Getting the flavour of…
Cruising the fjords on a tugboat
A blue-and-white tugboat with shiny brass and five “cosy” cabins, HMS Gåssten looks like “the plucky little star of some cartoon adventure”. One of the last wooden warships ever built, she was commissioned as a minesweeper by the Swedish navy in 1973; but this year, following a “bold and beautiful” refit in a Scottish shipyard, she began a new life as a pleasure cruiser plying the Norwegian fjords, says Tim Moore in the FT. Captain Sven Stewart is an “accomplished” skier; in winter, guests have access to “extravagant off-piste possibilities”; in summer months, there’s guided hiking, kayaking and cycling to do. On board, there is a panoramic saloon, deckchairs with reindeer rugs on the wheelhouse deck, and a fine chef on hand. Red Savannah (redsavannah.com) has six-night private charters from £3,750 per person.
An English vineyard hotel
English wine was once regarded as “a bit of a joke”, but as global temperatures “surge”, its quality is improving and production is soaring. Leading the charge is Denbies in Surrey, a former pig farm first planted with vines by Adrian White in 1984. Already “well set up for tourism” with its “vast” visitor centre, it added a hotel this summer – the first in an English winery, says Fiona Beckett in The Guardian. Just 40 minutes by rail from Waterloo, it has “functional rather than flash” rooms that have a mildly “bucolic vibe” owing to their vineyard views. There are escorted tours of parts of the 265acre estate not open to the public, rides to take on a “slightly Disneyesque” train, and “enjoyably wacky” food-and-wine-matching sessions for parties of up to ten in a pair of circular cabanas on the “infinity lawn”.
Doubles from £145 b&b (denbies.co.uk).
The rutted road to paradise
With Mel Gibson and the supermodel Gisele Bündchen among its part-time residents, the Costa Rican beach town of Santa Teresa is a little bit of heaven by the Pacific Ocean, says Olivia Walmsley in The Sunday Telegraph. Incorporating four former fishing villages, it has been protected from mass tourism in part by the terrible state of the local roads – the next big town is a “bum-numbing” six-hour drive away, although helicopters and private planes can land much closer. Development is low-level (mostly “small, chic” hotels and “fairy-lit” restaurants), and set well back from the beach (“mile upon mile of almost empty golden sand, fringed by the jungle”). Social life centres on a bar called Rocamar, where Silicon Valley CEOs party alongside surfers and yogis every Sunday night, but there are also plenty of adventures to enjoy at sea and in the rainforest, including fishing, horse-riding and quad-biking.