North London’s top 10 budget eats
In part four of our guide to the best places to eat well in the capital for less than £10 a head, Tony Naylor chooses 10 north London venues that are light on the wallet but big on taste
See our interactive map of Britain's best budget restaurants
If we've missed your favourite tell us on our Word of Mouth blog
The main road that runs through Harringay, Green Lanes, is home to several great Turkish restaurants. Three in particular are regularly namechecked by local authorities on such matters: Yayla (429 Green Lanes), Hala (29 Green Lanes) and this gem. Antepliler is actually three premises: a cafe, the restaurant and a patisserie, whose various pistachio and walnut baklavas, made with good quality floral honeys, are not to be missed. The restaurant – plain and sturdy, a solid traditional Ottoman space – majors on charcoal-grilled kebabs and dishes cooked in the huge wood-fired oven that squats by the entrance. At £1.50 (takeaway), the lahmacun, a kind of thin, crisp Turkish pizza, topped with a hugely tasty, quietly fiery mix of minced lamb, chilli, garlic, onions, fresh herbs and pulped tomato, is exceptional value. It is the kind of food to which a man could easily become addicted.
A main meal portion of six juicy, generously seasoned kofte patties, served over a stock-cooked mix of fat, squat rice and chickpeas, accompanied by salad and a half-loaf of ultra-fresh Turkish bread, is similarly brilliant. That dish is arguably enough to feed two, on its own, and costs just £6.50 (takeaway; eat-in prices are a pound or two more). Throw in some of that baklava and you have not just a bargain feed, but a meal that will live long in the memory.
• Takeaway, snacks/starters, £1.50-£3.75, mains £5.50-£7.90. 46 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, N4 (+44 (0)20-8802 5588)
Camden's Market – as opposed to Camden Market – is the kind of place that every neighbourhood needs. It's a neat, simply designed restaurant (zinc table tops, open kitchen, exposed brick walls, recycled school chairs at the tables) that specialises in delivering honest, crowd-pleasing food at keen prices. The £10 two-course lunch is particularly good value. The starter, a bowl of lamb broth, is interestingly broken up by tiny blobs of mint sauce. The main is a similarly solid plate of linguine, pork fillet and good mild chorizo. It is lifted by little details: scattered flecks of lemon zest, fresh chilli and parsley; the precise firm but yielding texture of the pasta; the way the pasta isn't drowning in sauce, and the way said tomato sauce has been carefully whizzed and blended to give it a lightly aerated creaminess.
There is nothing about the two courses that would be beyond a skilful, attentive home cook perhaps, but it is good, tasty, unfussy food, patently prepared with pride. Throw in some good (free) bread and unsalted butter, Prince's Purple Rain album on the PA, the notably efficient, friendly service, and Market adds up to a winning proposition.
• Two-course set lunch £10. 43 Parkway, NW1 (+44 (0)20-7267 9700, marketrestaurant.co.uk)
If you are heading to nearby Hampstead Heath, this is a great place to pick up an impromptu picnic. As the name suggests, it is primarily a butcher's shop, but this providore also comprises a kitchen, headed by chef Guy Bossom, that produces myriad foods to eat now or take home. Friends should pool their resources to take advantage of any deals – when I dropped in there was a six-for-five (£10) offer running on Meantime's London Lager – and to make sure that they try the various tortilla, pies, sophisticated quiches and gourmet salad tubs – for instance, puy lentil, butternut squash and tarragon; or French bean, almond and smoked bacon with walnut dressing (by weight, from £1.55 per 100g).
As well as pre-prepared baguettes (£3.50), you can also assemble your own sandwiches mixing and matching various breads and charcuterie from the meat counter. Alternatively, pick up a few hundred grams of Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire or Cornish Yarg in the cheese room. Particularly recommended are the large Scotch eggs (£2.95) and the warm sausage rolls (£2.50). The former are sat in small, promising pools of fat on a rectangular slate and have an almost pork pie density, while the sensational sausage rolls pack expertly seasoned meat into air-light, lavishly buttery puff pastry. The fat cakes and sweet tarts also looked fantastic.
• Snacks from £1.55-£3.50. 56 Rosslyn Hill, NW3 (+44 (0)20-7794 9210, hampsteadbutcher.com)
Bright, buzzy and a little bland in its design, this canteen is a useful all-day address for the budget traveller. At night, you will find several main dishes available at £8.95-£9.75, such as fish and chips or pork chop with roasted Cox's apple and a white bean cassoulet, while by day it serves an affordable brunch (midday-4pm), smaller "larder" dishes and superior, jazzed-up salads, such as broccoli and cauliflower with sweet black sesame sauce and a good butternut squash and feta. Even a small plate of the latter (£3.95) will fill a lunchtime hunger hole, and it is to Kentish Canteen's credit that if you drop in for just a small plate, there is no pressure to eat or buy more. It is the flexible food station it claims to be.
The sharing platters (for two, £15) and the lunch and supper deals (two courses plus drink, £12, before 7pm Monday-Friday) offer good value. On the downside, a cranberry and pecan cookie from the cake counter was a surprisingly dry disappointment, and, irritatingly, they were out of the local Camden Town Brewery's lager when the Guardian visited for this article.
• Small plates, salads and brunch dishes £2.75-£6.50, mains £8.95-£12. 300 Kentish Town Road, NW5 (+44 (0)20-7485 7331, kentishcanteen.co.uk)
Delhi Grill styles itself as a kind of dhaba, the workaday, no-frills canteens that proliferate in India. Such dhabas generally offer short menus of key dishes, in this case flavoursome marinated grilled meats (try the unusually light, vibrantly seasoned sheekh kebabs) and delicious slow-cooked standards like channa masala and aloo gobi. Purists may quibble with certain minor details (are tomatoes permissible in a rogan gosht?), but Delhi Grill certainly delivers on taste and price.
It also sees its concept through to its logical conclusion. You can eat in the restaurant – all chunky wood fixtures and walls plastered with Indian newspaper cuttings – but, during the day, it also runs a takeaway street stall, directly outside, on Chapel Market. The stall serves fresh filled roti wraps (£3.50) – say, paneer tikka with salad and beetroot chutney – samosas (two pieces, £1.30) and chicken, lamb and vegetable curries (£4.50).
