Is crawly cuisine the future of food?

The UN is encouraging everyone in the world to eat insects for the good of our health and the future of the planet. But are the arguments compelling enough to make you munch on a bag of crunchy scorpions or sprinkle your cereal with squidgy larvae?

According to the UN report, "consumer disgust" remains a large barrier in many Western countries – but for some two billion people across the world, eating insects is really no big deal.

Take Barichara, in Colombia's Santander region. Not only known for its impossibly perfect colonial architecture and stunning mountainous setting, the town is also a centre of production for “fat-bottomed” culonaants. The insects are revered in the region for their nutritional value and reputedly aphrodisiac qualities, and have for centuries been roasted as a snack or accompaniment to a meal.

At the town's Color de Hormiga (Colour of Ants) restaurant, I put squeamishness to one side and ordered their signature dish: filet mignon in an ant salsa. I figured that the tiny ants would be indistinguishable once cooked in a sauce. But the clue was in the name – these fat-bottomed ladies (for it is only the queens that are harvested) had backsides the size of a garden pea and heads not much smaller. It was disconcerting, but they were tasty and crunchy – like a salty crispy bacon topping for the steak.

Want to try some crawly cuisine for yourself?

For an eye-opening feast of edible insects, it's hard to beat theDonghuamen night market in Beijing, China. Browse the steaming stalls for your pick of centipedes, silk worms, scorpions, beetles, crickets and more – deep fried and usually served on a skewer.

Travel to Mexico for fried grasshoppers – particularly popular in the southern state of Oaxaca, where they are called chapulines.They're usually fried or toasted with chilli, lime and garlic and sold in markets or restaurants.

If you want to experience something of the Aboriginal diet in Australia, companies such as Bushtucker Tour offer the chance to get your jaws around a witiji grub (also spelled witchetty) – a large wood-eating moth larvae found in the Australian outback. The grub, when roasted, is said to have a crispy skin with a yellow “eggy” centre.

And it's perfectly normal to snack on fried insects in Thailand, where fried giant water bugs, crickets, bamboo worms and grasshoppers are ubiquitous and served in scoops for snacking whole. If you can't decide, don't despair, insect-vendors will usually offer you a mixed bag from their cart.

Tasmania’s true wilderness

At dawn, the surface of Tasmania's Whyte River was still as a painting. An azure kingfisher skimmed low over the water, and the creaking calls of yellow-tailed black cockatoos echoed from the canopy. By the riverbank, the water stirred as a platypus prospected for food. So began another day in the Tarkine rainforest.

Spread across Tasmania's northwestern corner, the 4,470sqkm Tarkine, which is bordered by the Pieman River in the south and the Arthur River in the north, is touted as the world's second-largest temperate rainforest, behind only the vast Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. With few roads and located far from the main population centres of Hobart and Launceston, the Tarkine receives only small numbers of visitors – but that may be about to change when construction of a 90km tourist route into the region begins in May, looping through the scenic Tarkine from the town of Arthur River to Tayatea Bridge.

Golden Corinna
Currently, the only significant road through the Tarkine is the unsealed Western Explorer, dubbed the “Road to Nowhere” by critics when it was built in the mid-1990s. Today, though, it is very much the road to somewhere, as the Tarkine grows in significance in Australia's natural consciousness. Leading Australian scientist and environmentalist Tim Flannery has described it as "perhaps the least disturbed forest in all of Australia, the closest thing our continent offers to a true wilderness".

At the southern end of the Western Explorer, on the banks of the Pieman River, the former gold-rush settlement of Corinna offers the only accommodation inside the Tarkine. Its 17 period-style cottages are edged against the rainforest, providing treehouse-like views into the canopy of myrtle beech, sassafras, laurel and celery top pine trees.

The Tarkine's gold rush was a fleeting thing. Gold was found in Middleton Creek around 5km north of Corinna in January 1879, and by July of that year there were 400 people in the area, hunting for gold. In 1881, the first store was built on the banks of the Pieman River and Corinna was born.

Mining reached its apex in the 1890s when around 700 people lived at Corinna, but by 1919 the town was all but abandoned, leaving what Tasmania's Parks and Wildlife Service describes as " the only remote area historic mining settlement" in the state.

