travel 51
this week’s destinations
2
3
1 Mexico
3 Israel
Swim in a cenote sinkhole and
explore ancient temples in Yucatan
Take a tour on a Segway and enjoy
Mediterranean-Israeli cuisine during
48 hours in Jerusalem
2 Scotland
Stop by the Taynuilt Hotel, where
good food and hospitality flourish
PLUS
bargain breaks
PHotographs: Kate Wickers
1
A tour of
Jerusalem
by Segway
stone staircase on one side but vines
and small waterfalls cascade down
the other. My sons jump off the side
while I float on my back alongside
the catfish, staring up through shafts
of sunlight to a tunnel of tropical
forest.
Back at the hacienda we go
birdwatching with Berberno, a
naturalist – he also plays in the
hotel’s guitar trio – who leads us
through the kitchen garden, where
we pause to snap off a snack of
warm bananas. Within minutes
we have seen a beautiful blue-
Merida is
possibly the
happiest city
I’ve visited
Magic of the Mayans
Historic temples, deadly basketball and cocktails made for Shrek …
Kate Wickers and sons are charmed by a visit to Mexico’s Yucatan
M
y nine-year-old
son, Freddie, isn’t
sure about the
“green stuff” on
his poached eggs.
It’s chaya, a Yucatan superfood,
three times more nutritious than
any other leafy green vegetable, and
used in everything from eggs to ice
cream to drinks.
He’ll have to get used to it. It’s our
first morning in the Yucatan, the
region on the eastern tip of Mexico.
We flew in to Cancun airport the
night before, then headed by private
transfer 180km inland to lovely
Hacienda Chichen, built in the 16th
century by Spanish conquistadors,
located in the grounds of Chichen
Itza – the region’s most famous
Mayan temple and one of the new
Seven Wonders of the World. Guest
bedrooms are the chalets used by
archaeologists in the 1920s. The
hacienda’s biggest draw is its private
gate to the ruins and by 8:30am we
are raring to be first in. Our first
glimpse of the 25m high Castillo
de Kukulcan is a “wow” moment.
We hire a guide, who is astute,
focusing on all things of interest to
my jetlagged sons aged 14, 13 and 9.
The Mayan temple,
Chichen Itza, main
Did they know the Mayans played a
game a bit like basketball? And that
the captain of the winning team
was sacrificed by having his head
chopped off? He points out images
of skulls and eagles eating human
hearts. I don’t see them yawn once.
Yucatan has the largest
underground network of caves,
subterranean rivers and sinkholes
– or cenotes – in the world and
swimming in them is a treat,
especially in temperatures pushing
30 degrees. We head to Cenote Ikkil,
which is 26m below ground level
but open to the sky. Access is via a
crested motmot, with its long tennis
racquet-shaped tail, and a young,
crimson-crested woodpecker having
a go at a domestic papaya. But the
highlight is the perfect, six-inch
high Mexican pygmy owl, which sits
scowling at us from a low branch.
From here we travel to the
coastal town of Celestun, for a
boat trip through the 146,000-acre
protected Bio Reserve. More than
300 species of birds pass through
here and thousands of flamingoes
flock to nest and breed. They are
such alluring creatures, and at their
most curious in the air. We watch
them flying in, their necks and legs
equidistant from their wings so at
times they look like they are flying
backwards. The skipper fishes out
the tiny red shrimp the flamingoes
feast on to give them their pink
plumage. We sail into the mangrove,
where termite mounds teeter on the
branches and crocodiles lurk just
metres from where people splash in
a natural spring.
Celestun is a pretty fishing village,
with a clash of colourful casas on
the less-visited west coast facing
the Gulf of Mexico. On the weekend
the beach is packed with kids flying
kites, families barbecuing, their
obligatory buckets of iced Sol beer
buried in the sand. Cafes serve
up blue crab, flour tortillas
20 June 2015
52 travel
and rice, and beach stalls sell
starfish, conch shells and shark
jaws. “We’d never get one through
customs,” I tell my hopeful sons.
