Recipefiesta

This year’s European youth capital is having a ball, with great food and nightlife part of the vibrant, multicultural scene – plus a stunning old town

I’d heard about Italian renaissance architecture, but I didn’t know anything about the Lublin renaissance. I arrive in Poland’s ninth largest city just as the sun sets. I haven’t really taken a second to look around until I get into my room at Avatary Miasta hotel (doubles from £78 B&B) in the old town’s market square. I drop my bags at the door and run to the window to take in what looks like an Italian piazza.

It’s not what I expected from a lesser-known Polish city: pastel-coloured buildings with ornate white mouldings and impressive pediments facing each other around the old town hall. Strings of fairy lights link the lively restaurants, and I can imagine people enjoying alfresco dinners on summer evenings.

Our winning tipster splashes out in Berlin, while road trips in the Balkans and Canada provide great student travel memories

It has to be Berlin. During a month-long summer trip in the late noughties, I fell in love with Kreuzberg’s €2 kebabs, cheap pilsner and vibrant street art. I strolled through leafy Prenzlauer Berg, home to endless coffee, cake and culture. This city has whatever food you could possibly want (currywurst is a must – meat, veggie or otherwise, big and budget-friendly). But the highlight was taking a train out to the stunning lake Wannsee. We packed a picnic, stripped off, sank our toes in the sand and swam, swam, swam until the canalside clubs began calling our name.
Jessica Cole

The town’s fabled music festival is just one side of a place that is framed by natural beauty to hike through – and wine heritage you can savour

My aunt Carol, an enthusiastic traveller and music lover, was driving back to the UK from the Algarve in her veteran campervan when she decided, on a whim, to swing right near Lyon and make for the Montreux jazz festival on the shores of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman).

This was 1987 and travel was still analogue. She hadn’t phoned with any indication of her whereabouts but, one day in July, Carol’s campervan suddenly appeared in my folks’ driveway in the south London suburbs. Out she jumped, with cassette tapes of all the gigs she’d been to spilling from the driver’s door behind her. I was immediately fascinated by her tales of this Belle Époque town and its association with musicians as diverse as Nina Simone, Deep Purple and Freddie Mercury.

Covid lockdowns and current pressures on finances are behind sales but there are hopes that buyers will operate the properties as indie hostels

After nearly 100 years of providing “simple accommodation for all”, the Youth Hostel Association is selling 20 of its 150 hostels in England and Wales. In a statement, the YHA said the decision had been taken after a difficult few years for the charity. “Pandemic shutdowns, the cost of living crisis and steep inflation have affected us like other charities and hospitality providers,” it said.

The sell-off is the first step in a three-year business plan announced on 23 June “to secure YHA’s long-term prosperity”. The Covid pandemic hit the charity hard: the YHA lost more than 80% of its income in 2020/21. Now 90% of its income comes from just 60% of its hostels. The restructure will focus on raising occupancy at the more popular properties, aiming to increase customers by 30% while reducing staff by 20%.

Visit the region’s old mills, as well as its museums, galleries and parks, in the buildup to this year’s British Textile Biennial

Non-practitioners tend to see the world of textiles through the doily tinted spectacles of the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee or else through the soot-filled eyes of William Blake’s “dark satanic mills”. The filter of postindustrialisation frames the spinning rooms and weaving sheds as bygone, other; demolition and development have sought to erase the epoch-making heritage.

But textiles and the industry that grew up around them in the former colonies and north of England continue to inform artistic creation and debate. In October, the third edition of the British Textile Biennial will trace the routes of fibres and fabrics across continents and centuries to and from the north of England in a series of commissions and exhibitions in museums, galleries, former mills, theatres and historical buildings across east Lancashire.

