Idyllic places

My idyll = my allotment which is a quiet corner plot full of herbs and surrounded by trees, a haven for nature, with a shed where I can cook food and make a hot drink.

The opposite = parties/gatherings where people stand around making polite conversation.

Sitting amongst the rocks overlooking one of the sandy inlets on Gruinard Bay in Wester Ross, eating 'spoots' (razor clams) plucked 20 minutes earlier from their lairs and grilled over a fire of dead heather roots - which also served to keep the midges (more or less) away. I see that the internet warns against doing that sort of thing now - but 60+ years ago, we didn't 'know any better' so our joy was undiluted. Actually, I'd do it tomorrow if I could...

Hell on Earth = Glastonbury and its clones.

My idyll is a swimming pool outside a villa in Tuscany. I've just had a swim, am lying on a lounger with with book and a cup of coffee on a table beside me. My husband is on a chair next to me (he doesn't like loungers). Fortunately, we are leaving for Italy, to such a place, on Friday!

My nightmare is anywhere with crwds, especially a mosh pit, or anywhere with highly amplified pop music. But it's OK, as I never go to such places. Oh, and camping.

Waddow Hall a Girlguiding Training and Activity Centre in East Lancashire and one of five that are closing and quite possibly being sold at the end of this year. I have been going with Guides, Rainbows and Brownies for activity days, camps and residentials for well over 20 years and first visited as an 8 year old Brownie over 50 years ago. Sitting, early morning before anyone gets up, with a brew, overlooking Pendle Hill, listening to the birds is heaven and I will so miss that if we can no longer go ..... certainly is my happy place and holds so many memories.

It's interesting that so many people's ide of where they wouldn't want to be involves crowd of others and their ideal place is quiet and solitary.

I agree. My DH had to go to a London hospital last week and we couldn't wait to get away from the melee of others. We have spent some absolutely idyllic days in our beautiful, peaceful garden in our lovely, dull village seeing virtually nobody.

I would be quite happy sitting quietly in the garden at home.

Hate anywhere crowded and very noisy.

My dream place: anywhere really hot and dry. Not a big city, but could well be a town the size of Burgos or the like.

Doesn't matter if it is in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Israel (well, ok, probably not right now)

Mottisfont Abbey now, in the roses season. Stunningly beautiful. Yes, it's more crowded than usual, but not oppressively so. There is a reason why some places receive many visitors.

On a deserted hillside in Provence on a warm sunny day with the smell of the thyme and other herbs.
Worst place traffic congested city street.

Glens of Antrim or Donegal

Crowded dirty cities

In my back garden, on the sun lounger, glass of wine, a book and my young Boxer dog for company. Breeze in the woods opposite, birds feeding their young in a nest just above my head, swallows swooping over my fields and buzzards feeding their young as they sit on the fence posts. Peace and quiet - utter bliss!

Nightmare (this actually happened) turning up at the gate for a four hour flight from Luton to find virtually everyone else in the queue wearing bunny ears, pink hen party T-shirts, screaming with laughter and already the worse for wear. Yes they kept it up the entire flight and all the way on the transfer bus. Thank goodness we were in a self catering apartment and not the hotel. Idyll was a four day break at some point during the Covid crisis when we were allowed to travel. DH and I went to East Sussex in September and it was bliss. The sun shone, we walked the Seven Sisters and after lock down it felt like we had been set free.

Watching the sunset in Santorini was a sight I'll never forget.

Sipping a rum punch on a patio overlooking the ocean in Barbados around six pm when the light fades and the tree frogs start up their chorus,my idea of heaven.

maddyone

So many places. Milford Sound, yes we were on a cruise, but it was gorgeous beyond words. The Norwegian fiords are beautiful. Looking across the fiord In Montenegro, from Kotor, it’s like a picture of heaven. So many beautiful places.

Nightmare places would be a football match, or somewhere like Glastonbury festival.

Yes, Milford Sound is beyond words. I'd have liked to stay longer.

Caramme Hate to byrst your bubble but your ideal spot is no more. Spring, summer and autumn the area is filled with motorhomes parked along the roadside.

Walking on Crete with the smell of Thyme and the sound of the cicadas. There’s always a slight breeze in Crete which makes the heat bearable. In the UK being at Trebarwith Cove watching the waves break over the rocks.

I hate having to sit all day in the same airless room eg work training days/conferences.

I loved walking St Cuthbert’s Way, Melrose to Holy Island, though not just one place exactly I realise.

At St Nectans Glen in Cornwall. Without the hippy day trippers.

The Seychelles on a deserted beach listening to the waves.

Nightmare place crowded places anywhere anytime

Glen Trool in midge season would be the worst place. We camped there once during the spring bank holiday and were eaten alive. The tent walls were black with them in seconds of opening the zip and we went everywhere with large towels over our heads. My own garden is my good place.

West Dorset every time. Nightmare is the Cinema on a hot day.

Nightmare would be the London underground at peak time on a hot day. Idyll would be anywhere with my late DH.

my favourite place is glen coe, during the day it is beautiful but at night to watch the stars and feel a sadness, and feel you are being watched by the clan macdonald, they say the ghosts appear on the 13th of february every year, my nightmare place is any beach in the heat.

My idyllic place was an alpine meadow in the Dolomites a few years ago now. There were just the four of us, we’d walked for several hours to get there. It was full of flowers including Martagnon lilies and eidelweiss, marmots were popping their heads out of their barrows and at the far end snow still lay on the mountain slopes.
My idea of hell is anywhere hot, or crowded or noisy.