You make an excellent point 
Weston?
In one 
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We had sun here in Liverpool today but I didn’t realise the season was open in Runcorn already. Flash git…
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Planning a 6 day break in Berlin for October.
We are complete noobs to Berlin, but obvs want to see the usual sites within the city, with a day trip to Wittenburg.
Alexanderplatz seems like a reasonable place for hotels with decent access to public transport, but little in the way of localised food/beer (apart from the Hofbräu Wirsthaus).
We ain’t made of money, but where would the more knowledgeable of you recommend to stay ?
We are off to China on Saturday for 3 weeks. Doing a circle, Shanghai up to Beijing, then Chengddu, then back via Xian, with multiple stops in between. No accommodation booked as yet, we will decide as we go.
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Lots of pics & reportage please
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You’ll love it.
We visited both Beijing and Xian - I know this is stating the obvious but do not miss the Terracotta Warriors - mind blowing.
My brother worked in China for years and said Shanghai is an absolutely staggering place.
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I hope so. We got some cheap flights, which lost some of their value by the time we’d purchased the visa’s. The visa centre in London was poor. They were pretty much making it up as they went along. They said they couldn’t post the visa’s to us as they’d run out of envelopes and we’d have to pay an additional £35 each to pick them up the next day. Luckily, we were staying in London for a few days. I’m not sure what we’d have done if we’d gone up for the day. The lovely security guard saud to me that the “we’ve run out of envelopes” ruse was common to generate further fees. It was a superb example of pointless Communist bureacracy.
It’s got an awful lot going for it as a destination. Mega culture and Universal Studios / Disney plus a superb bullet train system. An acrobat / kung fu show is pencilled in. Panda’s in Chengdu too. Hopefully, that will mean that well all enjoy it.
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I trust that your place of work will be undertaking a suitable debrief upon your return, to check that you haven’t been compromised and / or infiltrated ? 
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We loved Chengdu and Xian when visited in the early 2000’s. Lijiang isn’t too long a flight from Chengdu and was worth a visit back then. Although that was before internal tourism had really kicked off. The Sichuan food in Chengdu is amazing, as is the area around the old mosque.
In Xian you can rent bikes and cycle around the old city walls which is also fun.
Re phones and stuff, my workplace encourages removal of any work data/applications on personal phones and only accessing personal stuff via browser applications.
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Hence Rishi & Boris’s missing Whatsapp messages? 
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A bridge too far
In Florence for the second time after 30 years. One of those places that’s so famous it’s almost a cliché but when you visit you see why
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I have very fond memories from when I was there on a 6th form trip, utterly stunning place.
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Been a while since we visited, but we have come back to Split in Croatia for a few days to unwind.
Last time we stayed inside a Roman wall, this time we are a few minutes down the coast in an Airbnb that is on the beach. Rather lovey falling asleep to the waves.
Highly recommend the town to visit (outside of summer) lots of history and good food/wine without being spendy.
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Titanic baklava 
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