“Where are you taking me?” I called out to my friends Michael and Lucinda as they raced along a woodland track. “ Back in time”, they called back. “We can go down by the steps or by the path. Race you to the bottom”.

We’d been lunching with friends in Ventnor and were driving out of town when on a whim Michael pulled into a tiny car park near the Botanical Gardens. They wanted to show me Steephill Cove, a hidden world of its own tucked into the Undercliff and accessible only on foot or by boat.

I took the steps that lead steeply down through semi-tropical vegetation and eventually squeeze between two stone cottages at the bottom. Suddenly I was amid a jumble of rocks and a riot of colour – old-fashioned striped deck chairs, fluttering flags, brightly painted beach huts and front gardens filled with hydrangea, agapanthus and exotic palms.

Steephill Cove is small but perfectly formed, lined by pretty cottages, some thatched, plus a seafood restaurant fit for castaways on a desert island, a crab shack and a beach café, all with glorious sea views. The sound of children’s chatter and their yelps of delight as they dodge the waves fills the air; for entertainment there’s rock pooling, and swimming, or lazing with a good book in a deck chair, the sort with a shade that shields your head from the sun. This southern stretch of coastline has a tropical micro-climate: there’s a much better chance of blue skies than elsewhere and it’s often baking hot.

Britain has many lovely beaches and seaside spots, but Steephill Cove, to which I have often since returned, has a special charm, partly because of its hidden quality, partly because the beach is privately owned (each house owns the portion of shore in front) and partly because of the Wheeler family, who have been fishing from here for around 500 years. Every morning, brothers Mark and Jimmy go out in their boat, and the crabs and lobsters they bring back are served, simply with salads, in the delightful Boathouse restaurant, run by Mark and his wife Vanessa. A wooden beach shack on two floors with an outdoor upper terrace, it’s like something out of Robinson Crusoe, and an in-the-know secret that’s never advertised but booked solid in high season (open only for  lunch, May to October). The shellfish are also served as crab pasties and sandwiches and lobster salads, from Jimmy’s Crab Shack just along the beach.

Their father, David, looks after the deck chairs and the beach, and has been awarded an MBE for the effort he’s made over the years to keep it safe, clean and unspoilt. “He’s 82 now, but he can still carry six deck chairs at a time”, Vanessa tells me proudly.  “He loves this place as we do; he still sleeps in the bedroom he was born in”. A sign on the blue and white painted deck chair store asks customers to put the money in the slot: £2 for all day hire or £1.50 after 1pm.

In the middle of the cove is the brothers’ fishing boat, pulled up on the shore and surrounded by buoys, nets and lobster pots. At the far end is an ice-cream kiosk and a queue of children, and Bill and Jayne Nigh’s Beach Café, which does a swift trade in snacks and drinks on its sun-trap terrace overlooking the sea, with a jolly mural across one wall of surprised-looking yachtsmen bobbing about in their boats.

Best of all, you can stay at Steephill Cove. Bill Nigh lets Seagull Cottage, for two, while Vanessa and Mark own three superb self-catering properties: the Crow’s Nest, the Boathouse, next to the restaurant, and the new Lighthouse, built earlier this year, with a fantastic circular master bedroom. If you can’t wait till summer, consider a winter weekend break in one of them, at amazingly reasonable prices.

Essentials

For further information visit www.theboathouse-steephillcove.co.uk and www.steephillcove.com. For more information about the Isle of Wight, visit www.islandbreaks.com. Wightlink (0871 376 1000; www.wightlink.co.uk) offers a 24-hour shuttle service to the island on a choice of three routes.

Now that Eurostar has beaten back its journey time from London to two-and-a-quarter hours, the idea of nipping to the City of Light for the night has suddenly become not only feasible, but positively enticing. And since you will be there for such a short time, you can devote yourself to fun. Paris may have lost its edge as a city of global significance but it is still all about l’art de vivre, great views, classic food and wine, and shopping.

