How should we spend a 24-hour layover in Manila?

My wife and I land in Manila in mid-June at 4pm and depart Manila for Sydney the next evening at 9.35pm. We are staying at the Sheraton Manila at Newport World Resorts. Any suggestions on what to do in the city for those 24 hours? We like history, food and wine and are happy to walk around.
M. Harris, Seaforth, NSW

Staying at Newport World Resorts is a great choice, you’re close to the airport which means you don’t have to deal with Manila’s gridlocked traffic. After arrival, you probably won’t need to venture out to eat, there are many dining options in your hotel complex, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, a steakhouse and the Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill.

The next morning, head for Intramuros, and start early to beat the heat. This is the old Spanish colonial core, where the key stops include Fort Santiago, San Agustin’s, the oldest stone church in the Philippines, and a walk around the walls.

For lunch, Ilustrado in Intramuros offers classic Filipino-Spanish cuisine in a heritage house. You can walk from Intramuros to the National Museum of Fine Arts, home to 29 galleries and hallway exhibitions featuring 19th-century Filipino masters, leading modern painters, sculptors and printmakers. It’s also air-conditioned.

Afterwards head to Roxas Boulevard, the palm-lined waterfront promenade running along Manila Bay, famous for its sunsets. You should leave your hotel for the airport at 6.30pm.

We’re travelling to the UK at the end of May to see family, then we plan on having 13 days in Poland/Albania by ourselves at the end. We intend to visit some Holocaust memorials. What would be your other recommendations for an intermediate budget?
A. Goodison, Berwick, Vic

Many travellers are just now discovering Poland’s baroque palaces, forest-trimmed lakes with thriving populations of bison, bustling cafes and everywhere flowers, bookshops and Chopin. Warsaw is the gateway, a city of parks and palaces and an Old Town rebuilt in a facsimile of the palace, churches, cobbled squares and merchants’ houses that were systematically destroyed by the Nazis following the Warsaw Uprising. In the former royal city of Krakow, the old city walls encircle a one-kilometre teardrop crammed with medieval churches, market squares and burghers’ houses that date back to the Middle Ages.

A two-hour journey to the south, Zakopane is one of the unsung treasures of European travel. The scenery is stunning, its Hansel and Gretel log houses trimmed with little balconies and filigreed woodwork against a backdrop of pine forests and the grey teeth of the Tatra Mountains.

You’ll probably start your Albanian adventure in Tirana. It’s a relatively new city by European standards, laid out in the early 17th century and animated by a mayor who took the paintbrush to the city’s facades and installed an Italianate cafe culture.

The highlight is the Albanian Riviera, a 130-kilometre strip of coast that rivals the journey along Italy’s Amalfi Coast. An essential stop is Drymades, which has just a handful of hotels set among olive groves near a five-kilometre beach. Behind the coast is a raw and untamed landscape of scalped mountains, lakes and expanses of grassland, a paradise for walkers and history lovers.

Just across the strait from Corfu is the ancient city of Butrint, a 2500-year-old World Heritage site where the layers have been peeled back to reveal a Greek colony, a Roman city and the seat of a Byzantine bishopric. Finding a bed is no problem, and you can expect to pay about half what you would for accommodation, food and drinks in neighbouring Croatia.

Can you recommend a tour of Champagne which runs for around one week in September?
M. Lenne, Melbourne, Vic

Grape Escapes’ “Extensive Champagne Break” is the closest thing to a purpose-built week-long Champagne tour from an established specialist. It includes B&B accommodation in four-star hotels, premium tours and tastings and delicious local meals. They also run a dedicated harvest experience where you spend a day as a champagne harvester, starting with a full tour of the estate and winemaking facilities, then heading into the vines to pick grapes with the harvesting team, followed by a traditional lunch with champagne in a private area.

Booking this in September means you can combine the structured week tour with the harvest day and that’s a great combination. Grape Escapes is a UK-based operator, they’ve been operating tours in the region for over two decades and their reviews are excellent.

My husband and I are looking for somewhere to base ourselves in a cottage for a one week stay on Ireland’s Ring of Kerry. Any suggestions where, and where else could we visit in that region?
J. Hensen, Mount Eliza, Vic

Kenmare is a lovely town at the head of Kenmare Bay, with a colourful main street overlooked by the green hills of County Kerry. You’ll want to spend a long day driving around the Ring of Kerry, then pick a fine day and take the boat trip to Skellig Michael, a World Heritage site on account of its Early Christian monastery. Another gem is Valentia Island, which you can drive to via the Maurice O’Neill Memorial bridge at Portmagee.

From Kenmare you’re ideally placed for exploring the rugged and soul-tugging Beara Peninsula, which has everything people love about the Ring of Kerry but with fewer buses, more space and a more potent sense of discovery. Don’t miss the drive across Healy Pass, on a spectacular winding road through the Caha Mountains.

Take the ferry to visit the subtropical Italianate gardens on Garnish Island, Ardgroom Stone Circle and Eyeries Village, with its brightly painted houses set above the Atlantic. If possible, avoid the main tourist season between late June and early September, Irish country roads are narrow and the “Ring of Kerry” is a name that draws crowds.

Travel advice is general; readers should consider their personal circumstances