Recipefiesta

From the home of the original Super-Tramp to the UK’s only polycentric city, we find reasons to visit places where few visitors alight

part one | part two | part three | part four

Frontier towns are bypassed, forgotten, often forlorn, occasionally vicious in the old sense of the word: full of vice. Seediness inhabits their edges, and edges are what they mainly are. Meant to be bulwarks or limits, they are usually porous and uncertain. Travellers pause before making their next move. Frontiers have caused a lot of trouble in the UK. The Channel, Offa’s Dyke, Hadrian’s Wall and Northern Ireland’s border with the Republic have been sites of tension, trouble and illicit trade, but there are edges to all cities and regions, and every seaside resort is a border. This quintet of places rarely chosen as holiday destinations are the kinds of towns Graham Greene might have used as backdrops for his novels and short stories if he’d been a working-class writer instead of a public schoolboy with a colonial complex. They’re probably familiar to most non-natives mainly as road signs, “via” places, stepping stones, but all are worth a linger and a look around.

This area of Flanders has long been a paradise for cycling enthusiasts, but now it offers cutting-edge art and great culinary experiences too

It feels strange to be cycling along a sunken path, my head at the same level as the ducks and swans swimming on the still waters of the pond beyond the walls. But Cycling Through Water, part of a biking trail in the Bokrijk forest, is another surprise on a trip to Belgium’s Limburg province.

Close to the border with the Netherlands, this unspoilt area is less than two hours’ drive from Brussels. Soon after picking up a car at Brussels Midi, I’m driving through luxuriant countryside passing dense woodland, cornfields and shaded lakes. With about 1,250 miles (2,000km) of paved, mostly car-free trails, Limburg is a paradise for bike enthusiasts – and easily navigable thanks to a clearly numbered junction system on its innovative cycle network. Difficult even for amateurs like me to get lost.

A trip focusing on slow immersion in the natural world is the perfect way to unwind and restore mental harmony for this busy mum

A railway station concourse is a stressful place. Trains come and go, announcements call out, screens flicker, lights flash and people run in different directions. Yet it was this chaotic scene that I was being asked to imagine on a mindful walking weekend in north-east Wales – one designed to help me unplug from stressful situations and learn tricks to sooth my senses in day-to-day life. I lifted my head to look at the assembled group – my friend Cerys, Nicky (who runs her own hospitality business), Claire, whose company started this tour, and Belinda Gammon, a mindfulness guide and therapist. We were high on a hill above the hamlet of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog in north Wales, where only the sound of wind-rustled leaves could be heard.

“Think of your mind as being this station,” said Belinda in a slow, soothing tone. “Your thoughts are the trains that endlessly pass through, creating noise. You have the potential to jump on to any one of them – without really knowing where it will end up – but doing that can get you lost, confused, overwhelmed. Mindfulness
meditation helps us to observe the trains but not board any.”

Surinder Arora told to demolish all or part of Fairmont Windsor Park hotel where Northern Ireland deal was agreed

• UK politics live – latest updates

A Conservative donor has been told to demolish all or part of his five-star hotel that hosted the signing of the Brexit deal after breaching planning regulations.

Runnymede borough council issued a planning enforcement notice for Surinder Arora’s Fairmont Windsor Park hotel last month.

Tell us about a favourite station bar or cafe you’ve visited on your rail trips in Europe including the UK – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

France may have some of the most renowned and glorious station pitstops but you may equally have enjoyed the fare, ambience and design of a renovated station building in the UK, a Swiss chalet on a mountain railway, or a tiny locals’ bar by a rural Spanish halt.

Wherever you’ve enjoyed a handy bite and tipple by a railway station, please divulge the details!

Three days running and hiking on the stunning Bohuslän coast with my pre-teen son is joyfully exhausting

At the top of a steep path through a birch forest in western Sweden a middle-aged woman calls out “Välkommen!” with such warmth it’s as if we’re long-lost relatives being welcomed. We’re extremely happy to see her, too, and her trays of torn-up cinnamon buns, gherkins and crisps, the Swedish take on a pit-stop, which will power us on to the next feed station.

