Recipefiesta

Kvarner is a European Region of Gastronomy for 2026, and the laid-back islands of Lošinj and Cres are great places to explore its cuisine

Apart from a few packed-away sun loungers and the odd shuttered beach kiosk, summer is firmly keeping its grip on the Croatian island of Lošinj in the northern Adriatic. The sea is still warm as I plunge into the turquoise waters of Čikat bay, one of the largest and most sheltered on this long, thin, knobbly island in the Kvarner Gulf.

Croatia’s 19th-century Habsburg rulers were convinced that Lošinj had special healing qualities. Wandering along the tree-shaded footpath that runs all around Čikat bay and its numerous headlands, lulled by scents of pine, juniper, rosemary, sage, mint, mastic and helichrysum, I’m inclined to agree. There’s a mellowness to the air after the intense heat of high summer, and fewer people are on the beaches – although the island’s main town of Mali Lošinj buzzes with several festivals and regattas in September.

In Nämdöskärgården, in the Stockholm archipelago, low-impact tourism is helping visitors appreciate the region’s fragile ecology and ocean conservation efforts

Paddling through the inky blue water in Stockholm’s outer archipelago, all I can see is scattered islands and birds. Some of the islands are mere skerries – rocky outcrops and reefs so small they can host but a single cormorant drying its outstretched wings – while others, such as our target Bullerön, can be a mile or more in length, with historic fishing huts, summer cottages and wooden jetties sitting among their smoothly weathered rocks and windswept forests.

I’m on a two-day sea kayaking tour of Nämdöskärgården, a newly established marine national park, which is a vast 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of protected, mostly blue space – it is 97% covered by water – beginning on the outer reaches of the archipelago and stretching well into the Baltic Sea.

From a Dutch beach break to a forest lodge near Paris, there’s no flight or car required on these relaxing jaunts

There’s nothing sweeter than leaving London on the Eurostar in the morning and to be sipping something cold and pink in Provence by aperitif time (tip: switch to the TGV in Lille to avoid having to change stations in Paris).

Easy to reach by rail and a seafood-lover’s paradise, Exmouth is a perfect place for decompressing, with walks and boat rides on the doorstep

The wide Exe estuary glides past the window. Leaning back in my seat, I watch birds on the mudflats: swans, gulls, oystercatchers and scampering red-legged turnstones. Worn down by a busy, admin-heavy summer, I’m taking the train through Devon for a peaceful break that hasn’t needed too much planning.

Exmouth is a compact, walkable seaside town, easily reached by train on the scenic Avocet Line from Exeter. No need for stressful motorway driving and, once you’re there, everything is on tap: beaches, hotels, pubs, shops and cafes, alongside gentle green spaces and ever-changing seascapes.

Walking the rocky and remote Northern Territory terrain, Tegan Forder finds lush ravines, undulating trails, delicate native flowers and stunning sunsets

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The first day of a multi-day hike is often filled with optimism, despite the heavy load on your back. You’re leaving a busy life behind and venturing into the bush where constant phone notifications can’t reach you.

Our merry band of hikers – four adults and three kids – have opted for a five-day walk encompassing Smitt Rock and Eighth Gorge in Nitmiluk national park, 30km north-east of Katherine in Australia’s Northern Territory.

From a posh Scottish bothy to a new budget hotel in the Lakes, there’s no driving required on these relaxing jaunts

Sometimes, you just want to be able to arrive in a place with the least amount of hassle and instantly switch off and relax. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to think about potential traffic snarl-ups en route or missing connections? Just jump on a direct train and arrive fresh.

That’s what these brilliantly accessible boltholes in the UK deliver – they’re all within easy reach of a train station and with everything you might need for a stress-free break on the doorstep.

From Rotterdam to Bilbao, our tipsters recommend the best trips by ferry
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The overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Saint-Malo is hard to beat. After work, we board the ship, enjoy a drink in the bar and wake up to the sunrise over the harbour. The scenic coastal path that runs along the Brittany coast winds through woodlands and secluded coves. A swim in the clear water and then on to the restaurant La Guinguette des Marmouz near Plouër-sur-Rance. The best chips we’ve ever had in a very laid-back spot along the estuary. We’d stumbled across something pretty special.
Kate

Free walking routes connect sculptures, murals, soundscapes and more in locations across the country – from butterflies in Brontë country to ceramics in Stoke