In Corinna's heyday, pubs anchored both banks of the Pieman River, though today the Tarkine Hotel stands alone, wrapped in a wide veranda that would not look out of place in the deserts of central Australia.

From Corinna, a range of activities is in easy reach. Kayaks are available for hire to explore the Pieman River and its tributaries, and several walking trails radiate out through the rainforest. A five-minute walk west from Corinna leads to a colony of freshwater crayfish, their characteristic mud burrows rising like a mini-Manhattan from the forest floor.

A one hour hike on the Whyte River Walk meanders to the platypus-busy Whyte River, passing through rainforest and a choir of birdsong along the way. In the other direction, a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk heads 300m along the banks of the Pieman River to an ancient Huon pine tree.

Mild and wild
Endemic to Tasmania, Huon pines are one of the world's longest-living tree species, growing for up to 2,000 years, and the Pieman River is one of their most evident strongholds. Its riverbanks also hide one of Tasmania's most beautiful but least-known waterfalls, Lover's Falls(named for a pair of 19th-century honeymooners who visited here), plunging about 20m over a cliff into a grove of giant ferns.

The Pieman River is best seen from aboard the Arcadia II, the world's last-surviving Huon pine-built pleasure boat, which cruises downstream each day from Corinna to the river mouth at Pieman Heads. Built in 1939, the 17m cruiser – once a World War II navy supply ship – has been operating as a tourist boat on the Pieman River since 1970.

Shielded from wind by the forest, the Pieman River is often a mirror reflection of the world around it – trees, sky, an occasional white-bellied sea eagle – providing a meditative setting in contrast to the wild scenes ahead at Pieman Heads.

Tasmania's west coast is one of the fiercest stretches of shoreline in Australia; the highest waves ever recorded in the country (19m) were here, and supply ships trying to enter the Pieman River in the 19th Century were regularly torn apart.The Southern Ocean roars ashore at Pieman Heads, smashing into the well-named Misery Rock and piling up sea foam and hundreds of logs on the beach. Wind scours the shore, pelting sand through the graveyard of ocean-polished wood.

Back in Corinna, the drive north on the Western Explorer threads through the rainforest for 10km, providing glimpses into fairy-tale scenes of ferny glades and mosses as lush as lawn. As the road leaves the forest, it enters another of Tasmania's signature scenes – buttongrass moorland – where traces of the Tarkine's human history remain in the remnants of a water race built to power hydraulic gold sluices in the late 19th Century. Look behind, at the forest that covers almost 7% of Tasmania, and there is now only green where once there was gold.

Living in: Amsterdam

Visitors who throng Amsterdam’s red light district and visit the theRijksmuseum to parade past the priceless Rembrandts experience a small part of the city – but the capital of the Netherlands is more than just a Golden Age set piece or a home of risqué debauchery. Amsterdam is a modern European capital with cultural cache and an easygoing lifestyle, attracting a large immigrant population and people across the country to its historic streets.

• Related article: Mini guide to Amsterdam’s canals

What is it known for?
During 2013, many of Amsterdam’s most famous landmarks and cultural institutions will be feted. The city is commemorating the 400th anniversary of the beautiful and historic Grachtengordel (Canal Ring), the city centre’s four concentric canals, which were built in the 17th Century and established as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1999. This year will also see the reopening of the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum; celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; and mark 150 years since the Netherlands abolished slavery in its South American, Caribbean and Indonesian colonies.

Overall, the city is famous for its reputation and history of tolerance, which includes both a general worldview of open-mindedness as well as in specific industries,  such as legal prostitution and coffee shops that sell marijuana for personal use (a 2012 law that bans foreigners from coffee shops is being applied on a city-by-city basis, so Amsterdam has seen little change). “I like the atmosphere in Amsterdam,” said Merijn Henfling, editor in chief of PS van der Week, the weekend magazine of the Het Parool newspaper. “It is the most free city in the Netherlands for the way people think and the way you can express yourself.”

In this compact, canal-packed city with 400km of bike lanes and paths, the bicycle is the primary mode of transport, so visiting pedestrians need to watch out for cyclists just as much, if not more, than cars. “Amsterdam isn’t a big city, but it has everything that can be found in a big city,” Henfling said. “It’s easy to get everywhere, to see your friends and go places.”

