Recipefiesta

A landscape of forbidding peaks west of Bilbao plays host to an improbable world full of wild flowers, animals and resilient cheesemakers

Halfway across the first glacial depression, I leave the footpath to stand on a snow patch, disturbing a spider that runs off across the frozen crystals. A few yards farther along, the mountainside is awash with colour: tiny Alpine flowers alive with bees and crickets in a world surrounded by jagged peaks. A pair of chamois watch from a crag, then clatter off up an almost vertical face. Having stopped walking, I’m cooling down fast and put on a jacket. I am in Spain, I tell myself, during a European heatwave.

When I tear myself away from the wildlife, my hiking group are distant dots on a path that is snaking up a wall of rock. This is the Picos de Europa mountain range in northern Spain, a cluster of peaks rising to more than 2,500m and famed for the steepness of its slopes. I set off in pursuit, catching up with the group as they scramble over a ridge to find an unexpected view: a gun turret from a second world war aircraft carrier that is now a mountain refuge hut. (Cabin Verónica was cut from the USS Pulau in 1961 at a Bilbao breakers’ yard and dragged up here by mule.)

These traditional restaurants are the culinary backbone of this gastronomic capital, but finding the real deal means tackling offal – and red wine – for breakfast

I first went to a bouchon as a 20-year-old Erasmus student. I’d accidentally ended up spending a semester of my year abroad in the Auvergne countryside, which meant every weekend I’d thumb a ride to the nearest big city – Lyon. I didn’t know much about Lyon, except that it was famous for its food – in particular the hearty fare served up at these traditional restaurants with their red gingham tablecloths and chalkboard menus. So when I found myself eating stringy, overpriced beef muscle that cost more than my night at a hostel, I wondered what the hype was about.

But after nearly five years living in the city, I’ve now learned how to avoid the tourist traps (which largely line Vieux Lyon between souvenir shops selling fridge magnets and sweet shops). Historically, most bouchons weren’t in Lyon’s old town anyway, writes Yves Rouèche in Histoire(s) De La Gastronomie Lyonnaise, but in the neighbourhoods of Vaise, Croix-Rousse and La Guillotière, the gateways to the city in the Renaissance period where merchants and travellers stopped for the night.

From cliffside views of Lake Garda to post-hike saunas in Sweden, you share your most memorable walking trips

• Tell us about a cooler European coast – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

If you have a head for heights, then you can “walk with the gods” on the Sentiero degli Dei. It’s cut into the vertiginous hillside high above the Amalfi coast, offering heavenly views all the way to Capri and beyond. Ten breathtaking kilometres later, you’ll rejoin the earthly hordes of Instagrammers in the undeniably beautiful but crowded Positano. A super-convenient combined bus and ferry ticket from Travelmar takes you from any of the coastal towns to the start of the walk, in the lovely hamlet of Bomerano, in Agerola, and from Positano back to your base.
Brian

With Cambridge South about to welcome its first passengers, it’s an ideal time to explore some of the university city’s lesser-known treasures on foot or by public transport

Flat fields of poppies and ox-eye daisies stretch out to a wide horizon. There are butterflies, vetches, salad burnet. Skylarks sing overhead and a cuckoo calls from the trees near the river. Legend has it that the poet Lord Byron swam here as a Cambridge undergraduate and, 20 years later, Charles Darwin surveyed its beetles. Heading through flowering meadows towards a nature reserve known as Byron’s Pool, I’ve walked a mile from the new £250m Cambridge South station.

Opening to passengers on 28 June, Cambridge South will be the first Great British Railways-branded station. The towering Biomedical Campus next door is Europe’s biggest medical research facility, with about 40,000 visitors a day. The station itself, with its 1,000 cycle-parking spaces, living roof and solar panels, feels like a model for sustainable transport.

This long-distance coastal trek takes in towering rock faces, isolated beaches and tasty pitstops

The fluorescent green gaiters seemed a ridiculous suggestion, but prove a godsend as we plod across the sand. “I bet you’re glad I told you to get a pair of these bad boys now, aren’t you?” my friend Luke jokes. We’re marching across a wide, crescent-shaped, honeyed beach. The sun is high in the sky and slivers of light flicker through a thick sea fog, as 6ft waves crash and fizz, their white foam licking the towering limestone cliffs.

I’m in Portugal, in the west Algarve, with two friends, hiking part of the Rota Vicentina, or Fishermen’s Trail, a 140-mile (226km) trek that runs from Lagos to São Torpes in Alentejo. Traversing cliffs that lead to wild, remote beaches like this one is part of the trail’s calling card. As the name suggests, it was originally carved out by fishers to reach otherwise inaccessible fishing spots along the Atlantic Ocean. Now it’s part of the Rota Vicentina, a hiking and cycling route spanning 466 miles across Portugal.

The creators of County Cork’s Sheep’s Head Way had to win over hundreds of landowners to complete the ambitious project, but the result is a gloriously unspoilt trail

The Sheep’s Head peninsula is clearly a good place to be a skylark. They seem to warble overhead at every turn, singing their little hearts out – and who could blame them? The hills here are high and heathery, the sea breeze is warmed by the Gulf Stream and the edge-of-the-world scenery is a realm of wild green slopes and endless blue Atlantic. If you had to choose a sky to lark in, the one that crowns this County Cork headland is a bona fide wing-quiverer.

The peninsula wows hikers, too. I’ve come to one of the south-westernmost points on the Irish mainland to trek the Sheep’s Head Way, a long-distance trail opened by the local community 30 years ago this summer. It took serious work to complete – more of which later – but it’s a delight. I’m walking the original 55-mile (88km) loop around the peninsula, although a longer, 63-mile option is now considered the official route. The way attracts a fraction of the numbers drawn to the Kerry Way and Dingle Peninsula trail further north, and thanks to its untrammelled paths and rampant, cliff-edged scenery, the rewards are grand, in every sense.

Come for the sun; stay for the seafood, jazz festival, galleries and coastal walking in this laid-back village within a city

South of the city centre, Le Mourillon is Toulon’s characterful and unpretentious seaside quarter. Once a fishing village, Le Mourillon is home to little shops selling Provençal produce such as huge garlic bulbs and tomatoes in vibrant shades, alongside lively bars and restaurants. It’s not as glamorous or polished as the likes of Antibes or Saint-Tropez – you won’t find designer brands – but it’s all the more charming for that.