My 12-year-old son and I have come to the coast of Bohuslän, Sweden’s westernmost province, featuring a stunning archipelago of more than 8,000 islands stretching from Gothenburg to Norway, to take part in the Icebug Xperience. This is a three-day event in which participants either run or hike (or both) between 21 and 30km (13 to 18 miles) a day.

It’s the last week to catch the annual summer arts trail, but there are year-round attractions in this medieval market town

Shrewsbury, a gorgeous medieval market town, was put on the art map in 2021 with the launch of the Shrewsbury Arts Trail. The event goes from strength to strength: this year it boasts three sculptures by Salvador Dalí. Two are outdoors: the 5-metre-tall Surrealist Piano startles visitors to the castle grounds and Homage to Terpsichore dominates the courtyard of the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery. Inside the gallery, the Dalínian Dancer is part of the Inspirational Exhibition, which also includes work by LS Lowry, Man Ray, Barbara Hepworth, Damien Hirst and Banksy.

The famous resort town on France’s Côte d’Azur is a vibrant haven for foodies and art lovers

Lunchtime on a warm spring Saturday on the Cours Saleya – Nice’s famous flower market, tucked away just one row of elegant fin de siècle buildings from the sea – and it’s hard to see how any business can be open in town, apart from restaurants and cafés. Everyone, it seems, is here; every table taken beneath the canopies and parasols, queues forming outside the most popular eateries, every bench taken with families tucking into paper-wrapped socca – a salty chickpea pancake – or gelati. It feels like high summer; the sky is a vivid blue, the palazzos and mansions beneath blazing butter yellow and warm, burnished terracotta.

It’s years since I’ve visited Nice, and the grand dame of the Côte d’Azur has certainly had a facelift in the intervening time. The town’s grandiose squares have been repaved, frontages repainted and a new tram system has gone some way to calming the gridlocked traffic. Palm trees billow in the breeze; on the Promenade des Anglais, neat lines of deckchairs are all taken, rows of faces tipped towards the sun. After the grey drizzle of home, it’s like stepping into an Insta-filtered world; a riot of colour and life.

The coast around Cadiz is enjoying a foodie revolution, thanks to a growing number of cool and innovative beach restaurants

The Basques have Juan Mari and Elena Arzak, the Catalans Ferran Adrià, and Andalucía has “el Chef del Mar” Ángel León – chefs who have put their region’s cuisine on the world food map.

The 46-year-old León is a celebrity in Spain. His fascination with sea rice and fish scales and his restaurant Aponiente in El Puerto de Santa María have attracted attention to the Costa de la Luz. It is the only restaurant in Andalucía to hold three Michelin stars and has made people think again about the town on the Cádiz coast that, until recently, could best be described as “faded”.

From the Canaries to Norway via Brittany and Scotland, these coastal havens offer safer sea swimming without the swell of waves

Whether they are naturally formed, cast in concrete on a rock shelf or hewn from the rock itself, tidal pools solve a problem by providing safe access to the sea. Plunging into rich saltwater in a sheltered area protected from the turbulent waves, yet still refreshed by the tide twice a day, is an unfettered joy.

The idea of sea bathing for health benefits became popular in the mid-18th century, and sea pools were a way to offer easy access. Beyond this, tidal pools became important as social infrastructure: they serve as vital community spaces, like village greens, town halls and other places we meet and socialise. After having being left to the elements for years, in recent times many tidal pools are being bolstered by communities looking to restore, protect and manage them. These include the dramatic Saltcoats Bathing Pond in North Ayrshire.

Hotel chain says rooms in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff already fully booked ahead of pop star’s summer performances

Taylor Swift fans have already booked out hotels near several of the venues for the UK leg of the Eras tour next summer.

