Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i National Geographic Traveller (UK)

Nicola Williams Having spent over half my life in France, I’ve eaten more camembert than I care to mention, which is why my trip through this cheese’s homeland, Normandy, around green pastures, half-timbered villages and fruit orchards, was such a treat. NORMANDY P.46 Jessica Vincent Behind its tough industrial ex terior, creativity — be it 19th-century mills repurposed as breweries, or bakers mixing up age-old pie recipes — thrives in Dundee. It was great to meet the chefs and producers putting the city on the culinary map. DUNDEE P.52 Emma Thomson Aboriginal Australia is a place where stories are dynamic creations stored in memory. But it also has a culture we tend to romanticise, and I wanted to record the nuances of reality. I sat around campfires, met with elders…

WHAT’S NEW • FOOD • ON THE TRAIL • WHERE TO STAY • FAMILY • INSIDE GUIDE • STAY AT HOME • BOOKS When I met Francesco, he was harvesting prickly pears in his backyard. These cactuses are omnipresent around the island, their red fruits a fixture of typical Sicilian meals. It took me a while to understand what Francesco meant when, speaking in dialect, he complained about not having had time to scuzzulare. While these plants naturally fruit during summer, they can also grow rich, autumnal fruits locally known as scuzzulati. An ancient practice, sculazzare involves cutting off a plant’s first flowering and younger grow ths in late spring, forcing it into a more abundant second flowering in the autumn — often resulting in higher-quality fruits. FRANCESCO LASTRUCCI •…

Ruby Luna Picture the scene: it’s a balmy summer evening and you’re drinking cocktails on a rooftop terrace, watching the sun set over one of Europe’s most famous rivers. Paris? Rome? No — this is Düsseldorf. Germany’s seventh-biggest city may not be top of everyone’s city break list, but the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia will surprise you. The little sibling of Cologne, which sits half an hour south, Düsseldorf is a thrumming modern city and Germany’s fashion capital. Even the pandemic couldn’t stunt its banging hotel scene — several hotels have opened here since 2020, including the Luna in April 2021. Germany does a great line in small(ish) hotel chains that still manage to make each property individual, and this Ruby branch — the third to open in Düsseldorf —…

The road past Makola Market is swarming with hawkers. Pavements are littered with leather goods. Women wrapped in hand-loomed fabrics step into the street, balancing giant tubs of kpakpo shito peppers on their heads. Hip-hop blasts from a distant speaker. A preacher delivers a sermon into a megaphone. Beside me, in the driver’s seat, Selasie Gomado is inching along to the petrol station. An hour ago, he picked me up for a visit to Artemartis, the artists’ collective he runs west of the city centre, but in that time we’ve progressed barely a mile. After damaging a tyre on a pothole, Selasie flagged down a guy on the roadside to repair it. A policeman stopped us at a barricade for a routine check of the boot. Then, as we crawled…

THE EXPERTS  Lorna Parkes Commissioning editor, National Geographic Traveller (UK) Lottie Gross Author of Dog-Friendly Weekends Richard Hammond Author of The Green Traveller Steph Dyson Travel writer and South America specialist the Ciudad Perdida in Colombia; the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal in Buckinghamshire Can you recommend a budgetfriendly itinerary for a 10-day family trip (with kids aged nine and 14) to Morocco, combining the beach, culture, desert and time in Marrakech? At nine and 14, your kids are at the perfect ages for an adventure in Morocco. Starting in Marrakech for a couple of nights, stay centrally in the medina in a beautiful traditional house such as Riad Noos Noos (family suite from £110, B&B), which is an excellent budget option with a pool table and sun-trap…

Tell us about this image. We were in a safari jeep in South Africa, heading out to document a white rhino collaring at Marakele National Park, when this magnificent lion strolled down the track ahead of us. Our guide was in a hurry to take us to the park, but this was too good a shot to miss. I began photographing the lion head on as it came towards us — an exhilarating experience I’ll never forget. Then, as he nonchalantly passed by our car, this side view became possible. The lion paused, scanning the track, only a few feet away from us. This was a dream assignment — I could have happily spent all year working on it. How did you achieve the shot? I knew this was mainly…

