India Chic (£16.95, www.thechicseries.com) is part travel guide, part coffee-table tome. Each chapter covers a different region of India, detailing palaces, hotels, spas, retreats, beaches, temples and havelis, all with plenty of sumptuous pictures and background information.

New heights

The Messner Museum Firmian — the fourth of five created by the climber Reinhold Messner — opens tomorrow in Castle Sigmondskron, near Bolzano in northern Italy. Messner was the first man to scale all 14 of the earth’s peaks over 8,000m (26,200ft). Details: www.suedtirol.info.

Gripping match

The you-know-what tournament taking place in you-know-where isn’t the only footie festival at the moment. The Torneo San Giovanni kicks off in Florence tomorrow. Held since medieval times, the contests involve 27 costumed men — see left — on each side in a game said to combine elements of football, rugby and wrestling, with a traditional street parade before each match. The Helvetia & Bristol Hotel (00 39 055 2665 554, www.royaldemeure.com), which overlooks the route, has B&B packages for each weekend of the tournament from £270 (excludes flights). The concierge can arrange match tickets from £14.

Cutting edge

Today’s Boy Scouts can pick stones out of horses’ hooves while listening to the latest tunes. The new s.beat from Victorinox is a Swiss penknife with digital music player plus scissors, nail-file and blade. A flight version has removable tools so you can carry your songs on to the plane while the tools are in your baggage. Details: 0116-234 4646, www.victorinox.ch, from £99.99.

Euphoric state

Bet you didn’t know that next Saturday is State Cocktail Day in Missouri. In Kansas City the killer is a Stoli Doli (pineapple-infused vodka) at the Capital Grille, while in St Louis a Key Lime Martini is the one to pick at the hip Pin Up Bowl. If that gives you the munchies, St Louis’s most famous home-grown snacks are deep-fried ravioli (delicious — we speak from experience) and frozen custard, which, despite the name, is like ice-cream and has people queueing around the block at Ted Drewe’s Happy Days-style stores. Details: www.visitmo.co.uk.

Moment in the sun

Take a trip down the Danube in a new high- speed catamaran. The journey between Vienna and Bratislava takes 75 minutes. A place in one of the 102 seats costs from £21 return. Details: www.twincityliner.com.

Out in the cold

The lads’ mag Maxim is planning to build a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, set to open in 2010. The owners emphasise that the design will be “upscale”, “cool” and “modern”, and there will be a spa and shops — for readers’ wives?

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