Category: Travel
Whey to go: Is cheese the new reason to travel?
From Paris’s newly opened cheese museum to ageing caves in the Jura and sheep pastures in Corsica, travellers are discovering that cheese can be a guidebook through landscapes, traditions and histories they might otherwise miss. In France, terroir is more than a word; it’s a way of seeing the world. Long associated with wine, the concept that geography, climate, soil and human skill shape flavour is just as true for another French icon: cheese. And while the French have always known this, a growing number of travellers are discovering the country – and its culture – one wheel at a time. Last spring, Paris opened the Musée Vivant du Fromage, joining dozens of attractions across the country dedicated to cheese, from ageing caves and cheese museums to visitor centres and tasting tours. There are regional Route de Fromage trails to follow, producers to meet and pastures to walk through – each offering a deeper understanding of how place shapes flavour. The appetite for food-focussed travel is only set to grow: Future Market Insights predicts that the market for culinary experiences in France will rise by nearly 16% over the next decade. The new museum, a short stroll from the newly restored Notre-Dame Cathedral, is small but rich in scope. Exhibits in both English and French explain how cheeses are made, the people and traditions behind them and the science of ageing and flavour. Interactive screens encourage deeper exploration, while the shop counter offers a veritable “Tour de France” of cheeses. It all unfolds to an atmospheric soundtrack of cowbells, as if the meadows themselves were just outside. Museum manager Guillaume Gaubert says the trend started with the French themselves. “We’ve noticed that a section of the population is less interested these days in going to the Bahamas, for example, and more inclined to take nature-based holidays in France, to discover the local terroirs,” he explained. “The French are really attached to their land. The cheese connects them to their terroir – so the Alsatian wants his Munster, the Norman his Camembert, the Basque his Ossau-Iraty. And the Savoyard? His Beaufort.” t’s not only the French. Cheese expert and tour leader Jennifer Greco, who has lived in France for 20 years, says she’s seeing more international visitors curious about cheese. “During Covid, everyone was hunkered down at home eating comfort food but then they started thinking, ‘I’d like to know more about this – what is this cheese I’m eating?’” she said. On her tours with Paris by Mouth, Greco explains how milk from goats grazing on grasses and clover in the Loire will taste different than that from goats eating herbs in the South of France. “People do start to see France in a new light,” she said.
The controversial sweet that fuels Norwegians
Known as ‘the trip chocolate’, Kvikk Lunsj has fuelled outdoor adventures for generations. So, what makes this chocolate so controversial? It’s started to drizzle across the marsh, but we’re prepared – as we Norwegians say, “there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing”. We’ve just happened upon a patch of cloudberries, an elusive Arctic delicacy that thrives in wet bogs, noting their location so we can come back to pick them when they’ve ripened to orange. And as we huddle under the soft needles of a spruce tree, my friend digs into her pocket and pulls out something no Norwegian would ever leave behind on a trip into nature: a Kvikk Lunsj. Kvikk Lunsj is a four-fingered chocolate bar that’s beloved across Norway and synonymous with outdoor exploration. The snack’s slogan is “tursjokoladen” (“the trip chocolate”), and ads for the wafers often depict hikers spinning a compass, skiers summiting frosty peaks and people drinking water from rushing rivers. Today, roughly 60 million Kvikk Lunsj bars are produced each year – about 11 for every Norwegian – and whether you’re skipping across mountain brooks or striking out in a kayak, no journey into the Norwegian wilderness is complete without one. That’s because Kvikk Lunsj isn’t just a sweet treat; it’s part of our national heritage. Kvikk Lunsj was invented in 1937, but according to its creator Johan Throne Holst, the story actually starts 45 years earlier with a failed hike. Throne Holst, then a young businessman, wanted to show Norway’s stunning landscapes to his German business associate, but they lost their way in the woods outside Oslo. As the pair trudged on, directionless and increasingly hungry, the German complained that their journey would have been salvaged had they packed some chocolate. Perhaps inspired by his colleague’s remarks, two years later Throne Holst bought Freia, a tiny chocolate factory in Oslo, and during the next several decades, grew it into one of Norway’s biggest brands. In the midst of Freia’s rise, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole in 1911, and after revealing that he had packed chocolate to help fuel his journey, many Norwegians began seeking out chocolate to fuel their outdoor pursuits too. Throne Holst saw an opportunity. Recalling his German colleague’s words in the woods, Throne Holst set out to create the perfect crunchy, chocolatey companion for an outdoor excursion – the kind that both the German and Amundsen would have approved of. But when Kvikk Lunsj first launched, it was a flop. “The first version was made with dark chocolate, which was not a hit,” says Sandra Garcia Gabrielsen, Kvikk Lunsj brand manager at Mondelēz Europe Services, which now owns Freia. “It was changed to milk chocolate [almost immediately], which was more appealing”. Ever since, the Kvikk Lunsj experience has started with tearing open a red, green and yellow packet to reveal four brown fingers embossed with tiny storks. You then break off a finger of the milk chocolate-coated wafer with a satisfying snap and bite into the surprisingly light and airy snack, which tastes creamier and less sharply sweet than other international brands – almost like a little meal.
