As my train heads north-west from Madrid towards the green hills of Asturias, I eagerly await views of the lush landscape – but instead, I’m plunged into darkness. A new series of tunnels is leading me to the northern region’s capital, Oviedo, and among them is the seventh-longest in Europe: …
Read More »12 of the best UK breaks to celebrate spring
Apples and pears, Herefordshire This is cider country, and the Brockhampton Estate, near the Worcestershire border, is the largest orchard under the National Trust’s care, with over 145 acres of damson, pear, quince, cherry and apple trees, which blossom in great frothy clouds from late March through April. They surround …
Read More »10 of the best British walking festivals
Crickhowell Walking Festival, Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) 9-17 March One of the earliest of the year’s festivals, the charming town of Crickhowell, surrounded by the looming khaki-purple hues of the Bannau Brycheiniog national park (Brecon Beacons), has a well-established walking festival, which this year boasts 81 different walks, ranging from …
Read More »New life buzzes from all directions: why Pembrokeshire in spring is a nature-lover’s dream
Edward Thomas’s In Pursuit of Spring, published more than a century ago, is a classic in the nature lover’s library, a lyrical account of the poet’s journey from London to Somerset seeking signs of the coming season. Setting out from a rainy Wandsworth in March 1913, shaking loose a long winter, …
Read More »Readers’ favourite spring breaks in the UK and Europe
Winning tip: Yorkshire’s magical ‘Little Switzerland’ The area around Hardcastle in West Yorkshire springs into life in mid-March. The woodland floor transforms as if by magic into a soft carpet of wildflowers with bluebells appearing later in the season. The area was once called Little Switzerland because of its steep …
Read More »My Rasta father showed me the real Jamaica. After he died, I wanted to share it with my kids
As we bump along terrible roads in my dad’s hot, noisy buttermilk-coloured Beetle, I’m unable to take in the beauty of Jamaica’s north coast – its waterfalls and gin-clear sea, its lush fern-quilted interior and the majestic Blue Mountains my dad loved. It’s the late 1980s. I’m 15. It’s been …
Read More »‘It is magical to swim surrounded by the Arctic winter in all its brutal glory’: an eco cruise in Norway’s far north
The view from the ship’s bridge is what I expected: a ribbon of dark Arctic water leading through a maze of snowy mountain islands. But the view of the bridge is a shock. Where is the wheel, the chart and that big metal thing that goes “ting”? You know, the …
Read More »Tell us about a great activity break – you could win a holiday voucher
There’s a palpable sense of the changing seasons at this time of the year – longer days, warmer weather, and the feeling that people are stirring from winter hibernation. The parks are getting busier, tennis courts are being used and pelotons of cyclists are starting to appear on our roads. …
Read More »Wicked Littlehampton: surf, sand, cafes and art in West Sussex
It’s not often that Littlehampton, a small seaside town on the Sussex coast, makes the news. In the five decades since I was born there, I can count the times on the fingers of one hand: Nik Kershaw making the video for The Riddle in 1984 (oh, the teenage excitement); …
Read More »Walking ancient Dorset paths to megaliths – and a village pub
With Stonehenge, Avebury and Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire is the English county most associated with Neolithic stone circles and barrows. Dorset, its southerly neighbour, has nothing on this scale, but there is an ancient quarry – the Valley of the Stones – and a number of smaller, but equally atmospheric archaeological …
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