New zones, such as the commercial and financial hub of Zuidas in south Amsterdam, are attracting Dutch companies who are relocating from the city centre, plus international corporations and their employees. In 2012, the transport minister approved tunnelling underground a section of the A10 ring road that bisects Zuidas and there are also plans to enlarge and improve the Amsterdam Zuid train station, both to begin construction by 2015.

Where do you want to live?
The gracious 17th-century townhouses in the Grachtengordel are some of the most sought-after properties in Amsterdam. “It remains one of the more expensive areas in the Netherlands,” said Alex Koch de Gooreynd, an international residential agent at Knight Frank estate agents. “Many of the old canal houses have been renovated into smaller apartments.” The 19th-century Museumkwartier (museum quarter), bordered byVondelpark, is also popular with international residents. Oud Zuid, south of the city centre, is another traditionally desirable area of town. “It’s known as the posh neighbourhood of Amsterdam, with beautiful buildings, wide streets, designer-label shops and restaurants all within a 10-minute cycle to the centre of the city,” Koch de Gooreynd explained.

To the east, the up-and-coming neighbourhood of Indische Buurt is near the IJmeer, the lake that sits between Amsterdam and the city of Almere to the east. “It’s very lively, with lots of new restaurants and bars,” said Henfling, a neighbourhood resident. Across town, De Baarsjes, part of Amsterdam West, and Bos en Lommer just to its north, are multicultural neighbourhoods that are rapidly being colonised by young artists. “In Amsterdam, it’s really important to live inside the ring road that circles the city,” said Henfling. “[Indische Buurt, De Baarsjes, Bos en Lommer] are still inside and only 15 minutes by bike to the centre.”

Side trips 
Quick transport links make visiting other Dutch cities easy; heading toUtrecht for a day of shopping takes just 30 minutes by train and historicHaarlem in the centre of the tulip region is 15 minutes away by train. In the summer, many Amsterdammers head to Bloemendaal aan Zee, a beach resort on the North Sea, just west of Haarlem. But in such a small nation, many leave the country altogether.

Schipol Amsterdam Airport has flights across Europe and around the world. Flights to London and Paris are both around an hour, while the train to Paris takes less than four hours on the high-speed Thalys train, which also reaches Brussels in under two hours.

Practical info
Recent mortgage rule changes had the knock-on effect of reducing house sale prices and strengthening the rental rates around Amsterdam. “Prices weakened over the last quarter of 2012 due to the number of properties arriving on the market at the same time,” Koch de Gooreynd said.

Buying a large two-bedroom apartment in the Grachtengordel costs around 750,000 euros, and an equivalent flat rents for 3,500 euros a month or more. A house starts at around 1.5 million euros. Properties in south Amsterdam are less expensive. “Zuidas has lower prices than the more established areas and good rental returns“, said Koch de Gooreynd. Here, apartments start at around 500,000 euros to buy and luxury flats rent for upwards of 2,000 euros a month. In areas like Bos en Lommer and Indische Buurt, two-bed flats of around 80 to 100sqm rent for around 1,000 euros a month.

Exploring the food capital of Ireland

Lunch at Cork's English Market gives new meaning to the phrase “locally sourced food”. Tucking into a hearty bowl of Irish stew or a platter of sea-scented rock oysters at one of the market’s mezzanine Farmgate Cafetables, you can look down on the stalls where the chefs sourced their produce that very morning.

Ireland's second city, tucked away in the southwestern corner of the country, revels in its reputation as a champion of fine food and drink. But the self-styled “Rebel City” also regards itself as the nation's only guardian of Celtic culture; a city that is more genuinely Irish than Dublin.

• Related article: Explore ancient Ireland with Lonely Planet

The “rebel” nickname dates back to the late 15th Century, when the city lent support to the Yorkist cause in England's Wars of the Roses, but it is chiefly associated with the Irish War of Independence (1919 to 1921) when Cork was a hotbed of resistance to British imperial rule – an era dramatically fictionalised in Ken Loach’s 2006 film The Wind That Shakes the Barley (starring Cork-born actor Cillian Murphy).