Bradford is 2025’s UK City of Culture, and Wild Uplands is part of the year-long celebration that involves four new installations on the moors above Haworth, 10 miles west of central Bradford. There are pink marble butterflies designed by Meherunnisa Asad. On the ridge above, Steve Messam’s 10-metre tower of locally quarried stone looks out over heather-purple hills. These works are dotted around the lake and abandoned quarries of Penistone Hill country park and a family-friendly guide charts a route around all four. While wandering over the moors, you can tune into a geolocated immersive soundscape, Earth & Sky, which includes music by Bradford-born composer Frederick Delius. The Brontë Bus from Hebden Bridge via Keighley stops three times an hour in Haworth, and it’s then a 15-minute stroll past the Parsonage to Penistone Hill. Haworth’s steep, cobbled Main Street is lined with pubs and cafes such as the Writers’ Bloc, which opened in November 2024 and serves cream teas inside a hollowed-out book. At the bottom of the street, Haworth Old Hall has a choice of locally distilled gins.
To 12 October, bradford2025.co.uk

The impressionist painter was much taken by the stylish villas and unique light of the French port, which 150 years on still refuses to be outshone by glitzy big sister Deauville

I get the feeling that the world divides into two very different halves as my two-hour train from Paris pulls into the splendid half-timbered station of Trouville-Deauville, with holidaymakers either turning left towards chic, luxurious Deauville, the Saint-Tropez of Normandy, or branching right, across the Touques River, to Trouville-sur-Mer, a more historic, easy-going destination.

I have opted to stay at Trouville, known as La Reine des Plages (The Queen of the Beaches), a tiny fishing port that was transformed from the 1820s onwards into one of France’s first fashionable bathing resorts by bohemian artists and writers, seduced by the unique coastal light, and the Parisian bourgeoisie looking for a healthy dose of sea air and a flutter in the glamorous municipal casino.

A guided bikepacking holiday is a relaxing way to explore Perthshire’s lochs and glens – with a woodland sauna and luxury cabin to look forward to at the end of the ride

‘Wake naturally. Ride bikes. Wild camp.” I’m in Perthshire on a three-day bikepacking trip – cycling with all my gear – and this is my itinerary for the day. For an endlessly calendar-checking parent of three, the simplicity of this schedule is almost dizzying. I feel like a child with my summer holiday stretching out ahead of me.

Comrie Croft Journeys is a new initiative from eco-camping and mountain-biking destination Comrie Croft, started by experienced mountain bike instructor Emily Greaves. The off-grid cycling adventures aim to immerse visitors in Scotland’s wild landscapes while providing everything they need, from food to equipment. Guests can choose to be self-guided or led – and I’m heading out with Emily to explore on a mountain bike for the first time in my adult life.

Make your next holiday more meaningful with an itinerary that supports local welfare projects, empowers women and showcases traditional customs

Eternal Landscapes offers individual and small-group trips to Mongolia, with a focus on supporting local communities. On the five-day Erdenedalai Explorer trip, guests stay with a herding family in the vast steppes of the “Middle Gobi”, an area often bypassed by travellers heading to the better-known sights of the desert’s southern region.

Far from tourist hotspots, staying with a family in a rural mountain village gives a vivid taste of life in little-visited east Nepal

As the Nepali night takes on the texture of velvet, the party naturally divides. The men sway in a circle, singing plaintively. The women surround an elderly lady who smokes tobacco rolled in writing paper. And I settle into swapping stories with the girls. Alina and her younger cousins Miching and Blinka may be draped in the silks and heavy jewellery of the Indigenous Aath Pahariya Rai community, but they’re as keen to talk love and travel as any young women. “I’m too independent to get married until I’m very old,” declares 21-year-old Alina. “When I graduate, I want to go to Paris – and then come home to Sipting. Life’s peaceful here and the air is clear.”

I’m in the little-visited Dhankuta region of eastern Nepal on a trip hosted by Community Homestay Network (CHN). This social enterprise is working with governmental organisations and non-profits such as Human and Social Development Centre (Husadec) to support women – including Alina’s mother, Prem Maya – to open their homes to travellers. Since launching with just one homestay in Panauti, south-east of Kathmandu, in 2012, CHN has grown to more than 362 families across 40 communities. This is the first in the country’s rural east.

Waterside trails, tastings and cosy inns are just some of the highlights of an autumn break in southern Germany

Under the warm autumn sun, looking out over the lake, I’m sipping tart, refreshing apple-secco. It’s a sparkling prosecco-like aperitif, but made from apples instead of grapes. I eat a few cinnamon apple chips, then move on to the hard stuff: brandy made from heritage apple varieties.

