Boris Johnson pledges extra buses and bike escorts as London Tube strike looms
Contingency plans ready as London Underground workers get set to walk out over job cuts
Transport bosses and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said yesterday they would "pull out all the stops" to help commuters during the planned strike by London Underground workers on Monday.
Johnson said contingency plans would include an extra 100 buses, escorted bike rides, marshalled taxi ranks and capacity for 10,000 extra journeys on the river Thames boats.
Union leaders said they intended to go ahead with the strike after talks broke down yesterday. Thousands of tube workers plan to walk out for 24 hours from 5pm on Monday over plans to cut 800 jobs.
"Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around," Johnson said. "I have asked Transport for London to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the [unions] RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason.
"The extra measures we have put in place call for a team effort and people will need to consider buses, boats or bikes as an alternative to their usual journeys. This planned action will cause disruption for millions of Londoners and I call on the unions to get round the table and show common sense." He said volunteers would be drafted in to hand out maps and other information.
The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said London Underground had failed to remove the threat of cuts to safety and safe staffing levels that would have allowed for "meaningful discussions".
But the TfL commissioner, Peter Hendy, said: "There is no need for any action, as the changes we are introducing come with no compulsory redundancies and stations will remain staffed at all times and every station with a ticket office will continue to have one." He added: "We regret that Londoners will be disrupted if the strike goes ahead. However, the RMT and TSSA leadership will not stop LU from moving with the times. Due to the success of Oyster, just one journey in 20 now involves a ticket office." Up to 200 tube maintenance workers will also strike on Sunday in a separate row over pay and conditions.
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Letters: Friends for free on the buses
The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September). There are serious questions as to whether it is the poorest older people who benefit most from the universal free pass, or whether, as in so many other cases, it is of more value to the wealthier people. Rather than go down a means-testing route, though, one answer may be to raise the age of eligibility for a pass.
Leon Kreitzman
Chair, Age Concern Lewisham & Southwark, London
• A one-off payment for bus passes would, indeed, cut the £1bn annual cost, but it would seriously affect the poorest pensioners. A better solution would be to make all benefits received by pensioners (bus passes, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and NHS prescriptions) taxable so better-off pensioners contributed according to their means.
John Howes
London
• The greatest benefit of the bus pass is that pensioners who have lost their cars through ageing and ill health can still get about without worrying about the cost. They meet neighbours on board who become friends that help each other when needed, and save the social services far more money than the obnoxious Ludeman complains about.
Brian Robinson
Brentwood, Essex
• Transport for All's attack on London Underground's staffing proposals (Letters, 30 August) is based on a misunderstanding. Our proposals have come about because ticket sales at stations have dropped significantly since the introduction of Oyster, so that now only one in 20 journeys starts with a visit to a ticket office, and some stations sell fewer than 10 tickets each hour. Under our plans, every station that has a ticket office now will continue to have one, and staff will remain in every station in exactly those areas that Transport for All want them to be: in ticket halls and on platforms where they can help customers, not hidden away behind under-used ticket office windows. Staff will still help with any problems and provide a reassuring presence across the network – including for older and disabled Londoners, many of whom receive a Freedom Pass which requires no interaction with either ticket offices or machines.
Managing director, London Underground
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Arabian nights: stylish places to stay
Four new and revamped urban bolt holes in the Middle East and north Africa
• Cairo's Talisman Hotel (i-escape.com/talismanhotel.php), which opened a year ago near the Egyptian Museum, claims to be the city's only boutique hotel. Its 24 colourful rooms (£66 B&B) with chandeliers, parquet floor and beautiful quilts, take up the fifth-floor of an apartment block in downtown Cairo and, along with decadent salons and a dining room, are accessed by an old wrought-iron lift.
• Hard to choose between Marrakech's riads, isn't it? Riad Chi Chi (i-escape.com/riadchichi.php) which opened last year, is a great-value option. Five rooms in subtle cream have wooden lattices looking onto a courtyard with a small petal-strewn swimming pool and cushioned alcoves. A canopied chill-out area on the roof has Atlas views. Doubles from £53 B&B.
• Syria's second city, Aleppo, has the best souks in the entire region – miles of medieval alleyways lined with stalls selling everything from milk to silk. Boutique hotels abound, and one of the best has just had a revamp. Hidden down a passageway beside one of the Old City gates, the Mansouriya Palace (mansouriya.com), was built in the 16th century around an interior courtyard. Nine suites sport luxurious fabrics and lavish design touches, from marble baths to inlaid headboards. It ain't cheap though, from £279 B&B.
• A luxury hotel, the Russelior (preferredhotels.com/russelior), opened in the Tunisian seaside city of Hammamet this year, and has a hip white spa with drapes and posh lights, luscious gardens, tennis courts and several restaurants. Rooms cost from £111 including breakfast.
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Middle East: Gulf getaways
Spend some Arabian days and nights exploring the culture and coastal beauty of the Gulf
Culture, QatarWith its long, elegant corniche bristling with futuristic skyscrapers, Doha – the capital of Qatar – has enjoyed a transformational decade. The most exciting new development is the spectacular Museum of Islamic Art, designed by Chinese-American architect IM Pei. Rising in a series of limestone cubes from a purpose-built island, it houses the biggest collection of its kind in the world.
• ITC Classics (01244 355 527, itcclassics .co.uk) offers five nights at the Ritz Carlton Doha from £1,180pp, inc flights
High culture is also a high priority in Abu Dhabi, the largest and richest of the United Arab Emirates, although the most prestigious projects – new branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums – are yet to open. Outside the capital, the peaceful city of Al-Ain has atmospheric old forts, a beautiful date-palm oasis and a lively old camel market. In the desert far to the south lies the Liwa oasis, a vast arc of villages and farms in an awe-inspiring landscape of sand dunes.
• Destinology (0800 634 2844, destinology.co.uk) has a seven-night tour of Abu Dhabi, including the Anantara Qasr Al-Sarab Hotel in the Liwa oasis, from £1,659pp inc flights
Sharjah, the third largest emirate, is socially conservative, with a strict ban on alcohol, but it's worth a visit for its lively souk and many small galleries and museums – including the impressive Museum of Islamic Heritage and the Bait al-Naboodah, the home of a 19th-century pearl-fishing family.
• Cox and Kings (020 7873 5000 coxandkings.co.uk) offers an eight-day tour of the emirates, including Sharjah, from £2,295, inc flights
Mountainous little Fujairah has the loveliest coastline in the UAE (though it's on the Gulf of Oman, not the Arabian Gulf), with clear waters and white sand beaches. The drive from Fujairah town to the sleepy fishing village of Dibba is spectacular – and from there, you can take a dhow to unspoiled dive sites on Oman's spectacular Musandam peninsular.
• Emirates Tours (0844 800 1400, emiratestours.co.uk) offers three nights in Fujairah from £610pp, inc flights
Oman's remote Musandam peninsula offers amazing scenery: rocky fjords rise sheer from the sea, dolphins leap alongside traditional wooden dhows and a handful of slumbering villages guard access to the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway. Musandam's dusty capital, Khasab – newly linked to Muscat by regular fast ferry – gazes out to the Gulf from behind its modest fort, built by the Portuguese in the 17th century and honoured this year with the international Museums and Heritage award for its renovation, excellent displays on Omani history and ongoing community engagement.
• Oman Tourism (omantourism.gov.om). National Ferries Company (nfcoman.com). Oman Air (0844 482 2309, omanair.com) flies direct from Heathrow to Muscat
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Sahara road trip
Following an ancient trade route across Libya, Sara Wheeler enounters Berber life, and finds that trade and smuggling are still alive and well
Abu Bakir, our driver and factotum, carried a large carpet shoulder bag that had belonged to his father and grandfather before him. It contained tea-making equipment: a beaten silver tray, two silver beakers, a teapot and a camel-hair buffing cloth. Wherever camp was established, Abu Bakir would settle on a square of carpet laid on the sand and commence the tea ritual. Foam held the key to a successful brew, hence a lot of high pouring from beaker to teapot and back. After turning in each night, I fell asleep to the clink of tea glasses and low murmur of voices.
It is a ritual that has been taking place across the Sahara for centuries.
A thousand years before camels came to north Africa, merchant caravans journeyed to the Niger bend in pursuit of ivory, essences and rare woods. The voyage back to the coastal ports, where Punic merchants jingled silver coins, was more than 2,200km. It was one of the most ancient trading routes, linking the heart of Africa with successive northern empires. Yet despite its remote and treacherous terrain, the Libyan Sahara still services commerce, as I found out on my own journey.
The road south from Tripoli is a study in desiccation. Following the trade route, my guide, 27-year-old Abbas, drove through the foothills of the Jebel Nafusa and the landscape dried out before our eyes. In the middle of our first day on the road, Abbas announced that we were to visit a smugglers' warehouse. We pulled up outside Qasr al-Haj, an almost perfectly intact 12th-century Berber granary. The sky was clear blue, and the slopes of Jebel Nafusa shimmered. The pottery colours of the Qasr seemed to grow out of the desert. Inside, a dusty corridor opened on to an arena lined with five-metre-deep cubby holes, each once used for a family's winter supply of barley and wheat, and now, apparently, a hiding place for contraband.
The oasis settlement at Nalut on the western edge of the Jebel Nafusa has been a resting place for traders since the fourth century BC. It remains a staging post but, following Muammar Gaddafi's new idea that each town in the Libyan interior must be painted in its own co-ordinated colours, the municipal buildings are now decked out in outlandish peach and green.
People melt away as one tracks the traders south: 85% of Libyans live on the Mediterranean coast. Libya may be the fourth-largest country in Africa, but only 10% of its land is cultivable. The interior was immune to the cultural flux that shaped the coast. It is Berber territory. Abbas never missed an opportunity to promote his own Berber ethnicity. Although he lived in Tripoli, he said he did not feel Libyan. "The only thing we share with Arabised Libyans," he said, "is religion."
