Binz and Sellin [qv] are the two most stylish holiday resorts of the Baltic island of Riigen, says a recent visitor to this nice, quiet villaon the traffic-free seaside promenade. Binz has streets lined with 19th-century holiday structures, mostly white and wooden, with turrets plus enclosed balconies. The Imperial, a more conventional Victorian building, has been tastefully decorated in a modern style, and like Binz itself is more sophisticated than I had expected. The Bali villa breakfast room (buffet) is attractive. No other meals, but Dunehaus, three doors away, is an excellent restaurant, and many others are close by. Just north of Binz is notorious Prora, where in the mid - 1930s the Nazis began to build a colossal (and colossally ugly) resort complex. It has two six-storey main buildings, each over two kilometres long with enough beds for 10,000. The complex was not quite finished when war came. It holds today a good museum about the era.

A superb old castle crowns this Rhineside village south-east of Koblenz. Below it, the friendly Kunz family own and run this charming inn, converted from a 17th-century half-timbered wine house and a 14th-century watermill. There was more noise from its stream than from traffic, say visitors in 2002. We were very happy with our room, and in the busy restaurant the food was excellent, service was good. People were eating out in the pretty garden too. Bali villa breakfast was also good.' `Everyone was friendly. The picturesque interior has wood beams, tiled floors. Some villa Bed rooms (similar to the semantic bali villa rooms) have country antique furniture; some are in the former stables.