Forget the set-piece sights like the Louvre. Instead, concentrate on getting to know one area of the city well. In 24 hours you will have time for no more than two meals, an afternoon of leisure and a night’s sleep. For such a short trip to be memorable, all those elements need to be even more carefully chosen than for a longer one. You may have a favourite quartier, where you would prefer to base yourself; if not, here is my recipe for a stay on the Rive Gauche (and note that it’s best to avoid Sunday/Monday as you’ll find many shops and museums closed then).

LUNCH

Leave London at breakfast, and you will arrive in Paris with plenty of time to check into your hotel and relax there before setting out for that all-important first French meal of the trip. It had better be good. Simple, but good. Which means knowing where to go in advance rather than just plunging into the nearest restaurant you see.

You have to look much more carefully these days. Brasseries, in particular, are no longer to be relied on. Most are now run by chains and their food is at best predictable, or, at worst, dire. Instead, seek out well-established, privately owned bistros that still have integrity, and for the crop of tiny restaurants run almost single-handed by young, committed chefs.

Two such places can be found in Montparnasse. Le Timbre (3 rue Sainte-Beuve; 0033 1 4549 1040; closed Sunday and Monday) is just that, a postage stamp of a restaurant, its kitchen open to view at one end. Here, a modest self-taught Mancunian, Chris Wright, cooks for up to 24 people entirely without help, in domestic French manner, with admirable results. Choose from his changing weekly menu of three to four starters, main courses and puddings; nothing will disappoint you, but you shouldn’t miss the lambs’ kidneys if they are on the menu or the millefeuille de la maison.

We met the owners of La Cerisaie (70 boulevard Edgar Quinet; 4320 9898) at Le Timbre. “Cyril [Lalanne] cooks like a dream,” Chris told us. “You must go there.” This is another one-chef/one-waitress operation, with Cyril Lalanne producing delicious regional dishes, including cochon de Bigorre – pork like you’ve never tasted before — from his native south-west France out of a kitchen no bigger than a large cupboard. His wife Maryse works front of house, and everyone chats.

THE AFTERNOON

Paris is made for walking, with a constant stream of diversions as you stroll. Close at hand is the Jardin du Luxembourg, a sheer delight, as appealing to lovers as to mothers with children to entertain — who will enjoy the model boats, Shetland pony rides, playgrounds and puppet shows. It makes the perfect start to a stroll along the elegant rue Servandoni to place St.-Sulpice and on into the fashionable St.-Germain district, perfect for shopping.

In rue de Grenelle, you could visit the refreshingly cool Musée Maillol (closed Monday), and afterwards the diminutive cheese shop Barthélémy (closed Sunday and Monday), where white-coated ladies dispense cheeses which

M. Barthélémy has criss-crossed France to find. Odour-proof bags are provided for the return journey on Eurostar.

If you want culture, the Musée d’Orsay (1 de la Légion d’Honneur; closed Monday) and Musée Rodin (79 rue de Varenne; closed Monday) are both nearby. Little-known curiosities in the neighbourhood, off the tourist track but well worth seeking out, include the silent, richly ornamented Chapel of St. Vincent de Paul and his eerie shrine in rue de Sèvres, the bucolic Jardin Catherine Labouré, entered via rue de Babylone, and Notre Dame de la Médaille-Miraculeuse, in rue du Bac, which reveals Catherine Labouré’s story.

DINNER

If you lunch simply at either Le Timbre or La Cerisaie, it would be fun to dine in style, maybe in the new clothes you’ve bought that afternoon. Of the famous grands cafés of Montparnasse, La Closerie des Lilas (171 boulevard de Montparnasse; 4051 3450; www.closeriedeslilas.fr) is the one that feels most like a special occasion. Choose from the brasserie or the more formal restaurant, and be sure to have a drink in the piano bar before you eat.

Alternatively, La Coupole (102 boulevard de Montparnasse; 4320 1420) still packs them in, especially for birthdays, while Le Dôme (108 boulevard du Montparnasse; 4335 2581) is the place to go for those fruits de mer platters one dreams of back home.

