Bog snorkelling: the tourists'll love it

Or would you prefer worm charming and snail racing? Every town and village just has to have a festival to call its own. By Jeremy Atiyah

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 22 June 1997

THIS weekend sees the summer solstice and the longest day of the year. Druids and new-age travellers may no longer be permitted to practise their mysterious arts at Stonehenge, but all over the northern hemisphere, from Glastonbury to the Faroe Islands, a growing number of towns will be holding their very own "festivals".

Once upon a time, every town and village in Europe had its fairs and annual events by which local people marked their calenders. In Britain at least, what started out as trade and agricultural fairs, later acquired secondary characteristics such as pancake-frying, Maypole dancing or tossing the caber.

But this festive world then ran into the industrial age. Communities broke up and traditional events lost their appeal. Towns and villages forgot their pre-industrial habits and rushed to embrace modernity. The few local events that struggled through into our own age were regarded as quaint if not downright ridiculous.

These relics ranged from the annual Viking Up-Helly-Aa festival in Lerwick in January, to May-Pole dancing in Oxford on 1 May, to "Bawming the Thorn" in the town of Appleton Thorn Cheshire (which happened yesterday). Beyond these historic curiosities, there were respectable events such as the Henley regatta or the Edinburgh Festival, but the festive calender for Jo Bloggs-ville had gone virtually blank.

That was before the rise of tourism. Nowadays, no self-respecting town can rely on just Wimbledon, Christmas and 5 November to get them through the year. For this reason town councillors, PR agencies and sponsors up and down the land have come up with a solution - invent new festivals.

Some of these upstarts have serious pretensions to becoming major festivals in their own right. On top of the Glastonbury pop festival, which now has a solid track record of 26 years, a whole series of events are lining up for the summer.

Just in the coming week for example, we will have seen the City of London Arts Festival (started 1962), the Glasgow International Jazz festival (1986), the Bradford Festival (1985) and the Harwich Festival (1985).

Some of these festivals are in fact reincarnations of much earlier fairs which had fallen into abeyance. The Bradford Festival emerged from the ashes of something called Saint Blaize's Festival, an eighteenth century fair for wool-combers. "That fair petered out in the 1820s," explained Rob Walsh, a festival spokesman. "There were attempts to revive it over the years, but it's only now that we've got something really going."

For later on in the summer, we have BITE (the Bath International Taste Extravaganza), a food festival of two year's vintage, taking place in the city of Bath. Then there is the Headworx Cherry Coke Surf Festival - trendy American sports plus music - being held in Cornwall at the end of July. The Ace Cafe Reunion meanwhile, a focal point for men with motorbikes, is this year being held in Brighton in September.

At the other end of the commercial scale, some of the more new-fangled events are no more than parodies of existing traditions. Snail racing in Norfolk, bog snorkelling in Llanwrtyd Wells and worm charming in Devon are but a few of the odder items in this year's diary of British "festivals".

Not that an explosion of festivals is only a British phenomenon. Worldwide, cities are inaugurating events in the desperate hope of starting something big - a new Rio Carnival, say, or a Pamplona running of the bulls. Forthcoming events range from Singapore's Food festival (all July) to the Slug Festival (July 4-7) in Washington State where activities include riding a tram covered in slug-slime.

Starting before the end of the century is doubtless a smart move to enable festival promoters (within four years), to speak of their particular event dating back "to the last century". Too commercial and artificial? Not necessarily. Festivals have to start somewhere. And as anthropologists will tell you, all of them have roots in tourism.

Eat your way around the world

In how many different countries have you eaten over the space of one day? Beat Jeremy Atiyah's score of five and you could win two first- class tickets on Eurostar

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 15 June 1997

The roll call of meals and countries during my weekend in Luxembourg was, briefly, as follows. For breakfast I had croissants and coffee in the railway station in sunny Luxembourg City. For lunch I enjoyed sausage and beer in a bar across the Moselle River in Germany (the Germans may not be famous for their food but the steamed sausage is one of their greatest contributions to man). My pre-dinner drink was served to me some hours later in a seedy bar near the Gare de Midi in the Belgian capital Brussels. Dinner then comprised lemon sole and prawn salad on Eurostar as the plains of northern France flashed past at 180 miles per hour, and finally, on arrival back in England, I dropped in at my local for a late half of Guinness before heading to bed.

