Recipefiesta

Our readers make the most of spring with woodland walks in Yorkshire’s ‘Little Switzerland’ and picnics of ham and cheese baguettes in the French Alps

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 lush valleys bisected by rushing rivers, silver streams and footpaths. We found it to be the perfect antidote to winter, with shafts of golden sunlight casting their magic rays on all the lovely foliage. Head for a nice pub lunch at the Old Gate in Hebden after a morning walk.
Nigel

I had no idea where I was heading when we set sail from Jamaica in the 70s, but I’m glad I’ve returned with my children to remember their grandfather this way

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 nine years since I last saw my dad. To mark our reunion in the country of my birth, my dad, who adored adventures, and wanted my mum, sisters and I to “visit all your people ’dem and see every corner of your beautiful home”, is taking us on a road trip. However, admiring Jamaica’s landscape is the last thing on my mind as I sit squashed between my sisters in the back of the Beetle, angry at my dad because he’d dropped in and out of our childhood. My aim, despite my teenage moodiness, is to get to know him better. Not Jamaica.

Our writer travelled on a low-emission ship to the top of Europe in winter to experience the northern lights, cross-country skiing and a freezing plunge in the sea

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 one marked “Dead Slow” and “Full Steam”, like you see in Titanic when they spot the iceberg? In its public areas, the Havila Capella looks like any modern cruise ship or upmarket ferry. There are lounges, a panoramic bar, a couple of gyms and a deck that can be strolled. It is what lies behind the bulkheads that is very different.

On a bridge that is more USS Enterprise than Titanic, Captain Brynjard Ulvøy checks the flatscreen displays. “You see, if we increase speed … ” He nods at the first officer in the comfortable chair who taps another screen. “We drain the batteries and use more liquid natural gas.” Another nod and the ship eases back a little. “At this speed, we are at our most economical.”

Olivia Coleman’s latest film – Wicked Little Letters – has put the spotlight on an English seaside town that is ‘set for a summer boom’

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); Anita Roddick, the town’s favourite daughter, being made a Dame in 2003; and the opening of the Thomas Heatherwick-designed East Beach cafe in 2007 (known to my family as the Rusty Tin).

This time, it’s for a poison pen letter scandal that rocked the town in the 1920s, now the basis of a major new film, Wicked Little Letters, released last Friday. Set on the streets of Littlehampton (although filmed in nearby Worthing and Arundel), the movie pits prim Olivia Colman against Jesse Buckley’s feisty Irishness in a battle to prove who is writing the letters.

Witch hazel and snowdrops, hellebores and daffodils – with the country set to burst into bloom, we find the best of the season’s first offerings

The gardening team of this estate near Totnes takes the first few months of the year seriously: spidery yellow witch hazel flowers and snowdrops are the precursor to daffodils and bluebells. Trails allow everyone to explore the 800 acres (Tramper mobility scooters can be arranged). There’s accommodation at different price levels, too, including hostel rooms and those in the original 14th-century building. Dartington does things a bit differently. When most gardens do light shows in winter, Dartington has one based on Alice in Wonderland, running from 8 March to 3 April. Food choices range from pub grub to bagels baked on the estate.
B&B doubles from £129; dartington.org

With millennia of history hidden beneath our feet, connecting with the ancient past offers endless fascination, and many ways to get involved

When I was a teenager, I watched a TV documentary about a frozen human body that had been discovered at the summit of Mount Ampato in Peru. Dubbed “Juanita” or the Incan ice mummy, this girl had been a human sacrifice, killed in about 1450 at the age of 14 or so – the same age I was. Her body had mummified, preserved in the permafrost, which meant her clothes, her hair, even her stomach, containing her last meal, were all still intact.

Using a battery of scientific techniques, as well as historical and anthropological knowledge, the anthropologist-archaeologist-mountaineers who discovered Juanita were able to unpick the story of her final months, weeks and hours. I was astounded to learn that discovering and explaining such mysteries could be an actual job. Anthropology and archaeology, and the challenge of making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange, had a hold on me.

From an 18th-century orangery in Manchester to a sunken fern garden in the Highlands, here are 12 places to get your floral fix

In the midst of winter with its low grey skies, the scents and colours of embryonic spring are a welcome morale booster. These gardens will offer spectacular views over the coming months, as banks of delicate snowdrops, and armies of budding daffs, bluebells and tulips return.