• Restaurant starters from £1.95, mains with rice from £6.25. 21 Chapel Market, N1 (+44 (0)20-7278 8100, delhigrill.com). Takeaway available in the evenings
You don't get a lot for £10 a head in Hampstead, so make sure you spend your money wisely. This small, busy cafe, on a pretty mews off the high street, is the kind of place that goes that extra mile. The kitchen even makes its own peanut butter and "smoky" baked beans for the breakfast menu. The baking is a real highlight. The carrot cake, in particular, is a light, moist slice of gingery genius. Meanwhile, Ginger & White's flat white (£2.70, full of winey, dark berry flavours) is possibly the best coffee I've tasted throughout this London series.
Given the inflated prices that come with the NW3 postcode, a salt beef sandwich, featuring a thick layer of outstanding coleslaw, just about justifies the £5.95 price tag, but a breakfast sausage bap is a little sloppy. All the constituent parts are good but the sausages are a touch overdone and they're in danger of drowning in Hawkshead relish. Hit Ginger & White on a Saturday morning, incidentally, and you may well find that you have to queue to get in. After that wait, you may then find yourself slouching on a sofa while you eat, or sharing the large communal table with other people's children. Which won't suit everyone. It's notable, however, that even in the midst of such hustle and bustle, the staff are unflappable. They are personable, eager to please and winningly enthusiastic about the food that they are serving.
• Cakes £2-£4, sandwiches £3.50-£6. 4a-5a Perrin's Court, NW3 (+44 (0)20-7431 9098, gingerandwhite.com)
Say what you like (or rather dislike) about Gordon Ramsay, but no one would dispute that he can cook. Nor that his venues generally maintain rigorous standards on the plate. Nonna is a deli-cafe attached to the York & Albany restaurant which, until recently, was overseen by Ramsay lieutenant Angela Hartnett. Her influence and love of Italian food is still very much in evidence. The deli-cafe itself is done up as some kind of faux-rustic Tuscan farmhouse, albeit one decked out in rather cheap, lightweight garden furniture.
The food takes in meat and cheese platters, soups, colourful salads, attractive baked goods and pizzas (£9-£12) which, reassuringly, the staff on duty declined to serve to the Guardian before lunch because the pizza oven had not yet got up to the right temperature. The sit-down, eat-in lunch menu is almost deceptively pricey, with, for instance, two of the three listed gourmet sandwiches topping £10. However, I was charged just £4.50 for a delicate, luxuriously creamy slice of quiche and a very creditable, well balanced cappuccino. So don't be put off by the headline prices. And most products are also available to take away, making this a useful place to stock up before exploring Regent's Park.
• Takeaway snacks, sandwiches and salads £2.25-£6, eat-in meals £6-£12.50. 127-129 Parkway, NW1 (+44 (0)20-7388 3344, gordonramsay.com/nonnasdeli)
Remarkable value is restaurateur Peter Illic's USP. At the original Kilburn branch of his Little Bay mini-chain, all main dishes are £5.45 before 7pm and £7.25 thereafter. If you are lucky, you may even find Illic during one of his periodic publicity drives, when he asks guests to simply pay what they think their meal was worth. On that basis, I would have certainly paid him £5.45 for my lamb steak main. £7.25, however, might have been pushing it. An unexpected side dish, that included some OK cabbage and an anaemic, unappetising block of potato dauphinoise, was superfluous, and, being picky, the steak tasted predominantly of its char-grilling, not lamb. However, the crushed potatoes, the old school peppercorn sauce and the julienne of peppers and carrots were all accurately rendered.
In the round, it was a perfectly serviceable, tasty plate of food. One which, at no extra cost, came with a basket of decent bread and good unsalted butter. The plates going out to other tables – a delicately arranged soy-marinated duck salad; chicken breast with tarragon mash and mushroom sauce – looked good too, and the Kilburn branch is an appealingly odd, atmospheric place. It looks less like a north London bistro and more like the sort of ancient, elaborate cafe you might stumble across in some labyrinth Istanbul market. The verdict? Don't expect the earth from Little Bay, but go before 7pm and, for the money, it should deliver.
• Starters £2.25/£3.25, mains £5.45/£7.25. 228 Belsize Road, NW6 (+44 (0)20 7372 4699, littlebay.co.uk) Other branches at 171 Farringdon Road, EC1, and 32 Selsdon Rd, South Croydon
A handsome Grade II-listed pub, the Bull & Last is increasingly well known for its good food. At lunch, that reputation is no bar to the budget traveller. There are various affordable bar snacks available and several dishes on the daily-changing menu – soup, sandwich and chips, ambitious salads, a pasta dish, small plates like stuffed roasted lamb's heart – that come in at well under £10. The only problem may be finding a seat. On the first sunny Saturday of the year, this place was packed. If you're happy to share, try the superb homemade charcuterie board (pictured) for £10, which includes, among others, a couple of sensational deep-fried brawn balls, a thick slice of properly creamy chicken liver parfait and some beautiful duck prosciutto, served with an impressive array of pickled grapes, salted radishes, caperberries, remoulade, chutneys and toast. It isn't a huge portion, between two, but it is explosively tasty. You will find four real ales at the bar (from £3.60 a pint), and some interesting local drinks on the list too, such as Camden Town Brewery's pale ale. The staff, incidentally, are refreshingly knowledgeable and energetic.
• Snacks £3-£6, select dishes £6.50-£10. 168 Highgate Road, NW5 (+44 (0)20 7267 3641, thebullandlast.co.uk)
Atari-Ya's parent company, T&S Enterprises, is a trade supplier of premium seafood, and aficionados rate Atari-Ya's maki rolls and nigiri as some of the best value sushi in London. This small chain includes, among others, two north London sushi bars (in Hendon and Swiss Cottage) and this supermarket where, as well as shopping for ika no shiokara (fermented squid) and Hello Kitty confectionery, customers can pick up takeaway sushi or, possibly, squeeze in at one of the six seats at the kitchen counter.
You can have your takeaway sushi made to order of course but, due to arriving during the chef's 3-4pm break, I had to sample some of the pre-prepared plates. It was nonetheless quality stuff. A sea bass and spring onion hand roll (£2.70 for six pieces) was as fresh as sea spray, the florid pickled ginger and a rip-snorting dab of wasabi adding further layers of flavour. The inan – exceptionally sticky sushi rice wrapped in sweetened fried bean curd, its flavour halfway between caramel and soy sauce – was surprisingly moreish; while an elaborately marinated little tray of almost luminously green seaweed salad delivered a sensational wallop of umami. Washed down with a can of Yebisu (£2.43), a rich malty beer reminiscent of Breaker or Colt 45, it made for an interesting, filling lunch.