If you hadn’t guessed, apples are big business around here. I’m on a walking trip along the shores of Lake Constance, on Germany’s southern border. About 250,000 tonnes of apples are harvested in this region each year. Our trip has coincided with the annual gourmet event, when local producers set up stalls and sell their wares along 9 miles (15km) of the SeeGang hiking trail between Überlingen, Sipplingen and Bodman-Ludwigshafen (this year it takes place on 12 October). If apples aren’t your jam, there’s also pear-secco and spirits made from everything from plums, cherries and blackcurrants to jerusalem artichokes. Hikers can also sample food such as smoked sausages, cheeses, onion tarts, and homemade cakes and pies.

Field-to-fork farmers on the Scottish island are restoring abandoned crofts and serving home-grown produce and freshly caught seafood in their homesteads

‘Edible means it won’t kill you – it doesn’t mean it tastes good. This, however, does taste good,” says chef Carla Lamont as she snips off a piece of orpine, a native sedum, in her herb garden. It’s crisp and juicy like a granny smith but tastes more like cucumber. “It’s said to ward off strange people and lightning strikes; but I like strange people.”

We’re on a three-hectare (seven-acre) coastal croft on the Hebridean island of Mull. Armed with scissors, Carla is giving me a kitchen garden tour and culinary masterclass – she was a quarter-finalist in Masterchef: The Professionals a few years back. Sweet cicely can be swapped for star anise, she tells me. Lemon verbena she uses in scallop ceviche.

A new wellbeing hotel on the tiny outpost of Styrsö in the Gothenburg archipelago is a perfect base for a relaxing, restorative break

If you came to stay on the tiny island of Styrsö (steer-shuh) in the Gothenburg archipelago in the late 19th or early 20th century, there was a good chance it was because you had tuberculosis. The island had already begun to appeal to city folk who came here for fresh air, sea baths and peace, but the sanatoriums set up by the renowned Dr Peter Silfverskiöld gained such a positive reputation that the isle became known as a health resort. Those glory days have long since faded but Kusthotellet, a new hotel dedicated to wellbeing, aims to tap back into the restorative vibe.

The conditions that first drew health-seekers to the island still pertain. It’s tucked away and protected from winds, but the lack of high ground nearby means the sun shines on its southern coast from dawn to dusk, and there’s no pollution. “This island is such a peaceful place – you can really relax and recharge your batteries,” Malin Lilton, manager of Kusthotellet, told my companion and me. “As soon as you get on the ferry your pulse rate goes down and you start breathing in the good air.”

A couple from the UK have been fined and expelled for taking a dip in the world heritage site. But they’re not the only ones upsetting the locals

Name: Venice tourists.

Age: They have been turning up since the mid-18th century.

Perfect for a weekend getaway, the Petworth Way takes in historic estates, welcoming inns and spectacular views

There are many ways to make an entrance, but lurching into a pub full of smartly dressed diners while windswept, muddy and more than a little frayed wouldn’t be my first choice. At 7.30pm on a sunny Sunday evening, the Welldiggers Arms – a country pub just outside Petworth in West Sussex – is full of people tucking into hearty roasts, the glass-walled restaurant overlooking glorious downland scenery, the sun all but disappeared behind the hills. For my husband, Mark, and I, it’s more than a stop for supper; the pub marks the halfway point on our two-day walking adventure along a brand new trail, the 25-mile Petworth Way.

Twenty-five miles may not sound like much (I have keen walker friends who would do it in a day) but, for us, it’s the perfect length, with plenty of pubs along the way. The first leg, from Haslemere to Petworth, covers countryside we’re both entirely unfamiliar with; the second, Petworth to Arundel runs through landscapes I’ve known since childhood. Happily, the start and finish points can be reached by rail – meaning we can leave the car at home and set off with nothing but small rucksacks, water bottles and detailed printed instructions.

The sun is still shining but the crowds have gone … It’s the perfect time to head south, to gorgeous spots in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Morocco and Corsica

The summer has left the water deliciously warm. We paddle into sea caves as stunning as cathedrals

Winemaking in the Barossa Valley is evolving, says restaurant owner and chef Clare Falzon. But the region has a lot to offer beyond its robust reds

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The Barossa Valley is an hour from Adelaide, on Peramangk Country. The hills and vineyards are particularly lovely in autumn when they go orange and red. I moved here in 2018 to engage more with food producers. I opened my restaurant, Staġuni, in late 2024.

A lot of German Lutherans settled here in the mid 1800s, fleeing religious persecution. Many Barossa families go back several generations.

