Sunday, January 26, 1997

As I walked out, with Laurie Lee by my side


As I walked out, with Laurie Lee by my side

Jeremy Atiyah walked from La Mancha to Andalusia hoping to retrace the footsteps the writer left in the Thirties. He wasn't disappointed
Jeremy Atiyah 
Sunday, 26 January 1997
My Idea of a rural walking idyll did not involve travelling with a group, nor did it involve clambering about icy mountain-sides with big boots and survival gear. I just wanted to cross a piece of Spain in the footsteps of Laurie Lee, whose own trek in the 1930s across rural Spain, as described in his book As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, was the most beautifully Bohemian piece of poetry I had ever read. If only I too could cross, alone and on foot, the imaginary frontier between La Mancha, the flat heartland of central Spain, and Andalusia, the mountainous borderland between Europe and Moorish Africa. Following my mentor's footsteps wherever possible, I dared to hope that traces of Lee's Spain still lay ahead.
I caught a brown train to the sleepy town of Valdapenas. From the station a long straight avenue called Avenida del Generalissimo, with grass growing between the paving stones and crumbling houses on both sides, led nowhere in particular. There were no cars, and at the end of every street stretched grassy meadows. Unsurfaced streets and rough white houses streaked with muddy stains marked the edge of town. Smells of manure and fermentation from the local wine-growing industry wafted through wooden colonnaded walkways in the central square. Lee could certainly have written poetry here.
Walking south, out from Valdepenas, was not going to be easy, however. Where Lee had described endless dusty tracks, there now ran the principal Madrid-Cadiz highway. To avoid it I aimed for the railway line, alongside which, as it happened, ran a white, dusty track of the prerequisite variety. In no time I was in open countryside, under an enormous sky, walking among silver olive-trees and the budding vineyards of spring.
That first leg of the journey was amazingly hearty. I covered 10 miles by lunch, before coming to a tumble-down railway station in the forgotten town of Santa Cruz de la Mudela. In front of the station was an ancient overgrown square, surrounded by deserted ruined cottages; I sat down to eat a suitably basic meal of olives, cheese and water, before setting out again as the afternoon sun was reaching its peak.
Now however I found no dusty white path beside the railway line and this had an unsettling effect on me. Suddenly the plain seemed 10 times larger and I seemed 10 times smaller. I watched a passing train slowly, slowly disappear into the remote distance ahead. And unlike Laurie Lee, I found that my feet were rapidly blistering.
Knotting a hanky on my head, I pressed on grimly towards a village known as Las Virtudes, where I planned to reward my hard work with dinner and a bed, or perhaps (more appropriately) a barn. Walking through the gentlest sloping land, striped with endless olive plantations, I eventually limped into Las Virtudes sunburnt and exhausted, only to find that this was no village - unless a clump of shady trees and an old bull-ring make a village. I continued on my way. The next stage was a true wilderness, with rabbits and wildfowl scurrying off at my approach. The only sign of human existence came at dusk with bells tinkling from the necks of a flock of sheep. The shepherd himself, when he appeared with a new-born lamb under his arm, was as outlandish as anyone described by Lee.
"You are walking south," the man mumbled dreamily, as though walking was the only way to get about. "So is this the road to Seville?"
Not that he'd been there himself, good God no, but he'd heard tell...
At darkness I came to a village called Almuradiel, but this was no place to be Bohemian. In fact it was right on top of that confounded highway I thought I'd shaken off. I checked into a hotel which looked like a motorway service station, washed my feet and went to bed, where I lay in an irritable stupor, disturbed by the constant rumble of passing lorries and trucks. Come sunrise, I was frantic for Andalusia and my first task was to get back into the 1930s as quickly as possible. I scurried away from the motorway, across a dewy field, and there hit upon a south-bound track marked "mule- path". This looked promising.
The sun climbed and rapidly turned hot. I passed a huge, white hacienda and, slowly, the path began to meander upwards into the wooded foothills of the Sierra Morena. The only people I saw were some tough poachers skinning a rabbit; they asked, oddly, if I was escaping national service. Were there traces of the Spanish civil war still lingering in these hills?
The air began to freshen and the way grew narrow as I neared the top. Finally, scrabbling through a gorge, I emerged on to a bright green pasture covered in buttercups, washed by a stream brimming with dazzling lilies and croaking frogs. Rows of olives stretched away in the distance. Laurie Lee's Andalusia can hardly have looked better than this.

