We were staying in Soriso because it had a restaurant with two Michelin stars, but apart from being a typically pretty Italian town, there didn’t seem to be a lot more to it. Looking for things of interest we wandered into the town hall where we bumped into the mayor, the only person there. Before we knew it we were shown to a room full of old posters advertising dances, wind instruments, flags, uniforms, cobblers’ tools and various bric-a-brac from past times whilst our new friend enthusiastically explained the most important objects. Knowing Spanish, we managed to identify some words which were similar and the mayor’s mime skills helped paint a picture we could at least partly understand.

Once he’d finished talking about the objects in the room, he indicated we follow him out of the town hall, up a narrow cobbled street and into a building with a rickety wooden roof and stairs and balcony which looked as though they could breathe their last breath and collapse at any moment.

Inside was a maze of rooms overflowing with relics from a bygone age which would have the presenters of Antique’s Roadshow enthusing ecstatically. Arranged around the dusty floor and lining warped shelves were rows of beautiful old coffee grinders, handpainted china plates, cast iron stoves, clogs, feathered quills, old colonial newspapers, copper pots and pans, bodices and bloomers, old school desks with inkwells, and the old phone. All displayed in a higgledy-piggledy yet quite logical fashion.

It wasn’t open to the public as such, except if someone showed interest in the town when the mayor happened to be around.

There was a poignancy about the items in the old house and passion in the mayor’s voice gave life to individual pieces. It was a chronicle of a world which had drifted away, but one which was kept alive in those dusty old rooms.

There was nothing sensational about anything of the items in the rooms, but there was something special, unique about the experience. We we were treated to a glimpse of the social history of a small Italian town not many people will ever venture into.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

At the foot of the steps, three elderly walkers are pondering their options. Guessing their average age must be in the vicinity of 80 yrs, I’m both impressed and humbled by the fact they’ve made it this far. After some deliberation, they settle down on a low wall, presumably to summon up the energy to make the final push. Shamed into feeling somewhat pathetic, I take to the steps with enthusiasm.

It had been a difficult decision.

It was our penultimate full day in the hiker’s utopia of Berchtesgaden at the southern tip of Bavaria and, our final day already committed, we had to choose whether to re-route our first walk of the trip in order to get a better look at the distinctive profile of geotope, Steinerne Agnes, or make the steep ascent of the flank of the Hochalter mountain range to reach the mountain Hütte tucked into a craggy ledge below the Blaueis glacier. With no guarantees that Agnes would deign to look any more impressive from anywhere other than the cockpit of a helicopter hovering alongside, we opted for Blaueis.

My initial zeal rapidly diminishing into slow, hard slog, we finally emerge at the side of the Hütte, walk around the rear where one or two tables sit outside the back door beneath the gaze of the eponymous glacier above, and onto the front decking terrace. I walk to a free table at the far side of the large terrace where a posee of yellow-billed, Alpine choughs line the wooden handrail like expectant waiters.

We order a large platter of cold meats, cheeses, crusty bread, and a slab of butter and, as we hungrily tuck in, the realisation of just where we are begins to sink in.

Around 800m (2,600ft) below us, the artist’s lake of Hintersee shimmers like a fallen piece of sky in the midst of the pine forest at the foot of the Lattengebirge mountains. Behind us, the Hochalter mountains rose to their craggy peaks while, tucked into a crevasse just a short distance above us, the Blaueis glacier sits, a thin line of walkers making negligible progress as they snake along the granite rock towards it. And here we sit, on a wooden platform jutting out from the rock face, suspended 1600m above sea level, the sun on our faces, and a feast on our table.

It might have been hard work to get here but it was worth every step to be in such a unique spot.

As we’re leaving, the three octogenarians have just arrived at one of the tables at the rear of the building and are perusing the menu for their well-deserved lunch.

Don’t you just love Slow travel?

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, DK Guides, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

It was enough to make them stop walking and look back at me, their expressions clearly waiting for the punch line.
“Listen!”
The minute I said it, the music stopped. Then it started again.
“It’s coming from the riding stables,” they said.

It wasn’t. It was most definitely coming from the bush. By this time I was beginning to contemplate looking around for a large stone and carving out all the things I think people should do, or not do, to make the world a better place. If I was a devout Canario, this bush would now be certified as ‘miraculous’ and an annual pilgrimage would be arranged to honour it.

Then I spotted something on the ground, hidden amongst the undergrowth. It was a Union Jack and it was emblazoned on a mobile phone that was belting out Latino music from beneath a large euphorbia on the Canary Island of La Palma. I may involuntarily have squealed with triumph as I held the phone above my head with a self-satisfied smirk.

“See! It was the bush!”

The phone began to ring again and James answered the call. There was a delay, presumably while the caller absorbed the shock of this unexpected turn of events. Location details were exchanged and a couple of minutes later the phone’s owner showed up. He and his companion had been driving around, constantly calling the number, to try to locate the lost phone. It was a smart plan. Whether or not it would ever have led them to the singing bush is debatable but anyway, we speeded the process along.

Another miracle bites the dust.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, Wizz, you can read her latest content on Google+

Although the landscape was familiar in a chocolate box sort of way, we didn’t know the foibles of its paths or how its signposting worked. We’d set off from the Agathawirt Hotel in Bad Goisern to cross the meadows at the base of the Dachstein Mountains and had barely been on the trail for 10 minutes when we reached a junction of paths. The path we should be following, the one that went straight ahead to climb into the forest, appeared to fizzle out at houses at the back of the meadow. Over and back we wandered, trying each of the other paths to see if any deviated into the woods, but none of them did.

