The editor of the Good Hotel Guide has spent the last 12 months scouring the country looking for great places to stay. As the latest edition is published, he presents his favourite findsWhat makes a good hotel? It's a question I have to answer every year when searching for new entries for the Good Hotel Guide. As this selection for the 2010 edition demonstrates, there is no overriding ingredient, rather a series of factors that combine to create a happy experience. The answer is as varied as the places I have chosen for this list. You might ask why there are only five actual hotels; the others are inns, restaurants-with-rooms or B&Bs. This is a reflection of changing patterns in British hospitality. A closer look shows that what these places have in common is excellence in these key categories…FOODThe quality of the cooking in British hotels has improved dramatically in the last decade. Look in particular at the inns and restaurants below. Increasingly today when young chefs open their own ventures, they are choosing to run inns or affordable restaurants, rather than pretentious Michelin-star seeking expense-account places.BREAKFASTWho cooks bacon and eggs for themselves? But who can resist the full monty when staying at a hotel. Breakfast is the most underrated meal. It is frequently better at a B&B than in a more expensive hotel, which is just one reason we include the better B&Bs.STYLEThis is a personal choice: I might like minimalism while you like chintz. It is not necessarily the chosen style that matters, rather that the design theme has been thought through and is coherent. You can always tell when someone with flair has decorated a hotel.RULESBossy little notices telling guests what they can and can't do are a turn-off, suggesting that a place is being run for the benefit of the owner rather than the guests. Limited breakfast times are a particular irritation. I prefer the hotelier who was asked about the hours for breakfast. "What time would you like breakfast?" he replied.THE LITTLE THINGSThe small gestures make all the difference. The warmth of the welcome; fresh flowers at reception and in the bedroom; a receptionist who carries your bag to your room; decent bedside lights (do hoteliers ever try out their own rooms?); fresh milk and home-made biscuits with the room tea tray.LOCATIONYou can change most things about a hotel except its location, which does matter. Look how many of the hotels in this list are in attractive villages or wonderful rural or seaside settings. Coaching inns are an honourable exception as, by definition, they are on main roads or routes.INNS 1. The Fox Inn, Lower Oddington, GloucestershireIn a quiet Cotswold village, this creeper-clad old pub has flagstone floors, beams and old fireplaces. Service is informal but standards are high, with local ingredients in well-presented modern dishes. There are three bedrooms: the Garden Room, the largest, has a double aspect, sloping ceilings, wallpaper in winter berry tones and checked tweedy curtains. Breakfast is continental with delicious croissants.•01451 870555; foxinn.net. B&B from £34; dinner £302. The Anchor Inn, Lower Froyle, HampshireNostalgia is to the fore at this handsome old inn. Imperial memorabilia (rifle cases, helmets, bugles) in the bar, lounge and dining room; period books and photographs in bedrooms named after first world war poets. Unpretentious modern dishes are served in the dining room. Breakfast is an informal affair in the bar, with good local bacon, sausage and black pudding.•01420 23261; anchorinnatlowerfroyle.co.uk. B&B from £45; dinner £353. Charles Cotton Hotel, DerbyshireThere's a happy buzz in this 17th-century coaching inn in the attractive Peak District village of Hartington. The large bar is busy with locals; imaginative meals are served in the simple dining room with generous portions (just the thing after a day's walking). The bedrooms, in the main house and a converted stable block, have beams, white-painted walls, pine furnishings. Children are welcome (family rooms have bunk beds), as are dogs.•01298 84229; charlescotton.co.uk. B&B from £30; dinner, B&B (minimum two nights) from £49. (All room prices in this article are per person per night)4. The Elephant, Pangbourne, BerkshireThe elephant theme is played up in the public rooms of this hotel in a village by the Thames. The decor and furnishings have oriental references; the public bar is like a village local. The staff are warm, the bedrooms are attractive, and the cooking is good without pretension.•0118 984 2244; elephanthotel.co.uk. B&B from £70; dinner, B&B from £1005. The Black Swan, Ravenstonedale, CumbriaThis once run-down Victorian inn in the village of Ravenstonedale has been renovated by Alan and Louise Dinnes, who have reopened the village shop in a downstairs room. There are real ales in the bar and traditional dishes using local produce. Bedrooms are well-equipped; two are in a ground-floor annexe with outdoor access (dogs are welcome here). There are family rooms, and games and DVDs for children. Breakfast is English kippers, chorizo and Serrano ham.•01539 623204; blackswanhotel.com. B&B from £37.50; dinner £27Restaurants with rooms6. The Marquis at Alkham, KentThis white-painted 200-year-old inn with Kentish clapboard additions has been given a makeover as a restaurant-with-rooms. The inviting interiors are contemporary: wide-beam oak flooring, dark wood tables, exposed brickwork, pale grey walls. Charles Lakin's three-course menu is a well-balanced celebration of English produce, with local wines.• 01304 873410; themarquisatalkham.co.uk. B&B from £37.50; dinner, B&B from £557. The New Angel, Dartmouth, DevonJohn Burton Race's superb cooking is the draw to this restaurant facing the estuary. Six smart, modern bedrooms have been added in a house on a nearby side street. Each has its own character: Mill Pool has pastel colours and softwood furnishings; Old Mill Creek has a high ceiling and is bright by day, quiet at night. The unpretentious atmosphere in the restaurant matches the quality of the food.• 01803 839425; thenewangel.co.uk. B&B from £37.50; dinner from £24.508. Three Choirs Vineyard, Newent, GloucestershireThe view from the restaurant on the Three Choirs Estate has a hint of Tuscany, looking over vines to the Malvern hills. On weeknights hotel guests can join a visit to the winery (£5) with tastings. Good fresh ingredients are served with interesting garnishings. Eight of the rooms are in a single-storey building with French windows. Three newer, Scandinavian-style lodge rooms stand among vines.• 01531 890223; three-choirs-vineyards.co.uk. B&B from £42.50; dinner, B&B from £92.509. Castle Cottage, Harlech, GwyneddGlyn and Jacqueline Roberts are friendly hosts at this historic restaurant-with-rooms. The restaurant, a converted 17th-century coaching inn, is the centrepiece: Glyn champions local and Welsh producers for his menu of modern dishes. Three of the bedrooms are in the main building, the others in a Grade II-listed stone cottage next door.•01766 780479; castlecottageharlech.co.uk. B&B from £55; dinner, B&B from £8810. Llys Meddyg, Newport, PembrokeshireIn a seaside town within the Pembrokeshire national park, this Georgian townhouse, once a coaching inn, is now a restaurant-with-rooms. Scott Davies's cooking is inventive but not over-elaborate: fish and meat are locally sourced, herbs and vegetables come from a garden at the back.•01239 820008; llysmeddyg.com. B&B from £50; dinner, B&B from £75Cool B&Bs11. Shakespeare House, BuckinghamshireWilliam Shakespeare is said to have stayed at this Elizabethan coaching inn in the village of Grendon Underwood. It has been renovated in theatrical style: the dining room has opulent black-and-white curtains and coordinated tableware; the drawing room has huge patterned sofas and a log fire in the inglenook. The bedrooms vary in size; some have a private bathroom across the hall (robes supplied). A good set dinner is cooked on request.•01296 770776; shakespeare-house.co.uk. B&B from £42.50; dinner, B&B from £77.5012. Swan House, Hastings, East SussexThis 15th-century cottage has been given an elegant look by Brendan McDonagh and Lionel Copley, who have furnished it with items from their online emporium. The bedrooms have beams, white walls and floorboards, and simple furnishings. Breakfast is freshly squeezed orange juice, superb bacon, and local bread.•01424 430014; swanhousehastings.co.uk. B&B from £57.50 13. A Corner of Eden, Kirkby Stephen, CumbriaThis charming Grade II-listed farmhouse is surrounded by dramatic countryside between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. There is a fire in the lounge, and lots of books and magazines; a butler's pantry has homemade cakes; bread, crackers, cheese and fruit are included. Because of planning restrictions, none of the four bedrooms has facilities en suite.•015396 23370; acornerofeden.co.uk. B&B from £65; dinner £3014. Trafford Bank Guest House, InvernessA former bishop's house in mature gardens a short walk from the city centre has been turned into a B&B by interior designer Lorraine Freel. She has furnished it with a mix of antiques and contemporary furniture. The luxurious bedrooms have hospitality tray, decanter of sherry, silent fridge and flat-screen television.•01463 241414; traffordbankguesthouse.co.uk. B&B from £4015. Bryniau Golau Bala, GwyneddSunsets are breathtaking at this Victorian house on the edge of Snowdonia National Park with views over Bala Lake. There is plenty of space in the sitting room and study, and the garden has lots of hidden corners Bedrooms are impeccable: two have four-posters. Breakfast, served at a long table in a room with a grand piano, has freshly squeezed orange juice, local sausages and bacon. A three-course dinner will be cooked by arrangement.•01678 521782; bryniau-golau.co.uk. B&B £40; dinner £25Hotels16. Whitehouse, Chillington, DevonBacked by a delightful garden, this Georgian house has been given a contemporary feel with wooden floors, leather sofas, log fires, books and games. The service is informal and unfussy. The bedrooms have big handmade beds, plasma TV, DVD player and Wi-Fi. Local and organic ingredients are sourced for the modern cooking.•01548 580505; whitehousedevon.com. B&B from £90; dinner £4517. Verzon House, Ledbury, HerefordshireThis handsome Georgian farmhouse has been renovated in classic style. The building has original cornices, an inlaid staircase and open fires. Bedrooms have fruit, sweets and a fridge with water, apple juice and fresh milk. Modern American and European dishes are served in the dining room.•01531 670381; verzonhouse.com. B&B from £57.50; dinner £39.5018. Dunvalanree, Carradale, ArgyllAlan and Alyson Milstead's hotel/restaurant has splendid views across Kilbrannan Sound. Bedrooms are comfortable and well presented. She is a superb cook, using local seafood for her short table d'hôte menus. Breakfast includes organic porridge.•01583 431226; dunvalanree.com. B&B from £51; dinner, B&B from £7119. The Lovat, Fort Augustus, HighlandOn the shore of Loch Ness, this hotel has been renovated with a judicious mix of traditional and modern. A biomass burner provides heating and hot water; eco-friendly cleaning products are used. There is a brasserie and a more formal restaurant.•01456 459250; thelovat.com. B&B from £40; dinner from £2620. Langass Lodge, North UistIn an isolated setting above Locheport in the Western Isles, this former hunting lodge has been renovated and extended as an elegant modern hotel. The bedrooms are in the main house and in a hillside extension with a fabulous outlook over Langass sea loch to Skye. Visitors can dine in the bar or more formally in the restaurant. John Buchanan's short menus specialise in seafood (sometimes gathered from his own boat and pots).