My Dream Guesthouse

My Dream

Many years ago a Karen man from Chiang Mai province worked in a guesthouse in Chiang Rai. He lived with his wife in the small Karen village Khaew Waaw Dam a few kilometres out of town on the Mae Kok River. For the last ten years his dream has been a reality for tourists staying in his village. After a week at My Dream Guesthouse it is firmly in my top five guesthouses in Thailand.


Riverside bungalows

Anan and his wife Polly have worked hard to create a small place to stay that is more than just a collection of wooden bungalows by a river. For a start the bungalows are arranged around an immaculate forest garden, alive with birdsong and colourful dashes of passing butterflies. Each of his 13 teak and bamboo rooms is tastefully and simply decorated, each with a large bed encased within a mosquito net that hints at the opulence of a four-poster. He was determined to create the garden, despite others in the village questioning why he spent time on something that didn't earn money, so that visitors would get the most pleasure from their stay in rural northern Thailand. His ethos that shines through in lovingly tended flowering bushes and lawn brightens everything that is provided at the guesthouse and reflects his effusive, sunny disposition. He welcomes new guests with a smile and laughing conversation when he is not on a mountain leading one of the treks he offers to guests. You can do one, two or three day treks around tribal villages in the surrounding mountains.

Delicious large portions of Thai food are served in the riverside restaurant. If, like us, you have a baby evening meals are brought on a tray to your balcony. A fire is lit on the small private beach each evening from where you can sit and gaze at the milky way or find your way around by the light of the full moon. The view from the beach is of the surging river flowing by and the forest-and-bamboo-clad hills beyond. The beach and garden are perfect for hanging out with a family or just taking it easy after a trek.


My Dream beach

During our week staying at My Dream we met Didi, a French cycling tour leader, who was returning to My Dream for his fourth year in a row with 14 cyclists on a two-week mountain biking tour. He values the personal service that Anan provides. A rep from a Swiss tour company offering tours for two to three people stayed the night to check out the guesthouse for their next brochure. Some of the guests come with pre-arranged tours to use My Dream as a base before heading higher into the mountains for trekking. Many companies employ Anan to lead the treks for them. We also met a young Austrian who was passing through on his way from Tha Thon to Chiang Mai, partly travelling along the river itself. If you don't fancy a long trek but prefer to move beyond the garden there are plenty of easy activities to leave the guesthouse for, from visits to elephant camps and hot springs to hikes into the mountains, more of which in my Khaew Waaw Dam blog entry which I'll post soon.


Anan with his daugher Dia

Everything at the guesthouse has been thought about to make your stay memorable, to remember My Dream and to remember Anan who dreamt of having a forest guesthouse by the river. Live his dream and make it part of one of your own.


Garden view to the river

Getting there and costs

You can reach My Dream by land or water. It is on the long-tailed boat taxi service connecting Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Tha Ton. A one-way trip between My Dream and Chiang Rai costs about 120 baht per person and takes 1 1/2 hours down river to the town. Expect a little longer upstream. Polly's father runs the only taxi in Khaew Waaw Dam. He goes into Chiang Rai about 6.30am every day except Sunday. He will pick you up from your guesthouse in Chiang Rai on his return trip sometime between 11am and 1pm if you ring and arrange with Anan a day in advance. Depending on occupancy this will either cost the regular fare or be courtesy of My Dream. The journey takes about half an hour. You can also hitch pretty easily from the village down towards Chiang Rai so it is possible to make the return trip for free.

Garden-facing rooms and bungalows currently cost 300 baht per night, riverside bungalows 500 baht. Most meals cost between 40 and 50B. Meals on rice are 50B or 40B if you're vegetarian. There are two small shops in the village selling snacks, drinks and some fruit and veg. One pounds up a wicked som tam (papaya salad) for 15B.

PinPao Guesthouse, Old Sukthothai

I've just posted a comment on my review of the Orchid Hibiscus to update it and break the news about Paolo and Pinthong's new place in Old Sukhothai - PinPao.

The comment is here too if you don't want to read about the OH.