Budget hotel chain Travelodge said all of its hotels in Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff are already sold out for the days around the concerts in June 2024. A number of its hotels near Wembley Stadium – where Swift will perform on six nights in June and August – are also sold out on those dates.

“We have seen very strong demand from all corners of the UK for our hotels that are close to the venues where Taylor Swift is playing next year,” Travelodge said on Thursday as it reported that this year’s Beyoncé and Harry Styles concerts had helped it achieve “record-breaking [financial] results” in the six months to the end of June.

As the city grapples with over-tourism, a new initiative aims to promote its lesser-visited outer reaches, where a mix of funky culture, historic gems and untamed greenery awaits

“A cable car? Here in Berlin?” The man cooking my burger at Piri’s – a self-proclaimed dive bar diner in Neukölln, an inner-city neighbourhood in the south-east of the city - is sceptical. “Yeah,” says his Kiwi colleague. “My parents did it. There’s a garden or something.”

Both cooks have lived here for upwards of 10 years. They refer to Neukölln, affectionately, as “the ghetto”, seemingly oblivious to the presence of an 18th-century castle, Shloss Britz, and the 220 lush acres of Britzer Garten in the immediate vicinity – let alone the cable car, in the north-eastern district of Marzahn, a 45-minute train ride away.

The Traws Eryri, a 140-mile mountain biking route in north-west Wales, heads away from the tourist trails and highlights the region’s rugged, changeable beauty

As befits a landscape that has been regularly repurposed and reimagined over millennia of dynamic human use and interaction, Eryri (or Snowdonia) is woven like a Welsh blanket with a multitude of tracks and paths. There are Neolithic ways leading to burial mounds, Roman roads past stone forts, snaking trails through coppiced woodland to abandoned mineral workings, drovers’ roads over bleak moorland, old narrow-gauge railway tracks and slate paths haunted by the ghosts of miners walking home from slate quarry to slate cottage. Somehow, Traws Eryri (Trans Snowdonia), a new 140-mile (225km), mainly off-road bikepacking route from Machynlleth to Conwy across the great mountain fastness of north-east Wales, manages to follow them all.

The route, which launches on 23 August, was developed by Cycling UK, which is making a habit of creating excellent long-distance, multi-day cycling adventures. Traws Eryri follows King Alfred’s Way, West Kernow Way and the Great North Trail, among others, and will be on the hot list of “must do” British exploits for two-wheeled explorers. It is distinct, though, and more of an adventure than its predecessors.

Tell us about your favourite solo trip in the UK or elsewhere in Europe – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

We’d love to hear about your solo trips and how it felt to set off on your own, whether it was a city break, a walking trip, a yoga stay, an art study week, or just a beach holiday. A solo trip need not be lonely – you may have joined a group of similarly independent-minded travellers.

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

On a 52-mile hike in Catalonia between five refuges, we found chamois, griffon vultures, rare butterflies, an ultra-trail running legend – and very few people

“You’ve brought the rain with you! Thank you! It hasn’t rained here for two months!” Jordi, piebald-bearded guardian of the isolated Prat d’Aguiló refuge, greeted my companion and me with such effusive smiles and enthusiastic handshakes we almost wondered if he held us personally responsible for ending his local drought.

We had long wanted to go hiking in the Pyrenees and, at just 52 miles, the Cavalls del Vent trail seemed an ideal way to cut our teeth. The circular path winds around Catalonia’s Cadí-Moixeró natural park, uniting eight mountain refuges that open for walkers during the summer (from 12 May to 14 October in 2023) when the snow has gone.

Inspired by an Edwardian guidebook, our writer walks the 65-mile length of the county’s most famous river

The swaying trees closed ranks in the darkness, obscuring my route. In theory a public footpath led through them: the next stage in my quest to walk the entire length of the River Wharfe.

I hunched over my Ordnance Survey map, trying to protect my phone’s light from the blowing rain and lamenting my lack of a headtorch. When I looked up, every sweep of my light made the slightest open area look like a footpath. So I decided to cut my losses and leave the river behind. Nearby, a quiet B-road would be mostly deserted at this hour, and would convey me straight into my destination – the Yorkshire Dales village of Appletreewick, where a warm, dry pub awaited me.

