Take a trip to the heart of darkness

At 11am on 11 August next year a slice of south-west Britain will have the rare experience of a solar eclipse. People are already booking up to see it. By Jeremy Atiyah

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 9 August 1998

THIS TIME next year, an on-rushing spot of darkness will be about to overwhelm us. On Wednesday 11 August 1999, the moon will fall slap- bang between the sun and Cornwall. For only the fifth time this millennium, a total eclipse will touch the shores of Britain.

Those lucky people who have been in the right place at the right time tend to equate the experience (at the very least) with giving birth or dying. Next year, for a couple of minutes, our most profound assumptions about human existence on earth will be thrown into terrifying chaos. While the millennium will be marked by nothing more exciting than champagne corks and fireworks, the 1999 eclipse will darken and chill our entire world.

One year in advance, how can you ensure that you do not miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime experience? Assuming that the eclipse is worth taking a day off work for (and millions will think so), the question will be - unless you live in Cornwall - where do you need to travel to in order to get the best view?

If the patriotic thought of seeing the eclipse from British shores is what really appeals, the key is to get down to Cornwall, the Scilly Isles (or Alderney in the Channel Isles) by 11am on 11 August. Although the sun will be more than 90 per cent obscured over most of England and Wales, the area of totality (and there is a qualitative difference) will be confined to that far south-western corner.

Unless you plan to join what may turn out to be the longest traffic jam of the millennium, I do not recommend driving. Look for a train: although Great Western trains is not yet taking bookings for August 1999, their staff do inform me that extra services will be laid on and that bookings are likely to begin by mid or late August of this year. Call customer services for up-to-date information (tel: 01793 499458).

To be absolutely certain of getting on to a train, though, you can already book with Explorers Tours (tel: 01753 681 999) which specialise in following eclipses round the world. The company has chartered a couple of trains for the occasion, one from Paddington and one from Preston, and for a mere pounds 65 you can book a day-trip to the eclipse, setting off late on 10 August, to arrive in Penzance by 8am. Brian McGee, eclipse guru and owner of Explorers, says there is room for about 1,000 people, but warns that half the seats have been already booked.

On the subject of bookings, hotels and guest houses in the area have been taking bookings for months, though according to the RAC, most of their accredited hotels and guest houses still have vacancies.

Unhappy at the thought of squeezing into the narrow lanes and tea-rooms of Cornwall with half the population of Great Britain? If so, there are a couple more good reasons why you might well be better off heading to the continent to view your eclipse instead.

The first of these reasons is that Cornwall is quite a cloudy place. There is, statistically, only a 40 per cent chance of the sun not being obscured by clouds at the time of the eclipse. The sky will still go black and the air will chill even under clouds, but if you are travelling hundreds of miles for the occasion it seems a shame to miss out on the fine detail - the stars, the planets, and pearly fingers of light surrounding a black ball of rock in space.

The other reason for heading to the continent is that, from many parts of Britain, it is faster and easier getting there than it is to Cornwall. Trains from London to Paris, for example, take three hours - to Penzance they take five and a half.

Cross-channel ferries will also be a handy option. Le Havre, easily accessible from southern England, will see the edge of the eclipse path, while Dieppe will be bang in the middle of it. Travellers on Brittany's Plymouth to Roscoff scheduled day-time service on 11 August will almost certainly be lucky enough to see the eclipse in mid-channel.

Not that the chances of clear weather are better in northern France than they are in Cornwall. For guaranteed clear weather you may need to think further afield. From Normandy, the eclipse track will cut a swathe across northern France, shaving the outer suburbs of Paris, before heading into southern Germany and Austria. But only beyond the Alps, says Brian McGee of Explorers, is there a significant improvement in prospects. "There is little difference in the reliability of the weather until you reach eastern Europe," he explains. "We are running a coach trip to Bucharest in Romania, where there is a more than 60 per cent chance of having a cloudless sky."

Beyond Romania, the chances of good visibility continue to improve rapidly. By the time you reach central Turkey (where Explorers is also running a trip), you are very unlikely to encounter cloudy skies. After Turkey, the eclipse will cross Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, before disappearing over India. Weatherwise, the best place in the whole world to spend 11 August will be Isfahan in central Iran where the chances of sunshine are more than 95 per cent.

