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TRAVEL MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR

6 Mini Guides TRAVELLER SEPTEMBER 2014 lonelyplanet.com

Cotswolds HEdinburgh HBarcelona Hong Kong HPrague HTuscany

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Go in search of the northern lights

THE WORLD’S MO S T

ROME HICELANDHBURMA

PLUS Short breaks to off-the-beaten-track Ibiza, a food festival in Copenhagen and the wine lodges of Porto

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EDITOR’S LETTER

PETER GRUNERT, EDITOR

This month...

… we know we’re being controversial.

How does anyone even begin to decide on a list of the world’s most beautiful places? Are the Viking-bred horses (complete with impressive hairdos) and waterfalls of Iceland (p88) marginally more or less attractive than the mistshrouded temples of Burma (p47) or the Vespa-buzzing streets of Rome (p76)?

Recognising how subjective a topic this is, we’ve handed the debate to a group of experts whose work gives them a particularly visual take on our planet (p62). Just for the record, I’m siding with Donna Wilson!

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Contents SEPTEMBER 2014

Win! A TRIP TO ICELAND Turn to p129

Extraordinary Places to Stay p30

Great Escape Burma p47

Regulars POSTCARDS

Your travel photos and stories 8 A Manhattan mural and more great images from around the world

GLOBETROTTER

The latest travel news and insights 21 My Paris: neighbourhood tips from a food blogger in Montmartre 24 Arrivals: new tours, gear, hotel openings and more 29 Travel Icon: the cowboy 30 Extraordinary Places to Stay: hotels with beautiful interiors 33 Two Sides To: Amsterdam, inside or outdoors 35 What on Earth?: travel quiz 4

Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

EASY TRIPS

Short breaks you can take right now 38 Top-quality pub dining by London’s Spitalfields Market 38 Málaga dresses up for its feria 39 A Worcestershire weekend break 40 Join the New Nordic food revolution at Copenhagen’s own culinary festival 40 Idyllic escapes and recharging points along the Pembrokeshire Coast Path 41 Relive the Age of Sail in Greenwich 42 Port, Porto, Portugal – drink a toast to this fortified wine in its birthplace 43 Discover Ibiza’s tranquil spots 44 A season of good eating in Norfolk 44 Book a cultural seaside holiday with a trip to the Folkestone Triennial

GREAT ESCAPE

Your next big trip mapped out 47 Call it Burma or Myanmar, either way, it’s becoming a new Southeast Asian favourite – here’s the secret to its appeal

MINI GUIDES

Themed guides to take with you 117 A tour of the Cotswolds through its pubs 119 Seeing Edinburgh economically, from city walks to dining on a budget 121 Summer nights out in Barcelona 123 Delve into Prague’s endlessly appealing streets to see the city’s artistic side 125 Renaissance glory in Tuscany 127 Get your chopstick skills ready for Hong Kong’s wealth of great eateries

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: LUIGI VACCARELLA/4CORNERS IMAGES. PHOTOGRAPHS: GARY LATHAM, JULIAN LOVE, MAPICS/SHUTTERSTOCK, ANDREW MONTGOMERY, NIKADA/GETTY IMAGES, ANGELOS STEREOSIS, SUSAN WRIGHT

Easy Trips p37

DESTINATION INDEX

ON THE COVER

Rome p76 The World’s Most Beautiful Places p62

Iceland Ring Road p88 The Photographer’s Story p102

Features 62 THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACES Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so we asked 16 experts in their field to reveal the places that moved them – desert oases, castaway islands, whitewashed historic towns and hidden boltholes 76 ROME The Eternal City is a dazzling mosaic, in which popes, gladiators, Romantic poets and crazy Vespa drivers all make an appearance 88 ICELAND There is only one road that counts in Iceland – the one that loops round the entire island, through the stark wonder of its sweeping landscapes 102 THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S STORY The streets of east London are home to a growing number of creative ventures, from bespoke bike building to a jeweller with a difference

Look for these symbols to quickly identify listings Sights

Tours

Drinking

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Festivals

Entertainment

Activities

Sleeping

Courses

Eating

Shopping Information & Transport

All prices correct at time of going to press. Prices for hotel rooms are for double, en suite rooms with breakfast in low season, unless otherwise stated. Flight prices are for the cheapest return fares, including one piece of hold baggage, unless otherwise stated.

Argentina p29 Australia New South Wales p65 Botswana Kalahari Desert p74 Brazil p29 Burma p47 China Gansu p73 Hong Kong p127 Czech Republic Prague p123 Denmark Copenhagen p40 Ecuador Cotopaxi p24 Galápagos Islands p15 England Cotswolds p39, p117 Dorset p27 Isles of Scilly p74 Kent p44, p66 London p31, p38, p41, p 70, p102 Norfolk p44 Peak District p70 Ethiopia Lalibela p68 France Brittany p31, p66 Paris p21, p26 Greece Mykonos p31 Iceland p88 India Agra p10 Indonesia Sumbawa p16 Ireland County Cork p67 Italy Florence p16 Puglia p72 Rome p76 Tuscany p125 Montenegro p27 Morocco Fez p30 Netherlands Amsterdam p33 Portugal Porto p42 Scotland Aberdeenshire p75 Edinburgh p119 South Africa Limpopo p15 Spain Barcelona p121 Girona p31 Ibiza p43 Málaga p38 Sri Lanka p12 Turkey Istanbul p62 Turks and Caicos p71 USA p29 Florida p72 New York p8 Oregon p65 Wales Pembrokeshire p40

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September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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NEED TO GET IN TOUCH? Subscription and back issue enquiries 0844 826 7350 Editorial enquiries 020 7150 5118 Subscription enquiries lonelyplanet@servicehelpline.co.uk General enquiries editorial@lptraveller.co.uk Subscription enquiries Lonely Planet Traveller, Building 800, Guillat Avenue, Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne, Kent ME9 8GU General enquiries Lonely Planet Traveller, Immediate Media, Vineyard House, 44 Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BT

LONELY PLANET TRAVELLER IS OFFICIALLY THE UK’S BEST-SELLING TRAVEL MAGAZINE (Source: ABC Jul–Dec 2013, actively purchased copies)

CONSUMER TRAVEL PUBLICATION OF THE YEAR Travel Press Awards (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013) EDITORIAL Editor Peter Grunert Deputy editor Amanda Canning Production editor Alice Braham Acting production editor Dominic Martin Features editor Orla Thomas Sub-editor Rory Goulding Staff writer Oliver Smith Editorial assistant Sophie McGrath Contributing editor Duncan Craig ART Art director Hayley Ward Designer Kate Ashton Picture researcher Claire Richardson Thanks to Jon Baker, Danni Fu, Corey Hutchison, Myfanwy Llwyd-Williams, Katy Miller, Wayne Murphy, Stephanie Palmer, Amoy Zhang ADVERTISING Advertising manager Ben Gardner Senior sales executive Nick Connell Senior sales executive Leanne Lawrence Sales executive Lauren Bell Advertising director, Northern sales team David Downs Classified sales executive Lloyd Meeks For advertising enquiries 020 7150 5135

Behind the Scenes

How our team made the September issue (and fell for a biplane!)

SHOT OF THE MONTH Gary Latham’s atmospheric photo of Seljalandsfoss waterfall in southwest Iceland, from our feature on driving the country’s Ring Road (p88)

Seljalandsfoss wasn't on our original list of things to see, but I always had it in my mind to visit if time permitted. I knew that you could walk behind it, which gave the opportunity for a unique photo. I think this is why it works so well – you see an unusual perspective on the landscape.

Technically, this was a very difficult shot, as it was windy and spray was blowing everywhere. Not only did I get soaked, I had to wipe the lens after every frame – a very time-consuming process. I wanted to show some blur on the water to give a sense of it moving, so I set the camera on a tripod and used a slow shutter speed.

The rainbow was a bonus – we waited until late afternoon for the light to be in the perfect position to produce it. If the conditions had been less difficult, I don’t think I would have captured this shot.

Canon EOS 5D Mk II, 16mm lens; ISO 100; shutter speed 1/400; aperture f/8

AD SERVICES AND PRODUCTION Group production manager Koli Pickersgill Senior production controller Katie Panayi Advertisement services coordinator Tony Dixon Classified services coordinator Alan Hallett

Italy, the world’s best-dressed nation? Nowhere is this more the case than at the Gruppo Storico Romano in Rome – read more on p76.

PUBLISHING Publishing director Alfie Lewis Publisher Simon Carrington Marketing manager Tom Townsend-Smith Insight executive Elisa Powell Trade marketing director Martin Hoskins Newstrade marketing manager Alison Roberts Direct marketing manager Emma Shooter Subscriptions marketing executive Daniel Eales Management accountant Len Bright MANAGEMENT Chairman Stephen Alexander Deputy chairman Peter Phippen CEO Tom Bureau SYNDICATION AND LICENSING Director of International Licensing and Syndication Tim Hudson International partners manager Anna Brown For syndication enquiries richard.bentley@immediate.co.uk PUBLIC RELATIONS Communications manager Toby Hicks Lonely Planet Traveller is produced for LPG, Inc (part of the Lonely Planet group) by Immediate Media Company London Limited, Vineyard House, 44 Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BT. ISSN 2050-635X. © Immediate Media Company London Limited, 2014. Printed by Polestar Group.

Immediate Media Company is working to ensure that all of its paper is sourced from well-managed forests. This magazine can be recycled for use in newspapers and packaging. Please remove any gifts, samples or wrapping and dispose of the magazine at your local collection point.

UK full annual subscription rate for 12 issues: £46.80; Europe and Eire: £65; rest of the world: £75.

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Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

Writer Oliver Berry and photographer Andrew Montgomery were trekking in the hills around Kalaw, Burma (see this month’s Great Escape, p47) when they met the woman pictured above left. ‘When we asked if we could take some pictures, she seemed thrilled and started getting out her best clothes,’ recalls Olly. ‘She belongs to the Palaung, one of Burma’s 130 ethnic tribes. In the picture you can see her wearing the Palaung’s distinctive velvet jacket and stripy turban, normally saved for special occasions such as weddings or religious festivals.’ The novice monk (above right) is Ashin Wila Tha, met in a temple in Bagan. ‘We asked him if he would like to become fully ordained – he said he was still deciding,’ says Olly. ‘He certainly looked the part.’

Apologies to Tom Mackie, whom we forgot to credit for his photo of the Calanque d’En Vau in Provence, which starred on last issue’s cover.

PHOTOGRAPHS: GARY LATHAM, ANDREW MONTGOMERY, SUSAN WRIGHT JENNY ARCHIVE IMAGES USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE FILM THE JENNY/DORIAN WALKER/FRIENDSOFJENNY.ORG, MUSKOKA STOCK PHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK

T R A V E L L E R

LONELY PLANET’S FLYING CIRCUS

These days air travel is second nature to most people, but a century ago aeroplane wings were made of wood and canvas, the pilots were fearless, and a good part of the flight time was spent upside down. This summer Lonely Planet is sponsoring the daredevil’s biplane of choice – a Curtiss JN-4, aka a ‘Flying Jenny’ – on its tour across much of the United States, coinciding with the centenary of the start of World War I. This rugged biplane design was the Ford Model T of aviation: built from 1917 as the USA’s training aircraft during the war, the JN-4s later became surplus to requirements, and were sold off at bargain prices to private owners in the 1920s.

What followed was the golden era of ‘barnstorming’ – an age when pilots could fly as courageously as they wished in an age before regulation. Many Jenny pilots would help to earn their keep by landing on a farm (hence the word ‘barnstorming’) and dropping leaflets on the local neighbourhood to advertise their forthcoming ‘flying circuses’.

Stunts at these shows ranged from the sublime to the suicidal: with stunt men and women wing-walking, wing-dancing, playing wing-tennis, and jumping to and/or from other planes and cars – as well as the pilots performing many loopthe-loops and barrel rolls. The Jenny was also pressed into service in the pioneering days of the US Air Mail service.

Though fewer theatrics are planned today, if you're in the States this summer you can expect to see the reconstructed Jenny in action at the Stars of the Sky and Screen event in Ottumwa, Iowa, from 27 August–1 September, and at

the Owensboro Airshow in Kentucky from 3–4 October.

Lonely Planet CEO Daniel Houghton says: ‘Lonely Planet is all about inspiring people to discover the world – and a lot of the time air travel is our mode of transport. From the ranks of the early Jenny pilots came the aviators who started commercial aviation: Charles Lindbergh’s first aircraft was a Jenny, and Amelia Earhart learned to fly in a Jenny.

In these times of Superjumbos and 17-hour non-stop flights, it’s amazing to look back and see where air travel was only a short time ago.’

To discover more about the •plane, see friendsofjenny.org and

lonelyplanet.com/planes-and-trains

Next month Best autumn breaks

on sale 4 September

FROM TOP The Lonely-Planet-backed Curtiss JN-4 Jenny, in US Army Air Service markings; Jennys perform during the golden era of the flying circus in the 1920s, including an appearance from star wing-walker Lillian Boyer

}Plan your Great Escape to New England }Join the grape harvest in the Rioja wine region of Spain }Wander far from the beaten path on an adventure into the jungles and Maya culture of Guatemala September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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Postcards WHERE YOU’VE BEEN AND WHAT YOU’VE SEEN

POSTCARDS Why not get involved? We’d love to include your best new travel photos (at 300dpi) and the inspiring stories behind them. Send them with a pic of yourself to postcards@lptraveller.co.uk

This mural by Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra is based on Alfred Eisenstaedt’s iconic photograph V-J Day in Times Square, depicting a sailor kissing a nurse on the day Japan surrendered in WWII

NEW YORK, USA

With flying colours My wife and I have always wanted to go to New York, so when we got married recently it was obvious where we should go for our honeymoon: the Big Apple. On our very last day in the city, we took a stroll along the High Line, a public park built on old railway lines elevated above the streets in Manhattan’s West Side.

The walk and the views from the park were so wonderful. At the halfway point of our walk, we saw this amazing work of graffiti and I had to take a photo. I love the result.

I will always remember that trip to New York, and all the things my wife and I did, and the memories we made.

Alejandro Such lives in Alicante in Spain September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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AGRA, INDIA

Golden rule We arrived at the Taj Mahal in the late afternoon. The main tourist season hadn’t yet started, so it was pretty quiet. The second I stepped through the arched building that leads into the grounds of the Taj, I was mesmerised. We took our time wandering the grounds, and spent a while inside the amazing marble building itself. Whilst walking around, this angle struck me; it’s a different view to the one that’s normally captured and the people in the shot show just how huge the Taj is.

The sun was just setting, creating shadows and a wonderful golden colour.

I’ve never experienced an atmosphere quite like it and, given half a chance, I’d go back again.

Hannah Macro spent two weeks on holiday in north India with her family 10

Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

POSTCARDS Send your best new travel photos to postcards@lptraveller.co.uk

The Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1653 by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The domed mausoleum combines Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles

A man nimbly walks a network of high ropes collecting palm sap to make an alcoholic ‘toddy’ – the skills required for the job are passed down from generation to generation

POSTCARDS Send your best new travel photos to postcards@lptraveller.co.uk

INDURUWA, SRI LANKA

Tall order I was walking along the beach one morning when I saw this man climbing the palm trees like a monkey. He raced up with such skill and speed that I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I started snapping away, determined to get a good shot of him. A friend of his was on the ground directing him, and I had a chat to find out what they were up to. The man climbing the tree was a ‘toddy man’, a nickname given to someone who harvests the sap of palm trees to make a potent alcoholic drink.

They handed me a coconut and insisted that I sampled it. I was touched by their friendliness and in awe of their bravery, as it was clear that this was a very dangerous job.

Andrew Lever spent two weeks on holiday in Sri Lanka September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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POSTCARDS Send your best new travel photos to postcards@lptraveller.co.uk

GALÁPAGOS, ECUADOR

Scaling up

I was exploring the Puerto Egas shoreline on Santiago Island in the Galápagos, and found myself outnumbered by these fearsome-looking but harmless marine iguanas, which are unique to the islands. I was surprised by how still they were. I managed to get within a couple of feet of this father and son before the larger one sneezed salt water at me! This photo sums up the Galápagos for me: the landscape is raw and at times unearthly, and the marine iguanas embody these characteristics too.

Sarah Freeman has been travelling in the Americas for seven months

Found only in the Galápagos, the marine iguana has the ability – unique among modern lizards – to live and forage in the sea

LIMPOPO, SOUTH AFRICA

Peepo!

I was on safari in South Africa with my uncle, when we came across a little village. We stopped to chat to the local people and to take some photographs.

The villagers welcomed us with open arms. I played football with the young boy in this photograph and he was proud to show me his bike. His mother was more then happy for me to take their picture. I love this shot – it reminds me of my travels in Africa, and that this young family were kind enough to let me into their life for a few hours.

Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa and is characterised by traditional culture and exceptional wildlife

Aaron Smith is from Australia and lived in South Africa for six months September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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POSTCARDS Send your best new travel photos to postcards@lptraveller.co.uk

FLORENCE, ITALY

Sky high I arrived in Florence much later than planned. With the sun already setting, I decided to bypass hotel check-in and head straight to the top of Il Duomo.

With my heavy bag on my shoulder, 414 steps later I was at the top; the 360° view that greeted me was worth every minute of the long climb. I stayed up on the windy roof until well after dark, watching life in the squares below and the bright trails of cars driving around. Italy is so beautiful; it keeps me coming back time and time again.

Most of Florence’s buildings were constructed during the Renaissance, largely upon the layout of an original Roman garrison

Nick Jackson flew out of Florence after walking the Cinque Terre trail

SUMBAWA, INDONESIA

First light

This picture was taken in a village called Mantar, on the island of Sumbawa.

I wanted to visit because it featured in a movie called Serdadu Kumbang (The Beetle Soldiers). Due to the bad road access, the only public transport to the village is by 4x4 truck. It was well worth the trip though; Mantar is a quiet place with friendly people.

I watched this sunrise from the yard of the primary school in the village. I’d love to go back and enjoy that majestic view again.

Ahmad Syukaery lives in Jakarta and spent six days on Sumbawa 16

Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

Mantar is a mountaintop village in west Sumbawa – the region is known for its horses, bred for both racing and trekking

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Globetrotter A WORLD OF TRAVEL NEWS AND DISCOVERIES

Local Knowledge

PHOTOGRAPH: ROBERTO FRANKENBERG

My Paris

CLOTILDE DUSOULIER is a food writer and cook. She shares recipes and culinary discoveries on her blog Chocolate & Zucchini, inspired by her passion for healthy, seasonal food – and by her sweet tooth. A Paris native, she has called Montmartre home for the past 12 years. Her latest book is The French Market Cookbook, a collection of vegetarian recipes. chocolateandzucchini.com TURN OVER FOR CLOTILDE’S LOCAL TIPS

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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GLOBETROTTER

Local Knowledge ‘Paris is a city of beautiful contrasts. It’s a mix of tradition and innovation, bustle and quiet, places that are modern and places like tiny villages’

2

u For dinner, I love Bones (1). It offers a

succession of simple dishes done right, with pairings that I wouldn’t necessarily think of myself. I like that the chef has a strong fromscratch approach – he makes his own bread, butter and charcuterie – and the service is kind and attentive. LE BAL Café (2) is great for lunch.

It’s bright and modern, and the food is always seasonal – each ingredient sings with flavour. bonesparis.com; le-bal.fr

1

u In the whirl of city life, I love to find an escape

in neighbourhoods that I’d never have thought could exist here. La Cité Florale (3) is a small area with tiny houses and paved streets named after flowers, that feels like Paris from another time. I never tire of Montmartre either. It’s like a village, and once you’re away from the touristy top of the hill, there’s lots of winding streets and stairwells and little parks. I like getting lost and peeking through gates to imagine what it might be like to live in a house with a garden in Paris – my personal dream.

3

u Batignolles Market (4) is a genuine farmers’

market – the growers are the sellers, which isn’t often the case in Paris. It’s very seasonal and organic, and small enough to see what everyone has and compare prices. I also love La Grande Épicerie de Paris, a huge gourmet food shop that sells lots of interesting products. It’s a good way to take in the trends, and it has extremely high-quality ingredients – I can easily find things to add excitement to my cooking, from a sauce or condiment to a new pasta shape.

Batignolles Market, Boulevard des Batignolles, Sat 9am–3pm; lagrandeepicerie.com connection to the city, and Les Berges on the Left Bank is particularly great for this. It used to be a highway, but has been completely remodelled into a pedestrian area, and you can also bike or roller-skate and rent a little shack to have a picnic with friends, or just doze. I feel they’ve really thought out of the box to create spaces that Parisians can make their own. lesberges.paris.fr

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PHOTOGRAPHS: ROBERTO FRANKENBERG

u Whenever I’m near the Seine I feel a special

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GLOBETROTTER

Travel News

Arrivals Cotopaxi volcano in the Andes mountains, Ecuador

AROUND THE WORLD IN 1,007 SITES An 18,600-mile Inca road system is among the sites recently added to Unesco’s World Heritage list, swelling the total to more than 1,000. The Qhapaq Ñan (‘Beautiful

Road’) was constructed over several centuries and links Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador (try Audley Travel’s 14-day Ecuador by River and Rail tour, £4,820, which includes a visit to Cotopaxi, above; audleytravel.com).

New Hotel Built in 1929, Piscine Molitor in Paris is a rather storied pool: it was here that the first bikini was unveiled in 1946, and it gave the eponymous character in Life of Pi his name. It shut 25 years ago and fell victim to decay – but has just reopened, restored as a hotel. Swimming is only possible for staying guests, so you'll need to plunge into the deep end of your wallet to get in (rooms from £215; mgallery.com).

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Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

BEFORE

Also new to the list is Botswana’s Okavango Delta, home to endangered species such as cheetahs, rhinos and lions (spot them on Exodus’s 16-day Wildlife & Wilderness of Botswana tour, £3,079; exodus.co.uk). Closer to home, the vineyard landscape of

AFTER

Piedmont in Italy also made the cut (Arblaster & Clarke’s tours of Piedmont start at £1,599; winetours.co.uk). Sites must be of ‘outstanding universal value’ to qualify for the list, and host nations follow strict conservation rules.

GLOBETROTTER

ON

£225,0L0Y 0!

DO YOU LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE? Another month, another horrifyingly expensive beach hut goes up for sale. This four-metre-square wooden shack has no bathroom, no mains electricity, no running water or any sea view, but has just gone on the market in Mudeford Spit, Dorset, for £225,000. But why buy when you could spend as little as £300 for a week in a much more des res version, just a pebble’s throw away? (beach-huts.com)

The ascendancy of Croatia’s lovely but lesser-known neighbour continues, as the Regent Porto Montenegro opens in Boka Bay (from £235; regenthotels.com).

Relive the Flying Forties with new book, All-American Ads of the 40s (TASCHEN, £27.99).

E S TV TO XPLO ER V N I RE K O SIMO ED R THE R C N REEVE: BAC A S WORLD’S AN

GES

“Stunningly beautiful, particularly in the far west of China.”

3. TH E G

NGTZE

“I’m from London, born and bred, and it’s the essence of the city.”

YA

AMES

To mark the start of his new series Sacred Rivers on BBC Two this September, we asked veteran adventurer Simon Reeve to share his three favourite rivers. Find out more about the series at radiotimes.com/travel.

2. THE

1. TH E

TH

PHOTOGRAPHS: JOHN COLETTI/AWL IMAGES, SIPA PRESS/REX, RICHARD BORD/GETTY IMAGES, CORIN MESSER/ BOURNEMOUTH ECHO/BNPS, SIMON REEVE, JANE SWEENEY/AWL IMAGES, STUART DEE/GETTY IMAGES, KATE ASHTON

New Hotel

“There’s so much belief, love and faith invested in this Indian river.”

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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GLOBETROTTER

New Gear

WINE DANCE RELAX

Bring a bit of fun to the luggage carousel this summer with some new ride-on, vintage-style or candy-coloured luggage.