Paolo and Pinthong have just opened another guesthouse - the eponymous PinPao which is a large new house on the main road into Old Sukhothai. They were just putting the finishing touches to PinPao while we were there and Pinthong showed us around a couple of days before they opened its doors to guests for Loi Krathong. The place is fantastic inside. It is a guesthouse rather than bungalows or rooms around a garden so it is different in character to the Orchid Hibiscus. Each room is ensuite and slightly differently sumptiously decorated in Pinthong's signature contemporary Thai style. Expect lots of plump cushions, cereamic flowers and handpainted woodwork. PinPao is on the riverside and breakfast will be set on a terrace overlooking the river. Paolo and Pinthong are looking into boat trips along the river to the Historical Park.

A wooden footbridge leads over to a swimming pool set in a concrete lido, with more ceramic flowers, and garden. The pool and garden were coming to the end of construction when we looked around.

PinPao is another five-star mid-range guesthouse for Sukhothai, building on the success of the Orchid Hibiscus. Prices are the same - currently 800baht for a double room with the same style breakfast included. PinPao also has a cafe specialising in authentic Italian coffee, as you'd expect from Paolo. The main advantage of the PinPao over the Orchid are its position on the main road which put it much closer to the Historical Park. This means it is an easy walking distance to the Park and other amenities of Old Sukhothai. You can expect the same high quality service and rooms as well as a swimming pool but not quite the same extent of gardens nor family romos. If 800baht is your budget, even just for a few nights of a longer trip, I doubt you'll be disappointed by either of Paolo and Pinthong's guesthouses while in Old Sukhothai.

The White Temple

There is a new Buddhist temple being built outside Chiang Rai, if merely built is the right word. Imagined into existence is possibly a better description for this phantasmagoric brainchild of Thai artist Chaloemchai Khositphiphat and his overworking imagination.

It is close to the city of historical temples yet so far removed from them as to almost deserve a different classification. For one there is not the quiet reverent space of many temples, but a bustling tourist attraction complete with shopping and dining area, camera-snapping Thais and guardians keeping the masses in line. Welcome to Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, the

Attention to detail is incredible with the outside of the building and other structures decorated lavishly with ornate swirling designs. The exterior is white with silver mirrors and changes colour with cloud and sun. Under cloud it has a deathly pale yellow palor, which when set behind leafless trees, is reminiscent of a Tim Burton film set. When the sun shines the mirrors twinkle and the white takes on the hues of its surroundings - grass green, sky blue and clothings reds, yellows and oranges.

The art inside the hall does strike me as being the product of a talented fantasy-loving teenager or 70s heavy metal album cover artist. That, however is not a surprise or such criticism as it may sound. Where, after all, did the artists of psychedelic album covers or fantasy novel covers get some of their inspiration? Hindu and Buddhist religious art. The wat's art brings these influences together.

It is a lot of fun with hints at attempts to make statements. Superman, Spiderman and the Matrix sit alongside Buddhist apsaras, garudas and demons. The World Trade Centre is shown during its destruction by Al Qaida with a demon-headed serpentine petrol pump pipe snaking around one of the towers. Yet how much do intended meanings resonate after a single visit? That probably depends on your attitudes to politics, fantasy and Buddhist religious art.

The dream is still being built and all power to him for making something so bold that it generates reactions from visitors. You will either love or hate it but you're unlikely to feel indifferent towards it.

As you enter you come face-to-face with a gold structure bearing a white Buddha in its ornate folds and twists.



After passing the first structure between ponds with white fish you are next greeted at the approach to the central hall by concrete hands reaching out to the air and your sense of fun. Some hold skulls up next to others proffering alms bowls.



Apsaras or bodhisatvas float in the air either side of the approach to the central hall. Every inch of the white building is adorned with white mirrors.





To either side of the hall are matching pairs of Buddhas facing each other.



The purity of white certainly makes a statement that cannot fail to influence you in some way, even if only while there. It is perhaps part Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, part Taj Maha, part Southfork.

The temple is very easy to reach from Chiang Rai. A sangthaew from the produce market station near Wat Phra Singh costs 20 baht and they leave regularly through the day. You should not have to wait more than 20 minutes. Tell the drivers you want a minibus not taxi to catch one of the regular departures rather than charter a whole vehicle for yourself at maybe 500-700 baht. You can also catch a local bus to Phayao from the old bus station in the city centre or a Chiang Mai bus from the new station on the city's edge. The journey takes less than 30 minutes. To return to Chiang Rai go up to the main road and flag down a passing sangthaew or bus. A sangthaew driver spotted us walking towards the road and waited for us to get to him.

