Travel

John Young explores the social ‘season’ of London’s cricket crowds. *This article first appeared in The Weekender, 2008.* There is a small patch of grass in west London that on one day of the year assumes an importance vastly disproportionate to its size. This is the Coronation Garden in the Lord’s cricket ground. On the Saturday of the Lord’s Test match this little plot – no bigger than a tennis court – becomes the focus of the English Season. This is where the great and the

 *John Young discovered in Copenhagen earlier this year that although Danes appreciate good design of all kinds, they can’t stop loving the chair.* First published in Sunday Times, 17 August 2014. Denmark has a well-deserved reputation as the home of seriously good design. Modern Danish architects such as Bjarke Ingels have earned high praise for their daring apartment blocks in southern C

The cemetery at Castiglioni dei Pepoli is carefully tended and looks out over a tranquil valley. PHOTO: John Young A town high in the mountains between Florence and Bologna has not forgotten how South African soldiers saved its citizens from murderous Gestapo troops. *First published in Business Day, 21 September 2017.* South Africans get a special welcome in Castiglione dei Pepoli, a town high in the Apennine mountains half-way between Bologna and Florence. There is probably

 Peri is the perfect host. PHOTO: John Young. There’s really no way of getting consolation for missing out on a game of golf on one of South Africa’s finest courses. Even when no-one else on the sub-continent is playing. I was in St Francis Bay hoping to play St Francis Links on the weekend that snow was seen on Table Mountain and coastal towns everywhere were assaulted by gale f

 *This review first appeared in The Weekender, 2008.* Now that Concorde is no more, it is that much more difficult to enjoy breakfast in New York, Paris and London on successive mornings. The good news for ambitious gourmets is that there is a place only an an hour and a half’s drive from Cape Town where multi-continental breakfast cravings can be satisfied. Three re

Fuelling the imagination. Motorists in Denmark can fill up at a national monument. Arne Jacobsen’s strikingly modernist petrol station from the 1930s. PHOTO: John Young *First published in Business Day 25 January 2019.* **Country is a world leader with its take on Scandinavian design ethic.** Lovers of Paul Gauguin’s art love visiting Copenhagen, which is ironic because he lasted barely a year in the city before heading back to France. Gaugin returned once to visit his Danish

 ## John Young meanders through Mandela and finds somewhere closed for lunch. *This article first appeared in The Weekender, 23-24 August 2008.* In this Mandela birthday month, it occurs to me that many people have had lunch *with* Mandela, many more have had lunch *for* Mandela (at fundraisers for his charities) and there has even been a book *about* lunch and Mandela (*Hunger for

*First published in Travel & Food, Sunday Times, 27 April 2008.* ## Golfing in Wales separates the men from the boys, and the sheep from the sheepish, writes John Young. Dr Johnson said that when a man is tired of London he is tired of life. He also said, “By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.” Which is two parts true and eight parts complete rubbish, as so many famous sayings are. The old cynic once wrote that he was “weary of being at home, an