Recipefiesta

From the Tiramisù World Cup in Italy to street food ‘battles’ in Newcastle, your culinary highlights range from the sublime to the delicious
• Tell us about a book that inspired you to travel – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

The town of Menton on the French Riviera is beautiful at any time of the year but becomes even more of a treat during the annual Lemon festival (Fête du Citron, 10-28 February 2027). Its microclimate, courtesy of the Alps to the north blocking colder winds, gives Menton lemons a distinct fragrance, flavour and quality that set them apart. For me, the event transformed a damp cold UK winter into a fortnight of colour, taste and light. There were food tastings, salads made with lemons, tarts, cakes and pies all full of zesty colour and flavour at stalls and markets in the town. There are sculptures made from citrus fruit, parades and exhibitions in the Golden Garden of Light (Jardins Biovès). More than a food festival, it’s a celebration of what nature can give to the world.
April

‘Legends cling like barnacles to these shores,’ says our local writer, who reveals how the lore of these craggy cliffs and beaches resonates with the Homeric classic

The incoming tide has made a labyrinth of the beach. As silvery rivulets spread across Culbin Sands to meet the mudflats, my walk becomes increasingly circuitous: weaving inland towards the pine forest, backtracking closer to the waves, skirting tidal pools and scaling dunes constantly resculpted by the North Sea breeze.

In this shapeshifting stretch of north-east Scotland’s Moray coast, there’s not another soul in sight, nothing to anchor me to the modern day. It’s easy, then, to imagine a longship bringing weary warriors ashore, or a band of man-eating giants marauding from the woodland. Which is exactly what happens here – on screen – in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey.

A walking holiday with a group of strangers to the highest range in the Carpathians promises adventure, stunning views and camaraderie

We are giddy as we reach the summit, breathless with exertion and a guileless, childlike joy. In every direction the jagged peaks of Slovakia’s High Tatras stretch out into the distance, nubs on a colossal spine, glittering lakes embedded like shards of glass far below the rocky, ice-streaked slopes. An eagle wheels above. Somewhere on the lunar landscape a marmot squeaks. Easy laughs ricochet around the group, photos are snapped, backs thumped, words of encouragement offered to the more vertigo-inclined.

The summit of Slovakia’s Kôprovský štít had been playing a Kafkaesque game of mountain mirage with us for several hours, always just over the next ridge which, once conquered, revealed a string of further, seemingly endless ridges. Eight hours and about 23km after we had set off on our hike through the Vysoké Tatry mountain range, an eddy of smiles rippled from person to person (some, granted, of the more clenched-teeth variety). “Yes, team! We did it!” Roman, our high-spirited Slovakian mountain guide, stood atop the tip, clasping each of our hands in congratulation as we crested the peak.

The seven inhabited isles off the North Sea coast, part of a Unesco world heritage site, are a sanctuary for wildlife – with great hotels and restaurants too

‘Can you hear that?” my guide Andrea Wellmeyer asks as I sink a little deeper into the wet ground, cold mud seeping between my toes. When the wind drops, I detect a faint but distinct crackling, similar to the rustle of a sweet wrapper or the bubbling of sparkling water. “That’s the Wattknistern,” she says, “a natural phenomenon caused by the tens of thousands of mud shrimp that live here.”

We’re standing in the Wadden Sea mudflats on Norderney, an island just off Germany’s North Sea coast. It’s Friday evening at low tide. In the town centre, bars are pumping with music, but here, just 15 minutes along the southern edge of the island, it’s a completely different story.

After exploring the cathedral city, I battled the heatwave while walking to the Kent coast on the Via Francigena

Canterbury for Evensong. Is there a more delightful cluster of syllables in the English language? Old English, I should say, as æfensang comes from that tongue, an update on the Latin-derived “vespers”. But whatever you call the service, Canterbury Cathedral does it in style. How beautiful the singing from the choristers in their white and purple. How beautiful the light as it honeys the stone of the quire. I had been in the city only an hour or so, and considered this early evening worship a sort of overture for my stay.