Walking the covered lanes of Ghadames, an oasis town 550km from Tripoli, one sensed the ghostly presence of medieval traders, reclining in the shade of pomegranate trees in cool courtyard gardens. Ghadames was once the pre-eminent Saharan trading hub (today the walled old town is a Unesco world heritage site). Marseilles cloth and Venetian paper went south, precious stones and ostrich plumes headed north – and news came in from everywhere. On my journey the scent of crushed lemon leaves filled the empty lanes, and rods of light fell through vertical skylights on to white mud-brick houses. The temperature outside reached 36C.
The hotel on the outskirts of Ghadames new town was characteristic of tourism in the Libyan interior. (The Revolutionary government moved 6,000 residents from the medieval lanes in the early 1980s, a gesture towards the fabled modernisation Gaddafi craved.) Leaflets in the huge marble lobby advertised an impressive range of facilities. I made enquiries. The pool? "Is not built." Internet? "Is not working." Laundry? "Is no bags." But they did have an espresso machine.
According to the authorities, unemployment in Libya stands at 40%, but the figure is meaningless in a country with a burgeoning private sector without fiscal status. Abbas had a government job in addition to being a guide, though he appeared rarely to attend. When I asked him, after a week on the road, how he managed so much time away from the office, he said he got his cousin to sign in for him.
South of Ghadames, we entered the wilderness of Hamada al-Hamra and passed three cars in 150km. This expanse of desert scrub has been keeping smugglers safe since the time Europeans were emerging from their caves. Traffic thickened only as we approached Sebha, where we stopped at a shop for dates, stored, as everywhere, in boxes in the deep freeze, and ate some cashews and Ecuadorean bananas. Sebha is a horrible modern hole. Today's traders deal in people, spiriting Africans up to the coast and across to Sicily.
At the Ubari petrol station, young men filled rows of jerrycans strapped to the roofs of their Toyota Land Cruisers, the whole forecourt a seething souk of Tuareg and Berber faces. Petrol is 10p a litre in Libya, and 10 times that in neighbouring Tunisia, and around Ghadames and Ubari people fill cans and custom-built 100-litre tanks to siphon off in more lucrative markets.
I asked Abbas if fuel accounted for the majority of illegal trade, "No!" he laughed. "We smuggle anything. I made a lot of money last year importing canned dog and cat food from Tunisia. I bought cans there and sold them for 10 times as much here." At Ubari, we linked up with three further team members and a second jeep. The three – cook and headman as well as Abu Bakir – were Tuareg, proud men of the once nomadic tribe of the central Sahara who protected the trade caravans. The dapper Abbas, his black hair gelled, appeared in a different western outfit each day, at one point sporting a thigh-length teddy boy coat. But his three Tuareg assistants stuck to their hooded burnouses and the tagelmust, the 6ft length of fabric wound into a turban and face cover. They enjoyed teaching me to put one on, but I always ended up looking bandaged.
Off road, we entered the desert proper through Masak Mastafat, the northern gateway to the Acacus massif's basalt columns, sandstone buttresses and rolling sands; lots of rolling sands. There, the five of us camped for four days and four nights. Everyone enjoyed it. Darkness crashed down with African haste at 6.25pm, and after making our pop-up tents secure, we sat around a fire eating barley soup and camel couscous sharpened with dollops of harissa. There was talk about the sexually invigorating properties of the ubiquitous harissa. Eaten, I wondered, or applied?
At mealtimes, a desert sparrow might visit our camp. But it was at night that the Sahara came alive. Ensconced in my tent, I listened to gerbils (a foot long and meaty, not the hutch variety) scratching around the guy ropes. In the morning, I followed the delicate tracks of wolves and fennec foxes. Soon after striking camp one day, we surprised two heavily laden vehicles, with five men and two children loitering nearby. Spotting us, the adults knelt down and pretended to pray. I asked Abbas what was stashed under the tarpaulins. He shrugged, and suggested Sport cigarettes, the red-and-white packets that decorate every street in Tripoli. But I wondered.
On the last night we pitched camp in the lee of a volcanic outcrop. Desert rain had washed away the porous rock, creating a wild and fantastic outline. When lightning struck, phantasmagorical rock silhouettes leapt to life. The camp was hard by Mandara, one of a dozen lakes in the south-western Libyan Sahara. A water project had dried it to the bed, but the next day I swam in Umm al-Maa, a block of opaque green water nestled in a palmy basin. It was so salty my feet wouldn't stay under. All around, Niger Tuareg played noughts-and-crosses in the sand.
Driving out, a cry went up in our Land Cruiser. "Signal!" We stopped. Everyone got out. I remember the figure of Abu Bakir, burnouse flapping, holding his phone aloft in salute and squinting into the sun.
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This week's new events
If you find yourself strolling along Bournemouth Square on Friday evening, don't be shy about interacting with the projected images, colours and shapes that make up KMA's world premiere of Congregation (pictured), their video installation to kick off this festival of outdoor performance. Getting the public involved in performance is key to the programme, which includes workshops run by integrated dance company StopGAP and open house rehearsals and taster sessions with NoFit State circus which culminate in their polytechnic, aerial Parklife show. The international lineup also features French company Quidams, plus Finnish accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen, who will perform music at and inspired by a former Winspit quarrying site alongside animations from Dorset's own Paper Cinema.
Various venues, Fri to 19 Sep, insideoutdorset.co.uk
Teri Grenert
Modified Toy Orchestra, BirminghamDance music and lessons in the virtue of recycling. That's what you get with Modified Toy Orchestra, the Birmingham quintet whose instruments are discarded toys from car boot sales rejigged to create music. MTO return with a new album, Plastic Planet, and two new members. Their upcoming gigs represent a homecoming after what has been a long time away; the album was four years in the making. These UK dates also feature interactive visuals, 50 instruments and a support set from Pram offshoot Micronormous, all adding to the anticipation. If, though, you might be disturbed by the sight of a Barbie doll beeping and glowing red in the eyes, well, you have been warned.
Town Hall, Wed
Toby Bakare
Dorset Country Show, DorchesterThe county show is very much a part of the British summer. But their combination of produce displays, ferret racing and steam engines can be a little dull for today's children, which is why this event looks like the one to be at. As well as the usual dog shows, falconry displays and sheep shearing, Dorset County Show has dancing mechanical diggers, "Wolf Man" Shaun Ellis and a dangerous-looking 55-stone android. If it all goes a bit Westworld, at least the Adam's Axemen lumberjack display team should put up decent resistance.
Dorchester Showground, Sat, Sun, dorsetcountyshow.co.uk
Iain Aitch
Out & aboutCoastal Currents, Hastings, Rother & St Leonards-on-Sea, to 30 Sep
An arts trail taking in parks, the beach, heritage sites and empty shops, with open studios, talks, performances and more.
The Braemar Gathering, Braemar, Sat
Highland dancing, piping, the inevitable throwing of things, whether cabers, stones or hammers at the near-200 year-old festival.
Memorial Park
International Kite Festival, Bristol, Sat & Sun
Fantastical designs from around the world, including the Serenade Of Serpents, plus workshops and family activities.
The Plateau, Ashton Court Estate
Big Splash, Newport, Sat & Sun
Free entrance to a bizarre world of scrap metal sculptural giants and creations from The Mutoid Waste Company.
Riverfront Theatre & Arts Centre
The Book You Always Meant To Read, London, Mon
A new series of monthly supper lectures exploring Dante's Divine Comedy.
St Olave's & St Katharine Cree
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Jordan's green crusade
With all the Roman ruins and Petra, it's tempting to focus on Jordan's historic sites, but its nature reserves and their chic eco-lodges shouldn't be missed
Yellow grit, the depressing mesh fences of army barracks, and long chains of oil tankers coming in from Saudi Arabia. This was the Middle East as imagined by people who don't know anything about the Middle East, and there had been nothing else in hours.
Road signs said "Iraq ahead". "Don't fall asleep!" laughed our driver, Ahmed. "Maybe I keep going, and you wake up in Baghdad!"
At last, something green. Palm trees. Then houses, a mosque, and a black basalt fortress. We had reached the point of the eastern desert of Jordan where the sands turns black with volcanic basalt rock. A trickle of travellers make it out here – 100km from Amman and well off the tourist trail between Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea – to see several desert castles, built in the seventh and eighth centuries by the Umayyads, one of those empires no one remembers, although they were once the biggest in the world, governing five million square miles that stretched from Spain to present-day Pakistan.
What brought us to the desert was the same thing that attracted the Umayyads (and before them the Romans, the Nabateans, and neolithic people): an oasis, the desert's only water source.
The Azraq wetland, an area of pools surrounded by tall grasses, bullrushes and reeds, is one of Jordan's six nature parks, established by the country's Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. A million migratory birds used to stop here every year – filling the sky until they blocked out the sun. But no more. Since the 1980s the site has been in a state of environmental disaster as the Azraq water basin which feeds it has also been pumped to supply the population.
"One in every four glasses of water drunk in Amman comes from Azraq," say the boards in the visitor centre. Diagrams showed how the pools have shrunk to 0.4% of their original area.
Azraq may not be the paradise garden it once was (though the RSCN is fighting to get it back), but it's a fascinating stop-off after the castles. We explored the pools on wooden walkways, and spotted ducks, egrets and a cormorant from an adobe hide.
To encourage visitors to Azraq, the RSCN has turned a 1940s British field hospital into a lodge, decorated with period trunks, black and white photographs of Bedouin, plus a 1956 Land Rover. The barracks contain stylish tiled bedrooms with flagstone floors and cacti-studded desert views.
This forward-thinking way of combining eco-tourism with conservation has been put into practice in all of Jordan's six nature parks, which cover a range of landscapes – forests at Ajloun and Dibeen, the Rift Valley's canyons at Dana biosphere reserve, mountains and rivers at Mujib near the Dead Sea coast, and desert grassland at Shaumari, near Azraq.
Travellers dashing between the country's main attractions typically pay scant attention to these nature parks, but they are one of Jordan's best assets. I made them the focus of a 10-day tour of the country with my mum, but because Jordan's so small it was perfectly viable to include the major historic sites too.
