The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Isabella Noble
Glamping goodies
Travel journalist Isabella grew up in southern Andalucia and is a Spain expert for Telegraph Travel. She is often dreaming about Tarifa’s beaches. And rather lovely hill villages in Andalucia…
TAKE A PUNT, CAMBRIDGE There’s been a necessity for outdoor adventures and open places this past year, but as restrictions start to ease, many of us will be craving a bit of time in the city. In Cambridge, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to culture – there’s the Museum of Zoology and Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences (keeping the Natural History Museum on its toes), the historic buildings that line the River Cam, literary connections seemingly around every corner and miles of cycle paths. The University Arms is the place to stay and can provide picnics for days out. They can also help you book a family punt along the Cam or plan an itinerary for your stay. Kids under 12 eat free before 6pm in the hotel’s relaxed Parker’s Tavern.
A night at the University Arms costs from £159 per room; suites from £419 (01223 606066; universityarms.com). X
Cambridge holds the title of being the location for the hottest day ever recorded in the UK (38.7C).
LIVE LIKE ROYALTY, EDINBURGH There are city breaks and then there are city breaks at The Balmoral. This grande dame of a hotel, straddling the line between Edinburgh’s Old Town and New Town, is the crème de la crème of Edinburgh hotels. This May half-term, the hotel is offering a Seasonal Two Room Family package, with
For more British holiday inspiration, see: telegraph.
co.uk/ tt-uk-travel
50 per cent off a second room, plus halfprice meals for four to 12-year-olds (those aged three and under eat for free). Kids will also be given complimentary treats and will be delighted by the Bonnie the Owl Turndown Service. Edinburgh is a great city for family breaks – aside from the obvious museums and the lure of the castle and Arthur’s Seat, the Camera Obscura and the World of Illusions is a fail-safe attraction.
Seasonal Two Room Family package costs from £365 (0131 556 2414; roccofortehotels.com).
Is it warm enough for a
night under canvas? Asking for a friend. With foreign travel still off the
menu and cottages booked up, get set for the great outdoors. Laura Craik
Star Night Light
Projector
Tesoky, £17.99 Glamping with kids? The starry patterns cast by this will soothe them to sleep.
amazon.co.uk
H&M, £8.99
No matter how glam your glamping is, you will need a warm, woolly garment. This one is a steal.
hm.com
Giverny wellington Le Chameau, £100 If they’re good enough
for the Duchess of Cambridge, they are good enough for you.
joules.com
Travel collection
Cowshed, £18
A yurt in a field may not be Soho House, but you can still smell as though it is with these miniatures.
johnlewis.com
ZAHARA DE LA SIERRA Gazing out on an aquamarine reservoir in the craggy Sierra de Grazalema of Cadiz, Zahara is a strong contender for Andalucia’s most perfectly formed pueblo blanco. A crumbling Moorishorigin fortress towers above it, and thrilling walks and activities abound, from kayaking trips to descents of the Garganta Verde gorge. h WHERE TO STAY Inventive restaurant and custom-designed boutique hotel Al Lago is a destination in its own right (double rooms from £80; al-lago.es).
CAPILEIRA
Located 1,436m up in Granada’s rugged Alpujarras, snow-white Capileira is Andalucia’s second-highest village, its Berber-style alpujarreño homes cascading down the slopes of the Poqueira valley. Capileira is known for its artisan jams, handwoven rugs and mountain cooking (the meaty plato alpujarreño graces most menus), but the real joy here is in hitting the hiking trails. h WHERE TO STAY
Hotel Real de Poqueira is a nicely refurbished Capileira home (doubles from £40; hotelespoqueira.com).
ARCOS DE LA FRONTERA A classic beauty among the pueblos blancos of Cadiz, Arcos sits halfway between sherry-loving Jerez and the Sierra de Grazalema. Extending along a sheer clifftop, its maze-like historic core reveals hidden plazas, whitewashed arches and alleys, mellow little guesthouses and cheery bars, including the popular Taberna Jóvenes Flamencos (0034 856 10 04 84). h WHERE TO STAY
Cortijo Bablou offers artfully updated rooms in a 19th-century farmhouse, plus glamping yurts (doubles from £102; cortijobablou.com).
CAZORLA
People seek out Cazorla, in the secluded eastern Jaén province, for its outstanding wildlifespotting and walking (make sure you don’t miss the trail to the source of the Río Borosa) in the majestic surrounding Sierras de Cazorla, and Segura y Las Villas Natural Park, Spain’s most expansive protected space. The white-walled town with its 14th-century castle is a delight to explore, in an astonishing natural setting beneath craggy pinnacles, with vultures soaring above. h WHERE TO STAY
In the wilds outside the town, the elegant Parador de Cazorla offers sprawling mountain panoramas (doubles from £79; parador.es).
