The Guardian

We’re all familiar with the Scandinavian concept of hygge, which is all about hunkering down and staying cosy in winter. So it will come as no surprise to learn that the Scandis have also got it sussed when it comes to making the most of the summer. Friluftsliv, a Norwegian word that translates as “open-air living”, is all about getting out into the great outdoors, connecting with nature and leaving a minimal environmental footprint. Whether it’s hiring a Swedish summer house, camping on a Danish island or kayaking in Norwegian fjords, we’d love to hear your recommendations for outdoorsy summer holidays in Scandinavia.

Often when I’ve turned up at various yoga studios in London, the groups I’ve encountered have been overwhelmingly white, svelte and middle class. Perhaps I’ve not found the right class, but as a south Asian woman, it always felt like I was in somebody else’s space.

Climbing towards the basilica from the river, we explored a zigzag of secret staircases and hidden courtyards in Lyon. These traboules are hard to follow, and so we had to look out for the metal plates that mark some of the entrances. There’s almost no direct way up from the river, but these routes, originally for the city’s silk workers, reveal charming back streets and private courtyards, into which visitors can stare. At the top, breathless, we loved the Basilique Nôtre-Dame de Fourvière. In the crypt we made another exciting discovery: a huge mosaic of the sea battle of Lepanto, a site we’d recently visited in Greece. David Innes-Wilkin

‘This whole project started as an experiment,” says Pawel Sidorski, who swapped his life in the European hotel industry to pursue his vision of sustainable luxury, opening Yurts in Cyprus, near Paphos in west Cyprus, in 2013. “I wanted to pioneer an off-grid lifestyle and create a place for people to connect with nature without sacrificing comfort,” he says.

It was an inauspicious start. Having cycled no more than a few metres, from the steps of the Angel hotel into the grounds of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, I fell off my bike.

When you can gaze on the salt pans of Guérande, near Nantes, cycle through lavender fields in Drôme, in the south-east, and bask in the splendour of the Cirque de Gavarnie in the Pyrénees, you have to wonder how France got so lucky with its diverse landscapes. Most recently, the volcanic landscape of the Massif Central captured my heart. The chain of extinct volcanoes runs south from the highest, Le Puy de Dôme (there’s a rack railway to the top) near Clermont-Ferrand.

For decades, cheap flights, nightclubs and booze made Prague one of Europe’s stag party capitals. City officials have spoken out about tourists’ drunken behaviour, but Prague remains popular among men dressed as Smurfs drinking 50 koruna (£1.70) pints of pilsner.

Paris is called the City of Light, possibly because of its early adoption of gas street lighting. But that would not explain why, as I approach Gare du Nord on Eurostar during daytime, I experience a soft dazzle, similar to when I see a pebbly beach. This is not a meteorological phenomenon; the weather in Paris is only slightly better than London’s. Instead, the luminosity owes something to the buff or light-grey limestone of the older buildings (including the Sacré Coeur, rearing like a great ghost to my right), its pallor perpetuated by the whitewashed exteriors of newer buildings.

Standout moments from nearly 20 years of writing about travelling and eating around France include meals in legendary restaurants and the joy of a shared dinner at a chambre d’hôtes. That said, there’s a venue that can’t be underestimated as an opportunity to enjoy France’s culinary delights: the car boot picnic.

‘Every day I’m here, the sky and the sea are different,” says Anastasia Kharchenko, as an incessant drizzle patters on our umbrellas. “Sometimes you can’t even see the horizon because it’s so foggy, but in certain months the colours are just breathtaking.”

It was a summer’s morning in the Lepontine Alps in Ticino, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton, and there was the vague threat of a storm on the horizon. I was already out on a trail through larch and hazelnut forest, backpack shouldered, aiming for a mountain pass. Up ahead, a herd of short-haired goats grazed, their bells chiming merrily, while behind me the peaks that tower over the Maggia Valley shuffled in and out of view from behind the clouds – each top grimacing, stone teeth chipped and bared.

Stepping into the lobby of the Gellért Baths in Budapest is like stepping back in time. Having resisted the temptation to look at photos of the baths online, I was thrilled at my first sight of the spectacular art nouveau interior.After changing, my husband and I did a few laps of the main indoor pool, admiring the intricately decorated columns surrounding us. Afterwards, we explored the building’s labyrinth of geothermal pools before emerging on to the enormous roof terrace. There, we swam in the heated outdoor pool under bright sunshine.