Our first port of call in Amman – before its Roman amphitheatres, souks and modern art gallery – was the HQ of Wild Jordan, the RSCN offshoot responsible for eco-tourism, and for socio-economic projects that support the rural communities living around the reserves.
The architect-designed building on the edge of the capital's starting-to-be-hip district, Rainbow Street, is also a visitor centre, with a sun terrace affording views of the seven hills to which the city clings, a health food cafe and a boutique selling crafts made by people living near the reserves.
Oman has its frankincense, Egypt carpets, Morocco leather, Saudi gold, but Jordan didn't have much in the way of traditional crafts. So Wild Jordan has worked with villagers to develop some, using local, sustainable materials – painted ostrich eggs from Azraq, olive oil soap from Ajloun, Bedouin silverware from Dana.
Wild Jordan's director, British expat Chris Johnson, met us for a cup of herbal tea and had some exciting news. The government had just agreed to establish nine more protected areas, including three in the Rift Valley, plus two near Wadi Rum and one in Burqu, the black basalt desert we had seen near Azraq. There will be one in the limestone hills and deciduous forest on the border with Syria, another in a sub-tropical wetland south of the Rift Valley, and one at Jebel Masuda, an "amazing" mountain near Petra from which you can enter the famous site through a back route.
"We chose the most special and typically Jordanian eco-systems," he said, "but to get nine is exceptional."
It had taken a lot of work to persuade the government of the value of conservation, he explained. "They were always hoping to find a raw material that would change Jordan's fate. Feynan and Dana were almost lost to mining. But the minerals would have soon run out. Eco-tourism is more valuable."
Now the strategy is to keep tourists in Jordan longer, to explore more of the country. It's easy to do. By early afternoon the next day, we'd left Amman, seen Roman Jerash's dusty amphitheatres and chariot racetracks, walked the dark passageways of Ajloun's crusader castle, and were hiking in the fresh sunshine in the Ajloun forest reserve.
It was December, sunny but too cold for the reserve's safari tents, so we holed up in one of its gorgeous wooden cabins with a Calor Gas heater and read under thick blankets until we were called for a delicious dinner of lentil soup, salads and stew. Although sadly there was none of Jordan's lovely red wine, St George – all the eco-lodges are alcohol-free.
On our way to the next reserve, we stayed a night in Madaba to see its famous sixth century mosaic map of the Holy Land on the floor of St George's church, and stood the next day on nearby Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have looked across the Dead Sea to Jericho.
"Just close your eyes for 15 seconds now," said Ahmed from the driver's seat as we headed south across flat, barren land on the King's Highway. "One, two..." he counted slowly. We hoped he was keeping his own eyes open. "15! OK!" Before us was the most incredible scene, an immense gaping canyon stretching into the distance. I was dumbstruck. The Mujib is Jordan's answer to the Grand Canyon, but I'd never even heard of it. Here Wild Jordan offers stays in eco-chalets, with swimming and canyoning trips along river trails, but in winter the water is too dangerous, so we had to give it a miss.
Instead we spent the next day at the impressive Karak crusader castle, then by the afternoon were at Petra. You don't need to read again about how incredible the rose-red city is, but what I'd underestimated was the staggering beauty of the landscape around it. We did a steep hike up to the Sacred High Place, where rock chasms run off in all directions. You'd need weeks of hard hiking to see all of it.
Afterwards we wanted to wash off the dust at a traditional hammam. "There is only a mixed one, if that is OK for you," said Ahmed. We thought it was. But then his mates turned up, and they all unexpectedly joined us in the marble steam rooms, larking about, and then kept "accidentally" bursting in on us while we got changed and had massages. They overstepped the mark, but I read later that Jordanian women would never go to a mixed hammam, so perhaps we were partly to blame.
As foreign females we were generally treated with respect, but in Jordan, strict boundaries are maintained between the sexes. Few women work, and they are not expected to make eye contact with male strangers.
But Jordan wants to modernise. Queen Rania is pushing for female social development through various charity projects, and Wild Jordan is doing its bit, employing women to make crafts and as lodge staff. But this has to be sensitively managed.
"At Ajloun, we developed a calligraphy workshop," Chris Johnson had told me back in Amman. "I visited and had a try, rather clumsily, so one of the female workers guided my hand with hers. The village found out and her family were angry – it was a scandal. She was made to quit her job."
But there are success stories, too. The Dana biosphere reserve – a canyon home to 800 plant varieties, 214 species of bird and 45 types of mammal – runs along the Rift Valley to the desert of Wadi Araba. The Bedouin who lived there were no longer allowed to hunt when it was made a nature park, but many were retrained as hotel staff at Dana Guesthouse at the top of the canyon and Feynan Ecolodge, at the bottom, or as nature guides leading insightful treks between them. Our guide, Mohammed showed us caves he'd lived in, wolf tracks, and plants for shampoo, but said he was happy to have left behind the hard Bedouin life.
Dana's lovely lodge had simple rooms with polished stone floors, iron beds with thick cream bedspreads, and Bedouin rugs, but the canyon views are its big attraction. In contrast, the dry desert setting of Feynan Ecolodge on the western edge of the reserve wasn't so beautiful, but the lodge itself was magical – lit by candles, and resembling a sandcastle. It is eco to the extreme – solar-powered and vegetarian, with clever water and cooling systems. And it is surrounded by archaeological sites dating back 10,000 years – Nabatean ruins, Roman copper mines, Byzantine churches, neolithic villages. Winter meant we couldn't try the canyoning, but we mountain-biked between the sites, and took tea in Bedouin tents.
We also took a tour of Dana village with Hamed, an RSCN guide. "Since the 1980s, tourism has changed life here," he said. "Before, there was no school, no TV, and women had to ask permission to leave the house. Now they go to university."
The village had been deserted when people moved to modern homes close to a new road, and its old stone and juniper wood buildings were crumbling. But the RSCN plans to restore them, and is offering free homes, plus jobs in the restaurants, museum and music venue it hopes to create there to entice villagers back.
We met Nabil, owner of a third of the village buildings, at his decades-old Dana Tower hotel, a low-cost backpackers' place, and a rival to the RSCN's Dana lodge. Though he was all for the restoration, he wasn't a big fan of the RSCN, wanting more decision-making to be in the villagers' hands: "They take money from tourists and spend it on many things. Not enough money goes to local people."
But what Wild Jordan is doing seems far better than other options. Our last stop was the Hammamet Ma'In hotsprings, where King Herod once bathed. Wild Jordan has a Dead Sea visitor centre nearby but no lodge, so we stayed at the posh Evason spa hotel, and swam in pools of 40C under steaming waterfalls.
I asked the manager if they employed local women. "No, women do not work in Jordan," he answered, assuring me that the towering hotel – with its $1,600 suites, Thai masseurs, western food, shuttle buses and luxury Sri Lankan fabrics – was eco-friendly. Sure, it had its own spring water, and an organic vegetable patch, but I am certain the lodges in the new Wild Jordan will offer a more authentic experience.
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Walking in Palestine
Palestine is synonymous with violence, but politics takes a back seat on this extraordinary new walking route where the people are welcoming and the countryside stunning
There was a moment of silence. Then the Palestinian youngsters marched in front of us and I thought to myself, this is where they sing about being martyrs and dying glorious deaths. A gentle breeze swayed the mulberry tree. On the far ridges of the mountains around Nablus, the lights of the illegal Israeli settlements twinkled. This village, I knew, had seen 2,000 acres of olive groves taken by those settlers, plus several lives. An older girl called the group to order then, in English, they launched into their chant.
"I'm a red tomato, you're a green tomato. You're a little cucumber..."
Everyone started to laugh. A walking holiday in Palestine. You've got to laugh really. I laughed a lot on that walk. And this in a part of the world where something horrible is always happening, be it shootings in Hebron, attacks on aid flotillas, or separation walls and rocket attacks. In the middle of such madness, laughter is the most unexpected and valuable pleasure, one that people seize at every opportunity.
It was perhaps appropriate that I started my hike in the far north of the West Bank, within a few miles of a hill called Megiddo, where Pharoah Thutmose III overwhelmed the Canaanite king Durusha in about 1457BC, thus beginning the legend of Armageddon, the site of the Last Battle. With my guide Hejazi, I walked through peaceful fields of wheat past other ancient sites, exploring Roman tombs lost in undergrowth and watching storks circling overhead on their migration north. Our first major stopping point was Jenin, a town whose name is tied inextricably to violence and death. Despite its reputation, however, Jenin turned out to be a friendly market town of Palestinian farmers, a place to gorge on strawberries and almonds, washed down with carob juice sold from huge ornamental brass urns.
I walked around the souk in a bit of a daze. How could reality be so different from expectations? Certainly, the walls were pockmarked with bullet holes from the second intifada, but the martyrdom posters were all faded by the sunshine and people wanted to shake hands. The carob-juice seller adjusted his Ray-Bans and grinned: "Why not join me on Facebook?"
There are several long distance footpaths in Palestine, but the one I was following was the Masar Ibrahim al-Khalil – literally Path of Abraham the Friend of God, simply the Masar for short. This new route stretches across the Middle East, starting at Abraham's birthplace in Sanliurfa, south-east Turkey, and winds south through Syria, Jordan and Israel. Eventually, it could stretch all the way to Mecca, linking existing paths associated with Abraham, and new routes. Its purpose is to promote understanding between different faiths and cultures; it's also intended "as a catalyst for sustainable tourism and economic development". In places the path barely exists yet, in others it is well-worn, but everywhere it needs a guide. Hejazi was my man in Palestine, a person of unending cheerfulness and optimism.
For a Muslim, Hejazi tells me, the idea of a path named after Abraham is attractive since the great patriarch is revered as the "father of hospitality". To Jews and Christians, he is equally important – the starting point for monotheistic worship. The Masar, I discovered, is not some do-gooder peace initiative, but simply a great way to see the landscape and meet people.
The path makes no attempt to follow Abraham's original route, even if such a path could be discovered; rather it links sites that bear legends and folk tales about the man. Our first major site was south of Jenin at Jebel Gerazim, a mountain that stands above the ancient town of Nablus and affords astonishing views west to the Mediterranean and east to the hills of Jordan.
