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Peugeot 5008 review: ‘Ambitious, sophisticated and good looking… how French’
Peugeot 5008 Price £24,495 0-62mph 10.9 seconds Top Speed 128mph MPG up to 68.9mpg
CO2 from 106g/km
The new driving test now includes an extra area of aggravation for learner drivers – a satnav section. It’ll be all: “Wait, what? Second left? Does that mean this one?” Understanding satnav-ese definitely takes practice and even now instructions from my trusty TomTom can throw me. One way of making your device sound more friendly, or more authoritative, or more whatever you fancy, is to download a “celebrity” voice. For a while now I’ve had Ozzy Osbourne’s rich Brummie yelling: “Naww, not that one, y’right lummock” whenever I missed a turn. The tech retailer Ebuyer reveals that Sir David Attenborough’s is the voice most people choose to have guiding them, quickly followed by Ant and Dec, and Prince Harry.
None of those would be appropriate for Peugeot’s new wagon – the 5008. For a start it should be French. The car is also ambitious, technologically sophisticated and good looking. Emmanuel Macron would be a good fit – especially as his centrist liberal policies are very middle of the road.
Until recently, the no-brainer for anyone wanting to transport kids and clobber would be an MPV – a people-mover just like the old 5008, in fact. But nobody really buys MPVs any more – we’ve gone all SUV. We’ve steered our families away from those commodious baggage swallowers and gone for the chunkier, sportier lines of the sports utility vehicle. What Peugeot has now cleverly done is taken the practicality of its seven-seat MPV and blended it with the aesthetics of a large SUV. This type of car sells like hot cakes in China and South America – where Peugeot wants to reach a whole new market. At the moment the only other two in this sector are the Nissan X-Trail and Skoda Kodiaq. It should be an interesting battle.
Inside story: the interior features twin screens, the excellent i-Cockpit and actual, real buttons
It was a risk, but somehow it works. From the pavement the relative shallowness of the car makes it look long and elegant. While inside there is a remarkable amount of space for heads, shoulders, knees and toes. Peugeot has reused the excellent i-Cockpit interface from its smaller 3008 – the system has two digital screens and actual buttons. For so many years manufacturers have been stripping out buttons in favour of touchscreens. Now they’re back – and what simple, clicky, binary joy they are.
Tech is abundant. There are the usual clever driver and safety aids, but you also get massaging seats, a decent sound system (with Apple’s CarPlay or Android Auto). A massage and music – and all to calm the nerves of the stressed-out parents in the front, while anarchy reigns behind them.
Peugeot knows all about engines: its clever and very efficient three-cylinder unit, which reduces emissions by around 20% compared to the four-cylinder version, has won the engine equivalent of the Baftas for the past three years. The range heads up from the 1.2 and 1.6-litre petrol to larger 1.6 and 2.0-litre diesels. Despite expectations, I found the smaller petrol units far more of a pleasure to drive than the larger diesels, despite the size of the car. You’ll find it cruises smoothly, looks suave and handles crisply. With Macron whispering in your ear, what could be more French?
A rare celestial event will grace the skies during the coming week when a blue moon and lunar eclipse combine with the moon being at its closest point to Earth, resulting in what is being called a “super blue blood moon”.
The trifecta will take place on 31 January and will be best visible from the western hemisphere. The last time the three elements combined at the same time was in 1866.
A “super blue blood moon” is the result of a blue moon – the second full moon in a calendar month – occurring at the same time as a super moon, when the moon is at perigee and about 14% brighter than usual, and a so-called blood moon – the moment during a lunar eclipse when the moon, in the Earth’s shadow, takes on a reddish tint.
Stargazers living in the US will be able to see the eclipse before sunrise on Wednesday, according to Nasa. For those in the Middle East, Asia, eastern Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the event will be visible during moonrise on the morning of 31 January.
“For the [continental] US, the viewing will be best in the west,” said Gordon Johnston, program executive and lunar blogger at Nasa. “Set your alarm early and go out and take a look.”
“Weather permitting, the west coast, Alaska and Hawaii will have a spectacular view of totality from start to finish,” said Johnston. “Unfortunately, eclipse viewing will be more challenging in the eastern time zone. The eclipse begins at 5.51am ET, as the moon is about to set in the western sky, and the sky is getting lighter in the east.”
The eclipse itself is expected to last about an hour and a quarter. For anyone unable to watch the event in person, it will be streamed live online.
Nasa said the eclipse will offer scientists a chance to see what happens when the surface of the moon cools quickly.
“The whole character of the moon changes when we observe with a thermal camera during an eclipse,” said Paul Hayne of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “In the dark, many familiar craters and other features can’t be seen, and the normally nondescript areas around some craters start to ‘glow’ because the rocks there are still warm.”
To say that Florida has a mixed reputation is like saying my president occasionally utters unusual sentences. We have packs of tourists wandering the mega-theme parks of greater Orlando like flocks of flightless birds; locust swarms of spring breakers funnelling beers in Panama City before leaving motel rooms looking as if The Who had stayed; and supermodels weighted down with bling filming commercials on Miami Beach.
Meanwhile, the behaviour of our natives continues to generate the state’s chief export: weird headlines. “DUI on a horse: Florida woman arrested after riding on busy road”; “Woman, 68, and younger lover, 49, arrested after being caught having sex in Florida retirement community’s town square”; “Do you take reptiles? Customer throws alligator through drive-thru”; “Woman crashes car on the Overseas Highway while shaving privates.”
But while many of our best-known destinations are hyper-stressed cartoons of themselves and others have atrophied on the dust heap of history, there is a third group. Despite decades of rapacious change, a number of remote towns and hamlets survive as living testimonies to the quaint Florida of yesteryear.