What a relief to get inside the great stone building. The lovely old city was horrible with heat. A statue of Chaucer on High Street appeared overdressed in robe, cloak and hat. He held out a page inscribed with the opening lines of The Canterbury Tales: “When in April the sweet showers fall … Then people long to go on pilgrimages.” The bronze had been hot to the touch and I began to suspect that I’d made a mistake starting my own pilgrimage at midsummer.

With bus fares capped at £3 and free for kids in August, it’s the ideal time for wildlife watching, woodland walks, world-class art and more

Trips to waterfalls, gardens, galleries, medieval forests and prehistoric caves will make the long school holidays a lot more fun. To help families explore affordably, throughout August buses in England will be free for kids and adult fares will be capped at £3 single. Or, if you arrive somewhere by train, you could buy a PlusBus ticket, which include unlimited local bus travel. Here are six ideas for family outings by bus around England.

From 100,000 sunflowers in Gower and cosmic art in Galloway to a bat safari and messing about in boats, there’s enough here to keep you and the kids busy till September

At the westernmost tip of the Gower peninsula, Rhossili Bay is a gloriously wide sweep of sand, backed by dunes and licked with waves perfect for bodyboarding and surfing. Wild ponies graze on the southern headland, while walkers time their trip across to the serpent-like Worm’s Head promontory to not get cut off by the tide.

From a boat tour in Northern Ireland to a farm with great ice-cream in Surrey, you share your top tips for day trips

The MV Kestrel has been taking boat tours out from Enniskillen on Lower Lough Erne for as long I can remember. We were brought out as primary schoolchildren on a geography field trip and I was recently a passenger for a civilised stag party. It’s popular for a reason: the tour (adults £15, under-12s £11) passes the old alma mater of Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett (Portora Royal School), and stops at the sixth-century monastic settlement on Devenish island. The silence out here has to be heard (or rather not heard) to be believed. The lough is beautiful regardless of the weather – and with this being Fermanagh, if you don’t like the weather just give it 10 minutes.
Tom

Preston and St Helens were heartbeats of the industrial age, but their power faded. In the last of our series, we discover how their legacy is finally being celebrated

• Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-20

This double act of “Lancashire” locations is my final celebration of Britain’s bypassed towns. My native county has dominated my life of late, and one key question asked in these columns has been: can you holiday right at home?

The French author Xavier de Maistre believed you could fit a journey inside a single room. And in Instructions on How to Climb a Staircase the Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar turned a walk upstairs into a quest. An entire county offers enough adventures to fill a life.

A catamaran service from Dover to Boulogne is the perfect start to a trip exploring the Pas-de-Calais and marshes of Saint-Omer by bike, boat and kayak

“It’s all about tuning into the culture of the sea,” helmsman Chris O’Brien tells me, scanning the rippling cobalt horizon from the wheel of a catamaran. “People find the water, and the meditative experience of sailing, healing.” Meditative isn’t a word that usually comes to mind when talking about cross-Channel ferries on a bank holiday weekend, but this is no ordinary ferry.

Launched last year, SailLink operates a largely wind-powered (engines are only used when necessary) service from Dover to Boulogne up to five times a week between April and mid-September, with a new Shoreham to Fécamp route due to start trials later this year.

The Filter’s authority on camping and the outdoors, Sian Lewis, will be answering all your questions on Wednesday 15 July from 1200 BST. Whether it’s about finding the perfect stove for baked beans or the best campsite ever, nothing is too detailed or too silly to ask

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Sundowners in nature, kids – and adults – unplugged from screens, escaping everyday life: camping is one of life’s unparalleled joys. Want to know what to look for in a sleeping mat, the best place to pitch a tent – or what to do when it all goes wrong? Outdoors journalist Sian Lewis has walked hundreds of miles and braved all weathers to test everything from tents to camping chairs to hiking sandals.

Post your questions below in the comments and she will answer as many as she can at 1200 BST on Wednesday 15 July.

Would walking buddies convince reluctant children that hiking can be fun? A group trip with an Enid Blyton vibe proved a hit with the whole family

“I’m not going to wake her up,” I hiss at my 12-year-old son who’s standing half naked in a dark corridor of a Victorian house. “Please, Mum. She said we could come at any time! I don’t want to get Lyme disease,” he begs.

