Recipefiesta

A cricket match kindled my love affair with the Greek island, inspiring both a literary festival and my new novel

This is not where you would expect an article about one of the Mediterranean’s most beautiful islands to start. It’s the tail end of winter, 2021. Kensal Green Cemetery in west London: the imperial mausolea canted and crumbling, low clouds dissolving into rain. We are still  in that  strange phase of the pandemic when we are masked, newly aware of our bodies and the space around them. We are here to bury Nikos, a man who for me, for many, was the incarnation of Corfu.

I had spent my 20s trying to find the perfect Greek island, hopping from the well-trodden (Mykonos, Santorini, Cephalonia) to the more obscure (Kythira, Symi, Meganisi). None quite matched the vision I had dreamed into being as a child, when I segued from Robert Graves to Mary Renault, then to Lawrence Durrell and John Fowles. Greece was an idea before it was a place: freedom and deep thought, a constellation of sand, salt and thyme.

The best places to seek respite from the wintry UK weather in France, Italy and Germany

• Tell us about a family adventure in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Saint-Jorioz in Haute-Savoie will provide a springtime lift for your spirits. On the shore of Lake Annecy, it’s a short bus ride from the city of Annecy, but less busy and with superior lake and mountain views. Hike to the surrounding peaks, towards the lesser-known Col de l’Arpettaz, or cycle on the excellent greenways. Relax by the cool blue alpine water. Behind you lies the underrated Les Bauges Unesco Geopark. The department only joined France in 1860, and has its own Italian-influenced regional cuisine.
Brian Lowry

A trail named after a brutal marcher lord passes through tranquil countryside between Shropshire and Herfordshire but is rich in reminders of the area’s turbulent past

In the UK, there is a proud tradition of naming long-distance walking paths after talented reprobates. I mean the various opium fiends, international terrorists and child murderers who make up our colourful national tapestry (see the Coleridge Way, Drake’s Trail and the Richard III Trail). So perhaps a 30-mile weekend walk dedicated to the Mortimers, and their most notorious scion, Sir Roger, is an appropriate addition to the weave.

After all, this is the man who allegedly slept with a reigning queen (Isabella), probably killed her husband (Edward II), and certainly became de facto tyrant of the realm for three turbulent years in the 1320s, feathering his own nest relentlessly during that time. They don’t make world leaders like that any longer, do they?

A century ago, the Serra da Estrela mountains were Portugal’s answer to the Swiss health resorts of St Moritz and Davos. Now, a historic sanatorium has been given a 21st-century makeover and is drawing people back to the hills

Navigating the high slopes of Portugal’s Serra da Estrela in midwinter requires serious negotiation with the elements, but my guide, João Pedro Sousa, makes it look simple. Angling his lean frame into the wind, he digs his plastic snow-shoes into a steep drift and pauses, scanning the white ridgeline. He’s looking for mariolas – small cairns of rocks, fused by ice, that will indicate our onward trail. “The landscape changes every day so you have to learn how to read it afresh,” he says, setting off again. “At this time of year, nature is a true artist.”

I plod inelegantly in his wake, still clumsy in the frames clipped to my boots to keep me from sinking into the powder. At a quartzite outcrop rippled with rose and amber, we pause and drink in the view. Below us, cupped in the glacial scar of the Zêzere valley, is the terracotta-roofed town of Manteigas – founded in the 12th century and today the modest hub for tourism in the region. Ahead, on the horizon, João Pedro points out mainland Portugal’s highest peak, the 1,993-metre Torre, home to a small ski resort suited to beginners. “This region is full of surprises,” he grins.

A cabin on a farm near Hawick, known for its whisky and woollens, offers wild seclusion – and a great base for exploring an overlooked region

The tiny, off-grid cabin looked almost unreal: made of repurposed oak it stood by a private lochan, with separate cedar sauna, cold outdoor shower, sunken hot tub, and a jetty with two hammocks and a pair of paddleboards. It screamed Finland or Sweden, not a sheep and deer farm in the Scottish Borders. It was the sort of isolated location that would set Ben Fogle’s heart racing in New Lives in the Wild. Two swans bugled my arrival. I felt a little embarrassed that all of it was mine.

Sometimes, we need to escape to a place where the phone coverage is bad enough to make you believe you’re somewhere truly wild. Tiny Home Borders, hidden in rippling foothills 10 miles east of Hawick, is such a place. Last August, owners David and Claire Mactaggart opened a second two-person cabin on their farmland (the first opened in 2022) and I jumped at the chance to stay, swim, soak, and – crucially – switch-off.

Mimosas and violets are already out in the south of France, making it the perfect time for a pre-spring road trip

As I take my seat in Galimard’s Studio des Fragrances, in the Provençal town of Grasse, I limber up my nostrils for the task ahead: to create my own scent from the 126 bottles in front of me. Together they represent a world of exotic aromas, from amber and musk to ginger and saffron. But given that I have left the grey British winter behind to come here, I am more interested in capturing the sunny essence of the Côte d’Azur.

Here in the hills north of Cannes, the colours pop: hillsides are full of bright yellow mimosa flowers, violets are peeping out of flowerbeds and oranges hang heavy on branches over garden walls, even though it’s not yet spring. It is the perfect antidote to the gloom back home, and the chance to bottle these very scents is a joy.

Writers from George Eliot to Goethe put this Lombardy town on the map, then it fell out of fashion. Today it makes a picture-perfect alternative to the Italian lakes

The ancient settlement of Chiavenna, in Lombardy, near Italy’s border with Switzerland, was once well known among travellers. “Lovely Chiavenna … mountain peaks, huge boulders, with rippling miniature torrents and lovely young flowers … and grassy heights with rich Spanish chestnuts,” wrote George Eliot in 1860.

Eliot wasn’t the only writer to rhapsodise about this charming town. Edith Wharton described it as “fantastically picturesque … an exuberance of rococo”. For Mary Shelley it was “paradise … glowing in rich and sunny vegetation”, while Goethe described it as “like a dream”.