As a start, head for Cedar Key, on the Gulf of Mexico, on what’s called the Nature Coast. Your journey begins on a remote highway in the middle of nowhere (actually the town of Otter Creek, population 121). After leaving that metropolis behind, turn south-west on to a lonely road through 20 miles of marshland and nothingness. Eventually, tiny bridges appear, then ramshackle buildings on stilts out in the water.
Causeway communities … much of the western Florida coastal fringe is backed by vast wetlandsPhotograph: Carlton Ward Jr
In the 1860s, Cedar Key was on the verge of being a boom town. The railroad from Fernandina Beach, on the Atlantic coast, had its western terminus here, and port traffic flourished. Then another railroad was built further south, drawing the shipping business down to Tampa, and leaving Cedar Key to dry up. Or so everyone thought.
Instead, it simply froze in time, continuing at its own unhurried rhythm. It still looks like Key West did in 1900. It is so intimate, so small town – not a traffic light in sight, a tiny grocery where locals post notices about lost animals, and a convenience store where the clerk locks up and runs back and forth to the liquor store – that it can be completely explored on foot. So slip on those flip-flops and head to Dock Street, where sun-bleached wooden buildings stand over the gulf.
There’s a disused lighthouse and an old seafood packing house, plus restaurants and other venerable buildings on Second Street, with rusting roofs and gingerbread balconies. The Island Hotel and Restaurant, established 1859, has its own ghost and is a great historic place to stay (doubles from $90 B&B). As for dining, you can’t throw a rock in this town without it ricocheting off three restaurants serving some of the finest seafood, particularly shellfish, you’ve ever had. Climb the ad hoc boardwalk at either end of the wharf on Dock Street, and take your pick.
View from Bert’s Bar & Grill, Matlacha
After sunset, an ominous fog often rolls in. More often than not, it’s actually a fine mist of sea spray drifting over the islands from waves crashing the western shore and shooting high over the protective boulders, drenching you if you don’t watch out. The fog/mist that glows under the few street lights lend the vibe that Wild West gunslingers are about to square off in the street. The bottom line: leave your car parked for your entire stay, and just walk around an island that is one big seaport museum, and forget what century you’re in.
Now return to Otter Creek, then drive south for four hours or so, through Tampa and Sarasota, to Matlacha and, beyond Pine Island, Cabbage Key.
Approaching from Fort Myers, the first thing you see is a drawbridge. To the left is Bridgewater Inn (doubles from $155), on stilts, with waves lapping under the rooms. Across the bridge, it is the colours that first splash visitors in the face: vibrant green, pink, purple, yellow, lime and orange, painted over everything. Matlacha (pronounced MAT-la-shay) is an old fishing outpost turned funky arts community.
Tarpon Lodge, Cabbage Key
Technicolor paint covers rows of low-slung cottages that house art studios and craft boutiques. The whole place is less than a mile long. In front of one place are sculptures of herons, turtles and an alligator with a golf club; another has a mural of mermaids. The next a pirate and a gold manatee. The post office sports a painting of a dolphin carrying a mail bag. Inside the shops are stained-glass tree frogs, driftwood lobsters and giant spotted geckos hammered out of metal sheets. But it’s hot, you’re hungry and it’s time to drop anchor.
Some buildings house tiny guesthouses, such as Knoll’s Court and the Angler’s Inn (doubles from $110, on Facebook), and delightfully un-fancy restaurants, including the Olde Fish House Marina and Bert’s Bar & Grill. It’s almost like a zoning ordinance that if you’re serving fresh seafood, you must have dining tables with intoxicating views of the water.
From there, push on west to Pine Island. This area is militantly protected environmentally, which means thick stands of mangroves harbouring a teeming ecosystem of marine life and wading birds (there are kayaks and fishing guides for hire). A few miles north-west, through wilderness and palm farms, is Pineland, and historic Tarpon Lodge (doubles from $175 B&B). But right now you’re looking for a boat to take you across Pine Island Sound, where dolphins often follow your vessel and repeatedly leaping out of the water to check you out, to Cabbage Key, a 100-acre mangrove island home to the Cabbage Key Inn (doubles from $99 room only).
Cocoa Beach pier in Cape Canaveral.Photograph: Alamy
There’s nothing pretentious about the open-air restaurant and intimate bar, with stuffed game fish on the parts of the walls that aren’t plastered with dollar bills signed by customers, including music legend and Florida resident Jimmy Buffett. There are no cars, and no roads, but there is a nature trail circling the island through dense tropical vegetation, and a vintage wooden water tower with an observation deck for a panoramic view of the surrounding islands.
Next, head four hours east across the peninsula across the state to Cocoa Beach, another one-time boom town, in this case from the space race of the 1960s and early 70s, when new suburbs bulged with engineers and astronauts raced Corvettes along the shore. It began tapering off with the Space Shuttle programme, and is almost back to the sleepy community it was when there was just the 1848 lighthouse warning seafarers away from Cape Canaveral. But its updated visitors’ complex is one of the most fascinating tourist attractions in the state. On display are items from worn spacesuits to unappetising tubes of 60-year-old zero-gravity food, plus space capsules from the Mercury and Gemini programmes, which now look more like barrels that went over Niagara Falls.
Watching a satellite launch from Cape Canaveral on Cocoa Beach, just to the south of the launch site.Photograph: Joel Carillet/Getty Images
The best feature, however, is the bus tours of the launch pads and other landmarks. Main tours leave every few minutes for the Apollo and Space Shuttle sites, but there are several less-jammed add-ons. My favourite is the Early Space excursion to Canaveral air force station, where the first satellites and astronauts were launched by crews in concrete bunkers, that you get to go inside.