Loi Krathong, Thailand

Krathongs made from coloured ice cream cornets


Loi Krathong, Chiang Mai 2009

Loi Krathong is one of Thailand's major annual festivals and a must do for anyone visiting the country in the autumn. The festival is a celebration of water through light, thanking water for the fertility it provides and apologising for pollution we cause by sending small floats of plants and flowers with incense and candles into rivers and other waterways. The Thai for the floats is krathong and to loi is to float them on their way. Millions of Thais throughout the country make or buy krathongs then gather at specific locations in each city, town or village that have traditionally been used for centuries to loi their krathongs. The candles seem to go out quite quickly and darkened krathongs tend to gather along the water's edge, so anyone expecting to see rivers sparkling with lights may be disappointed unless the weather is totally calm. Think giant vegetable soup with too many cooks. Households light candles at their boundaries and entrances, in many ways similar to Hindu diwali.


Kom Loi about to be released

Where the festival is so enjoyable is because it s an almighty excuse for Thais to do what they love best - eating, shopping, having fun and listening to loud music. Food and gift stalls line the streets, performances are held and processions of motorised krathongs head down streets. It is as much a celebration of modern Thai life as it is one of tradition. The best way to experience it is to throw yourself right in, while keeping out of the water. You might also need to keep your head down from the odd stray firework or quickly descending kom loi, a miniature candle-powered hot air balloon that are set floating in the sky in droves. Many have wishes attached to them. Not all manage to ascend to the heavens before they reach a tree or power cables or simply lose their upward momentum above a crowd.



The festival is not the same date every year according to the Gregorian calender because it is fixed to the 13 month lunar calendar, falling on the full moon of the 12th month. Wherever you are in Thailand at the time of Loi Krathong you will undoubtedly enjoy. I have met farang women staying in villages who have been dressed as Thai women and put on the top of krathongs in processions. Three of my favourite places to loi a krathong are Chiang Mai, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.


Tha Phrae gate, Chiang Mai

People in Chiang Mai know how to enjoy life and bring this zest for fun to Loi Krathong over 4 days or so. Each night activity is focused around the Tha Phrae Gate and Narawat Bridge on the Ping River. Where Tha Phae gate is a laidback market full of teanagers comically posing for photos below lanterns, the River is a cacophony of noise and sound resounding to fireworks carronading from the bridge. Call into a wat on the route to the river to sign a kom loi with a wish and float it away with the help of young monks. A procession that begins at the gate converges on the river on the night of Loi Krathong itself.


Buddhist Loi Krathong ceremony, Chiang Rai


Sukhothai Historical Park

Where Loi Krathong in Chiang Mai is one great street party, in Sukhothai it is the creation of a magical, twinkling world of light and dark over four evenings. The World Heritage Historical Park is taken over with thousands of candles and lanterns on the chedis and in the ponds. A sound and light show animates Wat Mahathat with colourful lights and loud noises culminating in a firework display. The road to the park and the lanes in the park are lined with food and gift stalls.

Picnics below the lights in Sukhothai


Buddhas for sale in a Loi Krathong market

Ayutthaya may be a World Heritage Historical Park similar to Sukhothai but Loi Krathong is totally different. Here it is a brash six-day fairground and festival featuring lots of loud dance music, dodgems, shows and sound stages of boy bands. This action is concentrated in one corner near Wat Mahathat but the main loi locations are on the Chao Praya river near Wat Yai Chai Mongkol. Plenty of people loi on the ponds of the historical park too and boys tread water to either help the krathongs away from the banks or to salvage and resell them later.


Kom Loi gang

Ethnological Museum of Thrace

The Art of Collective Memory

On a quiet street in downtown Alexandroupolis, situated near a cafe and a church, is an imposing historical building  dates from the last years of the 19th century. Neo-classical marble columns stand guard above a flight of steps and to either side of a solid wooden door. We approached after a diversion behind the church, where a kindly lady pointed us in the right direction, to find the door closed and locked.  This was a while after the stated opening time. Was the museum closed? We knocked. Soon, we heard footsteps approaching and a young face appeared in the door's window. 'Come in', he called throwing open the door and welcoming us into a warm wooden room lined with display cases that smelt and felt of well-worn age. A museum where you knock to have the door opened for you is a rare thing. 

