Cala Li Cossi is one of Sardinia's many lovely beaches. Picture: Lonely Planet Source: Supplied
Stay in this windmill on the Greek island of Santorini. Picture: Lonely Planet Source: Supplied
WIDEN your horizons with one of these great European experiences - whether climbing in France, learning to cook in Spain or staying in a windmill in Greece.
CULTURAL EXPERIENCES
1. The latest fado in Lisbon
Take a Portuguese guitar, a soulful singer and a generous dollop of tender, world-weary melancholy and you have fado: the music that has been the soundtrack to Lisbon life for centuries. For a fado weekend, navigate the winding streets of the Alfama district, the spiritual home of the genre, to find the best venues. Senhor Vinho restaurant hosts first-class performances amid ceramic tiled walls and beamed ceilings, with by a seafood-heavy menu (srvinho.com). Nearby is the Museu do Fado.
Stay: Story Guesthouse is a B&B with eclectic decor, lisbonstoryguesthouse.com
2. A weekend homage to Catalonia
George Orwell wasn't always especially polite about Barcelona, describing the city's most famous landmark, the Sagrada Familia, as one of the most hideous buildings in the world. Nonetheless, his masterly 1938 account of the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia, means his name has long been enshrined in city folklore. Iberianature offers regular Spanish Civil War day tours of Barcelona, covering various locations associated with Orwell's time here.
Casting the city's most familiar streets in a new light, tours revisit the scenes of gunfights and bomb blasts around La Rambla and the Barri Gotic, as well as offices where Orwell and his Marxist comrades were headquartered (iberianature.com).
For some R&R, head to the seaside town of Tarragona, a 90-minute train journey south (renfe.com).
Orwell spent time in the city recovering from injuries during the civil war.
Stay: Hotel Banys Orientals is a popular boutique hotel in El Born, just north of the Barri Gotic (hotelbanysorientals.com)
3. Get clued up on Agatha Christie's Riviera
Agatha Christie set her novels everywhere from the banks of the Nile to the carriages of the Orient Express, but one of her most trustworthy muses proved to be her native Devon: a county of sandy beaches, rolling pastures, prim gardens and soaring murder rates. One of the most dangerous places to be a character was Greenway a whitewashed holiday home overlooking the Dart Estuary, whose grounds provided the inspiration for crime scenes in Dead Man's Folly and Five Little Pigs. It's now safely in the care of the National Trust and guests can brave an overnight stay in outbuildings set in wooded gardens. While there, drop by the main house to see interiors that have changed little since the 1950s (nationaltrust.org.uk/greenway).
Stay: National Trust Cottages have various accommodation options at Greenway the South Lodge sleeps six (nationaltrust cottages.co.uk).
4. A Fairytale weekend in Odense
Denmark is these days synonymous with grisly crime dramas, but once upon a time it exported much more wholesome stories.
The city of Odense was the childhood home of Hans Christian Andersen and it still looks the part, with cobbled streets, gothic spires and eccentric statues dedicated to its famous son.
Walking tours take visitors from Andersen's childhood home to various important places in his life.
To see a castle worthy of any fairytale, take a day trip to Egeskov Slot which is a moated 16th-century pile 32km south of Odense (egeskov.dk).
Stay: The First Hotel Grand has stylishly understated rooms in Odense (firsthotels.dk).
5. Shooting the City of Light
Henri Cartier-Bresson was the godfather of street photography. A Parisian and pioneer known for his shadowy compositions, curious-looking portraits and for catching his subjects unawares, he practised much of his craft in the French capital.
Why not follow his example with a weekend photography course in Paris. Creative-holiday company Frui provides a masterclass in the company of an instructor snapping figures among the cobblestone streets of Montmartre, canoodling couples along the banks of the Seine and street performers outside the Pompidou Centre (frui.co.uk).
6. Visiting the family in Sicily
Francis Ford Coppola's gangster dynasty may have plied their bloodthirsty trade in New York, but their homeland lay among the sun-bleached stone villages and dusty byways of rural Sicily. Godfather fans still make pilgrimages to the medieval village of Savoca near Taormina home to the church where Al Pacino's character Michael is married in the original movie and to Bar Vitelli, the vine-draped 18th-century stone building where the reception was held.
Sicily Life offers day tours to these locations and others nearby (sicilylife.com).
Finish your weekend by exploring the ancient Greek remains of Taormina a hillside town facing up to the snows of Mt Etna and out to blue Mediterranean waters.