We all pine for pubs and restaurants, and the chance to drink and eat with friends. But what I miss most, in this constricted reality, is travelling the world through the people that I meet. I miss recommendations in bookshops as I try to find a new author, and chatting to a barista when I spend the day in a café. I miss new ideas, new conversations, new tastes and new people. I miss not knowing what I am going to discover each day.
Multiculturalism is Britain’s best asset and a few sentences from a stranger can transport me overseas. After I helped a former doctor from Colombia on to a bus, she told me about her life-saving work in the Amazon; and I learnt more about Biafra (Nigeria) from an Uber driver named Thaddeus than I did from travelling there myself. Many of these serendipitous chats have been the trigger for my own travels. A conversation with a Cuban bartender inspired me to visit Tampa, Florida, and it was a waitress from Estonia who told me about the unique culture of Setomaa.
While some people are comforted by routine and recurrence, I find myself stimulated by difference and discovery. My life has been built around learning new things, but as I walk past shuttered shops and sad, empty pubs, I feel trapped by the loss of revelation, and I’m trying to find new ways to fill it.
My daily exercise was previously just a way to stave off physical decline, and took the form of running or cycling between my house and a park. But now these journeys are my only exploration, and they are somewhat filling the gap left by encounters with new people.
When we travel at home, our origin and objective are all that matter, and the places in between are just somewhere en route. But now that we have nowhere to go, the journey is all we have.
So, with no destination in mind, I’ve decided to get lost. I’ve spent my days in the “places in between”, zigging up one street and zagging down the next, walking through housing estates, down alleyways and up staircases. I look out for familiar skyscrapers, to try to work out which direction I’m going in. Sometimes I reach dead-ends, or end up in car parks. Sometimes I find myself on congested main roads. But getting lost always reveals something new.
I’ve found a street of Georgian housing that looks like a Monet painting in autumn but a Scandinavian capital in winter. I’ve spotted murals and fading brick adverts that I must have commuted past for years without ever noticing. And, tucked down a cul-de-sac, I came across a takeaway that sells the best sausage rolls in England.
When I’m stuck for ideas, I try to look for a certain thing, such as red curtains, or brass doorknobs. Behind a Tube station, on the corner of two busy roads, I stumbled across a crescent that made me think of Paddington Bear. And I found streets of detached houses that could have been in The OC.
Every block of flats contains enough stories for a lifetime, and there are hints of those stories in the colours of a sofa, or in the toys on a windowsill. I imagine the couple’s discussion as they shopped for that furniture, or the excitement of the child as they unwrapped that gift.
I’ve realised how little I knew about the area in which I live. I frequented the supermarkets and hipster coffee shops, but I used to bypass Portuguese cafés and Italian wholesalers. I’ve now randomly sampled cheeses and pastries in the same way I would when travelling, and come to know communities that were invisible to me before.
We tell ourselves that our nation has moved beyond class, because rich and poor live side by side. And geographically that may be true. But these two worlds rarely interact. We all live in our own lanes, and only see the lives either side of us when we search for them, or stumble into them.
While I have enjoyed seeing new buildings, and telling myself imagined stories, I am counting down the days until Britain reopens, and I can meet new people once again. But what I’ve discovered during my lost wanderings will shape the life that I return to.
Travel within the UK and overseas is currently subject to restrictions. See Page 3.
An enduring legacy of Azerbaijan’s Silk Road heritage is its ritualisation of tea drinking. A little tea gets the conversation flowing, say Azerbaijanis –and, as in its oriental homeland, tea here is no mere beverage but a symbol of hospitality served to every guest and before every meal. As the saying goes: when you drink tea, you don’t count the cups.
Tea is always served black (don’t think of asking for milk), often flavoured with lemon, thyme or mint, sometimes with rose water, and comes in crystal glasses known as armudu with an hourglass shape – either a stylised representation of the female form (the traditional teahouse was a strictly male domain) or a clever design to cool the top for drinking while preserving heat below.
Sugar is another quirk. Azerbaijanis don’t add it to their cups. Instead they dunk then suck a sugar cube before sipping the unsweetened tea. The story goes that medieval rulers conceived the method to test for poison, which was said to react to sugar.
More curious still is sugar’s role during wedding negotiations. Forget to include it on the tea tray to potential parents-in-law and you will indicate without words (or loss of face) that the match is a non-starter. Remembered it? Then hang out the bunting.