Editorial Director: Maria Pieri Editor: Pat Riddell Managing Editor: Amelia Duggan Senior Editor: Sarah Barrell Commissioning Editors: Lorna Parkes, Georgia Stephens Assistant Editor: Angela Locatelli Executive Editor: Glen Mutel Associate Editor: Nicola Trup Content Strategist: Berkok Yüksel Deputy Digital Editor: Karlina Valeiko Art Director: Becky Redman Art Editors: Lauren Atkinson-Smith (maternity leave), Lauren Gamp Senior Designers: Kelly McKenna, Dean Reynolds Designers: Jo Dovey, Rosie Klein Picture Editor: Olly Puglisi Branded Content Manager: Flora Neighbour Project Editors: Jo Fletcher-Cross, Zane Henry, Megan Hughes, Farida Zeynalova Project Assistant: Sacha Scoging Editorial Assistant: Matthew Figg Intern: Oliver Jakes Head of Sub Editors: Olivia McLearon Senior Sub Editor: Hannah Doherty Sub Editors: Chris Horton, Ben Murray, Simone Noakes Operations Manager: Seamus McDermott Digital Marketing Assistant: Mélissa Otshudy Head of Events: Sabera Sattar Events Manager:…

An archipelago of 17,000 islands, Indonesia is a maritime crossroads between Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific. In centuries past, it was known as the Spice Islands — the home of nutmeg, mace and cloves. Today, it offers a diverse cuisine with many flavours, ingredients and surprises. I spent my childhood in Manado, in North Sulawesi — the centre of trade in vanilla, cloves, nutmeg, coconut products and seafood. I can still see it all now: my grandfather’s coconut plantations set against volcanic mountains, pristine beaches skirting coral reefs. It’s a view that triggers memories of manisan pala (candied nutmeg), banana fritters and fish stews and sweetcorn fritters. Tropical seas surround Manado. We love to barbecue fish and serve it with dabu-dabu, a relish of fresh tomatoes, shallots, chillies,…

MAKING THEIR MARK While it can be tricky to persuade some teens to embrace art, you’ll find it easier in Bristol. You won’t have to look too hard to encounter the handiwork of the city’s prodigal son, Banksy — who was born here — on a walking tour, and there are some 200-odd other street artists in the city. Where The Wall offers a two-hour tour of the must-see works and Bristol’s 30 years of graffiti history. There are spray-painting workshops too, if your teens want to give stencil art a whirl themselves. wherethewall.com A WHOLE NEW WORLD If all that graffiti leads to a new-found interest in art, then the next step is Wake The Tiger, a new immersive art experience. Through a maze of creative works, installations, hidden…

The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey of the Iconic Land Rover Expedition This travelogue is inspired by Tim Slessor’s 1955 expedition from London to Singapore. Alex Bescoby recreated that journey in reverse, travelling some 19,000 miles in the same Oxford Land Rover. Michael O’Mara Books, £20. High: A Journey Across the Himalayas through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China This high-altitude odyssey takes in the peaks and people who live and work in the world’s tallest mountain range. Erika Fatland takes a journey that enables the region’s landscapes, histories and hidden communities to step into the spotlight. Quercus, £30. The Po: An Elegy for Italy’s Longest River Italy-based British author and journalist Tobias Jones travels along the 405-mile length of the Po — Virgil’s ‘king of rivers’.…

What sparked your interest in travel and adventure? I grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland. I was lucky to spend a lot of time outdoors, but it wasn’t until I went off to university that I suddenly got this sense of what a big, exciting world there is out there. That’s when I started planning a trip. I bought a bicycle and set off on a long journey that changed the course of my life. I began in New York City, and my plan was to ride across the country until my savings ran out. I learned all the things you learn when you travel — that I’m more capable than I thought, and that people are kind. I also realised that by travelling slowly, I was able…