•01876 580285; langasslodge.co.uk. B&B from £45; dinner from £28. One-night bookings occasionally refused• The Good Hotel Guide 2010: Great Britain &Ireland costs £17.50 including p&p from The Good Hotel Guide, 50 Addison Avenue, London W11 4QP, or contact 020 7602 4182; goodhotelguide.comHotelsRestaurantsFood and drinkShort breaksWeekend breaksLake DistrictScotlandWalesDesmond Balmerguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  With no cars and nothing to do but eat seafood and swing in a hammock, Boipeba is the perfect escape from the British winter'The whole village fits into three tractors," says Tony Fitzsimmons, the English owner of Pousada Mangueira in Moreré, on the island of Boipeba in tropical north-east Brazil. It strikes me as an odd unit of population to use, but since tractors are the only form of motorised transport here, it is probably fair enough.It also strikes me as an odd thing for a Lancashireman to be doing with his life, but Tony explains that he and his wife Susana tired of the rat race (he as a sports adviser on disability, she as deputy head of a special school), typed "Pousadas for sale, Brazil" into Google and found their remote B&B.The reason there are no vehicles here is because there are no roads, just sandy tracks criss-crossing this 8km x 12km island where the major tourist attractions are a flour mill, a palm-oil mill and an offshore raft serving oysters. Tractors are used to collect rubbish, ferry children to school or rush (and I use the word advisedly) sick or injured villagers to Boipeba's's only health centre."We've a one-third share in a donkey," says Tony, when I ask how they get around. "It's a nice way to travel if we want to go to Velha Boipeba [the largest village: population 1,600] to buy watermelons. It's the big metropolis for us."Once a year, he and Susana "have a bottle of wine" at the French-owned Alizées-Moreré, the only serious hotel in the village. Guests come by charter plane from Salvador, the state capital of Bahia, and land on the next island (Tinharé) at an airstrip owned by an Italian billionaire."They don't know what's hit them," Tony says, walking me down to a shack on the beach where he referees the odd village football game or goes windsurfing. "To be frank, there's not a lot to do round here."As we settle down at a rickety, sun-bleached table, that seems like no bad thing. The tide is low, and I gaze out across the gleaming, rippled sand to where Miguel, our boatman, has anchored his speedboat just beyond the surf. Behind him is turquoise water streaked with white where it kicks up over a sand bar, and above it is an improbably cornflower-blue sky.Tanned Brazilian boys wander past with surfboards, a spearfisherman stands up unexpectedly on a submerged reef and a mounted tour guide accompanies a small group of Spanish and Italian riders along the beach. The next headland is crowned by another millionaire's house with its own helipad, and beyond it I can make out the third of Moreré's three beaches – a deserted stretch of pristine sand ruined by the odd coconut husk and backed by palms.Close to where I am sitting, João, the owner of the shack – is doing something with a blowtorch on his fishing boat and can't quite summon up the ambition to serve me. Instead, he gestures to his son, Jean-Paul, who in turn delegates the job to a group of 10-year-old girls cleaning mangrove crabs."Lambreta!" he says, meaning clams (not Italian scooters), and a few minutes later one of the girls arrives, delivering a dozen meaty, golden nuggets of bivalve, slightly gritty and served with lime slices, a khaki home-made sauce like glutinous Tabasco, a small glass of hot, salty clam juice and a broad smile.After paying the R$5 (£1.70) bill, I make my way to Miguel's boat to be ferried to the next course in my locally caught lunch. As I stand knee-deep in the shallows, an Italian family is disembarking from a bigger speedboat weighed down with Gucci luggage. They step off the bow into the clear, balmy water, getting their capri pants slightly wet.It's a weird mix, Moreré, because well-heeled people do come here, staying at the Alizées or in rented properties, yet the village is backpacker-grungey and the infrastructure is basic to say the least. Use the facilities at João's shack and you will find yourself contemplating a sand floor strewn with toilet paper. The typical clientele, Susana says, are backpackers who book a pousadafor three or four days at the end of six months' travelling, then end up staying 11 or 12 days. "Their bodies have packed in, basically," Tony says. "All they want to do is sway in a hammock and do their washing."What we and the Gucci set demonstrate is that, on Boipeba, fast boats are the only way to get around. The tractors, a municipal resource, are not for the use of tourists. You can walk to Moreré from Velha Boipeba, where we are staying – but it will take you two hours. In a speedboat like Miguel's, it takes 20 minutes and you can easily circumnavigate the island in a day, stopping off for clams in Moreré, a spot of snorkelling, an hour on the beach, a swim at Ponta dos Catelhanos (from an offshore sandbank that you will probably have entirely to yourself), lunch at Cova da Onça (where Orlando's is the only restaurant) and then bomb around until sunset.This will set you back R$350 (about £115) for a day, which seems quite decadent, given the price of a portion of clams. However, most people share a boat with three or four others, so it's more like £30 each. You can hire boats for half a day, or ask to be taken to a specific beach. As someone who doesn't own a car, I can't help rejoicing in the freedom of the boat culture of this part of Brazil. There are no jams, you don't have to follow roads and if you miss a ferry (as we did, underestimating the four-hour drive from Salvador to the port of Valença, on the mainland), you just hire a private boat. It's usually a canopied skiff with an outboard engine and a skipper aged about 20.Now, with the veteran Miguel at the controls, there is no stopping us. We are out in open water, bouncing across the waves and literally flying as we hit the odd tidal rip over a reef. It's thrilling, and more so when we near Cova da Onça and Miguel seems intent on driving us at 28 knots straight up the beach. He cuts his engines, and the boat subsides in the surf just before impact.This is where I have my Let's Emigrate moment, sitting under Orlando's blue awning, sipping a cold Antarctica beer and devouring a moqueca(Bahia's African-influenced seafood stew) for two, containing no fewer than four lobsters. It's up there in my top 10 food experiences – the chunky discs of lobster; the dende(palm) oil with its mellow, yellow richness; the little bowl of pirão(like a starchy fish gravy) to spoon next to it; the crunchy, toasted manioc flour fried in butter known as farofa, eaten instead of bread.The food is a little bit different at Santa Clara, the dreamily tropical lodge in Velha Boipeba where we are staying. There, Mark, co-owner with his brother Charles, likes to give his food an Asian twist: squid pakora (in a crispy batter) with an Indian-inspired chutney that is big on tamarind; local fish caramelised and served with coconut rice, paper-thin slices of cucumber, ginger, lemongrass, soy, red peppers and a thimble of sweet-and-sour sauce."People come from all the other pousadasto eat at this restaurant," Charles tells me proudly. "It's somewhere special for them to bring people if they want to show off."Santa Clara, with its 11 rooms – some like treehouses – linked by walkways and surrounded by tropical gardens, is impeccably tasteful all round. It's a two-minute walk from the hotel to the nearest beach bar with its thatched umbrellas, sunloungers and beautiful people doing not very much on one of Brazil's most out-of-the-way and least commercialised beaches.Of these there is no shortage on Boipeba – and in my experience, they are wilder, more deserted and more beautiful than any along the 1,000km stretch of beach fringing Bahia's coast, which incorporates three national parks. November and December – just before the January rush (peak season in the southern hemisphere) – is the time to go, to escape the dreary British winter.This seemingly endless ribbon of beach, the longest in Brazil, begins in Praia do Forte to the north of Salvador. From the city, you drive along a freeway lined with car dealerships, estate agents and places selling fibreglass swimming pools. There are hoardings, billboards, neon and more visual pollution than Miami. Leaving it all behind, it's hard to believe you will cruise round a bend and discover Praia do Forte, a hybrid of working fishing village and twee eco-resort. It's popular with Brazilian families who come here for the beach, staying in condominiums of pousadasand rental properties.It's touristy, for sure (think a tasteful, tropical St Ives, rather than Blackpool) but the German man who created the Praia do Forte resort had an inspiring vision: to safeguard, and indeed create, jobs through tourism without destroying the village's essential character. You can wander the pedestrianised main drag with its restaurants, bars and souvenir shops selling surf gear, jewellery and Athena-style T-shirts, then turn round to see old men playing dominoes under the trees, boys playing football after school and their younger siblings tearing around the mini play parks created at intervals along the street. There is a very cute colonial church – in the square, right on the beach, where locals gather at sunset – but the main attraction is the Tamar turtle conservation project (part theme park, part zoo) that has put the resort on the map.Praia do Forte is worth a detour – but not for the beaches. My advice, if you're killing a few days in Salvador, is to escape the well-trodden 16th-century colonial town centre, Pelourinho, and head for the urban beaches. The best are on the Atlantic side of the city, near the airport. Take the bus to Itapuã, where the beach shacks run unbroken for miles, serving frosty bottles of Brahma beer to sun-worshippers sitting at plastic tables. Heading south, check out the residential district of Rio Vermelho, in particular Rua da Paciência, popular with locals and the place to go for bars, restaurants and nightlife. During the day, hollering vendors sell fresh fish from cabañas on the beach, elderly couples with mahogany tans sit under parasols, and bikini-clad girls sun themselves with their boyfriends on the rocks. It's not as slick or chic as Rio, and the body beautiful ethos is less extreme, but it's beach life nonetheless.Closer to the centre of Salvador, the beaches are more disappointing. Middle-class Porto da Barra beach, near the marina, port and lighthouse, tends to get crowded – and the water quality is poor. In Ondina, the hotel district, the beaches are good for surfing but rocky outcrops make swimming dangerous.From there, as you head south out of Salvador, the Costa do Dende (Palm-Oil Coast) opens up with its verdant, almost south-east Asian landscape and easy access to the islands – not just Boipeba, but Tinharé, where the resort of Morro de São Paulo, with its legendary four beaches, has become too popular and developed for its own good, a Brazilian Koh Samui or Goa.Further south still, and a world away from Boipeba, are buzzy Porto Seguro, the birthplace of the lambada and a mecca for backpackers and energetic clubbers. My advice would be to stop right there at Valença (or any small port where there's a man with a speedboat) and head for Boipeba, to swing in a hammock and do your washing.EssentialsJourney Latin America (020 8747 8315; journeylatinamerica.co.uk) is offering an eight-night holiday to Salvador, with three nights in the city and five nights on the island of Boipeba, from £1,234, including breakfast, flights and transfers. An eight-night trip, with three nights in Salvador and five in Praia do Forte, starts at £1,193, including breakfast, flights and transfers. For further information on Brazil, visit braziltour.com.BrazilSouth AmericaBeach holidaysFood and drinkAndrew Purvisguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  While Mexico's tourist resorts are still reeling post swine flu, the beguiling city of Campeche and its surrounds is as enchanting as ever.Read more: Great deals for visitors to MexicoMangroves and lagoons stretch along the northern half of Mexico's Campeche coast, home to countless flamingoes, while to the south the narrow bands of white sand beaches have always been cordoned off for turtles, not tourists. In the aftermath of the swine flu outbreak, Cancún, on the opposite side of the Yucatan peninsula, has been missing its usual planeloads of holidaymakers. But Campeche has never courted vast numbers of visitors and, while welcoming the few that come, can get by just fine without them. Lacking the Yucatan east coast's turquoise seas and sweeping beaches, this ruggedly beautiful western coast epitomises independent spirit. It's certainly safe again to bring your body here for healing winter sun; but more to the point, this area has always provided a unique medicine for the soul. Its inhabitants are justifiably proud of their abundant wildlife and rich cultural inheritance, while Campeche city itself is one of the most beguiling places in Latin America.Beat-up