Holidays: Going for a song

Sunday Mirror, Apr 3, 2005 by GILL WILLIAMS

IS THIS THE WAY TO AMARILLO?

SEVENTIES' heartthrob Tony Christie and comic Peter Kay are hugging their pillows this week after Amarillo's rise to Number One in the charts. And the little town in West Texas is also pretty chuffed about its return to stardom. Amarillo (or Amarilla as the cowboys call it) is as near to John Wayne's Texas as it gets with big steaks and a bigger sky. Find out how the West was won at the American Quarter Horses Heritage Centre and work your way along a mile-long strip of restaurants, shops and C&W bars on Route 66 - yep, another great song, pardner. Take a daytrip to the Big Texan Steak Ranch and Opry, where dinner is free provided you can eat your 72-ounce steak dinner in an hour. Take a chuck wagon ride across the prairie and follow the I-40 to the Cadillac ranch where old Yank tanks go to die, their tail fins sticking out and pointing to the sky.

HOW MUCH? A week's room-only stay at the Best Western Amarillo costs pounds 777.50pp when two share including flights from Gatwick in June with Bon Voyage. Call 0800 316 0194, www.bon-voyage.co.uk

WALKING IN MEMPHIS

PUT on your blue suede shoes and head for Memphis. Touch down in the land of the Delta blues, the ancestral home of every rocker from Elvis to BB King. Start with breakfast at The Arcade, a diner where Elvis had his own booth. Then take a walk down blues strip Beale Street, as Cher did in the lyrics of Walking In Memphis. Call into the Rock and Soul Museum to listen to songs by Robert Johnson, who according to legend sold his soul to the Devil in return for being able to play a mean guitar. Book a pink Caddie to Sun Studios where Elvis cut his first tracks. Then head over to to Graceland. The songs about Elvis's home don't do justice to this mansion where no expense was spared, from the Jungle Room to the fur- covered beds.

HOW MUCH? Four nights in Memphis cost pounds 575 this month including flights from London, hire car, a ticket to Graceland and B&B at Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel (with free Elvis movie channel in every room). Book with America Direct, call 0870 043 5995, www.americadirect.co.uk

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK

THE sleaze that gave Bangkok a bad name in the song Elaine Paige sang in Chess has been cleaned up (ish) and today the Thai capital is definitely worth more than a one-night stand.

Hit the streets running - a necessary survival technique in this city of demonic drivers - and make the astonishingly beautiful Grand Palace with its temple of the emerald Buddha your first stop.

Buy designer knock-offs in the night markets or get yourself a silk suit hand-made in a weekend for the same price as a chain store off-the-peg number at home. Order a fantastic coconutty curry from a food stall and put yourself into the capable hands of a therapist for a traditional Thai massage in one of the many temples.

HOW MUCH? Ten nights in Thailand, with two at the Radisson Hotel in Bangkok and eight at the Regent Hotel in Cha-am, starts from pounds 497, including flights through Travelbag. Book before the end of April for travel between May 2 and June 27. Call 0870 814 6544 or go to www.travelbag.co.uk

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

THOSE little town blues are melting away as you touch down in the city immortalised in Frank Sinatra's song. Never been to NY before? Then start right at the top - at the Empire State Building. From these dizzy heights you can see the layout of Manhattan, across the green strip of Central Park to Greenwich Village, Little Italy and the Lower East Side.

You don't need huge amounts of cash to enjoy New York - shop for designer goodies at throwaway prices in Daffy's department store, enjoy Times Square at night and take a free ride on the Staten Island ferry. Pass on Broadway - you can see the same shows over here - and instead head down to the South Street Seaport for some great waterside bars, street entertainers and live music.

HOW MUCH? Three nights' room-only at the Hotel 5A on Fifth Avenue starts from pounds 489pp including flights through Virgin Holidays this month. Call 0871 222 1203, www.virgin.com. The pounds 25 one- day New York pass covers more than 40 attractions, including the Empire State Building (www.newyorkpass.com).

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN

TAKE a leaf out of Danny's Kaye's book and visit Wonderful Copenhagan. Borrow one of the 4,500 free bicycles provided for tourists to explore the salty old girl of the sea this summer.

Ride the merry-go-rounds at Tivoli, the world famous pleasure gardens (entry about pounds 6.80 adults, pounds 3.50 kids - www. tivoli.dk) and see the famous Little Mermaid statue. Or buy a Copenhagen Card (about pounds 41 for three days) that gives you unlimited rides on trains, buses and the Metro and entry to more than 60 museums and attractions. Find out about the Danes' romps and rampages at The Viking Ship Museum overlooking Roskilde fjord and relive the terrors of the Nazi invasion at the Danish Resistance Museum. Take a boat ride across Castle Lake to Frederiksborg Castle.