trekking through the south African bush, on foot, is a game changer. opting to leave the landrover behind exposes you to more: more knowledge, and more danger. suddenly, every twitch of a branch, every rustle of a leaf, gets your heart racing and the adrenaline pumping. But the pure thrill of it is not the best reason to embark on a walking safari in south Africa. it’s about what you will learn. it’s about discovering the small animals such as chameleons as well as the famed big five (lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants and Cape buffalo). it’s about learning how to read footprints. like determining the time of day a herd of elephants passed by, through looking at the bird prints inside the cavity of the footprint left by the elephants. For example, some birds only walk around at dawn, so if their prints are visible inside the elephant foot print you know that the elephants passed by during the
night. A walking safari in Africa will connect you to your most basic primordial instincts: ones that you’ve probably never experienced, yet in this scenario, they surface quite quickly. it’s a dormant part of our evolutionary selves, dating from a time when we were hunting, or being hunted. one thing is certain: you will never again feel as alive as you do whilst walking through the bush. You will discover a part of you that you never knew existed. The key is your guide. he has to have the knowledge and he has to be a crack with a rifle … just in case. i was lucky enough to embark on a series of walking safaris with the man consistently voted, year after year, as the best safari guide in Africa. his name is Greg lederle and he is the david Attenborough (but much younger) of the safari world. A big no nonsense guy who knows more about the African bush and wildlife than anyone i’ve ever met.
Turquoise tubes are the attraction of surfing in the Maldives. You motor out past the reefs surrounding the island towards perfect waves booming in the distance.
Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful, it is also likely that you will have it to yourself. And, you have the added plus of heading back to your bungalow situated in a “picture postcard” perfect lagoon on a beautiful unspoilt tropical island.
atacama horseback safari
No Country for Old Men. it’s early in the morning on the outskirts of san Pedro de Atacama, a small town in south America’s infamous desert, and it’s already quite hot with the sun beating down brutally on this, the driest place on the planet. As you set off, the horses trail a massive cloud of red dust … like in a spaghetti Western. My kids are loving the theatre of it all. First stage is a gentle trot though town. After leaving san Pedro de Atacama, you start to climb the surrounding hills via steep rocky paths that challenge both the rider and the horses. After this the terrain flattens out somewhat, as you approach a steep and narrow canyon, the kind you’ve seen in many Westerns - the kind where someone always get ambushed.
My children were disappointed that we didn’t get ambushed but everybody, and the horses, welcomed the brief bit of shade. As you climb even further you reach strange sand dunes that sit, unexpectedly, between surrounding peaks. They provide an opportunity to go full tilt: a burst of flat out galloping. Which we did, until the horses were exhausted. The kids were grinning ear to ear. My son, who compares everything to star Wars likened it to exploring the planet tatooine. next, it was time to rest the horses, to drink and eat and then we set out to repeat the adventure, in reverse. By the end of the day there was still time left to dive into the hotel’s horizon pool. The end to the perfect horseback safari.
swimming in the calanques of the côte d’azur
A calanque is the Mediterranean version of a fjord. The most famous calanques on the Côte d’Azur are found between Marseille and Cassis - an area known as the Massif des Calanques. like the norwegian fjords, they are breathtakingly beautiful, and in order to protect them, France has established the area as a national park. There are also some calanques (that fall within the national park) beyond Cassis, just before the old shipbuilding town of la Ciotat. Calanque de Figuerolles in particular is popular with locals for cliff-jumping, freediving and spearfishing. A cascade of steep steps descends to a pebble beach and a narrow dark blue strip of the Mediterranean. directly behind the beach is a small compound known as république indépendante de Figuerolles; a cluster of charming garden bungalows clinging to the steep slopes of the calanque. it is a restaurant and a hotel that offers a refuge and a hideaway from the real world. r.i.F. is everything you could hope to find on the Côte d’Azur. it’s authentic,
private and unspoilt. The food is fantastic, the rooms are ‘beach shack’ chic, and best of all: you will have a calanque all to yourself! it is the perfect place for spearfishing. equipped with big swim fins, camouflage wetsuits and shiny spearguns, you will slide quietly into the cool, deep waters of the Calanque de Figuerolles in pursuit of your silvery slippery prey. it is said that fish caught by spearfishing taste better because they don’t suffer the stress of being hooked in the mouth, which, apparently, causes the secretion of ‘undesirable’ hormones. one thing is certain: catching fish by spearfishing is a lot more exotic than standing on a rock with a rod, waiting for something to happen. spearfishing is not difficult to arrange, especially if you are a guest at r.i.F. You are allowed, by French law, to spearfish in the calanques from April until the end of october. Who knew that you could channel your inner Jacques Cousteau here on the Côte d’Azur?