Before booking your ticket to Iran, however, remember that, worldwide, there is at least one total eclipse every year. What makes next year's eclipse special is that it passes through Britain.

English boots on Tuscan hills

Jeremy Atiyah packs his bags and lets someone else carry them on a walking holiday in the golden Italian countryside

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 9 August 1998

WHAT BETTER way to know a landscape than to walk through it? Plenty will gaze over the Tuscan hills, but few will have the pleasure of discovering the hidden riches of the land. Driving along the autostrada between your villa and Pisa airport hardly does the trick.

I chose Inntravel, a holiday company that would carry my bags from town to town while I cavorted across the hillsides. No staring out passively from the battlements of hilltop towns for me: I would walk between vineyards, through olive groves and under cypress trees, smelling rosemary and basil and mint as I kicked through the undergrowth.

Then, at night, I would stuff myself with oily stewed aubergines followed by rich, cheesy gnocchi, fatty wild-boar stew and shamelessly filling zuccotto - on the grounds that I needed the nourishment. Not that there was anything punishing about the schedule. Ten miles one day, nine the next. Just enough to justify a very healthy appetite.

Volterra was the first drop from Pisa airport. What a sensible place from which to start a long-distance walk. This small town of red-roofed, yellow-stone buildings is perched on the highest hilltop for miles, though only at sunrise on my first morning - under a bluer sky than any Briton has seen for quite a while - did I quite appreciate how high it was.

Looking down, at the base of soaring walls, I saw bursts of bright green shrubbery, belying the fields of golden stubble that baked on the hills beyond. On the far western horizon - my taxi driver alleged - it was possible to see not only the Mediterranean, but, during the clear dry days of winter, even the mountains of Corsica.

This, however, was summer, the season for licking ice-creams, startling pigeons and creeping into churches for a burst of medieval air-conditioning. In the Romanesque Duomo of Volterra (of which the white and yellow stonework was so weather-worn as to resemble a prehistoric relic), old ladies muttered and shuffled about on the smooth marble floors.

Meanwhile, in the main square, shops were opening to sell the town's main product, alabasterware: bowls, plates, vases, nymphs holding transparent globes. Later, I would walk past an alabaster workshop, a room full of white boulders, and a man with a small pneumatic drill, struggling to tame a chunk of rock while standing up to his shins in white dust. A rough alabaster torso had been strategically placed on a bracket half way up the studio wall.

Predictably, where Tuscany is concerned, this stonemasonry is an extremely old tradition - perhaps the most ancient in western Europe. Before the rise of Rome, these very hills had been patrolled by the mysterious Etruscans, who were destined to contribute so much to world culture and civilisation - via Rome.

One Etruscan relic I had already seen in Volterra was the Porta dell'Arco gate, comprising giant blocks of weathered sandstone from which three ominous black stones jutted. Now just unidentifiable blobs, these were originally the heads of Etruscan gods.

Later, I popped into the Etruscan museum in search of more clues to these mysteries. Apart from giving their name to Tuscany, the Etruscans also left behind vast numbers of burial urns - stout coffins reclined on by surviving family members and decorated with the griffins and scaly monsters of early European imagination. In the museum, the ancient group portraits come thick and fast, though the best piece of art I saw was gli esposi, a man-and-wife team with perfectly hewn features, who have been glaring bitterly at each other for more than 2,000 years.

But enough of art. Odd to think that the walking had not yet even begun. The next day, I set off with my Inntravel walking notes, scrambling along overgrown, deserted paths through shady forests. The ruined castles of Castelvecchio occasionally raised their heads across steaming valleys. Predictably, it was brow-drippingly hot (sane people do their Tuscan walking in the autumn or spring). As the sun beat down, the softer landscapes of San Gimignano began to appear. The miracle of Tuscany is that every view seems familiar, as if from some subconscious fount of collective knowledge: dusty tracks shaded by parasol pine trees; golden sunflowers under blue skies; villa roofs shielded by pencil cypresses; poppies in the corn fields. Where had I seen all these scenes before?

The din of cicadas in the trees became almost deafening. My first glimpse of the grey towers and red roof tiles of San Gimignano on a distant hilltop was like a mirage in the heat haze. I sat down for a celebratory mouthful (or two) of heavy saltless bread, tomatoes and garlicky olives.

