Something To Declare: the Somme; Bratislava
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Your support makes all the difference."I have a rendezvous with death," wrote the First World War poet, Alan Seeger. On a unique tour of the battlefields of the Somme in September, you can see the locations where poets such as Seeger, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon fought, wrote and died in the Great War. The three-night trip is organised by Martin Randall Travel (020-8742 3355; www.martinrandalltravel.co.uk).
The tour will be led by the military historian, Andrew Spooner, accompanied by an actor who reads the poems - sometimes at the site where they were composed, sometimes at the poet's grave and at times, at the place of their death or disappearance.
Participants will be taken by coach from London via the Channel Tunnel to Arras, where accommodation (with all meals) is in a 16th-century hotel. The price is £920, with a single supplement of £60.
Warning of the week: beware in Bratislava
"Feminism is still a new concept and women on their own are more pitied than pestered," writes Lucy Mallows, author of the new Bradt Guide to Bratislava (£6.99). But travellers of either gender face other problems, she warns. The Slovak capital has a high incidence of petty theft, the police are badly paid and may seek bribes, and "travellers with darker skin colour should be aware that there is a nasty rash of nationalist skinheads in parts of Slovakia".
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