cars rattle through the narrow cobbled streets, a rusting Dodge parked up outside the pastel blue manicured splendour of a colonial house. The whole city centre is listed as a Unesco world heritage site: a perfectly preserved 16th-century Spanish colonial streetscape, where the fierce tropical sun tears shadows through curving wrought-iron balconies and window grilles, across the painted walls. Despite its overwhelming beauty, historical importance, and extreme safety, Campeche city is no stuffy museum piece. The vigorous thrum of Mexican daily life beats everywhere just beneath its stuccoed skin. The streets are filled with independently-owned shops selling pens, or tinsel, or radios. Women and old men pray beneath the chandeliers inside the finely-kept churches, or come to read their newspapers in the pews, finding sanctuary for the flesh as well as the soul in the cool limestone walls. Pelicans dive into the navy waters of the Gulf of Mexico beyond the city's sea walls, splashing down between small fishing boats, while Mayan women from the countryside sell mangoes on street corners and lanky boys shoot pool at battered green tables in antique colonnades.By night, the young Campechanos head out along the city's modern seafront, the Malecon. Open-top Beetles fly by with girls perched up on the back hood, holding on, brown knees bent against the sea wind; palm trees billowing high spikes sideways in the sky above. The strip is lined with bright taqueriaswhere I ate creamy hot rajas– green pepper tortillas – with new friends as the Mexico vs US baseball match played on TV. Afterwards, everyone goes to Rouge for salsa dancing, or to elegant old stone bars such as El Iguana Azul on Calle 55. For late-night eating, we visited the 24-hour La Parroquia restaurant on Calle 55; for top-class cuisine there was the romantic terrace restaurant at Puerta Campeche; while my favourite eating experience was in Sabor a Mexico on Calle 16 – a tiny colourful kitchen you can walk into from the pavement. I breakfasted here on chilli eggs, black beans, tortillas and a local drink made with jamaica flowers, for a handful of pesos, and was served by the owners' sweet-mannered children.On Friday evening at the city's heart, in the plaza in front of the cathedral, musicians were playing from the bandstand steps for their regular weekly audience. Lamplight caught the brilliant gold braiding on the mariachi jackets of the players, while fairy lights twinkled in the trees above the applause. Afterwards, I wandered back to the old arches of the Castelmar hotel, across terracotta tiled floors and courtyards to where the deep pool shone quietly underneath a soaring ochre wall and the night sky. Doing a lazy backstroke, gazing at Orion and Venus overhead, I could hear faint rushes of salsa from the cars in the streets; someone singing in a room.  In a Yucatan city with no beach, a hotel with a pool is almost a prerequisite. I loved the affordable Castelmar, with its high ceiling beams and big hardwood beds. I also stayed at the Puerta Campeche for a night of total indulgence. Housed in one of the city's old forts, its sybaritically minimalist suites are arranged around a garden courtyard filled with the sound of tumbling water and a series of interconnecting bathing pools that meander in and out of the buildings, between ruined walls.A few blocks away, the streets around Calle 10 are lined with shops selling jewellery and panama hats, as well as boutiques and panaderíaswhere you can pick up a bag of sugared pastries. I bought carnival masks and cream-stuffed boletas– all you need to eat cake in disguise. Later, at the rows of tables outside the cathedral, I joined in the evening game of bingo with amiable locals who managed to keep me right.On the west side of the cathedral plaza you find Casa 6, the old house of Campeche's founding father, Francisco de Montejo, now refitted to look as it would have in his day, and open as a museum. On the north side is the airy library, which I fell in love with, and its amazing collection of historical old books published soon after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. As Damián Dzib of the Instituto Campechano, put it to me: "They [the Spanish] preserved the history of what they found by writing it, even though they were destroying it." In one rare and mottled book, Brief Relation of the Destruction of the Indians, collected by Don Fray Bartolome of the Order of Santo Domingo, printed in 1552, a brave bishop pleads with the Spanish emperor for the indigenous people to be treated fairly. Other books give more idea of Campeche's past: an 1857 pamphlet on penal law for deserters; or an 1883 copy of Pirates and Aggressions of the English, 1690-1777. I wondered if my Anglo-Caribbean pirate ancestor, Stede Bonnet, was in there, but thought it might be more tactful not to find out.Pirate attacks were the reason for Campeche's fortifications. The town had been repeatedly plundered, and you can still see why. A solid silver altar and silver lectern gleam in the crystal-specked shadows of the checker-floored cathedral, while even the smaller churches are fitted out with gold and precious stones. To the ancient Mayans, jade was more esteemed than their plentiful gold. At the fort of San Miguel, built just outside the city as part of its defences, I spent a late afternoon exploring the collection of Mayan jade funerary masks and astrological stelae in its museum, watching the sun set over the old cannons and the now-peaceful sea. After several days of the city, I took off for a day's fishing in the mangrove inlets up the coast. I caught nothing more than sargassum seaweed, but was happy enough to drift through the amber shadows under the overhanging branches beneath occasional clouds of pure white garza herons; and to take a defeated doze beneath my sombrero, listening only to the sound of water lapping against the boat, the rustle of smaller birds close by in the leaves.The little ruined Mayan city of nearby Edzna has a similar air of peace. Campechanos sometimes come here for a walk, but it was very quiet when I visited and the place had the quality of an empty cathedral, or a garden at dusk. Its soft grey stones faced each other in perfect alignment, high above the planes of smooth green grass that had once been its squares and ball courts. As I stood on the top of its pyramid, the brilliant blue magpies rising from the canopy of trees in the surrounding woodland were the sole movement. Somehow they only accentuated the stillness.For my second week, I went to spend a few days out at a hacienda called Blancaflor. There are plenty of luxurious ex-hacienda hotels around, but the interesting thing about this less-luxurious place is that it still functions while also welcoming hotel guests. There were rows of tasselled, hand-stitched saddles by the gate, and old jeeps parked up outside, ready to help bring in the crop from the aloe vera and sisal fields. The food and the showers were basic but fine, and the house itself was stunning, with its antique furniture and arched walkways, and a shallow bathing pool filled from a freshwater well in the scented garden. I felt like a leisurely ranchera, out exploring the estate in the midday sun before collapsing sunburnt into my comfy candlewick bed. Packing an outback rucksack, I drove south along the highway for a couple of hundred miles to Calakmul, a vast and remote wildlife reserve near the border with Guatemala and home to jaguars. The stony peaks of one of the largest, most important Mayan sites in Mexico – from which emperors ruled long before Chichen Itzaexisted – rise up from this pristine jungle and give it its name. The 6,000 ancient structures lie 60km inside the reserve: I spent the night camping in a forest tent at Yaax'Che, just inside the reserve's perimeter, with anteaters snuffling around the canvas. I woke at five and drove on under a full moon, slowing for wild peacocks on the road. Dawn broke through chechen and ceiba trees thick with wild orchids, loud with howler monkeys, as I walked towards the ruined city. Ancient carved faces and symbols of birth surrounded a ziggurat with trees growing out of its steps; halfway up another stood an ornate stelae to an unknown female god. From the high top of Structure II, I watched the clear morning sunlight steam across a flat sea of green treetops, stretching to each horizon, broken only by the three nearby peaks of other smaller pyramids; a view unchanged for centuries. This whole area is full of intriguing sites. I spent another night at a forest cabin in Puerta Calakmul, next to Balamku. Jose and Luis, two excellent young English-speaking guides on a UN-funded training programme, pointed out various birds to me as we walked around the Balamku ruins: the wood-rails and yellow orioles darted around the opening to a hidden chamber inside the main pyramid, which was filled with spectacular carvings of gods and jaguars. Using a modern cottage at Chicanna Eco-Village as a base for my third night, I wandered the stones at Becan for hours. Likewise the ruins of Xpujil, and of Chicanna itself. As I climbed a temple to stand beneath the overhanging beak of a Chicanna deity, the sun chose to disappear. Raindrops clattered on the stone and on my head; I stood there, getting completely drenched as the rain ran ever louder into the thick leaves of the jungle. After the sky had cleared, I walked back down the path towards the gaping stone mouth of a Mayan earth god and a couple of rare visitors. The air was dry and bright once more, but now there was the sound of the rain that had been caught in the leaves, falling on to other leaves beneath – a second rainfall. Like rain that falls even after rain clouds have gone, this corner of Mexico gives you a peace and tranquillity that sustains, long after you've gone home.Getting thereSeveral major airlines fly into Mexico City; from there take an Aeromexicoflight direct to Campeche. The cheapest way to reach Yucatan is to get a charter flight to Cancun, then catch the coach across the ­ Yucatan (about US$15 each way, six hours).Where to stayHotel Castelmar (00 52 981 811 1204, castelmarhotel.com), doubles from $61. Puerta Campeche (+981 816 7508, thehaciendas.com), doubles from $234 (plus tax). Hacienda Blancaflor (+999 258 042, blancaflor.com.mx), doubles from $135. Campamento Yaax'Che (+983 871 6064, email ciitcalakmul@prodigy.net.mx). Puerta Calakmul (+998 892 2624, puertacalakmul.com.mx), doubles from $110. Chicanna Eco-Village (+981 811 9192, ­ chicannaecovillageresort.com), from $110.Further informationMangrove fishing: Campeche Tarpon(+981 816 4450, campechetarpon.com). Trips: Maya NatureSophie Cooke is the author of The Glass House and Under The Mountain, published by Arrow Books. MexicoCity breaksWinter sunCultural tripsSophie Cookeguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  October is the best time to go snorkelling with wild grey seals off the Isles of Scilly – and it has more in common with speed-dating than you might thinkCasting off from the Higher Town quayside in St Martin's in an orange inflatable boat, I didn't know quite what to expect. Most of my encounters with wild animals had been through a windscreen or in an Asian jungle.We were heading for the Scillies' Eastern Isles, a group of uninhabited rocks to the south of St Martin's where you can swim with grey seals in particularly clear waters. From the boat the islands looked like charcoal smudges against a perfect blue sky. One of them is said to be the resting place of King Arthur. Legend has it he fled here followed by his nemesis, Mordred, whom Merlin drowned in a great flood. Another holds that a tsunami swept over the land of Lyonesse in the last year of the 11th century, and that the tips of its mountain peaks are today's scattered Scilly islands. Old-timers believe there are still churches and houses down there, stretching all the way (28 miles) to Land's End. Through the ages, fishermen have heard underwater bells tolling mournfully in the deep – and spotted mermaids combing their hair on rocks…In the Scilly Isles, myth and reality seem to blend in a cocktail of romantic escape. And I was about to swim over those ringing bells of Lyonesse.Anna Cawthray was our skipper and John Ives, her weathered colleague, our tutor. Eight of us sat in double layers of neoprene, sweating under the rising sun, as John explained the rules: "Don't stroke the seals, try not to splash... and don't drift too far from the boat. The males are much larger, with Roman noses. The young ones and females