Getting the flavour of…
Lima’s gourmet delights
Once spurned as South America’s grittiest city, Lima has reinvented itself as a “global gastronomy destination”, says Chris Moss in The Sunday Telegraph. Its restaurants are diverse and scintillating, drawing on the country’s multicultural heritage (Andean, African, European and more) and exceptionally diverse ecosystems, from the Amazon jungle to the high plains. At Central, chef Virgilio Martínez presents a tasting menu with 17 courses, each made from produce from different altitudes. There’s “exquisite” Japanese-peruvian fusion food at Maido (including a “humble” sausage sandwich, in which the meat is octopus), and the guinea pig in a purple-corn crêpe at Astrid y Gastón is “exceedingly moreish”. Also great fun are the city’s food markets, with their displays of exotic grains and fruits.
Aracari (020-7097 1750, www.aracari.com) has a five-day culinary trip from £1,770pp, excluding flights.
Hard labour on St Kilda The hardy people who once lived on St Kilda, a barren, rocky archipelago about 100 miles from the Scottish mainland, were evacuated in 1930, owing to “illness and privation”. Today, you can visit on day trips, but the only way to stay there is by working for the National Trust for Scotland, says Jay Sivell in The Guardian. Participants lodge in 19th century cottages for a fortnight in early summer and labour at least 24 hours a week – patching up old buildings, cleaning toilets, clearing drainage channels. It’s not everyone’s idea of fun, but the haunting beauty of the islands is a great reward, and there’s “ample” time to go tramping their ridges, cliffs and caves. By Boreray, the stacks rise “like a cathedral” from the sea, and there’s abundant wildlife to spot, including basking sharks and minke whales. The cost is £895. Applications for 2018 close on 23 January (www.kilda.org.uk).
A volcanic Sicilian gem Standing between Mount Etna and the sea, Sicily’s second city, Catania, is “an architectural riot”, says Jonathan Bastable in Condé Nast Traveller – a distinction it owes, in part, to the famous volcano. Laid to waste by an eruption and an earthquake in the late 17th century, it was rebuilt entirely in a “squat” baroque style – wonderfully ornamented, but low and muscular to resist tremors. Particularly splendid is the parade of grand churches and palaces on Via dei Crociferi. The city has a “cacophonous” fish market, home to two “old but jumping” lunch places, and lots of good trattorias for evening meals. Trips in the cable car to Etna’s “majestically bleak” upper slopes are well worth it too.
BA flies direct to Catania from Gatwick (www.britishairways.com).