Travel Tips
It’s the new Sunday lunch
Once the preserve of Saturday night clubbers, brunch is now the new lunch. The mid-morning meal has overtaken the one o’clock spot to become the most fashionable hour to eat.
If you’re unsure where to go for your Eggs Benedict, Lonely Planet has published The World’s Best Brunches – listing not only where they are made, but also how to make them yourself. Whether dining on Donegal oatcakes or China’s congee (rice porridge), the mid-morning meal’s appeal is that you it can’t do it every day. It’s special.
Recognising this, the ingenious team behind Afternoontea.co.uk has come up with brunch.london, a brunch-booking website, so you don’t have to wait in line for your spinach omelette. ‘Brunch has a unique vibe. It’s cool to eat early,’ says the website’s founder, Keith Newton. It’s certainly no longer about being lazy; it’s about being fashionable without having to dress up. ‘Even if you brunch in a five star hotel, it’s very casual. There’s no dress code,’ says Newton.
The appropriately titled Toast magazine has launched supper club-style long brunches at the five-star Rosewood Hotel, Bloomsbury, hosted by leading slow food cookery writers. London Italian eatery Quaglinos has introduced brunch with unlimited prosecco, while at the recently opened Penny’s in the basement of the Old Vic Theatre, ‘smashed avocado’ arrives with everything from goat’s curd to sourdough. In Edinburgh, the King’s Wark serves its sought-after fry with haggis and tattie scones; the chef at Woodland’s Country House in Padstow, Cornwall, takes his brunches so seriously that he’s written several books about them. And if you think you’re too late to indulge in the mid-morning meal, Steam Yard in Sheffield serves it up to 6pm.
Dea Birkett
A yen for Japan
Japan should be high on every traveller’s bucket list. It is enticingly different, with spectacular scenery and unfailingly honest, polite and helpful people... and because it’s so easy to get around it’s an independent traveller’s delight. And did I mention it need not be expensive?
The main attractions are in a line from Tokyo to Kyoto to Hiroshima – all conveniently served by the amazingly efficient Shinkansen (bullet train).
Make sure you purchase a JR (Japan Rail) Pass before you leave home. Consider staying at the cheaper no-frills business hotels (so named because they are run in a businesslike manner). Bento boxes for lunch, noodles or rice for dinner and beers from vending machines – which are everywhere.
Language is no problem. English signs are common, even if the English translations are often a source of amusement, and the front-desk staff at hotels will happily write any destination in Japanese on a small flashcard should you feel the need for some back-up.
The twelve-hour-plus flight from England may seem daunting, but Japan’s attractions make it more than worthwhile. One suggestion is to book an often-cheaper Asiana or Korean flight via Seoul, which might include an all-expenses-paid overnight stopover in Seoul – providing a glimpse of a second fascinating country at no extra cost.
Peter Lacey
Those musical hills
Nearly everyone who has seen The Sound of Music remembers the opening scene where a youthful Julie Andrews sings ‘The Hills Are Alive’ with huge gusto. The scenery is breathtaking, with views over mountain tops and the lake below.
What is not always known, however, is that the incredibly beautiful scenery lies around Lake Wolfgang in the Austrian Lake District, less than an hour’s journey from Salzburg. The town of St Wolfgang, on the lake shore, was one of the most popular destinations for pilgrims in mediaeval Europe. The old pilgrim route can still be traced – it wends its way from the Falkenstein Rock along the lakeside and through the village to the church, home to the famous altar made by Michael Pacher near the end of the 15th century. Later, in the 20th century, the inn adjacent to the church was the setting for another musical, The White Horse Inn.
Further around the lake is St Gilgen, another place with musical associations. It is here that Mozart’s maternal grandparents lived, and his mother was raised. Later, the composer’s sister Nannerl moved to St Gilgen with her husband. Mozart is unlikely to have visited the village, but the beauty of the surrounding mountains nevertheless seems to echo his sublime music.
Rather more disturbingly, newsreel programmes about Hitler frequently show him standing by the lake at St Gilgen with his mistress, Eva Braun. Hitler was entranced by mountainous scenery – and one is left reflecting how easy it is for the human mind to respond to beauty with either good or evil.
Elizabeth Ashton