Herschel’s Novel holdall in Malibu stripe (selfridges.com) £80

Steamline’s The Diplomat, carry-on suitcase (selfridges.com) £385

Micro 3in1 Luggage Scooter (micro-scooters.co.uk) £249.95

SIMON SEARCHES FOR HIS HAPPY PL ACE

The open road is home to troubled souls, among them the title character of Hector and the Search for Happiness (in cinemas 15 August), in which Simon Pegg stars as a psychologist exploring China, Africa and the USA. He refused to be drawn on whether Hector succeeds, but Simon told us he personally feels happiest in Whistler, Canada: ‘The Fresh Tracks Breakfast run gets you up the mountain before the lifts open. I snowboarded down the fresh piste full of bacon and eggs. It was awesome.’ (£11; whistlerblackcomb.com)

Travel News W H AT’S HOT T H E U LT I M AT E SOUVENIR

The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, now offers full-size replica Viking longships from £27,000 (vikingeskibs museet.dk)

New Tour With all eyes on South America following the World Cup, Llama Travel is offering a new 13-day tour that takes in the best of Brazil and Argentina, from beach life in Paraty (above) to tango in Buenos Aires (from £2,349, including all flights; llamatravel.com).

NEED TO

K NOW

PHOTOGRAPHS: DANIEL GEIGER, GÜNTER GRÄFENHAIN/4CORNERS, SHUTTERSTOCK, LORNE CHAPMAN/ALAMY, DARREN WHITTINGHAM/SHUTTERSTOCK, ROBERTO NISTRI/ALAMY, MARK YUILL/ALAMY, ADRIAN LYON/ALAMY

GOOGLE GL ASS

Why the sudden interest?

Google’s high-tech eyewear was unveiled two years ago, but Glass only recently went on general sale – and if you don’t fancy forking out £1,000 on a pair, Holidays Please (holidaysplease.co.uk) has just become the first UK travel company to lend them to its customers.

So what’s the appeal?

Smartphone-style powers, but less hands-on. Wearers can take photos and video, call and message, get directions, update social media... and that’s before adding apps.

How does Glass work?

A tiny screen sits above your right eye; you explore and select from its menu by swiping and tapping the side, or by speaking (say ‘Okay, Glass’ to activate voice commands). You can also take photos with a button on the top, or by winking.

Sounds creepy?

The surveillance potential

is controversial. Holidays Please has its own ground rules (needless to say, nudist beaches are out).

What can travellers do?

There are some great apps to play with. We loved Word Lens, which instantly translates real-world text, like signs. Field Trip calls up guidebook-style entries on places you pass (though it’s not yet very comprehensive), and GuidiGO has good audio tours for museum visits.

Great! What’s the catch?

Glass is fun when it works.

But it relies on your phone to provide the internet connection – if there’s no wi-fi, technical woes abound.

Also photos look way worse once you’ve downloaded them – in fact, most Glass functions work better on a smartphone. And bear in mind, if you wear spectacles you may or may not look a bit strange wearing your Google Glass on top.

New flights to NYC for £149? How ’bout them apples!

Gatwick to JFK, from £149 one-way; norwegian.com

ADVENTURES WITH KIDS New website globetotting.com might convince us to swap our week in Cornwall for a family trip to Borneo BAR GAMES Shuffleboard is taking New York by storm (royalpal msshuffle.com), while Copenhagen has just got its first pétanque bar (generator hostels.com)

W H AT’S NOT MEDITERRANEAN DIET Move over Greece, Channel 4 doc The World’s Best Diet has named Icelandic food as the planet’s healthiest

MOBILE RIP-OFFS EU roaming charges will be phased out by 2016. Ergo, more cash for cocktails PA S S P O R T D E L AY S 31,000 Brits have not received their new passport in time for summer holidays

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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GLOBETROTTER

Travel Icon

American cowboy There is no career path more allAmerican than becoming a cowboy, but the historical roots of the cowboy aren’t in the US, they are in Spain. When conquistadors colonised the Americas they brought with them domesticated cattle and equestrian traditions from Moorish times – these evolved into cowboy culture in the 1800s. Working cowboys still exist, especially in states like Montana and Wyoming.

HATS OFF

The headwear associated with the cowboy is the Stetson, the wide-brimmed hat that invariably gets bullet-ridden in Western movies. Contrary to Hollywood lore, the headwear of choice in the 19th-century Old West wasn’t the Stetson at all, but the bowler hat.

BY A WHISKER

The cornerstone of the cowboy look is facial hair. Famous wearers of the beard and ’tache include Clint Eastwood (stubbly), John Wayne (trimmed) and Randy Jones, the cowboy from Village People.

FIGHTING SPIRIT

Most people imagine scraps with Native Americans were part of the job description for a Wild West cowboy. In reality these conflicts were very rare: most cowboys spent their time doing just as their name suggests, rounding up (often semi-feral) cattle and herding them through the wide open spaces of the West, without a shot being fired.

SPEAK WILD WEST…

PHOTOGRAPH: MARK READ

Hobble your lip – Please be quiet.

Having a hog-killin’ time – Having a grand time.

Crowbait – A rubbish or useless horse.

Bone orchard – A cemetery.

Hot as a whore house on nickel night – Very hot indeed.

ALL SORTS OF CHAPS

If you want to find out where a cowboy is from in the States, take a look at his chaps.

These, for instance, are ‘chinks’ – half-length chaps popular with cowboys along the Pacific coast.

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Extraordinary Places to Stay

Beautiful interiors Dar Seffarine, Morocco

HOW IS IT MEMORABLE? This riad in the heart of Fez is almost too perfect a place to dump your suitcase. Carved cedar doors, the pillared courtyard, brass lanterns and intricate plasterwork take you right back to the day it ďŹ rst opened its doors, seven centuries ago. DESIGN IDEA TO STEAL Lift up the carpets in your hallway and install colourful Zellij tiles in geometric patterns. From ÂŁ65; darseffarine.com

San Giorgio Hotel Mykonos, Greece

HOW IS IT MEMORABLE? You’ve not experienced the colour white until you’ve seen the brilliant Aegean sun bouncing off the smooth walls of San Giorgio. The few fittings are chosen as carefully as artworks in a gallery, with rough-hewn wooden furniture, enormous metal and wicker lampshades, and thick woven rugs scattered over those (white) floors.

DESIGN IDEA TO STEAL Get rid of the sofa and hang chairs from the ceiling instead.

From £120; sangiorgio-mykonos.com

Château des Tesnières, France HOW IS IT MEMORABLE? This small b&b in Brittany is every dream you’ve had of a French château, brought to life. The interior is a blend of period design, such as parquet flooring, local antiques and elegant fireplaces, creating a regal ambience without ever slipping into historic pastiche.

DESIGN IDEA TO STEAL Toile de Jouy fabric. Everywhere.

From £100; chateau-des-tesnieres.com

PHOTOGRAPHS: PHILIP LEE HARVEY, ANGELOS STEREOSIS, PETERKOOIJMAN.NL, ENRIQUE MENOSSI, JEREMY RATA

Castell d’Empordà, Spain

HOW IS IT MEMORABLE? This hilltop complex of sturdy medieval buildings and contemporary extensions proudly surveys the Catalan countryside. Walls are left bare in the old castle rooms to show off original stonework, while opulence comes from details such as claw-foot baths and gilded chandeliers. Also on site: a 18m2 replica of the Battle of Waterloo, with 2,000 toy soldiers, built by the owner.

DESIGN IDEA TO STEAL Bin the family photos and replace with a bull’s head over the mantelpiece.

From £140; hotelcastellemporda.com

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, England

HOW IS IT MEMORABLE? The former Midland Grand Hotel (open 1873–1935) above London’s St Pancras International was built to impress – a Gothic Revival fantasy with trefoil windows, soaring ceilings, a majestic Grand Staircase and patterned brickwork. The High Victoriana was restored for its 2011 reopening, never failing to astonish no matter how many times you visit.

DESIGN IDEA TO STEAL Decorate your spare bedroom with wallpaper made using gold leaf and refer to it as the ‘Sir George Gilbert Scott Suite’.

From £245; marriott.co.uk September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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GLOBETROTTER

Two Sides To...

Amsterdam Outside

Inside STAY

Bunk up in colourful wagons, each with their own porch, at Camping Zeeburg, east of the city centre (from £26; campingzeeburg.nl).

STAY

Shun the norm at Hotel V Nesplein: big, modern rooms have industrial styling with theatrical touches (from £150; hotelvnesplein.nl).

DO

Sunny day? Rent a bike and get happily lost around Amsterdam’s Canal Ring (£6 per day; mikesbiketours amsterdam.com).

EAT DO

It’s possible to fill a month of rainy days in the Rijksmuseum, which has more than a mile of galleries devoted to superb art treasures (from £12; rijksmuseum.nl).

EAT

Creaking old D’Vijff Vlieghen (Five Flies) is just the place for a bit of ‘gezelligheid’ (cosy charm). Dutch dishes are served in rooms featuring Delft tiles and spread across five 17th-century canal houses (mains from £18; thefiveflies.com).

Watch the Amstel flow by from the waterside terrace of Café de Jaren, a large, bright place in the city centre. Food is modern European, from seafood tagliatelle to steak and roast potatoes (mains from £12; cafedejaren.nl).

DRINK

PHOTOGRAPHS: ALAMY, MARK READ, SHUTTERSTOCK

Hot weather means only one thing for many Amsterdammers: a trip to Roest, an urban beach with bar, performance space, and fun times guaranteed (beers from £2; amsterdamroest.nl).

DRINK

Get a thorough education in jenever (Dutch gin) at In de Olofspoort.

Don’t be put off by the slightly dubious location on the edge of the Red Light District – inside is a beautifully cosy brown café popular with locals (jenever shots from £2.50; olofspoort.com).

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Malaria tablets

£12

Travelling to a malaria-risk zone?

12 pack

*

Low-risk zones Medium-risk zones High-risk zones

Get protected this summer.

Malaria-prevention tablets available without a prescription.

Every year up to 2000 holidaymakers from the UK catch malaria, and it is found in more than 100 tropical countries.

No need for a prescription – just pop down to your local Asda Pharmacy. www.ASDA.com/storelocator

Check if you need protection now at www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk Selected stores. Available while stocks last. See in-store Pharmacy for details. Offer available from 9am on Thursday 7th August 2014. *Source: http://www.traveldoctor.co.uk/malaria.htm

GLOBETROTTER

Travel Quiz

What on Earth?

2

What gets revellers messy at this festival, held in the Spanish town of Buñol in late August?

4

Where would you be travelling if you were riding the Ghan?

It’s a hundred years since St Petersburg was renamed Petrograd at the start of WWI. What was it called during communist times?

5

Which country had an all-green flag until 2011?

6

Which lateAugust carnival gets through more than 30 litres of body paint, 12,000 mangoes and 25,000 bottles of rum?

9 Where might you have a braai?

5) LIBYA. 6) THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL. 7) NEW ZEALAND. 8) NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. 9) SOUTH AFRICA.

YOU WANT ANSWERS?

7

Which country’s rugby team has an emblem of a fern on its shirt?

8

Which US city, home to the Grand Ole Opry, is the unofficial capital of country music?

3

What is this unusual building, seen by many British holiday-makers?

1) PROJECTILE TOMATOES. 2) LENINGRAD. 3) THE BRIGHTON PAVILION. 4) AUSTRALIA (ADELAIDE TO DARWIN).

COMPILED BY RORY GOULDING. PHOTOGRAPHS: AWIE BADENHORST/ALAMY, DAVID BLEEKER PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY, GABRIEL GALLO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES, MARIUS GRAF/ALAMY, DANNY MARTINDALE/WIRE IMAGES, MATT MUNRO, PHOTOMADNZ/ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK, UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP LIMITED/ALAMY

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September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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10 hours sun protection with just one application Put it on in the morning. Enjoy your day. It’s that simple. P20 dries quickly to give you and your family 10 hours of proven sun protection – even after frequent swimming throughout the day. Choose from the original SPF20 transparent lotion or the new range of SPFs 15, 30 or 50+ in a handy transparent spray. Stay safe in the sun with P20.

For further information and to fnd stockists of P20 visit www.p20.co.uk and join us at www.facebook.com/p20sun One application lasts 10 hours · Very water resistant Active after 15 minutes · Easy to apply · No added preservatives The recommended retail price of P20 is £13.29 (100ml) and £24.49 (200ml). Distributed in the UK by Godrej Consumer Products (UK) Ltd

Easy Trips ummer for the peak of s

including

uA wine break in Portugal uCountry-house living in the Cotswolds uIbiza away from the crowds uA food festival in Copenhagen

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The intimate 36-seat upstairs restaurant at The Bull & The Hide

A place to hide away Occupying the site of a house built by wannabe nobleman Jasper Fisher in the 16th century, and deemed so ‘sumptuously builded and beautiful’ (by historian John Stow) that it was nicknamed Fisher’s Folly, The Bull & The Hide feels several worlds, if not centuries, away from nearby Liverpool Street Station and the glass towers of the City of London. Tucked down a quiet alleyway, its three floors have all needs well covered: local beer, wine and cider in the pub downstairs (the Bull part); a robust interpretation of classic European dishes, from steak to lobster macaroni, in the stylish restaurant in the middle (the Hide); and seven small but perfectly formed and wonderfully comfy guest rooms above. All are named after local landmarks, including, naturally, one Fisher’s Folly. Spitalfields Market is on the doorstep, with stalls likely to cater for your every whim, whether you’re after a truckle of Westcombe cheddar or a pair of ’50s Ray-Bans.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The Bull & The Hide has seven guest rooms above its first-floor restaurant and ground-floor pub (from £150; thebullandthehide. com). Dinner at The Hide starts from £20 for two courses.

The nearest tube station is Liverpool Street, on the Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines (tfl.gov.uk).

Spitalfields Market is open every day of the week. Check the website for events and trader info (spitalfields.co.uk).

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Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

For nine days every August, Málaga goes un poco loco as the city is taken over by its summer feria (fair). Festivities are opened with a Friday-night firework display before beginning in earnest the next day. The hottest time of year in Andalucía might seem a strange time to hold back-to-back street parties (for comparison, Seville holds its big rival feria in April), but the fair began as a Catholic celebration to mark the reconquest of Málaga from the Moors in August 1487. Religion takes a back seat nowadays. Instead, the fair is an excuse to throng the streets under bunting and strings of lights,

2

surrounded by costumed flamenco dancers and with a glass of fino sherry always close to hand.

Despite being the hub of the Costa del Sol, Málaga and its attractive historic centre get less attention from visitors than might be expected – at any rate, locals provide the feria’s core support.

Celebrations divide into daytime events and ones that only kick off after dark. For the latter, special buses ferry people from all over the city to the Cortijo de Torres, two miles southwest of the city centre, where live music, fairground rides and food tents keep revellers occupied until dawn.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The Feria de Málaga runs from 16–23 August (andalucia.com).

Málaga is served by flights from most main UK airports, on airlines including BA, easyJet, Flybe, Jet2, Monarch, Norwegian, Ryanair and Thomson Airways (from £85; ryanair.com).

Located on the central Plaza de la Constitución, the Room Mate Larios is housed in an elegantly restored 19th-century building. Rooms are luxuriously furnished with king-size beds and many have balconies overlooking the main shopping street (from £85; room-matehotels.com).

A woman wearing a traditional Sevillanas costume takes part in the Málaga feria

PHOTOGRAPHS: OSKAR PROCTOR, STRINGER/SPAIN/REUTERS/CORBIS, RAY MAIN

1

Fair’s fair in southern Spain

EASY TRIPS

3

clockwise from top left A Top Notch room at Dormy House; roasted beets, goat’s curd and wild nettle purée; the bathtub in The Loft suite; the welcoming hotel reception

Right ho, Jeeves and Worcestershire There aren’t too many hotels where guests, stepping out of their cars on arrival, are greeted by a cheerful butler insistent on taking in their luggage – but then Dormy House has got the market in relaxed but impeccable service all sewn up.

Occupying a honey-coloured 17th-century farmhouse a few miles from the Cotswolds village of Broadway, Dormy’s main aim seems to be to make its guests forget about the outside world and focus solely on the finer things on life.

Wood panelling, statement pieces of furniture, board games, open fireplaces and stone walls set the tone in the social areas downstairs, while bedrooms are supplied with iPads and ridiculously squishy beds, ripe for high-quality lolling. There’s little need to leave Dormy during a weekend break, with two different restaurants to choose from, and a spa with swimming pool and steam rooms to help scrub away lingering thoughts of a world that exists without butlers.

HOW DO I MAKE IT HAPPEN? Dormy House’s rooms range from ‘Intimate’ to ‘Top Notch’ (from £230; dormyhouse.co.uk).

The Garden Room offers a threecourse set menu – mains include 12-hour braised octopus with Rioja risotto and seared sea bass – starting at £40, while The Potting Shed offers more gastro-pub-style food (mains from £13.75). The hotel spa and pool are free to use, and there are

various treatments on offer, including hour-long facial massages (from £45) and mud baths (from £40).

The hotel is just off the A44, on Willersly Hill between Moretonin-Marsh and Broadway. The nearest railway station is seven miles away at Moreton-in-Marsh, with regular services running from London Paddington, Worcester and Great Malvern (from £20; firstgreatwestern.co.uk).

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Salmon topped with caviar at the Copenhagen Cooking food festival

Eat well in Copenhagen For 10 days in August, the Danish capital burnishes its already shining food credentials with Copenhagen Cooking. The festival, now in its 10th outing, celebrates a culinary culture that’s grabbed attention worldwide.

The chances of nabbing a table at the movement’s renowned flag bearer, Noma, remain minimal, but there is plenty of scope to try the best of Danish cooking here, with more than 100 food-and-drinkrelated events scheduled in and around town. ‘An evening dedicated to sea buckthorn’ comes straight out of the New Nordic playbook, while ‘Harvest dinner at Esrum Kloster’ re-imagines a monastic meal from the year 1151. Elsewhere you’ll find beer tasting, butchery courses, afternoon tea and a series of cooking classes for kids. By the end, you should barely have enough room for the tiniest open sandwich.

MAKE IT HAPPEN Copenhagen Cooking runs between 22–31 August (copenhagencooking.com).

Airlines including BA, easyJet, Norwegian and SAS fly direct to Copenhagen from most of the bigger UK airports, with easyJet and SAS offering the widest choice (from £80; easyjet.com).

The Axel Guldsmeden is one of a group of four boutique hotels in Copenhagen that mix Scandinavian-style stone and bare wood with Balinese-type accents. All of the 129 rooms have four-poster beds (from £140; guldsmedenhotels.com).

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Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

Weather-beaten purists might frown on the practice, but there’s no denying the logic of twinning a hiking break with a spa hotel.

Particularly when the trail you’re following is the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, where visual delights have a tendency to exact something of a physical toll. Base yourself at St Brides Spa Hotel in Saundersfoot and you’ll have the perfect bolt hole when muscles start to protest. This contemporary retreat sits on the cliff edge overlooking the harbour and Blue Flag beach. Head north out of the town and the coastal path burrows into the forested headland, following abandoned railway tracks

to the sleepy hamlet of Wiseman’s Bridge. To the south is one of the trail’s finest stretches, offering a 4.5-mile hike to medieval Tenby that rises and dives like the guillemots that trace the shoreline. A short distance beyond are some of Pembrokeshire’s other highlights, including the creamy expanse of Marloes Sands and the islands of Skomer and Skokholm. Back at St Brides, immerse yourself in the thermal suite, where rooms infused with salt and aromatic steam will soften you up for the main event – a concerted bask in the outdoor hydro pool which, on a good day, offers views all the way to Devon.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The St Brides Hotel has 34 rooms, some with balconies and sea views (from £160, including a 90-minute session in the thermal suite and hydro pool; stbridesspahotel.com). Its Cliff Restaurant espouses locally sourced dishes such as fillet of snapper on spiced couscous with mint yoghurt (mains from £16).

The best way to get to St Brides is via Tenby rail station, a short taxi ride away. The journey from London Paddington is five hours (from £49.40; nationalrail.co.uk).

For more information, see visitpembrokeshire.com.

5

The beach of Freshwater West, part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park

PHOTOGRAPHS: CHRISTIAN LINDGREN, CHRIS WARREN/4CORNERS, PAUL SAUNDERS

4

St Brides’ perfect marriage

EASY TRIPS The Dutch gaff-topsail schooner JR Tolkien passes in front of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich

6

Wave welcome to a fleet of tall ships in Greenwich Maybe it’s a feeling peculiar to an island nation, but there’s something stirring about the sight of a tall ship with sails billowing in the breeze.

One of the largest gatherings of such ships in recent years will be taking place along the River Thames in London at the beginning of September. Some of the tallest ships in the world are among the 50 or so remaining in the capital for a few days at the end of a regatta that runs from Falmouth in Cornwall to the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

The ships will be moored in five spots along the Thames between Woolwich and Tower Bridge, and many will offer two-hour cruises past Christopher Wren’s stately Old Royal Naval College, among other famous nautical sights. Firmly back on dry land, the five-day Tall Ships Festival will include daily fireworks, street puppetry, sea shanties and theatre performances, and a departing parade of the regatta crews to mark the end of festivities on 9 September.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The Tall Ships Festival takes place in Greenwich from 5–9 September. Cruises along the Thames start from £39.90 (sailroyalgreenwich.co.uk).

Greenwich is best reached from central London on the Docklands Light Railway (singles from £1.50; tfl.gov.uk) or mainline trains to Greenwich station (singles from £3.10; southeasternrailway.co.uk).

Return train fares to London start

at around £30 from Bristol, £32 from Manchester and £66 from Edinburgh (nationalrail.co.uk).

A one-time sweet shop on a side street right by the main sights of Greenwich, Number 16 has two well-appointed doubles and a single, all individually decorated.

Owners Robert and Nick do their best to make everyone feel at home with chats and cups of tea in the charming basement kitchen (from £125; st-alfeges.co.uk).

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A metro train crosses the Dom Luís Bridge over the River Douro in Porto

7

save

10% on your Raise a glass to port in its home town Porto is both the birthplace of port wine (20 per cent alcohol) and a town of very steep hills – a somewhat treacherous combination. Finding a balance between the two is key to exploring Portugal’s second city: especially in summer, when Atlantic sunshine illuminates narrow cobbled streets, and parasols spring up at port lodges busy with locals sipping the famous fortified wine.

To find out more about port, take a stroll beside the River Douro for the strange sight of tumbledown 42

Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

warehouses adorned with AngloSaxon names such as Taylor’s and Graham’s, a legacy of the British merchants who exported port across the seas in centuries past.

One such port dynasty is Yeatman: its eponymous hotel sits among the warehouses and commands fine views of trams rattling over the 19th-century Dom Luís Bridge. The hotel has one of Portugal’s largest wine cellars, which is best explored from the hotel bar, saving you the bother of climbing all those hills.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The Yeatman Hotel stands on the opposite bank of the Douro to downtown Porto, so guestrooms have superb views over the spires and rooftops. Cellars tours are available from 4pm–6pm, and the hotel is also home to the world’s largest cork, about nine feet high – minus a matching bottle (from £130; the-yeatman-hotel.com).

Quote ‘Summer package’ when booking 30 days or more in

stay

advance for at least 10 per cent off stays until the end of October.

Ryanair flies to Porto from Stansted, easyJet from Gatwick and Flybe from Birmingham (from £140; flybe.com). From the airport, trams run to the city centre, taking 30 minutes (from £3; stcp.pt).

Visit the Mercado do Bolhão – a boisterous market selling cheeses, meats and flowers in a grand but slightly dilapidated Neoclassical building (Rua Formosa).