It was that hour when even lizards stay out of the sun. No wind stirred. I pushed on for the last mile into San Gimignano itself, fantasising about empty squares and closed shutters. But this was high season. As I struggled through the medieval Porta San Giovanni, I was hit by a stampede of touristic kitsch.

Well, what of it. The hotel Bel Soggiorno provides the perfect antidote to miniature cheese-graters and Leaning Tower of Pisa keyrings. My room, with its rustic whitewash, opened onto a terrace which commanded views of half of northern Italy. I sat watching sunlight turn the fields red.

So the pattern was set. Loaded up with peaches and tomatoes, I would set off in the mornings through oak copses and olive groves, pursuing the Inntravel instructions, which were usually easy to follow.

Walk through the olive grove. Turn left at the small shrine. Go past the ruined palazzo. By the time I reached Siena, the last stage of the trip, my boots had genuinely communed with the soil of Tuscany.

In Siena itself, I found myself at the edge of town in the Hotel Garden, a country mansion at the end of a long, leafy avenue. And there I tended to my blistered feet, alongside Germans at the pool.

A week today, on 16 August, Siena's central square, Il Campo, will thunder to the chaos of Il Palio, Italy's most outrageous urban horse-race. On the evening I ventured into town, it echoed to other footsteps - German backpackers, Dutch art-lovers, French romantics. And English walkers.

tuscany fact file

Getting there

Jeremy Atiyah's walk was arranged courtesy of Inntravel (tel: 01653 628811). The company can arrange itineraries of any length or specification, although the Tuscan walk featured in its brochure is for one week, including three days walking, staying overnight in Volterra, San Gimignano, Colle Val d'Elsa and Siena. This autumn, the package costs from pounds 698 to pounds 786 per person including return flights from London, return transfers to Pisa airport, half-board accommodation in upmarket hotels and restaurants, as well as detailed walking notes and maps.

For independent travellers to Tuscany, flights are available to Pisa with British Airways (tel: 0345 222111), which has a World Offer of pounds 119 return (plus pounds 20 tax) until the end of September, subject to availability.

Where to stay

The Bel Soggiorno, Via San Giovanni 91, 53037 San Gimignano (tel: 00 39 0577 940375) can be booked through Inntravel from pounds 505 per person for three nights half-board accommodation plus return flights and hire car.

Also try The Hotel Garden, Via Custoza 2, 53100 Siena (tel: 00 39 0577 47056).

(Please note, the initial zero in Italian telephone numbers should always be dialled, even with preceeding codes.)

What shall we do about the lost tribes of Surbiton, Seattle and Sydney?

JEREMY ATIYAH

SUNDAY 21 JUNE 1998

LAST WEEK it was reported that a 50-strong tribe had been "discovered" deep in the Brazilian rainforest. The tribe had spent the last 70 years trying to hide from prospectors - only to fall victim to an anthropologist. The question is being asked: what should we do about them?

I wonder what it feels like to be "discovered". The only comparable situation I can think of would be if the Lords of the Galaxy suddenly noticed the Earth for the first 

time and then got into a debate about what to do with the people who lived on it.

Naturally they would not dream of imposing their own galactic religion or social norms upon us. They would leave us to practise our own customs freely, and would not tolerate any old-fashioned nonsense such as missionary work or the exploitation of our planet for resources. This would be a simple question of respect. If Lords of the Galaxy started rolling up on Earth in their rocket ships in order to gawp at us, the whole fabric of our society would be placed in jeopardy. Once we had got to know about the fantastic standard of living enjoyed by the rest of the galaxy, we would not be content to endure the drudgery of being confined to Earth.

We would soon cast aside our primitive cloth-based fabrics and start dressing up in the latest plutonium foils. We would knock down our houses and erect towers of moonrock. Our youth would start cavorting with galactic travellers and lose all sense of their Earthly morality. As for technology - the visitors would leave our Ferraris looking like East German Trabants.

In short, we would lose our characteristically Earthbound appearance and start looking just like any old planet anywhere else in the galaxy. And what a loss that would be for the heritage of the universe.

