The Place 2 Be: Places to Be

TEN GREAT PLACES TO BE

1. Glastonbury Tor, Somerset, England

Standing on top of the Tor on a summer's day is one of THE great places to be. The place has a calm beauty and strange mystique about it. Your eye is drawn to the Tor from wherever you are in the surrounding area. A natural large hill that's been subsequently hand-shaped, it has an ethereal beauty. The views from the Tor of the surrounding Somerset countryside, that feature the giant Glastonbury Zodiac that is allegedly cut into the landscape, are superb. All seems well with the world from here. There is so much beauty to see and experience.

2. Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England

The most famous neolithic site and the most imposing. Must have been fabulous to see in its completed original form before the stones were pilfered for local buildings. Millennia in the making. Great thought put into its construction and arrangement. Huge effort put into getting the materials to the site and erecting them. Mystical place with surrounding barrows, avenues and neolithic burial mounds. Needs the modern intrusions of car parks and adjacent roads closing and removing to restore it to its natural beauty, but until that happens still a great place to be.

3. Paris, France

Great architecture, wonderful boulevards, quaint street cafes, centuries of history, awash with culture. Sitting on the steps of the Sacre Coeur in the evening listening to French students singing songs in broken English accompanied by a single guitarist. Paying 40 Francs for a little croissant and a puny cup of coffee. Walking in awe around the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay. Sitting by a circular pond in the Tuilleries listening to a French fisherman's tale: "Regardez-vous? Un poisson! Très grand! Comme ça!". Walking along the banks of the Seine. Pont Alexandre III. Trying to get the perfect photograph of the reflection of the Gare du Nord in an adjacent office block. Wondering why the Eiffel Tower was planned to be only temporary when Paris would be missing an arm without it. Cafè on the Left Bank. Ordinary wine. Watching all the girls with your eyes. Une grande place d'être.

4. Sydney Harbour on New Year's Eve

Walking over the Harbour Bridge and seeing the fantastic Sydney skyline. Walking through The Rocks and past the modern office blocks. Passing the Opera House looking like "nuns in a scrum" or emaciated orange segments. Thinking it could do with a lick of paint. Veering around Farm Cove to Mrs. Maquarie's Point then trying to find a place amongst the milled thousands. Watching the fireworks cascade off Harbour Bridge and the rockets blast from the city office blocks. A huge variegated mass of colour brightening the sky and illuminating the city. Soaking up the goodwill and enthusiasm of the crowd. Making back for Darling Harbour, passing the gorgeous Queen Victoria Building on the way. Nice place to be.

5. The Maldives

Gorgeous beaches. Few people. Coral teeming with trigger, angel, moorish idol and virtually every other kind of exotic fish. Extraordinary marine life at the scuba sites: manta rays, sharks, turtles et al. Days blend into each other. Everyone's cool. Plenty to do, or not to do, if you're so inclined. Over 800 different islands; only 200 inhabited. Water skiing, snorkelling, scuba, sail-boarding, para-gliding. The ultimate chill-out place to be.

6. New York, New York

Chilli dogs. Steaming ventilation grills. High-rise nirvana. Yellow taxis. More immigrants than "Americans". Eugene Quits (the police department). Great museums. The city that genuinely never sleeps. Corruption. Stretched-limo affluence. Bottle-in-a-paper-bag wino poverty. Fast. Dynamic. Pulsating. Driven. Edgy. Can-do mentality. "Have a nice day" plasticity. The manic nervosa place to be.

7. The National Gallery, London

Bronzino's Venus and Cupid. Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus. Claude's Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. Correggio's School of Love. Da Vinci's Cartoon and Virgin of the Rocks. Goya's Dona Isabel de Porcel. Hobbema's Avenue, Middelharnis. Holbein's Ambassadors. Monet's Gare St. Lazare. Rembrandt's Self-Portrait. Renoir's Parapluies. Rubens' Lion Hunt and Samson and Delilah. Steenwyck's Vanities of Human Life. Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne. Turner's Fighting Temeraire and Rain, Steam and Speed. Van Eyck's Arnolfini Marriage. Van Gogh's Chair and Sunflowers. Vermeer's Young Woman standing at a Virginal. Enough said?

8. Hong Kong

Stunning architecture. Great ambience. Dignified, disciplined, dedicated people with an extraordinary work ethic that's made something out of nothing. Crossing from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island on the Star Ferry - the best value-for-money trip in the world. Ascending Victoria Peak through the low clouds. Dining at the Peak Cafe. Happy Valley horse-racing. Wanchai women. Nathan Road ramblings. Climbing Ladder Street. Tai Chi in the parks. Great fung shui.

9. San Francisco

The people make San Francisco. Their hospitality, warmth and charm are unmatched anywhere else I've been. From a lady serving pastries in the Embarcadero Centre to a guide at Alcatraz to the shoe-shiners on Market Street, they all seem to have a natural talent to seize the day and make yours that contrasts sharply with the harder-edged LA. More of a big town feel than a city, populated with a curious mix of architecture from Victorian residences to pyramidal modernism. A lot of its appeal being its cosmopolitan feel and idiosyncrasies: a statue of Benjamin Franklin, in Washington Square, that isn't a square, in the North Beach district, that isn't a beach. Haight-Ashbury disappoints with its drop-out scruffiness but it's easy to turn on and tune in to the general ambience of the place whether at Coit Tower, Pier 39, cycling over the Golden Gate, or walking around downtown.

10. J.Paul Getty Museum, LA

A purpose-built museum with construction costs no object so from the start having an advantage over most other museums that have acquired existing premises to display their art. Nonetheless, the building is superb. The ground-level tram assures security by keeping the hill-top museum far from the madding crowds (much like Hearst's Castle at San Simeone). This is the start of a pleasant experience as it carries you to the museum itself which is obviously the result of great aesthetic and practical planning to complement the art itself. The curves, lines and colouring of the building generate a great sense of air and light that is used to great effect to naturally illuminate the works of art. Possessing treasures like da Vinci and Michelangelo drawings but not necessarily displaying them, what is displayed certainly compensates.