From sculpture gardens to ancient woodland, windswept hills to deserted beaches, here’s where to really escape from it all

Fifty square miles of untouched countryside with just one road, come for lochside walks, cherry-hued sunsets and magnificent views across the Sound of Mull from Ben Hiant, the peninsula’s looming mountain.
Unique Cottages has a range of self-catering properties, from £495 a week; unique-cottages.co.uk

Brimming with natural beauty and renowned for its sea kayaking and climbing routes, Anglesey is perfect for a multi-activity break.

Sometimes you have to travel far to understand what you’ve left behind. Fifteen years ago, on a granite slab in the Rockies, a local climbing guide turned to me and said, “Ever heard of a place called Anglesey?”

We’d ascended to a pinnacle under an azure sky. The soaring rock giants of the American west stood sentinel all around. I was a beginner in rock climbing, but this looked about as good as it could get. He sighed. “Anglesey. I’ll go before I die.” He looked away with a thousand-yard stare, and added, gnomically, “A Dream of White Horses.”

Agricultural shows are a highlight of the British summer, combining farming heritage with the village fete to bring an eccentric joyfulness

• 10 of the UK’s best country shows

Several years ago I was asked to judge the homemade wines at a local agricultural show. I have written to tight deadlines at World Cups and delivered a speech in the Long Room at Lord’s; neither filled me with quite the same feelings of pressure and anxiety. I knew how seriously such competitions are taken, the strength of feelings they evoke. I had nightmares of being strangled with a siphoning tube. Fortunately my co-judge was more experienced and sanguine. She also held the old-fashioned opinion that swirling the wines around your mouth before spitting them in a bucket was uncouth, and so following her lead I drank a small glass of each. There were more than 20 entries, and after half an hour my fears had dematerialised into a fuzzy summer glow.

That was before the pandemic. These days anyone taking a similar approach to judging homemade wines would probably end up being hospitalised, thanks to the sheer range and number of entries. During lockdown people all over the country filled their days rediscovering old crafts, baking, brewing and winemaking among them. Entries for the industrial tent (originally for displaying the work of rural craftspeople, but showing everything from baking to children’s art, knitting, jam and photography) at agricultural shows have soared.

Rural traditions going back centuries can be seen at these fairs celebrating farming, food and landscape

The 175th Dunster Show, being held today (18 August), is not to be missed. It has all of the features you’d expect – livestock, tractors, horses and friendly competition. It showcases local produce and crafts. And all with the spectacular backdrop of Dunster Castle and beautiful Exmoor.
Sarah

Overtourism has long been a problem – and besieged cities are fighting back. But can angry locals stop the tide of stag parties, ‘anus burners’, noise and graffiti?

Ivan Bera, 24, has always loved the feeling of being naked. He says that when he was about 17, he “ decided to try it in public”, with his then girlfriend. Since then, “I have been very busy with the associations in Catalonia,” he tells me. The Catalan naturist-nudist scene is rich, decades-old and organised. Bera is a member of Joves Naturistes, which is for 18- to 35-year-olds; last week the all-ages Naturist-Nudist Federation of Catalonia made a public appeal for tourists wearing swimsuits to stay away from their beaches.

“Legally, we can practise it everywhere: there is no law against nudism in Spain,” Bera says. “But most naturists prefer to practise it in secluded areas with a tradition of it. Those areas are being invaded, mostly in the summer months, by tourists who not only wear swimsuits, but also have a very disrespectful manner to nudists. We feel displaced in our own spaces and we fear losing them.”