THE HOTEL

A perfect reason for basing yourself in Montparnasse and exploring the Left Bank is the new Hôtel des Académies et des Arts (15 rue de la Grande Chaumière; 4326 6644; www.hotel-des-academies.com; doubles from £165 to £214 per night, including breakfast). The best hotel, in my opinion, to have opened in the city for some time, it is happy proof that the small, charming Parisian bolthole is alive and well.

Husband and wife Laurent and Charlotte Inchauspé have created a spotless, highly individual haven – cosy yet contemporary and full of artistic flair – right opposite the art school where Gauguin and Modigliani took courses, and a few steps from the famous artists’ cafés of Montparnasse.

Two artists have deftly created the hotel’s unique look: Jerôme Mesnager, whose joyous white silhouettes are painted directly on to bedroom walls and all the way up the lift shaft (making this the most intriguing glass lift-ride in town) and sculptor Sophie Watrigant, whose equally endearing figures climb a dainty steel ladder from the bottom to the top of the five-storey stairwell.

As for the 20 bedrooms, they are compact but have the classy feel of a top hotel and come in four distinct designs, all cleverly lit with stone-lined bathrooms, sculptured taps and exceptional beds. Room service is provided by the well-regarded restaurant, Wadja, opposite.

In the morning, take breakfast (all fresh) in the tiny “petit bistrot” or on a velvet sofa beside shelves stocked with art books. Or take a seat facing the wall screen and watch an art video as you eat. Service is from smiling, smartly uniformed waiters, while receptionists are relaxed and warm. A perfect fusion of quality and character. There is even a little Moroccan-style spa downstairs, where treatments can be arranged at short notice.

OTHER PLACES TO STAY

Two other alluring hotels in the same area are the intimate Le Sainte-Beuve (9 rue Sainte-Beuve; 4548 2007; www.hotelsainte beuveparis.com), with double rooms from £132 to £282 per night, including breakfast, and the romantic Duc de St. Simon, set round a pretty, secluded courtyard (14 rue de St-Simon; 4439 2020; www.hotelducdesaintsimon.com), with doubles from £188 to £305 per night).

• Eurostar (08705 186186; www.eurostar.com) operates up to 17 daily services from St. Pancras International, Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International to Paris, from £59 return.

• ‘Paris Walks’ by Fiona Duncan and Leo Glass is published by Duncan Petersen Publishing, £8.99.

Two types head for the South of France: those who want to be seen and those who don’t. Those who do crowd together on the coast, jangling their jewels in the Negresco and Eden Roc, and enduring nose-to-tail traffic jams as they crawl along the Corniche. Those who don’t love the region as much for its broom-covered hills as for its raffish, scintillating seaside; for the dry heat, clear light and scent of pine, and for the heady fusion of art and landscape, wine and sunshine that gives Provence and the Côte d’Azur its unique, dazzling variety.

Head for the Domaine de Terre Blanche at Tourrettes and you can dip into both worlds. And if you are en famille, make a beeline. Of all the resort hotels in the region, it’s the one that caters best for parents with teenagers and young children, while cleverly managing to be equally enjoyable for couples on their own. There are endless activities on offer, from canoeing and riding to pétanque, plus an imaginative kids’ club for 2 to 12 year old, setting parents free for a spell on the golf course or in the superb spa. Service is that of any Four Seasons hotel, but staff are particularly warm and friendly here, and there’s a feeling of spaciousness, calm and well-being. Fly to Nice (Cannes-Mandelieu for private jets) hire a car and wind up through the hills to the hotel. You could easily descend to the coast during your stay, but you won’t.

Four Seasons Provence, Domaine de Terre-Blanche, Var

Tel 00 33 4 94 39 90 00; www.fourseasons.com/provence.

Rates from €445 (low season) to €925 (high season) per night for a deluxe Four Seasons suite, including breakfast. 