The Scotland-based company Slow Adventure advocates a more mindful approach to activity holidays. Options include climbing and yoga in the Italian Alps, mountain biking in Sweden and horse riding and rambling in Iceland. On the Finnish Happiness trip, guests stay in log cabins by a lake in Lapland and activities include canoeing under the midnight sun, hiking, swimming, swamp foraging and daily saunas. On all trips, 5% of the fee goes to local conservation projects, which in Finland could mean helping protect the rare Saimaa ringed seal, preserving forests or supporting a children’s environmental charity.From £876 for five nights, slow-adventure.com

It is said that when Norse explorer Ingólfur Arnarson and his wife Hallveig Fróðadóttir threw some wooden posts from their ship in AD878 they floated to a bay covered with steaming springs, hence the name Reykjavík, or “stormy bay”, and that’s where Arnarson decided to settle. I am here researching women in Icelandic sagas for my next book, and our two small children have accompanied me, with their father sharing childcare.

Genoa-born chef Ivano Ricchebono looks like a Hollywood actor playing a chef in a movie. His restaurant The Cook is in a 14th-century palazzo in the old town, and as I step into the dining room I stop and stare – the entire place is covered with frescoes. It’s wildly romantic. “People get engaged here all the time,” Ivano says with a smile. Awarded his first Michelin star in 2010, he has cooked for Stanley Tucci, and has an international reputation for excellence. But today he’s my tour guide – not to the blossoming fine dining scene but to the affordable (and equally delicious) fare enjoyed by locals every day.

Spring in northern Lake Garda is an adventure paradise. I’ve been several times and enjoyed the via ferratas: iron cables fixed to scrambling routes, which require fitness and sense of adventure but not technical mountaineering skills (safety equipment required). The views are amazing and varied, from gorges and ledges to grassy mountaintop finishes and, for the bold, huge vertical ladders – with castles, bastions and shrines along the route. It’s a great area, too, for hiring a bike or picking one of the many apartments that include them, to explore the paths and see the lakes and mountains by pedal power. Bored with all that? There’s also paddleboarding, windsurfing, swimming and river boat trips. All accompanied by brilliant food and gelato.David Thomas

La Mortella is an extraordinary garden we visited on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. It is a wonderland of exotic plants, created in 1958 by Argentinian Susana Walton. Unbelievably sumptuous were the hanging orchids, and the experience was full of other delights such as the biggest lily pads I have ever seen. We were guided by the receptionist (with a talking parrot) to the cafe, where we enjoyed fantastic food and then a concert featuring music written by Susana’s husband, Sir William. The gardens are open from 30 March to 3 November (entry €12) on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Our memory is of music, food and glorious surroundings.David Innes-Wilkin

With spring almost here, now’s the time for lacing up your walking boots and getting back outside. Whether it’s woodland strolls, day-long coastal walks or more challenging hikes, we’d love to hear about your favourite lesser known destinations which come into their own at this time of year.

A bronzed, willowy veteran in black Speedos glides into the shallow, round-ish thermal pool snuggled into a grassy riverbank. It’s one of a huddle of rock pools, with trees and a modest wooden changing hut. We’re the only people here bathing beneath a cement-coloured sky that seems to inhale the steam billowing from the baths. It could be an onsen in rural Japan, except I’m about 10,000 miles from there, in north-west Spain.

When Clare Stone’s local bus service was abruptly axed in 2022, she “got quite cross” and co-founded protest group Buses4Us. In the early 20th century, daytrippers used to come by train to see the displays of wild daffodils that carpet the forests and meadows of the so-called “golden triangle” on the Gloucestershire–Herefordshire border. The railway (now long gone) became known as the Daffodil Line. Clare’s group channelled the spirit of the early Victorian investors who had raised the funds to build the railway: “They wanted the railway so they decided to get on and do it themselves,” she tells me. Buses4Us raised money from councils, businesses and individuals and in April 2023 launched a bus called the Daffodil Line (AKA bus 232 or simply “the Daff”).

I was eating homemade crostata (jam tart) on a roof terrace in the Sicilian town of Cefalù and reading about Helius, the ancient Greek god of the sun. Sicily is supposedly the inspiration for the deity’s island in The Odyssey and this makes perfect sense – with more than 300 days of sunshine a year, Helius would like it here. The island is especially lovely in spring, when it’s quieter, cooler and more peaceful than in the scorching summer.Cefalù is an ancient fishing village almost exactly halfway along Sicily’s north coast. It’s prized by Italians as one of the island’s loveliest beach-side places. Barbara De Gaetani, a licensed tour guide who grew up here, told me the allure of the place is difficult to explain: “Many other places are gorgeous but not as seductive. You can feel life flowing here, and it’s no accident that many film-makers have used the town as a location.”