are friendlier." He smiled. "Oh, and one other thing – they like to sneak up behind you." That was that then, I'd head for the girls.The boat nosed into the azure waters as black shags stretched their wings in sham crucifixions. I was thinking about those males with the Roman noses. My leaflet from the tourist office said they could grow to more than three metres long – quite a bit bigger than me, then. The water grew rougher, tendrils of nut-brown kelp grasping for the surface and fat grey waves slapping granite rocks. Anna slowed the boat as we kitted up with snorkels and fins: "They may not want to play today, which we have to respect, but if they're curious, that's a good sign."Her company, Scilly Diving, has been running swimming-with-seals trips here since 1988, and this kind of sensitivity has allowed it to develop a level of trust with the seals. October is the best time to pay a call on these marine mammals: the water still holds the summer's warmth, and there are newborn pups to spot.I looked down at the dark water. Propelling yourself into an unknown element – be it into the air from a zip-line or into water to swim with wildlife – always causes a strange feeling in the stomach, like a sobering warning. Then it vanishes and you just get on with it.One grey snout broke the surface. The seal peered at us like a wet spaniel, its wide-set eyes huge black marbles. Then another popped up – they were curious all right. What is peculiar about this particular colony of grey seals is their tolerance of humans entering their habitat. Seals are normally skittish and will head for the depths when people appear. But the seals that live around this remote clump of rocks seem interested in receiving visitors. Whether they become more intimate with you is a matter of fortune and how playful you are in return to their advances.Visibility in the water was good: I could easily see through the kelp forest sashaying in the current. Then a flurry of bubbles turned everything silver and a 3m heavyweight made himself known to me. Never mind Roman nose, his was more like a boxer's. His gunmetal hide battle-torn, he stared at me with wide flat eyes as if I'd just challenged him to a ruck on the seabed. His neck was thicker than a fire hydrant. Then with a flick of his muscled tail he was gone.This was aquatic speed dating, only you had a whole hour – any more than this and your fingers turn to prunes, your head aching with "ice cream syndrome". After a few minutes my prospective date appeared, gliding gracefully through the seaweed. She was milk-white, perhaps a metre and a half long, kohl eyeliner framing amber irises, her lashes perfectly teased. She was a show off – swimming upside down with a half-grin on her whiskery face. I bobbed about – you're not going to win any ballet awards in those suits – then tried to follow at a safe distance.Given that seals can reach speeds of up to 20mph she wouldn't have a problem leaving me behind. Through the kelp George Foreman had reappeared to monitor my charm offensive. Throughout my subsequent synchronized arabesques with my suitor he watched with the ferocity of a Victorian chaperone.I didn't know how far out I'd drifted; I just wanted to keep up with my playmate. Beguiling as a siren, she was there one minute, gone the next. Something was tugging at my foot: I turned around to see her yellow teeth fastened on one of my flippers. Then she floated upwards like a mermaid (it's called bottling) to engage with me. Eye to eye we watched each other for perhaps 10 seconds, me wanting to stroke her but aware of those playful canines. Her? Well she was just taking a good look at this cumbersome outlander who'd wandered into her watery realm.My next liaison with seals was with Island Sea Safaris. Based on the island of St Mary's, it does run snorkelling trips, but this time we would be staying dry, on a seal-watching trip where you stay on the boat. As we headed out from the harbour, my five-year-old son Finn screamed with delight every time the inflatable boat bounced up and down the trough of a swell.Skippered by Mark Groves, an experienced diver who mans the wheel with the salty garrulity of a buccaneer, the boat whizzed across the waves to another seal colony, 10 minutes' ride past uninhabited Samson island. We couldn't see them to begin with: their blubbery hides were perfectly camouflaged against the brown-grey rock. Then one barked, and another wobbled on a rock like a weeble and shook his great head in mild irritation.We left these seals in peace and moved on to another archipelago, around which swam the now familiar doggy heads. On a ledge, snuggled into its mother's chocolate hide, sat a furry white pup with oversized blinking eyes.Our next stop was the aptly named Hell Bay on the island of Bryher – famous for the storms that gather in this cauldron. That day Hell Bay was eerily calm, though these tempestuous waters have swallowed countless lives (there are 530 registered wrecks around these isles). We almost shivered for, like the bells of Lyonesse, deep below lay barnacled cargoes and the bonesof many a sea dog.They say the Isles of Scilly are England trapped in the 1950s, and there may be some truth in that: the population is almost exactly the same as it was in the early 20th century, cars are few, bikes are left unchained, and honesty boxes are everywhere, as are organic vegetable stands.But what is even weirder is that locals will happily chat to strangers. Scillonians don't have derogatory terms such as "emmets" for tourists, like mainland Cornish folk do; instead they refer to you, grandly, as visitors. I'd always thought Cornwall was Avalon at the end of the A30, but now I've met her enigmatic cousin I'm not so sure.EssentialsScilly Diving (01720 422848; scillydiving.com) offers snorkelling with seals for £36. Its founder, Tim Allsop, also recently published Underwater Scilly (£24.99) from which the underwater shot above was taken. A two-hour boat trip with Island Sea Safaris (01720 422732; islandseasafaris.co.uk) costs £30 for adults, £20 for under-12s.The daily Scillonian ferry from Penzance is £80 return for adults, £40 for children. From Land's End, Skybus's eight-seater, twin-prop planes fly to St Mary's several times a day (01736 334220; skybus.co.uk; adult return from £129, child £83.50). Skybus also flies from Newquay, Exeter, Bristol and Southampton. British International's daily helicopter service from Penzance (01736 363871; islesofscillyhelicopter.com) costs £170 return for adults, £105 for children. Tregarthens Hotel in St Mary's (01720 422540; tregarthens-hotel.co.uk) has sea-view doubles from £122.Wildlife holidaysUnited KingdomWeekend breaksShort breaksFamily holidaysguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  It was supposed to be a first step in controlling the throngs of tourists and migrants that threaten the fragile ecology and cultural heritage of Easter Island.Since last month every visitor to the tiny speck in the Pacific, the remote island and home to famous giant stone statues has been obliged to fill in a card detailing their movements. That way indigenous leaders and Chilean authorities, who administer the island, could in theory monitor and curb the influx before it becomes too damaging.Chile's supreme court, however, has now ruled that the Special Visitor's Card, known by its Spanish initials TEV, violates the constitutional right to freedom of movement. Obliging people to fill in the document was "arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional", it said.The ruling has dismayed the 2,500 Rapa Nui people who feel overrun by the 70,000 visitors to the island every year, a fivefold increase from just a decade ago."The court's ruling is a mistake," Mario Tuki, spokesman of a group called the Rapa Nui Parliament, told the BBC. "They have no idea of what is happening here."The isolated island, 2,300 miles west of Chile and 1,200 miles east of Pitcairn, survives on tourist revenue but local authorities say there are now too many arrivals. The boom is straining a basic infrastructure short of water, electricity and sanitation services. Mounting waste is putting underground water sources at risk.The irony is that Easter Island is a symbol of ecological and civilisational collapse: the ancient, sophisticated society which built the statues all but vanished, it is thought, because of environmental degradation.Some tourists damage the monolithic statues, know as Moais, by climbing on them and engraving their names. A Finnish tourist was fined for hacking off an earlobe as a memento. There is also resentment against the estimated 2,500 Chilean migrants from the mainland – equal to the Rapa Nui – who take jobs.Indigenous activists blocked the airport's runway for two days in August. Some have called for independence and the expulsion of Chileans. "In recent months people have simply reacted to the influx and the numbers who come from the continent to settle here," said Tuki.Chile's government promised to cede more power to the Rapa Nui and to control immigration. A first step, based partly on Ecuador's system to protect the Galapagos Islands, was a visitor card.Every Chilean and foreigner boarding a flight from Santiago for Easter Island was obliged to fill in a card stating the purpose of visit and where and for how long they would be staying. Last week the supreme court unanimously upheld a lower court's ruling that the document's mandatory nature violated the constitution.The government said the cards would now be voluntary. A consultation process with islanders is due later this month.ChileConservationArchaeologyRory Carrollguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  Don't write the city off as the dull home of bureaucrats, explains ITV News' Europe correspondentWhy visit…?Brussels comes alive in the autumn months: the city's museums stay open late on Thursday evenings and run special activities and exhibitions. The Biennal Art Nouveauruns throughout October, opening up private houses, villas and schools and focusing on the architecture of different areas of the city. Details are at voiretdirebruxelles.be. All this in a city where there is no such thing as a bad meal and thousands – literally – of types of beer to try. The journey time from St Pancras to Brussels is now down to two hours – just enough time to prepare for a city so often wrongly written off as a dull home to Europe's bureaucrats.Check inAvoid hotels in the area around the EU district, which effectively dies once the Eurocrats head home. The Hotel Metropole is a 19th-century landmark built by – of course – a brewing family and superbly located on Place de Brouckère (00 32 2 217 2300; metropolehotel.com; doubles from €105), a few minutes' walk from the Grand Place. For an experience of something smaller and more personal, the 12-room Hotel Café Pacific(00 32 2 213 0080; hotelcafepacific.com; doubles from €119) has crisp white bedrooms and is located on Brussels' premier fashion street, rue Dansaert.Get your bearingsStart at the Grand Place– the Grote Marktin Flemish; yes, you may be jostling with other tourists but you're also in one of the great squares of Europe, with its magnificent guild houses. Move on to the nearby Sablondistrict with its art galleries and antique shops. Then with joy discard your map and the crowds. Get lost down the side streets, discovering flea markets, art-deco houses and boutique stores. Afterwards, if you want to see an area once feared but now much safer and delightfully quirky, take a walk around the tight-knit, fiercely proud Marolles district.Grab a snackFor a great cafe there's the ever-popular and well-priced Le Pain Quotidien on rue des Sablons. Share the communal table and make some new friends. But for something more distinctive head to Place Sainte-Catherineand the adjacent Marché aux Poissonsfor a quick snack of oysters at Vishandel Noordzee(vishandelnoordzee.be). If you've timed your visit for December, you're now suitably refreshed to enjoy the Christmas market and ice skating in the square.Retail therapyIf it's raining, head for the covered Royal St-Hubert Galleries, just off the Grand Place and Europe's most elegant indoor shopping experience. Rather improbably, Belgium is home to some pre-eminent designers – mostly located on rue Dansaert. The chocolateries around Place du Grand Sablon are a personal favourite. Wittamerand Pierre Marcoliniin particular stand out.Dine like a localIn Brussels the only difficulty is making a decision. There are super-casual eateries in the Matongé district – where African immigrants have brought their own style and cuisine to the heart of Europe. Try Belgo Belge(00 32 2 511 1121) at 20 rue de la Paix Vredestraat or the tiny Latin-American bistro Archy'sat 20 rue Longue Vie.For a more classic Belgian experience but in an eclectic location, visit La Quincaillerieon rue du Page (00 32 2 533 9833; quincaillerie.be), which is a converted hardware store. BelgaQueenon rue Fossé aux Loups (00 32 2 217 2187; belgaqueen.be) has an international crowd and a terrific downstairs lounge bar.Bij den Boeron Quai aux Briques (00 32 2 512 6122; bijdenboer.com) has quite simply the best mussels in the city, and in Brussels that's a pretty bold statement.Cocktail hourCurrently bar of choice for the Brussels arty crowd is De Walvis at 209 rue Dansaert. Further into town on the same street is the fabulous art-deco jazz bar L'Archiduc. Havanaon rue de l'Epée (havana-brussels.com) is a Latin music bar where young European civil servants come out to play and discover there is more to life than the Lisbon Treaty.A lazy SundayI'd hop on a train to Leuven, a thriving university city just 30 minutes away. Few things are as enjoyable as Sunday brunch at Bar Louisin Leuven's market square, overlooking the ravishing late Gothic city hall, one of Europe's most exquisite buildings. On your way back to Brussels, stop off in Tervurenand stroll through the Royal Park and past the lakes tucked behind the Africa Museum(africamuseum.be). From there it's a pleasant tram ride back into Brussels.Don't leave withoutMaking time to visit the new René Magritte Museum,which has just opened in the city centre, on Place Royale (musee-magritte-museum.be). The witty surrealist master, who died in 1967, finally has a fitting home for his greatest works.