Great Yarmouth? for a holiday? No way!

It has all the worst things about the English seaside. It's a tasteless, soulless, down at heel, unattractive city, where the sea is usually grey, the sky is grey, the seagulls are grey... you get the picture.

But actually, I like Yarmouth. It was a great medieval city, and a great maritime port; and though bombers got a lot of it in WW2, it's still got some fascinating relics of the past. The largest parish church in England, St Nicholas, and the Tolhouse, a medieval civic hall with prison below.

There are a few Rows ...

If you're a lover of the macabre Rome has some fine skeletons for you. Some are relics; others, sculptures.

At the Capuchin church in Via Veneto, visit the crypt (there's a small admission fee) to see the remains of mummified monks. Some stand gloomily surveying the scene; the bones of others have been used to decorate the walls and ceiling with a morbid imitation of rococo plasterwork.

In Santa Maria del Popolo you'll find two of my favourites. At the back of the church, an artist created his own tomb, with a skeleton in the closet - grinning out at you ...

Muscat is a very spread out city - more a collection of neighbourhoods linked by expressways. There's old Muscat - much changed these days by construction, but you can still find some old mansions with their characteristic studded wooden doors - Ruwi, a buzzy commercial district, and Muttrah with its harbour, fish market and souk.

I lived in Muscat for a few months and offer this selection of trips for the traveller;

* get properly lost in the souk. Most tourists only see the two main 'streets', but the souk actually contains numerous mosques, alleyways, restaurants and workshops off the beaten ...