It’s warm enough to sit outside cafes and bars, and visiting before the crowds arrive in summer means that the queues are short

Forget Paris in spring: Rome is both warmer and cooler in the first few months of the year. The locals are in their winter black rollneck jumpers, accessorised with equally noir-ish sunglasses. With an average of 17C by March, it’s warm enough to sit outside cafés and bars, but not hot enough to fall foul of the “no shorts” rule enforced in Rome’s oldest churches.

Inside Villa Farnesina (€12; villafarnesina.it), there is just a handful of people admiring the murals by Raphael, while outside a grove of citrus trees is groaning with fruit. The Caffè Settimiano on nearby Via Garibaldi – where I stop off for my first Aperol spritz of the year – is full of mismatched vintage furniture, attracting equal numbers of Romans and blissed-out American students beginning a semester abroad.

A quest to find the long-lost Cumbria stretch of the Lancaster Canal turns into an adventure in ‘extreme narrowboating’

“Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, it was possible to travel all over England, north, south, east and west, by river and canal; there was not a county you could not visit, hardly a town you could not reach by water, if you liked and if you were not (and what lover of boats and rivers ever was or will be?) in any particular hurry to get there.”
William Bliss, The Heart of England by Waterway (1933)

This is the end. I can’t go any further. I’ve come as far as possible; to the northernmost limit; the same latitude as Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula and parts of Alaska. It’s taken me years to reach here by boat. But in case you wonder, I’m not floating in pack ice in the Arctic; I’m in northern Lancashire, on the border with Cumbria at 54 degrees north, at today’s northernmost limit of the navigable network of inland waterways of England and Wales.

The Vogel-Bohinj ski area lets nature do the talking: billboards and snow cannons are banned, and cable cars and car parks are tucked away in woods

Winding through Slovenia’s Julian Alps, it’s easy to miss the signs to the Vogel ski centre and carry on driving. The cable car and car park are concealed deep in woods above beautiful Lake Bohinj – a deliberate policy to keep the landscape free from tourist clutter and visible ski infrastructure. The result is one of the most natural skiing areas in Europe.

From its hidden entrance in the woods, the cable car ascends to Vogel and the views open up: mountains soaring above, snowy churches below, and the deep blue lake dropping away beneath until it’s the size of a puddle.

A beautifully decorated bothy amid ancient pinewoods in the Caledonian Forest is the setting for a relaxing creative break

Blanketed by snow, the forest is almost silent, with only the muffled crunch of boots, my frosty exhale and the occasional creak of laden branches. Low sunlight dazzles, glinting off curls of silver birch bark and branches festooned with lichen like forgotten tinsel. Ahead of us on the trail there are footprints of roe deer and red squirrel. This is Abernethy Forest, at 4,000 hectares the largest remaining section of the great Caledonian Forest that once covered much of Scotland. It’s worlds away from the monoculture of sitka spruce plantations and a balm to this urban dweller’s soul.

My partner, Euan, and I are staying on the edge of the woods in Arbor Bothy, a cabin for two in the village of Nethy Bridge. We’ve come to escape the city for a few nights, but our trip is more than a simple weekend away. The owners of the bothy, Amy and Graham Niven, a goldsmith and a photographer, offer creative workshops, and we’re here to make our wedding rings (and not from a twist of silver birch).

Amy and Graham loved holidaying in Nethy Bridge as children, and became year-round residents in 2019 shortly after starting a family. The property they found allowed them to have their own studio and had a bothy, a small dwelling for visitors, in the garden.

A February festival brings a touch of glamour to the Costa del Sol resort – and a welcome off-season tourism boost

I’m in Torremolinos. Yes, I know what you’re thinking – and you’d have a point. But I’m not here for the sun, cheap booze and a full English, although there are plentiful supplies of all the above. I’m here to relive my well-spent youth (albeit in a decidedly middle-aged fashion) at the 30th Rockin’ Race Jamboree, an international rockabilly festival that takes over Spain’s much-maligned resort for one wild weekend each February – and has been instrumental in boosting the town’s fortunes.

The Rockin’ Race is the creation of husband and wife, Guillermo Jiménez and Vivi Milla, from nearby Málaga, where they also run a record shop and label, both devoted to American music of the 50s and 60s. Like all the best festivals, it started out, back in 1994, as a gathering of friends sharing their love of the music. Three years later they had outgrown their venue in Málaga; the hunt for a new location took them the 10 miles along the coast to Torremolinos.