Unlike with most Florida beaches, the pristine shores back in town are dependably uncrowded. And the historic epicentre of local social life is Cocoa Beach Pier. Back when Cocoa Beach was giving birth to the east coast surfing scene, the pier housed the early incarnation of the famous Ron Jon Surf Shop (now in a giant, garish birthday cake of a building nearby). Today, the huge, weathered boardwalk hosts a string of restaurants, bars and beach boutiques, including a tiny tiki bar at the far end, with frosty drinks and gusts of ocean breeze. But its finest feature is the view over reflective water towards the cape. Look online for the schedule of satellite launches, sit out here on a silent night and watch in childlike wonderment as a tail of flame flickers upward into orbit.
Or, if none of that is to your taste, we always have the Mad Teacup ride at Disney.
Flights Virgin Atlantic flies to Tampa from £463 return; Norwegian flies to Fort Lauderdale from £287 return and Orlando from £328; Wow flies to Miami from £300 return. All from Gatwick.
Top deal American Sky has a 10-night self-drive holiday in Florida, with one or two nights in Miami, Cocoa Beach, St Augustine, St Pete Beach, Naples and Key West. From £1,299pp including flights, accommodation and car hire.
When to go May has average temperatures of 25C and fewer tourists. June to August is hot (highs of 33C), humid and wet, and September is peak hurricane season. October and November are warm and dry (early 20s), but average temperatures don’t drop below 16C even in January.
Back to nature Explore the Everglades, the US’s largest tropical wilderness, on a self-guided kayaking and camping trip along the 99-mile Wilderness Waterway (permit required). From April-October, thousands of giant sea turtles nest on the beach at the Canaveral national seashore. The Ocala national forest has 219 miles of trails and over 600 lakes, rivers and springs.
With its baronial flourishes and turrets, the red-brick Fleece (pictured above) has been a fixture in this market town since 1897. After a period of decline, the hotel closed in the early 2000s but will reopen in spring with a bold new look. The new owners have spent three years renovating the listed building to create a boutique hotel, restaurant and cafe-bar. Guests are promised “deeply comfortable beds and high-spec bathrooms” and imaginatively prepared, locally-sourced food in the restaurant.
Doubles from £59 B&B Opened December 2017 Bedrooms 10
Margate is seaside Marmite – visitors either love or hate its blend of chi chi regeneration and edgy decrepitude – but neighbouring Broadstairs remains valiantly and gloriously uncool. Take the town’s newest hotel, the Bay Tree, on chalk cliffs overlooking Stone Bay, and recently reopened after a £1m year-long refurbishment. There are no gimmicks, no themed rooms, no cleverly named cocktails or artfully distressed furniture – just 10 great-value, smart bedrooms, a cosy library bar and an all-day restaurant. Eight of the 10 rooms have sea views but, for a breath of bracing sea air, book room five, which also has its own balcony.
Doubles from £169 B&B Opens Late February Bedrooms 80
There can’t be a warehouse left in Shoreditch which hasn’t been converted into a hotel, apartment block or nightclub, so developers are having to look further east. Whitechapel is the location for this hip hangout, a former textile factory with exposed brick, huge windows, Hypnos beds and a loft suite with hot tub. There’ll be a Marco Pierre White chophouse, a gym, and lots of space for socialising.
There are few budget stays in the Scillies, so this stylish hostel is a welcome development. The owners of the Longstone Cafe on the main isle of St Mary’s are adding Longstone Lodge, with a mixture of en suite bedrooms and dorms. The five-star Snowdonia hostel Plas Curig has apparently provided the inspiration for the design, so expect this place to be a cut above standard bunkhouse accommodation. There’ll be a communal kitchen and lounge, laundry and garden. Outside there are communal gardens and a children’s play area and It’s a short stroll to the cafe for home-cooked Cornish and Scillian produce.
Artist Residence has bohemian hotels from Penzance to Brighton. In Bristol, a four-storey Grade I-listed Georgian factory building between the centre and hip Stokes Croft will house a restaurant, bar and coffee shop, plus a basement club with local artists, musicians and DJs.
Doubles from £66 room-only Opened November 2017 Bedrooms 122
This hotel may be part of a major chain (InterContinental) but the brand prides itself on local theming. The latest opening wears its Welshness not just on its sleeve, but on its carpets, walls, headboards and toiletries. The Made in Wales rooms are filled with Welsh craftsmanship, from Melin Tregwynt rugs to sheepskin footstools. Industry-themed rooms pay homage to Welsh mining and steel heritage, with black-and-white photographs, coal scuttle waste bins and miners’ lamps, while Music rooms celebrate heroes from Tom Jones to the Stereophonics. The icing on this very Welsh cake is the rooftop Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, with its skyline views.
Doubles from £120 B&B Opened 25 January Bedrooms 16
With its thriving indie boutiques, bars and galleries, the Northern Quarter is Manchester’s most exciting neighbourhood. And the newest addition to the city’s hotel scene is in one of its handsomely restored red-brick warehouses. The bedrooms nod to the building’s Victorian heritage (oak beams, marble fireplaces and original textile factory doors), while showcasing work by Mancunian artists. Netflix access in bedrooms, Ren toiletries, and a complimentary prosecco hour each evening provide the finishing touches.
This small hostel (one twin, three dorms), in an old cottage near the Pennine Way, was in jeopardy last year when the YHA decided it was no longer viable. But it will reopen in spring as an independent hostel, managed by the Friends of Nature, one of Europe’s oldest environmental groups. There are new toilets and showers, and a revamped self-catering kitchen and dining area. The hostel has a grant to develop its beautiful gardens, complete with stream and waterfall, as a wildlife sanctuary. Earby is well-placed for the Pennine Way, Sustrans cycling routes (the Pennine Bridle Way, Lancashire Cycle Way), the Forest of Bowland and the surrounding Pendle area. The hostel is open between spring and October, and for sole use year-round.
