I wouldn’t put this up in summer - these beaches can get crowded. or some of them can - not all. But now autumn is arriving you might go to any of these and find yourself alone. Which would be wonderful…. Anyway, this is my shortlist of 10 Great West Country Beaches If you enjoy this article you might also like Exploring the Lizard Pedn Vounder: My No1 favourite. Just thinking of its perfect rocks, sea and sand makes me want to jump in the car and drive the 160 miles it would

I am in the process of writing a plethora of articles about a recent trip to Anhui Province in China - but some reason I can’t quite put my finger on I decided to knock out a quick piece about Chinese motorway service stations and the truly weird and perhaps not so wonderful food that you can find to help fuel you on your way. Curiously, at none of the service stations we stopped at was anyone - not a single soul - eating in the restaurants. They were open. They were big and

Not a sniff all summer… Strange, because in recent years there have been plenty of delicious edible fungi popping up in the South West thanks, perhaps, to the warm wet weather we get nowadays. At the time of writing, though, 2024 hasn’t been up to much.  In our normally fungi-filled neck of the woods, I have only managed to collect a handful of chanterelles and a small basket of field mushrooms. A don’t know about mushrooms being magic - moody mushrooms would be more accurate

The idea that one can leave one’s remote English home in the morning and be somewhere very foreign indeed by lunchtime will never cease to excite me, yet I know members of younger generations who shrug it off as being an ordinary fact of everyday life. Perhaps it’s because I can remember when such a thing was rare - the preserve of the rich. Now most people enjoy blasting abroad once in a while and we are fortunate to have a regional airport that makes it all the more easy to

There’s nothing quite like stumbling upon a location you’ve never visited before and discovering it to be surprisingly scenic and enjoyable. It is particularly rewarding for West Country folk when we come across some delightful corner of the coast outside our region, because we tend to be pretty much spoilt when it comes to having lovely bays and beaches in our own backyard. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting too much when, for family reasons, we found ourselves heading

Many years ago I wrote an article about my father’s great friend, one Harry Horrobin, who was a well known figure with his wife Betty living in the village where Iu reside now. The article was published in The Guardian and recently someone sent me a cutting… He are the words I wrote, taken from a very old file of mine filled with old bit of copy paper… HARRY HORROBIN is a retired blacksmith who can’t resist a symbolic cut when he’s out snowballing. Once it’s done, he gives h

The West Country plum season is in full swing, although many trees (mine included) aren’t up to much this year.  Plums grow well in certain  parts of the region but, alas, many local varieties have disappeared. Which is a real shame because we hear more and more complaints about the blandness of the fruits on offer in supermarkets – products which often have travelled halfway around the planet to get here.  How things have changed since the people of Truro used to turn out en

Sometimes you have to make your own luck in life. I wasn’t to know it at the time, but 25 years ago I made what seemed to be a fairly inconsequential decision while hiking high on the moors, and it changed my entire career.  I was at a crossroads - flogging a bit of a dead horse running a media-based business - and on my wife’s birthday I was so broke I couldn’t afford to do anything special, so offered to take her on a nice scenic Exmoor walk. Walking in beautiful places is

People talk about an “embarrassment or riches” - a state of affairs which is not, for most of us, a phenomenon that occurs very often. But the phrase did come to mind one day recently after I’d arrived home laden with an abundance of edible goodies, some of them foraged from the wild, and other delicious items grown by vegetable gardeners of my acquaintance.  There are times when you can only beam at nature’s bounty and admire the treasures which can come out of the soil. Of

There are times when you taste something that’s so good, you feel an urgent need to know more. What exactly is this, you ask? Who made it? Why and how were they able to develop it and make it so good? If you are really serious, such questions can turn into a quest which takes you on a journey of discovery.  That is what happened recently when I tasted a truly amazing perry made by a man called Tom Oliver. It was like champagne. Indeed, this fermented pear juice drink was bett