Just back from a wonderful sailing holiday with our friends Antony (the best skipper in the world) and Julia (the best mate, in both senses of the word) in Brittany on their beautiful 40 ft yacht, Pastime. Now I remember: there’s nothing more enjoyable or rewarding than sailing in beautiful weather (I’m a fair weather sailor, me), and getting from A to B by the power of the wind (and occasional help from the motor when the wind chooses to flag) with the promise of a plateau de fruit de mer and a glass of Muscadet sur le Lie at the end of a day at sea…or even, quite possibly, during it.

We set off from pretty Pornic, and first sailed to the enchanting Ile d’Yeu where friends Nadine and Neil have had the intelligence to have abandoned the rat race and to live in a charming white and blue shuttered house with a lovely burgeoning garden by the sea. After pottering round the quay side market, Nadine took us on a cycle ride round the island (they don’t even own a car anymore) while Neil prepared a feast of delicious local smoked tuna (the island is a tuna fishing centre) and patagos (a special clam) mariniere for lunch in the garden. Wonderful. And then we snoozed in the sun. We also visited Nadine’s remarkable father, Roger and his remarkable artist wife, Charlotte, two memorable people in one unforgettable house, filled with Charlotte’s luminous, enigmatic, philosophical pictures. London? Forget it. I’m off sailing, and maybe after a while at sea I will settle here in the Ile d’Yeu. Bye Bye.I mean it. All I need is a boat. And a crew…..

Next day we set off across the Bay of Quiberon to reach a tiny island called Houat, one of a pair of peaceful sisters, Houat and Hoedic, which mean ‘duck’ and ‘duckling’ in Breton. Houat lives on fishing and tourism. Its population grows from 340 inhabitants to about 3000 visitors a day during the summer, many of them congregating in its cutest of toy town villages, with houses so small and dainty that it felt as if one was walking in a model village. Dunes and sand lilies characterise the rest of the island.

By now I was seriously getting in to cooking on board, having found a copy of a book I wrote 30 years ago, after a two year stint as a cook aboard charter yachts in the Caribbean: Cooking Afloat. God the writing is pompous, but the recipes…. not too bad! For years they seemed hopelessly outmoded and I never used my own concoctions but now, their retro take on making the most of the store cupboard and cooking with the simplest of fresh ingredients are back in fashion and Julia and I had much fun in testing them out. Tuna baked with crisps…yum! Perhaps not baked bean soup, though…. that’s taking things too far, recession or not. 

After a night at anchor in Houat, it was off to the Gulf of Morbihan and then Belle Isle… more of which another time.

What’s the connection between champagne, Mexican food and Mongolian yurts? None whatsoever you might think, but believe me, when conjured by the makers of Krug, this bizarre brew makes a pretty magical combination.

All will be revealed. The bare facts are these: we are camping in yurts, we are eating a Mexican feast and we are drinking Krug on tap: the Grande Cuvée, the Rosé and, pièce de la résistance, the statement 1996 Vintage.

The camping bit is being carried out in extreme boho-style luxury, though devotees of Krug would, I suspect, be content to sleep on nothing more than a mattress under the stars in this particular campsite. It is Krug’s own vineyard, Clos de Mesnil, perhaps the finest of only 16 walled vineyards in Champagne, sheltered not only by its protective walls but also by the surrounding houses of the village of Mesnil xxxx. The grapes from this sunny, sloping plot of gold, with views from the top across gentle hills patched with dark green woods and bright green vineyards, help to make the exquisite blend for which Krug is renowned and also, in certain top quality years, a champagne in its own right, Krug Clos de Mesnil. Here too, in the Krug maison, is one of its presses, plus high tech wine room and hundreds of handmade oak casks in which the grapes are brought vibrantly to life. Go camping at Krug and an expert from the House will guide you round, and explain all.

Forget hotels, stuffy or not. This is a wonderfully different way of spending time with friends or colleagues; expensive, yes, but truly one-off. At various times of the year, eight traditional yurts and one onion-domed, Persian-carpeted Grand Pavilion, all handmade by family run tent company LPM Bohemia, will spring up at Clos de Mesnil and other locations around Europe. Each large and airy circular tent contains a blissfully comfortable double bed dressed in Irish cotton and canopied in muslin, plus antique furniture and mirrors, fresh flowers and scented candles. Lighting, inside and out, is courtesy of bespoke lantern maker, Jig Cochrane.