• Takeaway sushi rolls £1.80-£3.90, nigiri £1-£2.40 per piece. Set mixed lunch boxes from £7.50. 15-16 Monkville Parade, Finchley Road, NW11 (+44 (0)20-8458 7626, atariya.co.uk). Other branches in Finchley, Hendon, Swiss Cottage, Ealing Common, West Acton and Kingston
Tony travelled from Manchester to London with Virgin Trains (virgintrains.co.uk)
LondonUnited KingdomRestaurantsFood & drinkRestaurantsFood and drinkBudget travelTop 10sTony Naylorguardian.co.ukTop 10 in Margate
The new Turner Contemporary has put Margate back on the visitors' map, but the Kent seaside town boasts enough other galleries and art events to offer a culture-packed day out
Margate's rich artistic heritage is celebrated in spectacular style this weekend with the opening of David Chipperfield's Turner Contemporary, perched on the site where JMW Turner once lodged, captivated by the skies he described as "the loveliest in all Europe".
But there's more to this corner of Kent than Turner and Tracey Emin. Turner's contemporary George Morland spent time in Margate after falling for a lady of dubious reputation; and Vincent van Gogh lodged along the coast in Ramsgate (in Spencer Square) after taking a teaching job in the town. Gothic revivalist Augustus Pugin designed much of the interior of the House of Lords while overlooking Goodwin Sands from his clifftop home.
Art and design eventually gave way to sea-bathing, donkey-rides and kiss-me-quick hats, before cheap flights to the continent helped usher in an era of social deprivation and boarded-up shops. But now it's back with a bang. New galleries are springing up and this spring and summer sees Margate play host to one of the busiest arts calendars outside London.
If you're heading to the Turner Contemporary, here are some of the other galleries, shops and events well worth visiting while you're in town.
I Scream and RockThis brash new gallery housed in a former Chinese medicine shop spreads some of the regeneration fervour gripping the old town to Margate's much-neglected high street, showcasing the best of the local art scene alongside owner Mark Downing's paintings and upcycled furniture. I Scream and Rock celebrates the Turner Contemporary opening with an exhibition of Gulf war veteran Glenn Fitzpatrick's harrowing yet darkly comic murals and sculptures (pictured), previously seen in his acclaimed graphic novel Arts and Minds. Fitzpatrick honed his skills painting Viz characters on the side of tanks during Operation Desert Storm.
• 16-18 High Street (07935 102790, iscreamandrock.wordpress.com). Glenn Fitzpatrick's Symbols of Society runs from 15 April to 2 May
For a couple of centuries the only industry taking place in this Tardis-like building involved pigs, pastry and buckets of pork jelly. These days you'll find local girl Zoe Murphy crafting her love letters to Margate by customising vintage G-Plan furniture with seaside imagery in the workshop upstairs, as well as studio and exhibition space, and a pop-up shop offering a changing calendar of retailers. A cafe is opening later in the year, and yes, they will be putting pies on the menu. There are open studios on 16, 17, 23 and 24 April, with a chance to see Zoe, Katie Welsford, Anna Baranowska and Ian Youngs at work.
• 5-7 Broad Street (07879 630257, piefactorymargate.co.uk)
Dazzlingly pretty shops are popping up in Margate's old town at an increasing rate of knots, but the pick of the bunch is Blackbird, the creation of talented textile designer Maxine Sutton. Upstairs from the shop, full of quirky impulse buys such as Gemma Correll's Pugs not Drugs tote bags and Emily Warren's papier-mâché busts, there's studio and workshop space, with screen-printing equipment and sewing machines for regular workshops of up to six people. Emerging textile maker and artist Emma Challacombe leads the first workshop in creative textiles on Saturday 21 May, with the three-hour session costing £40, including materials. Emma's work is also showcased in the shop until the end of May in Sad Stefano and Friends (pictured), an exhibition that promises to capture the bittersweet complexities and confusion of childhood.
• 2 Market Place (01843 229533, blackbird-england.com)
From their home in the stark surroundings of a former electricity substation between the old town and the high street, Limbo celebrates the Turner opening with Art Lands On Alien Landscapes, a series of live art events examining how arts-led regeneration clashes with the town's history. Over the course of the month you'll be invited to become a crew member on the Starship Enterprise via Jessica Voorsanger's multimedia installation, and get to meet Frog Morris, a mad professor aiming to bring about nothing less than Margate's complete destruction with the help of some ancient sea monsters.
• Weekends of 30 April-1 May, 7-8 May and 14-15 May. 6 Bilton Square, High Street (07812 780984, limboarts.co.uk)
Its close proximity to the Turner Contemporary places Margate's Harbour Arm – a 19th century stone pier – firmly at the centre of the opening festivities. The exhibition space – sandwiched between the BeBeached cafe and the Lighthouse Bar – hosts Being Digital, curated by Pat Wilson Smith who also has a studio on the Harbour Arm. The Kent Cultural Baton – a silver Airstream caravan that doubles up as a mobile art space – also rolls into town on its tour around Kent ahead of the 2012 Olympics, capturing the sights and sounds of each location it visits in a bid to create a "cultural map" of the county. Look out for the annual postcard auction later in the year, which sees a scattering of artists and celebrities put postcard-sized artwork up for sale in the name of a good cause. The artist remains a mystery until the bidding's over; high profile names including Emin have submitted work in the past. The postcard auction takes place on 11 September.
• 01843 260260, margateharbourarm.co.uk
Measure-ism reflects artist Jenny Wiener's obsession with numbers and measurement (work pictured), more specifically her concern that ultimately we're all reduced to nothing more than a series of pin numbers, statistics and serial numbers. Wiener's used her intricate, almost architectural drawings to deconstruct anything from fairytales to Cézanne landscapes in the past, but her latest project is firmly fixed on Margate, and complemented by an interactive website where the public can add to a growing archive of information about the town by submitting their own measurements, whether it be the number of colours in Margate, or a radical new way of measuring the height of the Victorian clocktower. Ever wondered how to measure just how contemporary the Turner Contemporary really is? A session with the artist on 30 April promises to reveal all.
• The Pie Factory, 5–7 Broad Street (07879 630257, measuringmargate.co.uk)
Marine Studios' regular workshops, talks and exhibitions make the first Friday of the month a big day in Margate's cultural calendar. Past events include Adventures in Comics, featuring a talk by graphic novels expert Paul Gravett, but April belongs to Pie Days and Holidays, a collection of local food stories illustrated by artist Sophie Herxheimer. Touching on themes such as love, greed, poverty, joy, embarrassment and rivalry, Sophie's work is also on show on hoardings that adjoin Arlington House, the spectacularly brutal 1960s tower block outside the train station. There's also a birthday feast for Turner himself later in the month, with the organisers promising a dazzling visual feast with jellies and cakes for visitors to draw, paint and even eat. It's an apt location, since this beautiful space has sweeping views across the sea and skies that inspired the artist.
