Whether you wish to pursue history studiously or less seriously, a visit to these battlefield inns and historic bed and breakfasts will renew your patriotism. You’ll find historic inns near the Battle of Gettysburg and the Battle at Antietem or pick a historic Georgia inn in one of rare Southern towns to escape Sherman’s wrath.

The Carlisle House in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is hosted by Mary Fuller Duxbury, an army nurse for 40 years. Guests begin the day with one of Mary’s international-themed quiche breakfasts and explore the many buildings of interest in the Carlisle Historic District that date from the Revolutionary and Civil war eras. Take a day trip to the Gettysburg National Park and Hershey’s Chocolate World and Lancaster County Amish Country, then come back “home” for more hospitality.

The Premiership is full of quality players these days – having all been attracted by the moolah that floats around so easily. But in the early days of the Premiership, managers didn’t seem to even care about researching a player. They could have signed the Queen Mum for all they knew. Here’s my top 5 Premiership flops…

5. Marco Boogers: Now this guy was hilarious. God knows where West Ham found him – well in fact, we do know – they found him on a trailer park and they paid him loads of money to play one match – almost kill someone – get sent off and walk back to the dressing room looking like Thomas Gravesen on acid. Brilliant. What a fool.

Somewhere that is a really hot place to live in Europe at the moment is Northern Cyprus and it may just be down to the 300 sunny days it has each year. Cyprus is the 3rd largest Mediterranean island and it’s villa expansion has become immune to the current economical crisis. Northern Cyprus is still growing as villa purchases continue to rise and the word out there is that people just love the all year round perfect climate. This means that the rental sector is really going strong as the season is so much longer.