As landlords’ enclosures of villages and commonages during England’s industrial revolution drove landless countrymen into the maws of the poet William Blake’s “dark Satanic mills”, a romantic nostalgia for the countryside began to grow.

With direct flights from Cork to Malta launching next month, Suzanne Harrington visits the breathtaking island.

The underworld has always held a fascination for mankind. From the fabulous Cave of Swallows in Mexico featured on David Attenborough’s Planet Earth to the Lascaux Caves in France which has elaborate paintings of animals from 17,000 years ago.

"Xanadu" has often been a word associated with strongholds, from the original centre of Kubla Khan’s empire to a media mogul’s imposing mansion in Orson Wells’ 1941 classic Citizen Kane.

John Keats

BEING asked to recount highlights of working in the Antarctic is very difficult because there are so many highlights and it is so difficult to pick the best.

Why We Run: A Story of Obsession. Robin HarvieJohn Murray; £12.99

Xanadu

ALBATROSSES regularly make epic round-the-world flights when they are not busy breeding, scientists revealed yesterday.