EASY TRIPS

8

PHOTOGRAPHS: MAPICS/SHUTTERSTOCK, TONO BALAGUER/AGEFOTOSTOCK, MYLES NEW

clockwise from top left A whitewashed farmhouse at Can Curreu; Es Pou des Lleó cove; a sheep grazes in an orchard; Ibicencan olives

The other side of Ibiza Millennia after the ancient Greeks dubbed Ibiza and neighbouring Formentera the ‘islands of the pine trees’, it’s still, beyond the crop of mega-clubs, a haven of rural peace.

The most laid-back summer stays are in the unspoilt northeast, a place fringed with quiet beaches and carpeted with fruit trees and the pine woods that cover half the island. The journey from Ibiza City – whose handsome old town is also worth a visit – is a pleasure in itself, winding along the coast beside hills

and olive groves to the region’s sleepy villages and quiet coves. Two of the finest are Es Pou des Lleó, whose clear waters and unusual rocks make for great snorkelling, and Cala Mastella, a pine-sheltered arc of sand with a tiny harbour where fishermen offer up their catch. A fuller sampling of Ibicencan cuisine is a must – head inland to Can Curreu, a restored farmstead set among almond trees, to try squid, lobster and daily fish specials beside a backdrop of undulating hills.

MAKE IT HAPPEN Agriturismo Can Talaias occupies a restored finca (farmstead) perched atop a hill 10 minutes from the coast. Its six spacious rooms are full of elegant furnishings, with dark-wood floors, large arched windows and subtle shades; outside there’s a pool, extensive gardens and a sunny breakfast terrace that has sweeping views over pine forests and the Med (from £130; hotelcantalaias.com).

Can Curreu serves up dishes such as Ibicenan-style John Dory with tomatoes and peppers, and confit of suckling pig from Segovia (mains from £18; cancurreu.com).

BA, easyJet, Jet2, Monarch, Ryanair and Thomson Airways fly to Ibiza from cities such as London, Manchester and Edinburgh (from £100; monarch.co.uk). Car hire is from around £60 (avis.co.uk).

For more on northeast Ibiza and its beaches, visit ibiza.travel.

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EASY TRIPS

The Norfolk coast is prime territory for catching – and eating – oysters

Feasting in Norfolk Is Copenhagen too far to go for a food festival (p40)? Fear not!

England’s most easterly county abounds in local produce, from Cromer crab to local ales, and there’s no better time to ‘yalm its wittles’ (tuck into its food, in local parlance) than late summer, during the Norfolk Food & Drink Festival. Highlights of the six-week event – the largest of its kind in the UK – include the Moveable Feast, a three-course meal at a trio of restaurants, and the North Norfolk Food & Drink Festival, which brings 60 producers to the palatial estate of Holkham Hall. Meanwhile, in Norwich, dozens of venues serve specially designed menus during the city’s Restaurant Week, and democracy swings into action with a public vote at the hotly contested sausage fest known as the Battle of the Bangers.

MAKE IT HAPPEN The festival runs from 30 August–12 October at venues across Norfolk (nfdf.co.uk).

Norwich is served by trains from Liverpool, via Manchester and Sheffield, and from London Liverpool Street (London to Norwich from £18 return; abelliogreateranglia.co.uk) Gothic House b&b occupies a listed Regency building set on a quiet courtyard in the oldest part of Norwich. Rooms are spacious and suitably elegant, with breakfast served in a stately dining room (from £95; gothic-house-norwich.com).

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In recent years, the classic charms of a trip to the seaside – a tentative toe dipped into the Channel, a 99 from a chiming ice-cream van – have been joined by the rather more novel attraction of modern art. As well as a wave of new galleries, the south coast plays host to the Folkestone Triennial, a festival of public art that sees big names, such as Yoko Ono, create pieces inspired by the port and its eventful history. Returning at the end of August for its third edition, it will showcase various works across town. Highlights include a wind-powered lift that will carry visitors to the top of a

railway viaduct that overlooks the rooftops; an old gas works transformed with a sculptural light installation; and an exhibition in a derelict train station. While in Folkestone, take time to amble about the cobbled old town, with its studios, independent shops and restaurants, and to see the Folkestone Artworks collection, which includes work from the likes of Tracey Emin. Another sign of the times is Rocksalt, a startlingly modern restaurant poised above the working harbour and serving local Kentish produce. The views from its floor-to-ceiling windows reach as far as France on clear days.

MAKE IT HAPPEN Folkestone Triennial runs from 30 August–2 November (folkestonetriennial.org.uk). For more on Folkestone Artworks, visit folkestoneartworks.co.uk.

Trains to Folkestone run from Dover, Margate, London St Pancras and London Charing Cross (from £30 return; southeasternrailway.co.uk).

As well as its restaurant, Rocksalt on the harbour also has four guest rooms, all with sea views and antique beds (from £85). Mains, such as pork belly or mackerel, start from £14.50 (rocksaltfolkestone.co.uk).

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The Colour of Water, by Spencer Finch, at the Folkestone Triennial

PHOTOGRAPHS: TAKAHIRO YUMADA/ALAMY, SPENCER FINCH, THE COLOUR OF WATER, 2011, PHOTOGRAPH THIERRY BAL

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Folke art on the south coast

A D V E R T I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

I

mmortalised in the Beach Boys song, Kokomo, the climate of this island paradise makes it an idyllic year-round destination – and the perfect place to kick back. And with direct flights from UK airports and your Fairmont Bermuda hotel bookable through British Airways, it’s easier than you think to whisk yourself off to this exotic retreat.

So what to do when you’re in Bermuda?

Te beautiful pink-sand beaches, and diving and snorkelling opportunities, mean it’s an irresistible destination for ocean lovers. Or maybe you’ll relax with a round of 18 at one of the island’s world-class golf courses.

Founded in 1609 by the English Virginia Company, which established a settlement after landing here following a hurricane, Bermuda is a British colony to this day – despite having first been discovered by Spaniard Juan de Bermúdez, after whom the island is named, in 1503.

Make your stay as active or restful as you wish. Hire a bike or explore on foot and take advantage of the island’s hiking trails – the Bermuda Railway Trail brings you up close to experiences you might otherwise miss. Te views are stunning, for a start, and you’re also privy to glimpses of beautiful gardens and exotic flora and fauna. Or go kayaking amid the clear depths of Southampton Parish, or diving to explore wrecks such as the Cristobal Colon – a ’20s Spanish transatlantic liner that ran aground on the reef that surrounds the island in 1936.

Alternatively, take a stroll around the crooked streets of St George’s – a Unesco World Heritage Site and Britain’s oldest surviving town in the New World. Here, you’ll discover attractions like Tucker’s Town, Spittal Pond Nature Reserve and Palm Grove Gardens. And if you want somewhere more lively, the Bermudian capital of Hamilton has shops, restaurants and nightlife at the water’s edge.

However much or little you pack into your stay, it’s good to know that you have a luxury hotel like Te Fairmont Hamilton Princess or Te Fairmont Southampton to retreat to.

To quote frequent visitor Mark Twain: “You can go to heaven if you want. I’d rather stay in Bermuda.”

Enjoy every third night FREE

The lure of Bermuda

Known as the location of mysterious disappearances, this island’s tranquillity, glorious climate and stunning scenery make it a destination you’ll be happy to lose yourself in

Referred to by Bermudians as The Pink Palace, this luxury urban resort is located right in the heart of Hamilton. Internationally acclaimed chef Marcus Samuelsson offers up his epicurean delights, while the 1609 Bar and Restaurant brings guests an open-air dining experience from the new 60-berth marina.

The hotel’s infinity pool promises uninterrupted views of Hamilton harbour.

7-night holidays from £1,419pp

Book from now until 31 December 2014 for travel between 2 September 2014 and 31 March 2015. Visit ba.com/fairmontbermuda

Terms and conditions apply. Availability may be extremely limited. Prices based on selected travel between 1-30 November 2014 and include return British Airways World Traveller flights from London Gatwick. Book by 4 September 2014.

Located on Bermuda’s south shore, you’re perfectly placed for the island’s miles of pink-sand beaches.

Relax in the hotel’s lush surroundings, complete with beautiful coconut palms and bougainvillea, or use it as your base for a golfing getaway, exploring the island or taking part in Bermuda’s year-round calendar of events.

7-night holidays from £1,069pp

Photo credit: Dave Watts / Wild Frontiers, Silversea.

IT

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Great Escape B U R M A The last country in Southeast Asia to open up to tourism is making up for lost time – get a slow introduction to its charms on a riverboat cruise to an enigmatic city of temples, while elsewhere in Burma you’ll find rewarding treks from an old hill station and encounter miles of unspoilt beaches

G R E AT E S C A P E

WORDS OLIVER BERRY l PHOTOGRAPHS ANDREW MONTGOMERY

All Buddhist males in Burma are expected to live as a monk for a period between the ages of 10 and 20, and again for a time after they turn 20

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Plan your trip Drift past sleepy scenes of local life in the heart of Burma on a two-day boat trip along the Irrawaddy River (p52)

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Venture out at first or last light to see the fabled 2,000 temples of Bagan at their most spellbinding (p54) Set out along walking trails through Kalaw’s hills, where small farming villages show the variety of Burma’s tribal communities (p56)

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Stay high and dry while exploring a world of floating gardens and houses perched on stilts around Inle Lake (p58)

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Unwind along miles of blessedly undeveloped sandy beaches at littleknown Ngwe Saung (p60)

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MAP ILLUSTRATION: ALEX VERHILLE. PHOTOGRAPHS: TIBOR BOGNÁS/AGEFOTOSTOCK/SUPERSTOCK, JULIO ETCHART/ALAMY, ANDREW MONTGOMERY, MATT MUNRO

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BURMA

ON THE ROAD

Read

Burma’s main international airport is in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), but all flights from the UK route through other Southeast Asian airports such as Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.

Return flights with Thai Airways start from around £660 (thaiairways.com).

HOW TO GET AROUND

Flights are the speediest way to cover big distances. A one-way fare between the two biggest hubs, Yangon and Mandalay, costs around £70. There’s little difference between the seven main local airlines, although Myanma Airways had a poor safety record in recent years. It’s often cheaper and more reliable to book flights through travel agents than via airline websites – you can also compare prices at oway. com.mm. Long-distance buses are cheap but very slow, and rarely have air-con. If you’re travelling in a group, it’s easier to hire a car and driver through a travel agent (such as ssttourism.com), for anything from £40 to £250 per day depending on the size and comfort level of the vehicle.

GETTING A VISA

Apply to the Myanmar Embassy for a tourist visa, valid for three months and allowing visits of up to four weeks (£14; myanmarembassylondon.com).

WHAT TO BUDGET

Food is cheap, but hotel prices are rising as supply lags behind increasing visitor demand. Count on £50 to £80 a day at a mid-range hotel, and £80 to £200 at more luxurious places; meals will rarely set you back more than £10.

Many businesses take US dollars, but one widespread Burmese quirk is the refusal to accept anything but pristine dollar bills – stock up in advance.

TRAVEL RESPONSIBLY

Political and economic reforms in the past four years are beginning to move Burma on from the legacy of the junta of 1962 to 2010, but the army is still a behind-the-scenes presence, and takes

a slice of most transactions, from park entry fees to hotel bills. Spread your money around by using local guides and services as much as possible; check your tour operator is reputable; and try to buy from small shops and restaurants. Political discussion is more open now, but it’s still best to let locals take the lead on contentious subjects to avoid making them uncomfortable or risk getting them into trouble.

Say

Mingalar par

WHEN TO GO

There are big regional variations in climate, but the best time to visit is generally from November to February, avoiding the hottest months (April to June) and the peak monsoon season between June and September.

WHO CAN HELP

Peregrine Adventures is an Australianbased adventure travel operator of more than 30 years’ experience, that offers custom-made or small-group tours in Burma (peregrineadventures. com). Tours start at £1,730 for a 12-day trip, not including international flights. The company makes use of locally owned accommodation and services wherever possible.

Eat

Mohinga, a soupy blend of rice noodles and fish broth, which can be thickened with pith from the stalk of a banana tree and topped with lentils or deep-fried vegetables. It’s most often eaten at breakfast.

HOW TO PLAN

See Lonely Planet’s Myanmar (Burma) (£16.99) – this updated edition has invaluable information for a country still short on web resources.

Drink

Green tea during meals, followed by a bottle of the excellent, locally brewed Myanmar Beer.

Buy

Lacquerware, made from strips of bamboo and several coats of lacquer, then intricately painted. It’s traditionally used for bowls, boxes and caddies.

Beware of cheap imitations: the best workshops are in Bagan and Mandalay, where you can watch the process.

MYANMAR OR BURMA?

‘Bama’ has long been the colloquial name of the country in the language of its majority Bamar people, while ‘Myanma’ is the formal or written equivalent. In 1989 the military junta decided to change the English name of the country from Burma to Myanmar.

The new name was rejected by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and many followed her example.

(pronounced min guh la ba), the traditional greeting in Burma. For extra kudos, follow up with nay gaung la which means ‘How are you?’.

G R E AT E S C A P E

HOW TO GET THERE

Thant Myint-U’s The River of Lost Footsteps is a moving account of Burma’s past and present, while Aung San Suu Kyi’s Letters from Burma is a collection of correspondence written during her house arrest.

For a view of colonial-era Burma, George Orwell’s Burmese Days is based on his time serving in the Indian Imperial Police.

Take off Your shoes and socks in pagodas and temples. It’s often less of a chore to wear flip-flops, as most Burmese do. Dress modestly in temples (no shorts, short skirts or exposed shoulders). Feet are seen as unclean, so don’t use them to point at things, and say sorry if you accidentally brush someone with yours. Don’t touch anyone’s head either, and avoid blowing your nose at the table.

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Awake to see temples

The view from Shwesandaw temple in Bagan, taking in the ornate Myauk Guni (foreground, left) and the stupa of Dhammayazika in the distance on the right

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BURMA

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rising from the mist...

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1. Irrawaddy River

The first Burmese kingdoms grew up along this majestic river, and a two-day cruise from Mandalay to Bagan still makes a wonderfully relaxed introduction to this land of pagodas from left The RV Katha Pandaw – a riverboat on the Irrawaddy; balancing pots in Yandabo village; claywork drying in the sun

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holy relics. Monasteries appear along the shoreline, their tiered roofs rising from a canopy of palm and bamboo. Occasionally, golden pagodas glint amongst the trees, their gilded tops flashing in the sunlight.

Captain Thein Swe Oo has worked as a boatman on the Irrawaddy for a quarter of a century. He started as a deckhand, moving up the ranks as he learned to navigate the river. Dressed in a loose shirt and the baggy Burmese sarong-like garment known as a longyi, he’s now in charge of his own vessel, a double-decked ferry called the Tai Win. ‘It takes many years to know the Ayeyarwady,’ he says, manning the helm while his son Min Min scans the river ahead for obstacles. ‘There are many sandbanks and channels, and the currents change often. After 25 years, I know it quite well, but even now the river sometimes catches me by surprise.’

The sun sets towards the trees, turning the river from tea brown to terracotta red.

Puffing on his cigar, the captain guides the boat to its overnight mooring at the potteryproducing village of Yandabo. River sounds replace the drone of the motor: screeching birds, keening crickets, the slap and gloop of water against the banks.

As his father weighs anchor, Min Min dishes up the evening meal: river catfish, cooked on an iron stove that sends swirls of grey smoke into the sky. Dusk turns to darkness, and the deck lights flicker on, white bulbs reflecting in the black water.

‘It is a good life on the river,’ the captain says, leaning against the Tai Win’s wheelhouse. ‘I have worked my whole life

on the water. Now, I find it hard to be in the city – too much traffic, too much noise.

The river is where I belong.’

For a moment, he watches the boat’s lights dance and shift in the water, then disappears below deck for dinner.

Take the 115-mile river trip from Mandalay to Bagan – most boat journeys involve a night’s mooring, and all meals are provided.

Essentials

Irrawaddy cruises Many boats ply the waters of the Irrawaddy, ranging from rough-and-ready, sleep-on-deck ferries to luxurious multi-decked houseboats complete with private cabins and en suite bathrooms. The two-day charter trip from Mandalay to Bagan on the Tai Win costs £420 including all meals and two basic cabins; book through Intrepid Travel (intrepidtravel.com).

Paukan Cruises is a more luxurious option, with four deluxe vessels including a vintage 1947 cruise boat. Prices start from around £450 per night for two people, including food and a private twin cabin (ayravatacruises.com).

PHOTOGRAPH ON PREVIOUS PAGE: NADIA ISAKOVA/AWL IMAGES

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ARLY MORNING IS ALWAYS the busiest time of day on Mandalay’s quayside. Moored along the riverbanks of Burma’s second city, scores of boats are being loaded for their journeys.

Passengers cram on to ferries, searching for space on the crowded decks. Porters carry on crates of fruit and sacks of rice, balancing loads on their heads as they cross planks leaning against the boats’ gunwales. Beside the keels, children splash and somersault in the water, and villagers from the nearby shanty town rinse their clothes in the shallows. Then, cargoes stored, the boats pull away from the banks, turning into the current with a chug and a belch of diesel smoke before disappearing downstream.

Known in Burmese as the Ayeyarwady, the Irrawaddy is the longest river within the country, unfurling for 1,350 miles from its source near the Tibetan border to the Andaman Sea. Bisecting the country into east and west, the Irrawaddy is to Burma what the Ganges is to India: half spiritual symbol, half industrial thoroughfare.

In the days before the British built the country’s first railways and modern roads, the Irrawaddy carried most of the country’s traffic, and it’s still busy with boats. Barges stacked with timber hug the deep-water channels, chugging past ramshackle ferries commuting between the river villages and fishermen casting their nets in the currents.

But the Irrawaddy is more than a glorified motorway; it’s a sacred river, too. Along the banks, whitewashed stupas line the water’s edge, containing the ashes of saints or other

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Captain Thein Swe Oo and his son Min Min on the deck of the Tai Win – like Burmese people generally, father and son do not share a family name

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2. Bagan

It’s the scale of this ancient capital that seems scarcely believable – climb up to a vantage point and you’ll see temples dotting the landscape in every direction

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HIS WAY,’ SAYS NOVICE monk Ashin Wila Tha, as he removes his sandals and steps from the fierce afternoon heat into a crumbling temple somewhere in Old Bagan. It’s cool and dark inside, but a few threads of light are enough to illuminate the temple’s inhabitant: a huge reclining Buddha, 18 metres long and five metres high, fashioned from stone as smooth and white as marble, his face fixed in a permanent beatific smile.

‘This is one of the largest reclining Buddhas in Bagan,’ the monk explains, pulling some candles from beneath his

scarlet robes, which he lights and arranges on the statue’s outstretched hand.

‘Some people say he is just sleeping, but to others he is in parinirvana: the moment of death and enlightenment.’ Ashin Wila Tha leans over the candles and says a prayer, then pads into the darkness to light sticks of incense in an alcove, filling the air with the heady aroma of jasmine and patchouli.

In any other country, this superb statue would be thronged by tourists, but among the great temples of Bagan, it’s almost a forgotten footnote. Sprawling along the sunbaked eastern bank of the Irrawaddy, Bagan is Burma’s largest sacred site, a complex of more than 2,000 temples Shaded horse carts are a popular and inexpensive – if slow – way of seeing Bagan’s myriad temples

covering a site of some 40 square miles.

Built at a hectic rate between the 11th and 13th centuries by a succession of Burma’s ancient kings, it’s thought that Bagan once counted at least twice as many temples as it does today, but many have long since crumbled into dust, victims of the ravages of time or the frequent earthquakes that strike central Burma – including a devastating one in 1975.

Since the region’s last major earthquake, a massive restoration programme has saved Bagan’s most important temples from collapse – including Ananda, with its four giant golden Buddha statues, and Thatbyinnyu, the tallest temple in Bagan at 61 metres high. The most famous are often crowded at sunrise and sunset, but hundreds more lie far off the beaten track, lost along dusty lanes, obscured by tangled thorn bushes and thickets of cotton grass.

Inside, thousand-year-old frescoes loom from the walls and crumbling statues meditate in the darkness, guarded by bats and overrun by creepers and vines.

‘I don’t think anyone has seen all of the temples in Bagan,’ says Ashin Wila Tha, emerging from the shadows into the warm light of early evening. ‘There are too many.

And anyway, I think it’s good that some things stay secret.’

He slips on his sandals and shuffles across the pagoda’s flagstones. Beyond the gate, a pony cart rattles past, and the domes of the nearby temples disappear behind a cloud of orange dust.

Now hop on a plane to Heho (most often via the capital Yangon) and get a car or bus to Kalaw, 100 miles east of Bagan in the Shan Hills.

Essentials

Sky Palace Hotel On a quiet side road in New Bagan, this modern hotel offers air-conditioned rooms and self-contained bungalows overlooking a walled garden. The décor is utilitarian but comfortable; try to get a room overlooking the hotel’s lawn-side swimming pool. It’s in a convenient position to reach the main temples, and bikes are available for hire (from £40; skypalace.asia/bagan).

Bagan Archaeological Zone Foreign visitors have to pay a £9 entrance fee for the site, usually collected at the river jetty for boat arrivals.

BURMA

G R E AT E S C A P E

The Shinbinthalyaung temple houses a statue of Buddha reclining – like all such statues – on his right side, as he is said to have done at his death

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from left Chickpeaflour fritters; local guide Than Win Tun; spring onions ready to be chopped

3. Kalaw

A cool respite from the heat of Burma’s central plains, the hills to the east bring more intimate discoveries, and are best seen on short treks between farming communities

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IGH IN THE HILLS ABOVE Kalaw, the people of Pane Ne Pin village are preparing for a feast. It’s Full Moon Day, the most auspicious day of the month in the Burmese calendar, and the villagers are getting ready to make the journey to their local monastery.

They’re dressed in their best outfits – stripy turbans, pink longyi and purple velvet jackets, spangled with sequins, all sewn on by hand. A few of the women are busy preparing a picnic, cooking chickpea-flour fritters in a heavy pan over a smouldering wood-fire. Others sort gifts for the monks from a pile of newly woven blankets in the village’s meeting house.

Once they’re ready, they set out along the valley, chatting and giggling as they trek past tin-roofed houses and terraces cloaked with plantations of orange and tea.

Established by British governors more than a century ago as a summer hill station where colonial families could escape from the suffocating heat of the surrounding plains, Kalaw stands at an altitude of just more than 1,300 metres. Ringed by hills and furrowed by valleys, the area enjoys a climate ideal for farming, and it’s become one of Burma’s most important agricultural regions, producing much of the country’s fruit, vegetables and tea.

More recently, Kalaw has begun to draw trekkers to its surroundings. Hundreds of old paths zigzag over the hillsides, linking villages and plantations with the lowlands 56

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below. The most popular is the three-day path between Kalaw and Inle Lake, which winds across the spine of the Shan Hills, and includes overnight stops at hilltop villages and a remote mountain monastery.

Than Win Tun has spent his life exploring the trails around Kalaw, and now works as a professional hiking and nature guide.

‘I don’t think I could get lost here if I tried,’ he says, striding along a dry path fringed by tea bushes, his feet clad in a pair of battered flip-flops. ‘To me the hills are home.’

He stoops to pick some leaves sprouting by the trail’s edge. One of the plants is a type of wild mint, he says; the other a natural antiseptic. ‘It’s good for cuts and bruises,’ he explains. ‘And you can make a tea from it when you have a cold. Nearly every plant can be used for something.’

Where once Kalaw’s hills would have been covered in ancient forests of teak, fig and banyan, over the past century much of the land has been cleared for logging and agriculture. But gradually farmers are realising the benefits of keeping the forest intact, as a way of preventing soil erosion and retaining underground water reservoirs.

‘For a time, people forgot why the trees were important,’ says Than Win Tun, pausing to run his hand along the trunk of a gigantic fig tree. ‘But now they’re remembering. That makes me feel positive about the future.’