This is not the kind of drama I was expecting when I signed up to a family walking holiday in Exmoor. A few meltdowns about an extra mile or a blister perhaps, but not a night mission to one of the guides to request a tick removal.

These cool, cheap bars in old abandoned buildings became popular in the 2000s – and then tourists moved in. I went hunting for the bohemian spirit of the originals

‘Many ruin bars seem to be just tourist traps now,” says artist István, standing outside Instant-Fogas complex, which calls itself Europe’s biggest ruin pub, but looks more like a mammoth nightclub with several dancefloors.

“These bars were a hot topic 20 years ago, but many have become really commercial now,’ says István. “Ruin bars being expensive actually ruins their purpose. I’m a student, I like beers that are under 1,000 forints [about £2.50], and the big commercial ruin bars are typically much more expensive.”

On a three-day fungi workshop in Australia’s largest cool temperate rainforest, Alexis Buxton-Collins unearths an unexpected appreciation for the third kingdom of life

Revered as one of Australia’s last true wilderness areas, Takayna/ Tarkine is a place of legends. Freshwater crayfish that can reach almost a metre in length lurk in the shade of 2000-year-old Huon pines, and every few years a rumour emerges that thylacines still prowl the dense Gondwanan rainforest of northwest Tasmania.

For 65m years, this landscape has sheltered all manner of astonishing creatures. But some of the most fascinating life forms found here are even older. Before animals walked the Earth or trees began converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, fungi helped to create the conditions necessary for complex life on our planet. “People often say that fungi grow in the forest,” Dr Alison Pouliot tells me as we inhale cool air perfumed with the gentle spice of sassafras. “But there wouldn’t be a forest without fungi. Fungi are the ecosystem engineers that created the foundation for the forest.”

Embarking on a girls’ trip to Greece, I was ready for unlimited fun in the sun. Instead, I ended up on a hospital ward where all the medics could say was: ‘Oh shit!’

In the heady days post A-levels, it felt like a great idea to spend all my hard-earned Saturday job wages on a girls trip to Corfu. I felt sure that what lay ahead was the classic rite of passage holiday of sun, sea and Sex on the Beaches. What happened next may not sound so surprising this side of a global pandemic, but in 2009 it felt like something out of a sci-fi horror film.

I didn’t feel great on the drive to Bristol airport, but explained it away as motion sickness; I tried to sleep it off on the plane, ready to start the party when we landed. At Greek passport control, there were heat-sensitive cameras to check for anyone with a temperature, due to the growing swine flu pandemic. As my friends walked through, they appeared on the screen as shadowy grey figures. I showed up lurid green, indicating a high temperature. Immediately, it was panic stations. I was rapidly ushered into a side room alone, then rushed away in an ambulance. The party, it appeared, would not be starting.

Surfers nicknamed it in the 90s, but this rugged coastline is becoming a hotspot for contemporary art lovers too

The North Sea wind is buffeting my body and face, shaking me awake after a six-hour journey from Copenhagen on buses and trains to this rugged stretch of the Danish coast. From my high vantage point on the grassy dunes, overlooking what feels like an endless sea, there is hardly another soul to be seen, save for the specks of a few surfers who are trying their luck on the crashing waves.

Surfers, windsurfers and paddleboarders flock to this stretch of north-west Jutland, which is playfully known as “Cold Hawaii”. The phrase was coined in the 1990s by the international surfing community, and popularised by world champion windsurfer Josh Stone, to describe this laid-back shoreline and its 31 official surf spots running for around 30 miles (50km) from a little north of the industrial harbour of Hanstholm down to the sandy beaches of Agger.

Excited to be away from home for the first time, we spent a riotous week partying, while the owner and his elderly parents understandably – and often audibly – seethed

Twenty British 16-year-olds rent a remote Sicilian villa for a week of partying and late-night binge drinking. It sounds like a holiday host’s nightmare. Well, anyone’s nightmare. Add in the fact that the host was staying on site with his elderly Italian parents, as the teenagers partied on without a care for their own welfare or anyone else’s. This wasn’t a holiday from hell for my teenage self, but I’m pretty sure it was for our hosts.

