Secret agent: In Search of a Summer...

Is anyone else fed up with the four-seasons-per-day weather we seem to be having recently? I take pride in my suave appearance, and it can be difficult to maintain when a walk to the shop results in Albert-Einstein style hair thanks to an unexpected torrential downpour!

So I'm thinking I might escape for a long weekend. I just can't make up my mind at the moment. It's got to be somewhere really hot - hot weather, sizzling hotel and something scorchingly fab to do on those balmy evenings.

Lisbon's caught my eye... The Delta-Tejo Music Festival is on, and promises to be masses of fun, for a start. The weather is getting warmer by the day. And there's a great little boutique hotel that I've not yet been to (yes, I know, a hotel I haven't checked out yet, don't fall off your chair!). I have it on good authority from 'Super' (Andrew, I've mentioned him a few times before, we're good pals), that this little place is a gem.

A short, inexpensive taxi ride from the airport (not that I need it with my NASA-designed teleporter - thanks Jeff!) the Lisboa Tejo Hotel Lisbon (3 star superior from £44pppn) is slap bang in the heart of the Baixa district. Andrew told me it oozed old world poetry mixed with modern fizz. I looked at him strangely. He shut up. But showed me the pictures of the stunning lobby and the spacious, modern rooms and I have to say I was pretty much sold...

Until Sarah (our resident expert on all things Spanish) piped up with another suggestion... "Why not Barcelona?". The H10 Montcada Hotel Barcelona (4 star from £57pppn). Also fantastically located, by the Cathedral in the Gothic Quarter, near Las Ramblas - famed for its street performers which vary from the sublime to the ridiculous. Also on next weekend is the Summercase festival featuring Maximo Park, The Verve, The Kooks and the Kings of Leon.

It's a blissful 25 degrees (80 degrees in old money!) as I write this too. Anyway, back to the hotel... rooms are great - elegant and relaxing, the public areas are all modern and fresh. There is a treatment room for massages - to iron out those knots! But all this is window-dressing to me when I heard about...