The action gets underway on the Wednesday, February 11 with the Carnival Queen Gala.
After a night of revelry, guests can retreat to the boutique Sir Anthony Hotel.
With its ocean-view rooms and private plunge pools.
The Opening Parade (Cabalgata Anunciadora) is on the Friday.
Guests at Spring Hotel Vulcano can toast the day from the UP! rooftop terrace or unwind by the pool.
And try the pilates, yoga, meditation, and spa treatments.
Super trouper
Get your steps in: To party at Carnival
Ready for Ritmo y Armonía Parade the next day.
Glad you asked… well, it’s high-energy Latin dance troupes along the seafront.
Mediterranean Palace offers children (those who insist on coming along) the Club Mare Kids while you relax by the pool.
Or unwind in the spa and saltwater pool.
After giving worship at your kilted Jesus Mass you’ll be cleansed for the Daytime Carnaval.
The Apoteosis
Reign and my parade: The Grand Parade
Guests staying at Spring Hotel Bitácoracan continue the Carnival energy in the south on the UP! rooftop terrace.
A new week and the fun keeps coming on Carnaval Monday.
Wellness is the order of the day at Arona Gran Hotel or if you’re the active type hire a bike to take a spin along the coast.
All to give you energy for Tuesday’s Coso Apoteosis (Grand Parade/Main Parade).
With its fantastic floats, comparsas, music, and fireworks.
Before setting off your day with a rooftop sunset at the Spring Hotel.
Sardines and other fishy tales
The scales of it: The Burial of the Sardine
Well into the ways of the locals you’ll be exercised by now at what to do with your sardines!
Don’t be… the islanders host the Burial of the Sardine on the Wednesday.
A playful, theatrical farewell blending theatre, satire and tradition.
Back in the south, carry on the party in the Piramide de Arona at the Mare Nostrum Resort (beside Cleopatra Palace).
Then it’s back to your Spring hotel for downtime.
The Festival of Rondallas & Children’s Carnival Parade spans the next two days.
There’s still a weekend to go and we won’t take any flagging now.
Take it all out on Piñata Weekend on the Saturday and Sunday.
While for the more grown up there is the Exhibition and Parade of Vintage Cars.
Take a plunge
Luxurious: Spring Hotel Vulcano
Seven nights Half Board at 5* Hotel Sir Anthony departing London Stansted on 11 February 2026.
Superior Double room with Sea View and Private Plunge Pool from £2,305pps with Jet2holidays.
Seven nights B&B at Spring Hotel Vulcano departing London Stansted on 11 February.
Standard room. From £1,113pps* with Jet2holidays.
Seven nights B&B at 5* Mediterranean Palace departing London Stansted on 11 February.
Standard Twin room. From £1,082pps* with Jet2holidays.
Expansive: But not expensive at the Cleopatra
Seven nights B&B at 4* Cleopatra Palace Hotel departing London Stansted on 15 February.
Standard Twin room with Pool View. From £1,197pps* with Jet2holidays.
Seven nights B&B at 4* Spring Arona Gran Hotel & Spa, Los Cristianos, Tenerife, departing London Stansted on 11 February.
Twin room with Side Sea View. From £1,122pps* with Jet2holidays.
Seven nights Half Board Plus at Spring Hotel Bitácora, Playa de las Américas, departing London Stansted on 11 February.
Sharing a Standard room. From £1,131pps* with Jet2holidays.
T&Cs
Cross dresser: Jesus in Tenerife
●All prices correct at time of writing and include Jet2holidays’ promotional offer (January payday offer of £100pp off all holidays, plus an extra £100 off per booking).
Prices include 22kg checked baggage per person, 10kg hand luggage per person,
It’s the downside of an island and the upside of a continent. a variety of accessible countries, but here are our friends to show us where to go and get there rail slow with Super Escapes Travel.
Because from Portugal to Poland we’re cutting out the stress of even more regulated travel through airports, preferring to let the train take the strain.
And addressing the heightened awareness of environmental impact, rising flight costs, and a desire to travel with greater purpose.
Increasingly, mature travellers, and don’t you know this pup of a 60-year-old has been pitched into that category, are choosing curated European
itineraries.
The ones that combine two or three destinations in a single trip.
By linking destinations seamlessly, travellers are also finding better value for money and making smarter use of their time abroad.
All of which is laid out in minute and everyday detail.
In the Quarter’s museum and honoured in the architecture and tributes around Dohany,
Been there bought the T-shirt
Got it covered: The Just Jew It take
Of course, the greatest answer to the ravages of the Holocaust is for the survivors and their descendants to live a good and full life.
And that means celebrating your heritage.
Which we discover when we visit that the Jews of Hungary do with self-effacing humour.
With T-shirts and mugs of the famous Michael Jordan leaping logo with Just Jew It written on them.
Answer to our prayers: The synagogue
It is a side of Jewish people which most will not reflect on today.
But we are reminded of one of the most memorable and heart-rending scenes in any film on the Holocaust.
Life Is Beautiful
Moving: La Vite E Bella
From La Vita E Bella (Life is Beautiful) when father Guido uses humour to protect son Giusue’s innocence.
Explaining that the signposts ‘No Jews, No Dogs’ and we are reminded that similar prohibitions throughout history have included ‘No Irish’ are a joke too.
And that when they will go on to open a bookstore they will erect a sign saying ‘No Visigoths, no Spiders.’
And by joking that the rules of the camp are a game.
Read all about it: A Tora in the Jewish Quarter museum
Where you can accumulate points by obeying the draconic, inhumane regulations.