It was 2013 and, for many of us, it was the first time we had been away just with friends. Let loose from familial constraints, it was easy to get carried away. I arrived a few days later than the others but was the main contact with our host, Pablo. This meant that, before I even set foot in the villa, I received a string of messages threatening to kick us out. The police had apparently already been called after two late nights of nonstop boozing.

My sister and I were enjoying our all-inclusive getaway, but my mum hated forced fun and sitting by the pool. So we went off exploring in the searing heat. Our hike through the island’s building sites didn’t end well

Package holidays weren’t yet a thing people did, in 1983 or 84, and Mallorca hadn’t completely become itself, but wasn’t unspoilt either. Me, nine, my sister, 11, and my mum, 46, would have been early adopters of the all-inclusive getaway, if in any sense my mum had arrived in an adopting frame of mind. It’s hard to describe the attitude she brought with her without making her sound like a monster, so you just have to fill between the lines with “she had other nice qualities”.

She didn’t like small talk and didn’t like buffets; didn’t like bumptious dads who invited your kids to join theirs; didn’t like nuclear families; and she wasn’t wild about other single-parent families either. She hated sitting by the pool, drinking piña coladas, group activities and any kind of quiz. She had an aversion to forced fun, which she used as cover for her distaste for many other kinds of fun. Me and my sister loved forced fun. We would lose our shit over a cocktail umbrella.

The country’s coastline is one of the shortest in Europe, but it packs a punch with unspoilt nature reserves, vibrant Venetian towns and a thriving foodie scene

I’m riding a salt-coloured horse through the Dragonja valley, deep in the green hills of Slovenian Istria. Electric-blue dragonflies zip over the river as we gallop past olive trees and vineyards. The landscape rises steeply in a series of grassy terraces, and at the top of the hill we rein in the sweating horses to take in the view. Far below, the huge grids of solinas (salt pans), glittery and light-blue in the early morning light, look strange and somehow elegant against the wild, expansive sea beyond.

The Istrian peninsula is the largest in the Adriatic Sea, with 90% of it in Croatia and smaller portions in Slovenia and Italy. I’ve come to explore the Slovenian section. At just 29 miles (47km), the country’s coastline is one of the shortest in Europe, from the Italian city of Trieste down to the Croatian border, but it boasts colourful seaside towns, hilltop villages and an emerging gastronomy scene.

We were in Corfu for a cheap and cheerful tennis trip and every day brought a new disaster. The swimming pool had no water. The tennis rackets had no strings. And don’t get me started on the family-run restaurant

My boyfriend and I took up tennis a couple of years ago. After 18 months of group lessons in our local park, many of them cancelled or abandoned due to rain, we started fantasising about playing somewhere sunny. Perhaps at a nice hotel with a pool, and yoga classes, and delicious food …

A quick search for tennis holidays put paid to that dream. They all seemed to be in luxury resorts and cost a fortune. Undeterred, I decided to plan a DIY tennis trip. I found a cheap aparthotel in Corfu. It looked no-frills but perfectly nice – spacious rooms, a pool, pretty gardens and, crucially, a tennis court. Best of all, it was cheap as chips in March.

From the Fanad peninsula in Ireland to the forested beaches of Finland, these are your favourite escapes without the fear of getting frazzled
• Tell us about your favourite food festival – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Saulkrasti’s long beaches and scented pine forests are an hour from Riga on the frequent local train. The forests come right down to the long, long sandy beach and the relaxing and well-marked trail takes you the 4km from Saulkrasti station through the trees to the big dune and blue river at Balta Kapa. We enjoyed a July picnic in the forest and occasional dips in the Mediterranean-warm Baltic, before returning happy to Riga.
Bruce

A misstep in the shallows led to physical torment and fraying tempers. Before this, I had been an angry teenager. Now, I was incandescent with rage

It is worth acknowledging, with the benefit of post-pubescent hindsight, that any holiday with 14-year-old me probably had the potential to become the holiday from hell. My self-esteem would have been at its lowest, my anger that “nobody understands me!” at its highest. In the summer of 2010 I can only imagine that my parents, who bore the brunt of my adolescent rage, were at their wits’ end. Little did they know that taking me (along with my 16-year-old sister and 11-year-old brother) to a paradise-like Greek island would have the opposite of a calming effect.

