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Perched atop Britain’s highest chalk sea cliffs, Belle Tout Lighthouse occupies a commanding position 160 metres above the English Channel. Leave your vertigo on the doorstep and ascend the tower for a night in the original lighthouse-keeper’s loft.
The quirky, round, brick-walled room features a fireplace and loft double bed, or you can opt for one of the more luxurious downstairs rooms, with sweeping ocean vistas. Hang out in the lantern-room lounge and enjoy 360-degree views so breathtaking you’ll choke on your gin and tonic. The lighthouse is decommissioned, so you’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep.
region: Europe
Michelberger Hotel
Set in a former factory in the trendy Friedrichshain district, the Michelberger Hotel embodies Berlin’s eccentric personality. Quirky objects unearthed in the city decorate the interior, hand-built furniture features in suites and there are even graphic designers holed up in room 132 working their creative magic.
Voyeurs will love the Cosy rooms with showers overlooking the bed, but if the thought of bathing with your loved one looking on sets your skin crawling, opt for a Loft instead. Feed your inner nerd within the book-lined walls of the The Clever One pad or chill in the hotel’s library. There’s free wi-fi, a DJ in the courtyard and live music at the bar.
The Battle of Oberbaumbrücke (Upper Tree Bridge)
While the reunification of Germany in 1989–90 is generally regarded as an all-round awesome occurrence – not least because at one stage it featured David Hasselhoff standing atop the partially demolished Berlin Wall thundering out a rendition of ‘Looking for Freedom’ – not all neighbouring suburbs of the nation’s capital city were able to kiss and make up after their 30-year divorce. The districts of Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, for example, still meet annually on the Oberbaumbrücke (Upper Tree Bridge) to lob water bombs, eggs and rotten fruit and veg at each other.
As everyone knows, a food fight is the most logical way to prove who is best, and the victor is the side that forces the other completely off the bridge. The battle takes place in September, and if you’re keen to get amongst it, then it’s probably worth knowing that the Friedrichshain fruit-throwers are the usual champs, while Kreuzberg’s carrot-lobbing record sucks. Join the underdog – pelt a potato at those uppity Friedrichshainians!
Stopover Fun at Munich Airport
Airports suck, right? Well, yes, but it’s not all bad, especially when you land in Munich.
After hours cooped up in a confined space, how about some physical exertion to get the blood pumping and ward off the dreaded DVT? Start your holiday early with a hit out at the airport’s beach volleyball court, or enjoy a round of mini golf on an 18-hole course at the on-site visitor park.
Afterwards, step into the cockpit of a Boeing 737 flight simulator and test your mettle behind the controls. You can also join a tour where you’ll explore the airport’s nerve centre, taking in the maintenance hangars and engine-testing facility, as well as some of the quirkier items seized by customs.
Canyoning in the Pyrenees
Delve into the heart of the high Pyrenees, making your way through a network of canyons and waterways. After a crash course in rope skills, you’ll start in the French mountains, laced with rivers roaring with the run-off from melted snowcaps.
Abseil vertical canyons and hurtle down water chutes and waterfalls, then dry out in a sunlit gully beyond the Spanish border. Here you can dive into warm, blue swimming holes, scale rock faces and unwind with a bottle of local wine or two. Feel your heart in your mouth with a final, 150-metre free-hanging abseil down the Foratata Canyon.
Film Your Own Personal Blockbuster
A comet is about to strike Finland and will wipe out humankind. But you know how to stop it. Be the hero in your very own movie with The Hollywood Experience and create the ultimate travelogue of your Nordic adventures. High-end Finnish tour company Luxury Action has teamed up with Studio Jones to offer film-lovers the chance to star in a personal blockbuster.
Car chase? Can do. Journey to Narnia? Check. Sole survivor of a zombie apocalypse? Tick. Share your action dreams with the team and they’ll twist and tweak a storyboard to your liking. Once the narrative is complete, zip to location and work your magic in front of the camera. The catch? Holidaying like a movie star requires an income to match – the cost of scriptwriting alone starts at about US$11,500. That’s before the camera even starts rolling.
Bubbledogs’ Gourmet Fast Food
Quaffing champagne with hot dogs is akin to serving foie gras with Fanta; they’re not exactly culinary cronies. But a London eatery has sent convention to the dogs, teaming the fast food staple with boutique bubbles. Bubbledogs is capitalising on London’s new-found fascination with gourmet fast food, serving up delectable hot dogs with grower champagne.