Normandy’s bucolic heart shows off the best of la belle France. Staunchly agricultural, no other region devotes so much of its land to pastoral farming. And this plays out across its culinary experiences, from baking cider bread in the centurion-stone oven of a apple orchard to sampling the heavenly taste of buttery camembert, handcrafted with passion and ancestral know-how on a family farm. Cruising empty country lanes in the Pays d’Auge is a blissful invitation to slow right down. The chequerboard sweep of fertile green, hedge-trimmed fields, peppered with patchy white-and-chestnut Normande cows and half-timbered farmsteads, is magnificently scenic by car or bicycle. Apple and pear orchards blaze pink in spring and fire-red in autumn, while feasting on seasonal fruits in pretty village auberges (inns) is an epicurean highlight. Eco-minded…

Despite the cold and the dark, the people of Leeds are out in force. A giant octopus appears to be escaping from the roof of the County Arcade. Nearby, Leeds Civic Hall looks like it’s in the throes of an alien invasion, as electrical pulses flicker up the spires. In Playhouse Square, a huge slinky tumbles across shipping containers and disappears into the shadows. A wave of onlookers is trailing a particularly dazzling drum troupe and the streets are thrumming with wandering families, whose children are whooping at the displays for Light Night Leeds — an annual celebration of illuminated art installations. In the run-up to Leeds 2023, the city’s selfproclaimed year of culture, this highly creative assault on the senses feels like a small preview of the festivities that…

The iconic superspy’s name comes from author Ian Fleming’s own interest in birdwatching, which he developed while living abroad. The author came across the name while reading Birds of the West Indies, a guide by American ornithologist James Bond IN NUMBERS 30 The number of deployments undertaken by Roger Moore’s James Bond, making him one of the best-travelled iterations of the character 51 The number of countries Bond visits across the 25 films made by Eon Productions 26 The number of filming locations listed for No Time to Die, more than for any other Bond movie. Filming took place in Italy, Norway, the Faroe Islands and the UK Fans can stay at the GoldenEye estate in Jamaica, where Fleming once lived and where he penned all 14 books. It’s now…

ISSUE 111, APRIL 2023 There are many ways to experience the Greek islands. As a wide-eyed twentysomething, I boarded one of the ships that slowly ferry travellers around the Aegean Sea. Having departed the Athens port of Piraeus on the cheapest ticket I could buy, the five-hour journey to Santorini offered views of endless sea and sky before eventually revealing what I’d been waiting for. The moment the crescent-shaped caldera came into sight from the top deck of the ferry is one that has stayed with me to this day. Yet Greece remains something of an enigma. From bustling beach resorts to remote mountain idylls, it ’s impossible to sum up the charms of its thousands of islands in a neat sentence. They remain distinct and unique, their individual histories…

Highly strollable, reassuringly low-rise and reliably efficient: Copenhagen is built with people at its heart. And this architectural experience is being celebrated this year, with the city designated the UNESCO/UIA World Capital of Architecture for 2023. The initiative, launched in 2020 by UNESCO and the International Union of Architects (UIA), aims to highlight the role of architecture, city planning and culture in shaping urban identity and sustainable development. In other words, it’s about reminding us how good, thoughtful design makes for a better life. The city has been a crucible for ambitious urban planning and architecture since the 1930s, when Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen changed the landscape with buildings and furniture that merged functionality with aesthetic simplicity. This was followed a few decades later by the disruptive brilliance…

1 H.M. BORGES Toast the start of your tour with a visit to this boutique winery, which was founded in 1877 and makes fortified wines in a former cereal mill. It’s one of only two companies in Funchal to actually produce the wine on site, so it’s well worth doing a tour of the backrooms — expect cellars filled with age-old barrels of wine, plus a selection of honey-sweet tipples to try afterwards beneath a woodbeamed ceiling. hmborges.com 2 PEREIRA D’OLIVEIRA A three-minute stroll away, this family-run winery houses the oldest Madeira wines available for sale, with vintages dating as far back as 1850, the year of its founding. Pull up a chair at a barrel-shaped table and you’ll be presented with five-year-old varieties ranging from mediumdry to sweet, then…