From ferret racing to shinkicking, we round up some of the country’s most eccentric sporting events. Oddly, cricket isn’t among them …

All modern sports can seem faintly ridiculous to the non-affiliated. How on earth did anyone come up with cricket? Or two packs of eight sturdy warriors all hugging each other, crouching down and locking heads before a pointy ball is introduced among them? It always surprises me that one player, ears tattered from similar battles, doesn’t struggle loose and walk away, shouting: “I’m sorry, I can’t. This is too weird.”

Behind all the bizarre practices of our favourite sports, the offside rules, the silly points and forty-loves, it’s obvious that what we want from our sport is fun physical exercise and the chance to test ourselves against others. If this can be achieved in a beautiful place with the opportunity for a post-match debrief in an excellent pub, then all the better. So here we have the alternative sporting calendar: games and challenges that may seem a little bizarre at first but take place in great locations around Britain.

The treasures of Berlin, Monaco and the Amalfi coast can be savoured on a budget if you use these local and regional buses

With sterling in its customary parlous state, anything that makes your European holiday money go further is going to be welcome. And one simple but rewarding method is to make friends with the humble local bus. Yes, it’s true that most endure a humdrum existence ferrying commuters and shoppers about, but if you ferret around you’ll discover that many others pass through scenery worthy of a glitzy sightseeing tour. But they do so for a fraction of the cost. And furthermore, they often afford the traveller an authentic slice of local life into the bargain.

Here, then, are six fantastically scenic European bus routes – all of them so inexpensive you’ll want to give the driver a tip.

Share details of locations that are dog-friendly in the UK – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

Taking dogs on trips involves a fair bit of planning. Some campsites, B&Bs and cottages do not welcome pets, and there are more than a few beaches where dogs are not permitted. There are also other factors to consider: the area you’d like to visit may have a high density of livestock farms. And letting a lively dog off the lead can disrupt wildlife.

But there are places where responsible dog-owners can let their (well behaved) animals run freely, adding joy and the sense that a family trip hasn’t excluded anyone! And don’t forget to tell us about great dog-friendly accommodation.

A sustainable community whose residents have built their own homes sits in a beautiful, quiet Baltic landscape. And an innovative restaurant offering fine dining is at hand …

The Swedes, with their lush forests, and the Norwegians, with their dramatic mountains, like to joke about Denmark – that it is Scandinavia’s leftovers all squeezed together and flattened by the ice age … some punchline. But part of the big attraction of Denmark and its people comes through their philosophy of respect for nature and their abundance of hygge, in the main being happy for others and letting them just be.

On a broad bay in the country’s Djursland peninsula sits the pretty coastal town of Ebeltoft, surrounded by the green hills and bronze age burial mounds of the Mols Bjerge national park. All cobbled streets and creaking half-timbered houses painted in lovely pastel shades, it buzzes with families on a long weekend break. There are opportunities for days splashing in the cool waters of the Baltic sea, windy walks on the harbour, visiting tall Viking ships and taking cycle rides along the many signposted paths. It is picture perfect holiday fodder.

For an action-packed trip of beach breaks and mountain trails, head to France’s southern Atlantic coast

For a French holiday combining surf and Alpine turf without having to drive too far between destinations, head for southwest France. Hossegor, near Biarritz on the Atlantic coast, is the surf capital of France, and a destination for beginners and experts alike. Some 170km inland is the 19th-century spa resort of Luz-Saint-Sauveur, around 30km south of Lourdes in the Hautes-Pyrénées. The charming village makes a great base for exploring the mountains, on foot or, better still, by e-bike, as well as canyoning, whitewater rafting, horse riding or zip-lining.

I came up with this solution for my own family holiday. Our sons wanted to surf and all four of us wanted to explore the outdoors in the Hautes-Pyrénées.

Fancy a revealing road trip, a peaceful lagoon or the chance to explore a deep gorge ? We leave the tourist trail for peace, quiet and jaw-dropping moments

The interior of central Portugal, with its mountain ranges and rivers, ispeppered with castles, hiking and cycling trails, and little villages with houses made from schist. This brownish-grey metamorphic rock has a flat, sheet-like structure and was used to build hamlets up in the hills (it’s also the terroir of the Douro valley and some Azores vineyards).