Fog, cricket, umbrellas? Give us a break. Come to sex and curry Britain


Fog, cricket, umbrellas? Give us a break. Come to sex and curry Britain

Who wants to be characterised as a nation of bowler-hatted lords? I'll take the 'we're slags and proud of it' image any day
Jeremy Atiyah 
Sunday, 26 January 1997
Ever since the British Tourist Association released its UK - The Guide brochure earlier this month, aimed at attracting the world's youth to Britain, I have been enjoying a huge sense of relief. The brochure's aim is to debunk all the old British attractions and replace them with new ones. Next time I go anywhere, no foreigner is going to engage me with questions about the Queen, the House of Lords, Sherlock Holmes, castles, fog, umbrellas, cricket, Big Ben or fried breakfasts. We are going to talk about sex and curry.
The really nasty thing about national stereotypes is when they go against you. The Germans love it when we call them efficient and I bet the French don't mind foreigners generalising about their superior cuisine either. But who wants to be characterised as a nation of cricket-playing, bowler- hatted lords? I'll take the BTA's new "we're slags and proud of it" image, as propagated by the Spice Girls, any day.
Obviously, the BTA should have issued this brochure years ago. From now on when night-clubbers in cool places like Barcelona hear us coming, their thoughts will immediately turn to Catherine Zeta Jones's cleavage and Liam Gallagher's NHS specs, as billed in the brochure. We will be the sexy ones. Britain will be known as a land of relaxed, wild, outward- going people who love to express themselves in food, art, fashion and dance, while repressed Latins down south will be queueing at expensive delicatessen counters for Branston Pickle and Marmite, and talking enviously about what spontaneous and happy-go-lucky people we are.
Wishful thinking? Well, I haven't seen anyone putting on a bowler hat of their own free will for a very long time. And who really eats bacon and eggs for breakfast, or watches cricket? It never even seems to rain anymore. There is little to argue about. Change the brochure and bang! Curry has become our national dish. I wonder what the residents of Delhi and Karachi think about this. Perhaps they suspect a plot on our part to claim curry as a great British invention.
Anyway, if it is so straightforward to change one's national identity, I suppose the surprising thing is that other countries aren't reinventing their tourist brochures to fit (and mould) current reality in the same way.
In fact, the possibilities for national tourism brochures have hardly begun to be explored. Korean brochures, for example, never boast about all those exciting street riots in Seoul, and US brochures don't talk about the really interesting things such as their daytime TV chat-shows.
Another thing. If we can just filch someone else's national dish and claim it as our own, we should expect other people to start doing the same. Take Germany for example, whose national dish will nowadays incontestably be the doner kebab. In fact, why doesn't somebody take over our old characteristics lock, stock and barrel and start selling their country as a land of castles, roast beef and monarchy?
These qualities may be old-hat but they haven't served us badly over the years, and might suit a small out-of-the-way country such as Australia. Even if the claims weren't true, they could always become self-fulfilling. If the Australians started calling themselves an ancient, monarchical society, they would probably start behaving as though they were ancient and monarchical.
Except that foreigners might not believe it. And that's a problem. I heartily approve of the concept that people in flash continental nightclubs will find me internationally hip and cool simply by virtue of my being British, but I'm not convinced that the BTA will really manage to sell this idea to world tourists before the Spice Girls graduate to the House of Lords. Surely the latent, stuffy hypocrite in me will start exposing itself first.
Let's get British world-traveller Richard Branson in on the act. He knows a thing or two about not being stuffy. Admittedly he's a bit fogeyish for UK - The Guide (he lives in a castle), but his passion to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon strikes me as a damn fine example of "Cool Britannia".
If Branson manages to get right round the world when he tries again later this year, I am going to grow a goatee and head straight down to the nearest Barcelona night-club.

The longer the better (when it comes to hiking)


The longer the better (when it comes to hiking)