The crowds, extreme heat and inflated prices of high summer have subsided, allowing our tipsters to mellow out in their favourite destinations
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We explored Sardinia’s wild west coast by ebike with Bosa Bike Experience, who had us whizzing up into vertiginous mountain villages with views of the sparkling azure sea, then back down in time for mirto spritz at a sunset bar right on the seafront. Then back into Bosa’s maze of colourful cobbled streets for delicious Sardinian specialities like seafood fregola, smoked ricotta and wine from local vines grown on volcanic soil. The nearby beaches were perfect – some family-friendly, others wild and deserted.
Emma

My mum gave me an old picture of me sitting on the cairn on Islay when I was 11. Forty years later, I set out to find it

I don’t remember the picture being taken. Somewhere in Scotland, sometime in the 1980s. It has that hazy quality you get with old colour prints: warm but also somehow melancholy. I’m wearing blue jeans, white trainers, an army surplus jumper – and am perched on a standing stone.

My mum gave me the photo when I turned 50. She found it up in the loft. Some of these childhood pictures, souvenirs of trips with my grandparents to historic sites, have the place names written on the back. This one was blank, a tantalising mystery. Though I didn’t recognise the location, something about the landscape and quality of light suggested it was Islay, an island I’d visited just once – when I was not quite 12. So I decided to see if I could find the spot, slipped the photograph into my notebook and set off.

The German city is celebrating the renowned art school’s centenary with exhibitions, digital tours and bike and bus routes connecting landmark Bauhaus buildings

The heat hits me as soon as I open the door, the single panes of glass in the wall-width window drawing the late afternoon sunlight into my room. The red linoleum floor and minimalist interior do little to soften the impact; I wonder how I’m going to sleep. On the opposite side of the corridor, another member of the group I’m travelling with has a much cooler studio, complete with a small balcony that I immediately recognise from archive black and white photographs.

Unconsciously echoing the building’s past, we start using this as a common room, perching on the tubular steel chairs, browsing the collection of books on the desk and discussing what it must have been like to live here. At night, my room stays warm and noise travels easily through the walls and stairwells; it’s not the best night’s rest I’ve ever had, but it’s worth it for the experience.

With the help of a droll local guide, we managed to enthuse our two sons on a wild camping adventure in the mountains of south-west France

‘So, it’ll be like a DofE camping expedition, but without any of my friends?” Lying on his bed in our stone gite in Lescun, a picturesque mountain village beneath a towering glacial cirque, it’s fair to say the 15-year-old isn’t leaping with enthusiasm for our bivouac hike. He and his 13-year-old brother would rather have stayed at the beach, where we spent the first part of our holiday.

My husband and I last hiked with the kids in the French Pyrenees when they were five and three, yet they barely fussed on that trip despite walking for two full days. Back then we had a secret weapon – a donkey called Lazou who carried our packs, and the youngest when he got tired, and proved a great distraction.

Orchards, dairies, vineyards and farm shops are among the delicious pit stops on a new series of ebike tours around the county

It’s farm-to-fork dining at its freshest. I’m sitting at a vast outdoor table in Herefordshire looking out over rows of vines. On the horizon, the Malvern Hills ripple towards the Black Mountains; in front of me is a selection of local produce: cheeses from Monkland Dairy, 6 miles away, salad leaves from Lane Cottage (8 miles), charcuterie from Trealy Farm (39 miles), cherries from Moorcourt Farm (3 miles), broccoli quiche (2 miles) and glasses of sparkling wine, cassis and apple juice made just footsteps away. This off-grid feast is the final stop on White Heron Estate’s ebike farm tour – and I’m getting the lie of the land with every bite.

Before eating, our small group pedalled along a two-hour route so pastorally pretty it would make Old MacDonald sigh. Skirting purple-hued borage fields, we’ve zipped in and out of woodland, down rows of apple trees and over patches of camomile, and learned how poo from White Heron’s chickens is burnt in biomass boilers to generate heat. “Providing habitats for wildlife is important, but we need to produce food as well,” says our guide Jo Hilditch, who swapped a career in PR for farming when she inherited the family estate 30 years ago.

Tuck into great food and drink at hotels, farms and B&Bs in France, Ireland, Portugal and beyond

A hamlet of restored rural buildings in the Ortolo valley in Corsica reopened in June as A Mandria di Murtoli. Guests can stay in a former sheepfold, stable or barn, or one of five rooms in the main house. Three of the smaller properties have private pools, all rooms have terraces and there is a big shared pool. The buildings have been refurbished by Corsican craftspeople in a minimalist Mediterranean style, using local materials.