• Robert Moore has been shortlisted for this weekend's Bayeux-Calvados Prize for War CorrespondentsBrusselsFood and drinkWeekend breaksShort breaksCity breaksBars and clubsRestaurantsHotelsguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  Monaco is reinventing itself as a young, trendy and more affordable destinationOn one balmy night this August, when the audience packed into the 522-seat belle epoque Monte Carlo Garnier Opera House, it felt like history was in the making. Even for Monaco, it was an unprecedented royal flush: two Princes in the same room, one singing, the other dancing.Surrounded by two glittery giant jellyfish dangling from the ceiling, Prince (the rock star) launched into a mega-decibel guitar riff. Meanwhile, His Serene Highness, Prince Albert II, hidden away in his plush red velvet royal box, was on his feet, barely able to keep still, just like the rest of the fans. The magnificent five-tonne chandelier of Bohemian crystal had been upstaged by psychedelic strobes. The gilded walls, nymphs and mythological gods were bathed in a purple glow.Call it the New Era. When Prince Rainier died in 2005 he was deeply mourned, but a page had been turned. Once considered a quieter-than-the-grave tax haven for ostentatiously wealthy expatriates, there's a flipside to Monaco. These days, the principality's stuffy image is slowly morphing into a hip, and even affordable destination, attractive to a younger crowd.This is, in part, thanks to Prince Albert, who actively supports the thriving arts scene, from the Monte Carlo Jazz Festival, which celebrates its fourth anniversary in November, to major art exhibitions at the Grimaldi Forum and the principality's latest museum, NMNM (New National Monaco Museum). There's also a new wave of reasonably priced restaurants and bars with lunchtime specials and happy hours. Or you can go native, stopping off at the bakeries to pick up freshly-baked regional specialities to feast on down at the beach.The best time to visit is September and October, when the sea is still warm and silky, and the hot silver haze of summer evaporates into the pure dazzling light of a mild autumn. No need to hire a car when the 45-minute bus ride from Nice airport is €28.50 return, or only €2.60 round trip from the centre of Nice. Since the sovereign state of Monaco is only around two kilometres square, everything is within walking distance or easily reachable by bus. (Check out the lifts built into the rock that take you from sea level to the heights of Monte Carlo).The perks continue: spend three nights in a two or three-star hotel in Monaco, and you get a voucher giving you free entry to the museums. At the top of the kid-friendly list are the guided tours of the throne room and state apartments in the dusty-pink Prince's Palace and the Oceanography Museum, with its impressive collection of bizarre coral reef marine creatures and a shark lagoon.The latest buzz is down by the port, in the Condamine neighbourhood, where the native Monégasques (approximately 8,000 of them, or 19% of the population) hang out. If you want to splash out, stay at the cool, new, three-star Ni Hotel, a 17-room design haven with a flashy, pop art-inspired bar, rooftop lounge, gym and stylish, hi-tech rooms.On rue Grimaldi, the same lively street as the Ni Hotel, browse the boutiques and pop into Le Dressing, a treasure trove for secondhand designer finery, from Chanel jackets to YSL silk gowns (from €300). Don't miss a morning trip to the Condamine open-air market on the Place d'Armes for a rainbow of fresh produce, from vine peaches to courgettes with yellow blossoms (used for delicately-fried flower fritters). Most of the neighbourhood bakeries here carry the inexpensive local finger food, Barbagiuan(which means Uncle John) – a fried dumpling stuffed with Swiss chard and Parmesan cheese, tian, mixed vegetables and rice, or pissaladière, a flat onion tart. Try Maison Mullot (first stand on the right inside the covered market), for savoury and sweet goodies, including the traditional sweet pastry, fougasse Monégasque.Down at the harbour, where the tiny blue-painted wooden fishing boats still unload their catch of the day, there are art galleries and rows of new cafes. Diehard lap swimmers should take advantage of the inviting outdoor, Olympic-sized, saltwater pool. For a handful of euros you can spend the afternoon basking and dunking.Come sunset, the latest after-work hotspot at the port is La Brasserie de Monaco, a friendly bar with an outdoor terrace, which serves four blends of its own organic beer. Check out the tasty cheap snacks, such as petits farcis(Provencal stuffed vegetables) and socca(a paper-thin savoury pancake made of chickpea flour and olive oil). A few doors down is Le Black Legend, a disco-style lounge that will feature Motown hits and live funk groups when it opens on Halloween.Even up on the hill the atmosphere is changing. Opened in 2008, Moods, built right under the Café de Paris, is a popular music bar lounge. The drinks are very expensive – a beer starts at €8 – but the live rock, jazz or blues is free.It's a far cry from Vegas, but Monaco's casinos are all part of the fun. Though the formal dress code is still upheld at the legendary belle epoque-style gaming landmark (bring your passport and €10 for the entrance fee), there are three other casinos – the Cafe de Paris, the Sun Casino inside the Fairmont Hotel, and the Monte-Carlo Bay – where casual attire rules and no fee is required. Expect cutting-edge models of slot machines (there are no sirens or jangling coins here – the machine discreetly prints up a voucher of your winnings). One evening this August, a tourist wandered over to a hi-tech Star Wars slot machine at the Sun Casino and began to play, at 5 cents per hit. Fifteen euros later, the jackpot fell into his lap, more than €700,000.No visit is complete without a wander through the heights of Monaco-Ville, west of the harbour. The setting for the Prince's Palace and Saint Nicholas Cathedral, this area, known as Le Rocher, or the Rock, is covered with a medieval mini-maze of cobblestone streets. It's deliciously peaceful up there in the suspended exotic gardens of Saint-Martin, filled with rare succulents and towering yuccas; and the stunning panoramic view won't cost you a cent.EssentialsWhere to StayHotel de France (00 377 9330 2464; monte-carlo.mc/france) in the heart of the Condamine district has small but cheery doubles from €85 including breakfast. The Ni Hotel on rue Grimaldi (00 377 9797 5151; nihotel.com) has doubles from €150. A far better-value option is to stay just east of Monaco in Roquebrune Cap-Martin. The Hotel Victoria (00 33 4 9335 6590; hotel-victoria.fr) has lovely sea-facing rooms inspired by Jean Cocteau from €89. The Monaco bus stops in front of the hotel, or the principality is a nine-minute train ride away. Le Roquebrune (00 33 4 9335 0016; le-roquebrune.com) is a charming five-room B&B with private seaview terraces. Double rooms costs from €110.Where to Eat There are some stunning bakeries in Monte Carlo. Try Maison Mullot or La Roca in Marché de la Condamine for onion tarts, quiches and barbagiuans from €2.50. Tartine Monaco on route de la Piscine (00 377 9798 7070; tartinemonaco.com) is an attractive new bistro featuring fresh fish and organic salads; two-course weekday lunch €15.80. In Roquebrune, La Différance on Sentier des Douaniers is a cafe with a dreamy sea view offering a plat du jour with coffee for around €12. The best pizza is at Il Triangolo on avenue de la Madone, a few steps from Casino Square in Monaco.Where to drinkLa Brasserie de Monaco, on route de la Piscine, serves organic beer brewed on the premises. It's €2 a glass at happy hour (5pm-8pm). Wine O'Clock, on avenue Saint-Laurent, has a terrace and an impressive choice of top vintages from €4 a glass.For more information see visitmonaco.comMonacoBudget travelCity breaksFranceWeekend breaksShort breaksFamily holidaysguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  Week 19:Continuing his cycle ride around Britain, Mike finds that while a giant seems to have taken an axe to north Devon, the little people are still magicalTo travel along the north Devon coast and not mention the hills would be like riding across the Sahara and failing to mention the sand. And yet, after cycling all the way around Scotland and Wales, I thought I was ready for them. Poor, deluded soul.These are not really hills in the conventional sense: it's as if a giant has cleaved notches in the cliffs with an axe. The local garages do a roaring trade replacing burnt-out clutches and devastated brake pads. But for anybody stupid enough to tackle them under their own steam, carrying all their worldly goods, the only sensible option would be a block and tackle.I'd only got 100m up Porlock Hill when my front wheel started lifting off the ground. I got off and started to push. After another 50m even that was impossible. There was a bin at the side of the road. Into it went my guidebook and spare trousers. Still stasis.I thought I might have to live in Porlock forever, then I noticed a private toll road. On it, in five miles and a little over an hour, I climbed from sea level to 420m. Halfway up, red-faced and in agony, I had to pay a pound, which would have counted as a bargain in S&M circles. "The Tour of Britain went from bottom to top in 16 minutes," the man said.The main road flew along a narrow ridge, Exmoor, vast and wild, to my left, the Bristol Channel, vast and wild, to my right, the visibility extraordinary, the distant chimneys of Port Talbot throwing out regular puffballs of smoke. And then the road nose-dived again, into Lynmouth. My brakes squealing, my luggage pushing me ever faster, like Thomas's naughty coaches, my knuckles white, I reached the river at the bottom, the Styx I think it was called, and then another wall of Tarmac going up vertically, at which point I started wondering what else I could ditch. Did I really need my laptop? Or my ears? On and on it went: the Valley of the Rocks, the murderous climbs out of Hunters Inn and Ilfracombe. That night, in my tent, I dreamt of Sisyphus.In Barnstaple I bought new brake blocks then followed the NationalCycle Network's Route 3 along the River Taw, otherwise known as the Tarka Trail, or the former railway line to Bideford – thanks again, Dr Beeching! It was mobbed with cyclists, for whom, I'd wager, the stunning estuarine landscape was of minor import compared, in this most creased of counties, with the trail's flatness.After Bideford, a sign advertised a Gnome Reserve. That sounded interesting. But not as interesting as the Devon cream teas it also advertised – for it is a fundamental rule of long-distance cycling that you are not permitted to pass a cake vendor without popping in."Would you like a gnome