The Phobjikha Valley, a five-hour drive from Bhutan’s capital Thimphu, is one of the most beautiful places in the Himalayan kingdom and also the best place to see black-necked cranes, Ian Thrower told DestinAsian.
These rare birds, with their striking black and white plumage and crimson crowns, are “revered” by locals, who call them “birds of the sky.” Conservation efforts have helped increase global numbers from about 6,000 in the 1990s to more than 17,000 today, and each year several hundred species winter in the “farmed” wetlands of Phobjikha.
Their arrival is celebrated with a folk music and dance festival at the 17th-century Gangtey monastery. Tour operators such as Ampersand and hotels such as the luxurious Gangtey Lodge offer bird watching walks, and the Black-necked Crane Valley Visitor Center ‘decagon’ hosts an exhibition. Go between November and mid-March, when birds return to the Tibetan Plateau for the summer.
Hiking in the mountains of Bavaria
It’s not particularly popular with British visitors, but the Allgäu region in southern Bavaria is a great place for summer walking, Will Hyde said in The Times.
On a recent trip, I stayed at the Hubertus Mountain Refugio, a 66-room “wellness resort” with a large spa, outdoor pool and friendly staff dressed in dirndls and lederhosen. The surrounding alpine peaks rise to heights of over 2,600 meters and allow for long and invigorating walks through forests and flower meadows.
For lazier days, there are plenty of cultural attractions nearby, including Lake Constance (45 minutes’ drive west), the picturesque historic town of Kempten and Neuschwanstein, a “fairytale” palace built by King Ludwig II. His two other residences, Hohenschwangau and Linderhof, are also within reach.
A walk along the north Cumbrian coastline.
Few parts of Britain feel as on edge as Cumbria’s north coast, a low-lying strip surrounded by the Lake District fells, said Chris Moss in The Guardian.
It is beautiful, but also “gritty” and in places damaged by industrial activity, as I discovered during a recent three-day walk along its part of the English Coast Path. From Maryport (a pleasant town where L. S. Lowry loved to paint) I headed south to St. Bees Head, with its “spectacular” cliffs, a distance of 23 miles.
Highlights along the way included Workington (a friendly place that “looks like its name sounds”) and Whitehaven, undoubtedly one of England’s “most beautiful” coastal towns – a former “industrial powerhouse” with “crumbling” grandeur, but which also has a “striking” new hotel, The Edge, an angular “rust-colored” building by the sea.