Getting the flavour of…

A wild South African road trip Running through the Klein Karoo desert of the Western Cape, South Africa’s Route 62 offers natural glories to match those of the Garden Route, to its south – but far fewer tourists, says Duncan Craig in The Sunday Times. To see its enticing western half, fly to George and then drive the 230 miles to Paarl, not far from Cape Town. Hundreds of ostriches stalk the “dusty terracotta” plains around Oudtshoorn; beyond lies the magnificent Swartberg Pass and, below it, the “vast subterranean cathedrals” of the Cango Caves. On game drives from the “sprawling” Buffelsdrift lodge, there are rhinos, giraffes and elephants to see. And further on, as the landscape grows more green, you’ll find excellent vineyards and the quiet and relaxing natural hot pools of Avalon Springs. Visions of Africa (01444225640, www.visionsofafrica.co.uk) has a seven-night fly-drive from £1,595pp. China’s ancient urban jewel Many visitors to China speed straight from Beijing to Xi’an, home of the Terracotta Army. But that’s a mistake, says Simon Willis in 1843 magazine, because midway between them lies another “treasure” – Pingyao, the country’s best-preserved ancient walled town. Built in the 14th century, at the height of the Ming Dynasty, it was the heart of China’s banking industry in the 19th and then fell into poverty in the 20th, escaping the ravages of the Cultural Revolution. On its car-free, cobbled streets are architectural delights such as the four-storey 14th century City Tower, and the original Rishengchang Draft Bank, its courtyards enclosed by “delicate wooden facades”. And it’s worth walking the seven miles round the city’s walls, stopping at the watchtowers to admire the sea of “low, swooping, grey-tiled roofs” below. The best guesthouse, Jing’s Residence (00 86 0354 584 1000, www.jingsresidence. com), has rooms from $169.

The web that time forgot In 1895, two Belgian lawyers – Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine – decided to document and classify all significant human knowledge on index cards, like an early internet. To see what became of this project, head to the Mundaneum museum in medieval Mons, says Harriet Marsden in The Independent. The present building, opened in 1998, houses what remains of the pair’s 16 million cards (some were destroyed during the Nazi occupation), along with exhibitions about the project’s genesis. One of the forefathers of information science, Otlet hoped people worldwide would one day access the data via “electric telescopes”, and both founders saw it as the nucleus of a future world city, “transcending borders and fostering peace”. See www.mundaneum.org.