‘It’s still so relevant’: The power of Stephen King’s first – and most disturbing – novel The Long Walk
Written by King in college in the 1960s, The Long Walk imagines young men competing in a deadly marathon for entertainment. A new film version is a reminder of how it anticipated our reality TV age. One hundred teenage boys, selected by lottery from across the US, embark on a marathon with no finish line. Followed by armed soldiers in jeeps and watched by viewers all around the world, they must maintain a pace of 4mph (6.5km/h), and if they drop below the designated speed, they receive a warning. Three warnings and they are killed. The last boy walking gets to choose his own prize. This is the grimly compelling concept of The Long Walk, a remarkably prescient novel that Stephen King wrote between 1966 and 1967, in his freshman year at college. Set in an alternate-history US that cowers under military rule, it was the first book that King penned, but was not published until 1979 – five years after Carrie had splashed onto bestseller lists like a bucket of blood dropped from the rafters. Now, 46 years on, as King turns 78, The Long Walk has finally been adapted into a film, released this weekend. “I read The Long Walk right around the time I was doing I Am Legend [2007] and I fell in love with it,” explains its director, Francis Lawrence, who is no stranger to deadly dystopian contests, having directed the last four Hunger Games films. “It became probably my favourite King book, and one of my favourite books [period].”
Going to the beach’ looks very different in Britain
While a British summer is never a guarantee of hot weather, there’s one thing you can be sure of: Brits will be going to the beach. For centuries, and in all kinds of weather, the British have licked ice creams, strolled piers and dropped coins in arcade games at the seaside. The town of Scarborough on England’s North Sea coastline, widely considered Britain’s first seaside resort, has been welcoming tourists to its restorative spa waters for around 400 years. “The concept of going to the beach for leisure was something that the British invented,” architectural historian Kathryn Ferry, told CNN, in a view shared by many experts. “It’s part of our nation’s story, our island’s story, and there is a sense that it is important for our identity. British people have that need to go to the coast and smell that sea air,” she said. While affection for the British seaside has, much like the tides, surged and fallen over the 20th century, it has been an enduring source of inspiration for artists including the prolific photographer Martin Parr, whose distinctive and radical portraits explore social class and leisure in the north of England in the 1980s, and multidisciplinary artist Vinca Petersen, whose work depicts youth and subcultures at the beach in the 1990s. A combination of illustrations and photographs show the grandeur of classical and art deco designs of the interwar years, through to the post war buildings inspired by the 1951 Festival of Britain, and the concrete brutalism of the 1960s and 1970s. “Seaside resorts were competing with each other, and that meant that if one place had a new facility that was going to give them a step up with tourists in terms of attractions, then lots of other places would follow,” said Ferry, referring to architectural features such as lidos, pavilions, bandstands and distinctive roof shapes commonly found at British seasides. Ferry isn’t the only academic researcher beguiled by these snapshots of another era. A little over a decade ago, Karen Shepherdson, the co-author of a 2019 book on the subject, “Seaside Photographed,” also founded the South East Archive of Seaside Photography, which houses collections of commercial seaside photography dating from 1860 to 1990.
The best looks from the 2025 Venice Film Festival
Italy’s most famous film festival has drawn to a close. The 82nd edition of the Venice Film Festival, which concluded on September 6, presented a showcase of hotly anticipated films such as “Bugonia” by the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, “Frankenstein” by Guillermo Del Toro, and “Jay Kelly” by Noah Baumbach. Sofia Coppola’s first-ever documentary “Marc by Sofia,” which chronicles the life and career of the fashion designer Marc Jacobs, also made its debut at the biennale, although it did not compete for a prize. The red carpet has given us a sneak peek of the new creative direction of several luxury brands, too. Italian actor Alba Rohrwacher wore a custom deep blue satin dress designed by Jonathan Anderson for Dior (his first womenswear collection for the brand is scheduled to debut at Paris Fashion Week in October). Julia Roberts — and later, Amanda Seyfried — wore the first pieces by Versace’s new designer Dario Vitale, who will present his first collection in Milan at the end of the month. Similarly, Louise Trotter’s vision for Italian label Bottega Veneta can already be seen on Jacob Elordi and Vicky Krieps, while Ayo Edebiri wore Chanel designed by the French house’s new creative director Matthieu Blazy.