Kickstarted by the reintroduction of an ancient breed of cattle, a rewilding project in northern Portugal’s Côa valley is enriching wildlife and community

To the outside world we must have been a very odd sight. A group of 20 people standing on the sloping granite boulder-strewn hillside of Ermo das Águias in Portugal’s Côa valley, taking photographs and whispering in awe at the sight of what appeared to be an enclosure of brown cows.

But these were no ordinary cows. These were tauros; a new, specially bred version of a long-extinct wild cattle species (called aurochs) that were last seen here 400 years ago. Their reintroduction is the latest initiative of Rewilding Portugal – a four-year-old non-profit organisation whose mission is to create a wildlife corridor along the length of the Côa River valley, joining the key habitats of the Douro River in the north with the Malcata mountains in the south.

Every child – and every stressed-out parent – deserves a holiday, even if we have to endure the hell of the travel cot

The people who design travel cots belong in prison. I’m generally in favour of restorative justice and rehabilitation, but for this I’ll make an exception.

We are luckier than most, in that the baby will sleep on the hard bit of plywood that’s supposed to pass for a mattress, but he does need a few pats on the bum to settle, and unless you are Stretch Armstrong (a contemporary reference there for you, kids) this is all but impossible. Likewise, lowering the baby (or in our case, large toddler) into the cot, which if you’re a woman of average height involves squatting over one of the corners and hoping you don’t bash your crotch on it so that your swearing wakes them up, something which definitely hasn’t happened to me – ever. Basically, they are designed for babies who are heavy sleepers, and tall men.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

There is so much more to the country than Algarve sun. Our tipsters try coast walks and venture inland for river beaches, vistas and amazing villages

Cabo da Roca, 12 miles west of Sintra, is a must-visit, but it was odd there so few people joining us on the well-laid-out coastal footpath. Walking from Cabo da Roca seven miles up the coast to the next town, Azenhas do Mar, was one of the best routes I’ve ever hiked. We dropped in on secluded and beautiful beaches via steep offshoots of the coast path. But everything it set up perfectly, with proper ropes alongside the footpath so that you can use it to safely climb up and down the hills. The beaches, including Praia da Ursa and Praia da Adraga, are just simply breathtaking.
Christina Tang

First-quarter report by owner Whitbread says London room prices surged amid influx of people to capital

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The cost of a room at Premier Inn’s hotels in London rose sharply over the last three months, with tourists visiting for the coronation of King Charles and strong demand for budget stays in the capital boosting the chain, its owner, Whitbread, has said.

Britain’s biggest hotel chain, which runs nearly 900 hotels in the UK and Germany, said it had benefited from an influx of visitors to London for the royal event.

Put your music where your values are and check out festivals that support causes from preserving ancient cultures to saving monkeys

Sky-high ticket prices, corporate branding and a big-name acts approach are what we have come to expect from music festivals.

But with a recent UK study showing people are planning to go and see less live music this year due to the cost of living crisis, perhaps commercial music events have lost their charm.

Keen to snag a holiday bargain – while avoiding scammers and anything too good to be true? Here is everything you need to know

The summer holidays are almost upon us, which, for an increasing number of Britons, means only one thing: being scammed out of thousands of hard-earned pounds. Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, revealed in May that it had received 6,457 reports of holiday fraud in the last financial year, an increase of 41% on the previous year. The average loss was £2,372 per person, with 44% of victims in their 20s and 40s – dispelling the myth that only older people fall prey to fraudsters.

Even without the scams, holidays can be a huge expense in a cost of living crisis – and Which? reported that getaways this summer could cost up to 70% more than last year. But before you resign yourself to another summer at home, try these booking tips to outsmart the scammers and bag a great deal.