Stay: The Hotel Villa Velvedere in Taormina has views of the Bay of Naxos.
7. A colossal attraction
WHEN it comes to leisure, Roman tastes haven't changed much in 2000 years. Each Sunday, thousands of the city's residents make the pilgrimage to a huge stadium, where they chant and sing, eat, drink and gamble and hurl outrageous abuse at each other and at one unfortunate man at the centre of the arena. Granted, the referees in charge of Roma or Lazio's home games aren't ripped apart by lions should they make a questionable offside call, but there's more than a hint of similarity between the ancient Roman games once held in the Colosseum and the football matches at today's Olympic Stadium on the other side of the Tiber River. The Colosseum or the Flavian Amphitheatre was built over the course of eight years in the first century AD. The side of the stadium is now darkened by pollution, and plans are afoot for a multimillion-euro makeover this year.
Top tip: Buy a joint ticket for the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatino from the Roman Forum entrance, rather than the Colosseum queues are usually much shorter. Or book your ticket online at pierreci.it
8. A Viking raid on the Faroes
A dubious legend tells that the first Vikings who settled the Faroe Islands planned to sail to Iceland, but got seasick en route, chickened out and got off early instead.
Reminders of these ferocious seafarers can still be found on these islands, which are a self-governing part of Denmark.
Nordic Visitor has tours taking in the small seaside village of Funningur, the site where these (possibly queasy) Vikings first stepped ashore.
After exploring the island's vertiginous cliffs and squawking seabird colonies, visitors stay in Torshavn, the world's tiniest capital city, which nonetheless borrows its name from Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightning (faroeislands.nordic visitor.com).
9. Brush up on Irish landscapes
Despite being within spitting distance of Dublin, the landscapes of County Wicklow are as wild as any on the Emerald Isle, with desolate gorse and bracken-strewn uplands, rushing rivers and pastures helping to earn it the moniker The Garden County.
One way to get to grips with the region is to enrol on a weekend course at the Irish School of Landscape Painting. Based out of a studio on the banks of the River Vartry, students render the stirring landscapes of the region in pastels, oils, watercolours and pencils in the company of an instructor (irishschooloflandscapepainting.com).
Don't leave the county without exploring nearby Glendalough the remains of a 5th-century monastic settlement set over a valley criss-crossed by walking trails.
Stay: The Hunter's Hotel in Rathnew is a charming old coaching inn (hunters.ie).
GREAT OUTDOORS
10. Climbing in France
As the snows melt in the French Alps, a network of via ferratas (climbing routes) opens up. By means of steel cables and iron brackets anchored into rock faces, climbers reach a high-altitude world that would otherwise be seen only by hardened alpinists.
If you can get over the tingly feeling in the soles of your feet as you contemplate the smooth stone precipice before you, rest assured that it's actually safer than most Alpine sports and lets you see the peaks and forested valleys of the Savoie region from angles not possible from the ski slopes.
Simply Savoie runs weekends between May and October, in which experienced mountaineer Mark Tennent helps newcomers to pluck up the courage to tackle the mountain heights (simplysavoie.com).
11. Sea-kayaking around Malta
Less than 50km from end to end, Malta is an archipelago in miniature whose crinkled coastline fits in as much Mediterranean blue as possible in this, the smallest EU member state. Sea-kayaks are the most versatile means of exploring the shores of the main island (also called Malta), its smaller partner Gozo and baby Comino, which sits in between. Sea Kayak Malta arranges tours that take in caves, sea arches, Marsaxlokk fishing village and an island where St Paul is said to have been shipwrecked, with stops for swimming and snorkelling (seakayakmalta.com).
Stay: Hotel Juliani is a rare boutique hotel in a seafront townhouse on Malta's main island (hoteljuliani.com).
12. Canal-boating
Scotland's lochs The Great Glen is one of the most eye-catching features on a map of Scotland a 112km ruler-straight slash through the landscape from Inverness to Fort William, occupying an ancient fault line. Four lochs (Ness, Oich, Lochy and Linnhe) run along this line.
Back in the 1800s, the great engineer Thomas Telford decided to finish what nature began 400 million years previously, and worked to connect the lochs to provide a practical sea-to-sea route.
The Caledonian Canal was the result, and today it provides an experience quite different from chugging along most of Britain s waterways. Despite triumphs of engineering such as the eight-lock flight at Neptune's Staircase, most of the route takes you along natural bodies of water.
And what bodies. The sight of ruined Urquhart Castle on the wild banks of Loch Ness is likely to be a high point of your trip (www.caleycruisers.com).