The hostel is well-placed for people wanting to climb Ben Nevis, on the right.Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
Dorm bed/double room From £14/£39 Opens Early summer Sleeps 72 beds
This friendly, affordable base for hill-walkers and climbers wanting to tackle Ben Nevis opened in 1933, and was a bit tired. It closed for a revamp and will reopen in time for summer, adding private en-suite rooms (all with mountain views), a new living space with log-burner and a communal kitchen (food is also available), drying room, laundry and bike storage. But it’s what’s outside the door that puts this hostel in a league of its own: Ben Nevis, the Great Glen Way, a world-class mountain bike course and some of Scotland’s most dramatic landscapes.
Doubles from £112 room-only Opens Early February Bedrooms 37
The seaside town of Southend-on-Sea gets its first luxury boutique hotel with the opening of the Seven Hotel on Clifton Terrace, in a modern building overlooking the sea front and Cliff Gardens. There’s a slick, contemporary feel throughout, with plenty of metallic surfaces, polished brass and marble, and huge floor-to-ceiling windows which make the most of the views of Southend Pier. Bedrooms are furnished in soothing tones of sea-green and grey-blue to reflect the muted colours of the Thames estuary. On the ground floor is the Aurum restaurant (opened earlier this month), where chef Simon Webb specialises in modern British cuisine, with an emphasis on Essex suppliers and produce (expect local cockles and seaweed on the menu, with main courses from £18). The adjacent bar stocks more than 30 varieties of gin, and snacks including local Colchester native oysters at £2.50 each.
Since Stephen and Antonia Bournes bought this Georgian coaching inn four years ago, they’ve refurbished the bar and restaurant, opened a roof terrace and are adding 11 bedrooms in the coach house. Three of these will be dog-friendly, three apart-hotel style with kitchenette, and a selection easy-access and for families.The Globe overlooks an expansive green surrounded by Georgian buildings and is a short walk from the town quay. Just over a mile away are the golden sands of Wells beach, where guests can book exclusive access to a beach hut.
Under new owners, the boutique chain is going strong, with two openings this year, in Shakespeare’s home town and in Bristol. A Georgian building, once the registry office, will be a 46-bedroom hotel with the signature French bistro and extensive wine cellar. The Royal Shakespeare Company theatres and Shakespeare’s birthplace are within walking distance.
Dorm bed/double room £25/£40 Opens April Sleeps 133
The YHA’s popular hostel on Bathwick Hill, between the city centre and the university, is to reopen after a £2.5m revamp. The Italianate Georgian mansion, which is built from local Bath stone and set in extensive gardens, has undergone a complete overhaul. Additions include a new reception and cafe-bar, cycle store, guest laundry and five new en suite rooms in the main building. Original features such as the wrought-iron staircase, Roman-style carvings and sparkling chandeliers, have been retained. In March, work will begin on the building of a new annexe which will bring the hostel’s total number of beds to 133 when the annexe opens in September. The new bedrooms will all be en suite, to cater for the YHA’s burgeoning couples and family market.
Doubles from £75 room-only Opened December 2017 Bedrooms 5
This restaurant-with-rooms opened in the village of Bampton, near Tiverton in rural mid-Devon, at the beginning of December but is already starting to make a name for itself. Chef Peter Mundy is at the helm in the intimate dining room, serving well-executed locally sourced dishes such as seafood chowder, roast duck breast with fennel, and rhubarb crème brûlée. There are five simple, but comfortable twin or double en suite bedrooms to choose from, and a pantry where guests can help themselves to tea, coffee and homemade biscuits. Breakfast isn’t included but £10 a head gets you a full cooked breakfast at the Ginger Peanut dining room or a local cafe. Bampton is a short drive from the pretty village of Huntsham, and Huntsham Court stately home. The wide open spaces of Exmoor national park are about 11 miles away, and the restaurant will provide packed lunches.
A 1920s postcard of the Fife Arms, a former hunting lodge
Prices to be confirmed Opens This summer Bedrooms 46
The empire of art-world power couple Iwan and Manuela Worth stretches from New York to Bruton in Somerset, home to the Hauser & Wirth gallery. This summer they’re venturing into hotels, with the Fife Arms in Braemar. The former hunting lodge will reopen as a hotel with a restaurant celebrating Scottish produce, a cocktail bar and a spa.Interiors are by Russell Sage Studio, whose projects include the Savoy Grill, and Zetter Townhouse, and will stay true to the building’s Victorian heritage. There will be a liberal smattering of world-class art, including work commissioned for the hotel.
Doubles from £105 B&B Opened December 2017 Bedrooms 56
Charles Dickens is said to have stayed at the White Horse while writing The Pickwick Papers. It’s doubtful whether he’d recognise this place after its £4m makeover, though. The inn reopened this month with 16 new bedrooms and a complete renovation of the downstairs bar and restaurant. The hotel has its own deli, stocking Surrey produce, freshly baked sourdough bread and the hotel’s own sausages. Attractions nearby include the Denbies Wine Estate, and National Trust properties Polesden Lacey and Box Hill.
The 1823 Spinning Block Hotel, Clitheroe, Lancashire
Doubles from £75 room-only Opens Easter Bedrooms 38
This is the latest in a series of developments that have turned the Holmes textile mill into a gastronomic hub. Businesses so far include Bowland Brewery and Beer Hall – with the longest bar in Britain – the Bowland Food Hall, a cafe and a gelateria. Expected to be fully open by Easter, the hotel is “opulent industrial” in style, and a bistro specialising in seafood and grills will add to Clitheroe’s foodie scene. A pool, spa and gym are also planned.