While when the guards come for Guido at the climax for execution and he sees Giusue hiding in a box.
He deflects with wit by winking at him and goosestepping.
The humanity of humour
Roll of honour: Artists in the Jewish Quarter
That people use gallows humour in their worst moments is a uniquely human coping mechanism.
And one which Jews have consistently turned to in the face of victimisation.
With Mel Brooks ridiculing Hitler and anti-semitism and Woody Allen celebrating the eccentricities of his own culture.
While a list of great Jewish comedians rolls off the tongue.
The shoes fit: By the Danube
Jackie Mason, George Burns, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers.
To today’s powerhouses of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler, Billy Crystal, Sacha Baron Cohen and Jerry Sadowitz.
World Holocaust Day is, as it should be, a difficult one for us to get through.
Worship: My tribute
None more so than those Jews, Gypsies and other cultures who suffered more than most.
But this year I will reflect on the shared humanity of humour.
Which I encountered in that small piece of Jewish-American fusion of culture I saw in the Magyar capital by the Danube, complete with its emotional shoes statue.
Giorgios, Maria, Evi and all our Greek friends, and Dutch Frank, all tell us that the locals head for the islands when it heats up so Corphew… let’s go trekking in the Greek islands.
And put in the hard work we wimped out on the last time we were there.
On honeymoon, 32 years ago when it was more about sunset walks on the Corfiot beach.
In my defence it was toga-wearing hot when we were there in the September of 1994.
Good reason then for the grumpy Greek Orthodox monks to be wearing robes.
Going Solos
Stark beauty: Corfu
I have since got my walking shoes on on my travels out to the Attica region and Kythera, and continue to mither The Scary One to join me.
Although, of course, my notorious wayfaring is hardly a persuasive argument.
Which will be why she always suggests I go on my own… ‘take a long walk down a short pier.’
Or those who have exhausted the patience of those at home and who you end up falling out with on holiday.
Come what May
Enchanting: Corfu town
And so Solos are marking this May, in celebration of National Walking Month, by sending us all out on a week of hiking and cultural discovery in Corfu.
Which is still the only skyscraper in the City of Light and soars to 688ft.
Now to get the full panoramic experience of the French capital you’ll have to get moving, though.
Les Enfants: Dans Paree
With the Observatory due to close on March 31 for years of renovations.
The closure precedes the launch of a major renovation program aimed at completely transforming the building and its surroundings.
Highful in the Eiffel
Naturellement the Eiffel Tower is the biggest draw for visitors to France.
Many of whom, like ourselves with our then young family, will climb 674 stairs to reach… the second floor.
Because you can’t scale the 1,665 steps and will instead have to take the elevator, although you can skip the lot and get the lift from the ground floor.
What you might not know is that that other grand edifice by the Seine, the Paris Montparnasse Observatory, boasts the fastest elevator in Europe to get up to its observatory on the 56th floor.
Which more than 30 million visitors have taken in since its opening in 1974, offering a 360-degree view of Paris and its suburbs.
Now with such a vista you won’t be surprised to learn too that the Observatory has hosted more than 3,200 cultural, artistic, and institutional events at the top of the tower.
It has notably served as the venue for concerts by internationally renowned artists such as Justin Bieber, Soprano, Indochine and Feu Chatterton.
As well as events open to the general public, such as temporary recreational installations, an ice rink, a temporary roller skating rink and fashion shows during Fashion Week.
C’est Magnicity
City of Light: Paris
The renovation project will involve a complete transformation of the building and its surroundings.
Mais non, it’s not adieu though, only a bientot.
And Magnicity, which has owned and operated the Paris Montparnasse Observatory and its floors for 53 years, will continue to operate its other panoramic sites internationally.
From their regular visits up to Caledonia to showcase their beautiful country and to share Scots-Swiss stories.
Our Alpine amis describe Scotland’s largest city as ‘combining Victorian architecture with modern culture, a vibrant music scene, and a rich football tradition.
You look at the world differently from a double-decker booze bus when you’re a teen than from when you’re in your sixties on a Rhine river cruise.
With, of course, the behaviour codes laxer on the TopDeck bus to the Oktoberfest in Munich with a travelling party of Aussies and Kiwis than on the five-star MS Riviera Resplendence.
Let’s just say that we can’t imagine our Irish buddies Cassidy Travel allowing you to tip your bladder onto the thoroughfare in the way our crew did on the German autobahn.
It is, some 40 years since I first dipped my toe into solo travelling, going it alone after my Uni buddies had failed to raise the money for our group trip to Munich.
And I decided to jump in on my own, only to find that the bus was full of Aussies and Kiwis and I was the outlier.
Which meant that I was the novelty and made a busload of new friends, rattling on a bus and looking at the cruisers on the Rhine.
Some of whom dropped in on us for a weekend later that year… and stayed six months!
Rhine of your life
Flow of life: River cruising
So now we’re in less of a rush to get there and happier just to go with the flow then what better way to travel than on the Riviera Rhine Cruise to Switzerland.
Where Solo Travellers can enjoy a stress-free, sociable way to experience some of Europe’s most beautiful regions without single supplements or the pressure of travelling independently.
You’ll board the brand new five-star MS Riviera Resplendence, launching in July.
On a seven-night river cruise promising solo guests a fully organised itinerary along the Rhine.
Lie back: And think of the Rhine
And you’ll get to enjoy historic towns and cities such as Strasbourg, Koblenz, Rüdesheim, Speyer and Lucerne.