Inside time seemed to pause, to take on the sheen of past ages when Thrace was a very different region, Greece another country altogether and Turkey was the Ottoman Empire. All three and their turbulent history converge on this quiet house once owned by a successful businessman which unwinds away from the history of empires to expose the people's history of the communities who lived on this crossroads between Europe and Asia.



This is not a museum of high culture, of distant difficult-to-relate-to people. This is a museum of the everyday, of ordinary folks doing the ordinary things they needed to do before communiting, industrialisation and office jobs became the norm. It's a story of hard graft and simple pleasures. The museum is divided into themed rooms. Dress, religion and agricultural work make up a large part of the displays as you would imagine. An exhibition of mannequins sporting traditional clothes in front of a map of the region and black and white photographs from a time when these clothes were commonly worn is interesting, not solely for the clothes but for the similarities I've seen in the traditional clothes of South-East Asian hilltribes and the Maya of Central America. It seems that there are common uses of textiles in all three regions which tend towards a black material for the body of a jacket which is then adorned in multi-coloured embroidery. A universal language of the stitch?



Rooms of agricultural tools from before mechanisation always fascinate and impress me. They are hand-made tools for hand-made work, each as individual as the person who made them and worn smooth, buckled or bent through hard labour on the soil. They resonate with a time when calloused hands fed millions, when food was wrung from dry earth. They put into perspective the easy availability of over-ready meals and Kenyan green beans on supermarket shelves.

One thing that makes the museum distinctive is the presence of evocative, sociological descriptions for each room. Where many museums such as this rely on the functional or sentimental to explain their collections, here we are encouraged to think beyond the surface and deeper into the social meanings of the practices that the objects were used in, whether religious, ceremonial or utilitarian. The museum is to be applauded for taking this approach.

Three of the rooms are devoted to pleasure, to simple pleasures that ease stiff backs and reward days of hard work. These are alcohol, tobacco and sweets. I'm not sure if I've been to a museum with so much space given to this unholy trinity. The room of sweets has fascinating videos of traditional boiled sweets and Turkish Delight being made by hand in copper pans and on marble tables. The amount of work and art in making the sweets makes a packet of polos seem like a cheap fix. I took to the maker, a kindly grey-haired gentleman with the smile of a man who enjoys making things to make other people happy. I went into a shop selling hand-made sweets, ouzo and dried fruit after leaving the museum and looked upon the shelves of delights with child-again eyes of wonder. The video of the sweet man put magic back into the simplest of pleasures that can otherwise be so easily overlooked. I thank the museum for that and for revealing the rich texture of work-worn tools.

There was something very big missing from the museum, however. Not quite an elephant in the room perhaps, but massive enough to make me wonder whether this was historical gloss or deliberate avoidance. What of Thrace's position on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, and all the violence that has brought? Greek Thrace is only one part of Thrace, the other two regions having been situated in Bulgaria and Turkey since the 1920s.  Community violence and enforced mass migrations followed when Ataturk created Turkey out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire following World War 1. Thrace had a very mixed ethnic make-up of Greeks, Turks, Bulgarians, Greek Turks and Turkish Greeks at the time most of the tools in the museum were used.  There is no reference to this at all. I like to think the museum has opted to avoid the burden of addressing this issue so that the lives of people shine out without being reduced to shadows in a wider political story. It is easier to for the people behind the displays to take centre stage when they're not subjugated to the chorus of national histories. 

The Museum is at 63, 14th of May Street, Alexandroupolis. Current opening hours are Tues - Sat 10:00 - 14:00 & 18:00 - 21:00, Sun 10:00 - 13:30. Tel: +30 25510 36663. Email: info[at]emthrace.org

Ice Cold in Alexandroupolis

Ordinary times in Greece.



I like visiting ordinary places, the nowhere towns and villages that lie beyond the tour agent's brochures and country visitor guides. They are the places where you have the chance to meet the real country. This is not to say that popular tourist destinations are less real than other places. Real people live in real houses and go about real lives in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prague for example. But, as a tourist in a tourist honeypot you only experience the country through the prism of tourist activities, tourist restaurants and tourism staff. Your view of your host country is therefore mediated through a protective environment created specifically to give you a good holiday experience and to take your money in return. And why not? If you choose to spend your hard-earned cash to visit a foreign country you wish to have a wow factor, amazing memories and your pleasure well and truly catered for.