No longer just for solstice, a new type of tourism means these mysterious rock formations are being visited year round. Our writer joins a stone hunt on the Cornish moors

Up on Cornwall’s Penwith Moors time takes a strange quality. Here the landscape is a morass of knotted bracken and bristly gorse, a soft marigold tinge signalling warmer summer days. A grey smudge of cloud sags on the horizon and the wind whirs like white noise, a low and disorientating murmur. The topography is a palimpsest, with working farms etched over ruinous mines and prehistoric settlements. And at its heart is a scattering of ancient stones, the enigmatic quoits, barrows and stone circles that have captivated and confounded societies for millennia.

It’s an enchanting place just to wander, but to help me dive deeper into the mysteries of the moors, I am meeting artists and stone enthusiasts Lally MacBeth and Matthew Shaw. Almost immediately I feel underdressed in hiking boots primed with mud and a hardy waterproof – in Cornwall, we come perpetually prepared for the threat of showers. MacBeth, on the other hand, looks the part of an antiquarian in an emerald-green blazer and matching beret finished with a swipe of ruby lipstick. The only muted part of her outfit is a monochrome badge, the size of a small pebble, that reads: “The Stone Club”.

Tell us about how you travelled in these stunning but costly countries on the relative cheap – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

According to a Eurostat study in 2021 on price levels for consumer goods and services, Denmark was the joint most expensive country in Europe. Sweden was fourth and and Finland fifth. Norway and Iceland? Don’t expect much change from £20 for couple of pints. It’s no wonder travellers baulk at the prospect of a holiday in the Nordic countries. But it doesn’t have to be that way. According to the Scandinavia travel guide, Routes North, “Just because you’re on a budget doesn’t mean you can’t stay right on the edge on a Norwegian fjord, in a beautiful historic building in the centre of Copenhagen or in a ski resort in Finnish Lapland”.

We’d like to hear your budget tips on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.

Tourists in the city will be able to examine the spot where the Roman dictator was said to have been murdered

Tourists will be able to stroll close to the spot where Julius Caesar met his bloody end, when Rome’s authorities open a new walkway on the ancient site on Tuesday.

The Roman dictator was stabbed to death by a group of aggrieved senators on the Ides of March – 15 March – in 44BC, and the account was embellished by William Shakespeare in his play named after Caesar.

Using canals, rivers and quiet roads, this cycling and boating break – ‘a holiday not a road race’ – takes riders to beautiful wetland scenery, ancient towns and delicious food

Ten years ago, while exploring the Renaissance city of Mantua in Lombardy, I bumped into a bunch of cyclists embarking on a “bike and barge” trip all the way to Venice. It sounded like the perfect way to hit the quiet backroads of the little-known Polesine region, which surrounds the Po River and stretches to the Adriatic. Finally, here I am, joining the trip (though in the opposite direction), boarding the Ave Maria, which is moored behind Palladio’s iconic Redentore church on the island of Giudecca. The once rust-encrusted 42-metre transport boat was saved from the scrapheap by local tour operator Girolibero and transformed into a very comfortable 17-cabin floating hotel.

My 32 fellow passengers are a cosmopolitan crowd: Britons, Berliners, Americans, Canadians and New Zealanders, ranging from a teenage student to sprightly retirees. Unlike me they are experienced cyclists, but the tour leader, Hein Hoefnagels, a superfit 74-year-old Dutchman, reassures me that “this is a holiday not a road race”. We will be travelling at a leisurely pace, covering between 15 and 35 miles a day for eight days with lots of stop-offs (including the fishing port of Chioggia and the ancient town of Adria); the roads are flat – plus there’s the option of an electric bike instead of a touring one.

I walked the Highlands as it should be, with a beautiful diversity of trees, plants and animals, at a world-first rewilding centre

Birdcall breaks the morning silence as I potter past the stretching Scots pines and ancient oaks of Dundreggan, the rewilded estate of the charity Trees for Life in Glenmoriston in the Scottish Highlands. Woodpeckers drum and cuckoos call from on high, while around the trail, finches and thrushes flutter from tree to tree, avoiding beard lichens dripping off the branches.

