It's not that much fun spending a holiday stretched out horizontal on a beach. These days most of us look for a little light (or strenuous) activity to fill the hours between breakfast and the first beer of the evening. The classic solution is a mountain walking holiday - therapeutic, calorie-burning and as leisurely or tough as you like. From Romania to the Pyrenees, we present our pick of the peaks.
West Highland Way, Scotland
How tough? Moderate
The most popular long-distance trail in Scotland is a fine introduction to the wilds. The best aspect is the transition from the vast conurbation of Glasgow to the sharply beautiful landscapes of the Western Highlands, witnessing, among other landmarks, the UK's highest mountain, Ben Nevis. The route covers 150km and takes about seven days. Hikers pass the still depths of Loch Lomond and Glencoe - site of the Glencoe massacre in 1692 when the visiting Campbells destroyed their hosts, the MacDonalds, described by Neil Birnie of Wilderness Scotland as 'perhaps the most documented breach of the tradition of Highland hospitality in centuries'.
The route is over rolling moorland and the main climb, at the head of Glencoe, ascends the 'Devil's Staircase' to 548m.
Among other memorable moments: views of the Campsie Hills and distant foothills of the Trossachs; 'Rob Roy's Cave', a cavern by the edge of Loch Lomond; and, as you press northwards across Rannoch Moor, glimpsing red deer and golden eagle.
Do it: Wilderness Scotland (0131 625 6635; www.wildernessscotland.com) tailormakes self-guided itineraries from £295 based on B&B accommodation, including maps, route notes and luggage transfer.
The alps, France
How tough? Moderate
Chamonix is not just for skiers: outside the snowy season, the landscape is carpeted with green pastures alternating with expanses of evergreens. There are steep, glacially formed valleys and lonely passes to discover on a week-long hike that takes walkers on fairly steep inclines.
Based the first night in Argentière, the trek is broken into distinct walks, the first day, by way of acclimatisation, an easy one up into the Chamonix Valley, cutting across meadows to Vallorcine village, in a sunny valley between Switzerland and that massive Toblerone chunk, Mont Blanc. Things don't get too difficult until the fourth day when the goal is the quiet hamlet of Les Tines via the Refuge de Loriaz.
Accommodation is in chalet hotels and restored village houses - the highlight at the end of the week a night in the luxury Albert Premier, where a spa specialises in Parisian treatments to make feet sweet.
Do it: Andante On Foot (01722 713813; www.andanteonfoot.co.uk) has a week's guided walk from £560. Flights to Geneva extra.
Troodos Mountains, Cyprus
How tough? Moderate
The Troodos range extends across much of the island's western side, a stark contrast to the tourist resorts that have blighted stretches of the coast. Here is Cyprus's highest landscape - in places jagged and volcanic, reaching 1,900m.
For oenophiles and budding horticulturists there are vines, pines and explosions of exotic flora - eyes peeled for Holmboe's butterfly orchid, oriental bugle and eastern strawberry tree. Byzantine monasteries and churches cling to high peaks.
A popular route departs the outskirts of Nicosia, Europe's last divided city, ascending tough but traversable terrain through pines, fig trees and boughs heavy with lemons, to Troodos, at 1,750m. Overnighting in this peaceful village of chapels, you descend the following morning to Pedoulas, dropping 1,100m in seven hours along wooded tracks, lunching at a taverna with views of mountain hamlets. On the next day the goal is Milikouri via Platy Valley.
Do it: Explore Worldwide (01252 760000; www.exploreworldwide.com) has an eight-night trip including a three-day Troodos hike from £590 B&B, including flights.
Pyrenean Haute Route, France/Spain
How tough? Moderate/challenging
Stretching some 400km from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, this trek takes even seasoned walkers six weeks or so - it stretches to 1,300km when all zig-zagging is factored in. If time is precious, the best section, experts agree, is from Lescun village to Gavarnie - not exactly Chris Bonington territory, but tricky without good fitness levels. Departing Lescun (accessible by public transport from Pau or Tarbes-Lourdes), the route rises to 1,828m, the frontier ridge between France and Spain.
One foot in each country, you wind below summits and pass the Pic d'Ansabère, its great fingers of limestone rock sprouting like organ pipes. Accommodation is in rough-and-ready refuges.
From the Aspe Valley it is pastures, rugged cols (passes) and deep valleys all the way to Gavarnie. Among the thrills is the first glimpse of the Pic du Midi d'Ossau, dubbed the Matterhorn of the Pyrenees, a striking symbol with its twin-headed peak.
