The grounds also offer drinking water and disposal points, with "hideaway" sites for a real retreat. Membership costs £30 per year (plus a £5 joining fee).One such site, Inverewe Garden Poolewe (01445 781249), in the Scottish Highlands of Achnasheen, offers both a natural escape and an unusual sub-tropical climate thanks to the Gulf Stream. It has breathtaking views of the lochside scenery and the National Nature Reserve at Beinn Eighe. Facilities include toilets, showers and a laundry with prices from £4.30 per night for adults.If you are really looking to get away from it all, try Resipole Farm (01967 431235; ) or Glenview Camping Park (01967 402123) in Acharacle near Fort William, in western Scotland. There is a shop, laundry, hot water, disabled facilities, a nature trail at Wasdale and boat launches at Low Wray.Wasdale Head is under the Scafell range at the head of Lake Wastwater.
There is plenty to do such as hiking up England's highest mountain, Scafell Pike Canoeing is possible on the lake. They often have only a few places at each site, so noise and intrusion are kept to a minimum. Sites are managed by the Trust itself, the Caravan Club (01342 326944; ) and the Trust's tenant farmers.The National Trust manages three campsites in the Lake District: Wasdale (019467 26220), Great Langdale (015394 37668) and Low Wray (01539 432810). I'm trying to find something like the National Parks Service sites where we stayed in the US. The plots had a space for a car, a couple of tents, a picnic table and a barbecue, plus small shops and a shower and toilet block. They had all the "getting-back-to-nature" feel of camping, but with none of the inconveniences. Is there anything like this in the UK? H Bloomfield, via e-mail A.
Britain may not have the network of campsites offered by the NPS, but it is possible to find somewhere that offers more than a plot of land to pitch your tent on. The National Trust (0870 458 4000; .uk) has more than 50 campsites throughout rural England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We're looking for a campsite in the UK, which isn't just a huge field packed with tents and caravans. The location for the beach is the Voie Pompidou, normally a high-speed east-west road through the city.To make matters trickier, a tram line is under construction in the east of the city, closing some streets and causing congestion. Even worse, a new system of bus and bike lanes seems designed to baffle visiting motorists.It is traditional on wide city streets in most parts of the world to devote the nearside lane to buses, taxis and bicycles.But Parisian transport planners have devised a new system where the direction of travel changes for each lane: typically northbound, southbound, northbound, southbound.At the busy junction of Gobelins in the south-east of the capital, this principle is applied, with variations, to a six-lane road.Laura Swan.
