World Wide News/World Wide Golf News

Visit Jokkmokk(Sweden)

In the midst of remote, densely forested, marshy country, JOKKMOKK is a welcome oasis. Once wintertime Sami quarters, the town is today a renowned handicraft centre, with a Sami high school keeping the language and culture alive. The ájtte Museum (mid-June to Aug daily 9am-6pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat & Sun noon-4pm; Oct-April closed Sat; 40kr) on Kyrkegatan is the place to see some of the intricate work. Have a glance, too, at the so-called Lapp Kyrka , in which corpses were interned in wall vaults during winter, waiting for the thaw when the Sami could go out and dig graves - the temperatures in this part of Sweden plunge below -35°C in winter. The great winter market still survives, now nearly 400 years old, held on the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of each February, when 30,000 people gather in town. It's the best time to be in Jokkmokk, and staying means booking accommodation a good six months in advance. A smaller, less traditional autumn fair at the end of August is an easier though poorer option. The tourist office is at Stortorget 4 (mid-June to mid-Aug daily 9am-7pm; during winter market Thurs-Sun 8am-6pm; rest of year Thurs-Sat 8.30am-4pm; tel 0971 121 40, www.jokkmokk.se/turism ). In summer there should be no problem getting a place at the HI hostel at Åsgatan 20 (tel 0971/559 77; under £5/$8); just follow the signs from the station. The campsite is 3km east on route 97.

Skiing in Zell Am See(Austria)

ZELL AM SEE is the quintessential Austrian resort, a compact town of picture-postcard perfection, with a lake on one side and an impressive mountain hinterland on the other. A skiing and hiking centre in its own right, Zell is also within easy striking distance of the Glemmtal resorts of Saalbach and Hinterglemm to the northwest, while the village of Kaprun to the south provides access to year-round glacier skiing below the Kitzsteinhorn . Other classic alpine excursions within reach are the two mountain reservoirs in the shadow of the Kitzsteinhorn, trips along the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse , which crosses the Hohe Tauern mountains to the south, and the magnificent Krimml waterfalls to the west. Two folk traditions with which Zell is associated are the Krampusläufen on December 5, when folk wearing demonic masks take to the streets, and the Hogmoar wrestling competition, a 500-year-old trial of strength for local shepherds that takes place on midsummer's day near the summit of the 2117-metre Hundstein, which rises above the lake to the east. More here:

Planning a trip to the Olympic Games in Turin 2006?

"Do you know Turin?" asked Nietzsche. "It is a city after my own heart ? a princely residence of the seventeenth century, which has only one taste giving commands to everything, the court and its nobility. Aristocratic calm is preserved in everything; there are no nasty suburbs." Although TURIN 's traffic-choked streets are no longer calm, and its suburbs are as dreary as any in Italy, the city centre's gracious Baroque thoroughfares, opulent palaces, sumptuous churches and splendid collections of Egyptian antiquities and northern European paintings are still there - a pleasant surprise to those who might have been expecting satanic factories and little else.

Visit Jokkmokk(Sweden)

Skiing in Zell Am See(Austria)

Happy New Year 2006!

How to travel to Norway and the Norwegian Ski Resorts

Norway is closer to the UK than people might think - only two hours by air, and with numerous flight departures every day, it could not be easier to get there.

Planning a trip to the Olympic Games in Turin 2006?