From here it’s just 90 minutes
to the city of Merida, Yucatan’s
cultural hub. We stay at the quirky
Luz en Yucatan, a boutique hotel
without the high prices, which has
a homely atmosphere, with large
family rooms, private terraces with
hammocks and a communal pool.
Merida is possibly the happiest city
I’ve ever visited. On Sunday the
central roads are closed off so that
everyone can enjoy a nice bike ride
and senior citizens dance in the
squares. We dine at La Chaya
Maya (“Oh no, it’s named
after that green stuff,”
moans Freddie),
where they serve up
Yucatan specialties
(try the poc-chuc,
marinated pork
with tortillas) and
I really disgust
my sons by opting
for a frozen chaya
margarita. It looks like the
kind of thing Shrek might order,
but is delicious. We explore the
iguana-ridden ruins at Uxmal and
swim in the nearby natural cenotes,
lunching at the atmospheric
Hacienda Ochil, once a thriving
plantation. Even with its great
restaurant and artisan shops it has a
satisfyingly spooky ghost town vibe.
We’d promised ourselves four
luxurious days of “doing nothing”
on a fabulous beach, so travelled
to the Caribbean coastline and the
Belmond Maroma Resort & Spa, on
the Riviera Maya. It’s a gorgeous
resort and its understated, tasteful
Mexican décor blends perfectly with
its 25 acres of jungle gardens. But
by day three my sons are twitchy.
“Grab your snorkels. We’re going on
an adventure,” I tell them, and we
hop on a boat to the second-largest
reef in the world, which lies on
the resort’s doorstep. We’re in the
water just seconds before an eagle
ray “flies” by, and we can’t believe
our luck when, in his wake, comes
a sedate green turtle. Stopping by
at Freddy’s Bar, with his 120-strong
range of Tequila, before dinner
becomes a habit. I slip off to Kinan
Spa – an enchanted forest of a place
where non-stinging bees are kept to
produce honey for treatments and
the leaves from “grandpa tree” (a
huge Banyan) float gently down to
cover me as I lie on one of the day
beds watching butterflies flit by. The
lovely facial is simply a bonus.
We end our trip in Tulum, which
in the last ten years has morphed
from backpackers’ enclave to
cool, laid-back resort full of quirky
boutique hotels and funky
restaurants. We hire bikes
to explore the isolated
ruins at Coba, just an
hour from Tulum.
Unlike the other
Mayan ruins we’ve
explored, most here
remain jungle-clad
and you’re allowed to
scramble up the near
vertical steps of Nohoch
Mul, at 42m, the Yucatan’s
tallest pyramid. Views from the top
are stunning – jungle and lakes as far
as you can see – but the leg-burning
climb separates those who’ve been
eating their chaya from those who
have not. There’s never been a
better time to point out to my sons
the importance of eating greens. It’s
just a shame I’m so out of breath.
Thomas Cook fly to Cancun from
Glasgow. Fares start at £480.98 adult
return, www.thomascookairlines.
com; double rooms at Hacienda
Chichen start at £80 plus taxes,
www.haciendachichen.com; rooms
at Luz en Yucatan start at £36 per
night, www.luzenyucatan.com; a
deluxe view room at the Belmond
Maroma Resort & Spa costs £342,
based on two sharing, inclusive of
breakfast and taxes, www.belmond.
com/maroma-resort-and-spariviera-maya; Kate used Yucatan
Connection for private transport,
www.yucatan-connection.com
The Belmond
Maroma Resort
& Spa on the
Riviera Maya,
inset; swimming
in a cenote,
bottom
Gastro
hub
A talented chef has made a pub in
Taynuilt a destination rather than a
place to pass, writes David Robinson
I
don’t know about you, but
I’ve never given Taynuilt a
chance. Head west on the
A85, and there’s no real
incentive to do so. There’s
a sign pointing right to the village,
the station and the golf course,
one pointing left to some holiday
chalets, there’s a war memorial
and a whitewashed hotel at the
crossroads… and that’s that.
Ahead, there’s the coast, Oban,
and the prospect of islands. Just a
few hundred yards further on and
the streetlights stop. You accelerate
again, and it’s gone from the rear
view mirror.
