Many of Cornwall's wildest or most curious corners as well as the exciting new range of places to eat, sleep or drink are often overlooked in the headlong race to get to the beach or the well-known tourist spots. Taking the Slow approach, using local knowledge and the author's endless curiosity, this guide offers both visitors and seasoned residents alike the chance to discover what lies behind the immediate and obvious attractions of Britain's favourite holiday destination.
Folkestone resident and globe-trotting travel writer Simon Richmond turns the spotlight on his home county in this brand new title, part of Bradt's award-winning series of Slow travel guides to UK regions. Walkers, cyclists, families, food and art lovers, and wildlife enthusiasts are all catered for, with coverage of a wide range of attractions, as well as all the practical information you could need to plan and enjoy time spent in this delightful corner of England. The diversity of Kent is striking, from Canterbury Cathedral, part of a Unesco-listed World Heritage Site, to Dungeness, Kent's southernmost point, Britain's only officially recognised desert and home to artist and film-maker Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage. The village of Pluckley was once named England's most haunted by the Guinness World Records, while St Leonard's Church in Hythe has the largest and best-preserved collection of ancient human skulls and bones in Britain.This in-depth guide covers all the most popular places as well as many of the lesser-known ones, dividing the county into five easy-to-follow chapters. Explore Dover and spend time at its iconic White Cliffs, saunter through Vita Sackville-West's gorgeous gardens at the National Trust's Sissinghurst estate, visit the grave of Pocahontas in Gravesend, and contemplate the delightful and thought-provoking public art of the revitalised seaside town of Folkestone. History has been made in Kent, at Hever Castle, where Anne Boleyn spent her childhood and which was later restored by William Waldorf Astor, and at Chartwell, the family home and garden of Sir Winston Churchill. Kent's food and drink offering is increasingly celebrated, with a growing reputation for high quality restaurants and boutique wineries, not to mention the world's oldest brewer and largest collection of fruit trees at Faversham.From flora and fauna to castles, watersports, beaches and wildlife, discover Kent with Bradt's unique Slow guide.
Thoroughly updated and significantly expanded in this new fourth edition, Bradt’s Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly (Slow Travel) is the most well-established guide to a perennially popular British county. Offering in-depth exploration of both frequently visited and less-well-known destinations that will interest locals as much as newcomers, it is written in a friendly, engaging style and includes up-to-date listings of the best (and sometimes least obvious) places to eat, drink and sleep, appealing to all budgets. Long popular with discerning travellers and foodies, the boom in staycations and coverage in TV dramas such as Poldark mean that Cornwall enjoys ever-increasing acclaim as a healthy, wholesome destination. Few places offer such geographical diversity: rugged, storm-lashed north coast and wide, sandy beaches favoured by surfers lie barely a few miles from the south’s sheltered creeks, coves and exotic gardens. Wild moorland is dotted with Neolithic standing stones and mining heritage. And, just 28 miles from Land’s End, the Isles of Scilly offer an exhilarating blend of tropical exoticism and wild isolation. Cornwall thus possesses an enduring appeal as a year-round destination for visitors of all ages and interests. But such popularity makes it all too easy to overlook the diverse character of the county and its less obvious destinations – which is why taking a Slow approach is so rewarding. As local residents have discovered, treasures of all kinds are revealed when you ditch the car and start investigating what lies immediately beyond the doorstep. Explore the ‘Cornish Alps’, the lonely Rame peninsula, secret beaches or stone circles lost amid remote-feeling uplands. Glimpse the future of sustainable technologies at the Eden Project. Listen to world-class musicians playing in tiny rural churches. Celebrate the comeback of the chough, Cornwall’s emblematic bird. Wander around Bodmin Moor’s Kerdroya, a classical labyrinth built of Cornish stone hedging. Discover where oysters are still harvested in the traditional way and where the best Cornish ice creams, pasties and cider are made. The ideal companion for a visit, Bradt’s Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly (Slow Travel) is an invitation to imbibe the region’s rich, diverse delights.
Slow North Devon and Exmoor - Expert local tips and holiday advice featuring the best cream teas and pubs, cycling, walking and hiking routes and natural history. Also includes tips on sustainable tourism, local food and unusual accommodation, Exmoor National Park, wildlife and birdwatching, Barnstaple, Braunton, Ilfracombe and North Devon Coast.
This new, thoroughly updated edition of Bradt's award-winning North Devon & Exmoor remains the only dedicated general guide to this compelling area. North Devon's relative inaccessibility has been a deterrent to ugly development, and Exmoor National Park is one of the smallest, least well known, and utterly delightful of all national parks. The rugged western cliffs around Hartland Point are the most dramatic in Devon and the cliff-top walking some of the best. New to this edition are several nature reserves which didn't make it into the first edition and more in-depth descriptions of the far western part of Devon abutting the Cornish border. Also included are the Gnome Reserve and the Bakelite Museum - just two of several quirky places in the region - and expanded information on the island of Lundy in the Bristol Channel, as well as unique coverage of the whole of Exmoor National Park straddling Devon and Somerset. Particularly intriguing are the many descriptions of country churches, 'the storerooms of history'. The North Devon and Exmoor region is arguably the most scenic in the southwest. No other has this blend of wild rugged coastline, deep river valleys, heather-covered moorland, family-friendly sandy beaches, great surfing and enchanting villages. Some of the prettiest villages in the southwest are found here, with cream teas aplenty. Much information is unique to this guidebook, blending descriptions of little-known places and country pursuits with portraits of local characters, past and present. The guide also places special emphasis on car-free travel, walking, local food, pubs and unusual or special accommodation. Whether you like to spend time exploring National Trust properties, discovering gardens, wildlife watching (Exmoor is home to Britain's largest mammal, the red deer), or indulging in more active pursuits such as coasteering, kayaking or just a gentle pony trek, Bradt's North Devon & Exmoor is the ideal companion for a successful visit.