But what about the country behind the brochure? The places without the incredible historic sites, national parks, resorts or sublime beaches? I decided to go to just such an ordinary city in Greece - one of the most visited countries in Europe. I would avoid the sun-kissed Aegean islands with their idyllic beaches and the Classical cities of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Instead I would go somewhere ordinary for a weekend but still travel there as a tourist. So, I chose Alexandrouplis, a port on the Thracian coast nearer to Istanbul than Athens. So far removed from Classical Greece is Alexandrouplis, that its origins date to the late 19th century as a town that grew up around an Ottoman Turkish railway line but only after the area's capture by Russian troops during the Russo-Turkish war.



The legacy of the Russians are wide, straight boulevards that were planned to facilitate troop movements but now provide a wide, open welcoming and modern feel. The lack of narrow widing streets instantly banish any stereotypes of quaint Aegean towns. These streets are not the main attractions of Alex, despite the sales, occasional pavement cafes and baklava bakeries, so let's leave them behind after a diversion to the fantastic Thracian Ethnology Museum. Nor are the small, slightly sruffy beaches littered with discarded cigarette butts, though the coarse sand dotted with marble pebbles and the warm Aegean are welcoming enough when compared to inland England.



What makes Alex a place for a weekend break is the restaurant-lined sea-front promenade. A somewhat busy road during the day, it is transformed into a pedestrian haven at night when bollards prevent cars driving along it towards dark. Alexandrouplians love to promenade in the evenings and take over the road in their droves. From 6 weeks to 90 years old, couples, families and groups saunter along the road to create the most convivial perambulating street party in Europe. The pace is languid, as befits summer night-time temperatures in the high 20s centigrade, yet the atmosphere is bubbles with what can only be termed as glee. Things really get busy after 9 or 10pm when the street becomes difficult to see through the legs, prams and buggies. Stalls selling Middle Eastern jewellery and battery-powered dogs with manic eyes line the sides of the street. Portrait artists set up their easels and wait for subjects to sit themselves in front of the passing gaze and passing interest of thousands of strollers. Trendy open-air bars blast out pumping dance tracks to crowds drinking ice-cold beers and warmly-mixed cocktails.





Apart from walking, almost everyone is out to eat. Every inch of the pavement above the concrete breakwater is packed with tables belonging to restaurants over the road. Alexandrouplis is one of the best and largest outdoor restaurants outside of Thailand. Each venue serves some of the best and freshest meals you can consume anywhere in the world. Menus bulge with a variety of traditional local salads, fish, seafood and meat. Whether creating a meze of small dishes or eating your way through a three-course meal, the wide range of dishes and variety provided by each chef's take on the same dishes will ensure you can happily satisfy your palate without repetition for at least a month.



As a vegetarian, I tried two totally different Greek salads, two totally different cabbage and carrot salads, three totally different types of bread, fried cheese and rocket salad. Each was dressed in the sweetest, lightest, delicious olive oil. What better way to finish a meal than to join the throng and stroll along the prom. The restaurant tables thicken towards the locally iconic lighthouse above the Luna Park fairground, with its fast kart track offering exhilarating rides at 2 euros for 3 minutes. Near here is a baklava bakery for honey-drenched sweets to snack on while walking.



Neither walking or eating are, however, the main occupation of the multitude. While chatter rises into the air in crescendoes, nor is conversation the prime activity. What everyone spends most of their time pursuing is people-watching. Whether walking or sitting, drinking or eating, talking or in silence, each and everyone is looking at their stranger-companions. You are as part of the entertainment as you are being entertained. And what this creates is one of the largest slow-paced festivals of conviviality in the world. That in its own right is enough to recommend Alexandroupolis for a weekend visit, as long as you're able to consider visiting a town without top theatre, without the finest architecture, without world class museums and art galleries, without the best beaches, without the best-preserved ancient monuments. If you can manage with all that then drink in one of the happiest of evening atmospheres with thousands of locals that can be found anywhere.



I stayed in Hotel Park during my stay. Sat on busy Avenue Dimicratis and opposite a small wooded park, it is locally owned and been in the same family for 30 years. The friendly owner speaks good English. All rooms are en-suite with air con and there is a breakfast room and small swimming pool. Rooms are 30 - 40 euros for a single and 60 - 80 euros for a double depending on the season. Alexandroupolis has an airport with connections from Athens and Thessaloniki, is on the Athens to Istanbul rail line and has regular buses to Thessaloniki.