We are now extending a challenge to readers of the Independent on Sunday. How may different countries can you do? We are looking for entertaining accounts from readers who have managed to partake of meals, snacks and drinks in as many different countries as possible in the space of a single day. Avoid absurdity: if your account is fictitious, it should be believable enough for us not to know any better (stories of breakfast in Bermuda and lunch in Australia for example are unlikely to impress).

Send us the story of your day of itinerant eating in no more than 500 words and the author of the most entertaining (and credible) account will receive two first-class return Eurostar tickets to Brussels. In addition, the winning entry will be published in the Independent on Sunday travel pages.

Send your entry, typed and double spaced on unlined paper to: Food Olympics, Travel Desk, Independent on Sunday, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5DL. Alternatively, fax it to: 0171 293 2043, or email it to: sundaytravel@independent.co.uk, putting "Food Olympics" in the subject field.

Entries must be received by Monday 30 June. All other Newspaper Publishing rules apply.

The Independent on Sunday travel editor's decision will be final.

Prize tickets may be used at any time before 31 December this year.

Happy eating.

Where in the Empire will you go this year?

The handover of Hong Kong will further shrink the scope for Brits who want to travel to the colonies. Jeremy Atiyah looks at the remaining options

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 15 June 1997

Before the Second World War, British tourists were in the uniquely privileged position of being able to travel round the world without ever falling under the jurisdiction of a foreign power.

They could cruise through the Mediterranean, calling at Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus and Palestine. They could sail south through the Suez Canal, stopping at Port Sudan or Aden, and continue down to east Africa, or across to India. Beyond here, they could meander their way through Burma, Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong, before heading into the Pacific.

The imminent hand-over of Hong Kong back to China is often referred to, with a degree of melancholy, as the "End of Empire". Certainly, Hong Kong is the last of the major world ports which British cruise ships could call their own. But does this really mean that British tourists must now fend for themselves once they leave the English Channel?

Not quite. Those nervous travellers who can't bear the idea of losing the protection of the Foreign Office will still have a few options overseas. Well into the next century there will be vestiges of empire where you can drink afternoon tea, drive on the left and witness beplumed governors celebrating the Queen's birthday.

These corners which will be forever England (no longer colonies but "British Dependent Territories") may be small and economically insignificant, and largely concentrated in the Atlantic Ocean, but it is still just about possible to hypothesise a round-the-world cruise, calling at British territory only.

The first port of call out of Southampton will be Gibraltar, which, with its apes and rocky profile is set to become Britain's best loved possession after the loss of Hong Kong. Empire nostalgics needn't worry, by the way, about Britain losing the Rock any time soon - and certainly not before Spain relinquishes its colonies in Morocco.

From Gibraltar, heading a couple of thousand miles due west will bring the cruise to Britain's soon-to-be most populous and wealthy territory, Bermuda. This may be culturally a part of the United States, but it has been British for three hundred years.

Further south, in the Caribbean itself, our hypothetical cruise goes into overdrive. You'll still find the Union Jack being lowered at dusk here in the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Turks & Caicos Islands, Montserrat and Anguilla. And jolly delightful little places they all are, with superb diving and swimming. For the record, the Caymans, in addition, are blessed with more than US$500bn worth of banks.

Moving on from here, our cruise takes us below the equator to another area rich in British islands, the south Atlantic. A string of territories - Ascension, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the Falkland Islands - provide stepping stones all the way from the tropics to the icy waters of the far south. Finally, for hardcore flag fanatics, is British Antarctic Territory, which, at over 600,000 square miles, remains by far the largest of all the dependent territories.