hat to wear?" asked the woman on the desk."No, thank you," I said. "I'm just here for some scones.""You should," she said. "It's embarrassing for the gnomes – big people without hats laughing at them."So I entered the reserve, my pink hat with black splotches worn at a jaunty angle to convey irony, hopefully. There were gnomes everywhere, over 2,000 in total, playing poker in a little cabin, sunbathing, on the dodgems at a little gnome fairground, going into orbit at the gnome space station. There were dozens of big people there, all wearing gnome hats and taking photographs. "It's magical, isn't it?" one said. And it was, though I'd struggle to explain why.Back at the house, filling my face with clotted cream, I talked to the woman again. She was Ann Atkin, who'd founded the reserve in 1979."Why gnomes?" I asked."I trained as a painter at the Royal Academy, and painters are all a bit mad," she laughed. "Gnomes came into my consciousness and changed everything."She gestured to a wall of her paintings, featuring pixies and gnomes. "My son Richard makes a lot of the gnomes in the wood. Where the rest come from, I've no idea. John Updike said art should body forth the idyllic, and I think it should, as a respite from the cares and troubles of the world. It's more fashionable to make a song and dance about the woes, but I disagree."A pensioner couple, still wearing their gnome hats, came in from doing the fairy-spotting quiz. "Only 10?" Ann said. "Do you want to go back and see if you can find some more? Then you can go in the good pile." And off they went again, giggling.Miles this week: 210. Total miles 3,860Contacts: gnomereserve.co.ukDevonCycling holidaysUnited KingdomCyclingMike Carterguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  New operators are targeting the Caribbean country now that BA has started scheduled flights to Punta CanaTipped to become the coolest Caribbean destination in 2010, the Dominican Republic is shaking off its downmarket image with a raft of hotel openings and resort developments, as well as new scheduled flights between London Gatwick and Punta Cana. British Airways is launching a five-times-a-week service on 26 October with fares starting at £621 return. "The fact that, until now, we only had charter flights coming to the island contributed to the country's mass-market reputation," says Esther Smith of the Dominican Republic Tourist Board. "New scheduled flights mean that more upmarket operators are adding us to their programmes, along with some of the new five-star resorts and hotels."Thomas Cook Signature, BA Holidays and Hayes &Jarvis now offer trips to the Dominican Republic, featuring hotels such as the new Zoëtry Agua Punta Cana (zoetryresorts.com) which opens on 1 November. Its "Endless Privileges" programme boasts a complimentary daily bottle of champagne.Punta Cana is undergoing a staggering amount of development; the resort of Cap Cana (capcana.com) is set to be the biggest in the Caribbean, with 10,000 new holiday properties, six golf courses and five hotels. The scale of building is not without problems; environmental campaigners are concerned that the island's natural attractions, such as the Jaragua National Park in the south-west of the country, will be endangered, although 20% of the land is protected by law. Not all of the country's development is on such a scale; smaller colonial-style properties have been drawing in celebs such as Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt and Bill Clinton. The hippest choices are the coolly elegant Casa Colonial (casacolonial.com; doubles from $257) and The Peninsula House (thepeninsulahouse.com; doubles from $520). More information at godominicanrepublic.com.Dominican RepublicFamily holidaysAnnabelle Thorpeguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  Cider, calvados, pommeau . . . On Normandy's celebrated Cider Route, the only question is which nectar to sample nextImagine sitting on a terrace 22m above the ground, in a 250-year-old plane tree, watching the windmills turning on the rolling hills of the Pays d'Auge. The Nid d'Aigle (Eagle's Nest) is one of Le Domaine de Canon's three luxury treehouses. The elegant estate (00 33 2 50 67 10 74, coupdecanon@gmail.com; entrance, €2) is also a cider and calvados producer where visitors may take part in honey and apple harvesting, according to season, and an organic discovery farm, where they can pet Hungarian sheep, Normandy cows, woolly pigs (a genial half-pig, half-rug type creature) and llamas. The Domaine is a highlight of the Route du Cidre, for both day visitors and treehouse dwellers.Lower Normandy's Pays d'Auge is home to the mellow meadows of the well-signposted (with an apple) Route du Cidre, or Cider Route,the only one of its kind in France, where cider and calvados producers in half-timbered manors are happy to show you how the magic is wrought. It's a 40km circular route, along which you'll pass villages where tiny galleries in squat, turreted cottages showcase local artists, and creperies serve cider in teacups; hotels half-hidden in high oak copses beside waving cornfields; and everywhere apple orchards, perfect for picnics and sampling a drop or two of distilled nectar.An excellent starting point for the route is the pretty village of Cambremer, in the heart of the Pays D'Auge. The terrace of the Café des Sports (rue Pasteur, +2 31 63 03 52) on the Place de l'Eglise is a popular place for a coffee or a glass of cider. Opposite, you'll find the picturesque Restaurant Au P'tit Normand(+2 31 32 03 20) and the tranquil beams of the Grange aux Dîmes gallery, which showcases local artists.Just around the corner is Calvados Pierre Huet(+2 31 63 01 09; guided tour and generous tasting, €2,50), one of the Pays D'Auge's most celebrated producers of cider, calvados and pommeau (a mix of apple juice and apple brandy), with its beautiful colombage manor house surrounded by orchards, the great distilling barns tucked away behind.According to our eloquent oenologist guide, François, the origin of the Normandy apple tree is "lost in the night of time". The first mention of its presence appears in the year 862, in books of obscure writings at the Benedictine abbey of Saint Wandrille, some 100km to the north-east. Sailors from the Basque Country are said to have introduced cider, or sagardoa (Basque for apple wine), to Norman mariners as early as the sixth century, and by the 12th century, the Spaniards had exported cider making to Normandy. By the 1600s, cider had supplanted cervoise (an ancient barley beer) as the region's tipple, which it remained until the middle of the last century when beer took over. Today, apple trees are cultivated using traditional methods on flint clay soil and sedimentary rock.The apples come in four varieties: bitter, sweet bitter, sweet and acidic, with names such as gentle bishop, yellow knight, white calf and skin of dog – for a charm of powerful trouble . . .After being shown around Calvados Pierre Huet's sorting, steeping and pressing sheds, the long, low cider and pommeau cellars with their whorled oak barrels, and the great stills with their copper streamers and coolers for the concoction of calvados, we repaired to the shop to taste fragrant apple juice, sweet cider with its woody tang, tantalising pommeau that misleads you with its gentle apple-juice entrée before the fiery aftertaste, and various vintages of calvados: the caramel surge of the eight-year-old vieille reserve, the apricot dragon of the 12-year-old hors d'Age (my favourite), and the 30-year-old cordon or, which tasted like a liquid version of a very heavy, alcoholic Christmas cake. If you feel the need to soak all that up, the convivial Madame Therouin of the nearby Hôtel &Bar Restaurant Commerce provides a hearty menu ouvrier(workers' menu) – and a comfortable room to sleep it off.To the north of Cambremer, at Victot-Pontfol, the Dupont family has been creating cider and calvados for four generations (+2 31 63 24 24, calvados-dupont.com). They number the famous Parisian hotel George Vand Tour D'Argentrestaurant among their clients, and on warm days, visitors may picnic on their lawns for a €5 fee.Beuvron-en-Auge, 4km north along the route, is a cutesy village regularly voted one of the most beautiful in France. If you like geraniums, tourist knick-knack shops and antiques, this is the place for you. If not, take the lovely country lanes that lead you around the rest of the Cider Route, north-east to bucolic Beaufour-Druval, with its ancient cemetery, vast, spooky caves, and Lepage cider and calvados producers (M Bernard Lepage, +2 31 65 12 75); then east to the ancient village of Bonnebosqr; south to the dinky hamlet of La Roque-Baignard, over which the young French writer André Gide presided as mayor, in what may be the tiniest mairie (town hall) in all of Normandy, a little pointy-roofed building about the size of a British police box; and lastly to tranquil St-Ouen-le-Pin, with its dappled churchyard where lies the French historian and politician François Guizot. If you visited every cider producer you found around these villages, the route could take you through harvest time and straight on till Christmas, but equally a day or two is plenty for a taste of autumn sunshine in a bottle.If you'd like a luxury hideaway on the ground rather than in the trees, Château Les Bruyères is a chic yet relaxing hotel in an 18th-century manor house with sumptuous suites, an elegant champagne bar and pretty restaurant, a lovely garden swimming pool in 10 hectares of grounds, and an amazingly pet-friendly attitude: guests' dogs and cats are welcome, as long as they're civil to the resident dogs, cat, donkey, horses and rabbit, and if you turn up with your own horse, it gets free apples and lodging. It's a laidback, generous approach that's typical of this area of Normandy. Perhaps it's something to do with centuries of drinking cider on sunny days.Getting thereBrittany Ferriessails Portsmouth-Caen and LD Linessails Portsmouth-Le Havre.Where to stayNid d'Aigle(Eagle's Nest) is one of three treehouses at Le Domaine de Canon, from €180 for two in high season, €100 in low season (Nov to March), incl welcome drink and room-service breakfast; four-course dinner, €25pp, also delivered to the treehouse. Château les Bruyères, Route du Cadran, 14340 Cambremer (+2 31 32 22 45). Twin and doubles from €150 and €190. Restaurant à la carte from €42pp.Further informationFor more information on the cider route, visit cambremer.com/normandy/cambremer_gb.htm(French and English); francethisway.com/normandy/normandyciderroute.php(English); or routeducidre.free.fr/(French).Food and drinkFranceShort breaksRoad tripsHotelsguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  A restored 1950s rail carriage on the shore of Loch Awe is the perfect way to see the HighlandsAfflicted by a blizzard of officious notices in our everyday lives, most of us hope to banish the edicts of petty officialdom from our holidays. On the banks of a loch in Scotland, however, is a holiday home unusually well-stocked with signs telling you exactly what you can and cannot do."This carriage is reserved exclusively for passengers desiring to lunch or dine," barks a notice when you enter the railway carriage next to Loch Awe railway station. "Please have all tickets ready," instructs a sign in the kitchen. "Pull the chain – penalty for improper use £50" warn red alarm stickers below the emergency chain. "Shunt with care," suggests another notice, rather more obliquely.Perhaps it is because you can yank the alarm chain with impunity and sit in the dining room without desiring to eat anything, or perhaps the retro orders of British Rail are intrinsically more relaxing than contemporary bureaucracy, but somehow, the officialdom of the 1950s is a deeply calming experience. The signs are one small treat in this magical, eccentric gem with spectacular views overlooking the grey waters of Scotland's longest freshwater loch.Loch Awe Railway Carriage was built in York in 1956. Rail nerds would identify it as a Mark I carriage, which means nothing to me, but it serviced passengers on the east coast mainline for decades. When it was retired in the 1980s, the carriage was slid on to its own personal siding at Loch Awe in the West Highlands and converted into a cafe. Three years ago, a TV producer with an inability to walk past derelict railway buildings without wanting to restore them saw that the carriage cafe had closed. He bought the place and after a painstaking refurbishment, the coach reopened in May as self-catering