Following the success of Hotel Football in Manchester and the Shankly Hotel in Liverpool, Belfast is planning its own football-themed hotel, celebrating its most famous son. The George Best Hotel will be operated by Signature Living Group (also behind the Shankly, which also has plans for a Liverpool hotel themed on Everton legend Dixie Dean), with memorabilia donated by the Best family, including a signed shirt and his silver Northern Ireland cap. The hotel will be on the site of the former Scottish Mutual building, with a bar, restaurant and George Best Museum.
• Website tbc
Kettner’s Townhouse, Soho, London
Doubles from £170 room-only Opened 16 January Bedrooms 33
Kettner’s has been a Soho institution since it opened in 1867, as London’s first French restaurant, hosting everyone from King Edward VII – who courted mistress Lillie Langtry here – to Oscar Wilde and Robert De Niro. After a two-year closure, it has reopened as a hotel, restaurant and champagne bar, under the Soho House banner. The group has put its distinctive stamp on the Romilly Street building, while retaining original features such as the mosaic floor in the champagne bar and the mirrors in the dining room. Bedrooms channel “French boudoir”, with chandeliers, floral wallpaper and iron bedsteads. Rooms range from “tiny” to an opulent panelled suite.
Doubles from £130 room-only Opened December 2017 Bedrooms 12
This pub near Derby has seen something of a reinvention, opening just before Christmas as a “boutique country inn” with 12 bedrooms and a cosy bar/restaurant with wood-burners and exposed beams. It plans to be the first of a “pedigree herd” of Cow hotels and inns. The bedrooms are in pale neutrals, with smart TVs, coffee machines and Molton Brown toiletries.
Sitting in contemplative silence atop an enormous sandstone rock, I hear the first whoops in the distance. My initial reaction is to wonder who dares destroy this peace and tranquillity? Is it leftover warlords from Jez Butterworth’s new blockbuster TV drama Brittania? Scenes from the series (which aired for the first time on Sky Atlantic last week) were filmed in this monstrous natural playground. Then I realise that the noise is coming my way, leaping up the great boulders, climbing flights of stone steps, squeezing through shoulder-width crevices and spiralling around stone towers.
The acoustics are so strange in this forested amphitheatre of stone monoliths that I can soon hear muttering: “This is incredible! I love it!” Then I see him: no woad-washed warrior, but a young man in a bright orange down jacket with a smile so wide I’m astonished he’s got it through the tighter spaces.
Eventually he climbs my stone tower, panting a bit. “I’m so annoyed,” he says. “I’ve spent a week touring museums and town squares and now they bring me here and say I have two hours! This is a wonder of the world! I want a week here.”
His name is Nils. He’s a Dutch student on a whirlwind coach tour of the Czech Republic and I know how he feels. Despite its name, Bohemian Paradise is not a well-known destination – though Brittania may change that. Even so, the camera can barely cope with its labyrinthine beauty. I’m in an area called Prachovské Skály (Prachov Rocks), the most visible and best-known section. I have been walking through similar scenery for four days.
Nils is as enthusiastic as our writer about Prachovské Skály. All photographs: Kevin Rushby for the Guardian
At the start, a footpath from the small town of Turnov, a central European settlement that is both ancient and modern, smart and dilapidated, led me into countryside, climbing a wooded ridge with a little rock tower, wind-worn and curvaceous, no taller than a London bus. That, however, was a mere canape before the main feast.
Now the forest is deep and silent, peopled only by red squirrels and deer. To my left I notice the ground seems to slide away between beech trees in leaf-littered curves. Investigating, I find a deep canyon guarded by sandstone bluffs where I lose myself, briefly, in a natural maze. The magic has started. On a side diversion I discover an area where a local artist has carved slightly spooky figures into the rock: mythical giants on mossy steeds looming from under the forest’s feet.
Figures carved in sandstone near Valdštejn Castle
Approaching the hamlet of Hrubá Skála, I notice a steep side path leading into a narrow cleft between cliffs. An hour later, totally disoriented by steep staircases winding through clefts barely a rucksack wide, I emerge from a slot canyon with a laugh of delight. I’m right opposite my hotel. I am so excited that instead of checking in, I head back and spend another hour exploring.
Day two is a circuit that begins with a long, slow descent into deep forest with mysterious cliffs among the trees. It feels like I’m immersed in a fairytale. Rain falls. I reach Kost Castle, a dark forbidding place where I’m disappointed to be told the torture chamber is closed today. But the castle proves sufficiently fascinating without the addition of thumb screws.
The chateau of Hrubá Skalá
Towards sunset, on the way back to Hrubá Skála, I start following some animal tracks, forgetting to unwind a string behind me. I reach the rounded edge of a deep canyon, retrace my steps, then spot a movement. I freeze. All massive horns and woolly chestnut coats, a whole party of mouflon (feral sheep) stroll into view, before they spot me and charge away.
I have lost both my bearings and any semblance of a path. I get the map and compass out and decide to head east. I drop down a long soft slope of dry leaves into a gully, then pop out opposite the hotel. How was that possible? The receptionist swears that mouflon are extremely rare and never seen nearby. Who am I to disagree?
Fiary chimneys … Strange rock formations in Prachovské Skály
After another day of quiet forest walking, I head for Prachovské Skály, the pièce de résistance. The gorges were made more visitor-friendly a century ago with an intricate network of steps and passages, plus a few iron balustrades to stop ladies in long skirts from tripping and falling. I can see why the TV location scouts loved it here. It’s a place to spend days on hide-and-seek, to bring a sketchbook.