Edale

The start of the Pennine Way is the perfect walking base

Edale and long-distance walking are synonymous in Britain. This small bright green valley hidden amongst the Peak District hills between Sheffield and Manchester is the official start of the southern end of the Pennine Way, the arduous rain-lashed route along the spine of England that ends in Scotland over 268 miles to the north. It is the country's oldest and most famous long-distance footpath that attracts 12,000 sturdy hikers to attempt the full route every year. If setting off for a walk along half of England isn't your idea of a day out in the country don't be put off by Edale. This mecca for walkers has plenty of shorter routes on offer that you can tackle in a day, from steep hikes up wide-open moors to more gentle strolls along the valley. All are doable on a day trip or by staying in one of the valley's many guest houses and campsites.


Grindsbrook

The actual start of the Pennine Way is the Nag's Head Inn, a traditional walker-friendly pub serving real ales and decent meals in the centre of Grindsbrook, Edale's only village. Even if you don't intend to walk all the way to Scotland, you can still down a pint and wander along the easy first few miles or feet of the route, depending on how lazy you're feeling.


The Nag's Head (fr0m www.peak-experience.org.uk)


The first section of the Pennine Way

The first part of the Pennine Way meanders gently through pastures of sheep and cows until Upper Booth, the most distant of Edale's farms less than 2 miles from Grindsbrook. You can rest your feet in the historic gritstone farmyard while savouring an ice cream, tea or coffee served from the barn. It is easy to find your way back to Grindsbrook via Barber Booth, another historic farming settlement. Booths can be found throughout Edale. They are small groups of farms and cottages that are first documented during the reign of Elizabeth I but probably originated after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Each was a cattle ranch cut out of the wooded waste of the damp valley on the edge of settlement.


A typical Edale view

If you feel that staying in the valley is to constraining there are plenty of paths that radiate out like threads in a spider's web from Edale onto the surrounding hills, ridges and moors. Jaggers Clough tempts the more serious hiker beyond the tea and ice creams of Upper Booth. Named after the packhorse men who used to transport Cheshire salt, Yorkshire iron and Derbyshire millstones across the Peak District, Jaggers winds steeply up the hillside towards the iconic Kinder Scout. Today the moorland is all open access land so you can wander at will beyond the farmland. This right to roam was fought for with passion by working class men from the surrounding industrial towns who clashed with the gamekeepers of landed aristocracy across the Peak District moorlands. This fight reached its zenith on Kinder where hundreds of urban ramblers joined together in the Mass Trespass one spring morning in 1932. Kinder was then private land and the trespassers were met with force by gamekeepers and police. Their leaders were arrested and jailed but the Trespass led to the formation of National Parks in England and Wales and ultimately to the Act of 2000 that made all moorland open access. Victory was a long-time coming and it is us today's walker who can reap the benefits.

The moorlands are magnificent at any time of the year. In spring the air is cut by the call of curlews, in June the white cotton grass spreads across bogs in snow-like flurries. But the moors really come alive in August when the miles and miles of heather bursts into vivid purple flowers. Summer is also the best time to catch the comical cackle of the low-flying red grouse.

Once you reach the moors there are many other ways to go than on to Kinder, either following the well-trod paths or going over the rough ground of this open access land, and coming back down to the valley via one of the many streamside paths. A look at a map will show you the dozens and dozens of walking options starting from Grindsbrook or any of the many guest houses and campsites in the valley. You can also find lots of information about walking around Edale and the moors at the excellent National Park Moorland Centre. The Centre is heated from a ground-source heat pump and has an insulating living roof of moorland plants.


The National Park Moorland Centre


Visit in spring for the delight of seeing newborn lambs

You can reach Edale easily for a day out by train. Though the valley appears remote it is less than 20 miles from Sheffield and Manchester and is on the railway line between the two with an hourly train service at present. If you prefer to stay longer to make more of the many footpaths there are plenty of guest houses and campsites to choose from. Stonecroft B&B uses organic ingredients and caters for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets. All of the campsites have fairly basic facilities with shower and toilet blocks in converted farm buildings. Google maps has a list of campsites. Accommodation can get full during weekends and holidays so it is worth booking or at least calling ahead if you're heading out spontaneously to take advantage of a weekend of good weather. Certainly, the weather can make or break a walking weekend in Edale whether or not you're setting off on the first leg of the Pennine Way or simply ambling around between booths.