• Marine Studios, 17 Albert Terrace (01843 282219, marinestudios.co.uk, pie-days.co.uk/index.htm)
Founded in 2001, The Community Pharmacy Gallery is the old town's most established art space, celebrating a decade of working not just with emerging and established artists, but with all sectors of the community. True to form, Beeping Bush – the organisation behind the gallery – is marking the Turner opening by exhibiting paintings by adults with learning difficulties. Beeping Bush also runs filmmaking services such as equipment hire, technical training and post-production from the first floor of this smart Georgian townhouse, and organises short film competitions such as the brilliant annual horror-fest, 2 Days Later.
• 16 Market Place (01843 223800, beepingbush.co.uk)
"Come and show us what you've got …" is the challenge put out there by the people behind Artist's Alley, part of the promising new vintage, antiques and food market taking place every Sunday in Margate's old town from 17 April. The narrow space between the Mayor's Parlour and the museum becomes a ramshackle gallery, open to artists of any discipline looking for a space to show their work. Whether you're a sculptor, painter, photographer, or simply want to show off some impromptu acts of creative genius, the Alley wants to hear from you.
• Every Sunday. Margate Bazaar (07976 051915, margateoldtown.co.uk/markets.aspx)
This annual celebration of print-making was an instant hit when it launched in 2009. As well an inspiring programme of exhibitions, workshops and talks, look out for the popular Giant Print event, which sees a steamroller employed as a mobile printing press on the streets of the old town. Pushing Print draws on Margate's long association with print for inspiration: with his Liber Studorium, Turner took the unusual step of etching his work directly onto some 70 printing plates, with the aim of producing a widely-distributed manifesto of landscape art.
• October, various venues in the old town (pushingprint.co.uk)
Stewart Turner is the editor of Discover Thanet (discoverthanet.co.uk, £7), a new, independently published guidebook to Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate
MargateKentUnited KingdomCultural tripsExhibitionsArtTop 10sJMW Turnerguardian.co.ukTop 10 budget hotels in Copenhagen
Given its reputation as the latest gastronomic hotspot and an unfavourable exchange rate, Copenhagen is anything but cheap. So we've found the best budget options, all with great locations
Hotel FoxThis boutique art hotel launched in 2005 as part of Volkswagen's campaign for the car of the same name. Twenty-one designers and artists, including London-based collective Container Plus and Danish graphics agency e-types, got together to create 61 rooms in varying degrees of kitsch, camp and cool. Next year Fox is undergoing a makeover but it still offers a quirky and affordable option in the heart of the city. The rooms come in four sizes and (obviously) are all individually designed, so check out their website for detailed descriptions of each room.
• Small doubles from £85. +45 3313 3000, hotelfox.dk
Værndedamsvej, a street between the trendy Vesterbro area and the independent municipality of Frederiksberg, has been described as a small slice of Paris in Copenhagen, due to its array of restaurants, bars and food shops. Sct Thomas is only a baguette's throw away from this culinary hotspot, and the hotel is perfectly located for exploring the parks around Frederiksberg and the hipster bars of Vesterbro. The rooms and showers are rather small but tastefully decorated. The location in a residential area should guarantee a quiet night's sleep.
• Doubles from around £78 B&B. +45 3321 6464, hotelsctthomas.dk
If you don't mind the slightly industrial surroundings, this newly opened budget hotel south of the main train station offers great value in a central location. Wake Up punches above its weight when it comes to the interior design, with its slick, modern Scandinavian style, and the compact rooms (12-15 sq metres) all come with free Wi-Fi and flatscreen TV. If you pay an extra £25-35 per night you can get a room on one of the top floors, which have views over the city centre.
• Standard doubles from £60, singles from £40. +45 4480 0000, wakeupcopenhagen.com
Located next to Wake Up – its budget sibling owned by the same company – the Tivoli opened last year as a place to stay for visitors to Tivoli Gardens theme park. Although it doesn't quite convey the same historical charm as the 168-year old amusement park, you will find classic Tivoli elements incorporated into the interior design and there is plenty of options to keep the family entertained, including a swimming pool as well as indoor and outdoor playgrounds. Look out for special family deals if you are staying for two or more nights.
• Double rooms, including entrance to Tivoli Gardens, from £110. +45 4487 0000, tivolihotel.com
Although its relation to the court of King Christian IV is only by name, this hotel is located on the doorstep of royal Copenhagen, between the leafy Rosenborg Castle gardens (also known as the King's garden) and Amalienborg, where the Queen resides during the winter season. It is a good position from which to explore the historic parts of the city while avoiding the hustle and bustle of the main pedestrian drags. Rooms are basic but with a homely touch, and there are bikes for rent at £14 per day.
• Doubles from £110. +45 3332 1044, hotelchristianiv.dk
This is probably the only hostel in the world to share a furniture designer, Danish company GUBI, with the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The 15-storey "design" hostel is located in an old trade union headquarters and overlooks Copenhagen's central canal. From here it is a short walk to the main railway station and the town hall square, or you can pop over Langebro bridge and jump in the open air harbour pool by the Islands Brygge waterfront. The hostel has shared rooms with four, six, eight or 10 beds, all en suite with shower, and you can also reserve them for private use. There are extra charges for linen and a special guest fee if you don't hold an international hostel card, so make sure you add the extras to the price.
• Beds from £15. Family room for four people including bath, from £70. +45 3311 8585, dgi-byen.dk/hostel
The old red light district west of the railway station is virtually unrecognisable to anyone who visited the area 20 years ago. Although you can still catch a glimpse of Copenhagen's seedier side, the gentrification of the area has brought along the usual mix of eclectic fashion stores, cafes and gourmet restaurants, some of the best of which are in Kødbyen, the meatpacking district. Although you can find cheaper options, the Axel Guldsmeden spa hotel is the pick of the bunch with its Balinese-style rooms, kitted out with Persian rugs, stone sinks and four-poster beds (some also include balconies and bathtubs).