The great walking routes of Europe are now big business and treks can take anything from three days to three months. Jeremy Atiyah digs out his rucksack and bivvy bag and heads for the mountains, valleys and history
Jeremy Atiyah 
Sunday, 26 January 1997
To know Europe as it used to be it is hard to beat the experience of walking across a chunk of it. Not only can you escape the motorways and urban life, but you can, in some cases, follow in the footsteps of travellers of ages past.
Admittedly, several of the walks mentioned here are far too long for most people to complete in their entirety, but you can always join and leave the trail at points of your choice. These days, long-distance walking is big business, with marked trails straddling entire countries, and tour operators offering all-inclusive walking packages ranging from a couple of days to as long as a month long.
Most of the following grand European walks can only be sensibly undertaken in the summer months as they often pass through mountainous areas. For the same reason, a reasonable level of fitness will be required, as will a readiness, in places, to sleep overnight in fairly basic accommodation. This can mean mountain huts, refuges or (in France) Gite d'tapes in which dormitories are the norm. Don't be deceived, though, by the term "hut" which often actually refers to busy, comfortable youth hostel-style accommodation where walkers sip claret as they rest their limbs.
In summer the mountain huts are often full and advance reservations may be required. Serious planning should start with maps from Stanfords bookshop and your walking equipment will obviously include boots, waterproofs, cooking utensils and survival blankets. For detailed lists of refuges, contact the relevant tourist boards well in advance of your trip.
Offa's Dyke
This classic British walk meanders along the border between England and Wales for 177 miles between Prestatyn on the coast of north Wales and Sedbury Cliffs on the Severn Estuary. Remains of the dyke are still visible in some places en route. The walk can be done in a fairly leisurely fortnight, though there are some hilly sections.
The Pennine Way
Covers 270 miles along the spine of northern England, from Edale in the Derbyshire peak district to Kirk Yetholm just over the border in Scotland. The first official long-distance footpath in Britain, it was opened in 1965 and runs through moors, valleys and hills, including the highest point of the Pennines at Cross Fell. The whole walk, which can be pretty strenuous at times, takes at least three weeks. HF Holidays run organised tours.
ITALIAN ALPS
The famous Grand Traversata delle Alpi through the Italian Alps starts in the area of Viozene in southern Piedmont and follows a network of Alpine refuges north through the province of Cuneo, the Valle di Susa and the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso, finishing on the banks of Lake Maggiore. Access is from Turin. You can get a detailed map covering the walk called Percorsi e Posti Tappa GTA from the Turin tourism office at Via Roma 226, as well as information about refuges. Allow at least a couple of weeks for the whole walk. The Alternative Travel Group, one of the pioneers in the field of long-distance walking in Europe, runs an organised walk in the Dolomites, as does Inntravel.
Tour du Mont Blanc
This is a five or six-day walk around the mighty Mont Blanc massif. The walk takes in France, Italy and Switzerland and along the way you'll enjoy the highest mountain scenery in Europe, though the route is really feasible only in July and August. For access, the best approach is from Geneva, and then by coach or train to Les Houches via St Gervais. Using Les Houches is recommended to first-time visitors as a gentle starting point (though the trail can be joined anywhere en route). For more general information on walking tours, as well as details of refuges in the Swiss Alps, there are a couple of useful organisations to contact in Switzerland. These are the Schweizerischer Jugendherbergen or the Verlag Schweizer Alpen-Club.
Corsica High Route
Known in French officialese as the Grande Randonee 20, this is one of the toughest walks in Europe, running for 88 miles over the spine of the country and requiring about a fortnight (though in 1991 one proud Corsican managed it in 37 hours). The refuges are basic and do not provide food, so you need to stock up in villages en route. Walking from south to north - from Conca near Porto-Vecchio in the south to Vizzavona in the north - is said to be the easiest way round. Some of the many delights of the GR20 include the relatively mild weather, the sea-views and the Mediterranean atmosphere. On the other hand, some sections are seriously strenuous and should not be attempted by people without mountain experience. The route is clear of snow from June to early November.
Camino de Santiago
(Grande Randonee 65). Otherwise known as the Chemin de St Jacques or The Way of St James, this is in many respects the grandfather of all great European walks. Starting from St Jean Pied de Port in the French Basque Country, it is simply the modern version of the medieval Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route from northern Europe to Santiago de Compostela. The 500-mile route can take as long as three months for leisurely pilgrims, but it does take in the magnificent scenery around Pamplona in the Spanish Basque country and, later, the Picos de Europa. Short sections of the route won't earn you a place in heaven but they are highly recommended. An ideal place to fly to would be Biarritz in south-west France.
The Pyrenees
There are several famous walking trails that cross from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean along the Pyrenees. These are the physically rigorous Haute Randonnee Pyreneene, which runs virtually from peak to peak, and the much less demanding but longer Grande Randonee 10 (both in Spain) and the Spanish Gran Recorrido 11. Covering any of these in their entirety can be a matter of a month or even longer, so short sections are ideal. Useful airports in the region include Bilbao and Biarritz. The Alternative Travel Group covers sections of the walk in the Spanish Basque country, while Alto Aragon also specialises in treks in the Pyrenees.
Gorge of Samaria, CRETE
At only 11 miles, and taking a mere six or seven hours , this may be the shortest walk in this series but it is still the longest gorge in Europe, and one of the few walks that is a joy off-season as well as on. Amid pine forests and wild flowers, nearly 450 species of plant flourish as well as a rare kind of horned Ibex called the kri-kri. From top to bottom, the route runs from Xyloskalo, which is accessible on foot from Omalos in the eastern part of the island, down to Ayia Roumeli on the coast. However, be warned that although this is a short walk, you'll still need solid boots. Watch out for flooding in spring and crowds in summer.
Pindhos Traverse
The Pindhos mountains in north-western Greece are hugely scenic and dotted with superb old stone villages. Of the many walking trails, the most famous and popular pass is through the awesome Vikos Gorge. The major long-distance trek, which takes in all the highlights including the gorge, is known as the 03 and is best started from Monodhendhri, one hour by bus from the regional centre of Ioannina. Exodus Travel and Waymark Holidays both run organised long- distance walks in the area.
FACT FILE
Maps
Stanfords, 12-14 Long Acre, London WC2 (0171 836 2260).
Tourist boards
France 0891 244123; Switzerland 0171 734 1921; Italy 0171 408 1254; Austria 0171 629 0461; Spain 0891 669920.
Offa's Dyke/Pennine Way
HF Holidays 0181 905 9558.
Italian Alps
The Alternative Travel Group (01865 310 399) Inntravel (01653 628811).
Tour du Mont Blanc
Schweizerischer Jugendherbergen, Schaffhauserstrasse 14, Postfach CH- 8042 Zurich (tel: 00 41 1 360 1414), or the Verlag Schweizer Alpen-Club, Postfach 1347004, Chur (00 41 81 286 9045).
Pyrenees
Travel Group (01865 513333); Alto Aragon (01869 337339).
Pindhos Traverse
Exodus Travel (0181 675 5550) and Waymark Holidays (01753 516477).