On the summit of the mountain is a tower built by Saladin and some fine, if neglected, Byzantine mosaics guarded by a group of Israeli teenage soldiers. Further down the hillside, we could see the houses of that renowned Jewish sect the Samaritans, a group that still has more than 700 followers.
"The reason the Samaritans revere this place," Hejazi explained, "is because they believe Abraham came here and built his first altar in Canaan."
It was a well-chosen spot to view what Abraham wanted: territory. "Unto thy seed," said his God, "will I give this land." And that was very generous of the Lord, all things considered. Except, of course, that all things had not been considered: previous inhabitants and the sheer fertility of Abraham's seed, which includes not only the 12 tribes of Israel but the prophet Muhammad via Ishmael, fruit of Abraham's union with the serving wench Hagar. And what about all those cousins from Noah's brothers? If Abe's God had spent a few moments considering, he might have foreseen problems.
That evening we stayed in Awata, a village near Nablus where the children sang about red tomatoes. There were tales of horror and violence too – there is no escaping the bloodied history in this land – but it never became overwhelming, as I'd expected. Hassan, our host, was keen to enthuse about the Masar: "It was like a light coming on here," he said. "We got connected to the outside world and that makes us feel hope. Everyone in the village is always asking about when the next walkers are coming."
Like most Palestinian villages, Awata has long since burst out of its ancient walled settlement and sprawled along the hill. But what is fascinating is that, amid the concrete and graffiti, there are sudden glimpses of an ancient world. When we chatted about water resources, Hassan jumped up and hauled open a trapdoor under our feet. Below us was a vast echoing cavern. "It's a Roman water tank," he explained. "We've got three of them."
After a huge feast of chicken, freshly made bread, pickles, salads and yoghurt, Hejazi and I bedded down on mattresses in the living room and slept.
Next morning we started out at 8am, meandering through olive groves and wheat fields. Scents of Persian thyme, wild sage and oregano drifted up from beneath our tramping feet. We stopped at a spring to drink delicious clear water, then pressed on, meeting other walkers as we climbed through meadows of scarlet poppies and butterflies to Jabal Aurma, a bronze age fortress. One of the shocks of doing this path is that the countryside is lovely. Travellers have been returning from the Holy Land with scornful appraisals of its beauty for many centuries. Herman Melville is typically bleak: "Bleached-leprosy-encrustations of curses-old cheese-bones of rocks," he wrote. The image of an ill-fated land has proven hard to budge.
On top of Jabal Aurma we discovered six vast underground storage rooms carved from solid rock, presumably to supply the fort during prolonged sieges. There is never any doubt in Palestine that this land has been a chaotic crossroads for civilisations, armies and tribes for a very long time – that is what makes it fascinating and worth exploring.
Later that day, we emerged on the edge of a grand escarpment looking down to the Jordan Valley, around 800ft below sea level. The wheat fields around us were tiny rocky terraces splashed with the yellow of wild dill. It's a difficult place to farm, and we came across Shakir Murshid with his wife and six children busily harvesting wheat by hand. On a sage bush nearby was the complete shed skin of a viper.
That night we stayed in Douma, a cluster of old stone dwellings long since overgrown by the straggling concrete of modernity. Rural life, however, was pretty much the same as ever: woodpeckers tapped at the trees, wheat fields surrounded the houses and men rode past on donkeys. We spent the evening by a campfire listening to locals sing and play homemade flutes. The patch of flat ground where we had built our fire turned out to be a Roman wine press, empty sadly. Once again we slept in someone's living room, under the eyes of family martyrs.
Our third day took us further south near the springs of Ain Samiya, now a water source for Jerusalem. We spotted chameleons in the bushes, whistling rock hyraxes and huge flightless crickets, then clambered up a delightful gorge, taking narrow shepherds' trails along the cliff face. By evening we approached the village of Kufer Malik, a place that was to hold perhaps the biggest surprises. The first came at a huge hacienda-style house, where the whole family came out to invite us in for coffee. "Do you speak Spanish?" asked the husband. "I learned it in Columbia."
Kufer Malik, bizarrely, is a little enclave of Latin America in Palestine. When we found our hosts for the night, the old man of the family, Hosni al-Qaq, explained: "In the 30s when times were hard here, my uncle decided to seek his fortune in America. He ended up selling shirts in Columbia, then got a shop and then a supermarket. He became very rich." Hosni smiled ruefully. "My father on the other hand stayed behind and was killed in the first intifada."
"And did other men go?"
"Oh yes, lots and lots, and then they spread out into other countries. There are now more than 800 descendants of this village in Brazil alone."
The effect of this exposure to the outside world on Kufer Malik has been electrifying. The men are hard-working and ambitious; the women assertive and independent-minded. Hiba, our hostess, had been to the Côte d'Azur to see what it was like. "We camped on the beach in Nice," she said proudly. "It was lovely."
So was her cooking: roast chicken, rice, vegetables and musahn, a flat bread cooked with sumac and onions.
"What would you do if a Jewish person came to stay?" I asked.
"No problem," they all said eagerly. "We've had one Jewish lady from America already and another from Brazil. Everyone is welcome here."
After dinner, the men sat out in the yard smoking shisha pipes. When they spoke Spanish, they looked like pure Columbians to me: all macho body language and grand gestures. When they spoke Arabic, they were Palestinian farmers again.
Our fourth day took us to Abu Taybah, home to the West Bank's only brewery – owned and run by a Palestinian Christian family (there are around 55,000 Palestinian Christians). After a glass of deliciously cold lager we moved on, walking down Wadi Qult to the marvellous fourth-century cliff-side monastery of St George, then on to Jericho.
The end of the Masar comes in Hebron, whose old city has been a dangerous flashpoint over the years. Zionist settlers have seized buildings in the market area – which has to be roofed with netting now to prevent rocks and rubbish raining down on shoppers. All of Abraham's progeny want a piece of the action here and the mosque has been forcibly divided to create a Muslim and a Jewish section. On one side, I found Indian Muslims praying and taking photos; on the other Jews from New York and Tel Aviv were doing the same. The Tomb of the Patriarchs, of course, looks pretty similar from either angle, though neither community, sadly, ever gets to see that fact.
Out in the street a shopkeeper invited me to have coffee. He was sitting with Micha, a former Israeli soldier turned peace activist, a young freckle-faced man with a friendly smile. What had convinced him to adopt what many Israelis see as a traitorous approach?
"Small things. It started when I was a soldier, talking at checkpoints to Palestinians, seeing what the settlers were doing, and what we were doing to protect them."
At that moment a Palestinian lady came over. They introduced themselves. "So now you work for peace?" she asked. "But I have to ask: did you kill any Palestinians?"
Around the shopfront where people were taking coffee and chatting, everyone froze. There was a long silence while Micha considered his reply. "I'd rather not say."
"I think you should," the woman said. "For any reconciliation, you have to."
A murmur of agreement passed through the small crowd. Micha thought again. "The truth is, I don't know. At Abu Sinaina we did shoot, but it was from far away."
"At Abu Sinaina? Then you killed at least five."
There was a pause and then Micha nodded. The Palestinian lady smiled. "You are welcome at my house. You must come for lunch."
They exchanged addresses and Micha promised that he would visit.
What is remarkable about the Masar walk is that religion and politics mostly take a back seat, allowing ordinary people to climb out of the foxholes of prejudice and suspicion. When that happens, Palestine becomes so much more than a brief and violent television news clip. I saw gazelles running on hillsides, tasted the local cuisine and enjoyed conversation on everyday topics. I climbed down inside bronze age burial chambers, tracked hyenas into their lairs inside Roman tombs and lay on the benches in Nablus's marvellous Turkish baths, discussing the best way to pickle olives. The problems of Israel's land-grabbing tactics remain: the wall is still standing and unsmiling teenage soldiers at checkpoints demand to see passports.
The Masar is not for those who want private rooms or special treatment. It is intense and sometimes emotionally draining. There were moments when I felt rage about the injuries and injustices. But, more than anything, this was a life-affirming and exhilarating experience that will stay with me like few others.
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Oman's desert island
Though Oman is the tourist hotspot of the Arabian peninsula, the remote island of Masirah is barely known, but that may soon change
The moonlight stippled the breakers with silver. On the beach a large loggerhead turtle was busy excavating, flipping flurries of sand away behind her. There was a 10-minute pause as she laid her eggs, then, the moonlight illuminating the barnacles on her shell, she heaved her way back to the sea and slithered out of sight. An unforgettable Masirah episode.
Masirah, an island off the south-east coast of Oman, is the latest area of the country to open up to tourism. Visitors who venture beyond the capital, Muscat, tend to take in the jaw-dropping Musandum fjords in the north and even the desert landscapes of the Empty Quarter, but very few have so far made it to Masirah.
Breezes off the Arabian Sea mean Masirah is 10 degrees cooler than the baking mainland for much of the year, and it has outstanding natural attractions – not least vast numbers of nesting turtles. Getting there, however, involves a 500km drive from Muscat, followed by a 1½-hour ferry crossing. Fortunately, the route down the coast makes for a memorable trip.
The first leg of my journey, with driver Said, took us past the al-Hajar mountains, shouldering up dramatically from the coastal plain. At the village of Fins we stopped at a perfect deserted beach where pale sand edged into plate-glass water beside a limestone cliff weathered to the texture of a giant loofah.
To reach the southern coast and the ferry to Masirah, we had to skirt the Wahiba Sands, 4,800 square miles of desert made famous by explorer Wilfred Thesiger. Dunes stretched out of sight, fine sand rising off them like smoke as the winds reshaped and resculpted them.
The Masirah ferry cast off after sunset and ploughed across the strait under a full moon. Next morning I took stock of my new surroundings: a desert island amid turquoise water. Goats and camels foraged in parched scrub and low acacia bushes, often wandering across the road. There's an interior of barren hills and eerie alien landscapes. Footprints and tyre marks on golden beaches leave black tracks as they penetrate to volcanic sediment below.
The island's tiny town, Hilf, has a few shops and a handful of cafes and restaurants. You can camp on the beaches and there are a couple of small guesthouses.