He rounds a bend in the trail and emerges on the outskirts of another village, where a group of pink-robed nuns are laying offerings in honour of Full Moon Day,

sweeping the platform of the shrine with bamboo brooms and laying wreaths of jasmine flowers.

‘Life in the hills never changes much,’ Than Win Tun says, as incense smoke fills the treetops, and the shrine’s prayer bells tinkle in the cool breeze.

Trekking complete, head down to Inle Lake, around 50 miles by car or by minibus from Kalaw.

Essentials

Hill Top Hotel Set in the hills above Kalaw, these old-fashioned cabins have porches and log walls, and you’ll pay depending on the size and view (air-con is standard). The garden is very well kept, with rhododendrons and roses that would put Kew Gardens to shame (from £45; book via the hotel’s Yangon travel agent on 00 95 1 381 200).

Trekking Guide fees start at around £5 per person for a day hike or £7 overnight. Than Win Tun can be reached at twtun48@blumail.org and further guide contacts are listed in Lonely Planet’s Myanmar (Burma) guidebook.

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Fruit plantations in the hills above Kalaw. above, from left Buddhist altar decorated for Full Moon Day; a woman standing outside her house in Pane Ne Pin village

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4. Inle Lake

Water rarely sustains human life as completely as it does here – take a boat trip to explore a lake dotted with villages perched on stilts and market gardens floating on the surface

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VERY DAY OF THE WEEK, except on the full moon, there’s a market somewhere around the shores of Inle Lake.

Today it’s the turn of the village of Thaung Tho, and the log jam of longtail boats tied up alongside the jetty suggests it’s going to be a busy day.

Hundreds of traders have set out their stalls along the lake shore and are hollering for business over the bray of livestock and market hubbub. In one corner, a blacksmith hammers chisels and machetes over a blazing coal fire. In another, greengrocers unload baskets of chillies, peanuts and beans, while more traders weigh out dried fish on iron scales. Shoppers munch on sesame bread and paratha waffles, browsing stalls piled high with firewood, clothes, blankets, trinkets and fake antiques.

The market is an essential part of life for the small villages that ring the shoreline of Inle Lake, and it rotates between them on a five-day cycle. Around 100,000 people call

the lake and its surroundings home, mainly from the local Intha tribe, as well as other ethnic groups such as the Palaung, who farm tea, tobacco and fruit in the nearby hills, and the Pa-O, recognisable by their crimson turbans and flowing black robes.

Fishing and farming are the main trades, and most people live in houses made of wood and thatch, raised on bamboo stilts – a design that prevents flooding when the lake swells during heavy rain.

U Aung Gyi is a fisherman from the northern lakeside village of Khaung Daing.

He’s been fishing since he was 15, using the traditional technique of leg rowing to steer his boat – a skill peculiar to the Intha people, that enables them to paddle while keeping both hands free to fish.

‘It takes a long time to learn,’ he says, dropping his conical net into the water.

‘But I’ve had 20 years of practice, so I’m good at it now.’ Using a harpoon, he spears fish trapped in the net, and has soon caught enough to fill the bottom of his canoe.

U Aung Gyi, like other fishermen on Inle Lake, has developed a keen sense of balance to perfect his technique of leg-rowing

Satisfied with his catch, he guides his boat towards the shore, down a narrow canal lined by floating farms. Built on beds of water hyacinth, and anchored in position by bamboo poles, these floating gardens rise and fall with the water level, making them flood resistant. Every house has its own patch, where locals grow their vegetable supply, selling any excess at the market.

As U Aung Gyi rows past, children wave from the banks, and a farmer raises his hand in greeting, waist-deep in water as he tends his crops of tomatoes, peas, squash and bitter gourd. Nearby, some women plant rice shoots in the paddies, their heads shaded by broad-brimmed bamboo hats, and a water buffalo munches on the reeds.

Across the lake at Thaung Tho, the market is winding up. Lines of ox carts trundle off along the rutted lanes, laden with food and firewood. A few stallholders have hung around by the jetty, puffing on hand-rolled cheroots and sipping mugs of sweet, milky coffee. Then, business done, they exchange a handshake and clamber into their canoes, firing up the outboard diesel engines before skimming away in a plume of spray.

After all, today’s market may be over, but tomorrow’s is only a day away.

Time to unwind by the sea. Double back to Heho to catch a flight to Yangon, then take a six-hour car or bus trip to the beachside town of Ngwe Saung.

Essentials

Khaung Daing Resort The architecture of this lakeside resort echoes the stilt villages of Inle Lake, with floating cottages linked together by wooden walkways, each with a veranda overlooking the lagoon. If you’re on a budget, there are cheaper bungalows set around the sprawling hillside garden; while you might not have a lake view, at least you can dodge the uphill hike to the restaurant (from £120; hupinhotelmyanmar.com).

Tourist fee A £6 charge is levied on tourists coming to the Inle Lake area through the main town of Nyaungshwe.

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from left A typical Inle Lake ‘street’ scene; fish at the five-day market; a woman of the Pa-O tribe

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from left Measuring out dried split peas; taking a puff on a cheroot; a small, ornate temple on stilts

from left Overgrown pagodas at Shwe Inn Thein, west of the lake; selling crackers; local traffic

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BURMA

5. Ngwe Saung

Most of Burma’s coastline has seen only a fraction of the development that’s the norm elsewhere in Southeast Asia – sink your feet into one of the country’s quieter beaches

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N THE DUNES OF NGWE Saung, a group of fishermen are sorting through the catch. It’s been a good night on the water; the nets have gathered a bumper haul, and the men’s crates are brimming with lobsters, king mackerel and tiger prawns, soon to be

packed in ice and shipped off to city markets. Smiling, they share around a bottle of cold Myanmar Beer, and relax with a game of chinlone – the Burmese version of keepy-uppy, played with a lightweight ball made of bamboo cane. As they play, wind stirs through a backdrop of palms, and an empty white beach stretches north and south as far as the eye can see.

Skirting Burma’s southwestern coastline on the edge of the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, Ngwe Saung is the nearest thing the country has to a secret beach.

Unlike Burma’s best-known seaside resort, a hundred miles to the north at Ngapali, it’s a long way to the nearest big city and airport: Yangon lies 120 miles to the east across the Irrawaddy Delta, a six-hour drive along rough, pot-holed roads. Few tourists make the journey, and even fewer venture far from the resorts clustered around the beach’s northern end, leaving most of Ngwe Saung gloriously deserted.

From the main village, the sands run for more than eight miles, a white curve backed by palm forest, plantations and isolated villages, many of which can only be reached by moped or boat. Offshore, small islands stud the horizon, fringed by dazzlingly blue water perfect for skindiving and snorkelling. Towards the southern end, the beach becomes even wilder and emptier, visited only by fleets

of fishing boats and farmers tending their vegetable fields.

Myo Ko lives in Sinma, the northernmost of the Ngwe Saung villages. Lean and wiry, with a mop of spiky black hair, he’s still in his early teens, but already has the muscles of a man in his twenties.

‘We all grow up on the sea here,’ he says, as he gathers up bundles of driftwood deposited on the dunes. ‘We learn to fish and swim when we are still very small, so for us it feels like a natural place to be.

When I am older, I hope to have my own boat so I can support my family, but for now, I still have a lot to learn.’

Hoisting the wood across his shoulders, he heads back towards the village. Along

BURMA

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Myo Ko transporting driftwood on a deserted beach. opposite, top Sunset over the Bay of Bengal. opposite, bottom Fish spread out to dry

the banks of the estuary, lines of boats are tilted sidewards on the sand, beached by the receding tide, their keels blistered and bleached by countless days at sea.

Along the high-water mark, clusters of wading birds dip for clams and mussels, and a fisherman quietly patches his nets in the warm morning sun.

Oliver Berry is a writer and photographer who contributes regularly to Lonely Planet Traveller (read on for his Iceland story, p88).

NEXT MONTH

Great Escape: NEW ENGLAND

Essentials

Sunny Paradise Resort One of several luxury beach resorts at the northern end of Ngwe Saung, this smart hotel sits in grounds dotted with palm trees and frangipani bushes. Spacious air-conditioned rooms are available in a complex of villas; the nicest are the traditionally styled thatched bungalows, all of which have an ocean view (though it’s worth noting that none of the rooms have 24-hour hot water). The hotel’s crowning glory is its swimming pool, right above the beach (from £60; sunnyparadiseresort.net).

Transfer The six-hour trip from Yangon to Ngwe Saung costs around £6 by bus, or upwards of £70 for a private taxi.

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Visions of

BEAUTY

Where is the world’s most beautiful place? An eclectic mix of experts, from architect Zaha Hadid to illustrator Quentin Blake, share their very personal suggestions

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ZAHA HADID, ARCHITECT Istanbul is like a second home to me, somewhere I try to come at least once a year. The city has inspired me since I first visited with my family, as a teenager.

We did the full tour – Topkapı Palace, the Blue Mosque and the island of Büyükada, where my cousins and I piled into a donkey cart that took us to the Aya Yorgi church and monastery.

I fell in love with the complexity of Istanbul. There are so many rich layers

to the city, and you never know what to expect around the next corner. It’s a metropolis built of small villages, with distinct shapes and personalities. I think the many layers of Istanbul are evident in my work. When there are many different uses within one project, we think of the building as an urban landscape.

The Grand Bazaar is a labyrinth of streets and shops, full of unexpected treasures, and I never tire of going there. When the sun sets, the architectural structures around the bazaar always somehow catch the light. The Basilica Cistern is one of the most stunning things in the world – it’s a magnificent piece of engineering and infrastructure. Towards the back there are two marble stone capitals with Medusa

carved on them, that reflect beautifully in the water. And the world wouldn’t be the same without Dolmabahçe Palace, with its carved gates that have the texture of stone lace. I like the futuristic shapes of the minarets of Süleymaniye Mosque, and the Church of St Stephen of the Bulgars, which is one of the world’s last surviving prefabricated cast-iron churches.

Throughout the city you feel the mixture of East and West. It’s like a fantastic collage of many histories and cultures, a beautiful landscape floating on the Bosphorus.

Zaha has designed the Messner Mountain Museum Corones, located at the top of Mount Kronplatz in South Tyrol, Italy, which will be completed this September (zaha-hadid.com).

PHOTOGRAPHS: ZAHA HADID BY BRIGITTE LACOMBE, NIKADA/GETTY IMAGES

Istanbul, Turkey

The 17th-century Blue Mosque – named for the blue tiles adorning its interior – in Istanbul

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BEAUTIFUL PLACES Kangaroos in the arid, semi-desert outback of Sturt National Park, New South Wales

Punchbowl Falls in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, Oregon

PHOTOGRAPHS: ROB TILLEY, DANITA DELIMONT/AGEFOTOSTOCK, THEO ALLOFS

Punchbowl Falls, USA

Sturt National Park, Australia

ALYS FOWLER, GARDENER

THEO ALLOFS, PHOTOGRAPHER

My husband comes from Portland, Oregon – I stole him away. I’m not sure why he let me do that, because it’s an amazing city with such lush countryside around it.

When you fly in, you spend hours over thick forest – it seems like the city has been recently cut out of the wilderness.

Just outside the city is the Columbia Gorge hiking trail, which takes in oldgrowth forest, huge waterfalls, deep basins of glacial water, giant boulders and such wonderful wildlife. The wildflowers are amazing – trilliums, sundews, mahonias and heucheras, to name a few. Seeing plants growing in their natural setting is always so interesting. I think it’s key to good gardening, to go and explore.

The punchbowls are a series of natural glacial bowls that sit like jewels between the waterfalls and gorge. I went for a dip in the largest – the water was crystal clear and freezing cold, and the noise of the waterfall was almost deafening. The pool looks small and fairly shallow, but once in you realise it’s very, very deep and the thing you thought was a fallen branch is actually a giant, sunken redwood.

Terrifying and thrilling, all at once.

I’ve never seen such an abundance of red kangaroos as I did in this remote corner of New South Wales. I love the atmosphere of the outback: a landscape of red soil, rocks and blue sky.

It’s getting rare to find places like this – vast open spaces without many people. Here, I feel like I’m home.

Alys is a presenter on the BBC's Great British Garden Revival (alysfowler.wordpress.com).

Theo's image, above, is shortlisted in Wildlife Photographer of the Year (nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/wpy).

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Audierne Bay, France

ANDREA NIXON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TATE LIVERPOOL

This region of France is called Finistère, or ‘Land’s End’, and you really do get that sense – the Atlantic is huge, and the next stop is America. It’s a special place, and very alive – the weather is wild and dangerous; the bay is full of shipwrecks.

The landscape is incredible and full of ancient places, standing stones and old chapels. There is a tiny seventh-century chapel near the village of Tréguennec called Saint-Vio. Towards the end of the day, when it’s quiet and you’re the only

person left in the building, you can feel how it is synonymous with the landscape; they’re coming from the same spiritual place. There’s a lot of art in this landscape, and during the summer festival, L’Art dans les Chapelles, you can scramble down to a little chapel and find it’s full of contemporary work; and I really get a kick out of that.

I love the sea, it’s very important to me.

It’s the fact that colours and light change all the time by water, and the sense that it will be coming up and going down twice a day, forever. In my work, there’s also that sense of transition – what we put in the galleries changes all the time, and commissions are often very much about responding to a space or a landscape.

See Mondrian and his Studios at Tate Liverpool until 5 October (tate.org.uk/visit/tate-liverpool).

Romney Marsh, England I was brought up in the London suburbs, and I remember going on a school outing to Winchelsea, just near Romney Marsh.

Maybe it’s because I went there when I was young, but I’ve been impressed with the area ever since. I like that flat landscape, it has a wonderful light. It’s constantly changing, and the skies above it as well. Somehow the atmosphere has a special magic.

A lot of the things I draw are people talking to each other, gesturing, running about. I put the scenery in as I need it, and I suppose a vast landscape like that in Kent is quite the same – you don’t have to put the scenery in unless you need it. Everything within it becomes much more important.

If everything is flat and you see only a tree, the tree becomes very important to the landscape. It’s endlessly fascinating to me.

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See Quentin Blake: Inside Stories at London’s new House of Illustration (houseofillustration.org.uk).

PHOTOGRAPHS: PETE CARR, PHOTONONSTOP/SUPERSTOCK, DAVID ROSE, STUART BLACK/ROBERT HARDING/SUPERSTOCK

QUENTIN BLAKE, ILLUSTRATOR

BEAUTIFUL PLACES

St Thomas à Becket Church, on Romney Marsh, Kent, once served the village of Fairfield, which has long since disappeared

Bath with a view at Ballyvolane House in County Cork

Ballyvolane House, Ireland

ORLA KIELY, FASHION DESIGNER

County Cork is a green and magical place, and Ballyvolane is one of Ireland’s oldest houses. Built around 1728, it is wonderfully grand – the pillared hall is something quite special. The interior is perfect for unwinding, settling down to play cards or read a book. It’s a place to relax and find serenity, and the gardens and woodland are very peaceful – in spring, the bluebells are spectacular.

Rooms at Ballyvolane start at £155 (ballyvolanehouse.ie). See Orla’s work at orlakiely.com.

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BEAUTIFUL PLACES

Lalibela, Ethiopia The rock churches of Lalibela are a wonderful reversal of the normal process of construction, whereby one creates space by building. Here one excavates space by burrowing in: mistakes cannot be put right because you’ve cut into the rock itself.

There are about a dozen churches around Lalibela, hewn from the rock on which the town sits. It is a remote place – more so now than it was in the 12th century, when the Ethiopian king Lalibela first created it

as an African version of Jerusalem. But it still has a strong sense of pilgrimage.

I visited for my series Around the World in 80 Treasures, and arrived during a quite astonishing festival. Empress Helena is celebrated in Orthodox Christianity for having found the true cross, and every September the town holds a feast in her honour, with parades of the Lalibela Cross – a sacred 12th-century relic. Being there at this time heightened one’s senses, and

inflamed one’s imagination. Ideas of the holiness of rock pop up all around the world – in the pyramids of Egypt, the structures at Petra, and at Stonehenge.

Seeing buildings sculpted from rock makes you think of the very nature of architecture. It makes you aware of the possibilities of invention and imagination.

Dan will present The Great Scotts, on Gothic Revival architecture, this October on BBC Four.

PHOTOGRAPH: PHILIP LEE HARVEY

DAN CRUICKSHANK, ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN

Bet Giyorgis – the Church of St George – carved out of red volcanic rock in Lalibela

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Petersham Nurseries, London, England

RICHARD E GRANT, ACTOR, DIRECTOR AND PERFUMER

Find out more about the garden-centre-cum-restaurant at petershamnurseries.com. Richard has recently created a unisex perfume, Jack (jackperfume.co.uk).

Petersham Nurseries, on the outskirts of London, features a garden centre, teahouse and restaurant

The Headstone Viaduct crosses the River Wye in Monsal Dale, Peak District, Derbyshire

Monsal Dale, England HANNAH OBEE, CURATOR AT CHATSWORTH When I moved up to work at Chatsworth, I remember driving through the Peak District and thinking how bleak it looked, but in time I came to love the moors and crags – they are so wild and natural. Sitting in front of a panoramic view like Monsal Dale is almost like witnessing creation.

It brings a sense of perspective, and the natural beauty is infinitely restorative.

This is where I go when I need to clear my head: perhaps because it’s a green place, the kindest colour on the eye. There’s a wonderful gradation of colours, with the deepest green along the valley floor.

The Headstone Viaduct is part of a longabandoned railway line. I like to think of when the railways first arrived, connecting different parts of the country and opening up new possibilities. It inspires my work as a curator to think that mankind can intervene in a natural landscape and make it even more beautiful with a structure such as this. It gives me hope that we can bring good things to the world. In the end, places are beautiful not just for their appearance but for the reasons that bring us to them, and the people we meet there.

A ticket to Chatsworth costs £21 (chatsworth.org).

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PHOTOGRAPHS: STEPHANIE WOLFF PHOTOGRAPHY, RICHARD WHEELER/ALAMY, IAN CUMMING/GETTY IMAGES

Entering the greenhouses, you are overwhelmed by the scent of jasmine, growing floor to ceiling and everywhere in between, followed by the smell of Italian food being cooked in the kitchen.

BEAUTIFUL PLACES The private island of Parrot Cay, part of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean

Parrot Cay, Turks and Caicos Islands JO MALONE, PERFUMER I have been to Parrot Cay every year since the first month the resort opened, in 1998.

It’s a very small island with a wonderful beauty to it: no cars, completely flat, with the whitest beach and blue, blue ocean.

There are mangroves and a coral reef offshore, and my favourite thing is to go onto the beach when the sun is setting and collect sand dollars – the flat, dried shells of sea urchins.

The first time I went to the island, there were turtles crawling up on to the neighbouring beach as I came in by boat.

Another particularly special moment happened as I was walking on the beach

early one morning. I saw a stingray swimming alongside me in the water, and it stopped whenever I stopped.

I can’t work or be creative in a cluttered environment, and Parrot Cay is very much a plain canvas. I wanted to make a fragrance that was unbelievably simple, like that white sand. The whispering citrus note of pomelo was just perfect. Parrot Cay is a place where I can just think – it’s soul food for me.

Rooms at Parrot Cay start at £295 (comohotels. com/parrotcay). Find out more about Jo Malone's new fragrance business, Jo Loves, at joloves.com.

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Florida Keys, USA

FABIEN COUSTEAU, OCEAN EXPLORER

Find out more about Fabien’s project at mission-31.com.

The Scoppa Arch in Ostuni, Puglia

Ostuni, Italy

FLORENCE KNIGHT, CHEF

Christmas tree worms in Key Largo, part of the Florida Keys

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Ostuni is a beautiful town that sits astride three hills overlooking the sea. It is known as ‘Città Bianca’, as almost all the buildings are painted white. Ostuni is steeped in the gastronomic traditions of Puglia. I tasted the best focaccia I’ve ever eaten, and it is also famous for orecchiette pasta. I’ll never forget watching the locals make it by hand, rolling out a small sausage of dough and then cutting and dragging out the shape. The women make it look easy, but it takes years of practice – and these ‘little ears’ are absolutely delicious.

Florence is the head chef at Italian restaurant Polpetto, recently reopened in London (polpetto.co.uk).

PHOTOGRAPHS: GIOVANNI SIMEONE/SIME/4CORNERS, CAROL SACHS/STOCKTREK IMAGES, INC/ALAMY, RAGA JOSE FUSTE/AGE FOTOSTOCK

My grandfather Jacques Cousteau created the world’s first ocean-floor habitat for humans. Because of this, I’d always been curious about living underwater. I found out about Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys – the world’s only underwater laboratory – and recently led an expedition there. I lived inside this tube for 31 days, one day longer than my grandfather’s team, in homage to those who came before us.

The Florida Keys has the largest subtropical reef system in North America: an underwater city, home to countless species. Living at this frontier, I saw a fireworks-like display of life – the majesty of Christmas tree worms giving off a purple-white smoke as they spawn, or an endangered goliath grouper attacking a barracuda, something no-one had ever observed before.

The ocean is my home. I could spend an hour looking at a square metre of reef and see a tiny soap opera play out before my eyes. For me, it’s like sitting on a bench in London or Paris and watching life pass by.

Returning to the surface was bittersweet.

BEAUTIFUL PLACES

Dunhuang, China YANG FUDONG, INSTALLATION ARTIST I first heard about the Buddhist artworks of Dunhuang when I was a kid, and the city became something I longed to see. I got my chance when I was teaching at the China Academy of Art, and our studio took a tour there – an unforgettable experience.

Dunhuang was once a major hub for travellers on the ancient Silk Road, and the desert landscape is still engraved with desolate traces of that history.

The city itself is beautiful, an oasis in the desert, but what fascinated me most were the sculptures and murals in the grottoes of Mogao and Yulin, both magnificent cultural

treasures. I was shocked and deeply touched by the works of these anonymous craftsmen. There was a moment, looking down from a mountain top, when the sandy wind caught me up in a reverie – I couldn’t imagine how the ancients had built up such grandeur, hidden in these seemingly empty surroundings. For me Dunhuang is the holy land of Eastern art – its influence is like oxygen melting in my blood, invisible but long lasting.

See Yang's work as part of Arctic cultural project SALT (salted.no).

Crescent Lake, a freshwater spring on the outskirts of Dunhuang

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BEAUTIFUL PLACES

Tresco Abbey Gardens, Isles of Scilly

Tresco Abbey Gardens was originally a 19thcentury private garden

EMMA MAWSTON, LIBERTY PRINT DESIGNER

Tresco has a diverse landscape for such a small island – very like Cornwall, but more intimate.

The Abbey Gardens is a subtropical oasis with an extraordinary diversity of plant life, so seemed a natural place to visit when I needed inspiration for a botanical collection. One morning, I was there when the sea fret lifted, leaving a gleaming array of foliage and flora – a moment which brought tears to my eyes.

Kalahari Desert, Botswana ROBIN HUTSON, HOTELIER A year ago, I took on a month-long motorbike expedition across southern Africa – biking through Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, sometimes taking unmapped tracks, along which I didn’t see humans for a whole day. The highlight was staying at Jack’s Camp on the edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. It’s a luxury camp that looks a bit like something from an old-school safari expedition: tents full of

antiques, looking out over the savannah.

But what I found most beautiful was its location: in a wilderness unblemished by humans. As well as game drives, the guides took us out into the salt pans of the Kalahari. Maybe an hour from the camp we were in a place where there was absolutely no physical reference point for 360 degrees: not a tree,

not a rock, just shimmering nothingness.

The guides said to us: ‘Go and lie on the salt for five minutes and gather your thoughts.’ In my business there are a million details to pay attention to – you get slightly obsessed with getting them all right. But this place reminded me that the world is in fact big, and sometimes we’re all too wrapped up in the comings and goings of our own little worlds.

Rooms at Jack’s Camp start at £565 pp (unchartedafrica.com). Robin is CEO of the Lime Wood Group (limewoodgroup.co.uk).

