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2 weeks ago | 
msn.com | Alice Murphy
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
'This weekend I went to Paris for 24 hours and did not pay a single penny for my train, there or back. And, I went in business class.'That's the claim made by Lucy Josephs, a 25-year-old influencer who describes herself as your 'type B travel bestie' on TikTok. It sounds too good to be true, but for once in this life, Metro has discovered that it's very much fact.
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2 weeks ago | 
flipboard.com | Alice Murphy
I’ve lived in France 30 years - this is what Britain does betterThe playwright Sacha Guitry once said that to be a Parisian “you don’t have to be born here. We are all reborn on arrival.” As an immigrant to the …
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy |Sophie-May Williams
Bad news for holidaymakers: the price of a British passport is going up again this week. After years of hiking costs that have had a direct impact on travellers, the government has announced that new fees will come into place on Thursday, 10 April - and will see a variety of services provided by HM Passport Office put their prices up. Across the board, prices will rise by 7%.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
For three decades, Eurostar has held a monopoly on passenger trains in the Channel Tunnel since it opened in 1994. But now, a new potential rival has emerged: Italy 's national state-owned railway company, which could turn the game on its head. Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS Group) says it will launch a new high-speed rail service between London and Paris by 2029 that would compete with Eurostar.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Gergana Krasteva |Alice Murphy
African elephants confined to 'tiny prison cells' without access to water. Polar bears locked indoors with nothing but a 'dirty' pool. Dogs stuffed into cramped cages. These are some of the distressing scenes confronting tourists at Beijing Zoo, where concerns are mounting over the treatment and welfare of the animals. Edina Delic, from Dublin, spoke with Metro about the conditions in China 's oldest public zoo in the Xicheng District of the capital that left her in floods of tears.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
Standing beneath a twinkling chandelier as a woman tinkles Chopin on a baby grand piano, I pinch the skin on my elbow to make sure I'm not dreaming. Everywhere I look there are strawberries, great towers of them flanked by waffles, marshmallows, and fountains of free-flowing melted chocolate. There are enough strawberries to form an army, but no, I'm not in one of those dreams about giant, chasing fruit. I'm about to have afternoon tea in the ANA InterContinental Tokyo.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
From the powdery slopes of Niseko to the ethereal cherry blossoms surrounding Mount Fuji, it feels like the world and its mother is heading to Japan. After a record-breaking year for tourist arrivals in 2024, the country is bracing for another peak - but not everyone is happy about it. Residents of Japan's 'golden route' cities - Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka - are increasingly frustrated by outsiders who ignore the customs integral to Japanese society.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
The first thing you notice on arrival at the grand entrance of the Four Seasons in Osaka is silence. It may be located in the heart of one of Japan 's busiest cities, but this newly opened skyscraper hotel is an oasis of calm in magnificent chaos, with no sense of the overtourism the country is currently facing. Metro's Alice Murphy checked in right before Japan's cherry blossom season, and the experience was a world away from what she's used to.
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2 weeks ago | 
metro.co.uk | Alice Murphy
SHOPPING - Contains affiliated content. Products featured in this Metro article are selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, Metro.co.uk will earn an affiliate commission. Click here for more information. As someone who spends a lot of time on planes, I'm pretty clear on how I like to fly: it involves a good book, a stiff drink and a flurry of intrusive thoughts as we bounce through turbulence.