Watersports are a key attraction, and kayaking will soon be added to the list. "This is a paradise for kitesurfers," says Alex Friesl, manager of Kite Boarding Oman (kiteboarding-oman.com), who rents out equipment and runs a Bedouin-style camp on the island's west coast. "There's always wind here, the lagoon is very shallow and the water is warm: it's ideal."
Wildlife is the other lure. During a boat trip, I saw a pod of half a dozen bottlenose dolphins, often curving out of the water in pairs. Flying fish skipped along the surface and, occasionally, a leathery turtle's head protruded before descending again in clouds of bubbles.
Over spangled emperor fish in the island's Turkish restaurant, I met Andy Willson, one of Masirah's marine conservationists. "Four species of turtle nest here and the island is number one in the world for loggerheads," he said. "And there's a school of 80 or so humpback whales, unique in that they are not migratory." The island is also frequented by 300 species of bird, many of them rare.
Oman Air is considering flights from Muscat to Masirah next year, as well as a ferry service. If this sounds ominous, the government is committed to keeping visitor levels sustainable, and the conservationists are busy. "Masirah has a low population and has so far been isolated, so there has been a breathing space for conservation measures," says Willson, but we intend for that to continue."
• Oman Air (08444 822309, omanair.com) flies from Heathrow to Muscat from £317 return. For vehicle rental and other information see omantourism.gov.om. Masirah has four hotels, including the luxury Swiss-Bel Hotel (oman-masirah.swiss-belhotel.com) but there are very few restrictions on camping
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Algiers, north Africa's white lady
Few travellers visit Algeria these days but the country's capital – famous for its brilliant light – has a beauty that belies its recent violent history
Isn't is strange that a gigantic country with some of the most beautiful coastline on Earth, a luminous hinterland of mountains vast and deserts idle, crowned with the most alluring capital city I know, should be just three hours from London and almost unvisited by travellers?
We used to go: well-to-do Victorians loved wintering in Algeria. But modernity has been cruel to this great gorgeous land, and even by the standards of war-torn Africa, Algeria's is an awful story. We associate it with the violent end of French colonialism, civil war in the 90s that cost up to 200,000 lives, and sporadic terror attacks. But this is a gross underestimation of a magical place, and a delightful and beguiling people.
With its Phoenician, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Barbary pirate and French colonial heritage, Algeria has a hoard to dazzle any enthusiast of culture, architecture, literature, art, design, ornithology, botany or geography. I went, apprehensively, because I was following migrating swallows from Cape Town to Wales. At the airport, they impounded my binoculars – unwelcome because of "security". Policemen toted Kalashnikovs. "Security!" everyone said, cheerfully. "Bon courage!"
As it turned out, I felt as safe there as anywhere in Africa, and had the pleasure of discovering a world beyond guidebooks. I made lucky decisions: with my money and my visa running out, I resolved to throw all that remained of both at Algiers – "Alger la blanche" (Algiers the white). I loved it all: the foaming purple bougainvillea; the scents of mimosa, pine, spice and coffee; the roads floating through hillsides above the great sea; the Ottoman palaces; the scent of grilling lamb in the warren of the casbah; the harbour front with its snowy colonial buildings endlessly colonnaded (the old post office looks like a palace of ice-cream; no wonder Le Corbusier was in awe of Algiers) and the rich dark cafes… I wanted never to leave.
The casbah is a Unesco world heritage site, a burnt umber miracle, sweet with the song of goldfinches. The neo-Byzantine cathedral of Notre Dame D'Afrique is remarkable: the inscription within, "Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and the muslims", is a hopeful sentiment.
In the casbah, older cafe owners will tell you how they survived French paratroopers. ("We lived in the walls", one said. "In the walls, you understand?") The Great Mosque of Algiers is one of the few remaining examples of Almoravid architecture, with a 14th-century minaret. Just inland from the port, off the main street, is where most of the restaurants are. Follow your nose: mine led me to the most delicious lamb chops I have ever eaten – and as a Welshman I take chops seriously. And Algerian coffee is superb. The Martyrs' Monument is a strange and rather awful triple-pillared concrete structure. It looks like what it is – an outraged howl of mourning raised to the sky.
All Algiers goes down to the seafront to relax: here are lovely spaces in which to meet the locals (Algerians treasure their few visitors) and to wonder at the shattered piles of fishermen's houses below the sea wall, where people lived just above the waves.
My other good decision was to stay at the expensive but unforgettable El Djazair hotel, popularly known by its former title, the St George. The new wing is excellent. Crucially, the efficient management will fax you a confirmation of your reservation, which you will need for your visa if you go independently. (The Algerian embassy issues visas on the 21st of each month.) Once in Algeria, you are at liberty to travel where you will.
If God were to grant Algeria an overdue break, and lift her out of the grasping claws of President Bouteflika's clique and beyond the fists of its tiny extremist minority, Algiers would be the San Francisco of the region, gateway to deserts, mountains and coasts beyond reckoning. (Reputable companies offer tours to Tamanrasset, the Touareg capital of the Sahara.) In the spring the Kabylia region, in the north-east, is said to be like paradise. The coastal town of Tipaza, west of Algiers, is so beautiful that French writer Albert Camus said it taught him the meaning of glory – love without limit.
As it is, Algeria has the clearest light I have ever seen, and she needs you – to see her, to appreciate her and, in beginning to know her, to help her out of the shadows.
• El Djazaïr Hotel (hoteleldjazair.dz) has doubles from £195. British Airways (ba.com) flies from Heathrow to Algiers from £260 return. From 2011 Explore (0844 499 0901, explore.co.uk) has a three-night Algiers & Ancient Kingdoms break (plus optional excursions to Cherchell and Tipaza), from £937 including flights, B&B and tour guide.
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Back to Bahrain
His search for the exotic paradise of his childhood proved elusive, but 25 years on our writer discovers a new side to Bahrain, the 'Kingdom of the Two Seas'
Time rolls neatly back as I step out of the airport into the steam-room atmosphere of the August night. It is 25 years since my family left Bahrain, but this sensation feels so familiar, I might have been here yesterday, stumbling about behind misted spectacles in the stunning heat.
I press my face against the windows of the chauffeur-driven car as it swoops across a swathe of newly reclaimed land around Manama, capital of the small island country. Here and there, lonely skyscrapers rise from the dust. The city is glamorous now – but not quite so glamorous as it seemed to me then, as an eight-year-old boy from Shropshire, dazzled by swimming pools and hotel brunches.
This island kingdom in the Arabian Gulf was my paradise. I spent two years here and fell in love with its heat and light, its stark, rocky interior and lush palm groves, its ancient monuments and rambling souks. So it is with trepidation that I have returned, fearing the change wrought by development.
In the hushed twilight of the Ritz Carlton, I wander through the grounds after dinner and lie on a damp sunlounger in the darkness of the hotel's beach. Behind me, the desert. Above me, the huge sky. Before me, the inky black sea. There, Persia; there, Arabia; and far, far over the curve of the earth, Africa and India. I'm on an island in the middle of the world. Since the third millennium BC, Bahrain has stood at a crossroads, attracting imperial powers – Babylon, Persia, Portugal, Britain – and welcoming immigrants.
The world is vast – I feel it – and the island and I are very small. That is how I felt Bahrain as a child; now, I feel it again. And next morning this instinct is reflected by history as I wander around the National Museum, a low building of pale stone on the waterfront in Manama.
Archaeologists once imagined that in ancient times the island was a vast necropolis for a neighbouring culture. How else to account for the tens of thousands of burial mounds across its desert? But in recent decades the ruins of towns and temples have been uncovered, yielding a hoard of little treasures – delicate carnelian jewellery, lustrous pottery, votive figurines and tiny seals – discs etched with religious and erotic scenes involving men and gods, animals and horned monsters.
The story of their discovery is laid out here and in the lofty galleries of the new Qal'at al-Bahrain Museum. It sits beside the country's richest ancient site, where the remains of six successive settlements are crowned by a gargantuan 16th-century Portuguese fort. Most spine-tingling is the suggestion that Bahrain was the land of Dilmun, so admired by the Sumerians for its merchant ships and lush vegetation that they conflated it with paradise. It's an idea that resonates in me, of course, and a gift for the local tourist board.
Now Bahrain's springs are brackish from overuse and I find the quiet old road through the fertile north is a dusty four-lane highway, the roadside palm groves replaced by concrete villas. The desert, too, proves elusive. By the time I find a map that shows wide, pristine stretches in the far south, my erratic pursuit of it has reached such a feverish pitch that I fear I have unnerved Yasser, my laconic driver, and I relent.
My mood is subdued, but Yasser takes a different route home, a little road through coastal villages and the Bahrain of memory. Tamarind and fig trees spill over walls and boats bob in placid bays. In the village of Karrana, where Yasser was born, the air is heavy with mint and the only sounds are birdsong and the call of the muezzin.
In Manama, I return to the fish market, where creatures of the deep – silver, blue and yellow, gauzy pink – transfixed me long ago, piled high on shiny platters in row upon row of tiny tiled stalls. In the souk behind, most of the traders are from India now, but the atmosphere of colourful chaos prevails.
My heart soon draws me across the causeway to the island town of Muharraq, where my family lived. I'm thrilled to find it in the throes of a vigorous cultural revival, centred on efforts to restore old mansions, mosques and warehouses – the legacy of the pearl trade, around which the town's life revolved for centuries.
Concert halls and art galleries, craft centres, cafes and libraries have sprung up in the whitewashed alleyways around the new Sheikh Ebrahim Centre for Culture and Research. Their interiors are lovely, setting sleek modern furniture against the fabric of their historic homes – heavy, elaborate doors and ceilings of mangrove and palm fronds. And I'm told there's more to come – including, to my delight, a House of Architecture, where my father John's elegant drawings of the town – already published in a book, Al Muharraq – will be displayed.
