Travelling Light

Alastair Sawday's love of adventure began as a teenager in the 1960s, when he set sail on the SS Queen Mary for Massachusetts. Then came teaching in heady, vibrant St Lucia, and on to Trinidad and Guyana. Enduring exploration and passionate defence of the world was set in motion.The lifeblood of Sawday's work is a relentless pursuit of authenticity, of tradition and anarchy, of natural, home-grown resources, of vital character, of the joy and humour in quirks of humanity, culture and landscape - beyond bland comfort and anonymity. He has mischievous stories to tell of the eccentricities of guests, hotels and their owners: the Luytens-style house in Dehli, named 'Tikkli Bottom'; the chaotic old Spanish farmhouse, with fitful electricity and life-affirming conversation; a Parisian café-théatre, where the can-can is after dinner entertainment - and an ingenious Essex cabin, forged of old fertiliser barrels and built to sit atop a raft. We meet the landlady moonlighting as Flamenco dancer; the once fellow guest, whose phobia of draughts meant she dined swaddled in plastic bags , and an Irish hotelier who insisted her guests accompany her to a most unusual wake. From the majesty of Venice and crumbling Ephesian history of Turkey and Greece, to the 'Baroque flourish' of Sicily, the lush, unspoiled valleys of Ty Mynedd in Wales, and the rugged beauty of Porthcurno, Cornwall - Traveling Well celebrates the qualities that have made Sawday's own guidebooks unique : rich peculiarity of location and warm, eclectic hospitality .