A two-hour jaunt from the heart of LA, Palm Springs once served as a desert retreat for a showbiz elite, from Elvis to Sinatra. Decades on, sleek, mid-century modern homes are precious relics of this glamorous era — but the city is anything but a time warp. Offbeat art spaces and cool boutiques line the palm-studded streets, and a sprawling new Cultural Plaza, dedicated to the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, a local Native American Tribe with around 500 members, will feature a giant spa and museum when it opens this year. All this is set against the San Jacinto Mountains, a cinematic backdrop and a springboard for adventures. Begin downtown, on North Palm Canyon Drive, where the Modernism Museum is the new kid on the block. A temple…

1 KELLY KETTLE BASE CAMP KETTLE Designed to be used anywhere and everywhere, the Kelly Kettle’s fire base allows you to boil 1.6 litres of water with whatever fuel is to hand, from twigs and dried grass to tree bark or pine cones. Kelly Kettles are available in various sizes, in either stainless steel and aluminium, none weighing more than 1.16kg. £59.95. kellykettle.com 2 TEFAL MANUAL 5 SECOND FOOD CHOPPER AND MIXER Make campsite meal prep a breeze with this handheld chopping system. Simply add your ingredients, attach the blade and locking lid and pull the handle to begin chopping. Features stainless-steel blades and non-breakable cord. Available in 500ml and 900ml sizes. £16.99. tefal.co.uk 3 OONI FYRA 12 WOOD PELLET PIZZA OVEN Fuelled by hardwood pellets to ensure a deliciously…

Reggae singer and tour guide Ricky Chaplin greets me at Tuff Gong studios with a fist bump and the word “Rastafari”, affirming his religion in lieu of a hello. He wears his dreadlocks coiled up inside a baggy tam, crocheted in the colours of the faith — yellow for the gold of Ethiopia, green for Jamaica’s mystic forests, red for the blood of the slaves transported here to Jamaica. His Trenchtown Lions football shirt has Bob Marley’s name on the back. Trenchtown is just down the street. Marley got his start in that Kingston ghetto, from which “heavy vibrations” still emanate, according to Ricky. Marley’s former home isn’t far away, either, at 56 Hope Road. The house is now a museum that draws crowds of pilgrims, as does his mausoleum,…

1 COSTA RICA BEST FOR: NATURE LOVERS Between the waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, Costa Rica is a nature lover’s dream. Turtles nest on the soft sand beaches, jaguars prowl the dense, lowland jungle and around 850 species of technicolour birds serenade the rainforest canopies with song. Take a slow boat ride through the winding waterways of the Tortuguero National Park, spot nocturnal creatures on a night walk through the Monteverde cloud forest, or climb the slopes of the now-dormant Arenal Volcano to hear the whisper of the wind on the lava fields. 2 SPAIN BEST FOR: ACTIVE TRAVELLERS Sheep-speckled hillsides, rolling farmlands, eucalyptus forests and expansive plains — trekking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St James) is one of the world’s most scenic hikes. It…

PEOPLE Travel portraiture is about seeking out the human stories within a destination. It requires a compelling subject and an interesting backdrop to frame them. Grand prize winner Renato Granieri Mariama Turay (left) and Marah Hawa engage in conversation. Mansonia village, Loma Mountains National Park, Sierra Leone THE PHOTOGRAPHER SAID: After an all-day drive to Mansonia village, in Sierra Leone’s Loma Mountains National Park, we finally arrived at this remote destination. The goal of this journey with the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary outreach team was to provide the local community with training and devices to protect the Western chimpanzees and their habitat. Mariama and Marah are two of the newly qualified eco-guards that have been hired and trained by the outreach team. The team’s presence alone during Covid-19 has made a…

KACHOURIE Trinidad’s evenings glow during Diwali, draped in lights and peppered with flickering candles. The island is home to a sizable Hindu population, and some of its best street-food snacks are found during this festival season. One of these is kachourie, a ball of dough flattened and fried. The flavourful pocket comprises flour, chickpeas, split peas and chilli powder, bundled and topped with a tamarind chutney. Try it at one of the many stalls set up during the festival of lights, in late November. BENNE BALLS Consisting of packed sugar, syrupy molasses or fresh honey, and crunchy benne (a West African term for sesame seeds), these sweet treats are available all over the Caribbean. Sesame was a popular ingredient among enslaved Africans in Trinidad, whose culinary techniques and flavour combinations…