This week’s dream: holidays in the winter sun
Gorgeous Bahia
The crucible of Brazil’s cultural identity and among its most beautiful regions, Bahia is the ideal destination for a first-time visitor to the country, said Saki Knafo in Condé Nast Traveller. It was here that the Portuguese and most of the people they brought as slaves from Africa first arrived in South America, and here that modern Brazil’s African-influenced culture was born, including its key musical styles, its spiciest cuisine, the spirit religion of candomblé and the dance-like martial art of capoeira. This heritage still thrives in the state capital, Salvador, which also hosts the continent’s richest concentration of colonial architecture, alongside pretty beaches and luxury hotels. Spend a few days exploring it with a first-class guide, before heading off to hike through the towering table mountains of Chapada Diamantina, and lounge on the “idyllic” beaches of the “remote” Marau Peninsula, where you might stay at Casa dos Arandis, a hotel with bungalows made of salvaged wood and “the laid-back vibe of a surf retreat”. Specialist tour operators include Dehouche (dehouche.com) and Matueté (matuete.com).
The peaceful byways of rural Rajasthan
With their great palaces and forts and their teeming bazaars, the historic cities of Rajasthan are glorious, but hot and crowded too. Luckily, this arid northern state is also the site of some of India’s most beautiful wild places, said Gabby Deeming in The Times, and some of its loveliest rural lodges and palace hotels. Heading north from Udaipur, you might spend a night at the “extraordinary” Bujera Fort, home to a wonderful collection of vintage Indian folk treasures, before proceeding to the mountain resort of Kumbhalgarh, where the “intricate” 15th century Mewar fortress glows pink at sunset. Westwards lies Ranakpur, with its huge Jain temple – also dating from the 15th century. And yet further west, camps offering leopard safaris have sprung up around the Jawai Dam, in a “magical” landscape of low hills covered with granite “smooth as bone” boulders. From the charming Rawla Bisalpur guesthouse (a 1930s villa next to the atmospheric ruin of an 18th century palace) you could also strike out in an SUV in search of the great cats. Specialist tour operators include Ampersand (ampersandtravel.com) and Greaves India (greavesindia. co.uk).
St Lucia’s beautiful gardens and forests
Plenty of Caribbean islands have beaches and luxury resorts as lovely as St Lucia’s, but few can match it for sheer lushness and topographical “drama” (the twin peaks of the Pitons, rising like “massive incisors” from the sea, are perhaps the region’s most arresting sight). To celebrate these natural splendours, the local tourism authority has recently launched a “Botanical Trail”, said James Henderson in The Daily Telegraph, through the best of the island’s parks, gardens and plantations. Among the highlights is the Tet Paul Nature Trail, a 45-minute guided walk up to a plateau that is said to offer the finest view of the Pitons. More challenging is the 800ft climb up to the shoulder of La Sorcière – one of the major peaks of the interior. The “most impressive” formal garden on the trail is Mamiku, which was created by the landscape designer Veronica Shingleton-Smith. Its 12 acres encompass areas of rainforest, and around 300 plant species, including orchids “as ornate and threatening-looking as lion fish”, and galba wood, which is so heavy it sinks in water. See stlucia.
org for more information.