Once around Cape Horn and into the Pacific, however, the British Empire becomes very thin indeed. Minuscule Pitcairn Island, inhabited mainly by the culturally isolated descendents of Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian, lies some four thousand miles northwest of the Horn. Further west still lies an even greater wilderness, a gaping hole left by the disappearance of Hong Kong.

Discounting Fiji and Australia, both of which retain the Queen on their money, some ten thousand miles - perhaps thirty days at sea - separate Pitcairn from Britain's next flag-pole, on Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory. And even this is uninhabited, except by the military.

And that is the whole story. From Diego Garcia back to Gibraltar, via the (Egyptian) Suez Canal is another six thousand miles. Six thousand miles without a home-brewed British cup of tea? The British Empire has certainly seen better days. But it is not quite dead yet.

Walk across a country in a weekend

Jeremy Atiyah strolls through Luxembourg and ponders its place at the heart of Europe

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 15 June 1997

I Wanted to take a journey to the European Union by stepping out across an entire country. In a weekend? That was why I chose Luxembourg.

This was no joke. Unlike some of Europe's other lesser states (Monaco and San Marino spring to mind) this little country was not merely a pimple on another country's nose. It was geographically extensive, filling up 2,500 square kilometres of pleasant green fields, woods, hills and valleys. As a fully-fledged member of the European Union in its own right, it not only produced the President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, but was also the country where the Schengen agreement, to abolish Europe's internal frontiers, was signed -in a village called Schengen.

What was more, it occupied that crucial grey area where France turned into Germany and vice versa. I found this a fascinating concept. What would such a country be like? Sexy - or efficient? Might it in some sense embody the pure, undiluted essence of Europe?

Insight into the great issue of our day - Europe - was at stake. And by walking the 50 or so kilometres that separated the Latin world in the west to the German world in the east, I was determined to get to the heart of our continent.

And having travelled courtesy of Eurostar and Belgian railways as far as the last Belgian town, Arlon, I was now walking, alone, towards the border with Luxembourg.

Oh Belgium! The station area of Arlon had been a handsomely ruinous mix, with pollutant motor-bikes coming and going, grey stone buildings with peeling shutters looming over the road; taxi drivers, fags in mouths, waited by vehicles outside the Cafe du Sport.

It had been the last bastion of the Latin world and I was walking out of it. The road to the border ran straight into a cool forest. Passing cars displayed not just the grimy red and white Belgian number plates, but also the spanking new black-on-yellow plates of Luxembourg.

Any traces of an actual frontier would be quite invisible of course. The country which gave birth to the Schengen agreement would have dismantled its own borders years ago. Would it not?

Except that just now, emerging from the trees, I suddenly came on a border post, comprising two officers in a hut. Not to worry. Overlooked by lime trees in the warm evening air, it was hardly the Berlin Wall. I ambled past, unnoticed, while a cluster of men in colourful shorts and golfing shoes chatted in the road.

The first 500 yards of Luxembourg were all about golf in fact. An immaculate course disappeared away between the trees. Luxembourgeois, Belgian, French and German cars were amicably parked together. Otherwise, the village of Gaichel discreetly sheltered a petrol station and a couple of hotels.

Hungry after my day of travelling, I looked forward to a hearty Luxembourgeois dinner combining French quality with German quantity. It was not to be. The cheapest set menu in the village's only restaurant cost pounds 40. Starving hungry but nothing to eat except Magret de Canard au Vin de Miel? This was a kind of Euro-torture, designed to taunt poor people from the outer peripheries of the Union.

I set off like a vagabond in search of food. In the next village was a gloomy bar serving omelette and chips for a bargain pounds 8. An old couple eyed me suspiciously from behind their beers. "Er ... guten abend?" I proffered hopefully. "Bon soir?"

Germans or Latins? The woman promptly began speaking French in a German accent. "Oh la la," she puffed, stiffly, at the notion that I was walking across her country in a weekend. I told her how interestingly European everything was. The woman scratched her head, while the Portuguese barmaid interrupted: "Oh it's just the same!" she said, gaily. "People are all the same everywhere!"