13. Cinematic walking in Spain
There is a corner of Europe with impeccable cinematic credentials as a stand-in for America's Wild West.
The desert of Tabernas, in the southeastern Spanish province of Almeria, was the location for classic spaghetti westerns, including Sergio Leone's 1960s Dollars trilogy starring Clint Eastwood.
Spanish Highs runs guided treks through this barren region either day walks or overnight trips with camping or a local hotel stay (spanishhighs.co.uk). Visits to old film sets ensure that Ennio Morricone's spine-tingling score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly becomes the soundtrack to your walks.
Stay: Hotel Catedral is a restored 19th-century house close to Almeria's cathedral (www.hotelcatedral.net).
14. Lazing on the beach in Sardinia
The second-largest island in the Mediterranean is blessed with more than 1600km of coast and sandy beaches that invite nothing more strenuous than bouts of paddling interspersed with lots of basking. While the Costa Smeralda in the northeast gets the celebrity attention, the stretch of sand at Chia at the opposite end of Sardinia is a jaw-dropper of a beach without the mark-up (discover-sardinia.com).
The beach is sheltered by sand dunes overgrown with juniper bushes and at one point runs between the sea and a saltwater lagoon that is often home to flocks of flamingos.
Stay: The swish Hotel Baia di Nora is a 20-minute drive up the coast from Chia. On the hotel's doorstep is a private, white-sand beach (hotelbaiadinora.com).
15. Bear-watching in Slovakia
If you go into the woods of the High Tatras, be prepared to find one of the largest mammals on the continent.
The Eurasian brown bear has disappeared from much of Europe but, in this mountain range that separates Slovakia and Poland, you have some of the best odds of seeing the magnificent animal in the wild.
Exodus runs a three-night Bears of the High Tatras trip with rangers who guide you on walks to the remote valleys that bears are known to visit (exodus.co.uk).
Two of the trips are in June, when bears are busy stuffing themselves after their winter hibernation.
The other two are in September, when the bears turn their attention to autumn berries.
Other inhabitants of the Tatras include deer, chamois, wolves and lynx, but whatever you end up spotting, this mountain wilderness is a glory in itself.
Stay: Alternative accommodation can be found at the 17th-century hotel Sabato (sabato.sk).
16. Cycling the Tour de France in Corsica
In the 99 times the Tour de France has run since the first race in 1903, it has passed through almost every part of France, but has somehow missed Corsica. For the 100th race this year, more than 200 cyclists will begin the 3360km route on this mountainous Mediterranean island. Even if you're no Cadel Evans, Corsica's azure coastline and fragrant scrub-covered hills are a dream to explore by bike.
Europe Active offers a three-day self-guided tour departing from Bastia, with your luggage transferred between stops (europe-active.com).
Corsica's roads will be busy around June 29, but make a mini-tour of your own around April and May or September and October, and you'll benefit from the island's pleasantly warm shoulder seasons.
17. Hiking a volcano in Iceland
Hekla is one of Iceland's most prolific volcanoes, having erupted five times in the past 70 years.
For much of European history, it was believed to be a portal to hell, with the cries of the damned escaping from within. Naturally it draws hikers curious to see what all the fuss is about. Arctic Adventures organises six-to-eight-hour hikes up its lava-strewn slopes (adventures.is).
It's an excellent way to appreciate the Icelandic landscape at its rawest. From the top you can see Vatnajokull Europe's biggest glacier.
If you need to blow off some of your own steam afterwards, you'll be in good company with the runtur (literally a round tour) Reykjavik's famous weekend pub crawl.
Stay: Guesthouse Sunna is close to Reykjavik's landmark Hallgrimskirkja church (sunna.is).
18. Sailing in Sweden
Few cities have an archipelago to their name, and surely none are so well-loved as the 24,000 islands and skerries scattered beyond the Swedish capital of Stockholm.
Close to the city, you'll find wooded islands with summer villas posed discreetly here and there, and towards the fringes of the archipelago, where the Baltic Sea takes over, jaunty red-painted cabins cling to bare rock.
The town of Vaxholm is a short ferry ride from Stockholm, and is the perfect base from which to set sail (stockholmadventures.com).
An experienced captain is on hand, but otherwise it's you and your crewmates who'll be keeping the wind in the sails on a day-long trip out on the waves, or an overnight tour, sleeping on a six-berth yacht.
A dip in the icy Baltic is a vital part of a day's sailing.