No, tourism on Earth should be a controlled and discreet affair, designed so as not to disturb the local environment. Visitors would watch us going about our business from secure hides in the sky. They would be limited to strict quotas, and not expect the standards of comfort and hygiene to which they were accustomed.

Which is not to suggest that there would never be grounds for galactic intervention under any circumstances. If we Earthlings were in flagrant breach of galactic law, action might have to be taken. Our barbarous habit of eating meat would be looked at very carefully, as would our childish fantasy that there is such a thing as "property".

Then there would be our welfare to consider. Could the Lords of the Galaxy stand by while we insisted on pursuing our antiquated medical practices? Could we be permitted to grow old and die, for example, when the technology of eternal youth was available on the Galactic Health Service? Agonising choices would have to be made on our behalf. If our galactic overlords marched in and abolished human death,where would that leave our culture? Would we be taught the main galactic language of commerce? Without it, we would be disadvantaged in the galactic market. Unable to enter universities or find work, we would be trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Worried? Just think how the monks of Mount Athos must be feeling. The 1000-year-old tradition forbidding women from entering their "Monastic Republic" is under threat. Strict application of the Schengen Agreement - which allows free access to all parts of the European Union - may result in Athos being thrown open to women as well as men. Watch out for a lot of very, very angst-ridden monks.

Portugal: Ox-drawn ploughs or golf-course buggies - the choice is yours

Beaches, hilltop villages and some serious wilderness in between - Jeremy Atiyah finds something for everybody in Portugal's seven provinces

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 31 May 1998

Minho

This is the far north-western corner of the country, hard up against the coast and the Spanish province of Galicia. One feature of the area is a countryside which is one of the poorest in Western Europe: farmers still rely on ox-drawn carts and ploughs. A great way to explore the region is by staying in Turismo Habitacao accommodation, otherwise known as Turihab, which is particularly plentiful in this area - grand old manor houses or farmhouses right off the beaten track (call the Portuguese tourist board on 0171-494 1441 for a brochure). The two urban centres in the region, neither of which are large, are Braga - packed with historic churches - and the finely preserved mediaeval city of Guimaraes, which incidentally has two of the country's finest pousadas (Portugal's de luxe, government- run hotels).

Tras-os-Montes

If anything, this province is even poorer than , and wolves are said to roam the mountain villages. It is a harsh landscape, freezing in winter and broiling in summer, but its two national parks offer some serious wilderness for hiking in. The top end of the Douro River valley runs through the southern part of the province, including the most important port-producing area.

The Beiras

This is actually three provinces: the litoral (coastal), alta (upper) and baixa (lower). As a whole, the region includes the country's highest mountain - the Serra da Estrela - as well as its longest river, the Rio Mondego. The highlands were the heartland of the Lusitani, a fierce indigenous people whose leader, Viriato, is a national hero for his stubborn resistance to Roman invaders 2,000 years ago. The highlight of the area is the ancient and hilly university city of Coimbra, perched above the Rio Mondego.

Estremadura

Curiously, Estremadura is not adjacent to the Spanish province of Extremadura, but squeezed up against the coast above Lisbon. Apart from Lisbon and Sintra, the main attractions are a few seaside resorts such as Ericeira, full of Lisbonites enjoying themselves at weekends in summer. In the north of the province are a couple of architectural masterpieces: a 12th-century Cistercian monastery in Alcobaca and the Gothic-Manueline monastery in Batalha.

Ribatejo

There is not much to shout about in this thin little province to the east of Lisbon, except for a couple of historic little towns, Santarem and Tomar, the latter being the one-time headquarters of the Knights Templar.

The Alentejo

The alto (high) and baixo (low) Alentejo between them make up most of the lower half of Portugal. In summer, the rolling plains are monumentally hot and empty - the land is divided into vast agricultural estates still based on the old latifundia, the original country estates established by the Romans two millennia ago. The place to aim for is the fantastically historic city of Evora. Fortified hilltop villages surrounded by miles of cork and olive are also a feature; Monsaraz is the best known.

Algarve

This is Euro-holidayland par excellence. Parts of the coast, especially between Faro and Lagos, have been predictably over developed and Albufeira probably takes the biscuit as the local Torremolinos, with its crowded pubs and restaurants catering exclusively to German and English holidaymakers. That's the bad news. The good news is that the sun shines warmly almost all year round, the beaches are excellent and, in recent years, luxury villa resorts and golf courses have been added to what is generally a low-cost market.

