Hot deal in tropics
SWIM up to the bar to cool yourself in the tropical heat of Mauritius during a stay at the Maritim Resort & Spa. Tropical Sky has cut-price deals from September 4 to December 10 costing from £1,479 per person for seven nights. The all-inclusive offer at the five-star hotel includes flights. For details see tropicalsky. co.uk or call 01342 886 941. THE British seaside has had a revival. But while the big names get the crowds, there are dozens more intimate resort towns where the key ingredients of a great holiday are all on the menu... Cornwall is awash with delightful little places snuggled into its coastal coves. But Mevagissey gets our vote over the big-ticket destinations. It is because the place still feels like an honest fishing village, its inner and outer harbours bobbing with colour, bathed in sun. At its heart is a labyrinth of tiny streets unchanged over centuries, twisting and turning through erratic lines of cob-walled cottages. Cafes serve cream teas and fresh crab or lobster straight from the boats, and families tuck into ice cream while sitting out on the harbour wall. STAY: Harbour to Horizon has a couple of sumptuous self-catering properties that overlook the harbour. Seafarers is a refurbished coastguard cottage, sleeps four and costs from £415 for a week. See harbour2horizon.co.uk. This Dorset resort has a stone breakwater, the Cobb, made famous by the Meryl Streep film The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Equally movie-like is the path that leads through the Undercliff, a slightly sinister wooded area that could easily be hobbit territory. But Lyme is most famous for fossils, abundant on the shore, and the Fossil Museum organises fossil walks. Also on the shore are beach huts and a boat-building academy. It is the sort of place that attracts artists and there is plenty of local talent on display in the Town Mill arts centre. STAY: The traditional Royal Lion has doubles from £120, B&B. See royallionhotel.com. A seaside village on an island off the south coast is always going to appeal. Shanklin’s guest houses gaze out over the sea and its lanes wind down to a beach lined with amusement arcades and ice cream parlours. This is also the location of the island’s oldest tourist attraction, Shanklin Chine, a tranquil, stunning tree-lined gorge that connects the thatched cottages of the upper village to the esplanade down below. STAY: Keats Cottage, where the poet wrote some of his works, is a five-bedroom B&B with restaurant in the old village. Doubles from £75 a night. See keatscottage.co.uk. Introduced to a wider public by wartime detective series Foyle’s War, Hastings doesn’t need much set dressing. Much of it still looks just as it did 70 years ago with weather-boarded cottages, mossy-roofed townhouses and narrow “twittens”, or passageways. Several things make it unique. There is the way in which its fleet of fishing boats are winched up and down the pebble shore, the tall, tarred wooden fishermen’s huts on the Stade, and the minimalist revamped pier that opened last year. Looking at the town you would never guess that it is also home to the world’s largest underground skate and BMX park. STAY: Bramley & Teal has a wide selection of holiday cottages nearby. Seven nights in One West Street, sleeps two, costs from £405, bramleyandteal.co.uk. Th There is something hugely appealing about the massive open skies, watercolour sands and distant mirage of sea that you get on the north N Norfolk coast. There is a touch of Holland to the to towns and the flats in the area, and the ha handsome Georgian town of Wells is set in a w world of creeks, dunes and shady pines. Fickle ti tides regularly leave the ramshackle collection of eccentric boats stranded beside its harbour w walls. The priory ruins of Walsingham Abbey are ju just inland, and posh Burnham Market, which is ri rich in art galleries filled with seascapes, is not fa far away along the shore. STAY:S The Crown Hotel is a handsome, whitepainted Georgian hotel in the corner of a peaceful square. Doubles from £135, including breakfast, see crownhotelnorfolk.co.uk.