The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The treasured isles that I call home
In the first of a new series about travel in the UK, Gavin Bell chooses his ‘best of British’, from Iona to Hay-on-Wye
It is a haven of peace infused with the spirituality of centuries of religious devotion, and sitting by its shores of translucent blue water on a calm summer’s day is balm to the soul. In spring and summer, the little island is carpeted with bluebells and periwinkle, and the air is sweet with birdsong. A footpath meanders by an ancient nunnery to a hidden cove of white sand and shingle as idyllic as any in the Mediterranean.
But this is no monastic retreat on a Greek island, and I don’t need my passport, because it is virtually on my doorstep in the west of Scotland.
Wordsworth waxed lyrical about Iona, jewel in the crown of the Hebrides where St Columba brought Christianity to Scotland. Mendelssohn, too, was enchanted by its concerto of beauty and silence: “When in some future time I shall sit in a madly crowded assembly, with music and dancing round me, and the wish arises to retire into the loneliest loneliness, I shall think of Iona.”
So who needs Mykonos or Mauritius? In today’s world of budget flights and Airbnb, it has never been so tempting or so easy to wing away to exotic destinations for sun and sangria. As a travel writer, I am privileged to do this for a living, to roam the globe in search of wonders, but in truth I have often found them closer to home.
I have trekked the rainforests of Costa Rica and joined crowds watching the Tour de France flashing through a French mountain village, but roaming lonely, windblown hills in the Lake District and cheering Andy Murray at Wimbledon rank just as high, if not higher, in the thrilling stakes.
In the yearning to escape the humdrum of daily life, fuelled by seductive travel brochures and websites, it is natural to dream of faraway places with strange-sounding names. So off we rush to join airport security queues and traffic jams at channel ports, forgetting that great escapes and experiences may be just up the road. Where else can you ramble country lanes in the footsteps of poets, artists and composers, watch kilted men tossing telegraph poles at Highland games, gaze in wonder at beaches with nobody on them that seem to go on forever, and stretch out on a deck chair as shadows lengthen on a village green and the local cricket team goes in to bat?
Few countries can rival the remarkable diversity of long-distance footpaths and cycle routes that crisscross our land from Cornwall to Caithness, offering easy escape to a kaleidoscope of quiet forests and lakes, rugged coastlines, and lonely hills and glens. One Sustrans route from Sunderland to Inverness (No 7) passes my front gate, and within half an hour I can be cycling to Loch Lomond along a canal path in the company of swans.
But Britain is not just the wild highlands, castles and country pubs that draw tourists; there is an exciting energy in edgy cities such as Glasgow and Liverpool, which have emerged from postindustrial decline to reinvent themselves as cultural powerhouses of music, creative arts, design and innovative cuisine. London remains one of the most dynamic, ethnically diverse cities on earth, rivalling New York.
And off well-worn tourist trails, there is an appealing gritty edge to red-brick northern towns determined to survive the loss of industry and to preserve memories of an era when their factories and foundries supplied an empire. There are unexpected charms in such places set in glorious countryside, if you look for them.
Throw in seaside resorts that maintain their piers, amusement arcades and ice-cream parlours for cheap and cheerful days out, and you have a country for all seasons, tastes and budgets.
Ironically, the more I travel, the more I appreciate the quirky charms of my own country. T S Eliot summed up the paradox:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.
Over the coming months, the experts at Telegraph Travel will be bringing you a host of wonders to be found on your doorstep. But for now, here is a whimsical selection of places and events that have enchanted, amused and entertained me over the years without me having to go anywhere near an airport check-in desk, beginning with my favourite island.