Leading specialist tour operators featuring Portugal include Destination Portugal (01993 773269), Portugala Holidays (0181-444 1857), Caravela Tours (0171-630 9223) and Latitude 40 (0171- 229 3164).

Sun, sea, sights - and Colonel Gaddafi

Discovered by the Phoenicians, developed by the Romans, adored by the Greeks - Libya is a sensation you may never see. By Jeremy Atiyah

JEREMY ATIYAH

SUNDAY 24 MAY 1998

DON'T blame Colonel Gaddafi for seeking attention. Stranded half- way between classy Tunis and monumental Cairo, who wouldn't feel insecure? Libya has a population less than a tenth that of Egypt, scattered over an area nearly twice as large. If any country in North Africa was going to end up with a rock star for president, it had to be this one.

But apart from Gaddafi, is there anything to Libya? It calls itself the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jumahiriya, which does not sound very charming. It has joined Saudi Arabia and Iran in banning alcohol. It operates a highly restrictive visa regime. And yet, with its Mediterranean beaches, sunny climate and fabulous antiquities, it seems to offer unlimited tourism.

On my visit a fortnight ago, I found no issue which excited the Libyans more.

"Oh yes," they kept telling me. "We are going to be a very big tourist country. But of course ... you must allow for the customs of our people ..." In other words, I understood, no beer and no bonking.

Luckily I was there just for a tour of antiquities. This was what Libya meant to me: it was an Arab land, built on Phoenician and Greek roots, sitting on a vast area of desert. And, since Lockerbie, you had to beat a UN air embargo to get there, which meant driving across the border from the nearest Tunisian airport.

"May your day accrue more benefit!" shouted the immigration police. The first thing that struck me on the Libyan side of the border were the high school girls in white socks and trainers, walking with their boyfriends. A hard-line Islamic state? Hardly. Anyway the scenery was far too benign for that, with golden wheat fields dotted by endless rows of olives.

This was no dour, desert environment. In the restaurants and hotels of Tripoli, I found everybody drinking espressos and switching unflappably back and forth between English, French, Arabic and Italian. But Tripoli did not feel like a capital city. Palm trees stuck their heads above flat, dusty roofs. The centre of town was overlooked by the cliff-like walls of the Crusader Castle. Container ships stood mistily off-shore. And there was the new city: an Italian-built, white-washed zone of balconies and green shutters, colonnaded walkways and sleepy cafes, serving excellent coffee. But no grappa.

Never mind. I escaped into the old city. A gentleman with a purple beret wobbled past on a bicycle; a youth in a gelabiyah held a mobile phone to his ear. The heart of Tripoli's commercial life? The boys manning stalls in the souk looked like stylish Inter Milan supporters. This had the air of a souk-in-waiting: waiting for the end of the embargo, waiting for tourists, waiting for history.

To be honest, some people looked as if they had landed here unintentionally. And so in a way they had. Tripoli was originally founded by Phoenician sailors 2,700 years ago as a staging post, somewhere to re-equip their boats on the way to Spain.

A mistake? Of course not. In Roman times this part of north Africa was destined to become one of the wealthiest in the world. Along with sister cities Sabratha to the west and Leptis Magna to the east, modern Tripoli became the centre of a province which the Romans would call Tripolitania: the Land of Three Cities.

Mussolini, when he barged into Libya 70 years ago, loved his Roman ruins. The Libyans, equally naturally, were not so sure. They preferred the Phoenician connection: Tripolitania may have been developed by Romans but it was a Semitic people, the Phoenicians, who got there first.

I arrived at Sabratha in a sand-storm, under a sky black with dust. The wind blew hot, and raindrops fell with the consistency of quicksand. Who cared? I saw a schoolgirl in a Leonardo Di Caprio T-shirt dancing beside a ghetto-blaster. Children laughed together under the pine trees. The Phoenician goddess Tanit (in whose temple ritualised orgies once took place) would not have been entirely displeased.

