Holiday ideas for nature lovers

If you are planning a walking holiday in the Alps, you’ll need to learn how to distinguish ibex and chamois so that you know which you’re looking at if you come across one. The chamois’ distinctive feature is the dark stripe down its face, while the (male) ibex can be identified by its thick, backwards-curving horns which can eventually grow up to a metre in length. Both are excellent climbers which live above the treeline, so you’ll have to choose a holiday that takes you pretty high (such as the aptly named High Route in Switzerland) to have a chance of seeing one.

Virgin coastlines such as Portugal’s Costa Vicentina are not just great for walking, but great for wildlife-spotting too. The headline act here are the storks. If the nests you’ve seen built elsewhere on chimneys and church steeples have seemed precarious, the gravity-defying ones that they build here on precipitous sea stacks beggar belief. Their bravado is all the more special to witness given that this is the only place in the world where you’ll see storks nesting above the sea (you’ll need to come in spring, of course). Peregrine falcons also breed on the cliffs here, and you should look out, too, for Bonelli’s eagles and even, if you are lucky, ospreys.
 

For a very different sort of ‘natural encounter’, choose a Northern Lights break to the Norwegian city of Tromsø and, with luck, you will witness ribbons of green, pink, yellow and blue light swirling across the night sky. The aurora borealis is unpredictable, but this just makes seeing it in all its glory all the more thrilling. Occupying the same latitude as Alaska, this island city affords some of the best opportunities to see them anywhere in mainland Europe, but that's not the only reason to travel there – by day you can visit its small but fascinating museums, join a dog-sledding or ice-fishing excursion, or explore on snowshoes or cross-country skis.

Roaming the hills of Northern Portugal’s Peneda-Gerês National Park are the Cachena cows, notable for their long, lyre-shaped horns and small, stocky build. They’re native to northern Portugal and Galicia, and you’ll see them freely wandering around the park. The rare, wild Garrano horses are also native to the park, and have been roaming the land for over 20,000 years.

 

 

The Cairngorms National Park is a particularly good place to spot red deer, especially in the early morning or evening. They’re Britain’s largest mammal, and make quite the sight on the horizon of Scotland’s atmospheric moorland and mountain tops.