Jack’s Camp, set on the edge of the Kalahari Desert’s Makgadikgadi Pans National Park

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PHOTOGRAPHS: TRESCO ISLAND, JACK’S CAMP © UNCHARTED AFRICA/LUXURYSAFARICAMPS.COM, CARMEL KING, RICHARD MASCHMEYER/ROBERT HARDING/SUPERSTOCK

Find out more at tresco.co.uk/enjoying/abbey-garden. See Liberty’s fabric collection at liberty.co.uk.

The film Local Hero was shot in Pennan, making a star of its harbourside red telephone box

Pennan, Scotland

DONNA WILSON, HOMEWARES DESIGNER Pennan is a tiny fishing village of about 50 cottages, adorning the coast like a bit of lace. I grew up about 20 miles away inland, and my grandma would take me there when I was little. It’s a magical place – so peaceful, quaint and intimate, but with amazing huge skies. It has one pub, a beautiful old harbour and a pebbly beach. Standing there, you could be a million miles away from everyday life. We would walk along collecting bits of driftwood, worn-down glass and strange stones with holes right through them.

In atmosphere as well as distance, Pennan is about as far as you can get from where I live now in busy east London.

Pennan makes me feel free; it’s always good to blow away the cobwebs in the sea breeze. It’s so quiet, particularly in the winter months, as most of the population move out because the seas get so fierce. Its colours, skies and closeness with nature have informed the way I work since I was an art student. And I love the fact that – because it’s completely contained by the rocks and cliffs – Pennan can’t get any bigger. It stands still in time.

See Donna’s work at donnawilson.com.

Subscribe to Lonely Planet Traveller and receive a free copy of Lonely Planet’s Beautiful World book – 224 pages of thoughtprovoking images from the world’s most inspiring destinations.

See p116 for details.

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N EW WAY S TO FAL L I N LOVE W I TH

Rome

From revving a Vespa through handsome piazzas to peeking through secret keyholes, we find a dozen new ways to unlock the Eternal City’s immortal beauty WORDS OLIVER SMITH l PHOTOGRAPHS SUSAN WRIGHT

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R IDE A V ESPA Ancient Rome may have been built on the principle of straight roads, but all that went out the window long ago.

This is a city where alleyways zig-zag manically up the hillsides and where everything from the ice-cream van to the hearse gets driven like a dodgem.

According to Claudio Serra, there is only one way to navigate this pandemonium.

‘In Rome our streets are crazy – the only way to reach everywhere is on a Vespa,’ he insists. ‘You can park a Vespa outside the Pantheon; you can drive it along the motorway. It means freedom.’

In addition to running a small Vespa museum, Claudio offers Vespa-back tours of Rome and private scooter hire from his store near the Colosseum.

Riders whoosh through the many species of roads in Rome: the multi-lane highways that squeeze through gaps in ancient city walls; back streets where laundry lines flaps overhead; and the confusing roads that end at a piazza – before re-emerging on the other side, as if regaining a lost train of thought.

Vespa drivers stay eerily composed as they weave through the traffic – perhaps because, as Claudio points out, they are sitting, ‘as comfortably as if they are in their own living room’. ❤ Rates for scooter hire at Bici & Baci begin at £12 per hour; bicibaci.com September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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C YC LE OV E R ROMAN C O BBLE S O N T HE APPIAN WAY All roads lead to Rome, but none do so more gracefully than the Appian Way. Built as the king of all Roman highways in 312BC, it is a road more storied than any other in history.

Olympic sprinters have raced down it, armies fought along it in WWII, 6,000 followers of Spartacus were crucified by the roadside and St Peter heard Christ’s footsteps beside his own on its cobbles. These days, divine apparitions in the lay-bys are uncommon – although this doesn’t stop modern Roman cyclists pedalling the nine-milelong stretch closest to the city.

Bearing south from the gridlocked streets of southern Rome, the blaring of car horns soon recedes to a distant toot as cyclists enter a pocket of Lazio countryside miraculously preserved at the heart of the city. The scent of wild mint hangs in the air as the road passes crumbling Roman villas and medieval towers. Technically the Appian Way is open to all traffic – very occasionally a car passes with the driver jabbing at his satnav in confusion. But much of the time cyclists find themselves alone but for the ghosts of wayfarers past. ❤ Bike hire is available from the office at Via Appia Antica 58/60 from £2.50 per hour; parcoappiaantica.it Many parts of the road have grooves left by centuries of carts and chariots dating back to Roman times

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Children play at a ‘nasone’ on Piazza di San Silvestro, close to the Via del Corso

DRI NK F RO M A ‘ B IG N O SE’ On roasting hot summer days, the saviour of every Roman citizen is the nasone or ‘big nose’. This is no genetic quirk, but a nickname for the 2,500 drinking fountains dotted about the city: from the one gurgling quietly beside the roaring fountains of the Piazza Navona, to the pump on the Aventine hill which spurts out water from a tap the shape of a wolf’s mouth. So called because of the shape of the spout, the fountains were first installed in the late 19th century, but are part of a proud Roman tradition dating back to the great aqueducts of ancient Rome (it’s rumoured some nasoni use millennia-old plumbing systems).

Nasoni are used variously by locals, thirsty sparrows, bathing dogs, kids starting water fights and curiously few tourists – and though the iron spout can get very hot, the water is always clean and miraculously cool. ❤ To find your nearest fountain in Rome, download the I Nasoni di Roma app from the Apple iTunes store; free September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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S WIM IN A FAS CIST S WIMMIN G P OOL Rising mightily over the northwest bank of the Tiber, far from the itineraries of wandering tourists, the Foro Italico sports complex is one of the city’s unsung wonders – a monolithic park inspired by the glories of ancient Rome. It underwent some tactful rebranding some 70 years ago: upon construction in the 1930s it was known as the Foro Mussolini after its founder. The Fascist leader envisaged it as a factory for a new, all-conquering Italian master race, and lined the athletics track with statues of muscular signors looking condescendingly down on competitors. The ideology went long ago – but Mussolini’s impressive if questionable artistic taste remains: nowhere more so than the swimming pool, where visitors can splash about beneath soaring ceilings and marble surfaces. Lining the walls are epic mosaic depictions of sea horses and nude Fascist Adonises (flexing their guns and looking like they might at any moment go skinny-dipping in the shallow end). ❤ Admission £10; comune.roma.it The Foro Italico hosted Rome’s 1960 Summer Olympics

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Pietro Giusto wielding a gladius – the preferred sword of the Roman foot soldier

The Non-Catholic Cemetery is a burial place for Jews, Protestants and Muslims

ROME

VI SIT K EAT S A N D SH EL L E Y I N T H E NO N-C AT H OL I C CE M E TE RY Dating to the 18th century, Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery is a leafy plot of land most famous as the resting place of John Keats. He died in Rome aged 25, and lies beside the ashes of his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley.

A steady trickle of pilgrims potter among the wisteria-lined pathways to pay their respects to the poets. But they are only part of the story: lying around are a cast of characters from across the world who breathed their last in Rome. One volunteer who has researched the lives of all buried here is New Zealander Geoff Spedding. He recounts the story of Margaret Graves Mather – a woman who survived the Hindenburg airship disaster in 1937 (with bits of molten metal in her coat). And close by lies Beatrice O’Brien Marconi: a passenger booked on a transatlantic crossing from England in April 1912. Her baby son caught a fever, and she cancelled her trip on the Titanic at the last minute.

‘It’s never just a case of your name, the date you’re born and the date you die,’ says Geoff. ‘There’s always more to the story than that.’ ❤ Suggested donation £3; cemeteryrome.it

LEARN TO BE A GLADIATOR To any gladiator facing the prospect of meeting the gods via a lively and heated encounter with a bear or lion, the idea that someone more than 2,000 years later would pay for a similar experience might seem perverse. Still, for 20 years the Gruppo Storico Romano has been hosting gladiator training classes at its ‘1st-century AD barracks’ on the Appian Way. There are no half measures: imperial flags fly overhead, classical statues are dotted about the camp and the whole operation is overseen by a man named Nero (‘Like the Emperor, but nicer,’ he says) who occupies a curious office full of imperial bugles, Filofaxes, stationery and spears.

‘For our students it is about discipline, order and respect,’ explains Senator Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus – real name Pietro Giusto – a gladiator trainer.

‘Unfortunately, if you do not pay attention you may be food for the lions.’ He begins the task of uniting students with their inner Russell Crowe: studying the craft of killing tall Germanic hordes (by sneaking between their legs and slitting their femoral artery) and using a tribulus: spikes hidden in the grass to injure enemies too uncivilised to wear sandals. Before going outside to fight, Marcus schools his students in Roman honour: ‘Rome means culture, Rome means art. It’s an ideal by which people across our Empire live and die – even if they have never been here. Rome is not a city, it is a state of mind.’ ❤ ‘Gladiator for a day’ classes from £45; gruppostoricoromano.it September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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ROME

The Temple of Aesculapius stands on an island in the Villa Borghese Gardens’ lake

At clocking-off time, the Villa Borghese Gardens are Rome’s rallying point: a hilltop refuge of cypress-lined colonnades, and a serene spot from which to marvel at the mayhem of the city below.

Perhaps its quietest corner is the boating lake in the north of the park.

Here visitors and locals cast off in rowing boats, navigating the still waters among paddling terrapins, falling leaves and quacking ducks.

It pays not to be in a hurry (you could row from one side to the other in a few seconds), so many are content to rest their oars, lie back in the hull and let their boats be carried by the cooling hilltop breeze. Presiding regally over the lake is the Temple of Aesculapius: an 18th-century recreation of an ancient Roman temple that once stood on the Tiberina Island, two miles to the south. In a strange twist of fate, the boating lake was said to have been influenced by the gardens in Stourhead, Wiltshire, some 950 miles to the northwest. ❤ Boat hire is available from 9.30am to sunset daily; from £4 for 20 minutes

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FI ND A VATI CA N E U RO COI N Some come to the Vatican for spiritual enlightenment, others to step into the cool colossus of St Peter’s on a hot summer’s day, and see mortals and immortals meeting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But for a few, crossing into the Holy See is the chance to go in search of a chunk of metal with a maximum face value of £1.61 (for the two-euro coin, the biggest in the set). Among collectors, a Vatican euro coin is a Wonka’s golden ticket of currency: a cherished oddity from the smallest nation on Earth.

The Vatican minted its first euros a decade ago, but only in recent years have they entered circulation. Admittedly the odds of finding one in a handful of change from the Vatican Post Office aren’t huge. But if you happen to see Popes Benedict XVI, John Paul II or Francis looking up at you benignly from your palm, don’t spend it – a rarer coin might fetch as much as £60 from a collector. ❤ If you’re happy to cheat, buy a euro coin for £10 from the Holy See’s Numismatic Office. Admission to St Peter’s is free (vaticanstate.va).

A five-cent euro coin with Pope Francis’s image, and the Vatican’s Bramante Staircase

PHOTOGRAPH JUSTIN FOULKES

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GO ROWIN G AT THE V ILLA B ORGH ESE GAR DE NS

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EAT A GR ATTACHE CC A Ice cream is everywhere in Rome: flavoured with every possible ingredient and served in Pavarottisized portions. But curiously the capital claims a different frozen dessert all of its own – grattachecca.

Translated as ‘shaved ice’, the recipe isn’t an awful lot more complicated than the name would suggest, with chunks of ice coated in syrup and topped with fresh fruit. A dubious legend tells that the Emperor Nero invented grattachecca, ordering his grunts to fetch ice from the mountains around Rome and consuming it to cool his angry moods. Though sadly something of an endangered species today, grattachecca is a traditional accompaniment to an evening stroll: bought from a stall, and ideally slurped on a bench overlooking the sluggish current of the Tiber as the city stirs with early evening life. One of the oldest grattachecca stands in Rome is Sora Mirella: occupying a handsome racing-green stall beside the Tiber since 1915, serving ices cold enough to appease any overheating emperor. ❤ Sora Mirella stands close to Ponte Celsio in Trastevere; grattachecca from £2 Popular Grattachecca flavours include mint, lemon , raspberry and blackberry

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VI SIT TH E P OP E’ S P RI VAT E G A RDE N S

10 A marble mosaic slowly taking shape in Studio Cassio

MAKE YOUR OWN ROMAN MOSAIC Requiring the patience of a saint and the critical eye of a master jigsawpuzzle solver, mosaics have been part of Roman interior design for more than two millennia, ever since craftsmen adorned the floors of villas. Nowhere is this legacy upheld more proudly than Studio Cassio – a workshop in the butterscotch-yellow streets of the Monti neighbourhood, and a place that offers mosaicmaking classes to novices.

‘The best thing about being a mosaicist is always touching and feeling your materials,’ explains Giuliana, part of the third generation of the Cassio family to work in mosaics. The dynasty has restored ancient artwork in places like Pompeii, and created new designs, such as the John Lennon memorial mosaic in New York’s Central Park.

Surrounded by a motley assortment of mosaic centaurs, clock faces and saints, Giuliana helps students piece together their own creations, while also explaining the art of restoring ancient Roman mosaics – handling marble put in place by a fellow craftsman 2,000 years ago, and filling in missing chunks (by chopping in half existing pieces and rearranging them).

‘When you’ve restored an ancient mosaic, you can walk past it and think to yourself, I put that tiny piece in there,’ she says. ❤ Day courses from £40 per person (minimum two people); studiocassio.com

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The Villa Barberini gardens at Castel Gandolfo contain remains from the villa of the Roman Emperor Domitian

As holiday homes go, Castel Gandolfo is not the most discreet: a 17th-century pile the size of a football field outside Rome, with a magnificent garden overlooking the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is precisely this grandeur that meant its lawful resident (the humble Pope Francis) chose not to spend his summer holidays here as his predecessors did – instead opening his gardens to the public for the first time this summer.

Visitor numbers are strictly limited, so stepping through the grand wrought-iron gates can feel a little like entering a secret garden. Secret it may seem, but modest it is not: statues of classical gods swagger about the fountains, rows of flower beds stretch into the distance, while a small army of gardeners clip the holy hedgerows and lap huge lawns on ride-on mowers. The quieter corners of the gardens are just as captivating, especially a little statue of the Virgin watching over a fishpond. It was here that Pope Benedict XVI reputedly used to come on summer mornings to pray – and to feed a pair of koi carp given to him as a gift by the Emperor of Japan. Pope Benedict no longer visits, but the fish still look very well fed. ❤ Mandatory guided tours to the Villa Barberini gardens take place daily except Sundays. From £21; biglietteriamusei.vatican.va.

ROME

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P EEK TH ROUGH A SEC R ET K EYHO LE Walking around Rome and peering through keyholes will typically result in concerned phone calls to the local carabinieri. One exception to this rule is the Villa del Priorato di Malta – a building whose metal gate contains a tiny keyhole framing one of the finest views in the city.

Those who press their eyes to the metal witness a perfectly composed scene: a path shaded by trimmed cypress trees and rosebushes, the tower of Santa Maria in Trastevere rising on the far bank of the Tiber and the hulking dome of St Peter’s at the centre. It’s a composition so perfect, no-one can say for sure whether the locksmith (or the gardener) intended it or whether it was a happy accident. Strangely, the view overlooks three separate countries (sort of): St Peter’s is in the Vatican, Santa Maria is in Italy and the foreground is under the jurisdiction of the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights of Malta. Though not technically running their own independent state, they are territorially autonomous from Italy, issuing their own passports and postage stamps.

The villa’s gardens are open to the public by appointment (though this may mean someone needs to insert a key in the lock and temporarily spoil the view). ❤ The Villa del Priorato di Malta stands on the Aventine Hill, southwest of the Circus Maximus (ordinedimaltaitalia.org).

The keyhole view from the Aventine Hill – the southernmost of Rome’s seven hills

Oliver Smith would have loved to have fought with the gladiators, but all the other contestants were eight years old.

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ROME

Make it Happen essentials

GETTING THERE

Alitalia, BA, easyJet, Jet2 and Monarch fly to Rome Fiumicino from UK airports (from £100; easyjet.com).

Ryanair flies to Ciampino airport (from £80; ryanair. com). Buses to the centre of Rome cost from £4 for Fiumicino and £3 from Ciampino, taxi set fares to locations within the old city walls are £38 and £24 respectively, and the train from Fiumicino is £11.

GETTING AROUND

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Rome (£14.99) has more on the city, while Pocket Rome (£7.99) is suited to shorter visits.

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Bici & Baci Castel Gandolfo Colosseum Foro Italico Gruppo Storico Romano

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Non-Catholic Cemetery Pantheon Piazza Navona Sora Mirella St Peter’s Basilica

Studio Cassio Via Appia Antica Villa Borghese Gardens Villa del Priorato di Malta

WHERE TO STAY Hearth Hotel Hotel Indigo St George Nerva Boutique Hotel

PLACES TO STAY IN ROME

Breakfast spread at the ready

BUDGET Set in an old convent, the family-run Hearth Hotel has 20 spacious rooms by the north wall of the Vatican City.

Guests can take their breakfast out on to a rooftop terrace (from £80; hearthhotel.com).

A deluxe room at the Nerva

MID-RANGE Rooms at the Nerva Boutique Hotel have views of the ancient forum of the same name – plus high ceilings, tall windows and high-design bathroom fittings (from £110; hotelnerva.com).

Viva la Cinquecento!

LUXURY Hotel Indigo St George recently opened on the Renaissance-era Via Giulia, with rooms inspired by Roman icons old and new. A leafy roof terrace overlooks the city’s spires (from £180; hotelindigorome.com).

PHOTOGRAPH: SUSAN WRIGHT

Rome is very walkable – especially within the Centro Storico (historic centre). Rome’s two-line subway system is handy for some out-of-theway sights like the NonCatholic Cemetery and also the Vatican (tickets from £1). The Roma Pass allows unlimited public transport use and brings museum savings too (48-hour £23, three-day £29; romapass.it). Castel Gandolfo is 45 minutes by train from Roma Termini (from £3.50; lefrecce.it).

Experience the world at its breathtaking best Packed with expert content and stunning photography, Great Adventures takes you on a tour of the most amazing adventures on the planet. From climbing Everest to canopy touring the Amazon jungle, it’s the deďŹ nitive reference to the world’s most spectacular adventures.

Now available in hardback and paperback at

Shop.lonelyplanet.com and all good bookstores.

The

magic circle

The elemental beauty of Iceland is best explored on a road trip following the country’s Ring Road, an 830-mile highway that wraps around the island, taking in haunting lava fields, wild coastline, powerful waterfalls and majestic ice caps WORDS OLIVER BERRY l PHOTOGRAPHS GARY LATHAM

Seljalandsfoss can be seen from the Ring Road in the southwest of Iceland – the 60-metre-high waterfall features a path that runs behind the cascade

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It would take roughly 16 hours to drive non-stop around Iceland’s Ring Road – traffic is generally not a problem, and remote parts of the route see fewer than 100 cars a day

MAP ILLUSTRATION ALEX VERHILLE

ICELAND’S RING ROAD

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Fjóla Guðmundsdóttir, a curator at the Glaumbær turf houses

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T’S MID MORNING ON ICELAND’S EAST coast, but it might as well be midnight. Fog cloaks the road, blending land, sea and sky into a spectral grey. Now and then, black peaks materialise from the gloom, and slashes in the cloud reveal sudden glimpses of coastline: rocky cliffs, grassy dunes, wild beaches of black sand.

Gulls bank and wheel in the wind. It’s like driving into a white-out. Or at least it would be, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s still midsummer, and the first snows are still months away.

Wild weather is par for the course on Iceland’s Ring Road – or Route 1, as it’s designated on highway maps.

Circling round the island’s coastline for 830 miles, the Ring Road is an engineering marvel and a national emblem, and this year celebrates four decades of service.

Skimming the edge of the Arctic Circle at a latitude of 65˚N – the same as central Siberia – Iceland’s Ring Road is about as close to wilderness driving as Europe gets, traversing volcanic deserts, mountain passes, plunging valleys and barren plains. Gas stations are few and far between. Often, the only signs of habitation are remote farms and weather stations. It’s not unusual to go for hours without passing another car – perhaps not surprising on an island of just 320,000 people scattered across an area five times the size of Wales.

Naturally enough, all distances along Route 1 are measured from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík. Even here, among the art galleries and pubs, hints of Iceland’s wilder side are easy to find. Looking north across the bay of Faxaflói, a craggy finger of land extends along the horizon, terminating in the snow-capped summit of

A relief depicting Thorolf Skallagrímsson – a character from Egil’s Saga – seen at the Settlement Centre

Snæfellsjökull, used as the setting for Jules Verne’s classic adventure tale, Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

The volcano remains a brooding presence as the Ring Road heads north from Reykjavík’s suburbs – a reminder that the forces of nature are never far away.

Verne wasn’t the first writer to find inspiration amongst the fjords and valleys of Iceland’s west. To Icelanders, this area is synonymous with the sagas, the tales that are a cornerstone of Icelandic culture. First written down by historians in the 12th and 13th centuries, but rooted in an older tradition of oral storytelling, these tales of family feuds, doomed heroes, warrior kings and tragic romances are part genealogy, part history, part drama. Many Icelanders can read the sagas in Old Norse, and some can recite passages by heart, just as their ancestors did centuries ago.

‘The sagas are still part of Icelandic culture,’ says Sigriður Guðmundsdóttir, who runs the Settlement Centre, a museum in the coastal village of Borgarnes, 45 miles north of Reykjavík. ‘They’re Iceland’s first novels. They record our history, but also remind us who we are. They’re about self-reliance, fortitude, honour and stoicism. These are very Icelandic qualities.’

As the Ring Road swerves inland across the humpbacked hills northwest of Borgarnes, it passes many locations from the sagas: a farmstead that features in Egil’s Saga, a hot spring where the hero of Grettir’s Saga soothed his battle-weary bones. While most of the stories are rooted in fact, many have a fantastical streak that stems from Iceland’s pantheon of myths and legends: strange tales of trolls, giants and dragons, as well as the island’s huldufólk (hidden folk) of September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

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gnomes, dwarves, fairies and elves. They’re reluctant to admit it, but many locals still believe in their existence, and there are stories about bad luck befalling people who unwittingly disturb the huldufólk.

‘Icelanders are very practical,’ says Stefan Boulter, an artist who lives in Akureyri, Iceland’s secondlargest town, set beside a coastal inlet 240 miles north of Reykjavík. ‘But we also have a dreamlike side too. I suppose it’s not surprising we have active imaginations. So would you if you spent half the year in the dark,’ he says.

Iceland’s legends were also an important inspiration for JRR Tolkien, a scholar of Old Norse and the sagas.

‘The Lord of the Rings films may have been filmed in New Zealand, but they should have been made in Iceland,’ says Fjóla Guðmundsdóttir, who works at the Glaumbær turf houses near Skagafjörður, a deep coastal fjord between Akureyri and Borgarnes. Many Tolkien enthusiasts believe Iceland’s turf houses, built from peat bricks topped by grass roofs, may have given Tolkien the idea for Bilbo Baggins’ underground home, Bag End. They certainly resemble hobbit houses, but they were actually a pragmatic solution to one of Iceland’s enduring problems – a shortage of timber. Fjóla steps through a cottage doorway and into a low corridor rich with the smell of earth and wood smoke. ‘Iceland was a tough place, and people had to work together,’ says Fjóla. ‘Several families would have lived in each house, sharing skills and resources. There wouldn’t have been any privacy, but you’d never have felt lonely, either.’

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freshly dusted with snow. It’s a scene that could have tumbled straight from Tolkien’s own sketchbook.

‘There’s a saying in Iceland: you can’t walk anywhere without stepping on a story,’ she says. ‘Telling stories is part of who we are. I’m sure that will never change.’