To be clear, we weren’t at each other’s throats all the time. Before catching a ferry from the Athens port of Piraeus to the tiny Saronic island of Agistri, I remember enjoying plates of moussaka and pastitsio in Athens, after sweatily traipsing around the city’s ruins. And on the island itself, we bonded as a family over card games at a beach bar, and giggled together when, on a boat trip, our pony-tailed captain stripped off, revealing a flame-shaped tattoo protruding from his Speedos.

Bishop Auckland is abuzz with culture and family fun, thanks to the vision of Auckland Palace’s owners – and the new Kynren show featuring birds of prey, Viking raids and mythical beasts, which opens next week

Booming Hans Zimmer-style cinematic music reaches a crescendo, shaking my bones. Two turquoise macaws swoop within an inch of my hair and join a sky filled with nearly 250 birds. Hawks, kites, pelicans, and an owl soar and swoop around a pagan-looking wooden circle. Peacocks fuss at the makeshift river below, coaxed by two actors telling the story of humans’ relationship with nature. Grey clouds roll in, dark with rain. After all, we are risking an open-air performance in north-east England. I’m at a preview of Kynren: the Storied Lands, the latest gloriously unrestrained project in the market town of Bishop Auckland, 12 miles south of Durham.

I grew up near Bishop Auckland, which was once an important coal-mining and railway town. Last time I was here, its centre was dominated by discount stores. If, in 2003, you’d told teenage me that the high street would become an ode to art, history and culture, I would have laughed. Well, I would have grunted and turned up the Nu metal on my MP3 player.

I didn’t see being a couple of years away from technically qualifying for an 18-30s jaunt to be a problem. But the booze, humiliation and a ‘mystery pooer’ made me rethink my entire life

‘First the bad news,” yelled our lairy Irish club rep as the coach drove us from Ibiza airport to our hotel. “All the great clubs: Amnesia, Space, Pacha … they’re CLOSED!”

A confused silence descended. “But the good news?” he yelled. “We’re gonna have a fucking amazing time anyway!!!”

Europe’s longest and most dramatic canyon is replete with exotic wildlife, including kingfishers and beavers, ruined castles and architectural oddities

We’re sipping chestnut kir on a terrace overlooking the Tarn River in southern France when we hear excited voices from the table beside us: “Regards! C’est un castor!” Below us, a beaver the length of my leg is languidly swimming upstream. We don’t need our binoculars because the Tarn is so clean that almost every fish, frog, pebble and ribbon of weed can be seen with the naked eye, magnified by the clarity of the water. This meandering, jade-green river – which winds from its source in the Cévennes national park to Moissac, just north of Toulouse – is home to trout, perch, carp, otters, frogs, toads, kingfishers and herons. We add “beavers” to our list.

Above us, huge vultures have been drifting all day, cruising the thermals in groups of nine or 10. And when our eyes haven’t been on the river or the sky, they have been welded to the many orchids on the bank: including monkey, bee, military, butterfly, pyramidal and fragrant orchids. Later, we discover that 30 varieties have been recorded in this orchid hotspot.

The owners of Teffont House are aiming for modern rural hospitality that puts guests at the heart of village life

Walking into the Orangery at Teffont House during the golden hour, the restaurant is glowing. Sunlight falls across cocktails the colour of spun sugar, spills on to a terrace trailing constellations of fleabane, and bounces off spoons sinking into raspberry trifles. What really gives the room its sparkle is none of these things, however, but the fact it’s packed with local people. On a warm June evening this new hotel, 10 minutes’ drive from the Wiltshire village of Tisbury, already feels embedded in village life.

It’s the latest venture of the Beckford Group, which runs a small clutch of West Country inns and restaurants, including the Talbot Inn in Mells and the Beckford Canteen in Bath. The company has carved a niche in modern rural hospitality, teaming unflashy furnishings (all chalky pink and moss green paintwork framed by antiques and contemporary art) with menus designed for greedy locavores and pricing that delivers an unstuffy demographic. Underpinning all of this is an ability to tap into local communities to create soul. With this, the Beckford Group’s first hotel, it is making that connection more explicit by labelling it as a “village”, rather than a country house hotel.