I’m the first one out in the forest this morning (or the first human, at least), a feat easily achieved when you have spent the night here. The Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, the first of its kind in the world, opened in April and includes An Spiris, an L-shaped accommodation block with 20 double/twin rooms and a spacious communal area.

With its glorious views, rich cuisine and vertiginous trails, the Austrian Tirol is a winter wonderland – but it’s even better in summer

A wooden swimming jetty juts into a lake of deepest emerald green. In the distance white-sailed dinghies skitter across the water, propelled by a gentle breeze coming down from the mountains. This is Achensee, the largest lake in the Austrian Tirol. And if you endured last summer’s heatwave on a sticky and crowded British beach or watched the skies turn red above the Med as the mercury nudged the high 40s, the chances are you found yourself fantasising about a scene just like this.

I’d love to say we jumped off that jetty into the lake, but it’s not just the colour that’s glacial, so we retreat to the more temperate waters of the rooftop infinity pool at Atoll Achensee. This gleaming lakeside leisure complex has the look and feel of an exclusive spa retreat, all sweeping white curves and mountain vistas, but you can spend half a day here, flitting between the indoor and outdoor pools, whirl pools, sauna and sun terraces for just a few euros more than it would cost you to swim in a municipal pool back home. It’s not the only thing that turns out to be great value. Summer is low season in the Tirol and many of the hotels here – including the smart-but-cosy Sonnenhof in Pertisau where we’re staying – offer enticing half-board packages.

Accessing money abroad can rack up a number of unexpected bills, so plan now to save later

Millions of people are counting down the days until they head off abroad this summer. But when you are doing pre-holiday admin, don’t forget about the things that will help keep costs down, and make for a smoother trip.

Pick the wrong plastic, for example, and you will end up spending more than you need to.

Grand old Viennese coffee houses, blazing Algarve sunsets, steamboats in Stockholm, schnapps in Slovenia … and a dozen more reasons why we love Europe

At noon, steamboat S/S Stockholm pushes away from Boulevard Strandvägen; its elegant art nouveau buildings, piped like cake icing, are the very definition of understated beauty. Our destination is Vaxholm, one of around 30,000 islands, skerries and islets in Stockholm’s archipelago. The city itself spans 14 islands, each with its own flair, like floating 3D puzzle pieces separated by waterways.

As S/S Stockholm begins her journey, the lush island of Djurgården comes into view. The masts of my favourite museum, the Vasamuseet – final resting place of a 17th-century warship – shoot high above the treeline. I hear gut-wrenching screams coming from amusement park Gröna Lund as we sail past. Thick forests, open parks and flower gardens are interlaced with biking routes and walking paths. Our proximity to nature and water organically creates work-life balance and slows me down to be fully present.

Festival season’s here, and soon the school holidays, so get the tent out. But with storms and heatwaves forecast, how can you prepare for all the conditions?

Everyone prays for sunshine, but camping in a heatwave can be a health risk. David Scotland, the owner of Outdoor World Direct, says: “Avoid taking naps in your tent during the day as this can lead to heatstroke, as one of my friends discovered at Glastonbury!”

From spotting beavers and wild boar in the Czech Republic to strolling through a lush Sicilian oasis, readers reveal locations they can’t get enough of

Lake Vassivière in the Limousin has something for everyone. We found one of France’s largest artificial lakes while on a donkey-trekking holiday (but that’s another story!). The lake has five lovely sandy beaches with safe swim areas, beach cafes and kayak hire. There are walks and cycle paths, but the real gem is the lake’s island, with its lighthouse, a sculpture park and a chateau that is now a restaurant. Access is via a footbridge, free water taxis or by canoe. We stayed in a fabulous yurt on a donkey farm three miles away (about €400 for a week). Je ne regrette rien …
Angela Luke

With new arts venues, pubs and restaurants, fancy beach huts and a restored pier, the UK’s most easterly town is getting its mojo back

‘It’s about trying to get people to think about Lowestoft in a different way: to look at the beautiful beach as part of the fantastic east coast and not as the end of the line, or a place that has lost industry. It’s actually got a lot of potential.” Genevieve Christie is passionate about the UK’s easternmost town – what she calls “the most unsung location in Suffolk”. As CEO of the First Light festival (17-18 June), a free annual beachside event celebrating midsummer, she and her team also run the live music, film nights and performances at the new seafront East Point Pavilion, where we now sit eating burritos.