This exhilarating, nine-hour journey trundles through the Swiss and Austrian Alps and soars to more than 1,000 metres above sea level as it crosses the Rhine-Danube watershed

Every great railway station needs a guardian angel. Zurich has one of the quirkiest. A colourful sculpture of a curvaceous, swimsuit-clad woman with golden wings hovers over the main concourse at the city’s Hauptbahnhof. L’ange protecteur by French artist Niki de Saint Phalle is as intriguing as the busy departure boards. With direct trains to destinations across 10 countries, this station is rich in possibilities. Anywhere from Amsterdam to Zagreb! Berlin, Bratislava or Bologna? Or perhaps Paris or Prague?

For lovers of fine scenery, the star departure of the day is, in my opinion, the 08.40 to Graz. This EuroCity train includes an Austrian restaurant car and one of the rare panorama carriages owned by Swiss operator SBB. There’s only one other international departure from Zurich which offers such panoramic delight: the EC8 at 10.59 to Hamburg. There are some fine scenic stretches on that route to be sure, most notably the hour-long cruise down the Rhine Gorge from Mainz to Koblenz. But that cannot compete with the EC163 to Graz which, if you excuse a few tunnels, offers over nine hours of first-class Alpine scenery on its journey of 325 miles (522km) to Austria’s second city.

At 34, Torbjørn Pedersen embarked on a seemingly impossible journey that would take 10 years – and involve cerebral malaria and being held up at gunpoint. He reflects on the highs, the lows and the joy of getting married en route

Torbjørn Pedersen has always dreamed of being a famous adventurer. He spent his childhood building dens in the woods, pretending to be his hero, Indiana Jones. Even as an adult, he couldn’t shake the sense that he was destined for greatness.

There was just one problem. “I was born at least 100 years too late,” he tells me over video call from his home in Copenhagen. “I had a profound feeling that everything had been done. The great adventures took place in the past. It was all over.”

With surfing, e-biking, kayaking, hiking and history, we join an all-action family break around County Cork’s spectacular bays, headlands and beaches

At first, there is some fussing from my 10- and 12-year-old sons. “Will the water be too cold?”, “I don’t want to wear a wetsuit”, “Are there even any decent waves?”… But once their young surf instructor, Josh Mahony, appears with two boards under his arms and the kind of shoulders that suggest he could paddle south to Spain and back in his lunch break, there is only silence as they follow him into the waves.

Some hours later, having caught many waves including their first proper unbroken green ones – before today they’d only surfed more easily managed whitewater – it’s an effort to get them out.

Share details of a favourite train trip you’ve taken in Europe including the UK – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

Whether you’ve taken a sleeper to the Arctic Circle, boarded high-speed services for a multi-city break, or enjoyed slow routes rumbling into the rural hinterlands of southern Europe, we’d love to hear your experiences of great rail journeys. Share details of lovely cafes, connection tips, and ticket and timetable quirks you’ve encountered as well as pretty scenery you’ve travelled through.

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

I was hoping for vineyards, kayaking, flea markets and beautiful weather. Unfortunately, I was stuck with a classic British summer

In the midst of the summer washout, thoughts inevitably turn to warmer evenings abroad. My last trip away pre-Covid was to Bergerac in south-west France, and memories of it kept me going through many a dark day of lockdown. I have since moved to rural south Norfolk, where recreating a French holiday actually feels very achievable: we have locally produced food, hot-air balloons and brocantes (flea markets). Sussex has been compared to Provence, so surely the Waveney Valley is the new Dordogne. Why bother with queues at Dover when everything you need is on the doorstep?

Can you get a taste of the land of fire and ice without leaving the English seaside? I put on my horned helmet to find out

Despite my Turkish heritage, I cannot handle hot holidays, so a trip to Iceland is my dream, combining two of my favourite things: nature and jumpers. I have long been fascinated with this small, otherworldly country on the edge of the Arctic Circle. What natural wonders it has! Auroras, whales and bearded men. How friendly Iceland must feel when everyone is referred to, officially, by their first name. When I was in labour with my second child, it was to the stirring sounds of Sigur Rós, as if I was a rare mammal on a BBC nature documentary. In 1975, Iceland’s women went on strike; inspired by these women, forged in fire and ice and battles with trolls, I too rarely do any housework. I don’t know if I’ll ever make it to Iceland but, failing a trip, is it possible to live my own Icelandic saga from home?