My nostalgia for old Bahrain is now mingled with excitement about its future. I want to go back in the months when it is cooler, when flamingoes come to the wild Hawar islands in the south. I want to see the new National Theatre in Manama, and the museum of pearl diving planned for Muharraq. And I want to investigate further the most intriguing of my new discoveries – fidjeri, the wild songs of sweet sorrow that the pearl divers of old learned from demons in the mosque at Diraz – and in which I fancy the soul of these islands is enshrined.
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Hot spots: what's new in the Middle East
More and more of us are heading to north Africa and the Middle East, and there are plenty of new trips to these ancient lands
Tour operators are reporting a sharp rise in bookings to the Middle East and north Africa as travellers grow more confident about unusual holidays. The Association of Independent Tour Operators said many of its members saw a rise in 2010. Cox & Kings said this is a record year, with bookings to the region up 75% on 2007, while Explore reports an increase of 66% to Syria. Here are some other ideas for trips to these ancient lands.
LebanonSpotting a gap in the market, a group of Lebanese university friends have set up BeBeirut, offering the only guided walks around the Lebanese capital. Their trail winds for more than four hours through many of the city's most characterful neighbourhoods, with guide Ronnie Chatah offering informed, insightful commentary (in fluent English) on his city's past and present – from millionaire mansions to Yasser Arafat's favourite cafe, via Roman baths and Ottoman statuary, alongside tales of Beirut's Armenian, Muslim and Jewish heritage. Regular stops, a coffee break and the downhill route help to focus attention on the stories rather than your feet.
• Book ahead at bebeirut.org. Tours cost £12.60 and run most Saturdays and Sundays
Thanks chiefly to kiteboarder Soufiane Hamaini, the western Saharan coastal town of Dakhla, perched on a finger of land roughly 1,400km south of Casablanca, is fast becoming a serious centre for watersports. Hamaini's company, Kite Morocco, now offers kitesurf and windsurf courses including equipment rental and accommodation in this remote location: learn first on the landward-facing lagoon, then venture across to the ocean side for the real deal.
• +212 661 661863, kitemorocco.com. Beginners' packages from €597, with 14 hours of tuition, seven nights' accommodation in a shared tent, all meals and transfers
Go Eco (goeco.org/israel) has several volunteer projects in Israel and the West Bank, including four to eight weeks volunteering on a wildlife programme in southern Israel's Negev desert (from £200). There are also programmes in eco-tourism and on an eco-kibbutz.
JordanSustainable adventure tourism in Jordan is starting to take off (see page eight), with several new eco-aware operators to get you far off the beaten track. Sarha, for instance, has a five-day itinerary through little-explored northern Jordan, following the newly developed Al-Ayoun trail (which links to Abraham's Path) between highland springs and a network of forested valleys near the ancient site of Pella. Further south, Terhaal is running a new one-day bike ride from Madaba to the Herodian palace at Mukawir, perched above the Dead Sea, which includes dinner with a local family.
• Sarha (sarha.jo). Terhaal (terhaal.com)
Why, you may wonder. Diving is the answer. This bit of the Red Sea isn't touristy, the 1,600km west coast is barely explored, and the drop-offs from the sandy islands of Farasan Banks are exhilarating, and attract turtles.
• A week including flights from Heathrow to Jeddah and liveaboards costs £1,699 with Regaldive (01353 659 999, regal-diving.co.uk)
For a Lawrence-style adventure, Intrepid Travel (intrepidtravel.com) has a 28-day group overland tour from Cairo to Istanbul including the Nile by felucca, the Sinai, Red Sea and Syria.
• From £1,810, including flights
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Restaurant: Gauthier Soho, London W1 | John Lanchester | Food & drink
Our new critic tucks into some seriously good French fare in Soho, but wonders if the chef could do with lightening up just a bit
Food blog: Tell John Lanchester what you want from his reviews
You can learn a lot about a country from its personal ads. In the UK, pretty much everybody claims to have a Good Sense of Humour, or GSOH. But the claim is so widely used that it doesn't mean anything. I often wonder what would happen if, instead of a GSOH, people said they had NSOH (No Sense of Humour), SSOH (Stupid Sense of Humour) or SOHBMOFJ (Sense of Humour Based Mainly On Fart Jokes).
The equivalent word in France is "sérieux". Everybody in French small ads claims to be sérieux, not just potential love partners, but babysitters, window cleaners, plumbers. It means serious with connotations of reliability, dignity, non-flakiness, non-clowniness; more than anything, it includes the idea that you take your work seriously.
Alexis Gauthier is sérieux. He cooked for 13 years at his restaurant Roussillon in Pimlico, establishing a strong local following but not becoming as well known as his food deserves. That's perhaps thanks to the fact that Pimlico is a bit of a non-place, and maybe also a little to his low-key, sérieux nature. Now, however, he's moved towards the bright lights and opened Gauthier Soho in the venue that used to be the Lindsay House. One of the oddities of the place is that it really is a house, which is not the same thing at all as a restaurant: kitchen and dining rooms are on different floors, so there's a lot of stair action. A restaurant has to be very well run to cope with that.
The last time I was in the building was in 2004, on the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, the day on which Ulysses is set: 16 June. The Irish chef Richard Corrigan was running the restaurant, and I wanted to eat some Irish cooking. I mentioned this to a waiter, who recoiled as if I'd said, "I've only just met you, but let's have a gay wedding while skydiving naked." Service is smoother under the new regime – a bit hovery, perhaps, but that goes with all the Michelin palaver. It was 45 minutes from our arrival until the first course came, which would have been really annoying, except there were waves of free nibbles, involving vegetables to dip in a salsa verde, a smidgen of foie gras, and a mullet and squid sort-of escabeche. (One of the vegetable nibbles was a superb chickpea fritter – that's a panisse, as in the legendary Californian restaurant Chez Panisse.) There was also a choice of seven breads accompanied by two olive oils and two butters. There were free bits at the end of the meal, too, in the form of a (delicious) pre-dessert of raspberry, meringue, sorbet and coulis. It is a fandango, and you do have to be in the mood, because the fiddliness continues into the menu, which is a simple and very good-value deal at lunch (£18 for two courses), but in the evening lets you choose three, four or five courses (or "plats") at £35, £45 or £55. This is on-trend for fancy restaurants.
In other respects – the idea that people want a destination restaurant in Soho, the temple-of-gastronomy vibe, the sérieux and very French cooking, the slightly anxious service – the place seemed a bit like time travel. It felt like ambitious restaurants used to feel the last time I was doing this job back in 1995. What redeemed Gauthier Soho was the level of the cooking. This had some quiet patches – a pigeon dish that was a little unemphatic, lamb that also seemed polite – but at its best is truly exceptional. The best thing I ate, a risotto of summer truffles made with chicken stock, was as good a dish as any I've eaten all year, perfect in texture and extraordinary in the intensity of its flavours. I particularly liked that it made a star of summer truffles, which don't usually taste of anything much, but this made an ordinary ingredient into something really exceptional.
Perhaps Gauthier hits the top of his game when he's cooking with unflash ingredients. He says his food is "vegecentric", which is a horrible word, but on the other hand it's clear what he means. If it were my restaurant, I'd serve the cooking with fewer poncey trappings. But Gauthier can really, really cook.
Food blog: Tell John Lanchester what you want from his reviews
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Early renewal a traveller's passport to saving money
If your passport's going to expire in the next nine months, you can save a lot of time and money by renewing it now
If you've arrived back from holiday knowing your passport will expire before next summer's trip, consider renewing it now: leave it and you run the risk of forgetting until your only option is a more expensive, and possibly stressful, last-minute renewal.
You don't have to wait until your passport expires to renew it. If there's any time left on your old one, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) will add it to your new one, up to a maximum of nine months. It is £77.50 to renew a 10-year, 32-page adult passport using the standard service, which usually takes three to four weeks, longer at busy times of year, to process and send out your new passport.
The cost – which has almost doubled over the past five years – is bad enough but leave it until the last minute and you'll pay £112.50 for the one-week service or £129.50 for a one-day renewal. You have to make an appointment to apply in person for these high-speed services by calling Passport Adviceline on 0300 222 0000.
The cost of renewing a child's passport is £49 for the standard service, £96.50 for the one-week service and £109.50 for the premium service.
There is no way around these costs if you want to go abroad unless you were born on or before 2 September 1929, in which case your passport is free. The IPS says it does not make a profit and that fees are all used to cover the costs of providing passport services in the UK. Part of the fee – the consular premium – is added by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and covers the cost of providing consular help to British nationals who find themselves in difficulty overseas.
The IPS recommends you use the Check & Send service offered by main post office branches.
With this, you take your completed application form and supporting documents to the post office where they will check you have filled in the form correctly and that you have included all the supporting documents and fee. They will send off everything to the IPS by secure Royal Mail special delivery.
Applications via Check & Send are less likely to be returned or delayed because of queries, and are usually processed more quickly than standard postal applications. You can expect to receive your new passport in about two weeks, but you pay more — an £8 handling charge to the post office on top of the standard application fee.
IPS forms are available at post office branches, Passport Adviceline on 0300 222 000, or online at passports.ips.gov.uk. You can find a full table of passport fees at direct.gov.uk.
If you are an Irish national living in the UK, beware delays of 12 weeks for renewals, after an industrial dispute at the Passport Office in Dublin.
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How charity can use your unused foreign currency
Got some spare holiday cash? It's usually forgotten, wasted or thrown away. Why not give it to charity instead?
Have you returned from holiday with unwanted currency, or got old foreign coins and notes mouldering away in the back of a drawer?
Visa Europe estimates that UK travellers will have amassed unused foreign currency worth more than £900m by the end of this year.
Some 64% of travellers return from abroad with foreign currency and this year the average holidaymaker is coming home with just over £28 in notes and coins.
Just 5% of people change the money back into sterling. The rest stockpile it at home, with only half planning to use it on their next holiday and at least 10% admitting that the cash will, in all likelihood, languish in a drawer or dressing table indefinitely.
Of the 36% of people who don't bring any currency home, the majority say they try to use it all on their last day, or spend it in airport shops, with a third admitting they buy items they don't really need, or want, in a last-minute bid to get rid of the cash.