• Doubles from £110. +45 3331 3266, hotelguldsmeden.dk
Ibsens is on the corner of the charming shopping street Nansensgade, nestled between the downtown area and the lakes surrounding the city centre. The hotel will wrap up renovation of its rooms and lobby area later this month and has found inspiration among the local shops and designers. These include Piet Breinholm (the man who turned the vintage Danish leather schoolbag into a style object), who has crafted leather tags for the room keys. The hotel is a short walk from Nørreport station which has train connections to Sweden and the northbound coastline heading up to the Louisiana art museum.
• Doubles from £100. +45 3313 1913, ibsenshotel.dk
Instead of just ogling at the boats docked along the city's waterways, you can go one better and book your own floating holiday home. Cph Living is a hotel boat in the heart of Copenhagen's canals, between Islands Brygge and Christianshavn. The 12 cabin rooms on the old transport pram have floor-to-ceiling windows and French balconies, while you can lounge on the deck and take in the view of the "Black Diamond" royal library building across the water.
• Doubles from £110 B&B. +45 6160 8546, cphliving.com
And if you want to fork out a little bit extra …
Bella SkyWith two massive towers leaning away from each other at 15 degrees, Bella Sky is as much an architectural landmark as it is a hotel. Opening in May 2011, the 814-room building designed by architects 3XN will be the largest hotel in Scandinavia. It's located in the developing new-townish area of Ørestad between the city centre and the airport, and although the area is probably better known for its innovative architecture than cosy atmosphere, the metro next door will take you to central Copenhagen in 10 minutes. Otherwise, the sky bar on the 23rd floor should provide you with unrivalled views of the cityscape and the surrounding meadows.
• Singles from £130, doubles from £150. +45 7027 4274, bellaskycomwell.dk
• Norwegian Air Shuttle flies to Copenhagen from Edinburgh and Gatwick; easyJet flies from Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted
CopenhagenHotelsDenmarkHostelsBudget travelCity breaksTop 10sLars Eriksenguardian.co.ukIn Pooh’s footsteps
Ashdown Forest, just 40 miles from London, has been enticing visitors for years. But its most famous inhabitant was a bear of very little brain
Literary Britain has many sacred groves. There's Wordsworth's Lake District and the Brontë sisters' Yorkshire. You cannot visit Bath without reminders of Jane Austen, or Fleet Street and overlook Dr Johnson. Outside London, Warwickshire is actually signposted on the M40 as "Shakespeare Country". In Dorset there's no end of local pride in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Tolkein's "shires" are to be found all across the Midlands, though perhaps only a Hobbitomane would know that. Finally, there's the little world of AA Milne, whose estate derives millions worldwide from the antics of Winnie-the-Pooh. The adventures of this infuriating teddy bear and his juvenile partner, Christopher Robin, took place in the Home Counties amid the domestic acres of Ashdown Forest, a symbolic haunt in the landscape of the English mind.
We British love our forests, as the Coalition has discovered, even though these woods cannot begin to compare with their leafy equivalents in Bavaria or California. In the UK, we have five principal forests, but only one, the New Forest, really cuts the mustard. The others – the Forest of Dean, plus Savernake, Nottingham and Ashdown Forests – occupy a special place in the national imagination, which gets all misty about "the greenwood tree" and its psychic connection to our inner daemon. "Wood" in medieval English has the secondary meaning of "mad": Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream complains of being "wood within this wood". Still, whether decorous or demented, most of our English woods will surely be a horrible disappointment to a visiting jungle dweller from, say, the Amazon.
Ashdown Forest, scarcely 40 miles from London, is not remotely crazy; it's just one of the best-kept secrets of the southeast, but it's really more of a heath than a wood. Dating almost to the Norman Conquest, perhaps it has never fully recovered from the devastation wrought by the great hurricane of 1987. Still, at just over an hour's motoring from the city, it has its own mystery and magic.
First of all, it's not that easy to find. The simplest method is to head south towards East Grinstead and follow the A22 towards the High Weald. Now you begin to step back in time. Ash trees and hazel crowd the roadside; here and there carpets
Spotting leopards in Oman
In the mountains of Oman, visitors can join the only conservation project in the world trying to save the endangered – and elusive – Arabian leopard
Khalid stopped the pick-up truck and inspected the ground ahead in the light of the headlamps. There were a few tiny greyish plants on a gently convex plateau of jagged loose rocks. It felt like we had landed on a small and rather inhospitable planet. There was no track, and hadn't been for the past few miles – not since we had stopped to look at a wolf track in the dust.
"This is it," he said, "our campsite." He grinned. "It's not as bad as it looks: there'll be enough firewood to boil a kettle, and in the morning – you'll see – it's a good view."
The rest of the team were coming up in two cars. "And leopards?" I asked, "Are they here?"
Khalid made a face. "Insha'Allah [God willing]. There's a trail camera near here which we'll check tomorrow." He jumped out of the car and started unloading, a man used to this life of remote camps in the Dhofar mountains of Oman.
As a wildlife protection officer with Oman's Arabian leopard project, Khalid is on the front line when it comes to saving one of the world's rarest creatures. There are probably fewer than 200 individual Arabian leopards left in the wild, mostly in Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. A few others, probably not viable populations, cling to life in Israel, Jordan and the UAE.
Oman has the only programme to conserve the wild leopards – an estimated 50 animals live in the mountains lining the country's Indian Ocean coast close to Yemen, around half of them in a protected area.
This is wild country, a place where the British army fought a forgotten war against communism in the 1970s, a place once famous for its production of frankincense. Its people are the Jebali, hardy, semi-nomadic camel-herders whose mother tongue is not Arabic but an ancient South Arabian language related to that once spoken by the Queen of Sheba. Khalid is from that community: a former shepherd, he once hated the leopard but is now converted, with total conviction, to preserving this astonishing creature.
Around the campfire, we sip sweet tea and eat biscuits under a vast vault of stars. We have come here with a group of Yemenis, all eager to learn how the Omanis created Arabia's only genuine wildlife reserve. If the leopard is to survive, Yemen is the key, because it has plenty of the type of environment the animal needs. Sadly it lacks the resources, the knowledge and the organisational skills required. The only efforts are coming from the Foundation for the Protection of the Arabian Leopard in Yemen which gallantly soldiers on without much support from the outside world. No surprise in that of course, since Yemen is normally only mentioned in the media in conjunction with tales of politics or terrorism.
Visitors from other countries do come to Oman though. Conservation volunteer organisation Biosphere Expeditions arranges short volunteer placements to work with Khalid, and he's adamant that the foreign presence is important. "They do useful work helping us survey the mountains for leopards," he says. "And it makes a good impression for conservation with the Jebali community. We try to buy supplies from the locals, too."
