Sadly, I've never seen this look on a modern leader's face. And perhaps the Ife never looked like this, either. But these 600+-year-old portraits are magical. In front of several, I had what I call the Pygmalion effect, where the art was so lifelike I felt it was almost real, and could be animated by just one divine puff of will. (The other time was looking at classical kouros statues in the National Museum in Athens.)

There's much more to the show than the heads. Some full figures, some ceremonial objects, some fragments of clay moulds (explaining how the bronze images were made), smaller decorative objects. But the portrait busts are the main point, and the things that will stay in your mind's eye long after you leave.

Across town at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace (an exquisite little jewel that's one of my favourite exhibition spaces in London) you can explore a different kind of serenity: that inspired by the warmth and support of a great relationship. "Victoria and Albert: Art and Love" explores this famous royal relationship in the context of the art collection they built together, mostly through the thoughtful gifts they exchanged, and the way their love of each other developed their tastes and their artistic commissions. (Through 31 October.) One wonders why they didn't tie this exhibit to Valentine's Day, frankly, because I've never seen an art exhibit so purely romantic. Oh well, better late than never.

Over the course of their 21 year marriage the couple, famously mad about each other, made a point of using art, sculpture, jewelry and furniture to demonstrate their affection. Early on in the exhibition you're confronted with some spectacular portraits. The one of Albert, dashingly handsome, leaves no question why Victoria would have fallen for him. And the one of Victoria ... hair unbound, lying back on a pillow ... conveys a touchingly intimate private moment. (It was never displayed publicly when they were alive.) This Victoria is not the queen of England, she's a wife who wants her husband to think of her as she is in their quietest moments.

Of course, when you're the rulers of England you have the money to procure something better than the average gift. There's a whole room of Victoria's jewelry, all of it enviable. I loved the portrait of Albert's favourite dog Eos, and the scene of the couple playing happy highlanders at Balmoral. It's a magnificent hotch potch of stuff, from massive paintings to palm-sized collectibles, furniture, watercolours of their favourite homes and rooms, portraits of the children, china, Albert's guns and walking sticks ... the list goes on and on.

The exhibition only has three main rooms, with a few side niches and ante chambers, but you can easily wander here for hours. Poignantly, and as you would expect, it ends with Albert's death and the model of his tomb at Frogmore. As the kind of girl who cries easily over romance, beauty or dogs in trouble, it should be no surprise that I was surreptitiously wiping away tears at this point. This show delights and dazzles, but beyond that it gives you a sense of the strength, depth and beauty of that relationship. It explains Victoria's life-long mourning after Albert's death in a way nothing else has for me.

Of course I cried. And yes, beset by emotion, I wept during the Hallelujah chorus as well. I clearly lack the serenity of the rulers of Ife. I suspect, however, that I'd make a grand, gift-giving queen of England, besotted by her culturally literate husband.

Cruise food is a triumph for mass catering, but the arch enemy of all Weight Watchers

It was the most horrifying thing I'd heard in a while.

According to the head chef of The Golden Princess, Jeremy Snowden, the average cruise passenger puts on between a pound and two of weight PER DAY. Two week cruise, 14 to 28 pounds gained. I guess I should consider myself lucky that the damage upon returning to Weight Watchers was seven pounds. One thing is for sure. A cruise is the worst of all possible holidays for anyone with a weight problem. It's like confining an alcoholic in a dazzling, all-expenses-covered bar for a fortnight. Those with great willpower can resist. Unfortunately, when it comes to lavish buffets and multiple-option menus, I am in the Oscar Wilde school of temptation. (I can resist anything except it.)

Is this exceptional, award-winning restaurant quality cuisine? Honestly, no. Putting on my restaurant critic's hat, I'll say that the flavours are often underwhelming and indistinct, the meat sometimes tough, the fish possessing that tell-tale chewiness that says it was frozen (inevitable when you're loading all your supplies for a fortnight before you leave LA). Presentation is often exceptional, but the tastes are what you'd get in an average neighbourhood bistro. Back home ... at least if your home is the London restaurant scene ... you wouldn't rave about it. But against expectations of banquet food? It's remarkable. And hotel banquet food is essentially what this is. Between crew and tourists, more that 3,000 people eat here every day. Many of the guests are American, most are older ... you need to cook safe, not adventurous. The logistics boggle the mind.

