Oil has made the United Arab Emirates fabulously wealthy. Outrageous, audacious Dubai, as FIONA McCANN discovers, has shown what you can do when you’ve got vision, money, determination and, perhaps, few scruples. Abu Dhabi, its earnest big brother, wants to be known for its cultural life – which, writes KATHY SHERIDAN , further down the page, it is buying in from the Louvre and Guggenheim

Instead of being out to make a fast tourist buck, the people CATHERINE MACK met on a family holiday on the Greek island were keen to show their hospitality and share their culture

You don’t have to go far, or spend a lot of money, to get away from it all. MAL ROGERS has 10 ideas for days out that will cost you little more than the price of a picnic and some petrol

CONSUMER NEWS: AT LEAST 23 travel companies have not renewed their bonds in the biggest exodus from the trade for years.

A two-hour ramble to Lough Muskry, in the Galtees, is just the thing to clear away the cobwebs after an evening of overindulgence, writes JOHN G O’DWYER 

You don’t need to fly overseas for a citybreak. AMY LAUGHINGHOUSE sees what Dublin offers – and if it lives up to its name as Europe’s pub capital

When Sufjan Stevens was asked to write a symphony for New York, he turned to a miserable stretch of road called the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for inspiration. He tells ANDREW PURCELL why