Stay: Waxholms Hotell is opposite the harbourfront on Vaxholm (waxholmshotell.se).
19. Touring Tuscany on a Vespa
The faithful Vespa would without doubt win a contest for the most quintessentially Italian motor vehicle.
Tuscany Scooter Rental hires out these zippy numbers for self-guided tours through the hills of Chianti (tuscanyscooterrental.com).
Back roads lead past rows of grapevines to hilltop towns and villages such as Radda in Chianti and Monteriggioni. The scooters can fit two riders (some previous riding experience is highly advisable) and, in a twist to Henry Ford's dictum, you can have any colour you like, as long as it's red.
Stay: Podere San Lorenzo is an agriturismo (farmstay) in bucolic surroundings near Volterra (agriturismo-volterra.it).
FOOD AND DRINK
20. Make tapas in San Sebastian
In the pretty coastal city of San Sebastian, bar snacks are a serious business. Smaller and often more elaborate than their rustic cousins, tapas, Basque pintxos are bite-sized portions of food intended to accompany a sociable drink or two.
Each of the city's many bars has its own speciality, from a sliver of steak speared with a cocktail stick to a mini-marvel worthy of a Michelin star (of which San Sebastian has nine, by the way). Learn the art of pintxo-making with local chefs on a five-hour course that concludes with a boozy gourmet lunch (sansebastianfood.com).
As the sun sets, take to the streets for a "txikiteo" or pintxo crawl try Bar Goiz Argi (Calle Fermin Calbeton 4) for classic prawn kebabs, or Alona Berri for daring combinations such as cream cheese, foie gras and mango (alonaberri.com).
Stay: Pension Altair is a beautifully restored townhouse with simply furnished, spacious rooms (pension-altair.com).
21. Cook perfect pasta in Bologna
Though most famously associated with the rich spaghetti dish beloved of British families, Italy's university city of Bologna has a lot more to offer its visitors than meat sauce.
Spend a lazy afternoon wandering its medieval terracotta streets and perusing trattoria menus, and you'll soon discover that spaghetti bolognese is an alien concept to Italians here, ragu alla bolognese is served mostly with tagliatelle. Try the dish at Drogheria della Rosa, a charming converted pharmacy (drogheriadellarosa.it).
Next, learn how to cook the dish from scratch with an English-speaking chef at Bologna Cooking School.
You'll be shown how to make fresh pasta and the all-important meat sauce as well as a variety of antipasti and fluffy tiramisu.
There's also an opportunity for a guided visit to the local market and to sample other classic Italian ingredients such as Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and balsamic vinegar (bolognacookingschool.com).
22. Seek out supper clubs in Berlin
Hidden among the German capital's inauspicious apartment blocks are some of the city's best places to eat.
Supper clubs, privately hosted dinner parties for paying guests, also offer the chance to have a nosy round the homes of real Berliners.
Try Fisk & Groonsaken (groonsaken.wordpress.com), where locals Jan and Melanie serve meat-free modern German dishes such as beetroot consomme with pumpernickel dumplings in their art-filled living room.
Or visit Phoebe in Berlin, run by a French-trained Taiwanese chef, for pan-fried scallops and shrimps with sweet peppers and onion or melon and white wine gazpacho (phoebe-berlin.de).
Follow with cocktails at one of Berlin's underground bars, such as 1930s speakeasy-themed Reingold (reingold.de), or Green Door (greendoor.de), a kitsch pleasure palace with doorbell entry under a nondescript neon sign.
Stay: Centrally located Ackselhaus offers 12 individually designed bedrooms with themes ranging from nautical to Hollywood that come with small living rooms and kitchenettes (ackselhaus.de).
23. Real ale trail in the Lake DistrictCumbria is the beer garden of England, and the scenic, 11km Lakes Line wends its way through the very heart of it. Devised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the Real Ale by Rail trail links dramatic lakes-and-fells countryside with country pubs and craft breweries serving proper beer with none more than a 15-minute walk from a station. It takes in the Watermill Inn (www.watermillinn.co.uk) in the bucolic village of Ings, where a pint pulled from one of the 16 hand pumps can be enjoyed fireside or outside on the sunny terrace.
It also goes to Hawkshead Brewery (www.hawksheadbrewery.co.uk), with its extensive selection of craft beers such as Cumbrian Five Hop and Lakeland Gold.
Find the free trail at tpexpress.co.uk/rail-offers/attraction-offers.
Stay: A stroll away from Lake Windermere, The Elleray is a cosy pub with locally sourced food on the menu and smart rooms upstairs (elleraywindermere.co.uk).