A land that gushes and bubbles It’s easy to see how Iceland’s otherworldly landscape inspired such tales. Sculpted and scarred by thousands of years of geological activity, it’s a place that often appears not altogether of this world.

Nowhere is this more true than around Lake Mývatn and Krafla, Iceland’s most volcanically active area. Here, as the Ring Road drops from the uplands, it loops past Goðafoss (Waterfall of the Gods), a deafening mass of foaming white water that seems to emanate from a ragged crack in the Earth’s crust. Legend has it that when ancient tribes in the region converted to Christianity, the local chieftain cast his pagan idols into the waterfall to symbolise the death of the old gods and birth of the new.

It’s the prelude to an even stranger landscape to come. As the Ring Road nears Lake Mývatn’s shoreline, shattered boulders and volcanic pillars litter the sides of the highway, the geological remnants of ancient eruptions. Geysers gush and mud pools bubble. Fissures in the earth spew out columns of steam, a reminder that this part of Iceland sits on top of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the unstable meeting point between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.

Krafla’s scalded landscape makes it inhospitable to all but the hardiest forms of life, but it does have

ICELAND’S RING ROAD Goðafoss rips through the Bárðardalur lava field in North Iceland’s Mývatn region. opposite The Icelandic language has more than 100 names for the coat colours exhibited by resident pure-bred horses

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ICELAND’S RING ROAD

The glacial lake of Jökulsárlón, part of the Vatnajökull ice cap, developed as the glacier began to recede from the Atlantic Ocean. opposite Eva Ingólfsdóttir checks on her geysir bread, which has been baking underground for 24 hours

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its uses. The underlying rock reaches temperatures of up to 300˚C, fuelling one of Iceland’s fastest-growing industries: geothermal energy. At Vogafjós, a café close to Lake Mývatn, chef Eva Ingólfsdóttir has found an ingenious use for the island’s natural heat. ‘Living in Mývatn, you realise how much energy there is under our feet,’ she says, as she treks across a lava field, through columns of white vapour swirling from the ground, the acrid stench of rotten eggs underfoot. ‘There can’t be many places where you can bake bread without an oven – as long as you can stand the smell, of course.’

She stops at a pile of rocks, removing them to reveal a large hole. Inside are containers, each holding a freshly baked geysir loaf – a traditional Icelandic bread made from rye flour. She tips one out, cutting it into thick slices. The bread has a dense, sticky texture, somewhere between a steamed pudding and an unleavened loaf. ‘It must be eaten with lots of butter,’ says Eva. ‘Icelandic butter, of course. The creaminess goes perfectly with the bitterness of the bread.’

The sound of silence As the Ring Road circles round the island’s eastern coast, the landscape becomes ever wilder and emptier.

Isolated villages hunker at the bottom of glacial fjords.

Abandoned shepherds’ cabins line the roads. Waterfalls cascade down hills, carving canyons through the rock, including the thunderous maelstrom of Dettifoss, Europe’s most powerful waterfall, which featured in the opening scenes of Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.

Iceland’s east coast has always been isolated, cut off by distance and geography. The region once eked a living from fishing and farming, relying on close-knit communities to survive the brutal winters. Prior to the arrival of the Ring Road, many villages could only be accessed via mountain passes which often became snowbound, forcing the delivery of supplies by air or sea. Reaching these villages was one of the biggest challenges for the Ring Road’s engineers, and required tunnels, embankments and bridges to overcome the challenging topography.

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As a deep-sea fisherman, and a native of East Iceland, Siggi Ólafsson is used to isolation. Like his father and grandfather before him, he spends several months a year braving the North Atlantic waters in search of prawns, langoustine, herring and cod. ‘By nature, Icelanders are an outdoor people,’ he says, wandering among the fishing pots piled up along the harbourside of Höfn, a small port in one of Iceland’s southeastern fjords. ‘Most of us live in cities these days, but we feel at home among the hills and the waterfalls. It’s in our blood.’

He climbs into the trawler’s cabin, where bleeping fish finders are squeezed in beside the helm. Beyond the prow, mist drifts over Höfn’s clapboard houses, and the pinprick point of a lighthouse flashes in the distance. ‘We’re as far as you can get from Reykjavík.

Some people don’t like the isolation but, personally, I don’t like towns much. To me, there’s no sound as Icelandic as silence.’ Siggi’s not alone in his view.

Though two-thirds of the Icelanders are city dwellers, they share a sense of closeness with their landscape, and every weekend thousands of people take the opportunity to rock climb, hike, canter and camp among the fjords and valleys.

Eighty miles west of Höfn lies Iceland’s most epic playground: the Vatnajökull ice cap, which covers 3,000 square miles and eight per cent of the island’s landmass, making it the largest volume of ice anywhere in Europe. Driving west from Höfn, the glacier looms along the skyline, a frozen white sea slicing through a jawbone of dog’s-tooth peaks.

‘Vatnajökull puts the ice in Iceland,’ says Ívar Finnbogason, picking his way along the glacier’s southern side, kicking his crampons into the ice for grip.

High above, snowdrifts swirl, and the ice sparkles in the sunlight, like shards of shattered glass. ‘For me, it’s also our most precious landscape and, because of climate change, it’s changing faster than ever.’

A trained mountaineer, Ívar heads a team of 16 guides qualified to lead trips on to the glacier’s surface. He looks down towards the lagoon of Jökulsárlón, where icebergs drift off the face of the glacier and smash into the Atlantic waves, breaking up on a beach of coal-black sand. ‘Glaciers are like time machines,’ he says. ‘They’re 96

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made of snow that fell thousands of years ago. Every step is a step back into the past.’

As the Ring Road leaves Vatnajökull and cuts west, it enters the flat pastureland of fiingvallavatn, and passes two spectacular waterfalls – Skógafoss, one of Iceland’s highest, with a sheer drop of 60 metres, and Seljalandsfoss, where the spray refracts the sunlight like a prism, conjuring rainbows from thin air. Bit by bit, countryside gives way to civilisation. Towns and villages become more frequent, and poly-tunnels and greenhouses appear along the roadside, where farmers use the island’s geothermal heat to nourish crops of tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, chillies, even bananas.

This is also equine country, home to numerous farms that raise Iceland’s pure-bred horses, descended from animals brought over by Scandinavian settlers a millennium ago.

Further west, and a short detour north from the Ring Road, lies fiingvellir National Park. A place of wild beauty, it was here that the Vikings established the Alfiing, an open-air assembly and Iceland’s first parliament. Established in 930 AD, the Alfiing has a legitimate claim as the world’s oldest form of democratic government, and holds a deep historical and symbolic significance for Icelanders. Appropriately enough, the beginning of Iceland’s recorded history also marks journey’s end for the Ring Road. As it snakes across the magma fields of the Reykjanesfólkvangur nature reserve, it drops down into Reykjavík’s suburbs, bathed under streetlights that seem strange after a week of clear skies and starlight. Far ahead across the bay of Faxaflói, the Snæfellsnes ice cap flashes in the evening light, and the Ring Road begins its circular journey north again – a never-ending thread unspooling beneath a silver sky.

‘Comely and fair is the country, crested with snowcovered glaciers,’ wrote the Icelandic poet and polymath Jónas Hallgrímson in 1835. ‘Azure and empty the sky, ocean resplendently bright.’

It seems a fitting coda for the journey.

Oliver Berry is a regular contributor to Lonely Planet Traveller. He now knows the perfect recipe for geysir bread, but wasn’t quite so keen on rotten shark.

ICELAND’S RING ROAD fiingvellir National Park was made a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2004. opposite from left A church at Vík, Iceland’s southernmost town; deep-sea fisherman Siggi Ólafsson

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Experience the

Northern Lights

Iceland in

From late autumn to early spring, the northern skies come alive with the flickering neon lights of the aurora borealis. Choose one of South Iceland’s rural retreats, like the cosy Hotel Ranga, for a short winter break with a difference. In the day time head out to discover thundering waterfalls, powerful geysers and towering volcanoes, before returning in the evening to relax in one of the Ranga’s outdoor geothermal hot tubs where the magical northern lights can often be seen dancing overhead. Speak to a Regent Holidays Travel Specialist to plan your holiday in Iceland this winter.

REYKJAVIK CITY BREAKS | SHORT BREAKS | GROUP TOURS | FLY-DRIVES | TAILOR-MADE HOLIDAYS Speak to a Regent Holidays Iceland Specialist

020 7666 1296

www.regentholidays.co.uk

Discover

Iceland With the experts

Choose from our wide range of year round holidays, from self-drives and northern light breaks to special interest itineraries and more. We tailor make holidays to suit.

Now get even closer to Iceland with iDiscover, our unique and pioneering digital travel companion. iDiscover maps your self-drive itinerary on an iPad Air and includes travel tips, WiFi, weather updates, directions and more. Available on all self-drive holidays.

Speak to our Iceland specialists today

01737 214 281

ICELAND’S RING ROAD

Make it Happen Essentials

Goðafoss (‘Waterfall of the gods’) lies just off the Ring Road between Akureyri and Mývatn

GETTING THERE

Keflavík International, Iceland’s main airport, is 30 miles southwest of Reykjavík. EasyJet, Flybe, Icelandair and WOW air fly from various UK destinations (from £108; easyjet.co.uk). The Flybus shuttle runs from the airport to Reykjavík bus terminal (single £10).

GETTING AROUND

There is a wide selection of car-hire firms at Keflavík. It’s worth hiring a 4x4 if you’re planning to explore beyond the main Ring Road, as many minor roads are unpaved (from £180 per week for a standard car, £550 for a 4x4; europcar.com).

WHEN TO GO

Iceland’s summer is short, and most people choose to drive the Ring Road in July or August for the best chance of clear skies. May, June and September are quieter and usually have reasonable weather.

Pick up a copy of Lonely Planet’s Iceland (£15.99), which has advice on driving the Ring Road, or see visit iceland.com, the official tourism site.

THE KNOW-HOW: DRIVING THE RING ROAD Route 1, to give it its official title, wraps around Iceland for more than 800 miles. It can be driven comfortably in a week, but you’ll want to give yourself around 10 days to allow plenty of time away from the wheel and to fully explore the sights you’ll pass en route. If you’re travelling during the latter part of the summer (July to September), it is best to complete the loop in a clockwise direction, exploring the north of the country, which gets cooler a little earlier than the south, first. There are petrol stations at regular intervals along the road; smaller stations tend not to be staffed and the pumps fully automated, accepting credit-card payment only.

For up-to-date information on road conditions along the way, visit vegagerdin.is.

PHOTOGRAPHS: GARY LATHAM

FURTHER READING

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ICELAND’S RING ROAD

Make it Happen PLAN YOUR ITINERARY

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Continue northeast along the Ring Road. Two-hundred miles along lies Iceland’s second city, Akureyri (right), overlooking its longest fjord, Eyjafjörður. On the outskirts of town, Skjaldarvik Guest House is run by a farming family, who offer guided horse-riding trips in the surrounding countryside (from £100, skjaldarvik.is). The rooms have an offbeat style, with mixed furniture, secondhand design finds and picture windows framing fjord vistas. Breakfast is fantastic, with local cheeses and meats.

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A 55-mile drive east brings you to Lake Mývatn.

Vogafjós Guesthouse, complete with farm (left), offers rooms in lakeside log cabins, and rates include breakfast, where you can try local specialities such as geysir bread (from £100; vogafjos.net). Don’t miss a hot dip at the nearby Mývatn Nature Baths (entry £15; jardbodin.is).

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Prepare for the road trip with a night at Hótel Glymur, about 35 miles north of Reykjavík (rooms from £180, hotelglymur.is). It’s well placed for exploring the west coast, including Borgarnes and the Snæfellsnes Peninsula (above), and has mezzanine rooms, most of which overlook Hvalfjörður (Whale Fjord). En route you’ll pass through the Hvalfjörður Tunnel, one of the longest on the Ring Road.

The south coast is dominated by the ice sheets of Vatnajökull, near Höfn.

Glacier Guides, next to the Skaftafell National Park Visitor Centre, leads trips on to the ice (from £40; glacierguides.is).

Fosshótel Núpar near Skaftafell looks like it was made from shipping containers, but has stylish rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and views over the surrounding lava fields (from £120; fosshotel.is).

6 4

Follow the road for 220 miles to the port of Höfn, famous for its langoustines. Try them in Pakkhús in a converted warehouse near the harbour (mains from £14; pakkhus.is).

In nearby Djúpivogur, Hótel Framtíð is a good base for exploring the area (from £110; isholf.is/framtid).

TOUR OPERATORS

Horse country is 140 miles west.

Stay at ranch-like Hotel Rangá (from £180; hotelranga.is).

Wooden beams, sheepskin rugs and leather furniture give the rooms a ’70s feel and it has an acclaimed restaurant.

7

Drive the last 50 miles back towards Reykjavík, and celebrate with a stay at über-modern Ion (above), a fantastic way to end your road trip. It’s Scandi style all the way: built from steel pylons and plate glass, with a dramatic cantilevered wing overlooking the steaming stacks of a geothermal power station near Þingvallavatn National Park. Rooms are modern and minimalist, and there’s an exceptional restaurant serving creative Icelandic food (from £170; ioniceland.is).

Scandinavian specialist Discover the World offers a choice of self-drive itineraries in Iceland. Its 14-night loop around the Ring Road includes accommodation for two people, car hire and a new ‘iDiscover’ digital guide. The package includes overnight stops at Reykjavík, Akureyri, Lake Mývatn, Seyðisfjöður and Skaftafell. There’s also a seven-night version, but you’ll be doing more driving than sightseeing if you reduce the number of days you spend on the island. If you’re interested in detouring away from the Ring Road, other itineraries explore Iceland’s isolated peninsulas and rugged volcanic interior (£1,129 for 14 nights; discover-the-world.co.uk).

100 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

Win! Now turn to p129 to be

in with a chance of winning a seven-night trip for two to Iceland, where you and a guest can go in search of the northern lights.

PHOTOGRAPHS: RAINER GROSSKOPF/PHOTOLIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES, MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES, GARY LATHAM

5

A D V E R T I S E M E N T F E AT U R E

When in Rome...

Full of stunning views, outstanding culture and a heritage that has spanned millennia, this city is a true global treasure

W

ith an incredible history dating back nearly 3,000 years, there is a rich and overwhelming sense of culture that pervades Rome’s streets. Te ancient centre of the city itself is a Unesco World Heritage Site, boasting wonderful palaces, romantic ruins and graceful fountains. As one of the world’s most visited and picturesque capitals, there’s a lot to take in. Here are three easy steps to maximising your time while you’re there:

Ancient wonders You’re bound to gravitate towards Piazza Venezia, where most thoroughfares intersect, and from here you can take a leisurely stroll to the imposing ruins of the Roman Forum. At the centre of the ancient city, these structures were once the site of triumphal processions, elections and thriving markets.

No visit to Rome would be complete without venturing to the Colosseum: the largest amphitheatre in the world, it’s one of the greatest works of Roman architecture.

Ten, in the evening, take a trip to the Trastevere district, where you can find restaurants serving authentic local cuisine.

Modern musing But Rome isn’t all about the classics: the Macro is a contemporary art museum based in an old beer factory that houses daring creations. And MAXXI on the Via Guido Reni is Italy’s national hub of modern creativity. Visitors wend their way through a labyrinth of bridges and ramps in this marvel of progressive construction, designed by cutting-edge architect Zaha Hadid.

Ten, if you’re up for a lively night out, head to the Testaccio district, full of local nightspots.

Ketumbar restaurant is a popular spot thanks to its stunning design and fine dining.

Visit the Vatican It’s not difficult to be inspired by a trip to the Vatican: aside from its spiritual connections, this micro nation is packed with impressive artistic masterpieces. Te Sistine Chapel is a must see, with its fresco of Te Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. And the Vatican Museums contain a host of historic Egyptian and Etruscan treasures.

Unwind at the end of a busy day with a glass of wine at Passaguai – a grotto bar outside the Vatican’s walls. It’s a great way to complete your sojourn in this remarkable city.

Discover hotels for your every need with LateRooms.com online or by calling 0161 831 3894 Scan this code to download our booking app today.

Where to stay

Hotel Villa San Pio, 3* Made up of three villas, with unforgettable sunset views.

From £56 per room, per night; tinyurl.com/ hotelvillasanpio Hotel Gea di Vulcano, 3* Ideally located on one of Rome’s most fashionable streets. From £69 per room, per night; tinyurl.com/ hotelgeadivulcano Golden Tulip Rome Airport, 4* A newly refurbished, modern and comfortable hotel in a convenient location. From £72 per room, per night; tinyurl. com/goldentuliprome Savoy Rome, 4* Graceful and lavish, this hotel is all about elegance.

From £105 per room, per night; tinyurl.com/ savoyrome Trevi Palace Luxury Apartments, 5* Combining antique and modern styles, plus Rome’s sights are minutes away. From £153 per room, per night; tinyurl.com/ trevipalaceluxuryapartments Gran Meliá Rome, 5* Sophisticated and stylish, this hotel epitomises opulence.

From £281 per room, per night; tinyurl.com/ granmeliarome

The Photographer’s Story Julian Love

Handmade London The idea of photographing people who make things by hand came from seeing that scene explode in east London, where I live, over the last couple of years. Workshops have started up, people are selling products and food made in more traditional ways, and consumers are beginning to value that more and more.

I think there’s a backlash against the disposable culture that built up in the Noughties, and people are deciding they’d rather spend good money on something that’s beautifully made and will last. I started by shooting a couple of friends, and it went from there – the workshops were ideal spaces for making beautifully lit portraits. I found the variety of things they were making very interesting, though I also noticed common themes: everyone was incredibly enthusiastic about what they did, and had also spent quite a long time refining their skill and their craft. It takes time and energy to make a business like that work – most people don’t realise how much.

Julian Love is a travel and lifestyle photographer whose previous projects include series about Jerusalem and the British landscape (julianlove.com).

See more of Julian’s Handmade London images at handmade-london.com.

The textile designer NAOMI PAUL

Naomi is a friend of mine, and this was the very first picture I shot in the series. She makes a lot of different textiles, but at the moment she’s focusing on crocheted lampshades, which have been a big hit. They come in all sorts of sizes; the one she’s making here might take about two days of work, crocheting around a wire frame. She works in an old warehouse, up a flight of rickety wooden stairs. On one wall there’s a huge shelving unit full of yarn, and stacked against another are lots of the frames she uses – some are two metres across. from £950; Bethnal Green; naomipaul.co.uk

The jewellery designer JESSICA DE LOTZ

Jessica is quite a character. She collects all sorts of trinkets and uses them to inspire the quirky jewellery that she makes – like the apple-core necklace that she’s hanging around a taxidermied squirrel here, next to her ring- and bracelet-measuring machines. Her tiny studio is lined with cabinets filled with interesting things that have a bit of a story behind them. She also has a whole wardrobe full of vintage clothing – she’s always fabulously dressed. from £55; Clerkenwell; jessicadelotz.co.uk

104 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

T H E P H OTO G R A P H E R ’ S S TO RY

The bicycle maker JAMES KENNEDY

James quit his desk job to start building bikes about 18 months ago. His idea is to get more people cycling by making good-quality bicycles and selling direct so they’re not too expensive. Cycling culture has been taking off, and he’s riding the wave of that a bit; his wife also has a business delivering flowers by bike. His workshop is part of the space where they live with their massive Great Dane, Huxley, who was wandering around when I visited; he was almost bigger than I am. from £495; Hackney; kennedycitybicycles.cc

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 105

The printmaker MARCO LAWRENCE

Marco is the head printer at Print Club London, a screen-printing collective that produces original prints and runs workshops. He was printing posters for a film festival when I visited the workshop, a large space with ink and paper everywhere. Marco had a different stencil for every colour he needed, and would spread ink across the screen, put a piece of paper underneath, and close the lid. He’d have to re-ink the screen each time. Every print is individually done – it’s unique. from £25; Dalston; printclublondon.com

106 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

T H E P H OTO G R A P H E R ’ S S TO RY

The salmon smoker OLE HANSEN

Ole’s grandfather used to run a salmon smokery in northern Norway, and Ole decided to start it up again in London. He found his grandfather’s old notebooks full of recipes, and experimented until the process was working well. He smokes the fish for 12 hours, burning his own combination of wood chippings in the small shed he built behind his flat. His salmon is nothing like what you find in the supermarket – the flesh is very firm, and it’s not greasy. It’s delicious. from £40; Stoke Newington; hansen-lydersen.com

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 107

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The Horse and Groom in Bourton-on-the-Hill

COTSWOLDS PUBS Find great Cotswolds hotel deals with LateRooms.com

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Pubs with rooms OLD SWAN & MINSTER MILL

Set on a gentle slope leading to the meandering River Windrush, Minster Lovell is a lovely village with a cluster of stone cottages beside this ancient pub and riverside mill. Choose between beamed 17th-century periodstyle rooms or contemporarylooking 19th-century rooms (oldswanandminstermill.com; Old Minster; from £165).

MINI GUIDE

Cotswolds pubs The heart of many a quaint village, the pub continues to draw visitors with a mix of history, fine ales and food, charming bucolic views and welcoming beds for the night.

Historic charmers THE FLEECE

Only a select handful of pubs can claim the distinction of being owned by the National Trust.

This half-timbered building is medieval in origin and mostly 17th-century in its present form.

Historic features include a collection of pewterware and circles painted on the flagstone floor to stop witches coming down the chimney (thefleeceinn. co.uk; The Cross, Bretforton).

Tear out page here then fold along dotted lines

FALKLAND ARMS

Tucked away in the gorgeous village of Great Tew is this 16thcentury pub, whose original flagstone floors, open fireplaces and low beams provide historic charm. The pub serves a fine collection of real ales – such as Wadworth’s Swordfish and Henry’s Original IPA – from its age-old hand pumps, there are boxes of snuff and clay pipes behind the bar, dusty beer mugs and jugs hanging from the beams and a small garden (falkland arms.co.uk; 19-21 The Green).

LION INN

A coaching inn that dates back to the 15th century in the sleepy town of Winchcombe, this pub has been sensitively restored. Seven individually decorated en suite double bedrooms, including a converted hayloft, feature exposed brickwork, beams and antique furniture, plus nice touches such as fresh flowers and luxury linens (thelionwinchcombe.co.uk; North St; from £100).

A king-size bed in Room 4 – the ‘Mini-Suite’ – at the Lion Inn

THE FIVE ALLS

Located in the village of Filkins, between Burford and Lechladeon-Thames, on the edge of the Cotswolds, this 18th-century inn has four cosy rooms decorated in neutral tones and kitted out with locally sourced artwork and organic toiletries. The excellent restaurant delivers mains such as chargrilled gigot lamb steak with garlic roasties and salsa verde (thefiveallsfilkins.co.uk; Filkins, Lechdale; from £110).

Best of the rest

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BEST PUB GARDEN

The front garden of the Falkland Arms in full summer bloom

WOOLPACK

Laurie Lee captured the idyll of Cotswold village life in Cider With Rosie, a memoir of his prewar childhood in the Slad Valley. In the centenary of his birth, it seems fitting to sup a cider (or Uley Bitter) in the 16th-century Woolpack, Lee’s local in Slad, which features four little connecting rooms with fireplaces and books for sale, as well as photographs and memorabilia of the author, and has lovely valley views (01452 813429; Slad Rd, Stroud).

The large garden of the Horse and Groom, a Grade-II-listed Georgian inn in tiny Bourtonon-the-Hill, features damson trees and plenty of umbrellas for shade. The house brew Goff’s Jouster provides the refreshment and the hilltop setting affords the stunning views of the surrounding countryside (horseandgroom. info; pint of Jouster £2.90).

BEST FOOD CREDENTIALS

Chicken, asparagus and potato dauphinoise at The Wild Rabbit

BEST FOR BEER

The Wild Rabbit, in pretty Kingham village, was renovated last year and uses seasonal, often organic, ingredients, heritage breeds and British artisan produce. Expect rabbit and pickled-vegetable salad, followed by poached wild halibut with oyster, razor clams, seaweed and shellfish broth (thewildrabbit.co.uk; Church St; mains from £13.50).