Great public transport in the Lakes means easy access to the famous trail – and handy alternatives to walking when the rain comes down

Alfred Wainwright’s coast-to-coast trail through Cumbria and North Yorkshire over mountains and moorland is one of the UK’s most popular long-distance walks, with an estimated 6,000 people completing the whole 197 miles each year, and lots more walking shorter sections. In August 2022 the government announced it would become England’s newest national trail. About the same time, the Borrowdale Royal Oak hotel in Rosthwaite, near Derwentwater and right on the route, reopened after a £1.3m refurbishment with a sustainable focus (and free cake).

The Lake District has excellent public transport compared with most of rural England so I head to Rosthwaite and back by train, bus, boat and foot. The eight miles of the trail between Borrowdale and Grasmere are considered a scenic highlight. Wainwright, a celebrated writer and fell walker in the postwar period, describes one stretch nearby as “a walk in heaven”.

On arrival in Paris guests had to find alternative accommodation but a refund has been refused

I work for a community trust in east London and we have been trying to help a disabled woman who had a terrible experience after using Booking.com to book a hotel stay in Paris.

When she arrived at the property along with her sister-in-law in April, the door was answered by a woman who explained that the address was her own house – not a hotel or apartment.

It’s Italy’s most romantic city, but there’s a lot more to Verona than Romeo and Juliet

Verona is an exquisite city year round for a weekend break, but with the 100th anniversary this summer of its open-air opera, held in the ancient arena, now is an especially good time to visit.

I’ve come for Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and as dusk settles over the Roman amphitheatre, the summer heat softening to a velvety blue, some 10,000 opera lovers scrabble for their seats. Swifts screech through the darkening skies and young lads skedaddle along the tiers, arms burdened with glossy brochures and cushions for hire – their sing-song cries of “programmi e cuscini” lilting loud above the swelling chatter.

Our writer heads to north-east England to go coasteering, rockpooling and wing surfing – with dolphins and puffins offering moral support

I’m standing by a sand dune listening to Kevin Anderson’s briefing on our coasteering trip, which is about to start. “Remember,” he says, “Seaweed slippy, barnacles grippy.” But my eye is being drawn to a strange object beside him. Is it a lectern inside a bag? Or a UFO that he found on the beach? Eventually curiosity gets the better of me and I ask what it is.

“That’s for another course. It’s a foil.” He takes the bag off to reveal two boogie boards – one thick and large, the other small and thin – connected by a strut. “You surf on the bigger board and use a hand-held inflatable wing – like a kite – to power it up. When you get some speed, it rises up and you go fast – it’s a hydrofoil. It’s new. Very powerful and very exciting.”

Chic boltholes set amid towering pines make a relaxing base for families to explore wild beaches, chateaux and Boulogne’s fishy attractions

The Japanese concept of forest bathing – or shinrin-yoku – has been embraced by Europeans for some years now as a way to get back to nature, away from the demands of daily life. It’s not supposed to involve actual bathing in a hot tub decorated by fairy lights while sipping Crémant de Bourgogne, but who am I to say “no” if that’s on offer?

This is Bain de Forêt, a pair of smart cabins set between the towering pines of Hardelot-Plage, just 45 minutes’ drive south of Calais. Each cabin has a Nordic bath set under its own little wooden gazebo; the site is so peaceful, it is ideally suited to a romantic getaway à deux. But seeing as both the A-frame-style La Cabane and the lower-rise cabin Le Refuge (where we are) sleep four, we couldn’t really leave the two kids (aged nine and 11) behind. As we arrive on site for our three-night stay, everyone seems happy. My husband puts the fizz in the fridge to cool, the kids take the wooden cover off the Nordic bath, and I gaze up into the verdant canopy and breathe a huge sigh of relaxation.