accommodation with two bedrooms and five beds.I was not fully convinced about the appeal of a week alone in a railway carriage in the middle of nowhere, but from the moment I arrived on a dark night, over a footbridge from Loch Awe station, after an eight-hour journey – by rail, naturally – I was entranced by virtually living on the railway. The carriage's wooden panelling glowed under traditional lighting and the dining room looked just like a train, with its two tables and four original carriage seats that creaked and bounced when you sat on them. Beyond the living room, a sliding wooden door led to a corridor in the style of traditional corridor coaches, off which were two cosy bedrooms.After stowing my clothes on the old luggage rack, I fell asleep to rain pattering on the carriage roof. I was woken the next morning at the civilised hour of 8.50am by the gentle dur-dumph dur-dumph of the first train of the day on the line from Oban to Glasgow. When I pulled back the (original) blinds I lay in bed and gazed at the ruins of Kilchurn castle across the water and felt as if the carriage was on the move again: the wind-swept waters of the loch flowed past the windows so fast it felt like the carriage was trundling to Oban.In the 1950s and 60s, holidaying in old railway carriages was apparently commonplace until humble holidays fell out of fashion. None, I bet, would have had such fine views. I was unlucky with the West Highland weather and enjoyed two hours of sunshine during five days at Loch Awe but it did not matter in the carriage, which looks south across the loch: even on the murkiest of days the light poured in through the windows. I was so close to the water (about 10 yards), the loch never disappeared from view.If a 1950s carriage is like a time capsule that returns you to the pace of the 1950s, what pace does a 1950s carriage that does not move return you to? In the coming days, I very slowly pondered this question as I learned to tell the time by the six trains that passed every day. (None were early or late and made very little noise; this being a quiet branch line.) One day, I missed watching a passing train because I was enjoying the ambience of the brilliant lemon yellow sink, another wonderfully evocative original feature. I felt distraught: each train had become a little highlight, a chance to peer out on the outside world as it trundled by and see if anyone alighted at the lonely platform of Loch Awe. Hardly anyone ever did.There was satellite TV, should I have required the 21st century, and electric heaters which soon cranked up the heat in a carriage which I imagine gets fairly chilly in winter, but I was happy in the 1950s. There was food served at the Victorian splendour of Loch Awe Hotel, which towers on a rock above the carriage, and at the Tight Linepub, but I preferred to stroll two minutes to the village post office and choose what to cook for dinner: if I had wanted fruit or veg more exotic than an apple, orange, banana or potato I would have to bring it with me or take a train into Oban. (The post office does offer a useful service whereby you can pre-order a range of basic food which will be delivered to the carriage before you arrive.)There are high-class culinary treats available: you can arrange a boat trip to go for lunch at the Ardanaiseig Hotel, on the opposite shore, and Inverawe Smokehouseat Taynuilt is a couple of miles away – I can vouch for its extremely tasty smoked trout. You can also take a fishing trip on the loch; locals catch mostly perch and trout. Oban, meanwhile, has restaurants and is famed for its distillery, which offers an interesting tour (with tasting, of course).Despite the splendid isolation of the carriage, and only three trains a day into Oban, it proved perfectly possible to experience the West Highlands without a car. For walkers, there is Ben Cruachan to climb nearby, although the area is not very well-endowed with marked footpaths. Two tourist attractions are within walking distance: Kilchurn Castleand the hydroelectric power station at Cruachan (also a request stop on the train) which bills itself as "the hollow mountain" on account of its cavern which is buried 1km under Ben Cruachan.I went farther afield, taking a bus into Oban and buying a Three Isles ticket from the harbour which took me â€“ via five ferry trips – to the islands of Mull, Staffa and Iona. The ancient lava fields that formed much of Mull gave it the look of Iceland in places and an amusingly laconic coach driver/tour guide pointed out the sights, including the farmhouse where Phil Collins once lived next to a coniferous forest he planted for a wind – and tax – break.Staffa, an uninhabited island named by the Vikings for its spectacular staff-like columns of stone, has attracted daytrippers since Mendelssohn visited in 1829 and was inspired to compose Hebrides Overture Opus 26 by the strange echoes inside Fingal's Cave. On the day I visited, the ferryman surfed his small vessel through a huge swell to land safely between rocks so we, too, could poke around inside the forbidding sea cave.As the place where St Columba touched down from Ireland in 563 to bring Christianity to Britain, Iona is firmly on the tourist trail. A battalion of elderly tourists visited the abbey and bought Celtic tat from the gift shops, but I escaped my fellow daytrippers by walking through its tiny fields, past surprisingly lush organic gardens, to the northerly end of the island, where brilliant white sandy beaches met the rolling ocean in rainy isolation.On the way home, the train to Glasgow felt funny as it squealed and sweated up scenic passes, offering up views of waterfalls and great towers of cloud piled on mountains turning red with autumnal bracken. For a while, I could not work out what was so odd. Then I realised. I was in a railway carriage and it was moving.• Loch Awe Railway Carriage (scotlandrailholiday.com) from £340-540 per week (sleeps 5). Caledonian MacBrayne (calmac.co.uk) sails from Oban to islands of the Inner and Outer Hebrides. A Three Isles ticket (return ferry to Mull, return coach to Fionnphort, ferry to Staffa, ferry to Iona and return) costs £48. Book with Virgin Trains (08457 222 333, virgintrains.co.uk) for trains London and the south to Glasgow. ScotRail (0845 601 5929, scotrail.co.uk) trains go from Glasgow Queen Street to Loch Awe. You can also take ScotRail's Fort William sleeper service: change at Crianlarich Station for trains to Loch Awe.ScotlandRail travelSelf-cateringGreen travelUnited KingdomShort breaksPatrick Barkhamguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  Emulating New York's Meatpacking District, Kødbyen, or 'Meat City', is now the hippest area in townWe've seen it happen in the Meatpacking district of Manhattan, and Smithfield's in London; now those groovy butchers have done it again. Copenhagen's meat-processing quarter, Kødbyen (literally, and none too appetisingly, "Meat City") is the hottest nightlife destination in town right now. It seems that wherever there are butchers, the young, the trendy, their avant-garde hairdressers and cutting-edge mixologists are keen to follow.In the case of Kødbyen (pronounced "cool-boo-en"), the influx of bars, galleries, clubs and restaurants is the result of a conscious decision by the city council, which owns the 1930s warehouse complex, a couple of minutes' west of the central station. Thanks to Denmark's pork industry, Kødbyen is said to have once boasted the highest density of butchers in Europe, but when most of the industry moved out of town around the turn of this century, there were fears that the area would become a ghost town. Then, in 2005, the council landed on Manhattan's Meatpacking District as a model."The idea is for Kødbyen to be open 24 hours a day. You will come out of a cocktail bar in the middle of the night and bump into butchers as they are on their way to work," the director of the project told one newspaper at the time.The first I heard were whispers of an unspeakably cool new restaurant and cocktail bar that had opened there. Siblings Jeppe and Lærke Hein's Karriere(Flæsketorvet 57, 0045 33 21 55 09, karrierebar.com/en/) had light installations by Olafur Eliasson, the Icelandic-Danish artist famous for his Weather Projectinstallation in London's Tate Modern. We went to check it out one Friday night, arriving at the entrance to the deserted butchers' warehouses, and wandering slightly nervously between dormant container trucks until we finally spotted lights like 50s spaceships, cameras – and a great deal of action.Three years on, Karriere has lost some of its buzz, but it's still packed at weekends, and the party mood is spreading throughout Kødbyen. Just across the way is – this week's – hottest bar, Jolene (Flæsketorvet 81-85, myspace.com/jolenebar) – so cool, it has no sign. Filled with an artful selection of ramshackle furniture, it's run by two Icelandic women, both named Dora. In its first incarnation, in a residential neighbourhood, it was so successful, the neighbours complained. Now it is free to make as much noise as the patrons like, with a mix of live music, DJs and dancing. Together with the three-storey, post-industrial, Berlin-style Kødboderne 18 nightclub (Kødboderne 18, kodboderne18.dk), these three form the cornerstone of Kødbyen's scene.And yes, the revellers do pass the butchers on their way out at the end of an evening's partying. "We're pretty much used to it all by now," a butcher on a morning cigarette break told me. "It's nice to have some life here.""It's really cool that the butchers come in," said Cecilie Bepler of the photoart gallery Dask (Flæsketorvet 24, daskgallery.com). "We had an exhibition of food close-ups recently, and they loved that! They made a mistake in New York, I think, in moving the butchers out. There's a good attitude here, a bit of character."Gallery manager Gitte Madsen of V1(Flæsketorvet 69-71, v1gallery.com) often gets the "meat scene" popping by to look at her contemporary art, shown in the walk-in freezers. "I had a butcher in this morning," she tells me. "She was, like, 'Wow! I could never have imagined you could use this space like this.'"Dask and V1 are two of several recent arrivals keeping the momentum going in Kødbyen by day as well as at night. Another is Mette Ohlendorff, of the art collective Art Rebels (Flæsketorvet 17-19, artrebels.com), a group of artists, designers, musicians and new media types with clients including Diesel and Hummel who moved here in December last year from the city's previous "coolest" quarter, Islandsbrygge.The spare, white rooms and massive plate windows of the old butchers shops look perfect for galleries and bars, but all of Kødbyen is subject to a strict preservation order which has raised some problems. "We love the fact that we can make as much noise as we want, and we love this industrial space, but the problem is we can't change anything," says Ohlendorff. "If one of the tiles falls off we have to replace it. And it's not as if they are special tiles!"That's not the only stumbling block in the council's attempts to "funkify" Kødbyen. "Yet another example of Copenhagen being turned into one more Tivoli," complained one reader of a Danish newspaper to its letters page. More seriously, the butchers are slowly being driven out by the local council who have recently raised rents in line with market rates (in some cases by 200%). There are now just eight left, where once there were 50, and there are fears that, without its indigenous population, there'll soon be metaphorical tumbleweed blowing through Kødbyen during the day.For now, at least, if you visit Kødbyen by day there is still plenty of life. By lunchtime the labourers are sitting on upturned packing crates after a long morning shift, beneath the noble bas relief of the cow that is Kødbyen's symbol. You can still see the butchers at work and, come lunchtime, the students from the city's largest cooking school, also based in Kødbyen, roam in gangs in their chefs' whites.Kødbyen has also become the city's new restaurant hot spot with several recent openings. The largest is BioMio(Halmtorvet 19, +45 33 31 20 00, biomio.dk), a 200-seater, self-service organic restaurant with an open kitchen, run by Australian Peter George. All the ingredients used are organic or biodynamic, and low priced – at least for Copenhagen (£10-£14).Kødbyen's Fiskebar (Flæsketorvet 100, +45 32 15 56 56, fiskebaren.dk/da), is a contemporary Scandinavian fish restaurant with raw concrete walls and hypnotic, jellyfish-filled cylindrical fish tanks. The man