Next day we trek down a steep mountainside, so steep that one team member gets vertigo and has to be helped back to camp. In gulches and canyons there are some hardy plants, including the frankincense tree, a species that made this area economically important centuries ago. The only sign of human presence, however, is some cartridge shells from the Oman-Yemen war of the 1970s.
Down in the wadi, we follow its bed until it stops at a vertical edge – now dry but obviously scoured by water in the rainy season. There are rock hyrax droppings everywhere – a vital sign as leopards love to eat these small mammals. We don't see any animals though, until we locate the trail camera that Khalid left here a month before.
We cluster around, eager to see the digital images as Khalid flicks through them: the rear end of an oryx, the hunched figure of a striped hyena, then lots of blurred shots of hyrax scuttling past. There are no leopards, but I'm getting the idea now: this is a ghost safari, a trip where the only means of putting together the landscape and its inhabitants is the motion-triggered remote camera. This understanding is like a light bulb coming on. Suddenly all those shy, non-tourist-friendly creatures of the world can be part of the international business of tourism and conservation – and that could be vital for their survival.
And it is a gorgeous colourful world that we view later on a laptop back at the camp. Dusty rocks burst into life with wolves, hyenas, antelopes and more. No leopards, however, and as I wriggle into my sleeping bag under the stars, I allow myself a small pang of anxiety: what if we don't catch a leopard image? It's vital for the film I am making there with Al-Jazeera.
I'm drifting off to sleep, noting the cold wind that has kicked up, when I hear shouts from Nasser, one of the Yemeni trainees. I am
A Swedish island holm of your own
Having a Swedish island to yourself gives you the chance to chill out, get close to nature … and pretend to be lord of the manor
"Henriksholm is not a place for people who keep their thumbs in the middle of their hands," our host Staffan informed my girlfriend and me rather enigmatically on picking us up from the succinctly named railway station of Ed.
We added this intriguing titbit to the tiny stockpile of information we had managed to garner about the place prior to setting off the day before from St Pancras. Our intelligence ran to this: Henriksholm is a skinny three-mile-long island on a lake in Dalsland, western Sweden; the only building on it designed for permanent residence is a gorgeous old mansion never before let to visitors; and now this new thing about the thumbs. What we were childishly excited about was that for a few days we were going to live like a lord and lady in our very own country house on our very own island. All our delusions of grandeur satisfied at once.
However, since we arrived rather late in the day, the wiry, bald and thoroughly outdoorsy Staffan took us for our first night to Stenebynäs, 20 miles or so from Henriksholm, where he lives with his wife, Maria, and their children. His is no ordinary home, it turns out, but a former orphanage, whose six lakeside buildings the couple have converted into cute holiday cottages.
Lars von Trier fans might recognise the place from the film Dancer in the Dark. "Björk lay on this very lawn, just over there," Maria told us in hushed tones, and we duly paid homage at the patch of grass in question.
But Henriksholm was calling. Staffan drove us to the shore of Ånimmen lake – Windermere-ish in size and shape – via a small supermarket where we stocked up on provisions (Henriksholm being many miles from the nearest shop). Carried the short distance to the island in Staffan's motorboat, we were greeted with fields newly shorn of their hay and a track across them to the house, a shining citadel crowning the heights on the far side of the island.
Built in 1815 by Gustaf Wohlfart, a local big shot, the house had fallen into disrepair when Staffan and Maria bought the island in 1993, precisely 25 years after Staffan had sneakily wild-camped there as a young man and fallen in love with the place. They've since completely renovated the mansion, from its white wooden walls to its green tin roof, and furnished the 24 high-ceilinged rooms with an eclectic assortment of antique pieces bought at auction. We swept in to find the walls adorned with paintings by Scandinavian artists, many showing views of Henriksholm in days gone by.
In the evening, with the candles set out on a long, polished dining table that could have been straight out of Downton Abbey, we feasted to the sound of, well, silence. The quietness that had played about the island like an unseen guest during the day had settled into a stillness that, for city dwellers like us, was almost eerie.
Come morning, when we opened the shutters and light cascaded into our bedroom, the desire to fill the isle with our own noise and energy was pretty much irresistible. So, with the sun beating down hard – apparently such weather is not as rare in Sweden as you might think – we began exploring our temporary fiefdom, escorted by Staffan's companionable Scottie dog, Skugga, who had been allowed to stay with us on the island for a night, much to her delight. We struck out south through woods teeming with rare wild flowers.
"So rare they are protected by Swedish law," Staffan had told us, though some beavers, evidently no respecters of legislative decrees, had chopped down a few of the trees to make themselves a cosy lodge.
With Skugga enthusiastically showing us the way, we finally burst through into the sunlight that was bathing the aptly named Kristallviken or Crystal Bay. We pulled our clothes off (there was no one around for miles) and swam with the breeze lapping the lake into miniature waves.
Lunches we prepared on a table in the sunshine while we nibbled on brown nutty rolls called dinkelbröd. Scarcely can anyone ever have scrubbed potatoes and enjoyed such a delightful view at the same time. Successive stripes of blue cloudless sky, the green forest on the far shore, the placid blue lake and the graceful green trees that sparked into life sporadically with salvos of birdsong.
One morning – yet another one born under a languorous sun – we headed towards the northern end of the island in search of Highland cattle. "There are about a dozen of them," Staffan had said, "but they've gone wild so they're hard to spot and they stand stock still in the densest part of the woods."
We set off over fields adorned with a sprinkling of cranes. In woods jumping with pied wagtails, we helped ourselves to handfuls of alpine strawberries until – hark! – a lowing a little way off. Much quiet stalking later – or as quiet as is possible on a carpet of crunchy pine cones – and we suddenly popped out of the woods on to a rocky shore to catch sight of … a herd of cows on the mainland.
We never did get a glimpse of a furry Highlander, but on our walk back we did stumble across two roe deer – a doe and her fawn – before experiencing a close encounter with a huge white-tailed sea eagle, swooping down on a field next to us.
Henriksholm – despite a large slab of civilisation in the shape of its country pile – is very much about getting a nature fix. There's no television, no internet and the only radio in the house seemed to pick up nothing but local stations with a penchant for obscure 1970s prog rock. As a consequence, our days passed in an almost Zen-like trance as we paddled about in kayaks, photographed wild flowers in the woods, took a trip on the island's motorboat, or idly half-read books on one of the balconies.