By nightfall, the mood is set, the light from the lanterns piercing the gathering dark. Thomasina Miers, the celebrated chef and owner of Wahaca in Soho, produces dish after refreshing dish of the Mexican food for which she is renowned, and we all help to barbecue the most tender of beef bought by her that day from the butcher in Reims. The connection between champagne and Mexican food becomes clear: champagne, declares Tommi, is the perfect companion for her dishes, the only wine that can take the chilli. And where do the yurts come in? “Just a bit of fun”, says Charlie Mount, from Krug.“Why not?” Why not indeed?

Dinner over, singer songwriter  Tallulah Rendall, barefoot and full of charm, woos us with her gently swooping voice and delicate guitar playing. The champagne flows into the night, accompanied by Tommi’s wicked chocolate truffles, laced with chilli. The lanterns guide us to our tents. Champagne, Mexican food and Mongolian yurts: bizarre indeed, but also memorable.

The place is divine: a row of pretty houses, old fashioned deckchairs (put the money in a slot in the wall to hire them), a safe, secure environment for children with buckets and spades and prawn nets, and two places to eat, a crab pasty cafe and a wooden restaurant for platefuls of fresh crab and whole lobster and bottles of ice cold wine. Perfect. It’s all straight from the pages of an old fashioned book, and there are three lovely houses to rent too. Visit www. theboathouse-steephillcove.co.uk for full details. Has anyone else discovered this paradise?

You are in Berlin for a short break, for the city’s excellent, inexpensive shopping, for its superb museums, its dark and joyful memories, its palaces and pomp (in central Mitte) and its funky edginess (in Kreuzberg). As more and more of us are discovering, Berlin makes an absorbing and affordable choice for a weekend away.

Take my strong advice: don’t go home. Not just yet. Extend your stay, if you possibly can, by a night or two away from the city, and indulge in a contrast that will make you almost disturbed by the powerfulness of its effect. “Berliners need three days to completely adjust to the tempo here”, say Helmuth and Alla von Maltzahn, owners of the romantic Hotel Schloss Ulrichshusen where we stayed. “At first they find the peace positively unsettling”.

Heading north, leave Berlin and follow the sparsely populated autobahn through a flat landscape of tall pines and even taller wind generators  for an hour and a half (sat nav makes the trip a doddle). Now you are in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany’s second largest yet least populated region and, more specifically, in Mecklenburg’s lake district, an area of polite hills and of valleys filled with stretches of shining water, some huge like Müritz See, others no more than overgrown ponds. Over 600 of them make a patchwork with natural forests, undulating meadows and reedy marshland, with sleepy market towns and forgotten villages dotted between. Of course there are houses and cars, as everywhere, as well as wind farms, the odd factory or platten architecture (communist style housing blocks) in the distance, but the sense of watery calm and silence and of being about 20 years behind the times, is palpable.

Waren, on the shores of Lake Muritz, is the region’s main town and low-key tourist hub. Distinguished by a huge red brick Gothic church, typical of the area, it offers cobbled streets, leading off a spacious central square, brightly painted houses, a small harbour and an air of pleasant domesticity. The lake is for boat trips, fishing, sailing and bird watching, while to the east, the Muritz national park is the place for walking and cycle rides. Winters are sharp and cold, summers often extremely hot.

Now the northernmost part of Germany, stretching to Poland and the Baltic Sea, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s old fashioned tranquillity is bizarrely at odds with its history, having been pushed and punished for centuries, under the control, at various times, of Sweden and Poland as well, of course, as the communists from 1945 until the Berlin wall came down in 1989.