Too soon, I reach the baroque masterpiece that is the town of Jičín. It has chequerboard paving and long colonnades around a magnificent market square – but also cars and people.
Like Nils the Dutchman, I’m aghast. Four days was all too short a time to spend in paradise.
Way to go
Packages The trip was provided by On Foot Holidays, whose four-night walking tour of Bohemian Paradise costs from £435pp, including B&B, route notes and luggage transfers, but not flights. Extensions (to Prague for example) can be added.
Flights Wizz Air flies from Luton to Prague six days a week (and daily from 26 March) from £41 return.
Best time to go April to October. Early spring can be cold, but by late April the spring flowers start. May and June are arguably the best months, but high summer is still good as much of the walk is shaded by trees. Most castles and other attractions are closed on Monday so time your visit carefully.
Exchange rate £1= 28.9 koruna (CZK).
A simple lunch in a village restaurant will cost about 100-150 CZK.
Beer is very good and very cheap – a half-litre glass is about 25 CZK.
Google is rolling out a new tool that will stop so-called reminder ads from following you around the internet, typically used to try to get users to come back after virtual window shopping.
The new settings will allow users to “mute” these reminder ads , but only on a case-by-case basis, not as a setting to stop them in their entirety.
Jon Krafcik, group product manager for data privacy and transparency at Google, said: “You visit Snow Boot Co’s website, add a pair of boots to your shopping cart, but you don’t buy them because you want to keep looking around. The next time that you’re shopping online, Snow Boot Co might show you ads that encourage you to come back to their site and buy those boots.
“Reminder ads like these can be useful, but if you aren’t shopping for Snow Boot Co’s boots anymore, then you don’t need a reminder about them. A new control within Ads Settings will enable you to mute Snow Boot Co’s reminder ads.”
Google’s reminder ad muting tool.Photograph: Google
The new tool allows users to view all the reminder ads currently tracked to your profile from one of the over 2m sites that use Google’s advertising services. Users can then choose to mute individual reminder ads and view those that they’ve already muted with their Google Ads settings. Once on the page, users can click the X next to the companies they no longer want to see ads from.
“We plan to expand this tool to control ads on YouTube, Search, and Gmail in the coming months,” said Krafcik.
Muting lasts for 90 days, but Google is quick to point out that it only affects sites and services using its ads platform and that other ad services also provide similar reminder ads, meaning this will not be a magic bullet for all irritating ads.
Google has also beefed up its general ad muting tool to allow users to mute more ads on more apps and sites. When users mute an ad they don’t like on one device, that preference will now be carried over to other devices on which they are logged in.
As a tech writer who has written regularly about apps, I’m well aware of the addictive nature of smartphones. It was during a 2am panic attack after waking up, reaching for my smartphone and reading a tweetstorm about the latest Donald Trump controversy that I realised I may have a problem. That, and the fact that even my 10-year-old son had started telling me to put my phone down when he caught me not paying attention.
I’m not alone. When Deloitte surveyed 4,150 British adults in 2017 about their mobile habits, 38% said they thought they were using their smartphone too much. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, that rose to more than half. Habits such as checking apps in the hour before we go to sleep (79% of us do this, according to the study) or within 15 minutes of waking up (55%) may be taking their toll on our mental health.
“It’s not necessarily the top thing when my clients come in, but it’s often in the mix, tied in with anxiety or insomnia or relationship issues,” says psychotherapist Hilda Burke, a spokesperson for National Unplugging Day in 2016 and 2017. “Particularly when anxiety and insomnia’s there, it’s rare that it’s not related in some way to heavy use of digital devices.”
Often, the apps themselves aren’t helping: from games to social networks, they’re precision engineered to create and feed our interaction neediness. According to British apps developer Nick Kuh: “A lot of these companies are employing behavioural psychologists to really nail that: finding ways to draw you back in. I’ve worked on apps like that myself, and it’s not something I’m proud of.”
Kuh is trying to make amends: his latest app is called Mute, and launched for iPhone this month (free). It’s one of several apps – Space and Moment are others – that track how often you unlock your phone and how much time you spend using it, in order to help you reduce your time on it.
For Space CEO Georgie Powell, “the wake-up moment for me was when I was breastfeeding my daughter while looking at photos of her on my phone. I was so distracted by my phone, I wasn’t present with her!”
Two weeks in to testing them, I know that I average 52 unlocks per day and up to two hours of usage. I’m also used to their digital nudging. “Boom! 2H 33M break from your phone! Digital detox goal smashed!” pings Mute, with suitably cheery emoji. Space’s notifications are more prods, from “Hey Stu, is it time for a break?” to “Oh, it’s you again. Did you need to be here?”
In my case, this data led to action: I actively tried to pick up my smartphone less. That doesn’t surprise psychologists studying problematic smartphone usage.
“Raising awareness of one’s own smartphone use can be the first step in the right direction of decreasing smartphone use,” says Dr Daria Kuss from Nottingham Trent University. “Often, individuals are not aware of the frequency and extent of their smartphone use.”
Dr Sarita Robinson, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, says: “It is a little like getting on the scales after Christmas and being confronted with how much weight you have really put on – when adding up your phone use over a week, the amount of time you are wasting can come as a big surprise.”
Seeing this data is just a first step, however. As Burke says: “Having the insight is only so good. What are you going to do about the insight? How are you going to make a change?”
There’s a parallel here with fitness apps and activity trackers: owning a Fitbit tells you how many daily steps you’re taking, but it’s actions like jumping off the tube or bus a couple of stops early, or taking a daily walk, that get you fitter.