The Ebrington Arms, two miles from Chipping Campden, is a 17th-century inn with open fires, exposed beams and numerous CAMRA accolades. It’s just launched its own brewery, the Yubberton Brewing Company, and produces two bitters for the pub – Yubby Bitter and Yawnie Bitter – as well as featuring guest ales from local breweries (theebringtonarms.co.uk; pint of Yubby Bitter £3).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

117

MINI GUIDE Cotswolds pubs

Drinking

England #

Ch E n gl ish

a

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FRANCE

Hartpurt

# \

# \

Highleadon # \ Tibberton

A38 · /

Cheltenham # ]

A40 · /

A46 · /

# Gloucester ]

# \ # \

S

A38 · /

Westbury

# Cranham \

Birdlip

Painswick

· /

Sheepscombe A417

Stroud

# \

# \ # \

# \

Uley

· /

A433 · /

\ #

Ewen

Tetbury

Westonbirt

A429 · /

# \

\ #

Minster Lovell

118 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

Wootton

· /

Path A423

Woodstock

# \

Witney South

\ Leigh ru # sh

\ #

Eynsham ^ #

Oxford

OXFORDSHIRE

# \

s Isi Thames o r

Lechladeon-Thames # \

mes Path Tha Buscot Park

\ Highworth #

Shrivenham

Abingdon

A420 · /

\ #

Th a A338 · /

Faringdon Oxfordsh ir yc lew Uffington ay # \ \ #

# \

# \

A34 · /

# Ardington \ Lockinge

The know-how l September brings Bountiful,

Cirencester’s No 12, a GradeII-listed Georgian townhouse, has four glorious rooms kitted out with antique and modern furnishings, piles of feather pillows, merino blankets and extra-big beds (no12cirencester. co.uk; 12 Park St; from £120).

Barnsley House’s rooms feature stone fireplaces, woodburning stoves, beams and terraces, and have views over the gardens – some also have roll-top baths. The spa has a heated hydrotherapy pool (barnsley house.com; Barnsley; from £290).

Kiddington # \

COTSWOLDS’ BEST ALES

Exceptional formal and informal gardens surround Barnsley House

M40 · /

# \

# \

ln

Deddington

A423 · /

Ledwell Sandford St Martin

Oxford shire

\ Wantage #

TRANSPORT

WHERE TO STAY

Fyfield

# \

Stonesfield \ # # Combe \ Kidlington Wychwood # \ # \ Long # \ Crawley Swinbrook Hanborough

Westwell

Cricklade # \

Cotswolds essentials

Broadway is filled with chintzy b&bs but for something more modern, try Windrush House.

Its five refurbished rooms are individually designed with bold patterned wallpapers and plush fabrics (windrushhouse.com; Station Rd; from £80).

\ #

Adderbury

# Gagingwell \

Eastleach Martin # \

Fairford # \ Ampney St Mary Co

10 km 5 miles

Trains to Oxford, Cheltenham and Chippenham all operate from London Paddington (single from £12.80 to Oxford; nationalrail.co.uk), and also run between Birmingham and Cheltenham (single from £6.70; firstgreatwestern.com).

Stagecoach buses connect the main cities to villages (for example, bus S3 runs between Chipping Norton and Oxford; £4.50; 55 mins, every half an hour). Although local bus services operate in the villages, they are not the most regular, so a car comes in handy for exploring (week’s care hire from £140; europcar.co.uk).

Little Taynton # \ # Barrington \ \ # Burford

# \

A417 · /

# \

# \

\ #

Ampney \ # \ Crucis Cirencester #

# \

eC

\ #

\ Bibury #

# \

Hempton

# Charlbury \

Sherborne

# \

South Newington

\ #

A361 · /

Lower Slaughter

Turkdean

Quenington # \

Southern Cotswolds

A4135

A46 · /

A419 · /

Nailsworth

\ #

0 0

A429 · /

A429 · /

Cold Aston

# \

# \

· /

THE COTSWOLDS

Sapperton

Woodchester

# \

\ #

GLOUCESTERSHIRE \ #

Berkeley A38 · /

Compton

# \

Hook Norton

d

Blakeney ver # \ R i er n v y Se wa er n # \ Slimbridge v e S

\ Dursley #

# Notgrove \

Bloxham # \

# Whichford \

Win

M5 · /

# \

# \

\ Chedworth # # \

# Lower Brailes \

Aston Magna

· /

Withington # \ Cowley \ # Northleach

Newnham

Forest of Dean

# e

# \

· /

\ #

\ #

# Blockley \

# \

A436

Paxford

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# \

Highnam

# \

Long \ # \ # Moreton- Compton # Sezincote \ in-Marsh Chipping A44 Norton A429 Northern \ # Cotswolds Stow-on\ Churchill # the-Wold # \ Guiting Power

Hailes # \ \ Winchcombe #

M5 / ·

Tirley

ev

# Birdwood \

Chaceley

\ #

Banbury

A361 · /

Swalcliffe

Oxfor ds h ire

A40 · /

Forthampton

# \

Ashleworth

# \

# Taynton \

# \

# \

Snowshill \ # # Stanton \ # Stanway \

# \

# \

a rich, fruity seasonal ale from Wychwood, while December delivers Bah Humbug, a spiced dark golden ale. Try them on a tour of the brewery in Witney (wychwood.co.uk; tour £7.50). l Family-owned Hook Norton produces golden bitter Hooky and fruity Old Hooky, plus the dark, malty Double Stout (hooky.co.uk; tour £11.50). l Bulldog golden ale and Nelson, a classic bitter, are produced by Patriot Brewery and can be sampled at the The Norman Knight pub in Whichford (thenorman knight.co.uk). l Codger, Stunner and Rascal beers all use Cotswolds spring water and are produced by the Cotswold Spring Brewing Company.

Drop in at its brewery shop in Chipping Sodbury (spring brewery.co.uk).

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s England (£16.99) and Great Britain (£18.99) both have a comprehensive chapter covering Oxford, Cotswolds & Around, which is also available to download at lonelyplanet.com (£2.99).

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

THE LOWDOWN from LateRooms.com

Don’t miss the gorgeous village of Bourton-on-theWater. It’s also known as ‘Little Venice’ thanks to its abundance of pretty streams and elegant bridges.

Discover more Cotswolds travel tips on the LateRooms. com blog – bit.ly/LRCotswolds

Scan this code to download our booking app

COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM DAVID ELSE AND ANNA KAMINSKI. PHOTOGRAPHS: WARWICK AINSWORTH-PARKER/GIRAFFE PHOTOGRAPHY, GREG BALFOUR EVANS/ALAMY, MARK BOLTON PHOTOGRAPHY, TIM PESTRIDGE/TIMPESTRIDGE.CO.UK

OCEAN

Ukinghall Longdon

Upper Brailes

es

Wales

A T L A N T I C COTSWOLDS

# Newent \

A46 · /

# \

# \

UNITED KINGDOM

WARWICKSHIRE

Shipston\ on-Stour #

m

IRELAND

R Bredon Hill

Upton-uponSevern

ld Way Cotswo

Northern Ireland

\ #

Mickleton

Chipping # Campden \ \ Broadway #

Coln

Scotland

# \ \ Evesham #

Hanley Castle

Sleeping

Thame s

A38 / · # \

North Sea

Eating

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The view from Calton Hill sees Edinburgh Castle rise above the city

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EDINBURGH ON A BUDGET Find bonnie Edinburgh hotel deals with LateRooms.com Scan this code to download our booking app today

Walks ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN

More than 70 beautifully landscaped acres that include splendid Victorian palm houses, colourful swathes of azaleas and rhododendrons, and a worldfamous rock garden. The Terrace Cafe offers good views towards the city centre (rbge.org.uk; 20a Inverleith Row; 10am–6pm Mar–Sep, until 5pm Feb & Oct, until 4pm Nov–Jan; free).

MINI GUIDE

Edinburgh on a budget Edinburgh is made for sightseeing – from wandering its narrow lanes, gardens and riverbanks to admiring its stellar galleries and landmarks, it can all be done on the cheap.

SCOTTISH NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

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SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT BUILDING Built on the site of a former brewery close to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the parliament building was officially opened in 2005. The public areas – the main hall and exhibition, shop, café and debating chamber public gallery – are open to visitors, plus you can take a free, one-hour guided tour, which includes a visit to the floor of the debating chamber (scottish.parliament. uk; 10am–5pm Mon & Fri–Sat, 9am–6.30pm Tue–Thu; free).

WATER OF LEITH WALKWAY

Follow the riverbanks on this downhill path, which runs from Balerno (get there by bus number 44; 30 mins; single £1.50), eight miles outside Edinburgh, back towards the city centre. The walkway passes through the historic Dean Village area, the woodlands of Colinton Dell, via Murrayfield Stadium, finishing in the docks at Leith (waterofleith.org.uk).

Eating and drinking

Sights Renovated in 2011, this Venetian Gothic palace’s galleries illustrate Scottish history through photos, paintings and sculptures of famous names from past and present, including Robert Burns, Mary, Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Sean Connery, Billy Connolly and poet Jackie Kay (nationalgalleries.org; 1 Queen St; 10am–5pm, until 7pm Thu; free).

ARTHUR’S SEAT

This rocky peak, carved by ice sheets from the stump of an extinct volcano, is a distinctive feature of the skyline, and hiking to its summit is an Edinburgh rite of passage. Begin the walk in Holyrood car park – the view from the summit is worth the hike, extending from the Forth Bridges in the west to the distant conical hill of North Berwick Law in the east, with the Ochil Hills and the Highlands on the horizon.

Well Court in Dean Village on the Water of Leith Walkway

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URBAN ANGEL

The Scottish Parliament Building’s debating chamber

ST GILES’ CATHEDRAL

Properly called the High Kirk of Edinburgh, St Giles’ Cathedral was named after the patron saint of beggars and the disabled.

The present church dates largely from the 15th century, but much of it was restored in the 19th. One of the most interesting corners is the Thistle Chapel, with its elaborately carved Gothic-style stalls (stgilescathedral.org.uk; High St; 9am–5pm Mon–Sat, until 7pm Mon–Fri in summer, 1pm–5pm Sun; free).

A wholesome deli that puts the emphasis on fair-trade, organic and locally sourced produce, Urban Angel is also a delightfully informal café-bistro that serves all-day brunch (such as porridge with honey, French toast, eggs Benedict) and bigger plates such as pulled pork ciabatta (urbanangel.co.uk; 121 Hanover St; 9am–5pm Sun–Wed, 9am–9pm Thu–Sat; mains from £9).

BENNETS BAR

Situated next to the King’s Theatre, Bennets has kept its beautiful Victorian fittings, from the leaded stained-glass windows and ornate mirrors to the wooden gantry and the brass water taps on the bar. There are more than 150 single malts available; food features haggis, neeps and tatties, and steak and ale pie (bennetsbar.co.uk; 8 Leven St; 11am–1am Mon–Sat, 12pm–1am Sun; mains from £8).

A homemade strawberry and custard tart at Urban Angel

THE DOGS

This bistro-style place uses cheaper cuts of meat and less-popular, more-sustainable catches of fish to create hearty, no-nonsense dishes such as rabbit and brandy casserole, offal toast, with rosemary and garlic roast potatoes, and pan-fried hake fillet with white garlic and dill sauce, courgette fritter and leeks (thedogsonline.co.uk; 110 Hanover St; 12pm–4pm & 5pm–10pm; mains from £10).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 119

MINI GUIDE

Edinburgh on a budget Activities

1

TRANSPORT

WHERE TO STAY

One of the most attractive guesthouses in Newington, Sherwood is a refurbished Georgian terraced house. Inside are six en suite rooms featuring Regency-style striped wallpaper (edinburgh-sherwood.com; 42 Minto St; from £60).

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Well-positioned in New Town, near Waverley Train Station, the good-value, 44-room Frederick House Hotel is set in a Georgian townhouse. Rooms have ample sized beds and large baths (frederickhousehotel.com; 42 Frederick Street; from £70).

Channings is a charming, Edwardian-style hotel with a mix of cosy and more spacious rooms.

Either way, the views are great: to the Forth and the spires of Fettes College, or the garden at the back (channings.co.uk; 15 South Learmonth Gardens; from £100).

Prestonfield Golf Course

The know-how l Doors Open Day is a chance

120 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

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Edinburgh essentials BA, CityJet, easyJet and Flybe fly to Edinburgh from numerous UK airports (from £90 from East Midlands; flybe.com). By train, Edinburgh is 4½ hours from London King’s Cross (from £54; nationalrail.co.uk). The city has a good bus service (singles £1.50; lothianbuses.com), including the Lothian Buses Airlink service 100 from the train station to the airport (30 mins; £4 single; flybybus.com), plus tram links from the airport to the city (£5 from the airport, £1.50 in the city zone; edinburghtrams.com).

Expect to pay around £20 for a taxi from the airport to the city centre, taking about 20 minutes.

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to visit historic buildings that are usually closed to the public or charge for entry. This year the event takes place on 27–28 September and some 80 venues are expected to take part (cockburnassociation.org.uk). l All national museums and galleries are free, as are all council-owned museums. This opens the doors to places such as the Museum of Childhood, National Museum of Scotland, The Royal Scottish Academy, National Galleries of Scotland, Writers’ Museum and Museum of Edinburgh. l Sandeman’s New Europe offers free walking tours that take in the sights of the Old Town over 2½ hours – see if you can spot the statue of loyal terrier Greyfriars Bobby (new edinburgh tours.com).

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Pocket Edinburgh (£7.99) is ideal for weekend breaks, while Scotland (£12.99) also has ideas for day trips on the outskirts of the city.

Its chapter on Edinburgh can be downloaded at lonelyplanet.com (£2.99).

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Fantastic views come for free in Edinburgh. Take a walk up Blackford Hill for a splendid panorama of the city.

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COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM NEIL WILSON. PHOTOGRAPHS: DPA PICTURE ALLIANCE/ALAMY, ANDREW MICHAEL/ALAMY, CARL MILLAR/AGE FOTOSTOCK, BRYCE MORRISON

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Best for dancing JAMBOREE

Sundown strolling on Barceloneta Beach

MINI GUIDE

Nightlife in Barcelona The Spanish city has an enticing spread of old-school cava bars, stylish rooftop lounges with knockout city views and kaleidoscopic nightclubs where the party goes on till dawn.

Bars with a view MIRABLAU

For an unrivalled view across the entire city, gaze out from this privileged balcony restaurant on the way up to Tibidabo mountain, northwest of the centre. Wander downstairs to join the folk in the tiny dance space, and in summer, step out on to the even smaller terrace for a breather (mirablau bcn.com; Plaça del Doctor Andreu; 11am–5am Mon–Thu, until 5.30am Fri–Sun; cocktails from £8.50).

Tear out page here then fold along dotted lines

B-LOUNGE

The rooftop terrace of ovalshaped designer hotel tower Barceló Raval, B-Lounge has dramatic 360-degree views.

Its location in Raval makes it a good place to start off the night with tapas – such as slow-roasted lamb samosa with mint and honey, or small red prawns with Balearic salt– and cocktails before heading off to a plethora of nearby clubs (barcelo.com; Rambla del Raval 17–21; 12pm–4pm & 7pm–11pm; tapas from £2).

For more half a century, Jamboree has been bringing joy to the jivers of Barcelona, with high-calibre acts featuring jazz trios, blues, Afrobeats, Latin and big-band sounds. Two concerts are held most nights (at 8pm and 10pm), after which the place morphs into a DJ club at midnight (masimas.com/ jamboree; Plaça Reial 17; 8pm–6am; tickets from £4).

RAZZMATAZZ

Five different clubs in one huge space attract people of all dance persuasions: the Razzclub is good for rock and indie acts; The Loft does house and electro; the Pop Bar anything from garage to soul; Lolita room is the land of house, hip-hop and dubstep, and in the Rex Room experimental sounds abound (salarazzmatazz.com; Carrer de Pamplona 88; 12am– 3.30am Thu, until 5.30am Fri & Sat; entry £10).

Razzmatazz focuses on providing a platform for new DJs and bands

CITY HALL

Located in a former theatre – with velvet drapes and dramatic lighting rigs retained – this is a popular club where house and other electric sounds dominate, with ‘Happy Techno’ on Wednesdays and guest DJs on Thursdays. Out the back from the dance floor is a quieter terrace (cityhallbarcelona.com; Rambla de Catalunya 2–4; 12.30–5am Mon–Thu, to 6am Fri & Sat; entry £12).

Best for wine

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EL XAMPANYET

The 360° Terrace, alongside the B-Lounge at Barceló Raval

ECLIPSE LOUNGE

Not a rooftop bar, but high up nonetheless on the 26th floor of the beach-adjacent hotel W Barcelona, Eclipse has panoramic views and a loungelike atmosphere, with styleminded locals sipping on watermelon martinis and Caribbean mojitos, and DJs spinning house, r&b, or ’70s, ’80s and ’90s tunes (eclipsebarcelona.com; Plaça de la Rosa del Vents 1; 7pm–2am Mon– Wed, until 3am Thu, until 4am Fri–Sun; cocktails from £9.50).

Nothing has changed for decades in this, one of the city’s bestknown cava bars. Plant yourself at the bar or seek out a table against the decoratively tiled walls for a glass or three of the cheap house cava and an assortment of tapas, such as the tangy fresh anchovies in vinegar (Carrer de Montcada 22; 12pm–3.30pm & 7pm–11pm Tue–Sat, 12pm–4pm Sun).

XAMPANYERIA CAN PAIXANO

Orders taken across a tapasladen bar at El Xampanyet

MONVINIC

This lofty old champagne bar in Barceloneta has long been run on a winning formula. The standard poison is bubbly rosé in elegant little glasses, combined with bite-sized bocadillos (filled rolls).

This place is jammed to the rafters: you’ll need to elbow your way to the bar and enjoy your cava standing up (Carrer de la Reina Cristina 7; 9am–10.30pm Mon–Sat; glass of cava £1.50).

This place is an ode to wine loving. Browse the interactive wine list at the bar on a digital tablet: search by origin, year or grape, from a vast international range. Each day there are around 50 wines to taste by the glass or half glass – the six sommeliers can guide you should you need some help choosing (monvinic. com; Carrer de la Diputació 249; 1.30pm–11pm Mon–Sat; glass of wine from £3).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller

121

MINI GUIDE

Nightlife in Barcelona

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Bars typically get lively after 11pm or midnight, and close at 3am; clubs open from midnight but don’t get busy till around 2am, closing about 6am.

Getting in

Cover charges range from free to more than £20, but the price usually includes a drink.

Where to go clubbing

A variety of spots lurk in the labyrinth of the Ciutat Vella, from plush former dance halls to grungy basement venues. A sprinkling of well-known clubs can be found in L’Eixample and La Zona Alta. During the summer, wooden beach bars, chiringuitos, open up all along the strand, from Barceloneta to Platja de la Nova Mar Bella.

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Barcelona (£13.99) is a full guide to the city, while Pocket Barcelona (£7.99) is ideal for short trips. For the latest nightlife and entertainment listings see go-mag.com, barcelonametropolitan.com and barcelonarocks.com.

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COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM REGIS ST LOUIS, ANNA KAMINSKI, VESNA MARIC. PHOTOGRAPHS: MICHAEL HEFFERNAN, IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY, RAZZ MATAZZ CLUBS, ANNA SERRANO/SIME/4 CORNERS

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122 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

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The know-how When, how and where to get in to Barcelona’s bars and clubs.

Design touches abound at the boutique Hotel Constanza, and little details such as flowers in the bathroom add charm. Rooms, decorated in neutral tones, have tiled marble floors and some have balconies (hotelconstanza. com; Calle Bruc, 33; from £55).

The former Philippines Tobacco Company on La Rambla has been resurrected as Hotel 1898, replete with idyllic rooftop bar and heated pool. Rooms are elegant, with hardwood floors and tasteful furniture (hotel1898. com; La Rambla, 109; from £205).

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Located in a lively street in one of the nicer parts of El Raval, the Hotel Aneto is a good-value, simple base from which to explore.

The best rooms are the doubles with the shuttered street-side balconies (hotelaneto.com; Carrer del Carme 38; from £40).

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BA, easyJet, Jet2, Monarch Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Ryanair and Vueling fly to Barcelona El Prat Airport from most major UK airports (from £105; ryanair.com). To get to the city centre, the A1 Aerobús runs from Terminal 1 to Plaça de Catalunya (35 mins; £5; aerobusbcn.com), while the R2 Nord train line runs to Passeig de Gràcia (25 mins; £3.30; renfe.com), and a taxi will cost you around £25.

Barcelona’s excellent, easyto-use TMB Metro can get you most places, with regular buses and trams filling in the gaps (single tickets £1.70; tmb.net).

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ART IN PRAGUE Find the perfect Prague hotel with LateRooms.com

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Art Nouveau MUNICIPAL HOUSE

Restored in the 1990s after decades of neglect, this exuberant early-20th-century building is a marvel of detailed design and decoration.

Highlights include the mosaic above the entrance, Smetana Hall (Prague’s biggest concert hall) and the octagonal Lord Mayor’s Hall (obecnidum.cz; náměstí Republiky 5; 7.30am– 11pm; guided tours £8.50).

Museum Kampa on the banks of the Vltava River

MINI GUIDE

MUCHA MUSEUM

Art in Prague The Czech capital’s galleries offer Surrealism, Art Nouveau, Cubism and Constructivism, while the city’s public spaces feature the weird and witty sculptures of David Černý.

CONVENT OF ST AGNES

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LOBKOWICZ PALACE

Home to the Bohemian noble Lobkowicz family, this 16thcentury palace houses a private museum known as the Princely Collections, which includes priceless paintings, furniture and musical memorabilia. Highlights include paintings by Breughel the Elder, Canaletto, Cranach and Piranesi, original musical scores annotated by Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart, and an impressive collection of musical instruments (lobkowicz.cz; Jiřská 3; 10am–6pm; £8).

The sensuous posters, paintings and decorative panels, as well as sketches, photographs and other memorabilia, of Prague’s most famous artist, Alfons Mucha (1860–1939), can be found at this fascinating museum. The exhibits include many artworks of trademark Slavic maidens with flowing hair and piercing blue eyes, bearing symbolic garlands and linden (lime) boughs (mucha. cz; Panská 7; 10am–6pm; £7).

BÍLEK VILLA

This striking villa, designed by sculptor František Bílek in 1911, now houses a museum of his unconventional works. Bílek’s distinctive sculptures, mostly in wood, take inspiration from his religious beliefs. The villa served not only as a studio but also as the artist’s home, and there are several rooms with handmade furniture designed by Bílek (ghmp.cz; Mickiewiczova 1; 10am–6pm Tue–Sun; £3.50).

Modern art

Pre-1900s In the northeastern corner of Staré Město, Prague’s oldest surviving Gothic building now houses the National Gallery’s collection of medieval and early Renaissance art from Bohemia and Central Europe, a treasure house of altar paintings and polychrome religious sculptures (ngprague.cz; U Milosrdných 17; 10am–6pm Tue–Sun; £4.50).

Two Women by Alfons Maria Mucha at the Mucha Museum

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MUSEUM KAMPA

The Museum of Decorative Arts has 20,000 items of glassware

MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS

This museum opened in 1900 and the Neo-Renaissance building is itself a work of art, the façade decorated with reliefs depicting the various decorative arts and the Bohemian towns famous for them, while the four halls are full of 16th- to 19th-century artefacts such as furniture, tapestries, porcelain, a fabulous collection of Baroque glasswork and some fine Art Nouveau posters (upm.cz; 17 listopadu 2; 10am–7pm Tue, until 6pm Wed–Sun; £2.50).