Next time, slow down. Have
another look at that hotel at the
foot of Ben Cruachan. It’s the
building that gave Taynuilt its name
(“house by the burn” in Gaelic), a
ten-bedroom coaching inn dating
back to the 17th century that was
bought two years ago by a chef,
John McNulty, who is just 25 and
determined to turn it into one of
Scotland’s finest gastro-pubs.
It’s a bit of a gamble. Motorists
like me, blinkered by that rush to see
the sea that never truly leaves those
of us whose childhoods were spent
far from it, might always tend to
zoom past. Worse still, those
tourists who DID stop off for a meal
there before it reopened in
March 2013 mightn’t want to do so
again.
From what I can gather from
friends who live nearby, the Taynuilt
Hotel as it was when McNulty
bought it out of administration was
the kind of place that gave Scottish
tourism a bad name.
Microwaved meals. Basic beers
and lagers. A kitchen with just
one cooker and a hotplate. A
bar with a ceiling painted black,
white walls stained with nicotine,
and an uneven, rotting floor that
occasionally flooded.
At a cost of £225,000 over and
above the purchase price, McNulty
has transformed the place. The bar
has been rebuilt, cleared of its tired
copperware, given a white ceiling, its
carpets replaced by a level wooden
floor, the kitchen and the bedrooms
comprehensively upgraded, the
building rewired and provided with
a new boiler.
But the biggest change is in the
food and drink. Our tourism chiefs
are forever banging on about the
bargain breaks
The best deals
nights’ full board aboard the five-star
MS Concerto, seven nights’ all-inclusive
at the five-star Sonesta Pharaoh
Resort in Hurghada, and return flights
from London Gatwick between 16
November-15 April. Book by 27 June.
Call 0208 5889943 or see
www.travelinteraction.co.uk
BIG APPEAL
My America Holiday is offering three
nights at the three-star Wellington hotel
in New York, on a room-only basis, from
£469pp, based on two adults sharing,
including flights with Virgin Atlantic from
London Heathrow. Book by 30 June for
dates in December and January.
Call 020 8290 9797 or see
www.myamericaholiday.co.uk
NILE TO SEE YOU
Prices start from £499 for a 14-night
Nile cruise and stay in Hurghada with
Travel Interaction. This includes seven
20 June 2015
nether-netherland
Available from 27 June-31 August, the
five-star Dylan hotel in Amsterdam is
offering a Summer Garden Package.
It starts from £353 and includes an
overnight stay for two in a Luxury Double
room, buffet breakfast, three-course
dinner and more. Flights not included.
Call 0031 205 30 20 10 or see
www.dylanamsterdam.com
travel 53
PHotographs: Thinkstock; fiona laing
Clockwise from
main: Ben
Cruachan in
silhouette; the
exterior of the
Taynuilt Hotel; a
scallop dish from
chef/owner John
McNulty
sheer quality of Scottish produce,
but how many pubs take that
message so seriously that it informs
everything on their menu? How
many, when making a fish or a
venison pie, will deliberately use
only the choicest cuts and not just
leftovers? How many, when you
order lobster at 6:30pm, will be able
to tell you it’s so freshly caught that
it hasn’t yet arrived?
If McNulty has been financially
helped by his family (his father owns
a small chain of local pharmacies)
in buying the hotel, the passion for
high-quality affordable seasonal
produce is entirely his own. It’s what
he picked up first at the Kilberry Inn
on Kintyre, where he would have
learnt how far people are prepared
to travel for good food, then working
for Emily Watkins at the Kingham
Plough, in Chipping Norton, one
of England’s finest gastro-pubs,
where he might have wondered why
such places were all too scarce in
Scotland.
It’s not been easy. He’s worked
the last 12 months without a break,
and when he moved in, he and
his partner Rachel and their baby
daughter lived in the bedroom
above the front entrance as the hotel
was being gutted and refurbished
around them. “We spent the first five
weeks just clearing the place out,” he
said. “It’s only because we’re young
enough and daft enough that we’d
take something like this on.”