The first building I saw in Sabratha was a profoundly un-Roman looking mausoleum, a tall spire decorated by seated lions; but that was the extent of the Phoenician remains. I turned away and saw suntanned rocks, towering arches and tiers of columns filling half the sky. Like it or not, the Romans had left their mark.

Clearly this part of north Africa had not always been a backwater. Only the world's wealthiest cities could have afforded such theatres or temples, or decorated (say) their public latrines with statues of naked goddesses.

And the best was yet to come. The next day I was taken along a quiet road beside avenues of eucalyptus (Libya's main highway) to Leptis Magna. I stepped out to the smell of pine resin, the song of crickets and a warm wind in the grass. Sixteen hundred years ago this had been a city to rival Rome.

The entrance to Leptis is still marked by a monumental arch of Septimius Severus where winged goddesses high above the trees thrust out their breasts in victory, and colossal cornices top florid vine tendrils carved in stone. Open-jawed with amazement, I continued along the smooth paved street into town.

Back in the third century AD Leptis had the luck to produce a baby called Septimius Severus. Years later, as Roman Emperor, Severus would channel prodigious wealth back to his native land. From today's perspective, giganticism seems to be the theme: the public baths alone comprise dozens of 10-metre-high archways, with superhuman door lintels and walls as wide as elephants.

But even now I had not quite seen it all. Nearby, through a small back entrance down a sandy lane, I would step into the apocalypse itself.

Walking through the vast, dead square of the Severan Forum, littered with upended columns, I found myself surrounded by monumental gateways and loping arches. Staring faces of Medusa heads lay about amid the desolation. Meanwhile, in the Severan Basilica next door, gigantic roof entablatures had crashed to the ground, carrying their inscriptions with them, still awesomely legible after 2,000 years. There were no tourists; the only sound was of crashing waves on the beach outside.

Time for deep thoughts about the passage of time? Time for a visit to the harbour. This had once been a perfect circular bay, surrounded by breakwaters. Over the centuries the bay had silted up, until it became first unusable, and then unrecognisable. Today, it is covered not by ships but by long grass and rustling bamboo. Its entrance is a sandy beach.

After Leptis, it was hard to get up in the morning, let alone continue with the tour. The strange thing was that I had still only seen half of the country. The next stage was to drive across the great Gulf of Sirte, that hole in the map where the coastal landscape deteriorates into sheer desert and camels nibble by the roadside.

Not that the gulf was as empty as it used to be. This is now a big area for petro-chemical complexes and for Gaddafi's Great Man-made River, which passes through colossal pipes under the sand. One day, I was told, this land would be green again. The historic desertification of north Africa, no less, would be reversed.

East of here began that other Libya, the old Greek colony of Cyrene. A wet, fertile upland, its scenery is identical to Mediterranean Europe: a day later, I was driving in verdant hillsides interspersed by vineyards and rich golden fields of wheat. The wind blew fresh off the sea.

No wonder the Greeks liked it. The wonder is that more Libyans have not discovered it. The land seems largely empty except for scattered ancient cities, guarded by devoted old local archeologists who love their sea and sandstone. The sites are miraculously picturesque, like dreams of Provencale farmhouse gardens, with geraniums perched on Corinthian Capitols and silver columns tumbling into blue waters.

In Cyrenaica, the old stones have never been covered over by sand or forgotten. In fact, they have been picked over by bemused Arab shepherds and their flocks for centuries. At Tolmeitha for example - the ancient Ptolemis - I saw herds of goats under eucalyptus trees nibbling on dry grass sprouting from the ancient theatre.

As for Cyrene itself, on a high plateau overlooking the Cretan Sea, the great wonder is the fresh water spring pouring out of the mountainside. The Greeks built their temple of Apollo here; two-and-a-half thousand years on, it is still flowing strongly, providing yet another reason for the Libyans to feel good about themselves.

libya fact file

Getting there

The author's trip was arranged through the British Museum Traveller (46 Bloomsbury St, London WC1B 3QQ, tel: 0171 323 8895/1234). Its next 10- day group tour of Libya runs from 4 to 13 October and it will run more trips next year. The price of pounds 1,840 per person includes scheduled Tunis Air flights to Djerba, all transport, full-board accommodation plus the constant attendance of a tour lecturer. This autumn's tour will be with Susan Walker, deputy keeper in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities of the British Museum.