Set on the banks of Kampa Island, with exceptional views across the Vltava River and of Prague Castle and Charles Bridge, this museum of modern European art features a comprehensive collection of works by Czech abstract artist František Kupka, as well as bronze statues by Cubist sculptor Otto Gutfreund (museumkampa.cz; U Sovových mlýnů 2; 10am–6pm; £6.50).

VELETRŽNÍ PALÁC

The National Gallery’s collection of modern art, spread over four floors, is a strong contender for Prague’s best museum. It houses a rich collection of world masters, including works from Klimt, Munch, Picasso, Schiele and Van Gogh, while the holdings of Czech interwar Abstract, Surrealist and Cubist art are worth the trip alone (ngprague.cz; Dukelských hrdinů 47, Holešovice; 10am– 6pm Tue–Sun; £6).

The exterior of the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art

DOX CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART

This edgy, non-commercial art gallery and exhibition space forms the nucleus of Holešovice’s growing reputation as one of the city’s hipper districts.

The exhibitions include video, sculpture, photography and painting. There’s a café and an excellent bookstore (doxprague. org; Poupětova 1; 10am–6pm Sat–Mon, 11am–7pm Wed & Fri, 11am–9pm Thu; £5).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 123

MINI GUIDE Art in Prague

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The know-how

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124 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

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Here are some of the sculptor’s best-known works in Prague:

Perla Hotel in Staré Město is a designer hotel whose pearl motif extends throughout.

The rooms are on the small side, but the décor is modern with lacquered chairs and glossy bathrooms (perlahotel.cz; Perlova 1; from £85).

Golden Well is one of Malá Strana’s jewels – a Renaissance house that once belonged to Emperor Rudolf II. The rooms are spacious, with wooden floors, and bathrooms with whirlpool baths (goldenwell.cz; U Zlate Studne 166/4; from £190).

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THE ART OF DAVID ČERNÝ

Artist-designed ‘Comfy Double/ Twin Room’ at fusion hotel

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In the Lucerna Palace shopping arcade, an alternative version of the famous St Wenceslas Statue in Wenceslas Square, only this time the horse is dead.

Proudy (2004)

Two men spell out quotations from Czech literature with their pee in a puddle in Hergetova Cíhelná courtyard.

Quo Vadis (1991)

A Trabant on four human legs in the German Embassy garden serves as a monument to the East Germans who fled the communist regime in 1989.

Viselec (1997)

A bearded, bespectacled man (above) with a resemblance to Sigmund Freud, casually dangling by one hand from a pole way above Husova Street.

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Prague & the Czech Republic (£13.99) has comprehensive information on Prague, plus out-of-town day-trip suggestions. Individual chapters from the book can also be downloaded at lonelyplanet.com (£2.99).

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Beautiful Prague is like one huge art gallery in itself. See it from a different perspective – hire a pedalo by Charles Bridge and take in the sights from the Vltava River.

Discover more Prague travel tips on the LateRooms.com blog – bit.ly/LRPrague

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COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM NEIL WILSON. PHOTOGRAPHS: DOX, FINE ART IMAGES/SUPERSTOCK, JACQUES LEBAR, MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS PRAGUE, RADOMIR REZNY/ALAMY, TRAVELPIXS/ALAMY

WHERE TO STAY

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TRANSPORT

Nové Město district’s fusion hotel has a revolving bar and bedrooms (dorms, private doubles, family rooms) that resemble miniature art galleries, all decorated with works by young Czech artists (fusion hotels.com; Panska 9; from £45).

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Prague essentials BA, easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair and Wizz Air fly to Prague from numerous UK airports (from £90 from Manchester; easyjet.co.uk).

To get to town from the airport, buy a full-price public transport ticket (£1) and take bus 119 to the end of metro line A (Dejvická; 20 mins), then continue by metro to the centre (10–15 mins). Alternatively, a taxi will cost around £15. Central Prague is fairly compact, and individual neighbourhoods are easily explored on foot, while the city’s integrated metro, tram and bus network covers the rest (95p for a basic ticket valid for 90 mins; dpp.cz).

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HISTORIC TUSCANY Find terrific stays around Tuscany with LateRooms.com

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Renaissance art UFFIZI

The hill town of San Gimignano

MINI GUIDE

Historic Tuscany

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA

The hills and towns of this Italian region are packed with Renaissance masterpieces, often housed in some of the most beautiful churches and palaces ever constructed.

Pilgrimage sites VIA FRANCIGENA

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This medieval pilgrimage trail linked Canterbury with Rome.

In Tuscany it passed Lucca, San Gimignano and Siena, along with a host of churches, hospices and monasteries offering shelter and protection. Drive or walk parts of the route, stopping at evocative destinations such as Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, a beautiful church near Montalcino (antimo.it; see website for visiting hours; free).

SANTUARIO DELLA VERNA

Dramatically positioned on a windswept mountainside, this monastic complex is where St Francis of Assisi is said to have received the stigmata (marks of the crucifixion) and is thus a major pilgrimage destination.

The Corridoio delle Stimmate, decorated with modern frescoes recounting St Francis’s life, leads to the Cappella delle Stimmate, built in 1263 (santuariolaverna. org; sanctuary 6.30am–7.30pm winter, until 10pm summer; free).

Florence’s Medici dynasty spent 300 years building a superlative collection of artworks that chart the course of the Renaissance.

Gallery highlights include Giotto’s Ognissanti Madonna, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation and Raphael’s Portrait of Pope Leo X. Book tickets online to avoid queues (uffizi. firenze.it; Piazzale degli Uffizi; 8.15am–6.50pm Tue–Sun; £5.30).

Raphael painted Pope Leo X and two cardinals around 1518

COLLEGIATA

Follow a trail of the 15th-century painter’s works in the east of Tuscany: the solemn Resurrection in Sansepolcro’s Museo Civico; the tender Madonna del Parto in nearby Monterchi; and the masterful Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo’s Cappella Bacci. Pick up the Piero della Francesca brochure from local museums and tourist offices or view it online at turismo.provincia.arezzo.it.

San Gimignano’s Duomo (cathedral) is also known as the Collegiata. Its vivid frescoes, which resemble a vast medieval comic strip, date from the 14th century. Near the main altar is the Cappella di Santa Fina, a chapel adorned with naïve and touching frescoes by Ghirlandaio (sangimignano.com; Piazza del Duomo; open for visits daily, except late Nov and late Jan, and on Sun mornings; visit £3.30).

Architecture

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SIENA’S DUOMO

Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, a former Benedictine monastery

LUCCA CATHEDRAL

Pay your respects to the Volto Santo, a simply fashioned image of a dark-skinned, life-sized Christ. A major object of pilgrimage, the sculpture is carried through the streets every 13 September in a solemn torchlit procession. The cathedral’s other works of art include a magnificent Last Supper by Tintoretto and Domenico Ghirlandaio’s 1479 Madonna Enthroned with Saints (museocattedralelucca.it; Piazza San Martino; tourist visits daily except Sun mornings; £2.50).

The city’s historic centre is a showcase of the Gothic style, with the Duomo the jewel in its crown. The magnificent façade is made of white, green and red marble, while inside walls are black-and-white-striped and the vaults are painted blue with gold stars (operaduomo.siena.it; Piazza del Duomo; tourist visits daily, except Sun mornings; visit £3.30 Mar–Oct, free Nov–Feb).

INSIDER FLORENCE

Every visitor sees Florence’s Duomo, but its 15th-century architect Brunelleschi had more modest commissions too: the Ospedale degli Innocenti (a former foundling hospital) and the Pazzi Chapel inside the Basilica di Santa Croce. The latter’s harmonious lines make it a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture (santacroceopera.it; Piazza di Santa Croce; open daily, from 2pm Sun; £5).

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is the bell tower of the city’s Duomo

PISA

The Piazza dei Miracoli delivers a monumental arrangement of buildings that have battled subsidence and stood the test of time. The Leaning Tower steals the limelight, but hours can also be spent admiring the Duomo’s marble cladding, while the baptistry’s part-Romanesque, part-Gothic style is fascinating (opapisa.it; see website for individual opening times; Duomo free, tower £15, baptistry £4).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 125

MINI GUIDE Historic Tuscany

Sights

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The know-how Fantastic examples are found throughout Tuscany but to see the best head to:

Cappella Brancacci, Florence

Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and Tribute Money show architectural perspective and sly satire.

Frescoes decorate a suite in the Palazzo Magnani Feroni

place to come for some peace.

The small terrace garden is perfect for breakfast in summer (hotelbologna.pisa.it; Via Giuseppe Mazzini 57; from £90).

Palazzo Magnani Feroni in Florence is the stuff of dreams.

The suites are vast and elegant, featuring authentic period furnishings, rich fabrics and luxurious toiletries. The 360-degree city view from the rooftop is unforgettable (palazzomagnaniferoni.com; Borgo San Frediano 5, Oltrarno; from £200).

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126 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

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TRANSPORT

Le Case is a secluded stone farmhouse, half an hour’s drive from Abbazia di Sant’Antimo. It offers five tastefully decorated rooms and fabulous views (agriturismolecase.com; Strada Provinciale 323 km 6, Castiglione d’Orcia; from £65).

Nicely placed away from Pisa’s Piazza dei Miracoli mayhem, the four-star Hotel Bologna is the

LE MARCHE

Vetulonia

Tuscany essentials Tuscany’s main international airport is Pisa, which airlines such as BA, easyJet, Jet 2 and Ryanair fly to from most big UK airports (from £90; easyjet.com). Vueling also flies to Florence from Gatwick (from £115; vueling. com), while BA and CityJet fly from London City, and Flybe from Birmingham. Trains can be a convenient way to travel between major towns, but for the most flexibility in touring Tuscany, consider hiring a car (from around £30 per day; budget.com).

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Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, San Gimignano

Benozzo Gozzoli’s bizarre fresco of St Sebastian shows the fully clothed saint protecting citizens, helped by a bare-breasted Virgin Mary and semi-robed Jesus.

Libreria Piccolomini, Siena

Bernardino Pinturicchio extols Siena’s glory in 10 panels that honour humanist Pope Pius II.

Museo di San Marco, Florence

Fra Angelico’s 15th-century frescoes and paintings (left) portray religious figures in all-too-human moments of uncertainty.

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Florence & Tuscany (£14.99) is a definitive guide. Chapters are available to download at lonelyplanet.com (£2.99).

Find information and a booking service for convent and monastery stays at monasterystays.com.

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For a taste of Tuscan cuisine try FlorenceÕs signature dish, bistecca alla Fiorentina Ð a huge T-bone steak simply seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Discover more Tuscany travel tips on the LateRooms.com blog Ð bit.ly/LRTuscany

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COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM VIRGINIA MAXWELL AND NICOLA WILLIAMS. PHOTOGRAPHS: FINE ART/ALAMY, LUCA DA ROS/SIME/4CORNERS, JOANA KRUSE/AGE FOTOSTOCK/SUPERSTOCK, GUGLIELMO DE’MICHELI, OPERA DELLA PRIMAZIALE PISANA, SUPERSTOCK

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Best food stalls TUNG PO

Tung Po in North Point is part of the new direction in dai pai dong (food stall) cooking. Beer is served in chilled porcelain bowls, while the young staff strut around in rubber boots, serving Cantonese seafood dishes with a twist, such as squid-ink pasta. Book ahead or go before 7pm (00 852 2880 9399; 2nd fl, Municipal Services Bldg, 99 Java Rd; 5.30pm– midnight; dishes from around £5).

MINI GUIDE

Eating in Hong Kong From slurping a bowl of noodles on plastic stools at a stall to splurging on a Cantonese seafood feast, this city’s culinary offerings are an unforgettable highlight of a visit.

Best for dim sum TIM HO WAN

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A former Four Seasons chef re-creates his magic in the first budget dim sum eatery to win a Michelin star. Get a ticket when you arrive and be prepared to wait. When seated, you can choose from delights such as baked bun with BBQ pork and vermicelli roll stuffed with pig’s liver (00 852 2788 1226; 9–11 Fuk Wing St, Sham Shui Po; 8am– 9.30pm; dishes from around £1).

CITY HALL MAXIM’S PALACE

This branch of a local chain offers a typically Hong Kong dim sum experience – noisy, cheerful, in a huge kitschy hall where dim sum choices are paraded on trolleys that you flag down and pick from. To avoid long queues at lunchtime, come before 11.30am or after 2pm. Sunday breakfasts are always popular too (maxims. com.hk; 2nd fl, Lower Block, Hong Kong City Hall, Edinburgh Pl; 11am–3pm & 5.30pm–11pm, Sun from 9am; dishes around £3).

GI KEE SEAFOOD RESTAURANT

Reserve a table or expect to queue for a plastic stool at this dai pai dong perched above a wet market in Happy Valley. Chan Chung-fai, the man in the kitchen who turns out tantalising dishes such as chicken with fried garlic, is a chef with a huge fan following (00 852 2574 9937; Shop 4, 2nd fl, Wong Nai Chung Municipal Services Bldg, 2 Yuk Sau St; lunch and dinner; dishes from around £6).

Cantonese cuisine approaches Italian with squid-ink pasta

AP LEI CHAU COOKED FOOD CENTRE

Six dai pai dong operators cook up a storm in sleepy Ap Lei Chau in Aberdeen. Pak Kee (00 852 2555 2984) and Chu Kee (00 852 2555 2052) both offer simple but decent dishes, and affordable seafood. You can also buy fish from the wet market downstairs and pay them to cook it for you (1st fl, Ap Lei Chau Municipal Services Bldg, 8 Hung Shing St; dinner; dishes from around £3).

Best high-end

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LUNG KING HEEN

Customers at Tim Ho Wan order their dim sum from a checklist

LIN HEUNG KUI

This is an old-school dim sum restaurant where you can pick from the strolling carts or the cooking stations. The waiters still wear their traditional white tunics and black trousers, and serve you tea from huge brass kettles. At dinner the restaurant offers Cantonese classics such as baked fish intestines with eggs and tangerine peel (00 852 2156 9328; 2nd & 3rd fl, 40–50 Des Voeux Rd West, Sheung Wan; dim sum 6am–4pm, dinner 6pm–11pm; dim sum from £1).

The ‘View of the Dragon’ at the Four Seasons is the first Chinese restaurant in the world to win three Michelin stars. Book well ahead to dine out on dishes such as steamed tofu with lobster in fermented bean sauce, to a backdrop of harbour views (fourseasons.com/hongkong; 8 Finance St; lunch and dinner; dim sum dishes from £5, set lunch from £40, tasting menu £125).

YÈ SHANGHAI

The name means ‘Shanghai Nights’ and dark woods and subtle lighting inspired by 1920s Shanghai fill the air with romance at the Kowloon branch of this restaurant. The modern Shanghainese dishes – such as sea cucumber with shrimp roe and braised spare ribs Wuxi style – are exquisite (elite-concepts.com; 6th fl, Marco Polo Hotel, Harbour City, Canton Rd; lunch and dinner; dishes from around £7).

Lung King Heen is the venue for many a power lunch (or dinner)

GRISSINI

It may seem odd for an Italian restaurant to trumpet the quality of its breadsticks, but the giant, chewy ones here are indeed addictive. Well-executed Italian classics such as ossobuco alla milanese and saltimbocca are a refined alternative when a change of pace from Cantonese cuisine is needed (hongkong.grand.hyatt. com; 1 Harbour Rd; lunch Sun–Fri, dinner daily; lunch mains from £21, dinner mains from £30).

TURN OVER FOR MAP AND NUMBER LOCATIONS September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 127

MINI GUIDE

Eating in Hong Kong Eating

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Hong Kong essentials TRANSPORT

BA, Cathay Pacific and Virgin Atlantic fly direct from London to Hong Kong (from £580; virgin-atlantic.com). Emirates, KLM, Lufthansa and Swiss are useful non-direct alternatives.

The Airport Express train is the fastest way to get to the city (24 minutes) plus it also stops in Kowloon and Tsing Yi (£14 return to Central; mtr.com.hk). Buses A11 and A12 run to the major hotel areas on Hong Kong Island (from £3), while the A21 covers Kowloon hotel areas. The MTR subway is the simplest way to get around, and a prepaid Octopus Card can be used on this and most other forms of public transport in Hong Kong.

WHERE TO STAY

If you can book a room at the fabulously located, YMCA-run Salisbury, you’ll find excellent exercise facilities and comfortable rooms with private bathrooms.

The harbour view would cost five times as much at the Peninsula

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next door (ymcahk.org.hk; 41 Salisbury Rd; from £105).

A spirited addition to Kowloon’s midrange options, Hotel Madera has decent-sized rooms and even a hypo-allergenic floor (hotelmadera.com.hk; 1 Cheong Lok St; from £140).

The Four Seasons rates highly for its amazing views and location close to the Star Ferry, Hong Kong station and Sheung Wan. It also has palatial rooms and a glorious pool and spa complex (fourseasons.com; 8 Finance St, Central; from £400).

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The know-how l Many busy Hong Kongers

A view across to Kowloon in a room at the Four Seasons

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128 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

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take their breakfast and lunch at tea cafés. A full breakfast at these places consists of toast, fried eggs and spam, instant noodles and a drink. The more health-conscious might opt for congee (rice porridge) and assorted dim sum (below). l Lunch for office workers can mean a bowl of noodles, rice with barbecued meat or something more elaborate. l Afternoon tea is popular at weekends – egg tarts are a Hong Kong institution. l Dinner is the biggest meal. At home, there’ll usually be soup, rice, veggies and meat or fish.

Dining out is very common, however – three to five times a week is not unusual.

FURTHER READING

Lonely Planet’s Hong Kong (£15.99) is a comprehensive guide to the city and its neighbour Macau, while Pocket Hong Kong (£7.99) is ideal for stopovers. See openrice.com for restaurant reviews, many in English, from the city’s food lovers.

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THE LOWDOWN from LateRooms.com

For food and shopping head to Kowloon, where Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po districts offer authentic eateries and markets.

Discover more Hong Kong travel tips on the LateRooms.com blog – bit.ly/LRHongKong

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COMPILED BY NATALIE MILLMAN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PIERA CHEN AND CHUNG WAH CHOW. PHOTOGRAPHS: BANCHAN/SHUTTERSTOCK, PAUL RUSHTON/ALAMY, SINOPIX/REX, LUIGI VACCARELLA/SIME/4CORNERS

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LOK FU

COMPETITION

Seek the northern lights in Iceland!

Worth

£4,750

Auroral colours vary from red, green and blue, through to yellow and pink, depending on the altitude of the phenomenon

Lonely Planet Traveller has teamed up with Regent Holidays, specialist in Iceland holidays since 1975, to offer one lucky reader and their guest the chance to experience the northern lights on a seven-night holiday in Iceland.

You will begin by spending four nights at the four-star Hotel Rangá, a remote retreat surrounded by mountains and glaciers.

During your stay perhaps choose to walk on nearby black-sand beaches, watch icebergs drift through Jökulsárlón lagoon, visit the mighty Skógafoss waterfall and, at night, relax in a geothermal hot tub while keeping an eye out for the aurora borealis.

You will complete your trip with three nights at the Radisson Blu 1919 Hotel in the heart of lively Reykjavík. From here you will embark on a whale-watching excursion, as well as Superjeep tours hunting the northern lights, and visiting the Golden Circle of natural wonders: Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir geothermal area and Þingvellir national park.

THE PRIZE u Return flights for two with Icelandair to Reykjavík from

Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingham

u Four nights in a Junior Suite at Hotel Rangá u Three nights in a Superior Room at the Radisson Blu 1919 Hotel in Reykjavík

u Superjeep Northern Lights and Golden Circle excursions u Whale-watching trip from Reykjavík’s Old Harbour u 4x4 car hire for five days to explore the island

HOW TO ENTER

To be in with a chance of winning this fantastic prize, fill in your details online at lonelyplanet.com/magazine/competitions. Competition closes at 11.59pm on 14 September 2014. Terms & conditions apply: see lonelyplanet.com/magazine/competitions for full details.

CONDITIONS OF ENTRY 1. The promoter of this competition is Immediate Media Company London Limited. 2. The prize includes return economy flights to Reykjavík with Icelandair from London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow or Birmingham (from 5 February 2015), four nights’ accommodation at the Hotel Rangá, three nights’ accommodation in the Radisson Blu 1919, 4x4 car hire for five days, Superjeep Northern Lights excursion, Superjeep Golden Circle excursion, whale-watching excursion and one-way flybus+ transfer from Reykjavík to Keflavík Airport. 3. The winner must hold a valid UK/European driving licence. 4. The periods travel can be taken in are between 1 October 2014 and 30 March 2015. Travel not permitted 18 October to 3 November 2014, 15 December 2014 to 5 January 2015 and 14 February to 22 February 2015. Both hotels and flights are subject to availability. Early booking is recommended.

5. The prize does not include travel insurance, visas (if applicable), additional meals and refreshments, optional activities or spending money. 6. The northern lights are a natural phenomenon and therefore sightings cannot be guaranteed. 7. The winner must be at least 18 years old and hold a valid 10-year UK passport, with six months or more remaining after return to the UK. 8. For full terms and conditions, visit lonelyplanet.com/magazine/competitions.

September 2014 Lonely Planet Traveller 129

World Miscellany of Curious Facts PA R T T W E N T Y -S I X :

Greenland Greenland was enticingly named

by ERIK THE RED, a Norse exile who explored the island in 982 AD, in an ingenious attempt to attract settlers. It worked: 25 boats followed, and Norse communities survived for 500 years.

Today it is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark.

1

Greenland is the world’s LARGEST NON-CONTINENTAL ISLAND, clocking in at 835,000 square miles – 50 times the size of parent country Denmark.

It’s also the most sparsely populated place on Earth, with 0.069 humans per square mile –100 times less than Australia.

2

Four-fifths of its area is covered by the GREENLAND ICE SHEET, the largest body of ice in the Arctic.

Two miles thick in places, it holds a tenth of the world’s total freshwater reserves. At Ilulissat is Jakobshavn Glacier, one of Earth’s fastest-moving glaciers, flowing up to 35 metres a day.

3

The majority of Greenlanders are INUITS whose ancestors arrived from Canada in the 9th century (though Inuits first settled some 4,500 years ago).

Society was based upon hunting and shamanistic beliefs; traditions such as qajaq (kayak) fishing and tupilak (figurine) carving endure to this day.

4

Greenland’s rich SEA LIFE includes the narwhal, a whale whose spiral ‘horn’ (a greatly enlarged tooth) fuelled many a medieval unicorn myth. Also native is the earless harp seal, whose scientific name – Pagophilus groenlandicus – means ‘ice-lover from Greenland’.

5

TOP TRAVEL EXPERIENCES

u Sail among humpback whales and gargantuan icebergs in the Ilulissat Icefjord, as the Jakobshavn Glacier tumbles ice into the sea with a reverberating roar.

u Watch as the aurora borealis brightens the skies above

Kangerlussuaq, whose cloudless nights and remote location on the icecap edge make for front-row viewing.

u Explore fjordlands and craggy peaks, scramble sheer cliffs and discover Viking ruins on hiking trails in comparatively verdant South Greenland.

u Trail the coastline by kayak, looking for harp seals, minke

Turn to page 129 for your chance to

WIN A DREAM TRIP TO ICELAND! 130 Lonely Planet Traveller September 2014

whales and polar bears on a day trip from Nuuk, before enjoying kaffemik, a get-together with coffee and cakes.

u Speed beside dramatic, iceberg-crowded fjords on a

dog-sled ride in Uummannaq, led by esteemed Inuit mushers.

COMPILED BY SOPHIE MCGRATH AND STEPHANIE PALMER, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ETAIN O’CARROLL. PHOTOGRAPH: OVERSNAP/ GETTY IMAGES

Uummannaq Island in Northwest Greenland was historically a whaling and mining settlement – today shrimp and halibut fishing sustain the local economy

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