It’s no meal for mutts. The house-made pork, beef and vegetable hot dogs are made with 100 per cent British produce, freshly baked buns and a lick of condiments and spices. The Trishna Dog – with mint, mango chutney and coriander – has been running out the door. Then there’s the K-Dawg – a mean mongrel of kimchi, fermented red bean paste and lettuce – a mix not to be messed with.
Chessboxing
You might think that getting punched repeatedly in the face by an opponent would be detrimental to your concentration levels and overall cerebral fitness – and generally speaking you’d be correct – but chessboxing gives participants the chance to show off both brains and brawn. The hybrid sport sees appropriately weight-matched opponents swinging haymakers in the boxing ring then glaring across a chessboard at each other in alternating rounds. A knockout or checkmate move decides the contest. The concept was conceived 35 years ago, and was once seen as part novelty sport, part joke – we dare you, however, to laugh in the face of Nikolay Sazhin, a world champion in two heavyweight divisions, or Ruthie Wright, a school teacher who became the women’s flyweight champ.
The burgeoning sport now attracts big crowds at venues in London’s Kings Cross, Berlin and Kolkata in India. We’d like to see Kasparov go toe to toe with Deep Blue in the ring, or watch as Tyson chews over the intricacies of the Ruy Lopez strategy. Intrigued? You can try out a class yourself at the Islington Boxing Club or get along to the Chess Boxing Championship in London.
Free-falling from Denmark’s Sky Tower
Forget bungie lines and safety ropes as you drop unencumbered towards the ground at Tivoli Friheden, a theme park in Aarhus that operates Europe’s only SCAD (suspended catch air device) tower. Strapped into a padded harness and helmet, you might feel secure as you take in the gorgeous sight of the bay, but all bravado will leach away as you dangle at the mercy of an operator and a distant net. Basically, you’ll be dropped to plunge 30 metres to your bouncing lifesaver below in just three seconds. If hitting 4G forces while falling at 90 kilometres an hour doesn’t sound terrifying, learning that researchers use these structures to simulate near-death experiences should be enough to shake you.
Water into wine
But when you wake up in a new place every morning and you don’t know the lay of the land, it’s an easy matter to get lost – especially here, in the Auxerrois, a province in the Burgundy region of central France, where apparently it’s simpler to stumble upon an immense subterranean cavern full of bubbly than it is to find a bakery.
We’re in the Caves Bailly Lapierre, which burrow into the hills above the riverside village of Saint-Bris-le-Vineux. Within its four-hectare labyrinth, the premium produce of 71 local vineyards is gathered together and sold in a front-of-cave tasting room.
To get here (after spying an intriguing looking riverbank sign, which curiosity refused to let us ignore) we climbed a vertiginous hill, cycled through a hole in the cliff face and pedalled several hundred metres through a gloomy tunnel, before emerging into a huge chamber lined with bottles. There, beneath a buxom vision of an effervescent wine angel sculpted into the stone ceiling, a bloke offered us a glass of Crémant, the speciality of the region.
You can’t argue with serendipity in such circumstances, and it would have been rude not to try a few sips of the local varietal; plus we needed to sate the thirst we’d earned by cycling up the hill. Even at this early hour we’re not alone. Some of our fellow early-bird tasters are spitting their wine out, but we wouldn’t dream of being so wasteful. By the third glass, our erstwhile quest has gone completely out of focus.
It’s not until we get back in the saddle and wobble off down the hill, four bottles of Crémant Réserve clinking away in the breadless baskets of our bikes, that we realise a story is going to be required. Our crew has grown used to feasting on fresh bread for breakfast – we’ve been gone for hours and the bounty we’re returning with is not what they ordered. This could end in mutiny.
We’re deep into a self-sail boat trip along the Yonne river and Canal du Nivernais, twin – sometimes conjoined – waterways wending their way through the Bourgogne and forming an umbilicus between the Loire and Seine valleys. Things have been going smoothly so far, almost too smoothly – a revolution will liven things up nicely. So long as no one gets keelhauled or guillotined.
Potential insurgencies aside, this is slow travel at its best. It’s barefoot boating for those who want to explore the countryside, villages and vineyards of inland Europe, rather than the coast; a travel experience for people who love boats, but can’t bear the thought of being a passive passenger on a clinically planned cruise.
As captain of your own craft, you can choose your crew, explore at your own pace, stop as often or as little as you like, and there’s no need to unpack and repack gear at every port of call. It’s like having a floating campervan, except a whole lot cooler.