Worse still, 17% admit they have thrown away the money on returning, rather than be lumbered with loose change. Only 4% donate it to charity, even though it's easy to hand it over to good causes.
If you are flying home, check whether your airline is one of the many that collect leftover change on board to pass on to charities.
The Change for Good partnership, set up between UNICEF and the international airline industry back in 1987, has, so far, generated more than $70m (£45m) to help vulnerable children in more than 150 countries simply through collecting unused currency from passengers.
British Airways, having previously been part of the UNICEF partnership for 15 years, this June launched a global charity partnership called "Flying Start" with Comic Relief, to which all future in-flight currency collections will go.
The airline has pledged to raise up to £8m by 2013, partly through such collections, for the charity's projects to help vulnerable and disadvantaged children in the UK and around the world.
Virgin Atlantic similarly runs an onboard charitable appeal, "Change for Children" which supports global sustainable development programmes through in-flight collections of spare currency, each month raising an average of £45,000.
If you arrive home with coins and notes you could afford to donate, then check with your favourite charity how best to pass it on to them. It is unlikely that any will turn down your offer and most can accept any currency, however obscure — even defunct pre-euro currencies such as old Spanish pesetas or Greek drachma.
You can find the contact details of any registered charity at the Charity Commission website charitycommission.gov.uk.
If it is a large charity with high street shops, such as Oxfam or Barnardo's, the easiest way to donate is to drop off your foreign cash at the store.
Age UK, for example, welcomes currency brought in to any Age UK, Help the Aged or Age Concern shop, and also has collection points at any branch of Coventry Building Society and at shopping centres Orchards in Dartford, The Mall Falkirk and The Mall Gloucester.
You can even download a foreign currency recycling poster from the Age UK website if you want to arrange a collection at your local school, college, church or workplace. And, if you manage to collect coinage weighing over 8kg – that is about five mugs full – the charity will arrange to collect it from you. Call them on 0800 169 8787 or email recycling@ageuk.org.uk.
Marks & Spencer Money's "Change 4 Change" scheme for converting foreign and outdated currency into funds for Breakthrough Breast Cancer lets you donate your unwanted coins or notes at any M&S Bureau de Change, located in each of the retailer's 300 major stores.
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Five-star hotel brings a touch of luxury to Cape Town's regeneration
With the opening of the Taj Cape Town, will the city prove the broken windows theory of urban decay?
The broken windows theory of urban decay first appeared in the magazine The Atlantic in 1982. Social scientists James Q Wilson and George L Kelling proposed that little problems, such as broken windows, can soon become big ones – squatting, vandalism and violent crime.
It's been a seductive idea ever since: that fixing windows, picking up litter and scrubbing graffiti are snowflakes that can trigger an avalanche of regeneration, returning middle classes and Starbucks all round.
In South Africa's great cities, the fight is on. Johannesburg has developments in unfashionable areas, such as the boutique shops of 44 Stanley Avenue and the creative hub Arts on Main. I recently witnessed the opening of 12 Decades, the city's first "art hotel" in a renovated building deep in the urban underbelly. Each room takes a decade of Johannesburg's history as its theme; one has apartheid legislation printed in the toilet bowl.
A decade ago Cape Town city centre was seen by many as a no-go area: daylight muggings, boarded-up buildings and parking attendants on the make. More than a few windows have been repaired since then, and last weekend there was more evidence of renaissance: the opening of a five-star hotel.
The Taj Cape Town is a sister of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, recently reopened after the 2008 terrorist attacks. It brings Indian decor and "refined Indian hospitality", and a spin-off of London's Bombay Brasserie, to a once unfriendly corner of the Mother City.
As in the US, city centres tend to be more dynamic, beautifully ugly and historically evocative than the safe but bland suburbs. The 177-room Taj Cape Town has plenty of ghosts, as it occupies the former premises of the South African Reserve Bank (1932) and Temple Chambers (1896), combined with a newly constructed tower.
Adapting old buildings is one short cut to character. Much of the original banking hall is intact, with its carved clock, sash windows and grand chandelier. Up high are the two balconies where minstrels entertained customers as they queued to make their deposits or withdrawals.
In the roof is a curved skylight made with scientific precision: in 1929 the architect James Morris bullied the astronomer royal into measuring the position of shadows month by month so he could maximise the amount of direct sunlight in the hall.
This was a gilded age, after all, up to a point. There are four columns that were originally meant to be made of marble imported from Sweden, but after a court case and an outcry from taxpayers, the architect settled for cheaper Portuguese Styros marble in cream and brown.
I was among American, Australian, European and Indian journalists invited to the hotel's grand opening last weekend. We had been promised an appearance by Jacob Zuma, who had been over the road at St George's Cathedral, but the president was a no-show, possibly fearful that cutting ribbons at luxury hotels would jar with striking nurses and teachers.
From a marquee, we walked up a red carpet, through the old bank's giant bronze gates and local Paarl granite facade. The crowd of faces was mainly white or Indian with a small black minority. There was a speech from Ratan Tata, the Indian tycoon whose Tata Group owns the Taj hotels, about India's affinity with South Africa and references to Gandhi and Mandela.
I stood with American and Indian journalists, musing on the significance of this Indian initiative. "There's a sense in the US that our best days are behind us," said the American. "The 20th century was the American century, but now we're in the Asian century with China and India. It looks fairly inevitable."
Among the guests was Andrew Boraine, chief executive of the Cape Town Partnership, which has led the renewal campaign. He took us on a guided tour of the immediate neighbourhood, one of the most historically rich in South Africa.
People have been living in this region for at least 70,000 years – it's one of the oldest areas of human settlement on the planet. At least two millennia ago, the Khoisan and Khoikhoi people would bring their livestock to what they called Camissa (place of sweet water).
The sun rose and the sun set and nothing changed, making it easy to pretend they were alone in the universe. Then one day the aliens came.
The Dutch East India Company set up a refreshment station and began taxing the indigenious people. And so centuries of conflict over water and land began here.
The company set up a lodge where it is believed that up to 9,000 slaves, convicts and mentally ill people were held between 1679 and 1811. The building later became the Cultural History Museum, which in apartheid terms meant white cultural history. Black culture was put in the Natural History Museum.
Just a few minutes' walk away is a public artwork that commemorates the day in 1989 when police fired a water cannon with purple dye at pro-democracy protesters so they could identify and arrest them. One demonstrator leapt on to the vehicle and seized the cannon, turning it on to the police and National Party headquarters. Later a piece of graffiti declared: "The purple shall govern."
Parliament, the 350-year-old Company's Garden, the National Gallery, the South African Museum and numerous other sites are all within walking distance. I ambled around St George's, where Desmond Tutu once rallied the faithful against apartheid, and thought myself back in England amid the carved pews, stained glass and stone effigies.
The memorials on the wall speak of brief lives: "Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth. In memory of Adriaan Carl Johannes Bouwer, aged 16, Sunday school teacher, whose life of good promise was cut short by a fatal fall on Table Mountain, September 27th 1883, on the eve of the cathedral confirmation, September 29th. Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not, Psalm 17:5."
Another reads: "In memory of Montague Treby Molesworth, lieutenant in the Royal Navy, who died on board HMS Cleopatra March 25th 1844, of spear wounds received on the 23rd in an unforeseen and general attack made by the natives of the west coast of Madagascar on the unarmed crew of the Pinnace under his command while actively engaged in weighing the anchor of their ship ...
"In this barbrous outrage, the work of two minutes, and result of a defeated attempt at theft, seven out of 13 brave men lost their lives with their gallant officer. Thus was his bright career arrested ere 24 summers had dawned upon him, yet in that brief space, he had proved himself by his prowess and presence of mind in the moment of danger all a British sailor should be."
The Taj Cape Town hotel is on Wale Street, Cape Town, South Africa.
David Smithguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Walking through the heart of Palestine
Palestine conjours up TV images of violence, but Kevin Rushby finds amazing landscapes and warm hospitality on a remarkable new walk that traces the path of Abraham
Kevin RushbyGetting there information for Palestine
How to do the Masar walk along Abraham's path, plus flights and practical information for Palestine
Getting there
Jet2.com flies from Manchester to Tel Aviv, from £99 one way. A four-day walk along the Masar (abrahampath.org/palestine.php), including guides, home-stay accommodation and meals with families, costs £400pp (or £570 with two nights in Jerusalem and one in Bethlehem). Tours are run by Palestinian operator, the Siraj Center (+972 2 274 8590, sirajcenter.org, email michel@sirajcenter.org).
Further information
Check the Foreign Office website (fco.gov.uk) for travel advice on Palestine.
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Algae sparks safety fears for Big Swim
Over 9,000 entrants told by text to await new date after safety fears for event in Lake District
Britain's biggest wild swimming event has been postponed at the last minute because of safety fears about blue-green algae in lake Windermere.
More than 9,000 entrants for the Great North Swim have been told by text to stand down from the event, which had been expected to attract at least 15,000 spectators to the Lake District.
Organisers are hoping to reschedule the swim before cold weather makes it impractical this year, with hundreds of thousands of pounds of charity sponsorship at stake. But they only have a small window of opportunity, with the finale of Britain's open swimming series due at Salford Quays in Greater Manchester on 26 September.
Successive waves of swimmers tackling courses of up to two miles were to have included Olympic medallists and celebrities such as the Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham. The swim was launched two years ago with 2,000 entrants, grew to 6,000 last year and saw all places taken within six weeks this time.
Organisers of the event said that final checks by safety staff had revealed the scale of the algae problem.
In a message to participants, the group said: "The decision has unfortunately had to be made because of the prevalence of blue-green algae and the impact that this may have on your safety in the water.
"We realise that the postponement will affect many people, but the safety of all swimmers has to be our number one priority at all times."
All those involved will be texted again by Tuesday with information about a new date, if one can be found, or deferral until next year. Refunds of entry fees have also been offered to those unable to change their plans.
A spokeswoman for the swim said: "It's very last minute but the algae can come and go in matter of hours and we have to check levels constantly. We're really hoping for conditions to settle so that we can fix a new date."
