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Three fabulous walking holidays
Unspoiled Yosemite
With its vast forests, thundering
waterfalls, “monumental” cliffs and
towers of sheer granite, Yosemite
National Park is California’s greatest
natural spectacle, says Sarah Siese in
House & Garden. Its main trails can
be very crowded, but avoid them
and you can walk here in solitude
for days on end. Serious hikers might
want to try the High Sierra Loop –
a 49-mile trail with catered camps
where the places are granted in an
annual lottery. Or, for a more
relaxed and luxurious experience,
you could stay at Blackberry Inn, a
ten-bedroom, “lodge-style” bed and
breakfast set in beautiful grounds.
Ten minutes’ drive from the Big Oak Flat park entrance, it offers
easy access to Tuolumne Grove, where the trees include several
giant sequoias, the world’s tallest species. And it’s an ideal base
from which to strike out for May Lake, on a “lightly trodden”,
11-mile circuit. The trail there climbs steadily through a “raw
and dramatic” landscape, and has spectacular views of the peaks
of Mount Hoffmann, Clouds Rest and Half Dome. For more
information, visit yosemiteexperience.com, travelyosemite.com
and blackberry-inn.com.
Hiking on a mountainous African island
One of the least visited of the Cape Verde archipelago’s nine
inhabited islands, Santo Antão is a spectacular hiking destination,
says Imogen Lepere in the Financial Times. Rising sheer from
the sea to almost 2,000 metres, its volcanic mountains tower
over dizzyingly steep desert canyons and verdant, terraced valleys
where the villages are largely inaccessible by road. Since 2016, it
has been gripped by drought, forcing many to emigrate, but a
nascent ecotourism industry has also emerged, offering a new
source of income. At Aldeia Manga, the island’s first ecolodge,
thatched adobe bungalows sit in
two acres of lush gardens. And
Mamiwata, which opened last
month, has a biodynamic vineyard,
a kitchen garden, and “sleek” stone
cabins overlooking the sea for as
little as s100 per night. From there,
you might set out for Cha da Morte,
passing “twisted tombstones of
lava”; walk through the Ribeira Chã
de Igreja, a crack in the earth striped
with different minerals; or head for
Ponta do Sol, via “gleaming” black
beaches where loggerhead turtles
lay their eggs. Archipelago Choice
(archipelagochoice.com) has a seven-
night trip from £2,300 per person,
including flights and guided walks.
A relaxing wander through beautiful Istria
Walking holidays needn’t involve huge distances and punishing
gradients; and they can be more enjoyable when there is time to
“stand and stare”. You can spend eight days strolling gently
through the beautiful Istrian peninsula in Croatia on Regent
Holidays’ new self-guided Pathways of Istria trip, says Sarah
Baxter in The Sunday Telegraph. After exploring the glorious
old Venetian port of Rovinj, guests spend a day on the island of
Veliki Brijuni, a national park that is home to Hapsburg pleasure
gardens, Roman ruins and deserted pebble beaches. Three days
of walking through the forests and vineyards of the peninsula’s
interior follow, via ancient villages including Grožnjan (known
for its art galleries) and Motovun, perched on the top of a forested
hill, and rich in Gothic and Renaissance architecture. There are
stops at tavernas to sample the local wines; a truffle-hunting trip
led by a local guide and his dog; and, to conclude, a walk along
the pretty coastal promenade to the port of Lovran, with its
handsome Austro-Hungarian villas. The trip costs from £1,765
per person, including flights (regent-holidays.co.uk).Few stretches of the Italian coast are as
glamorous as Versilia, says Stephanie
Rafanelli in Condé Nast Traveller. It
wasn’t always so. For centuries, this
12-mile sweep of Tuscan shoreline
to the north of Lucca was mainly
known for the marble quarried at
nearby Monte Altissimo, prized by
Michelangelo and transported via
the fishing village of Forte dei Marmi
(Fort of the Marbles). Then, in the
1920s, the Fiat heir Edoardo Agnelli took a liking to the area, bought a villa near
Forte, and the Versilian Riviera was born. Drawn by the Fiat dynasty – “Italy’s
bourgeois royal family” – Jazz Age industrialists, fascists, writers and artists
arrived, including Aldous Huxley and Thomas Mann. In the 1960s, Sophia Loren
and Ray Charles rocked the La Capannina nightclub, and Henry Moore moved
in, attracted – like other mid-century artists, from Jean Arp to Joan Miró – in
part by Michelangelo’s beloved marble.
It’s easy to see how the area’s natural setting might have excited Agnelli –
the serrated peaks of the Apuan Alps hovering over “chorus lines” of umbrella
pines and mile upon mile of wild sand dunes. Today, it’s far more developed,
with around 100 beach clubs on the seven-mile stretch of beach in front of
Forte. Among the best-known are Bagno Piero, whose art deco logo dates from
1933, Alpemare, which was much favoured by writers in the past, and La Twiga,
where the s400-a-day tented beds frame the alps “like Polaroids”. Among the
area’s best places to stay are the Augustus Hotel (which includes the Agnelli
family’s former villa, pictured), Villa Grey, with its Michelin-starred restaurant,
and Le Gusciane, a rural retreat in the Apuan foothills.Enduring elegance on the Tuscan coast
The idea of a
£210m cultural
complex
designed solely
to let the French
“revel in their
epicurean
wonderfulness”
is a bit irritating,
says Anthony
Peregrine in The
Times – but Dijon’s Cité Internationale de
la Gastronomie et du Vin is actually rather
enjoyable. Occupying the site of the city’s
former hospital, it was conceived in response
to Unesco’s 2010 decision to declare that the
“French gastronomic meal” constituted an
element of the world’s intangible heritage.
The centre, which opened last month, has at
its heart a “gastronomic village” in which food
and drink producers from all over France give
talks and demonstrations. There are also
interactive exhibitions on dining through the
ages, the role of the senses in cookery and
more, as well as a superb wine bar with 3,000
bottles from Burgundy and beyond, of which
250 are sold by the glass. Combine your visit
with a tour of the Côte de Nuits winelands
south of Dijon, and leave time to explore the
streets and squares of the city. The Chapeau
Rouge has double rooms from £110, and a
great restaurant (chapeau-rouge.fr).Travel
A gastronomic spectacular
Yosemite's May Lake trail offers “spectacular” views28 May 2022 THE WEEKCovid-19: please check government websites for testing and quarantine requirements, and the rules surrounding children (gov.uk).