A woman had been silently watching us from behind the hedges of her manicured garden and finally called us over. The path, it seemed, didn’t end at her garden but ran straight across her lawn, alongside her rose bed and then into the woods by a series of rustic steps. With grateful thanks we finally got on track, muttering about being behind schedule and the casual nature of Austrian path making.

Having climbed into the dense forest, we began to wind our way along a flat, narrow path where dappled sunlight fell in light showers and seductive glimpses of the rolling valley far below broke through the trees.

Suddenly the silence was shattered by the thunder of hooves and the cracks of a thousand tiny branches snapping as a large stag emerged at full speed from the forest, leapt across the path in a shaft of brilliant sunlight just feet ahead of us, and disappeared into the forest on the other side, leaving us standing wide-eyed, and a swirling column of leaves dancing in its wake. It happened so quickly that had either one of us been on our own we might have doubted the evidence of our own eyes.

It was just a stag; just a magnificent, antlered stag; its single leap graceful and effortlessly powerful; the muscles in its hindquarters and the beauty of its face caught in a blinding shaft of sunlight, forever emblazoned on the retinas of our memories. It was just a travel moment.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

We’d been told she was to be found in a small crypt to the right of the altar in the 9th century Eglise de Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer, accessible via a back door. But when we went around the back of the church and paid a small fee, it led us to a narrow staircase which wound its way to the top of the building and we emerged into blinding sunlight, high above the streets of the town.

Despite having conquered my vertigo many years earlier on a trip to Sigiriya in Sri Lanka, my hands were tingling as I stepped up from the crenellated walkway that circumnavigated the roof and onto the steep, stone tiles that rose to an apex behind the bell tower. When I reached the central ridge, I perched on the stone sill and finally allowed myself the luxury of lifting my eyes to the horizon.

Directly below me, the narrow streets of the town buzzed with morning shoppers and lunch time diners, garlic-infused warm air rising from cooking pots on market stalls. Red tiled roofs spread out from my vantage point like a captive congregation waiting for the sermon to begin, hemmed in on all sides by the Rhône estuary. Beyond the stone penitents the salt flats of the Camargue shimmered in the heat haze, their scorched grasslands speckled with the blue trails of watery inlets. With no other tall buildings to interrupt, I could see for miles and miles while a gentle breeze broke the summer’s stranglehold and fanned my brow like a faithful punkawallah.

We never did find Sara.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

“That’s the trouble with you Manchester United fans,” the Irish dentist standing behind me scoffed. “You think everyone is interested in Manchester United. They’re not. This is the Yangtse. Nobody has heard of Manchester United here.”

The riverboat secured, we shuffled off the old boat single file, passing signs in Chinese that meant nothing to me. It was a dreich day. The river was mud brown in colour, the riverbank was actually mud, the sky didn’t seem much different in tone.

As we edged closer to terra firma a huge angled billboard came into view. I’d no idea what it was advertising, but I instantly recognised the face beaming down at us all – Ryan Giggs in his Manchester United strip. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect

Everybody leaving the boat spotted it. I didn’t need to say anything.

Behind me I heard the Irish dentist sigh.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

Eventually we reached our hotel in Habarana, a convenient inland base for exploring Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa on Sri Lanka. As we arrived, an elephant lumbered past the entrance carrying a roll of cane in its trunk. Once inside we watched a troop of monkeys use the roofs of low buildings as launch pads to reach the pool area where, we discovered over the next couple of days, they regularly made anarchic assaults; outwitting staff every time and leaving the place as though a typhoon had swept through – a typhoon made up of impish faces.

We were handed cool, damp cloths to wipe our faces as the receptionist checked us in. There were four of us. The other couple we hadn’t known until our paths crossed on the same journey a few days previously. Our rooms had been booked but not allocated.

The smiling receptionist held out her hand to reveal two keys. On one, the room number was inscribed on a decorated golden tab. On the other it was etched into a plain block of wood.

One of our travelling companions (the man) immediately reached out and grasped the golden key, leaving us with the wooden one. It made no difference to us, the rooms would be more or less the same. However, we were amused at the speed in which he grabbed the golden key.

As it happened, the rooms weren’t the same at all.

Ours was a delectable, detached mini villa with its own little leafy terrace area, whereas our companions had grabbed themselves an ordinary room in a small block which housed a couple of other rooms.

All that glistens is not gold.

I’ve often wondered if it was a deliberate test on the part of the receptionist. I’ll never know, but in a country where Buddhism is the main religion, it seemed a wonderfully appropriate little morality tale.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

It’s bliss. A simple teapot and two glasses filled with sweet mint tea lie on the grass at our feet in the Atlas Mountains. Beyond is a gurgling brook, sparkling and dancing in the sun; a sun that can’t reach us thanks to a cooling and protective canopy of leaves. It’s the first shade we’ve enjoyed since daybreak.

I remove my boots and wiggle my toes. My feet relish their freedom after being imprisoned in the heavy walking boots for hours.

On the opposite side of the brook a woman bends double, gathering huge clumps of grasses which she then loads onto a mule. A blindingly white egret walks at a respectful pace behind her, stabbing at the disturbed ground with its beak. The greenery in the valley basin contrasts sharply with the the dry and dusty one higher up the slopes. It feels like a completely different world.

I take a sip of the tea. It’s hot, sweet and refreshing after our long trek through the Atlas Mountains.

A pot of mint tea beside a stream. Simple pleasures.

It’s not bliss, it’s sheer bliss.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+