Baron von Maltzahn, Helmuth’s father, had inherited 35 properties in Mecklenburg, a land of castles as well as lakes. In 1945 he was forced to flee with his family to the west, and the ruination of his manor houses and farms, accumulated since the 13^th century, swiftly followed.  When the Berlin wall came down, Helmuth, Alla and their two young daughters drove north to see what they could find of the houses that Helmuth had heard lovingly described as a child. “I felt I knew the castle at Ulrichshusen so well that sometimes I forgot I hadn’t actually lived there as a child”, he says. “And when I stood in its burnt out shell and received a hefty owl dropping on my shoulder (since time immemorial, a good omen) I knew we had to return and rebuild it”.

It took seven years. Now the von Maltzahn family lives at its foot and the soaring Renaissance castle, standing alone on the shores of its own unspoilt lake, operates as a very comfortable low-key hotel. At once forbidding, with its cliff-like walls, and engaging, with its pretty adjoining gatehouse and rocket-like tower stuck to its side, it offers 35 spacious, elegant guest bedrooms with attractive furniture and ensuite bathrooms on two upper floors. On the ground floor there’s a vast baronial hall and gallery and a cosy sitting room and, in former stables, a charmingly rustic restaurant. Best of all is the delightful, summery breakfast room set in the glass-walled top floor of the circular tower. All for the price of a basic b&b in Britain.

How to decorate this rebuilt castle? In a stroke of genius, the von Maltzahns invited a talented Russian muralist to decorate much of it, which he has done so artfully that it’s impossible to tell what is trompe l’oeil and what is not. The breakfast room, surely, has a tented ceiling, complete with folds and seams and open flaps where the sky peeps through; the plunging circular staircase winds through a  ‘family tree’, an oak whose branches are hung with coats of arms, stretching from basement to skylight; a corridor leading to bedrooms contains a glass fronted apparently filled with Maltzahn family memorabilia; step into the lift and you are in a gilded birdcage in which Papageno sings his famous aria each time it starts.

But there’s more to lure you to this lovely castle in the middle of nowhere. Stay between June and September and you can coincide your visit with a concert, set in a massive, specially converted barn as part of the annual Ulrichshusen classical music festival. “Menuhin put us on the map” Helmuth tells us, “by agreeing to play during our first season, not long before he died”. Nowadays you’ll find the likes of Alfred Brendel, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Nigel Kennedy amongst many other stellar names on the programme.

Essentials

Air Berlin (www.airberlin.com; 0871 5000 737) has daily flights from Stanstead to Berlin Tegel from £24 per person, one way. AVIS (0844 581 0147; www.avis.co.uk) have offices at Berlin Tegel,  Tempelhof and Schönefeld airports, where cars can be hired from £18 per day.

Schloss Ulrichshusen, nr Waren (0049 39953 7900; www.ulrichshusen.de). Doubles from £60 to £97 per night, including breakfast.

Off to two more country hotels, near Winchester and at Castle Combe. Will report back soon. My friend Widge and I are getting a golf lesson at Castle Combe tomorrow…the first time that either of us have held a golf club in friendship or in anger in our lives.

Go to Caroline’s beautiful website, www.carolinederothschild.co.uk and see what I mean. If you buy, let me know if you agree with me about what lovely and unusual gifts they make. They’ve certainly brought pleasure to my friends and family.

Meanwhile, Leo and I are busy increasing the entries on the Hotel Guru … we now have well over 600 hotels for you to choose from. Lists for Dublin, both in the city and outside in the surrounding countryside, are going up over the next few days following my inspection trip there, and Brighton is beginning to take shape… I’m going there to suss out the hotel scene for you next week. David Atkinson, one of our contributors, is currently looking at more hotels in North Wales for us and I will be going to South Wales, including the newly revamped Hurst House on the Marsh, part owned by actor Neil Morrissey, in the next fortnight.

But for now….back to the gardening. I live in fear.

By the way, if you are thinking of going to Venice, consider the Metropole for its fantastic position and its charming idiosyncracy, not to mention its Michelin starred restaurant, the only one in that peerless city.  I’m glad to see that a couple who use our Hotel Guru online guide agree with us about this long standing, family owned hotel… go to http://www.thehotelguru.com/best-hotels/Italy/Venice and click on the entry for the Metropole to read their glowing review.