eternal temple
rome’s Pantheon is a 2,000-year-old masterpiece of engineering, built by emperor hadrian, as a temple to pagan gods. it has stood - unchanged - in the same spot for two millennia. Most remarkable is the fact that the massive dome of the Pantheon - which has a hole in the apex open to the sky - was made from moulded concrete lozenges. it remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Who knew that concrete even existed in ancient rome? visitors through the centuries have been dumbfounded by the innovative construction and precise geometry of this extraordinary temple. When Filippo Brunelleschi, for example, was trying to work out how to build the renaissance dome of Florence’s famous cathedral, he looked to the Pantheon for inspiration. And then there are those enormous granite columns: the soaring monoliths that would be difficult to quarry today, even with all the modern technology. to think how this was done, in an age without cranes and hydraulics, defies the imagination. The Pantheon is, without doubt, the most exceptional survivor
from ancient rome. if you visit nothing else in the ‘eternal city’, you must experience this. The Pantheon requires silence - an atmosphere of contemplation - if it is to be appreciated fully; it was a temple after all, and now, it is a church. sadly, later in the day, especially in the warmer months, silence is simply not an option. The gravitas of this historic gem is drowned out by street vendors trying to sell you things, and flag-bearing guides yelling at their tourist troops. The best way to experience this ancient roman masterpiece - to make it a real adventure - is to get up early (7 a.m.), and head for Piazza della rotonda, home to the Pantheon. now grab a table at Scusate Il Ritardo (meaning ‘sorry to keep you waiting’), right next to the Pantheon, and order your cappuccino and a nutella-filled cornetto (croissant). now you can take your time and bask in the quiet beauty of this ancient place of worship and absorb the extraordinary sense of history. There is no better way to experience this ancient marvel than ‘Breakfast at the Pantheon’.
like vincent
Poor vincent van Gogh. What would he make of today’s south of France ? The yellow sunflower fields and purple lavender fields are still around, but the unspoilt “peace and quiet” of rural village life is not. today’s south of France is a modern melange of motorways, supermarkets, suburbs, hotels and tourists... lots of tourists. But there is one place that is completely, entirely as it was in vincent’s time, a hundred and fifty years ago. it’s an island called Port Cros off the coast of hyeres. Thirty or so years ago, it was given, by the family that owned it, in a deed of gift, to the French state. The deed specified that the French government would need to commit resources - an army of
botanists and marine biologists - to return the island to its natural state. The state duly complied (and continues to do so) and today visitors are strictly limited to one ferry per day.
Passengers are counted when they embark and disembark and no one is allowed to stay on the island overnight … unless you have booked a room at le Manoir. only this hunting lodge still operated by the family that used to own the island, is allowed to accept paying guests and therein lies the unique adventure of this place. not only do you get a pristine island almost all to yourself, but you get to experience the south of France that inspired some of history’s most important art.
hiking to capri’s villa jupiter
hiking is not an activity anyone would associate with the island of Capri. That’s what makes hiking to villa Jupiter so special. hardly anyone knows about it. villa Jupiter was the residence of emperor tiberius, and he ruled the roman empire from this palace - situated on the very peak of Capri - for eleven years. tiberius, successor of Augustus, was not a very popular or effective emperor. The great-uncle of Caligula and greatgranduncle of nero was described as a dark and sombre ruler, but the one thing that made him stand out was that he abandoned rome in favour of the isle of Capri. he ruled from the remote magnificence of the 7,000 m2 villa Jupiter on what is now Mount tiberius, with a sweeping panoramic view of naples, Mount vesuvius, ischia and the Bay of salerno in the distance. You can visit the ruins of this infamous villa if you’re up for the forty-five-minute, two-mile hike from Capri’s Piazzetta. A series of narrow trails and fragrant
pathways lead to the site, and on the way you will not only pass villa lysis, a neoclassical villa of the early 1900s made famous by the scandalized French author and aristocrat Count Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, but more interestingly you will hike through the lesser-known Parco Astarita, which is still populated by wild goats. it’s safe to say that no one expects to come across wild goats on the isle of Capri. When you finally arrive at villa Jupiter, it is impossible not to be impressed with the setting and the scale. From the reconstructed drawingsthat show the massive complex as it once would have been - it is clear that tiberius was a man of taste, but to gain some insight into his character you need only seek out the vantage point known as ‘ tiberius’ leap’, with its 300-m drop to the sea below. This is where disobedient servants and unpopular guests are said to have been given a simple choice: jump or be pushed!
desert island cinema
When was the last time watching a movie was an adventure for you? it’s a rethorical question... don’t bother. The inspiration behind this adventure was to create a “movie night” you will never forget. The idea is simple enough. take a desert island in the tropics, with a picturesque lagoon, build a cinema screen in the water and use red coloured spotlights to highlight the stunning lime stone sentinels standing like sculpture in the black of night. it is - “installation art meets jungle cinema”. Park the guests on matresses on the beach, provide plenty of ice cold champagne and delicious “finger food” and voila. The logistics, however, proved slightly more challenging and complicated. A desert island has no power (logically) so a large (very large) industrial generator had to be brought in but it had to be parked far enough away
that you would hear nothing… which for all intents and purposes meant the other end of the island. Miles of electrical cable had to be laid through the jungle to reach the designated cinema beach. Then, giant scaffolding had to be builtbecause distance quickly minimises scale - by divers who were prepared to work underwater. if it seems extreme to put this much time, money and organisation into a movie night don’t forget this simple (cliched?) aphorism - “the more you put in, the more you get out”. desert island Cinema is an extraordinary effort - an extraordinary act of untethered imagination - that tested the resources and ingenuity of many, but it ranks as an adventure that is nothing short of monumental.