On the face of it, the native language of Luxembourg, Letzebuergesch, which replaced French as the official language in 1984, was the authentic Eurospeak. The next morning however, as I set off through dewy meadows of cowparsley and poppies, I found no evidence of Letzebuergesch at all.

In villages, everything was in French. As well as the local boulangeries and charcuteries, the streets had names like Rue de Bellevue and Rue De L'cole. The only exceptions were the numerous war memorials which were engraved in German, presumably to make sure the right people could read them.

Villages comprised immaculately painted, barn-sized structures with lawns and lupins, designed to put any Belgian village to shame. Farmhouses ranged from the faintly rustic - chickens pecking in the yard, a man in blue overalls - to the terrifyingly modern. Heaps of logs were stacked with fanatic neatness in garages, with metal signs announcing "Surveille par Securicor" perched on top. Fruit orchards had been carefully fenced off in an un-Latin sort of way.

After some hours, at a tiny junction by a cornfield, a sign indicated that it was 8km to Luxembourg City. Of suburban outcroppings were there no sign, just a few very expensive cars behaving politely to each other. In a village-shop I asked for bread and cheese and was given a plastic tub with a kind of cold Swiss Fondue inside. Was Luxembourg falling on the wrong side of the Franco-German culinary divide as well?

I finally staggered into the confines of Luxembourg city around 5pm. Latin or otherwise, it struck me as the most blessed capital in Europe - containing less than 100,000 people. Within minutes of arrival I had seen a small building down a back-street with a sign announcing that it was the Chamber of Deputies. Next door was the Grand Ducal Palace.

It was tempting to interpret the extraordinary green fissure that cuts through the middle of Luxembourg City as the ultimate battle-line between the French and German worlds. On either side of the line there was little sign of life. It felt empty, even in the central square. Even on a Saturday night. My God, even in bloody McDonald's. Given that the city contained 220 banks, surely there had to be people somewhere?

Perhaps they were up in the north-east of town, where a huge swathe of cityscape - out on the Kirchberg Plateau - had been built to house European institutions. The Court of European Justice was there. And in June and October, the Council of Ministers briefly decamped from Brussels to Luxembourg for no reason other than to satisfy ancient protocols.

On Sunday morning, unenlightened, I set out to walk the 20 or so kilometres to Germany. Finally, in a hilly village just short of the border, an old man with a wheelbarrow mumbled something at me that sounded like "Guten Morgen". So! The German sphere!

I seized my chance: Did the man feel more German or French? He paused, thoughtfully, before answering in German with a French accent. "I'm not sure," he concluded. "But no matter. We believe in the European majority..."

This was awesomely reasonable for a country of 400,000 people whose direct neighbours contained upwards of 130 million.

"...but what a pity," he went on sadly, "that you British drive on the left. It means you are not real Europeans."

No? I plodded on. And at the village of Wormeldange I finally stepped out across the road-bridge into the Federal Republic of Germany. There was no passport control here; not even a sign saying "Welcome to Germany". I walked into the first bar, and paid for a hearty brotwurst with Belgian Francs. If the European Union was this civilised, I wanted to live in it forever.

FACT FILE

Getting there

A return train ticket from London Waterloo to any Belgian station, via Brussels, can be obtained from Eurostar (0345 303030) for an additional pounds 10 on top of the standard excursion price of pounds 99 (until 14 July, mid- week fares start from pounds 69). Travel time from London to the Luxembourg border is about seven hours. British Rail International (0171 834 2345) can supply tickets right through to Luxembourg City. If driving, Luxembourg is only 200 miles from Ostend.

Flying to Luxembourg: Luxair (0181 7454254) flies twice daily from Heathrow and Stansted. Cheapest return fare pounds 113+pounds 7 tax

Accommodation

Expensive in Luxembourg, though in the station area rooms can be found for about pounds 30. The Youth Hostel on Rue de Fort Olisy, 2 (Tel: 00 352 226889) has beds from about pounds 10

Information

Luxembourg Tourist Office (0171 4342800)

Why not go out this week and book that six-month break?