behind it is Anders Selmer, part of the team that started Copenhagen's Noma– voted third-best restaurant in the world this year.The newest arrival, Paté Paté (Slagterboderne 1, +45 39 69 55 57, patepate.dk), takes its name from the fact that this winebar used to be a liver pâté factory. The owners, brothers Dan and Kenn Husted, have form as wine sellers, having opened the much-loved Bibenduma few years back. Their latest, inspired in part by London's Momo, is next door to BioMio and spills out on to pavement tables, oblivious to the savoury – and sometimes unsavoury – aromas from their neighbours.Michael BoothNorwegian Air Shuttle (norwegian.no) and easyjet.comfly to Copenhagen from the UK. Return train fares from London to Copenhagen from £177pp with Rail Europe (0844 848 4064, raileurope.co.uk) The stylish Axel (0045 33 31 32 66, hotelguldsmeden.dk), with blond parquet floors, friendly staff, garden and spa has doubles from £165. The Balinese-style Bertrams Hotel on Vesterbrogade is part of the same chain.CopenhagenCity breaksCultural tripsFood and drinkguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  The island's untamed southern coast may not be as pretty as its more famous beaches, but it has plenty to recommend it, not least a secluded uber-chic villa overlooking the MedExcuse me," says Gioacchino Sortino – who looks every sharp-suited inch the Sicilian businessman – reaching for his mobile. "It's my mama, she worries about me." And Gioacchino is worried about us. Wild, beautiful, unpredictable – and a little bit scary, Sicily has lived up to its tempestuous reputation by staging the most spectacular electrical storm. During the night, our villa – a glass hymn to modernism – felt as insubstantial as one of those plastic snow-storm domes as the elements raged about us. It's not hard to see why the ancient Greeks chose to settle in Sicily on this imposing cliff top facing Africa – or to imagine what portents they might have read into the furious display from the gods above. This morning, though, all – with the exception of Gioacchino's mama – is calm, the horizon as straight as the crease in his trousers.Gioacchino used to work as a sommelier at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, but came home to set up SoloSicily – with his brother, naturally – to prove to visitors that there's more to his country than the mafia. Compared with the manicured elegance of its most popular destinations, fashionable Taormina or charming Cefalu, southern Sicily is still undoubtedly the scruffy relation. It might not be as conventionally pretty as its neighbours, but the south coast has its own rugged beauty and plenty to recommend it that still seem to be something of an inside secret, remaining largely untouched by the tourist explosion that followed thearrival of cheap flights to Palermo and Catania around a decade ago.Casa d'Eraclea perches on the edge of Europe, its magnificent infinity pool dropping, apparently seamlessly, into the Mediterranean below. A modern architect-designed house, everything is clean lines, light and glass. Pool and sea dominate. It is like waking up to find oneself in the bright, deliquescent world of a David Hockney LA painting. Even the cactus-studded, hammock-slung garden is all symmetry and pleasing shapes. Its surroundings may be a little rough around the edges, but Casa d'Eraclea most certainly is not.If it sounds a little unSicilian, this is in keeping: it is here that the influences of centuries of occupation – Greek, Roman, Arab, Spanish – are most strongly felt. Looking loftily down on the tiny town of Eraclea Minoa, named after the Cretan king, Minos, Casa d'Eraclea commands a view that would have pleased any conquering monarch, yet you could lounge around naked as a Greek goddess all day if you so desired without any danger of having to turn an impertinent onlooker into a fawn or a gecko.Eraclea Minoa is a strictly one-street, one-shop, two-trattorias type of town. Arriving on the late flight from Trapani, on the western tip of the island, it was hard to appreciate its sleepy charms. But it does boast one of best beaches in Sicily: a great sweep of forest-edged sand. It's very popular in August, apparently, but in September was almost deserted. Any fellow philistines who, ignoring the cultural pull of Italy's galleries and churches, have driven miles in desperate search of a beach – not a lido, as the Italians, tellingly, like to call it, but a scrap of sand unpolluted by rows of expensive sun-loungers adorned with beautiful-limbed Italians – will know what a rare and joyous find this is. And it's only a 10-minute, pine-scented walk from the villa. Here, you could enjoy the sort of bucket-and‑spade holiday I always thought was too unchic for Italians.Eating options are limited – there's the Sabbia D'Oro or the Lido Garibaldi, serving, well, pizza or pasta, which might seem so-so to your homegrown Sicilian, but seemed pretty damn good to us. Sabbia D'Oro was the livelier and looked as if it did a brisk trade at the height of summer. You could bring young children without worrying, or have a romantic (in an unscrubbed-up sort of way) supper for two looking out at the sea.The hilltop village of Caltabellotta and its nearby caves are absolutely worth a visit – true Godfather territory. Climbing up to the remains of the medieval Norman castle provides views not only down on to the tangle of cobbled lanes of Caltabellotta but 21 other villages, apparently (we couldn't count that many). After an espresso in the square, we headed to the fishing port of Sciacca and spent a happy afternoon wandering its picturesquely dilapidated streets. Here, groups of old men topple over pasta bellies in raucous rounds of boules or sit silently in the shade intent on their cards; good-looking young men share gelatos in the sunshine; women of all ages and sizes gossip in doorways. (It's impossible to resist the cliche of the Mediterranean lifestyle – when I'm an old lady, please God, let me be a Sicilian one.)Continuing further west through untidy seaside resorts stuck barnacle-like on the coast, we ended up in the tiny fishing village of Porto Palo. Nestled unassumingly at the end of the road is the restaurant Da Vittoria. When I sit down to supper in unsunny Shepherd's Bush it warms my soul to know that overlooking a stretch of forgotten beach somewhere on the tip of Europe, tables of noisy Sicilians are tucking into great plates of pasta and sea creatures so fresh they think they're still in the sea.Heading east from Eraclea Minoa are the region's most impressive attractions – including ancient ruins to rival some of the best-preserved in Europe. But, with its modern towns and brutal industrial sites, there's no pretending this is an attractive stretch of coastline. First up are the Turkish steps, which presumably take their name from their resemblance to Pamukkale in Turkey – a ghostly series of white ridges shimmering in the cliff face. Once you have sat on this strange, almost lunar-ish stairway – and marvelled at the Italian ability to sunbathe anywhere – there is little to linger over, so we pushed on to southern Sicily's proudest attribute, the Valle dei Templi– standing sentry over the unprepossessing town of Agrigento. Ruins – whisper it - always leave me woefully underwhelmed (a shameful failure of imagination), but even the most committed rubble-phobe couldn't fail to be awed by the Valley of the Temples: you can almost see a sandalled Russell Crowe swaggering between the towering columns.It would be ridiculous to claim that southern Sicily is "undiscovered" when we are following in the footsteps of literally centuries of visitors. But if "getting off the beaten track" means not hearing a single British or American voice in a whole week then this small patch of Europe is as uncharted as other more remote regions of the world.The dramatic storm struck on our last night in Eraclea Minoa – maybe the gods would prefer the spoils of the south coast to remain a Sicilian secret.• A one-week stay at Casa d'Eraclea (sleeps 9, four bedrooms) starts at €1,820 in low season, with SoloSicily (020-7193 0158, solosicily.com. SoloSicily features villas (sleeping 2-38) and boutique hotels throughout the island. Book a 2010 holiday before 28 November and pay 2009 prices on selected properties. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Trapani from Birmingham and Luton and from Stansted to Palermo from around £50 rtn inc tax. SicilySelf-cateringItalyRomantic tripsBeach holidaysFamily holidaysFood and drinkLisa Allardiceguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms &Conditions| More Feeds

  The fishy theme at this new restaurant with rooms goes beyond the sublime food – you'll find it in the plush decor tooThere's no doubting the theme here, I think, as we pull up outside this 18th century former coaching inn bedecked in lobster pots.The Fish House is a new restaurant with rooms, at the foot of the South Downs, four miles from Goodwood racecourse and six north of Chichester. It's a bold investor who opens a £4m venture in the midst of a recession – but owner David Barnard is no risk-taker. With two highly successful restaurants under his belt – The Crab &Lobsterin North Yorkshire and the award-winning Crab at Chieveleyin Berkshire (he sold both) – he felt ready for a new challenge. If the Saturday night we visited is anything to go by, he has nothing to worry about. My beaten up, rusty Honda looked a sorry sight next to the gleaming 4x4s and BMWs. Inside there were a lot of men in their best Saturday slacks and women who looked as if they'd had their hair done for the occasion.I've stayed here before in its previous incarnation as the White Horse Inn, a B&B whose owners were among the first to adopt a comprehensive eco-policy. Barnard says the Fish House is as eco-friendly as its predecessor – with eco-cleaning products, eco-insultation and low-output machinery all in use – he just doesn't advertise the fact.Inside, the bar and dining room are dripping with fishy paraphernalia, from little metal fishing boats hanging above the oyster bar to chairs that look like coiled rope, from the fish-print cushions to the fish tank that forms part of a glass wall between restaurant and kitchen. All of which felt a bit odd in a country inn 15 miles from the coast. However, Lawrence, the manager, assured us that, bar the oysters (from Carlingford Loch in Northern Ireland) and the Scottish hand-dived scallops, the fish is ordered daily from sustainable sources on the south coast. And any sense of incongruity soon evaporated when we sat down to dinner. My lobster and mango blini starter was fancy but somehow underwhelming, but my companion's crab lasagne – delicious hand-made pasta with fresh crab and a seafood bisque – gave me food envy. My main of dover sole with a brown shrimp sauce was perfectly cooked and the lemon tart was probably the best I've ever tasted.Retiring to our room took the gloss off the evening a little. The 15 rooms, all named after fishing ports, are arranged in two wings behind the inn (with two above the bar). There are four themes; ours was driftwood but what struck me more than the chunky wooden bed and lime-washed wardrobe was the colour scheme: a garish feature wall with an orange and red sea-anemone print – or were they chrysanthemums? – with matching orange and red rug. Every other room was occupied so I couldn't sneak a peek at the other themes: Bhutan (I've no idea how this land-locked country became a theme), plum and aqua, but I suspect they might have been more soothing on the eye.There's certainly been no scrimping on the rooms: Egyptian linen, an espresso machine, plasma screen, furniture made from reclaimed wood and a shower head in our bathroom the size of a dustbin lid.At breakfast we watched through the fish tank as the chefs cooked our fry-ups – another excellent meal of homemade black pudding (very good, by all accounts), local sausages and bacon, before we headed for the downs to walk it off.Top tip Drive a mile or so up the road to Harting Down, for a heart-pumping walk that takes you up on to a ridge for classic views of rolling countryside punctuated by church spires.• Sunday and Monday evening deal is £150 per room for DB&B. It's worth checking for late deals: I called on a Tuesday morning and they had two rooms that night for £49 each, room only. Sally Shalam is awayHotelsShort breaksRestaurantsUnited KingdomIsabel Choatguardian.co.uk© Guardian News &Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to ourTerms &Conditions| More Feeds