After spending two months bubling around southern Spain, you join the ride at Valor, in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Andalusia. We were contemplating our return route north to Santander and the ferr

FROM A CONVERTED BANK WITH A SPA IN ITS VAULT TO A NILE CRUISE THAT ESCHEWS THE CROWDS, THIS IS TRAVEL, ELEGANTLY DONE

Last autumn we embarked on a campervan adventure through Portugal, a country largely unknown to us, despite spending several winters touring its neighbour, Spain. There is free movement between them n

John Tolan Islam A new history from Muhammad to the present 304pp. Princeton University Press. £25 (US $29.95). James McDougall Worlds of Islam A global history 608pp. Allen Lane. £40. Elizabeth Drays

There’s no shortage of great picks at this year’s TEFAF Maastricht, the Netherlands, including a Barbara Hepworth sculpture, a pastel portrait by Dora Maar and two sections of 4th-century Roman mosaics

Centuries before Samarkand’s stately mosques, mausoleums and madrassas (Islamic schools) were built, a trading hub arose on what became known as the Silk Road. The site of the first ancient settlement