The less-visited Var region of the Côte d’Azur is full of glorious beaches, heritage-rich towns and bucolic vineyards

Saint-Tropez may be known for glitz, but a few miles along the coast, the very ground beneath my feet glitters like a jet-setter hotel. I’m in the Var department in south-eastern France, where the Maures massif meets the Mediterranean and the bedrock is mica schist, a flaky stone that sparkles in the Provençal sunshine (and also makes for great wine).

This particular glitz is the only thing this quiet region has in common with better-known stretches of the Côte d’Azur. A glance at a map shows why: in much of the Riviera the railway hugs the shore, but at Saint-Raphaël it loops inland, rejoining the coast at Toulon, 60 miles away. (Some say farmers refused to sell their land in the 1860s.) No rail access has meant fewer tourists, less development and, today, an area of green hills and coast dotted with small towns and quiet, even wild, beaches.

Unable to get to Italy, I spent a day recreating a Venetian mini-break in my home town. Who needs the Grand Canal when you’ve got the Ouse?

One of the happiest times of my life was the month I spent in Venice last year. I’m desperate to go back – when I die, I want to be reincarnated as one of those well-fed Venetian seagulls – but it’s not on the cards, financially or practically. Thankfully I live in York, which is also very old and full of locals complaining about tourists. Could I have a Venetian adventure right here?

The county’s people, landscapes and villages have provided material for generations of writers, prompting not only great literature but social reform

I’ve spent my working life as bookseller, book marketer, publisher and now author, so it was probably inevitable that I would lean heavily on literature for my book Real Dorset. Luckily for me, writers have frequently turned to Dorset for their inspiration.

Chief of these of course is Thomas Hardy. He stamped his personality over his idea of Wessex, reviving an ancient kingdom, and giving towns and villages new names. Dorset was the focus for Hardy’s imagination and his presence is everywhere – in museums, bookshops, on blue plaques. Every town seems to have been a film set for a Hardy adaptation. In a somewhat overliteral move, his heart is buried at Stinsford, just east of Dorchester. But there are many more writers worth exploring, all with their own visions.

The $350 million Galactic Starcruiser will shut this year – but experiences that combine the real world with online gameplay could still fly

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Next month, Disney’s immersive Galactic Starcruiser “Star Wars hotel” in Florida will shut down, less than two years after opening. Best known for being horrendously expensive – $4,809 for a couple for two nights, or a mere $1,500 a person if you fit four to a cabin – most have dismissed the Starcruiser as yet another of Disney’s recent spendthrift follies.

When I heard the news of its closure earlier this year, I rushed to book one of the remaining cabins. My path into the games industry was by playing alternate reality games (ARGs) that mixed real-world actors and events with online gameplay; I’d go on to make ARGs such as Perplex City and, more recently, augmented reality games like Zombies, Run! Even though I hadn’t been impressed by the Starcruiser’s marketing, I was desperate to see what an estimated $350m budget had produced.

A six-day water-borne adventure takes paddlers through the Balkans to the Adriatic coast, with camping and homestays along the way

“Hello, over there in Albania!”, my kayaking guide Gigo shouts across the water as he paddles along effortlessly. He doesn’t really need to shout, because although we’re in Montenegro, we’re only a few metres away from the Albanians. We’re on the Buna (Bunë) River, a 40km stretch of water which divides the countries and is so tranquil that every sound is amplified, from the dip of our paddles to the rousing tones of the Muslim call to prayer.

I’m on a six-day kayaking adventure, following a 70km route that crisscrosses the border. Starting in Lake Skadar (Liqeni i Shkodrës), which spans both countries and is the largest lake on the Balkan peninsula, at about 400sq km, our aquatic odyssey traces the Montenegrin side of the lake, crosses to its Albanian shores and then follows the Buna all the way to the Adriatic. With a mix of wild camping, homestays and waterfront cabins, it’s the kick out of my urban cocoon that I have long craved.