Stroll the streets
Cork's compact size – its population of 120,000 is less than a 10th of Dublin’s – makes it ideal for exploring on foot. The city centre is a low-rise sprawl that straddles an island in the River Lee, where modern glass and steel buildings such as the Opera House (radically remodelled in 2003) sit shoulder to shoulder with 19th-century Neoclassical architecture and remnants of Victorian warehouses.

Across the river to the north is the picturesque suburb of Shandon, where brightly painted terrace houses cluster around the clock tower of St Anne's Church. You can climb the 18th-century tower for a grand view over the city and a chance to ring the Shandon Bells, immortalised in a sentimental 19th-century song that was carried around the world by the Irish diaspora. Laminated song sheets beside the bell ropes detail the range of tunes that can be rung on the eight bells, from Abide with Me to Waltzing Matilda. Nearby, delve into history at Cork City Gaol, a grim reminder of the darker aspects of Ireland's past. In addition to being a place of execution, the jail was used to incarcerate republican political prisoners during the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War (1922 to 1923).

Go to market
But the Cork’s main draw is its well-deserved reputation as the food capital of Ireland. The epicentre of the city’s gourmet scene is the English Market, dating from 1788 and regularly lauded as one of the finest covered markets in Europe – TV chefs Rick Stein, Rachel Allen and the late Keith Floyd have all raved about it, and it was a high point of Queen Elizabeth's 2011 visit to Ireland.  

Get there by mid-morning to browse the colourful stalls that groan with the bounty of County Cork's rich farmland and coastal waters. Fish merchant Kay O'Connell's 24m-long marble counter glistens with more than 50 varieties of fish and seafood, from cod and ling freshly landed at the West Cork port of Castletownbere, to organic smoked salmon from Bantry Bay, 80km west of Cork, to tanks filled with live lobster and crab.

There are greengrocers' stalls piled high with cabbages, leeks and a dozen varieties of spud, and a whole range of butchers' shops, with their serried ranks of pork ribs, ham hocks and sides of bacon, dark red slabs of richly marbled sirloin, and neatly arranged trays of crubeens (pigs' trotters, cooked long and slow to gelatinous tenderness then crisped in the oven – a local speciality).

Look out for A O'Reilly's display of tripe and drisheen, two of Cork's traditional favourites. Drisheen is a variety of black pudding, made with beef and sheep's blood and poached in milk. If you are feeling adventurous, try it at the market's famous Farmgate Cafe.

Eating out
Founded in 1984, the ethos of Farmgate Cafe is simple – to promote top quality local produce and champion traditional Irish cuisine. At the top of the stairs near the market's Princes Street entrance, turn left for the formal, table-service restaurant or right to order at the counter and grab a bar stool overlooking the market below. The menu ranges from scrambled eggs with smoked salmon to lamb's liver and bacon to fish chowder, shepherd's pie, and tripe and onions with drisheen – and all of the meat and fish comes from the market stalls below.

Farmgate closes at 5 pm, but English Market produce is also on the dinner menu at Market Lane, a few blocks to the east. Lively, informal and crammed with locals, this restaurant operates a walk-in policy (reservations only taken for parties of six or more), but waiting for a table is a pleasure. Order a Cork Dry Gin and tonic (distilled in the city since 1793 and possessing a distinctive citrusy nose) or a bottle of locally brewed Angel Stout, and strike up a conversation at the convivial bar. When it is time to take a seat, choose from a menu of honest Irish cuisine such as smoked haddock with bacon and cabbage potato cakes, or ham hock with cauliflower cheese.

Cork's restaurant scene is not all surf and turf though; the city's Cafe Paradiso is one of Ireland's top restaurants and is 100% vegetarian – something of a rarity in Ireland. Chef Denis Cotter was ahead of the curve when he opened this place back in 1993; since then, the rest of Ireland has caught up with his dedication to top quality, locally-sourced produce. Most of the vegetables on the menu come from a farm just 16km outside Cork, and are lovingly incorporated into dishes such as parsnip ravioli with roast portobello mushroom and ginger butter, and salsify and shallot risotto with braised fennel and sheep's milk cheese.