And when all the lazy pootling about became a little too blissful, there was one of Sweden's top restaurants just a short drive away from the island on the mainland (within a stone's throw of Stenebynäs). A former schoolhouse, Falkholts Dalslandskrog (+46 531 35070, falkholt.com), run by husband and wife Christer and Carin, specialises in dishes derived from the local forests and lakes, and was commendably unfazed by our veganism. The five courses (yes five!) we were served were among the most sublime we've ever eaten – I expect my tongue to crave the
Sorry Mr Letwin, us Sheffield folk deserve holidays
So Oliver Letwin doesn't want to see people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays. He better think again
Here's a refreshingly unspun peek into the soul of the millionaire cabinet – Oliver Letwin's leaked remark that "we don't want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays". I'm certainly not advocating unlimited access to the skies. But Letwin's remark is not about cheap air travel or global warming, it's about attitude. Air travel is OK for people from the south-east and some areas of London (from which the poor are soon also to be excluded) but not OK for "people from Sheffield". Because "people from Sheffield" is a euphemism for that "c" word we don't use anymore, because we're all equal now, we're all in this together, and the cuts are going to affect us all equally. Yes, "people from Sheffield" means "working class".
And let's face it, nice people winging to our second homes in the Dordogne and Tuscany, or to faraway luxury destinations, are frankly embarrassed by our compatriots who speak weird and drink the wrong kinds of booze, and demand naff food such as crisp butties and brown sauce (ha ha). They should stick to Blackpool or windswept caravan parks on the east coast that cater for those sorts of tastes, where they'll be much happier anyway, because all this travel just makes them restless and dissatisfied, especially when they realise they can't afford it any more.
Just a word of warning, though. People from Sheffield take their leisure seriously. Remember when they decided the Peak District moorland shouldn't be reserved just for shooting parties and grouse? It started with a mass trespass (OK some Mancunians were involved too) but it ended with National Parks and the right to roam. Where will it end this time? I don't know, but the sky's the limit.
Cheap flightsOliver LetwinSheffieldMarina Lewyckaguardian.co.ukLA confidential
Unlock the secret world of Los Angeles and you'll discover a city full of hidden gems – including a magician's castle, a
Benidorm – the new costa del cool?
Benidorm, one of Spain's most maligned resorts, is reinventing itself with a five-star boutique hotel, Balinese chill-out lounges and swanky gin bars
First of all, I have to admit to a guilty secret: I quite like Benidorm. This is not something one tends to shout from the rooftops, especially polite, chattering-class rooftops, but there you have it.
The experiences you have in a place shape your opinions to such an extent that it's impossible to be objective. For me, Benidorm was the town where, as a young man, I started working in journalism, for an expat newspaper. I would busily scribble down stories by day while exploring the world of flamenco and getting caught up in a passionate and doomed love affair with a married woman by night.
So the 1960s tower blocks with their rusting balcony rails, chip shops, dance halls and pubs are all lodged in a colourful, thrilling part of my memory next to images of stomping feet and breathless midnight trysts.
Which was where I had left them. Despite now living a couple of hours' drive north of Benidorm, in Valencia, I hadn't been back in over 15 years.
And times have changed. Spain's Costas have been going through a hard time lately. Changing attitudes and continuing recession mean that the once-packed resorts like Torremolinos,
Walk this Way: the Camino de Santiago
Spain's Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is sure to become even more popular with the release of Emilio Estevez's The Way. Here are the highlights, plus suggestions for softies
If you only have time to walk a section of the Camino, click here
This small, picturesque French town at the foot of the Pyrenees is the starting point of the classic route – the Camino Francés. Be warned: the first day's walk is almost all uphill. (From the UK take the train to Biarritz via Paris with Eurostar, or fly with easyJet from Gatwick or Ryanair from Stansted.)
Go pilgrim The pilgrim information office (+33 5 5937 0509, chemins-compostelle.com, open mid-March to mid-November) will arrange dormitory accommodation for "bona fide pilgrims" – those proceeding on foot, by bicycle, or on horseback.
Go posh Fine Basque cuisine is on offer at former coaching inn Les Pyrénées (+33 5 5937 0101, hotel-les-pyrenees.com, doubles from €105).
RoncesvallesThe 12th-century Augustinian monastery here has long been famous for its hospitality to pilgrims. The monks no longer wash the pilgrims' feet, but those attending each evening mass are given a traditional blessing intended to protect them from harm and ensure that they find what they are seeking. The monks undertake to pray for the pilgrims on each succeeding day of their journey, in return for which the pilgrims are asked, upon reaching Santiago, to say a prayer for the monks of Roncesvalles.
Go pilgrim Albergue de Peregrinos Itzandegia (+34 948 760 000, tinyurl.com/69wtu2g, €7).
Go posh The modest but cosy Hostel Casa Sabina (+34 948 760 012, tinyurl.com/6c39xwu, doubles from €45).
PamplonaA dozen pilgrims were once fed in the cathedral here every day, in front of the main altar in full view of the congregation. The gothic cathedral, with its distinctive cloisters, is still worth visiting. When passing through any town or city on the route in the middle of the day, the pilgrim will find menús del día posted outside bars and restaurants. These are excellent value, as they offer three courses and half a bottle of wine for around €8-12. On Sundays and feast days the price goes up slightly, but so does the quality.
Go pilgrim Albergue de Jesús y María (+34 948 222 644, €6).
Go posh Hemingway stayed at the Gran Hotel La Perla (+34 948 223 000, granhotellaperla.com, doubles from €260), an eclectic mix of antique and contemporary.
Eunate
Just before reaching the town of Puente la Reina, it's worth taking a short detour to visit this strange church. It's an octagonal structure surrounded by a ring of arches, and you're meant to circumnavigate it a certain number of times before entering. This was once the site of a pilgrim cemetery, and there are said to be ties to the Templars.
Santo Domingo de la CalzadaThe motto of this town is: Donde cantó la gallina después de asada, (where the roast chicken still sang). This refers to an incident in which a pilgrim, falsely accused of theft, was miraculously saved from the gallows, his innocence being made evident when a chicken that the mayor was about to consume suddenly sat up on the plate and cackled. Ever since, a pair of live chickens has been kept in a cage inside the town's cathedral – pilgrims used to be invited to pluck feathers from them for good luck. These days feathers can be purchased in the cathedral shop.
Go pilgrim Casa de la Confradía del Santo (+34 941 343 390, dorm beds €7).
Go posh Gothic arches bear witness to the Parador de Santo Domingo's 12th-century origins as a former pilgrims' hospice (+34 941 340 300, tinyurl.com/6zwrwmj, doubles start at €133).
