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A View to Remember

By Beth Ede

Views are something that can stick in your mind for years and really make a walking holiday, but what makes a view special? Personally, I love panoramas that are rich in colours: a pink-and-white patchwork of blossoming almond groves framed by pine-clad hills that reach up to a clear blue sky in Aragon; rows of orange trees heavy with fruit alternating seemingly endlessly with immaculate honey-coloured terrace walls up to jagged grey cliffs jutting into a turquoise sky on Mallorca; or a foreground of pink heather and lush meadows against the haunting backdrop provided by the blue silhouettes of Auvergne’s ancient volcanoes. In other cases, it was not so much the variety of colours that I found so alluring but the richness of those colours. Standing on the Chasseron ridge in the Jura, I was impressed to see the High Alps so clearly outlined on the horizon, but what really held my gaze were the different shades of green in the landscape. The grass around us was yellowy and full of purple and white flowers, but the meadows far below seemed olive-coloured and the forests surrounding them were dark green. The different greens – this time of wheat fields and cypresses – create a similar textured effect in Tuscany when you look down on the surrounding landscapes from the hill-top town of Volterra.

Of course, on a walking holiday, views can really whet your appetite for what lies ahead. La Campagne Berne is a superb place to start the Provence Wander walk, for example. With so much else running through your mind when you arrive on the first evening after a day of travelling, the fact that you can see the Alps may escape your notice until the next morning when you take your table out in the garden for breakfast. It is perhaps at this point, as the Provençal sun warms your face, that it dawns on you that you are on holiday and that the next week will be all about gentle walking and relaxation. It is enough to make you feel very contented with life! Similarly, on our fourteen-night walk through the Dolomites (a combination of the Valleys & Villages and High Dolomites walks), you cannot fail to feel a sense of adventure as you sit with a cold beer on the terrace of the wonderfully quirky Gasthof Bad Dreikirchen celebrating the end of the first week’s walk and thinking ahead to the next week when you will be among the jagged peaks of the Dolomites that for now peep over the ridge at the far side of the valley along with the flat-topped Schlern. Far away in Tenerife, it also brings a tingle of excitement to draw back your curtains at the Caserio de los Partidos and be greeted by views of towering El Teide, Spain’s highest peak, knowing that (if you have chosen the longer holiday) you will be walking on its upper slopes in just a few days’ time.

Many of our walking holidays lead from the mountains down to the sea, and on these your first glimpse of the coast is always an exciting moment made all the more special when you can see back to the heart of the mountains from the same point. On the Pyrenees to Atlantic walk, this moment comes on day two, when you reach the summit of Artzamendi and can see the High Pyrenees behind you and the Atlantic ahead of you. Similarly, there is a point on the Pyrenees to the Garrotxa walk – coincidentally also on the second day – from which you can look back to the Pyrenean peaks that mark the border with France and look straight ahead to the glittering Mediterranean.

If the views during a holiday can help emphasise the fact that you are on a journey, then those towards the end of the week often fill you with a great sense of achievement. On the Bologna to Florence walk, one of the best views of the entire holiday is from the terrace of the penultimate hotel, the Pensione Bencistá in Fiesole. Having covered over 100 kilometres since setting out from Bologna six days earlier, it is very rewarding to see your destination, Florence, finally laid out before you, a jumble of red rooftops. The Renaissance city may be tantalising near, with the huge dome of the duomo so close that you could seemingly reach out and touch it, but you will have plenty of time to explore it in due course, so the best advice is to sit back with a Campari and enjoy it from afar – tomorrow is another day, after all! On Sicily, after four days spent winding your way through the Madonie Mountains, you can spend your last day relaxing by the pool of the wonderful Relais Santa Anastasia. This would normally be enough of a reward, but is made all the more special by the views across the estate’s vineyards to the sea beyond, with the two Aeolian Islands of Filicudi and Alicudi on the horizon where the sea meets the sky.

All the views mentioned so far have been ones that have assumed a clear sky and good light, but to finish there would be to ignore the great views that can be had at dusk or even at night. On the From the Pyrenees to the Sea walk across northern Catalonia, we highly recommend sitting out on the terrace of the Hotel Can Xiquet at dusk so that you can admire the panorama encompassing vineyards and, in the distance, the twinkling lights of villages lining the Gulf of Roses. On the Paths to Rocamadour walk, Monsieur Menot of Hotel le Troubadour will lend you a torch so that you can walk to a nearby viewpoint and admire the medieval pilgrims’ town of Rocamadour, all the more dramatic when floodlights illuminate it against an ink-blue sky. Finally, if, like me, you love views of never-ending ridges, you will not be able to tear your eyes away from the layers of blue hills that stretch into the distance from the Gîte de Toureves in the Cévennes. On a good evening, you can even see Mont Ventoux far away in Provence. If that is not a view to remember, I don’t know what is.

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