A roundup of the week's travel news in brief.
Italian nuns blow up church
Optimistic Italian priests and nuns are refusing to surrender their flock to the hedonism of an Adriatic beach holiday. Too busy sunning and flirting to attend Mass? That's not a problem in Molise, where an inflatable church has been erected. The 30m blow-up church is staffed by priests ready to take confession from holidaymakers who are having too much fun to venture into town. And as an alternative to the disco, the inflatable church offers a small group of singers performing holy music from 10pm to 1am each night.
Crushing news
In the ever-surprising competition between small US towns to draw in tourists, the latest entry is White Fences Vineyard in Irvington, Virginia, three hour's drive from Washington DC, where families will be invited to jump barefoot into barrels and stomp grapes. Visitors can join the "stomp-off" on August 30th for a chance to be crowned King and Queen of the Stomp.
French snap up US rooms
French tourists are booking the most hotel rooms in the US this summer, with the Irish ranking 14th - ahead of Australia and Denmark but way behind Italy in second place, Spain in third, The Netherlands in fourth and the UK in fifth. The survey was conducted by Booking.com, an international online hotel reservations service.
• 33 per cent more UK tourists were arrested in Spain in 2007 than in 2006 - or 2,032 people, mostly due to loutish behaviour and excessive drinking, says the UK government.