Some people have an incurable curiosity when it comes to the landscape. For example, if they see an interesting or picturesque place from afar, they automatically think: “Right… One day I’ll go to that place and see what it’s all about.” This article relates to exactly that sort of journey.  But there was a reason why it took me so long to embark on the particular journey of discovery, even though I had several times found myself being attracted to an obscure corner of the So

The Bagni Di Pisa Palace and Thermal Spa is a very impressive indeed. The place is reminiscent of the sort of place Agatha Christie might have visited - if Poirot ever went anywhere to “take the waters” this would be the place.  Actually, someone who did write something famous in this very hotel was Mary Shelley - who finished penning her story Frankenstein here after being partly inspired to write it back at home in Somerset’s Quantock Hills.  I attended a wine class in the

Somewhere off the northwest coast of Africa, lies the isle of Madeira - a gem that has been popular with British visitors for decades, or even centuries. The place is enchanting. Madeira is a remote isle where nature, culture, and history converge, offering a perfect blend of relaxation and adventure.  Here's why a brief visit to Madeira might be just what your soul needs. Day 1: Arrival and First Impressions As your plane descends toward the island - sometimes rather bumpily

It’s amazing how things can stick in your mind, even if they are all to do with ancient history. I was thinking this recently when I snapped our photo of a Viking long boat on its moorings on a lake in deepest darkest Jutland and it reminded me of my childhood. Just opposite my old West Country school there was a field called Battle Gore, the legend of which used to fill us boys with wonder and awe. A huge battle was once fought right there in our own little village. Wow! And

The 450-year-old Rock Inn - as mentioned in the neighbouring article - stands just a few feet from the young River Tone. Travel a few miles upstream, higher and deeper into the hills, and you will come to Clatworthy Reservoir, which is not only one of the oldest drinking water lakes in the region, but one of the prettiest. Two facts which perhaps go hand-in-hand. The building of a giant reservoir causes a major disruption to the ecology and environment, and it takes many year

It’s not quite a case of “if you go down to the woods today you’ll be in for a big surprise”, but this story has that kind of vibe about it.  Let’s put it this way… There are a great many well-known parts of the much-visited West Country and, conversely, there are even more hidden, out-of-the-way, corners which very few tourists ever get to see.  Given that this is the case, you might imagine that someone wishing to expand a new concept in the world of food and hospitality wo

The sun has been out and there have been evenings this week when the temperature has remained warm until late, but that’s not the only excuse one needs to enjoy dinner outdoors. Food cooked over an open fire can taste wonderful - indeed, even ordinary things cooked over charcoal will be promoted to another league of deliciousness if you know what you’re doing. And it doesn’t always have to be a case of meat sizzling on a grill - you can introduce pots, pans and woks to the fl

Having stayed at the wonderful Victoria Hotel in Sidmouth recently, we enjoyed a couple of fantastic local walks. Here’s one to the east of town… Each time I embark on one of these hikes the West Country seems to shrink. Slowly, gradually, an enormous mental jig-saw puzzle is falling into place piece by piece. Distant hills that were once nothing more than an amorphous horizon are now old friends which have been tramped, researched and written about. Great vales and vistas we

There was a reason why Egyptian pharaohs, Roman emperors, Indian moguls and many others down the gold-leafed annals of the great-and-good insisted on having facilities in their palaces dedicated to the pampering of royal flesh and bones. Such human pampering was - and is - relaxing, pleasurable, and it does you good. Fast forward many centuries and we British, in particular, became curiously shy of having our well-wrapped-and-safely-covered limbs manipulated, massaged and gen

There’s a rift occurring in the world of holiday and travel at the moment. For decades most Brits and northern Europeans have had a set notion that a vacation should include plenty of sun, sea and blue skies - which is why we’ve been flocking to the Med for the past 50 years. Now, though, endless heatwaves are making that concept look somewhat over-baked. Who wants to holiday in a place where you are forced to hide from the sun in body-sapping temperatures of over 40 degrees?