The island has a culinary tradition as old as its ancient olive trees. Our writer savours its family-run tavernas, village bakeries and local produce

As someone with Cypriot roots and distant Greek heritage, I’m often asked the question: which is the best island? People lean in, expecting a secret – some tiny, untouched haven, known only to locals. My answer is always the same: Crete. With its fiercely proud identity, warm communities and exceptional food, it feels both deeply Greek and entirely itself.

For our anniversary weekend, my husband and I head to Lassithi, in the island’s far eastern corner. As a chef and food writer, I’m drawn to the area’s reputation for exceptional produce: Sitia extra virgin olive oil, creamy xigalo cheese, mountain honey and an abundance of excellent tavernas.

Discover where supplicants consulted Apollo in Delphi, the infant Hermes hid stolen cattle and where Poseidon created a love nest for a sea nymph

Some stories never get old. The poems and songs from Greek mythology – tales of tragedy, love and loss, war and revenge, jealous gods, magic and monsters – have been retold through the ages for good reason. Like all stories that really resonate, they deal in the flawed nature of humankind.

To the ancients, though, they were far more than legends; they explained the universe. From the Earth’s origins and the stories of constellations to ideas of justice and morality, they shaped the arts and sciences, and carved a shared cultural identity. Visiting Greece today, it’s clear how deeply rooted the myths still are in modern culture. From the capital (named after wise Athena) and beyond, this is a country steeped in legends.

A quest for the settings that inspired Homer – and Hollywood’s latest blockbuster – turned into a personal voyage of discovery

Swimming ashore from the boat I can see a narrow shingle beach covered in driftwood. There are logs, bamboo canes and the sundried planks of an old shipwreck. The steep climb up the hill behind is not easy. I skirt thick clumps of thorn and abandoned ancient olive trees, scrambling over jagged outcrops of limestone. Every time I curl my fingers into a rocky niche I think about snakes. The only residents, however, are spiders. Their webs are strung between the trees, and so thick and strong that I grab a stick to slash through them. No one has been here for a long time.

Near the hilltop I stumble on a ruined stone building. Who lived here, I wonder? And where have they gone? A few steps further and the land abruptly ends in a vertical white cliff that plummets into an improbably blue sea. Far away, in the haze, there is a stack of Ionian islands and one of them, I know, must be Ithaca.

Beach-hopping, gorge hikes and awesome archaeological sites feature in your best memories of Greece

• Tell us about a family day out in the UK – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

We first noticed Milos as we travelled home from Crete, flying directly above it and deciding that was where we must go next. It didn’t disappoint. The island was calm, peaceful and strikingly beautiful. Milos isn’t well known, but it should be; the true home of the Aphrodite of Melos, displayed in the Louvre, Paris as the Venus de Milo. The northern coast was spectacular, shaped by volcanic activity and particularly picturesque. Sarakiniko is the perfect stop for photographs with its white rock. Truly an unforgettable trip.
Chris Rimell

In his new book, Jack Thurston cycles the quieter roads and forgotten hill tracks of Scotland, exploring Britain’s most remote and rugged terrain

There aren’t many roads in Britain where you can pull over to cook breakfast and finish it without seeing a single car. While my friend Ben got the stove going, I wandered around the ruins of Dun Dornaigil, an iron age broch (stone roundhouse) more than 2,000 years old. Above us, low cloud drifted across the dark cliffs of Ben Hope. This was exactly the kind of lost lane we’d come to Sutherland to ride.

Our journey had begun the day before, in Lairg – the traditional “crossroads of the north”. With its Spar shop, hotel, train station and a population of about 800, Lairg is the largest inland settlement in one of the most sparsely populated regions of Europe. Sutherland – literally, the “southern land” of the Vikings, who held sway over the far north of Scotland from their stronghold on Orkney – tests life to its limits: bare mountains, impassable peat bogs and one of Britain’s wildest coastlines.