Drinking up
Cork's independent turn of mind extends to its choice of drink. Dubliners love their Guinness, but when it comes to stout, Corkonians prefer Murphy's or Beamish, both brewed in the city since 1792 and 1856 respectively (though both brands are now owned by Heineken).

The takeover of beloved Cork brands by multinational megabrewers has seen the emergence of local craft breweries, such as the Franciscan Well, which has a cracking pub and beer garden a short walk northwest of the city centre; order a pint of their mellow, toasty Shandon Stout and Guinness will never taste as good again. Newer microbrewing ventures include Cork's Elbow Lane Brewhouse, an offshoot of the Market Lane restaurant that opened in 2012 (try their refreshingly light and hoppy Elbow Lager); and Eight Degrees Brewing at Mitchelstown in north County Cork, which launched in 2011 and is famed for its dark and chocolatey Knockmealdown Porter. There is also Stonewell Cider founded at nearby Kinsale in 2010, which produces a delightfully dry craft apple cider with no added sugar.

Sailing by
If Cork is the food capital of Ireland, the pretty yachting and fishing harbour of Kinsale is its seafood capital. Just 28km south of Cork, Kinsale's cute cobbled streets are lined with art galleries, craft shops, artisan bakeries and cafes, and a small square that hosts a weekly farmers market (10 am to 2:30 pm Wednesday, except January).

There are a dozen or so seafood restaurants here, of which Fishy Fishy Café is the undisputed king. Again the emphasis is on local produce – much of the restaurant's fish is landed at the jetty just along the road. Typical dishes include local oysters, pan-roasted cod, and seared scallops with Clonakilty black pudding and parsnip puree.

Business trip: Bangkok

Over the last decade, Bangkok has evolved from a humid riverside city known for its tuk tuks and street food into a modern, rapidly growing Asian commercial hub. Business travellers will appreciate the city’s dramatic advancements in public transportation, its world-class airport and a growing selection of four- and five- star hotels near the city centre.

The 2006 opening of the lofty Suvarnabhumi Airport, located 25km east of the city centre, marked the emergence of Bangkok to the big league, and it continues to be a key engine of growth, with arrivals increasing by 19% from 2011 to 2012. A modern, convenient elevated rail link, which opened in 2010, connects the airport to the city in 30 minutes, helping visitors avoid Bangkok’s infamous traffic jams.

The city’s modern public transportation system – a combination of soaring skytrains (BTS) and underground subways (MRT) – has transformed the bustling city centre into a futuristic warren of street-level sidewalks, skywalks (elevated sidewalks) and skytrains.

• Related article: Exploring Bangkok’s canals

The Chao Phraya River flows along the western edge of the city centre, along which stand many of Bangkok’s grandest luxury hotels, including the famous Mandarin Oriental Bangkok and the plush Peninsula Bangkok. But the draw of big business has shifted the upscale hotel scene to key commercial hubs to the east, such as Ratchaprasong, Sathorn, Silom, Siam or Sukhumvit. 

Getting to or from Suvarnabhumi Airport is a breeze using the elevated rail link. But travellers with heavy luggage or those who do not feel like riding the frequently crowded trains should arrange for a private car through their hotel or book the airport’s limousine service (1,500 to 2,500 baht one way). Taxis (about 350 baht) are also an option, but queues can be long and scams frequent. Depending on traffic, the drive between the airport and city centre is 45 to 60 minutes.

Hotels
Business travellers who like to try out new hotels are in luck: Bangkok is in the middle of a boom in luxury hotel development.

Elegant
The 227-room St Regis Bangkok opened in April 2011 and has quickly become the high-end hotel hotspot for visitors and locals. Oversized butler-serviced rooms overlook the horseracing track and golf course at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. Have a Siam Mary cocktail at the St Regis Bar or a power lunch at the 12th floor Viu restaurant – both are popular among the city’s movers and shakers. The hotel is located in the busy, central area around Ratchaprasong (full of offices, shopping malls and embassies) and conveniently connected via skywalk to the Rajadamri BTS Skytrain station.

Nearby, the new 240-room Okura Prestige Bangkok oozes Japanese style and elegance, from its chic brown marble, wood- and copper-trimmed lobby to its dramatic rooftop infinity pool. The hotel opened on the top floors of a futuristic mixed-use office building on Wireless Road in May 2012 near the Phloen Chit BTS station.

