Rebecca Ann Hughes

The face of Diego Maradona, who secured two other historic championship wins for Napoli, gazes down from murals and giant flags strung over the shaded alleys. But there’s another face and another name that has cropped up around the city, too.

2,500 years after its birth, Naples is revelling in a tourism boom, yet experiencing downsides that most cities learn decades later.
When I visited Naples almost a decade ago, guidebooks, hoteliers, and well-meaning locals all warned me of the foolhardiness of being a lone foreign woman in the city.
Most adamantly, they urged me not to set foot in the Quartieri Spagnoli, a neighbourhood then notorious for crime and violence.
Fast forward to 2025, the 2,500th anniversary of the city’s founding...

At the railway station in Salerno, the city known as the eastern gateway to the Amalfi Coast, a crush of floppy-hatted tourists crowds the platform where the train to Naples will arrive.
On the opposite platform, only an elderly lady and a family with two small children wait with me for the train heading in the other direction.
We board the nearly empty regionale service, which winds down the Tyrrhenian coastline, arriving in Maratea after just under two hours.
It’s a grab-a-window-seat kind ...

At 6am, a fine mist hangs over Ha Long Bay, a vast maze of jungle-garbed karsts just off the coast of northern Vietnam. The dark green waters lie glassy, broken only by a conical-hatted rower in a wooden boat pushing the oars with his feet. The deep silence is occasionally interrupted by the cry of hunting eagles and the sudden guttural grunts of the endangered Cat Ba Langur monkey.
Ha Long Bay is often tagged on as a day trip from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. But it is worth spending a nig...

It is now easier to reach Gifu prefecture from Europe with direct flights from Helsinki to Nagoya.
Visitors are rushing to Japan at the moment as the weak yen is making the normally big-budget destination more affordable.
While the Japanese are famed for their polite and welcoming nature, the concentration of crowds at famed attractions is straining some of Japan’s hotspots.
The city of Kyoto recently restricted tourist access to some alleys in Gion, its geisha district of traditional teahous...

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Beneath my feet, the dark stone slabs of the Nakasendo road are worn and mossy. Travellers have trod this path for over 400 years, a thought that gives me goosebumps - or perhaps that’s just the icy minus five degree air.
Tall magnolia trees and thickets of bamboo prevent the sunlight from penetrating so frozen patches of snow cover the ground.
High up in the Japanese Alps, the only sounds I hear are birdsong and water gurgling through the channel beside the path. B...

Hanoi’s Old Quarter is a tumult of traffic, trade and tourism. Travellers choose to stay in the Vietnamese capital’s historic neighbourhood to dive into its idiosyncratic brew of swerving motorbikes, roadside food joints and cacophonous soundtrack.
But while the clogged roads are an essential characteristic of the Old Quarter - hotels often supply guests with advice on how to cross them - increasing tourism is straining the capacity of its narrow streets.
Until recently, tour buses would sque...

The Jeddah Historic District programme will see the restoration of some 600 historic properties for residential, tourism and business purposes.

In the airy, high-ceilinged dining room of Beit Johkdar Hotel, Jeddah, breakfast is being served. It begins with a basket of warm bread - sesame seed encrusted, cardamon infused and traditional flatbread - with herby butter and black honey.

Next come the entreés, spicy olive tapenade, grilled halloumi with apricot jam, fried vegetables and a mini loaf...

From the window of Ca’ Zen, a pinkish brick villa deep in the northeastern Italian flatlands, I can see the reedy grass banks of the Po, Italy’s longest river.
This is the same spot where Lord Byron cast his eyes on that “deep and ample stream”, inspiring him to write stanzas to the Po. The poet came here, to the Po Delta, from hedonistic Venice in pursuit of a woman and found the sweeping waters and wild nature the perfect poetic reflection of his passionate romance.
I have lived in the Po D...

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Despite a reputation for rich, rustic dishes, restaurants across Tuscany are embracing a new style of food focused on finesse. Rebecca Ann Hughes selects 14 of the best fine dining restaurants, from rooftop hideaways to fresco-adorned courtyards
4 April 2025
The hillsides and plains of Tuscany are synonymous with wine-growing excellence, but they also furnish quality vegetables, prized truffles and prime meats. For centuries, these ingredients have been celebrated in a regional c...

2024 is a Jubilee year for Caravaca de la Cruz - which only comes around every seven years - so there are additional events and attractions to boot.
As we round a clump of pine trees, my guide Inma points to the horizon. On a rocky mound above the town of Caravaca de la Cruz is a colossal, honey-hued sanctuary. It is our arrival point, and the end of the Camino de Levante, a 118km pilgrimage and hiking trail in the south of Spain.
As the famed Camino de Santiago continues to be crowded with w...

Enveloped in mist and mystique, Bhutan is a tiny Buddhist nation wedged between India and China which has long enchanted travellers. Hemmed in by mountains creating natural roadblocks and access difficulties, it was once dubbed the forbidden kingdom. Now, Bhutan has opened up to the world – albeit with a strict tourism strategy – giving visitors a glimpse of its remote agrarian communities, ancient spiritual practices and cherished values of compassion and happiness. With a new luxury hotel j...

White water rafting down one of the highest waterfalls in the world.

Puglia—the region occupying the stiletto of Italy’s boot—has acres of olive groves producing 40% of the country’s olive oil, idiosyncratic conical houses, and nonnas who make fresh pasta on the streets. It also has two long coastlines of contrasting character: the Adriatic side of sheer cliffs and giant rock pools and the Ionian stretch of paradisiacal beaches nicknamed the “Maldives of Italy.”

The region has long been a favorite getaway for Italians themselves, thanks to its hot, dry summers...