Consider some facts. 13,000 meals served every day. 200,000 tonnes of supplies loaded at the start of the cruise. Almost half the crew works in food service across nine galleys, five formal restaurants, a buffet and numerous snack bars, and they can serve up as many at 800 meals in half an hour. The kitchens consume a half tonne of flour, up to 80 gallons of tomato sauce and more than 4,200 eggs each day. I'm waiting for "Masterchef: The Cruise", frankly, because cooking doesn't get tougher than this.

As a general rule, the less things rely on fresh ingredients, the better they tasted. The pastries, breads and cakes are exceptional; probably the highest quality of everything coming out of the kitchens. At the other extreme the sushi ... something that should rely on fresh, raw, top quality fish ... was generally a terrible approximation made with too much rice and a range of substitute ingredients that could be cooked or defrosted. In general, the more ethnic the cuisine, the less authentic it was as the chefs seemed very hesitant to use much spice. (For some reason, the big exception here was the Lebanese buffet.) The closer you came to traditional Italian or French options, the better the standard.

Curious to see behind the scenes, I signed us up for one of the chef's table nights. This is a $70 surcharge on top of what you've already paid. The food isn't significantly better, but the behind the scenes access is fascinating and the attention from the head chef, maitre d' and serving team impressive. Sharing a table with nine others who are equally serious about food and wine was intellectually stimulating. Champagne and wines come with the meal and they're very generous with the pace at which they're poured. Every couple walks away with a handsomely produced cookbook signed by the head chef. For all that, it was worth the money.

Here's what we ate.

Appetizers: Consumed in the kitchens, with champagne, as the waiters buzzed around us with trays and the chef told us how things worked. Blue crab margarita with mango slaw. Foie gras on brioche with stone fruit jam. Roasted red potatoes with sour cream and caviar (one of my own dinner party staples). Tempura coconut shrimp.

The starter: Risotto with Porcini mushrooms. (Ironically, after my comments about spicing above, I thought they'd overdone the potency of the stock to such a degree they overpowered the mushrooms.) A white wine from Northern Italy. (Sorry for the generalisation, readers, I lost my wine notes.)

The transition: Lemon sorbet cocktail. A blockbuster of a dish I must try if I can ever figure out how to spin sugar. The sorbet comes out in a martini glass, topped by a globe of spun sugar. You crunch through that to get to the sorbet. Then, mid-glass, a waiter comes around with a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, removes the sugar globe and tops up your glass with the alcohol. A quick stir and you have a lemon martini. Magic.

The main: Roasted veal shank and veal rack. Forest mushrooms. Assorted fresh vegetables. Roasted chateaux potatoes. Comfort food, well cooked, impressively presented on a massive platter for the whole table. With a Californian red.

The cheese: Baked camembert with pine nuts & port wine reduction. Again, a bit too close to an easy dinner party dish to impress, but it was tasty.

The dessert: Iced amaretto parfait, Florentine tuilles, whiskey soaked raspberries. The most impressive part of which was not the flavours, wonderful as they were, but the fact that the whole concoction was served on a massive bowl that looked like a piece of modern, hand-blown art glass, and turned out to be molded sugar. Yes, an edible bowl. (See top photo.) With a lovely sweet red dessert wine. Followed by coffee and chocolates that had to be taken back to the room, as there was certainly no space left in the stomach.

And that, dear reader, plus the all-day pizza stand, the pastry array, the four course restaurant meals, the buffet plates the size of platters, the lox and cream cheese on offer every morning, etc., etc., is why that 1-2 pound a day figure is not that surprising.

It is time, without question, to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon. 0-point vegetable soup, anyone?

Kauai and Maui tantalise, but can't dazzle on short exposure

When I returned home from my cruise I Googled the Marriott Kuaui to remind myself of the beach at which I'd spent my day on that island. Up popped a mouthwatering vision of a tropical paradise, rich in vibrant greens and blues. It bore little resemblance to the beach I remembered, with dun coloured sand and views of brownish-green, scrubby hills under a gray, blustery sky that reminded me of nothing so much as Cornwall.

This highlights one of the greatest dangers of cruising. You have a tiny window of opportunity in each port. The weather and your choice of activity have a disproportionate impact on your whole perception of the place. And on Kuaui, I made a mistake. This island is famed for rugged natural beauty, but you don't see anything very spectacular around where the ship docks. Here, I should have invested in a tour to go see some of the natural wonders. Instead (and, to be honest, trying to save some money), I opted to hang out on the beach that was walking distance from the ship.