As retrofitted sections of the Boyne Burnett Inland Rail Trail begin to open, cyclists are flocking to what one day promises to be Australia’s longest rail trail – and a 271km opportunity for dwindling townships

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The ghost station of Many Peaks is enclosed in a jumble of rocky and timbered hills. There is not much else to Littlemore now than a farmhouse and a sign.

These sleepy and forgotten places in the Boyne Valley of central Queensland were once linked by hundreds of kilometres of train lines that swept an inland arc between the ports of Maryborough and Gladstone. Now, sections of those tracks are being gradually retrofitted for slower forms of transport: the foot, the horse and the bicycle.

On the border with Slovenia, the Italian region of Friuli–Venezia Giulia continues a centuries-old tradition of farms opening their doors and serving up a feast to the public

In Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, travel writer Jan Morris described the city’s many faces and “ambivalence”, maintaining that, unlike most other Italian cities, it has “no unmistakable cuisine”. But I had come to Trieste to experience, if not a cuisine, then a culinary tradition which, to me at least, does seem unmistakable: the osmiza scene of the surrounding countryside.

An osmiza (or osmize in the plural) is a Slovene term for a smallholding that produces wine in the Karst Plateau, a steep rocky ridge scattered with pine and a patchwork of vineyards that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Visiting osmize is a centuries-old tradition in which these homesteads open their doors to the public for a fleeting period each year. Guests order their food and wine at a till inside – where a simply tiled bar, often set into local stone, might boast family photos, halogen lights and a chalkboard menu – before heading outside to feast at long Oktoberfest-style tables and benches.

From a herring festival in The Hague to the best pizza in Rome, our tipsters share their perfect foodie travel moments
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Despite its name, Flag Day (Vlaggetjesdag) in Scheveningen – a seaside resort close to The Hague – is actually more about fresh herring. Fishmongers bring in the first catch of the year in June, the hollandse nieuwe, and mark the start of the herring season with festivities, marching bands, wearing traditional costumes, and even an auction of the first vat of fish to raise money for charity. Don’t miss the chance to share a jenever (gin) with a Scheveninger, who will tell you how this year’s herring compares with last year’s.
Olivia

A new walking tour offers a chance to meet the city’s Ukrainian community, with stops for hearty dumplings, castle views and shared histories

Before arriving in Edinburgh, Nataliya Bezborodova’s impression of Scotland was shaped largely by Hollywood. “My knowledge of this country was pretty much based on the film Braveheart,” she admits with a laugh, standing before the grand neoclassical columns of the National Galleries of Scotland. As if on cue, the castle’s daily gun salute fires overhead, scattering pigeons and punctuating our conversation with a jolt.

Three years have passed since the 47-year-old anthropologist left her home in Kyiv for Edinburgh, after the Russian invasion. Celluloid warriors have long been replaced by the rhythms of life in a city she now knows like the back of her hand. So well, in fact, that she has launched a walking tour revealing a layer even locals might miss: the story of Edinburgh’s vibrant Ukrainian community.

A trek along the Kosovo section of the Via Dinarica offers majestic Balkan scenery, magical stories and sobering reminders of this area’s recent history

There are stone bunkers shrouded in the mist on the hillside to my right, just shy of the ridgeline marking the Albanian-Kosovo border. To my left, the view is not just clear but startlingly beautiful.

I’m able to see back down to the tiny mountain hamlet of Gacaferi, where I’d slept the previous night, to look across the deep greenery of Deçan Gorge beyond, over dense pine forests and grasslands that pop with pink and yellow wildflowers, and gaze all the way to the 2,461m summit of Çfërla and the rugged peaks of western Kosovo’s Accursed mountains.

A site in the pine-clad hills of Andalucía is part of a chain that seeks to connect with nature and outdoor adventure while offering a stylish glamping experience

A few years ago, camping with friends, I watched in awe as Becky set up her pitch. While the rest of us were stringing out guy ropes on tents as glamorous as giant cagoules, she arrived with a bell tent, duvets instead of sleeping bags, sheepskin rugs and vintage folding chairs. For all the talk of breathability, practicality and “high performance” gear, it was Becky’s tent we all wanted to sleep in. In the years since, I have never quite achieved her level of camping chic – until this summer, when I discovered the innovative Spanish camping brand Kampaoh.

It all began back in 2016, when Kampaoh CEO Salvador Lora and his partner were backpacking in the Dominican Republic. One night they came across a campsite with pre-erected tents within which were mattresses and blankets. “We were in the middle of nature, surrounded by peace, and lacked nothing,” he tells me.