Out by the Chao Phraya River, the 39-villa Siam hotel is spread over three acres in the exclusive northern Dusit district.  Although the hotel is new, antiques, art and touches like teakwood floors and private plunge pools give it a historical feel.

Edgy
French fashion icon Christian Lacroix collaborated with five Thai designers to create the lavish, whimsical interiors of the 238-room Sofitel So Bangkok, which opened in March 2012 in a glass tower at the intersection of busy Sathorn and Rama IV Roads, within walking distance of both BTS and MRT stations. Book a room on the posh executive club level and enjoy evening cocktails and canapés in a private perch high above the smoggy skyline, where attendants are decked out in uniforms and shoes specially designed by Lacroix. The 27-storey hotel overlooksLumphini Park, Bangkok’s big green central-city lung, which offers guests a chance to wander (or jog) among its trees and lakes away from city’s grit and noise.

Nearby in the Sathorn district, the super-chic, 407-room W Bangkok hotel opened its doors in December 2012 (parts of the hotel are still under construction). In typical, edgy W style, oversized, stuffed and sequinedMuay Thai boxing gloves serve as accent pillows on all hotel beds. At night, the hotel lobby’s popular Woobar pulsates with a crowd of curious locals and hotel guests. The W is connected to a unique terracotta-topped 19th-century building that at one time served as the Russian embassy, but will soon become event space for the hotel.

Dine among past plays on London’s Southbank

Propstore, a London cafe and bar built using scenery and props from recent National Theatre productions, is open until 28 September. (Ludovic des Cognets)

The curtain may have fallen on your favourite play, but this summer,Propstore – a pop-up riverfront cafe and bar built using scenery and props from recent National Theatre productions – is stealing the show.

In a small space on London's South Bank, near the National Theatre’s riverside entrance, diners, drinkers, theatre-goers and tourists can play “spot the prop” among the eclectic collection of more than 1,000 items on display.

Until 28 September, all are welcome to take a seat on the House of Commons bench from James Graham's production of This House, arrange to meet a friend under a lamp post from Simon Stephens' Port, or walk over the outline of a dead dog on the flooring from The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time  (which has now transferred to the West End’s Apollo Theatre).  And don't worry if your theatre trivia is not up to scratch, each item is clearly labelled with details of the stage it set.

A succinct menu of traditional English snacks with a twist (try the fish finger sandwich) is available all day, while the bar – offering English wines, Greenwich-based Meantime draught beer and gin from Hammersmith micro-distillery Sipsmith – turns into a dance floor on Friday and Saturday, thanks to a weekend line-up of DJs and live music that includes the emerging five-piece band Rhys Lewis and The Relics and hip hop soul singer JJ Rosa.

National Theatre props and costumes are usually stored in a warehouse in Brixton, a dusty space that holds more than 100,000 items. Propstore uses just a small selection of these to showcase the creativity and attention to detail that goes on behind the scenes. If it doesn’t inspire more people to book tickets to see a play, the restaurant and bar can at least provide a temporary backdrop to the everyday drama in the lives of Londoners.

Malika Dalamal is the London Localite for BBC Travel

Five European castles to stay in

Sleep in comfort behind stone walls in these strongholds large and small, but try to resist the urge to drop boiling oil from the battlements.

England: The intimate one
Britain’s largest castle is in Windsor, and if you manage to get a room there, do send us a postcard. For those who prefer a shorter walk to the breakfast table and fewer corgis in the way, Hellifield Peel Castle is a fortified home on a more human scale. Located just outside the village of Hellifield, at the southern boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, this was originally an Anglo-Saxon manor house, beefed up by a succession of owners including one of the last Knights Templar in the 14th century.

Just a few years ago, the castle was a roofless ruin, but in a project filmed for the TV series Grand Designs, husband-and-wife team Francis and Karen Shaw made the building habitable once more. And not just habitable but positively comfortable – guests at this B&B stay in one of four bedrooms or a spacious attic apartment under the modern roof, and each comes with a four-poster bed, including two hugely elaborate examples from the 17th century. The Yorkshire Dales are also within easy raiding-party distance. The village of Malham makes a good starting point for walks in the area, with its impressive limestone rock formations at Malham Cove and Gordale Scar.