Many changes seem common sense. Kuss suggests deleting the most distracting apps from your smartphone, and not sleeping with it next to your bed. Hypnotherapist and anxiety expert Chloe Brotheridge agrees, suggesting that I buy a bedside clock rather than use my phone’s built-in alarm. “Turn off notifications on your phone,” she adds. “Each notification – whether it’s due to gaining a follower on Twitter, or an email – is prompting you to pick up your phone. Without notifications, you’re in control of when you log in to Twitter or check your emails, and it could mean you check your phone less.”
Kuh relates his own family’s method. “We plug all our phones in at a certain time of night, mute the phones and put them face-down,” he says. “It’s a simple but effective way to not be constantly checking social media.”
Within that first fortnight of tracking my usage, and following this advice, I find myself in a vein of creativity, coming up with and pitching more feature ideas in my job as a freelance journalist than I had in the last several months of 2017. This may be no coincidence. “It’s good to be bored sometimes, to have that dead time,” says Burke. “That’s when ideas come. If we’re on our phone checking Facebook, we lose some precious time that previously we used for daydreaming: gazing out of the window and having ideas blossom.”
Powell agrees. “It’s so powerful to be truly bored: nothing in your head and nothing in your hands, so you can daydream. I really think that’s when great ideas come. Technology is fantastic, but we’ve got to be more conscious about how we use it.”
Apps like Space, Mute and Moment won’t be for everyone: some people may see their notifications as over-naggy, while others may be wary of the data that’s being shared – including location, on iOS, as a workaround to enable the apps to run constantly in the background.
Their business models focus on extra features: a one-off £3.99 in-app purchase in Moment unlocks family features and a “Phone Bootcamp” course of practical lessons to reduce device-time. Space’s £8.99-a-quarter subscription unlocks a friends-and-family mode to encourage one another.
Nearly 240,000 people have paid for Moment Premium, so there’s clearly a market – one that may well grow as the topic of problematic smartphone usage attracts more media attention.
As another positive sign, Powell cites Silicon Valley initiative Time Well Spent, which is trying to push back against technology that hijacks our attention. “I’m very optimistic,” she says. “It’s amazing how many people are searching for help with this issue, but I also see more joy from people celebrating being phone-free.”
Space starts with a quiz to assign you a phone-user “type” (from Rabbit Hole Wanderer to Sticky Social Mitt) and then helps you set goals to change your habits.
Forest takes a different approach: starting the app plants a virtual tree, which grows for as long as you don’t quit the app (and thus use other ones), but dies if you exit.
A lucrative competition to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon will end on 31 March this year without a winner. The Google Lunar XPrize promised to reward the first private company to make such a touchdown with $30m, a prize it was hoped would stimulate a new era of cost-effective and reliable access to the moon.
But the mission has proven tougher than anyone suspected. The competition was announced in 2007 but seemed destined to fold back in 2015 because of lack of progress.
In a statement this week XPRIZE said that after consultations with its finalists it found that none were ready for imminent launch, so Google was withdrawing the prize money. XPRIZE is now seeing whether a new sponsor could provide the prize money, or whether the competition could continue without a cash incentive.
In the meantime, China plans to land on the moon’s far side this year.
A prehistoric jawbone discovered in a cave in Israel has prompted scientists to rethink theories of how the earliest human pioneers came to populate the planet, suggesting that our ancestors left Africa far earlier than previously thought.
The fossil, dated to nearly 200,000 years ago, is almost twice as old as any previous Homo sapiens remains discovered outside Africa, where our species is thought to have originated.
Until recently, several converging lines of evidence – from fossils, genetics and archaeology – suggested that modern humans first dispersed from Africa into Eurasia about 60,000 years ago, quickly supplanting other early human species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, that they may have encountered along the way.
However, a series of recent discoveries, including a trove of 100,000 year-old human teeth found in a cave in China, have clouded this straightforward narrative. And the latest find, at the Misliya cave site in northern Israel, has added a new and unexpected twist.
“What Misliya tells us is that modern humans left Africa not 100,000 years ago, but 200,000 years ago,” said Prof Israel Hershkovitz, who led the work at Tel Aviv University. “This is a revolution in the way we understand the evolution of our own species.”
The find suggests that there were multiple waves of migration across Europe and Asia and could also mean that modern humans in the Middle East were mingling, and possibly mating, with other human species for tens of thousands of years.
“Misliya breaks the mould of existing scenarios for the timing of the first known Homo sapiens in these regions,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s important in removing a long-lasting constraint on our thinking.”
The fossil, a well-preserved upper jawbone with eight teeth, was discovered at the Misliya cave, which appears to have been occupied for lengthy periods. The teeth are larger than average for a modern human, but their shape and the fossil’s facial anatomy are distinctly Homo sapiens, an analysis of the fossil in the journal Science concludes.
Sophisticated stone tools and blades discovered nearby suggest the cave’s inhabitants were capable hunters, who used sling projectiles and elegantly carved blades used to kill and butcher gazelles, oryx, wild boars, hares, turtles and ostrich. The team also discovered evidence of matting made from plants that may have been used to sleep on. Radioactive dating places the fossil and tools at between 177,000 and 194,000 years old.
500,000 years ago
Homo sapiens and Neanderthal lineages diverge.
300,000 years
Date of fossils belonging to early Homo sapiens discovered in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.
195,000 years
Date of Homo sapiens fossils found in Omo Kibish, Ethiopia.
177,000 -194,000 years
Approximate date of Homo sapiens fossils found in Misliya cave, Israel.
100,000 years
Dating of a trove of human teeth found in China.
65,000 years
Archaeological evidence of modern human presence in Northern Australia.
60-80,000 years
Major dispersal event from Africa from which all non-Africans are descended.