An impressive Marriott lays claim to most of the land behind this small bay. There's a boardwalk along the beach, lined with hotel bars, restaurants and services more than happy to make some extra cash off the cruisers. Then a strip of grass and palms, then the beach itself. As with all our other stops, it was fairly rough and too cold to go in past your knees. We had a pleasant day sitting at a picnic table in an adjacent public park, watching the surfers, drinking cocktails in cans procured from the local ABC shop and worshiping the sun when it occasionally deigned to shine. It was a pleasant but unremarkable day. Of the glories of Kuaui I can report nothing, as they clearly required an investment in exploration that I didn't make. Learn from me, dear readers...

I fared better on Maui, thanks to a combination of a good tour, a charming tourist town and better weather.

This island is famous for its whales. They caused the original Western colonisation of this place as hunters followed them for their oil, and today they rake in just as much cash, I'm sure, as a tourist draw. They come here to mate and give birth, and they love to wallow in the channel between Maui and the smaller island of Lanai. It is almost impossible not to see them during the winter season, so large are their numbers. The whale watching boats are skilled at catching their signs, then piloting to the right area and loitering for a look. Over the course of an hour we saw at least ten different animals, both close and in the distance, and spent most of our time with one mother and child. We were blessed to see the mother breach (leap all the way out of the water and splash back down) and we watched many times as they flipped their tales up before diving. I wasn't quick enough to grab a photo, but it looked exactly like the professional shot substituted here.

Satisfied with our aquatic adventures, we headed to shore for an exploration of Lahaina. This is a quaint, small ocean-front town, with a curious feel of the Northeast coast of America due to the whalers who first settled here. To its disadvantage, it's heaving with tourists. Inevitable when 2000+ cruisers disgorge on what's actually a cozy backwater. But I found it a delight to wander around in, and imagine it would be particularly lovely on a day when no ship loomed on the horizon.

Lahaina's shops impressed with more than the usual selection of tropic wear and macadamia nuts. There are art and craft galleries, jewelry stores and interesting little boutiques. Top quality buskers play jazz under tropical trees. There are some proper cultural offerings, including a courthouse, a Chinese heritage museum and a remarkable banyan tree that's been an outdoor assembly area for centuries. My favourite attraction was a little park filled with reconstructions of native Hawaiian houses assembled as a village across from the local Hilo Hatties outlet. We were the only people there; clearly, local history is not high on most visitors' agendas.

We treated ourselves to lunch at Kimo's, one of the best known restaurants on the strip. I say treated because when you've already paid for food on the ship, and there's so much of it, buying a meal ashore can seem like a waste of time and money. It would have been hard to beat this setting, however. A large, black stone terrace hanging right over the sea, with views to neighbouring Lanai and, every so often, of a whale's hump. Blazing sunshine. Giant Mai Tai's served in gloriously tacky glass tiki god heads. (I was extremely tempted to buy a couple, dreams of tiki parties at home dancing in my head, but resisted.) The burgers were satisfying, followed by their trademark Hula Pie, which was memorable enough to stand out on a cruise laden with great desserts. (Chocolate cookie crust, macadamia nut ice cream, chocolate fudge topping, more macadamia nuts.)

Of all the islands, it was Maui that left me with the deepest sense of disappointment when we pulled away. There was obviously so much to do. The views from the ship were the most spectacular (greenest, highest hills, distant islands), and the beaches in sight suggested that I might find something closer to my desires here. I was practically salivating at the thought of snorkeling Molokini, a volcanic crater, now mostly submerged, that time has transformed into a rich reef.

We visited four islands, each with their own allure. If I had a chance to return? With the taster tour complete, I'd say the ideal is ten days on Maui with a long weekend in transit through Honolulu. But given expense and distance, dear reader, I suspect it will be quite a while before Ferrara's View comes from the South Pacific again.

Honolulu an urban delight, though Waikiki disappoints

I loved Honolulu.

This was a surprise. Hawai'i, in my mind's eye, was all about the natural world. Volcanic landscapes, dramatic beaches, exotic flowers, whales, a Polynesian culture at peace with the environment. A big city seemed like an intrusion on this paradise. An economic necessity, perhaps, but an irritating distraction from what I'd come to see.

Time to eat my straw hat. Honolulu was one of the highlights of the trip. It's cool and sophisticated. A cosmopolitan capital of the Pacific Rim with people as friendly as a Midwestern small town. Worthy of far more exploration, though my pedometer ... ending the day showing 14.5 miles ... says I did pretty well for a 14-hour window of opportunity.