Slow East Devon and the Jurassic Coast is the most comprehensive - and only standalone - guide available to this region. With publication timed to coincide with the opening of the Seaton Jurassic Centre, here is insider knowledge which can only be gained by living in the area. Contributions from local experts, and colourful and witty writing combined with the authors' enthusiasm, make this guide as much a pleasure to read as an invaluable companion for exploring. Exeter and the Exe Estuary get a chapter of their own, and parts of Mid Devon, including Tiverton, are covered in detail, along with East Devon's most alluring chunks of countryside and the seaside resorts of Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton and Beer. The chapter on West Dorset describes Lyme Regis and Charmouth along with brief descriptions of other coastal towns. An explanation of the geology of the entire World Heritage Site of the Jurassic Coast links the whole region. With an emphasis on car-free travel - walking, cycling and local buses - the detailed descriptions, historical and folk anecdotes, and personal accounts encourage visitors to explore each locale thoroughly. Hand-picked places to eat and drink, including all the eateries along the main artery of the A3052, are selected by the authors based upon long-standing knowledge of the area.
Eat Surf Live is a whole new approach to travel guides with its beautiful photography and wonderful design, which showcases the best of Cornwall. Travel with the authors as they visit secret spots, encounter local personalities and taste their way through this foodie Mecca. Part travel guide, part photo journal, part recipe book, Eat Surf Live is brimming with tips for a successful stay in this surfer's paradise.
Slow Shropshire Travel Guide - Insider advice and holiday tips on everything from the best local pubs and markets to Shrewsbury highlights and county walking routes. Also featuring UNESCO-listed Ironbridge Gorge, Offa's Dyke, Severn Valley, Shropshire Hills, Ludlow, Welsh Marches, castles and historical sites, and US connections with the University of Minnesota, the Caldecott Medal, and Yale University.
It is widely recognized that travel and tourism can have a high environmental impact and make a major contribution to climate change. It is therefore vital that ways to reduce these impacts are developed and implemented. 'Slow travel' provides such a concept, drawing on ideas from the 'slow food' movement with a concern for locality, ecology and quality of life. The aim of this book is to define slow travel and to discuss how some underlining values are likely to pervade new forms of sustainable development. It also aims to provide insights into the travel experience; these are explored in several chapters which bring new knowledge about sustainable transport tourism from across the world. In order to do this the book explores the concept of slow travel and sets out its core ingredients, comparing it with related frameworks such as low-carbon tourism and sustainable tourism development. The authors explain slow travel as holiday travel where air and car transport is rejected in favour of more environmentally benign forms of overland transport, which generally take much longer and become incorporated as part of the holiday experience. The book critically examines the key trends in tourism transport and recent climate change debates, setting out the main issues facing tourism planners. It reviews the potential for new consumption patterns, as well as current business models that facilitate hyper-mobility. This provides a cutting edge critique of the 'upstream' drivers to unsustainable tourism. Finally, the authors illustrate their approach through a series of case studies from around the world, featuring travel by train, bus, cycling and walking. Examples are drawn from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. Cases include the Eurostar train (as an alternative to air travel), walking in the Appalachian Trail (US), the Euro-Velo network of long-distance cycling routes, canoe tours on the Gudena River in Denmark, sea kayaking in British Columbia (Canada) and the Oz Bus Europe to Australia.
This new, thoroughly updated third edition of South Devon and Dartmoor is part of Bradt’s distinctive ‘Slow Travel’ series of guides to UK regions, offering in-depth exploration of one of England’s most popular areas. Written by resident experts Hilary Bradt, the late Janice Booth, and Gill and Alistair Campbell, it remains the essential companion to discovering not just the obvious and well-known sites, but also for getting off the beaten track and understanding what makes this gorgeous part of the country tick. Much of the information in Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor has appeared in no other guidebook (apart from previous editions of this book) as the authors uncover the lesser-known charms of the region, as well as different aspects of the more popular places (from the English Riviera and South Hams to Salcombe and Dartmoor), together with colourful characters from the past, folk history and literary links from Agatha Christie to Arthur Conan Doyle. The guide has a special emphasis on car-free travel: walking (this edition features a revised selection of routes, including ‘miles without stiles’ – accessible Dartmoor walks), cycling and river boats, as well as local buses (including the new Dartmoor Explorer service) and trains. This edition has a stronger emphasis on local food (both in markets and when eating out), while the authors have updated their hand-picked suggestions for places to eat and drink, and for accommodation (from idyllically located campsites to boutique B&Bs, via caravans, treehouses and haunted coaching inns). Colourful and witty writing, along with the authors’ enthusiasm for their subject, makes the guide a pleasure to read. With Bradt’s South Devon and Dartmoor, discover the region’s award-winning gin distillery and new whisky distillery; learn what really goes on at a wassail gathering; find out what you should do if you're harassed by pixies on Dartmoor; and discover unique local events like the annual Orange Race held in Totnes. Also included are entertaining and informative stories about historical characters and folklore, while small and historic village churches, with their idiosyncratic saints and intriguing carvings, are described in loving detail.