France: The classic one
Few corners of Europe are as richly endowed with castles as the Loire Valley. Almost everywhere you turn there is a splendid château that could be an illustration from Puss in Boots. The most elaborate ones were built during France’s 16th-century Renaissance, when the style of the château became less about withstanding a siege and more about entertaining royal mistresses.

The Château de Chissay is truly of this genre, with its walls built of the palest stone and turrets topped with witch’s hat slate roofs. Inside are rib-vault ceilings, spiral staircases and a wide range of guestrooms including a ‘troglodyte’ option with rough-hewn stone walls, and a double-level turret room up in the donjon (keep) where you can see up into the rafters. Evening meals in the period-perfect dining room are a particular highlight here. Chissay-en-Touraine, where the château is located, is a small village on the River Cher – one of the tributaries of the Loire. An hour’s drive away is the vast and ornate Château de Chambord, begun in 1519 as a hunting lodge. It’s the largest of the Loire châteaux, but there are dozens even closer to the hotel, including the most romantic one of all, the Château de Chenonceau, which is built out on arches over the River Cher. This region, more than anywhere, is the place to go on a castle binge.

Scotland: The self-catering one
Some Scottish castles brood over lochs, while others are architectural flights of fancy, never intended to be tested in war. One distinctive type is the tower house – a tall stone residence for a laird who wanted some protection during clan feuds and other periods of strife. Historians distinguish these towers as C-plan, L-plan, T-plan or Z-plan depending on their footprint, but the point was to be able to shoot from a side wall at attackers outside your front door.

Hopefully you won’t need to resort to this at Castle of Park, an L-plan tower house. Forbidding from outside, the tower is wonderfully evocative inside, with huge stone fireplaces, hidden nooks and thick whitewashed walls. Built in 1590, it was restored in the late 20th century after years of neglect, and is now rented out by the Landmark Trust. The tower can sleep up to seven people in four bedrooms, making it a great place to gather your own clan and hole up in baronial style.

Castle of Park stands on a hill enveloped by forest, outside the village of Glenluce. It lies just shy of the Rhins of Galloway – the hammer-head peninsula at Scotland’s southwestern point, which has Scotland’s mildest climate, as evidenced by the magnificent Castle Kennedy Gardens and sub-tropical Logan Botanic Garden. Also within reach is Wigtown, famous within Scotland for its great number of bookshops.

Italy: The luxury one
In the line of hills that divide the sepia-tinted Tuscan landscape south of Arezzo from the even more rapturous countryside around Siena, Castel Monastero has watched nearly a thousand years go past. The name refers to the fact that this hamlet (also called Monastero d’Ombrone) has served as both castle and monastery, besieged by Florentines fighting against Siena in 1208.

These days, if you stand in the piazza at the centre of the hamlet, you will find yourself in the middle of a luxury hotel. The clustered stone houses and the cottages in the grounds beyond have been given a contemporary interior design that’s sensitive to their historic charm; the spa is the very opposite of monastic; and Gordon Ramsay is in charge of the menu at one of the two on-site restaurants.

Ensconced in this timeless setting, the world around feels as remote as it must have done to medieval castle-dwellers. Down the road, however, is Siena – the very definition of an Italian Renaissance city state, with a wealth of art in its churches and galleries. Also under an hour’s drive away is the wine-growing region of Chianti, and the magical hill country of the Crete Senesi.

Spain: The budget one
El Castillo de Buen Amor (the Castle of Good Love) may be about the least martial name ever conceived for a fortress, but in truth this place in the plains north of Salamanca was designed more for pleasure, despite its crenellations, impressively bulky walls and (dry) moat.

Inside there are suits of armour, hunting trophies and other touches of Spain’s partly Arabic-influenced version of the Middle Ages, including a lovely double-colonnaded central courtyard. Windows are often authentically small, but the rooms can be cavernous.

The castle lies between Salamanca and Zamora, both worth an expedition. The former is home to Spain’s oldest university and possibly its prettiest main square, and the latter town is an open-air museum of Romanesque architecture.