Spruced up and reopened last summer by HemingwayDesign, the faux Victorian structure – actually built in 1993 – is the initial, very prominent beneficiary of Lowestoft’s recently secured £24.9m levelling up Towns Fund. Once home to a soft play area and tourist office, it now buzzes with streetfood stalls, artisan coffee and craft beer. “People held this building in great affection,” she says. “And it’s become a real hub, with hundreds of families enjoying this space.”

The newly popular mix of hiking and open-water swimming opens up new routes for adventurers looking to explore mountains, lakes and coasts

Cross-country swimming – the combination of hiking and open-water swimming – enables you to create routes that traverse land and water, whether it be mountains, lakes or a stretch of coastline. The concept is that when your walk comes to a body of water, you pack your kit into a waterproof inflatable bag that can be towed, swim to the next destination, exit, and continue your journey. A multi-swim walk can open up new perspectives on the landscape, even in familiar areas.

Standard tow floats are fine for shorter trips. However, for full or multi-day excursions, something like the RuckRaft, which is big enough to transport a rucksack full of camping gear across open water is recommended.

Our slow travel expert takes the off-peak train, discovering along the way that the cross-border ‘express’ train is actually delightfully slow

Martigny enjoys a beautiful setting where the waters of the River Dranse tumble down to join the Rhône in Switzerland’s Valais canton. The town is a natural way station for travellers following the classic Grand St Bernard route south into Italy. The chic set stop off in Martigny en route to Verbier.

Switzerland has so many celebrated metre-gauge mountain railways, among them an outstanding trinity of lines that are boldly promoted to overseas tour operators and have ample capacity to handle large groups. Those three crowd-pullers are the wonderful Bernina railway from the Upper Engadine to Tirano in Italy, the steeply graded line from Brig to Andermatt and beyond (used by the Glacier Express) and the fine GoldenPass route running west from the Thunersee via the Simme Valley to Gstaad and Montreux.

Tell us about your favourite student trip – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

Student travel can be the source of anecdotes and connections with brilliant places that will live with you forever. Reveal your best experiences and tips for travelling on a budget, whether it was an Interrail trip taking in remote parts of Scandinavia, a working holiday or camping on a Greek island. You may want to tell us about great hostels, hiking trips and fantastic, lasting friends you made along the way.

If you have a relevant photo, do send it in – but it’s your words that will be judged for the competition.

Ordnance Survey reveals the hikes most enjoyed by the British public over the past 12 months, according to its app

The nation’s 10 favourite walks this year were calculated by OS through data collected from its OS maps app between April 2022 and April 2023. The app is downloaded over 3.5 million times a month to find routes and navigate the outdoors, and the latest figures reveal that people were returning to rural areas in greater numbers compared with urban routes, reversing trends that developed during the coronavirus pandemic. Ordnance Survey spokesperson David Jones describes the routes …

Famous for its vibrant colour and intoxicating culture, this ancient city has something for all the senses. Here are 15 tips for a perfect break

A remarkable newly restored garden, Le Jardin Secret was the site of one of the largest riads in the medina, belonging to the chancellor of Sultan Moulay Abd al-Hafid, the last sultan of Morocco before the French protectorate. By 1934 it had fallen into disrepair. It reopened in 2016 with gardens designed by the British gardening architect Tom Stuart-Smith. Split into an exotic garden and an Islamic garden (laid out according to strict geometrical rules), it’s a place of sublime beauty and peace. Enjoy the view from the elegant rooftop terrace, along with a mint tea and one of their tasty homemade cakes (lejardinsecretmarrakech.com).