Tests in June showed no build-up of the algae in Windermere, but the national park has seen a combination of warm and wet weather, which favours the bloom, after a prolonged drought. Blue green algae can cause skin rashes on contact or vomiting, eye infections and diarrhoea if swallowed by mistake.
Organiser David Hart said: "There had been no indication of an algae problem until samples were taken on Tuesday by the Environment Agency. Once it arrives, it can increase astonishingly quickly. Yesterday, for instance, the water was crystal clear in places where by afternoon it was like pea soup.
"It's terribly disappointing. We've got elite competitors already here, the course set up and TV crews ready. We hope we can reschedule before water and air temperatures fall, but the forecast is not looking helpful. It's lovely in one way – warm, sunny weather predicted – but after recent rains which washed natural material into the lake, that sort of weather is what the algae likes.
"The only consolation is that people already here, and any visitors this weekend, are set for glorious weather in the Lake District."
The decision to postpone the event led to stunned disappointment, with would-be entrants clubbing together to try to find alternatives. The Outdoor Swimming Society's Facebook page gives details of a substitute event at the Capernwray diving site near Carnforth on the edge of the Lake District, if enough participants are willing to take part.
Organisers describe it as "an attempt to salvage something from the weekend for everyone as gutted as us."
Martin Wainwrightguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
London to Stavanger by road
Debbie Lawson takes the slow route north on a camping road trip along Norway's stunning south coast
When the last direct ferry between Britain and Norway set sail in 2008, severing a historic maritime link between the two countries, it also called time on Norway's popular Newcastle booze cruise, and forced holidaymakers into the air. But for those who still hanker after the romance of slow travel – and the convenience of arriving in one of the most expensive countries in Europe with a car full of beer and provisions from one of the cheapest – there is another way.
Lured by the image of pristine sandy beaches backed by forest and nature reserves, we set off from London to the south coast of Norway by car: a round trip of 1,390 miles by road, plus sea crossings. Having our own wheels meant we could take as much camping gear as we liked; Norway's accommodation costs are notoriously high, but its campsites and log cabins are cheap and plentiful – and in the best locations. The trip would start on an overnight ferry to the Hook of Holland, followed by a leisurely jaunt to the German border, a frantic dash up the autobahn to Denmark and finally, at the tip of continental Europe, a short ferry ride across the Skagerrak strait to the southernmost point of Norway. On the way back we'd treat ourselves to a luxurious overnight sea crossing from Esbjerg (half-way down Denmark) to Harwich, only two hours' drive from home. In the process we would take six ferries, stay in some of northern Europe's most dramatically situated campsites and make use of Scandinavia's highly recommended breakdown and recovery services.
The summer season in Norway is short and intense, and the southern coast, which enjoys the country's longest hours of sunshine, is a popular holiday destination among Norwegians, though little known to outsiders. Most foreign visitors head straight for the fjords to the north, passing over some spectacular coastal scenery, where clear sparkling water laps the shores of deserted boulder-strewn beaches dotted with crooked pine and spruce trees, shaped and worn by glaciation and the harsh winter winds.
"Expect to see a pair of BMW headlights up your arse all the way through Germany," I was warned. This turned out to be no exaggeration. But by comparison, the roads of southern Norway are a gentle cruise. Single-lane motorways with a top speed of 80kmph are flanked by gentle mountain slopes and small wooden lakeside houses. The comfortable Color Line ferry makes the three-hour crossing from Hirtshals in Denmark to Norway 11 times a day in summer, depositing travellers in the seaside resort of Kristiansand. In the onboard duty-free shop, along with bottles of vodka and gin, passengers can buy joints of ham and large chicken portions from big freezer compartments – a sign if ever there was one that your pound isn't going to go far when you reach dry land. From Kristiansand you can drive east towards Oslo or west to Stavanger. It's not an easy decision: you could spend a whole fortnight just campsite-hopping along the stunning coast between here and the capital.
We do just that and head north-east. At Hove Camping, one of the many sites along this coast – Norway's very own riviera – the dilapidated caravans and tents parked under the trees on the island of Tromoy, just off the mainland, are surrounded by sea, weird windswept copses and wild flowers. Knackered old mobile homes come alive in August, when city dwellers decamp here from Oslo, dusting off their barbecues and reacquainting themselves with old friends, some of whom have been coming here for 20 years despite long ago emigrating to Spain and Portugal. Most of the campsites hire out huts – cosy wooden chalets offering basic accommodation for up to six people, with cooking facilities and flowery curtains, an outside standpipe and a deck where you can sit and watch the nuthatches while enjoying the Danish beer you bought on the way.
Hove is known among music lovers for its festival, held each June, where 10,000 people gather to hear bands such as Florence and the Machine, Muse and Vampire Weekend belting out their songs in an old military encampment next to the nature reserve. Festivals seem to be a way of life here, especially in July and August. There are horse festivals, Viking festivals, even accordion festivals. At Arendal, a few miles up the coast, there's a slow food festival. Unni Ramsvatn, one of the originators of the slow food movement in Norway, runs Bjellandstrand Gard, a bakery and restaurant set in a rose garden and small orchard on the north-east side of Tromoy, just up from Hove Camping. Built on foundations laid by occupying German forces during the second world war, this former farm building turned watering hole is a labour of love for Unni and her husband, Jon, who serve up healthy salmon and couscous salads, bread from their wood-fired oven and vast slices of cake to weekend visitors. "It was almost impossible to buy a cup of coffee before on this island," says Jon.
In Arendal, there is no shortage of coffee shops. The old town, with its whitewashed wooden houses and harbourside boutiques, also has a fish market and restaurant and, according to Monica at the tourist office there, a very nice boat trip to the island of Merdo, where you can camp for up to two days. In fact that was exactly where we were headed before a mechanical fault brought us to an unscheduled stop. Still, there are worse places to break down than coastal Norway – especially if you have your own onboard stocks and a mobile phone. After a few running repairs we waved the empty tow truck off and headed back west along the coast to Mandal, the other side of Kristiansand, taking in the famous towns of Grimstad, home to the Ibsen museum, and Lillesand – a tidy little waterside settlement not unlike Henley on Thames, with cobbled streets, white picket fences and carefully trimmed lawns stretching right down to the sea.
Mandal is famous for Sjosanden beach: 800m of perfect sand at the edge of Furulunden Nature Park. There's a handful of campsites near Mandal, but the beachside Sjosanden Holiday Centre is hard to beat. Roe deer graze among the tents, and the accommodation ranges from wooden cabins to a small "motel" arranged around a flower-filled courtyard. It has a whiff of the holiday camp about it, but the low-key Scandinavian architecture ensures that the site remains in keeping with its natural setting. We explored some of the paths into the surrounding woods on foot and by bikes hired from the tourist office, then took the long, twisty road to Lindesnes Fyr, a red and white cast iron lighthouse built on the site of the first lighthouse beacon in Norway, at its remote and windswept southernmost point. In the rugged grounds, the small cafe prides itself on its rhubarb muffins, made using fruit from the lighthouse garden.
Local skipper Magnus Midling-Jenssen's boat-hire business offers visitors a great way to take in the local sights, including an old herring factory, the Spangereid Canal and rows of 17th-century houses in the historic coastal village of Svinor. Magnus is the archetypal salty old seadog. Full of stories and local lore, he operates his empire from a little yellow hut – "my crisis centre" – next to the house he built on the edge of the land. The water is heaving with salmon and cod, he says, and for about £20 a day you get world-class fishing.
Leaving the beach behind, we took the old winding coastal road – the famous Highway 44 – towards Stavanger, passing through countryside of dazzling green, by farms and lighthouses and cows grazing in boulder fields right next to the sea. A string of interesting villages along the coast include otherworldly Brusand, which has its own international art gallery, Nordisk Kunst Plattform. Just an hour to the north of Stavanger are mountains and the start of the fjords. Campers are spoilt for choice here, and a network of ferries whisks you and your car into the undulating countryside, and forests of giant fir trees where moose roam – though the only one you're likely to see is the one on the ubiquitous bumper sticker.
Stavanger itself feels like a city that has everything but is small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. Vast cruise ships fill the horizon and around every corner is something to explore: quirky shops and cafes, smart seafood restaurants, a stately old town and museums celebrating the city's glorious past as herring capital and centre of the oil industry. As we surveyed this prosperous scene from a harbourside bar, a group of Norwegian financiers pointed out that when the sea border was drawn between the UK and Norway, it clipped the oil fields. A smidgen the other way and all this could have been ours.
Getting thereFERRIES
Harwich to the Hook of Holland: Crossings from £61 single for a car and two adults. Cabins start from £11pp on day crossings or £18.50pp overnight (two-berth cabins, based on two sharing); stenaline.co.uk.
Esbjerg to Harwich: crossings from £232 for a car and two adults, including ensuite cabin; dfdsseaways.co.uk.
Hirtshals to Kristiansand: economy car packages from £45 one way; colorline.com.
CAMPING
Hove Camping, Tromoy; hovecamping.no, +47 37 08 54 79. Tents NOK 180 (£19) per night plus electricity, caravans Nok 210 per night plus electricity, four-bed cabins from NOK 400 per night.
Sjosanden Holiday Centre, 4504 Mandal; sjosanden-feriesenter.no, +47 38 26 10 94. Tents NOK 110 per night, caravan NOK 170; motel NOK 700 for doubles/twins in summer, cabins NOK 1,200 in summer (sleeping up to six).
FURTHER INFORMATION
Bjellandstrand Gard: Bjelland, 4818 Færevik (near Arendal); +47 37 09 44 49, visitnorway.com. Lunch buffet of local homemade food for £14 per person.
Lindesnes Fyr: 4521 Spangereid; +47 38 25 54 20, lindesnesfyr.no. Entry fee: £4.50 per adult, children under 12 go free.
Magnus Midling-Jenssen has holiday houses and apartments for rental in the Mandal and Lindesnes area as well as boat trips and sea fishing; norges-ferie.no, +47 38 25 60 88.
Nordisk Kunst Plattform is at Brusand Togstasjon (train station); nkplattform.no
Debbie Lawsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