Hershkovitz said the record now indicates that humans probably ventured beyond the African continent whenever the climate allowed it.
“I don’t believe there was one big exodus out of Africa,” he said. “I think that throughout hundreds of thousands of years [humans] were coming in and out of Africa all the time.”
Reconstructions of the ancient climate records, based on deep sea cores, show that the Middle East switched between being humid and extremely arid, and that the region would have been lush and readily habitable for several periods matching the age of the Misliya fossil.
The idea of multiple dispersals is supported by recent discoveries such as the teeth unearthed in China, human fossils in Sumatra from around 70,000 years ago, archaeological evidence from Northern Australia at 65,000 years and fossils previously discovered near Misliya dating to 90,000-120,000 years ago.
The scenario also raises the possibility that the eastern Mediterranean may have acted as a crossroads for encounters between our own ancestors and the various other human species, such as Neanderthals, who had already reached Europe.
“We’re like a train station that everyone’s passing through,” said Hershkovitz.
Scientists have already shown that interbreeding with Neanderthals, whose lineage diverged from our own 500,000 years ago, occurred some time in the past 50,000 years. As a legacy, modern-day Eurasians carry 1-4% of Neanderthal DNA.
However, a recent analysis of DNA taken from a Neanderthal leg bone found in a German cave hinted at much earlier encounters between the two species, dating back more than 200,000 years. The new fossil adds plausibility to this theory.
An illustration of how the fragment of jaw may have matched with its missing half. Illustration: Prof Israel Hershkovitz/Handout
“It means modern humans were potentially meeting and interacting during a longer period of time with other archaic human groups, providing more opportunity for cultural and biological exchanges,” said Rolf Quam, Binghamton University anthropology professor and a co-author of the study.
The discovery also raises intriguing questions about the fate of the earliest modern human pioneers. Genetic data from modern-day populations around the world strongly suggest that everyone outside Africa can trace their ancestors back to a group that dispersed around 60,000 years ago. So the inhabitants of the Misliya cave are probably not the ancestors of anyone alive today, and scientists can only speculate why their branch of the family tree came to an end.
Prof David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University and an expert in population genetics and ancient DNA, said: “It’s important to distinguish between the migration out of Africa that’s being discussed here and the “out-of-Africa” migration that is most commonly discussed when referring to genetic data. This [Misliya] lineage contributed little if anything to present-day people.”
“These early exits are sometimes termed ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘failed’,” said Stringer. “Some of these groups could have gone extinct through natural processes, through competition with other humans, including later waves of modern humans, or they could have been genetically swamped by a more extensive 60,000 year old dispersal.”
Ebbing, Missouri, isn’t on any map, so don’t go looking for it. If you want to find where director Martin McDonagh filmed his Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated dark comedy then it’s into the mountains of North Carolina you go – with a pitstop in the small town of Sylva.
The town (population: 2,644), which is less than an hour’s drive south-west of trendy Asheville, is hoping to benefit from the film’s success. To that end, the state tourist board has put together an online trip planner to guide the inquisitive around key shooting (and throwing, fighting and burning) locations.
Downtown Sylva and the surrounding mountains.Photograph: Chris Council and Emily Chaplin
The not-so-snappily titled Explore Authentic Locations From Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, offers three days’ worth of sightseeing opportunities. These include Sylva’s main street, its Sassy Frass store, which was converted into Ebbing’s police station for the production, and Jackson’s General Store, the upper storey of which plays a lofty role in a pivotal scene. The travel planner also has shopping, accommodation, and food and drink suggestions.
Officer Jason Dixon, played by Sam Rockwell on Main Street, Sylva, in a scene from Three Billboards.Photograph: Allstar/Fox Searchlight Pictures
Guy Gaster, director of the North Carolina film office, says the film’s writer-director, Martin McDonagh, spent three days location scouting in North Carolina with the film office – before filming from March to July 2016 – and was specific about his requirements.
“Martin wanted to find that quintessential small town, somewhere a little sleepy, but a place that most people could identify with. He also knew he needed a town with a main street where – slight spoiler alert – a character could believably throw something across the street and into another building.”
In reality though, Sylva’s attractions and those of the neighbouring towns of Dillsboro, Maggie Valley and Black Mountain (the latter’s North Fork Left Fork road was the site of the now-gone billboards) effectively act as a gateway to some of the state’s real blockbuster attractions.
The Blue Ridge Parkway, a leisurely drive dotted with scenic overlooks, is less than 15 minutes from the town. The parkway runs for 469 miles through North Carolina and Virginia – and has low speed limits (never more than 45mph), to help motorists make the most of it. Hikers can access the Appalachian Trail at several spots near filming locations. After all that nature, the city lights of cool, artsy Asheville are within easy reach.
A waterfall in Gorges state park
Gaster is aware that the film’s profile may have a positive effect for the whole community – which is still coming to terms with its starring role.
“I think there’s still disbelief around town that it happened and that people’s small town is on the big screen. But if you’re an outdoor person this is a great area to explore and, like Sylva drew Martin in, there are other mountain communities that visitors can really immerse themselves in,” he says.
North Carolina’s scenery is no stranger to the big screen, having figured in box-office hits such as Forrest Gump, Last of the Mohicans, Cold Mountain and The Hunger Games. However, in recent years a change to the state’s tax incentive scheme has seen film industry spending fall from $377m in 2012 to $140m in 2016. Hopes, and revenues, may be raised by state legislation passed in October 2017 that could increase film incentive financing.
In the meantime, North Carolina awaits the release of another much-anticipated film that was shot here. Heist drama American Animals (another UK production), which impressed critics at this month’s Sundance festival, was filmed at small town locations such as Mooresville and Belmont, near the city of Charlotte.
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