24. Stay at a vineyard in Bordeaux
Sitting in a deckchair on the sunny terrace of a charming 17th-century chateau surrounded by 5ha of merlot, cabernet franc and malbec vines there are few places in the world where a glass of wine could taste better. In the hands of the Charmet-Thomas family since the 1830s, Chateau Lestange is a working vineyard, its abundant grapes used to produce a red AOC Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux. Current incumbent Anne-Marie Charmet also rents out rooms featuring softly faded paintwork, original floorboards and antique mirrors and portraits to wine-lovers wanting a base for further exploration in the region (chateau-lestange.com). Bordeaux is 24km down the road, and the famed wine estates of Saint-Emilion are less than an hour's drive away.
25. Become a kitchen wizard in Ireland
A private island just off Ireland's west coast, Inish Beg Estate is a place to escape to. As well as managing 10 self-catering properties including a grand waterside stone and glass boathouse and a pair of authentic Roma caravans with an outdoor roll-top bath, hosts Paul and Georgiana Keane run a successful organic farm.
Producing lamb, vegetables, oats and honey, it provides valuable raw materials for Inish Beg's tailor-made cooking courses (inishbeg.com).
Unusual places to stay From a treehouse swaying in the canopy in Spain to a converted fishing boat in France, spend the weekend somewhere out of the ordinary
UNUSUAL PLACES TO STAY
26. A windmill in Greece
On the northeast coast of the volcanic island of Santorini lie three whitewashed windmills, their canvas sails creaking in the wind (each sleeps up to five; open from May to October; www.windmill.gr).
Designed and built by owners Nikos and Fotini, each has three storeys, with magnificent views of the Aegean Sea from the bedrooms on the upper floors. Much is made of the windmills' curves beds, staircases and bathrooms are built into the walls rather than fight against them.
There's little reason to leave your circular home (each has a private pool and a terrace) but there are plenty of beaches nearby, including Pori Beach with its unusual black sand.
27. A houseboat in Amsterdam
From hemp hotels to B&Bs run by former madams, Amsterdam is no stranger to the atypical lodging.
A more salubrious take on the city's cliches is a stay on a houseboat. Hundreds are moored within the inner circle of canals in the Dutch capital and, with costs rising, some are being turned into self-catering properties or B&Bs. Amsterdam Houseboat lists 40 boats (houseboat-rental-amsterdam.com), ranging from the rustic to the space age. Favourites include the Prince Royal, with a bar built into the old wheelhouse and views of Anne Frank House (sleeps four), and a houseboat on the Prinsengracht, complete with sun terrace and roll-top bath (sleeps three).
28. A treehouse in Spain
The treehouse has undergone something of a renaissance in recent years, with canopy-level accommodation springing up all over Europe.
Cabanes als Arbres takes things up a notch, with a veritable village of houses perched up in the branches of the Forest of the Guilleries in Girona (cabanesalsarbres.com).
Each of the 10 cabins is built around a Douglas fir or beech tree and has its own terrace, perfect for a sunset drink, complete with views of the surrounding mountains.
To preserve the natural atmosphere of the woodland, there is no electricity guests are warmed by a paraffin heater, can read by candlelight and hoist up their breakfast from ground level using a basket and a rope.
29. A prison in Lincolnshire
For more than 250 years, the small village of Folkingham in Lincolnshire was home to a house of correction a form of prison used to re-educate the idle and disorderly. All that remains is its 19th-century gatehouse, now owned by the Landmark Trust (sleeps four; landmarktrust.org.uk). The imposing exterior meant to intimidate offenders as they were brought in gives way to a cosy living room with open fire; a kitchen perfect for long, possibly disorderly dinners; and two bedrooms on the upper floors.
Those on day release should escape to sea and take a boat into the Wash estuary for a bit of seal-spotting (maritimecruises.co.uk).
30. A thatched boat in Brittany
If the idea of a houseboat is just too passe, you could always head to France and stay in a fishing boat but one with a difference. Such as a thatched roof.
Beached in the garden of a B&B a touch over 3km from the sea.
For that is what you'll find in Kerlouantec, a small village on the Breton coast.
La Caloge is an old seafaring vessel that has been converted into self-catering accommodation (canopyandstars.co.uk), with a bed built around the masthead and plenty of nautical details.
The kitchen is in a fisherman's cabin away from the sleeping quarters, and the owners will lend out bikes so guests can take excursions to the nearby eateries.
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