These getaways are geared towards giving men a reboot, and include both the spiritual – breathwork and midfulness – and physical, through activities such as mountain walking and coasteering

One definition of wellness is “the state of being healthy, especially when it is something that you actively try to achieve”. However, in today’s society, wellness seems to be a catch-all term for anything remotely health-related, fitness, dietary or cosmetic. You name it: biometric facials, sleep syncing, orgasmic meditation. Perhaps that’s why wellness is a word that’s still taboo among many men, particularly those from more traditional, working-class backgrounds.

Aside from a dilution of the term by fads and crazes, such as the ones listed above and those floating around on TikTok and Instagram, another issue may be a lack of retreats for men. We’re not talking the Ant Middleton-style “man-up or go home” military fitness camps, nor Wim Hof woo-woo, just solid, safe spaces for men to talk, improve physical and mental wellbeing and escape the pressures of everyday life to develop meaningful connections. Thankfully, there are some pioneers leading the way in male wellness, ranging from hiking escapes in Snowdonia and breathwork getaways in southern Spain to a GBTQ pop-up retreat in Europe, promoting communication and emotional connection.

A retreat deep in an ancient Wiltshire forest offers jiu-jitsu, wild swimming and an emotional detox among like-minded strangers

I was an hour late by the time my car careened down a bumpy country lane into the ecovillage that would be my home for the weekend. The Easter getaway had turned my three-hour drive into five, rain lashing the windows throughout, and I arrived for my first wellness retreat about as far from zen as you could get.

One of the founders, the 29-year-old spiritual guru Josh Bolding, floats across the car park and greets me with a hug. I’d have preferred a beer, but I go with the man-hug. There is no time for small talk: I’m the last to arrive and he whisks me into the practice room, a wooden hut on stilts, where the other guests are settling into the first session on yin yoga and breathwork.

Decision affects 15,000 hotel workers who are pushing for raises, affordable healthcare and safe workloads and staffing levels

Hotel workers are threatening to strike in California over pay and conditions in what would be the largest ever strike by hotel workers.

In a strike authorization vote held on 8 June, workers voted 96% in favor of authorizing a strike, which could begin as early as Fourth of July weekend.

Ecodomes, poolside lounging and meditation feature at these gorgeous retreats in the UK and sunny southern Europe

I’ve just returned from the most relaxing weekend at Purusha Retreats, south of Lincoln. From the moment we headed up the grassy, tree-lined driveway we knew we’d arrived in relaxation heaven. Set in a countryside location, we slept in private ecodomes, each with hammocks, a wood-fired hot tub, a private shower and compost loo. Eco-friendly toiletries are provided. Each dome is set apart from the others for complete privacy. The communal spaces are equally beautiful, set around a small lake. Walks are marked around the site. Mornings are a joy of birdsong and evenings are delightful under the stars.
Clare Foyle

With views of distant hills this walk high on Sandstone Ridge takes in castles and a brilliant hostelry

The view from the terrace outside the Pheasant pub stretches west across miles of russet, green and gold. I am deep in rural Cheshire, roughly halfway between Crewe and Chester. The pub sits high on the Sandstone Ridge, a distinctive feature in an otherwise level landscape – one that is being considered for an area of outstanding natural beauty status (AONB) by Natural England. The Sandstone Trail runs past the pub, on its way from the market town of Frodsham on the Mersey estuary south to Whitchurch in north Shropshire. Two of the trail’s most impressive castles are close to the pub, linked by a five-mile ramble from the door.

I set off around midday along country lanes, past old ivy-covered barns and mossy walls sprouting ferns. A cobbled track takes me under a stone archway, flanked by silver birches and bronzed oaks, bright holly trees and conifers. Coming out of the woods, huge views appear ahead. I am looking eastwards now across gently sloping wintry fields to the village of Bunbury.