I started in the government district, reached through gracious pedestrian malls, attractive mid-sized modern office buildings and the occasional architectural remnant from the first half of the 20th century. All were in great shape and beautified by local flora; in fact, Honolulu probably ranks as the cleanest city I've ever visited. My destination was an expansive patch of green lawns dotted with 19th century architecture. Most impressive are a couple of palaces, a Gothic revival mausoleum and a Victorian bandstand, leaving no doubt that the Hawaiian monarchy was aping their European fellows. Don't miss the famous statue of King Kamehameha and the less known, but more poignant, bronze of Queen Liliʻuokalani, who lost her independent kingdom to American annexation despite her best efforts. The latter sits beside the State Capitol building, a jarring block of 1960s cement architecture that is saved from being hideous by its green and pleasant surroundings. Also in this quarter is one of the original 19th century mission churches and its outbuildings, a gracious merchant's house of the late monarchy and other grand monuments and government buildings, all separated from each other by lawns and flowering trees. Truly, a lovely place for a ramble.

Next it was on to Chinatown. Architecturally, its range of two- and three-story brick buildings could have been any business district in small town America, except that the shop fronts were filled with the assortment of exotic fruit and veg, designer copies and Oriental clothes and art typical of Chinatowns around the world. This one, however, seemed a bit more authentic to me than Chicago or London, perhaps because of the unusual offerings at the smoothie stand. A wide range of tropical fruits included Durian, of which I'd read much but never tasted. (As reported elsewhere, smells vile. Tastes creamy and slightly of vanilla.) And all smoothies were served over pearls of tapioca, ball bearing-sized black spheres that came up your straw and added a chewy, substantial element to your drink. The most unique thing about this Chinatown, however, is the profusion of florists, all of them making and selling traditional leis. There's an impressive range of both flowers and techniques on display and the prices are far below anything on sale near the ship. A necklace of the ubiquitous, sweet-smelling plumeria cost just $3.50, stretching up to $20 for a string of exotic orchids sliced and woven into a dense chain of colour. (This more expensive lei lasted a full week, allowing my mother to proudly wear it off the ship in LA before it collapsed.)

Just beyond Chinatown, in an area of light industry near the docks, is one of the two Honolulu outposts of Hilo Hatties; this one the super-sized corporate HQ. (There are free shuttles from the cruise port, but if you're in China town you're half way there.) A chain found on all four major islands, Hatties made its name with a wide range of tropic wear. It's better looking and of higher quality than most of what you see in other shops, making purchases here things you'll actually wear when you get home. Beyond the clothes, there's a treasure trove of souvenirs, food products (an especially good range of Hawaiian coffees and candies), perfumes and cosmetics made from local flowers (I am already anticipating the need to order more plumeria perfume and body lotion from their web site), homeware, CDs and videos. It's a great bet if you're trying to get all your vacation shopping done in one hit.

A mid-day break saw me wandering around Aloha Tower Market, an upscale, open-air shopping mall right next to the cruise ship port. Its eponymous central landmark was the tallest in Hawaii on its construction. Today it welcomes ships and reminds tourists of the art deco glamour of an earlier age. The mall at its base is a tasteful mix of boutiques and restaurants, decorated with tropical vegetation and a series of life-sized bronze sculptures of hula dancers that might inspire you to dance.

Most of the tourist buses leave from here, as do city buses. Quite helpfully, these are fitted out with ramps and securing straps for disability vehicles, meaning my mother was as free to explore town as anyone else. We took the bus up to Waikiki beach, enjoying the view of shopping malls, parks, beaches and apartment buildings on the way there.

The area around Waikiki was a surprise, although this one not so pleasant. I'd pictured something restrained, beautiful, quiet. Hardly. One block back from the main strip is a booming shopping street filled with every high-end shop and chain restaurant typical of well-heeled districts around the world. Hotels are monster megaplexes and high rises. The strip itself is a busy road with the beach on one side and a buzzing collection of hotels, restaurants and lower-end shops on the other. And everywhere, crowds. The only thing soothing about Waikiki is the view once you walk to the water and look up the coast, taking in the curve of sand and the jungle-clad bulk of Diamond Head. You're unlikely to relax on the beach itself, which is heaving with bodies. Not even a swim can calm you down, because the water is both chilly and perfect for surfing (meaning big, constant breakers). This place is a colourful show of surfers, strolling tourists, shoppers and sun seekers. It's fun, but in my mind it's an urban promenade with a seascape to one side, not a proper beach set up for a lounge, a swim and quiet hours tucked into a good paperback.

Still, overall ... Honolulu shone. While it's famous sands are nowhere near my list of favourite beaches, it's certainly in my top five when it comes to ocean-front cities.