Your building society windfall could be the opportunity to do some proper travelling. Jeremy Atiyah discovers overland trips

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 8 June 1997

How about a six-month holiday with your building society windfall?

Don't believe it? If you join an overlanding trip you will. This is that form of holiday which involves climbing into the back of a truck and spending, say, 26 weeks travelling from London to Zimbabwe; or perhaps 31 weeks in a truck from London to Bali.

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but there are plenty of people out there wanting to do it, and a matching range of reputable companies (Guerba, Truck Africa, Exodus and Encounter Overland, to name but a few) willing to take them.

And if you want that building society windfall to last, you won't do any better. Truck Africa's mammoth trip all the way from the UK to Zimbabwe, crossing eighteen African countries along the way, will cost just pounds 2,300 - and that includes all food and accommodation. At less than pounds 100 a week it may well work out considerably cheaper than staying in Britain (though you'll have to work out some way to get home afterwards).

People whose minds boggle at the thought of spending 26 weeks sharing tents with a group of complete strangers may not be made for this kind of trip. People on the other hand who relish the idea of buying food and cooking dinners for 20 people over wood fires in the jungle just possibly are.

Most customers are in the 18-30 range, but older people are not necessarily discouraged from joining up. "For the long trips, we take anyone up to 45-years-old, as long as they know what they are doing," says Kay Leaning of Exodus.

So it's cheap - but is there any pleasure in it? Truck Africa Director Jo Jordan, who has spent twenty years travelling up and down Africa, says it is all down to expectations.

"People don't expect this to be a 'holiday', and the few people who fall into that trap usually drop out as soon as we hit the first difficult patch, in the deserts of Mauritania," she says. "By the time the going really gets tough, in the former Zaire, people hardly ever drop out. The shared stresses and strains of having to get across 53 log bridges in 200km really do bring people together."

And tough really means tough. It can take up to seven monotonous weeks to cross Zaire, a country which hardly contains anywhere to pitch a tent, let alone drive a truck or build a fire. Roads are quagmires and a large part of each day is spent digging other people's broken down vehicles out of the mud.

A winning point among the customers does indeed seem to be the fact that they have to work so hard for their thrills. "For me, buying food, in bulk, in the local markets and then cooking enormous dinner parties over wood fires was a life-building experience," says Sarah Davies, who once spent six months on an Exodus truck in South America. "We had to be so resourceful. One woman managed to cook perfect scones in the salt-marshes of Bolivia. I've never been scared of cooking for people since that trip."

Safety and sheer feasibility is another consideration. The hardy trucks used by overland companies - ex-military 4x4 Bedford TMs or Mercedes Benzes - are often the only vehicles which ever get through the the deserts of Mauritania or the jungles of Zaire. Anyone looking for public transport just won't find it.

Another key feature of these vehicles is their massive storage capacity: lots of water and fuel are handy when you are attempting to drive across places which may be weeks from the nearest town.

And in the wilds of deepest Africa or South America, there is certainly safety in numbers. "Travelling in a group stopped my mother having a heart-attack," says Sarah Davies. "Inevitably one or two of the other people were pretty tiresome but some of the others became my friends for life."

Finally, the health problems associated with travel - dysentery or malaria for example - are far less serious when travelling with a group. All reputable operators have a medically qualified person on board as well as quantities of medical supplies.

pounds 2,300 for a six month holiday? Not bad when you consider that a six- hour business class flight to New York would cost about the same.

ous � - e 0: 8�G n style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;background:white'>' Cup, where the Poms had been trying and failing for 100 years, but was responsible for most of Australia's economic strength. It had also supplied the know-how that built the replica of Captain Cook's ship Endeavour, currently visiting British waters (contrary to assumptions that it all came from Sydney). Mr Rowe then insisted that I take his address and bloody well visit him so that he could, at his own expense, show me what a fine place Perth and Western Australia was.

A city that generates this much pride in its citizens must have something special about it. Apologies to Perth.