GrañónThe refuge here is known in the lore of the present-day Camino as a "genuine" refuge. Accommodation in earlier times might have been just a room with straw spread on the floor, and the refuge in Grañón, in the bell tower of the village church, has merely replaced the straw with exercise mats. By this time walkers will have become part of a "pilgrim family", a group of individuals of various nationalities who progress at more or less the same speed, and thus meet up time and time again. So why not sleep side by side by side on the floor then?
Go pilgrim The Iglesia Parroquial de San Juan Bautista (+34 941 420 685, make a donation).
Go posh Options are limited; in nearby Castildelgado, try El Chocaltero (+34 947 588 063, from €46).
BurgosA long walk through modern urban sprawl will bring the pilgrim to this city's fine historic core. This is the city of El Cid, who was once banned from its precincts, but whose remains now rest in its cathedral. The old quarter is well known for its tapas bars, each of which displays its speciality on the counter. A pub crawl in Burgos is more a matter of eating your way from bar to bar.
Go pilgrim Albergue Municipal (+34 947 460 922, beds €4).
Go posh The elegant Mesón del Cid (+34 947 208 715, mesondelcid.es, doubles from €65), opposite the cathedral.
LeónAt the core of this city is a magnificent cathedral, noted above all for its stained glass windows. Also worth a visit is the Basilica of San Isidro, with its Royal Pantheon and 12th-century murals. The city also takes pride in its embutidos – sausages – which include cecina, salami-like and made from beef. And it's said of León that you could go to a different bar every night for a year, and even then have barely scratched the town's boozy surface.
Go pilgrim Albergue Municipal (+34 987 081 832, around €5).
Go posh The Hotel París Spa (hotelparisleonl.com, doubles from €63) in the town's old quarter.
Villafranca del BierzoThis is an intriguing little town, in which it is worth staying the night. If possible stay at the Ave Fénix, a refuge risen from the ashes of a former refuge, itself constructed on the site of a medieval hospice. Here, on certain nights, a queimada ceremony is performed to remove malign spirits from the pilgrim's path and conjure up helpful ones.
Go pilgrim Albergue de Peregrinos Ave Fénix (+34 987 542 655, albergueavefenix.com, beds €5).
Go posh The Parador de Villafranca del Bierzo (+34 987 540 175, tinyurl.com/67abxo2, doubles from €109) has views of the Ancares mountains.
O CebreiroThis small Galician village, dating back to Celtic times, is now a Spanish national treasure. The village church was the site of another purported miracle, in which "stale bread and sour wine" were one day transformed into flesh and blood. At 1,300m, the village has magnificent views in all directions, and from here on the road to Santiago is almost all downhill.
Go pilgrim Albergue de O Cebreiro (+34 660 396 809, €5).
Go posh Hotel San Giraldo de Aurillac (+34 982 367 125, doubles from €50), serving pilgrims since the ninth century.
Santiago de CompostelaSo here you are, at last. By all means attend the midday pilgrim mass at the cathedral, at which you may be able to witness the swinging of the Botafumeiro, a giant censer. Find your way afterwards to Casa Manolo, a pilgrim-friendly restaurant in Plaza de Cervantes (+34 981 582 950, casamanolo.es). A subsequent stroll through the Alameda, a hilltop park dividing the old city from the new, will provide you with a panoramic view of the cathedral. Of the city's museums, one of the most interesting is the Museo del Pueblo Gallego (museodopobo.es), a folk museum housed in a former monastery. And for an atmospheric watering hole, try the Café Derby on the Plaza de Galicia.
Go pilgrim Albergue Acuario (+34 981 575 438, acuariosantiago.com, €10).
Go posh The beautiful five-star Parador de Santiago (800 97 334 226, parador-de-santiago.h-rez.com, doubles from €180), right next to the cathedral, dates from the 1500s.
FinisterreThree more days of walking, or two hours on a local bus, will take you to what was long regarded as the end of the world. Walk out to the lighthouse. For a final Camino experience, remove and burn your walking clothes, take a plunge into the sea, and when you come out get dressed in something new. Then say goodbye to the Camino ... or perhaps not. The true Camino, according to its modern-day lore, begins only when you reach the end.
Go pilgrim Albergue de Fisterra (+34 981 74 07 81, €5).
Go posh The modern Playa Langosteira (+34 981 706 830, hotelplayalangosteira.com, doubles from €50), near the beach.
Robert Mullen is author of Call of the Camino (Findhorn Press, £7.99), who first walked the route in 2005 and returns for several months each winter to run a pilgrims' refuge
TIME POOR? HERE ARE SOME SHORT CUTS
If you don't have six weeks to walk the whole 500 miles, here are some trips that include a section of the Camino
Nip in at the end and take the gloryA lovely Spanish tour company run by two brothers, Javier and Jaime, Away from the Crowds (awayfromthecrowds.com) has hand-picked charming hotels along a self-guided walk covering the last 113km of the way, from Sarria in Galicia to Santiago de Compostela. The trip takes eight days and costs €599pp, excluding flights. An alternative cycle trip from Astorga to Santiago, also takes eight days, but covers 268km and costs €642pp. Both include breakfast, maps and luggage transfer; the walk includes five dinners, too.
Take it easy – and ditch the backpackOn a "slow travel" walking week on the Camino with Inntravel (01653 617000, inntravel.co.uk) you split the week's accommodation between just two country houses (so there's no lugging your stuff around in a backpack) and drive between them. You spend two days in La Rectoral de Cobres, in San Adrian de Cobres, taking short coastal walks into the fjords of Galicia's Rias Biaxas and to see some 4,000-year-old rock art, and maybe take a boat out to Cíes island. Then you head to Casa del Trillo, near Muxia, from which there are day trips to Santiago, and to walk part of the lesser-known Pilgrim's Route, across moorland and into hamlets, to Finisterre. This costs from £510pp, including breakfast, two dinners and car hire, but not flights.
Alternative routesSpecialist company Follow The Camino (020-8816 7328, followthecamino.com) has dozens of ways to do various versions of the pilgrimage, costing from £382 a week. As well as the classic route, the Camino Frances, it offers a Portugal way, a Finisterre way (going east from the coast), and a northern way, along Spain's north coast, plus an English way for seafaring pilgrims, starting on the coast from Ferrol, covering 118km, or A Coruña, just 74km. Guided and self-guided trips are available, and you can travel on foot or horseback, by bike or by car and, for the Portuguese route, by boat.
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