Operators

British Museum Tours makes its arrangements through a Libyan tour operator, Wings Travel and Tours (Tripoli, PO Box 1736, Libya, Tel:             00 218 21 3331855      , fax: 00 218 21 3330881). It can authorise visas for you on the basis of tour bookings. It arranges tailor-made trips to any part of the country, including the desert, with pick-ups from Djerba or, if you prefer, Cairo in Egypt.

Visas

If booking with British Museum Tours, it can arrange your visa (pounds 20 + pounds 15 procurement fee). Otherwise contact the Libyan Interests Section (0171 486 8387, or 486 8250 in the Saudi Arabian embassy). Note that you will need authorisation from Libya (obtainable through, for example, Wings Travel) before a visa can be granted. Visas for Tunisia are not required.

Further information

The author's flight to Djerba was arranged through Tunis Air (0171 7347644), which flies direct from Heathrow once a week on Thursdays, and via Tunis on any other day. Price from pounds 263 + tax, or pounds 283 for the direct flights.

There is also useful material, especially on how to get into the country, on the Sahara Travel Information website: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/ckscott/libya.html.

FOR AS LITTLE AS...

JEREMY ATIYAH

SUNDAY 03 MAY 1998

pounds 113

per person you can take a Mediterranean cruise in the North Sea. Confused? Scandinavian Seaways is offering themed two-night cruises, which include Mediterranean meals, drinks and entertainment. Cruises begin and end at Harwich, and include two nights aboard ship as well as a shore excursion of a few hours at a continental port. Call 0990 333111.

pounds 189

per person, you can visit the Turin Shroud, currently on one of its periodic displays. This package includes return flights to Turin from London Heathrow (out on Saturday, back on Sunday) as well as one night's accommodation in a hotel located 600 metres from the Cathedral. Valid until June 14. Contact Italiatour on 0171 605 7500.

pounds 259

you can spend your late May bank holiday in Marmaris, Turkey. This price includes not only glorious weather but also seven nights in a two-star hotel with return flights from London Stansted, departing on May 25. Call Accommodation Overseas on 0181 977 2984.

pounds 268

you can spend a three-night break in Madrid during the month-long Fiesta de San Isidro. Lively even in the most sluggish of seasons, Madrid during fiestas should provide enough entertainment to keep anyone awake. Price includes flights, and central B&B accommodation. Call Kirker Holidays on 0171 231 3333.

pounds 473

you can fly to the Australian cities of Melbourne, Cairns, Adelaide or Darwin on Singapore Airlines (stopovers in Singapore permitted). You must depart between now and June 30, though can return any time. Very cheap accommodation in Singapore is also available. Call Travelmood on 0171 258 0280 or             01382 322713      (Scotland) for details.

pounds 699

you can take a three-centre "lakes and castles" holiday combining three nights in the Danish Lake District with three nights in a 16th-century castle on Funen island - as well as one night in Copenhagen. Price is based on a fly/drive package, including most evening meals. Call Scandinavian Travel Service on 0171 559 6666.

pounds 830

you can go white-water rafting for a week up the Coruh river in northern Turkey, travelling past the Kackar mountains, unspoilt villages and Byzantine castles. The trip lasts a week and cost includes flights, equipment and accommodation in tents. Breaks departing on 23 May are still available. Call Adrift on 0181 874 4969.

pounds 1158

you can enjoy 12 nights in the island of Praslin in the "real" Seychelles. Guests receive B&B accommodation in the Indian Ocean Lodge on the beach at Grand Anse. Praslin, the second-largest of the Seychelles, has both white-sand beaches and jungle-like vegetation. Call Elite Vacations on 0181 864 9818.

pounds 2,850

you can join the first ever British trek to the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. This state has been largely closed to travellers owing to "tribal" unrest but now the tour operator Himalayan Kingdoms is pioneering tours there. Depart on November 2 for a 17-day holiday that includes trekking and rafting. Call 0117 923 7163.

pounds 2,999

you can fly round the world in business class with unlimited stops (including three in Australia) using Singapore Airlines, Ansett and Air New Zealand. The ticket is valid for one year and can be booked any time. For more pleasurable long-haul flights, call Bridge the World on 0171 734 7447.