Finding a general manager like
David Lapsley must have helped.
The son of the Tiree policeman,
and a former soldier with the
Argylls, Lapsley is that rare creature:
someone who who can convey his
passion for food and drink without
leaving the customer feeling
browbeaten or hopelessly ignorant.
“If you are passionate about putting
the best food and drink you can find
in front of people,” he says, “this job
is really simple.”
Between them, they have plenty
of plans. Already, they are trying to
lure visitors from Oban by taking
the cost of the train ticket from their
bills, have introduced loyalty cards
for locals and midweek pensioners’
lunches at less than £8. In the
future they plan to build on their
whisky tastings (a flight of 12, 14
and 21-year-old Balvenies for £13,
anyone?), introduce meals based
48 hours in
Jerusalem
meat, casseroles and fish at Hachatzer
(www.thecourtyard.rest-e.co.il, tasting
menu, 230ILS/£38).
Saturday, 9am Head for the Old
City. It is Shabbat so Jewish businesses
will be shut, but that shouldn’t stop
you seeing the important sites. Avoid the
worst of the queues by going
first to the traditional site of Jesus’s
crucifixion, burial and resurrection, the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Then
explore at leisure, fuelled by fresh
pomegranate juice or a snack, until
exhausted.
3pm Test drive a Segway (created
by a Jewish inventor Dean Kamen)
with SmartTour (www.smart-tour.
co.il,195ILS/£32.50 for two hours). A
guide teaches you the techniques before
leading you through the city, explaining
the sights as you go.
8pm Dine at Adom at First Station
(mains from 62ILS/£10), where the fusion
is French-Italian. If you see seaweed,
calamari and crab risotto on the
menu, don’t miss it.
Sunday, 9am After a
leisurely breakfast, discover
the hotel’s past as an eye
hospital built by the British
Order of St John in the
1880s. In the 1940s, when
Israelis were blockaded in
the Old City’s Jewish quarter,
a secret cable car ran at night
from the building to Mount
Zion, carrying supplies to those
who needed them.
Friday, 5pm Check into the Mount
Zion Hotel (www.mountzion.co.il) and
as dusk falls have a Goldstar lager in the
lobby, taking in the cityscape.
6:30pm Quickly head to the Tower
of David (www.towerofdavid.org.il,
55ILS/£9) for the 45-minute sound and
vision show which introduces you to the
dramatic history of the city.
8:30pm Walk to First Station (www.
firststation.co.il), the old railway
station where trendy restaurants and
shops have replaced the trains and
tracks. Chef Moti Ohana specialises in
Mediterranean-Israeli inspired grilled
around their excellent wine list and
craft beers and buy a few mountain
bikes to hire out.
If there’s a prize for commitment
and enthusiasm in this, Scotland’s
Year of Food and Drink, I’d happily
nominate the two of them. If there
isn’t, there should be.
In 1803, when Dorothy and
William Wordsworth passed this way
on their journey around Scotland,
they stayed at the Taynuilt Hotel
too. It was, Dorothy noted, “very
congenial, with good breakfasts,
excellent supper, and including
accommodation for the horses, all at
a modest price.”
Apart from that bit about the
horses, it still is.
Bed and breakfast at the Taynuilt
Hotel starts at £85 per room.
Tel: 01866 822437, visit www.
taynuilthotel.co.uk or email
[email protected]
The skyline above
the Western Wall,
below
10am Take a taxi to the Israel Museum
(www.imj.org.il, 54ILS/£9). See the Dead
Sea Scrolls and the 1:50 scale model of
Jerusalem just before it was destroyed
by the Romans in 66AD. Enjoy the art,
both inside and out, and then have
one last Israeli feast at the onsite restaurant Modern before
your flight home.
FIONA LAING
Tel Aviv (Ben Gurion) airport
is 45km from Jerusalem.
Easyjet (www.easyjet.com),
El Al (www.elal.com) and BA
(www.ba.com) have regular
flights from the UK. For further
information on Israel, see www.
thinkisrael.com
20 June 2015