Do it:
consult Pyrenean Haute Route by Ton Joosten, £15, published by Cicerone (www.cicerone.co.uk). Also recommended: Walking in France by Sandra Bardwell, Helen Fairbairn, Gareth McCormack, Miles Roddis, £14.99, published by Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com). For information on mountain huts see www.gites-refuges.com for France and www.refugiosyalbergues.com for Spain. Flights from Stansted to Pau with Ryanair (www.ryanair.com).
Dolomites, Italy
How tough? Moderate/challenging
Popular with the beards-and-breeches brigade, this has point-to-point alta via mountain routes threading their way through the beautiful pink limestone Dolomites. The route ahead is through wooded valleys and savage, almost lunar landscapes towering like melted tombstones against the sky. By night you bed down alongside fellow walkers in crumbling stone dormitory rifugios.
Embark on a week-long circuit from the ski resort of Val Gardena and the unfolding steep-sided scenery includes the Vajolet Towers, a trio of spindly 400m-tall stacks, dubbed 'a poem in the sky' for their compelling weirdness, and the jagged Rosengarten group, so called for the stone's rosy tone radiating at dawn and dusk.
Scaling a maximum 2,958m, this is all fairly tough stuff, in places resorting to the via ferrata network of cables, spikes and ladders laid out for Italian soldiers in the First World War. On a hard day you might climb and descend 1,000m while covering barely 15km, all building up to the day-six highlight: Sassopiatto, from which some of the most awesome peaks in the Dolomites rise all around.
Do it: Exodus Travel (0870 240 5550; www.exodus.co.uk) has eight nights from £674 with flights, guide, plus local payment of €150 (£100) for meals.
Tatra Mountains, Poland/Slovakia
How tough? Moderate/challenging
Two countries for the price of one: the highest, some might say most attractive, swathe of the Carpathian range - about 51km as the crow flies - straddles Poland and Slovakia, and a week's walking will transport you to a time-warped land of waterfalls and alpine peaks, where activities include rafting, and those crucial calories come in the form of wild boar.
Adventure specialist Explore Worldwide bases travellers for the first two nights in a chalet in the Polish ski resort of Zakopane, breaking them in with six-hour hikes into the wild Chocholowska Valley. The focus shifts to Pieniny National Park for a night, rafting in the sunny Dunajec Gorge.
Then it's on to the Slovakian ski resort of Tatranska Lominica, at the base of the mountains, for three nights in a communist-era three-star hotel, hiking the stony tracks of the Tatras, returning to hearty dinners of beef and chicken.
Do it: Explore Worldwide (as before) has eight days from £475, B&B with flights.
Cambrian Way, Wales
How tough? Challenging/strenuous
The Cambrian Way - 442km south to north from Cardiff to Conwy over Snowdon - will require three weeks of the hardiest hiker's time. Few contemplate it in its entirety (not least because the central schlep, Llandovery to Machynlleth, involves less than rewarding bog-and-grass walking).
Of the other two stretches - Cardiff to Llandovery over the Brecon Beacons (southern) and Machynlleth to Conwy (northern) - the latter is the most awesome, as you encounter peak after peak on your 10-night trek, sleeping in pubs or three- and four-star B&Bs. First up, Cader Idris, half the rim of a volcano extinct for 150,000 years: reached through shadowy deciduous woodland, it delivers views over glittery volcanic lakes.
Down to the sea, the Mawddach estuary, against its vertiginous backdrop, is one of the prettiest in Europe and is negotiable on foot at low tide when heels need cooling, to touristy Barmouth on the other side. Thereafter you scale the granite Rhinogs (Fach and Fawr, the hardest mountains in Wales) - reckon on two days to cover just one of them - softening to the Moelwyns, the foothills of Snowdon. At 1,085m, Snowdon is relatively effortless, requiring five hours at the most. One of the loveliest stretches is the last: 20km along the mountainous North Wales Coast Path from Llanfairfechan to Conwy.
Do it: Celtic Trails (01600 860846; www.bestbritishwalks.com) has 10 nights from £650 B&B, with morning/evening pick-ups and luggage transfers.
Fagaras Ridge, Romania
How tough? Strenuous
Three hours' drive north of Bucharest, the Fagaras Ridge, 2,200m up in the Transylvanian Alps, delivers a timeless landscape of grazing sheep and fleece-clad shepherds. The going is tough, among grassy limestone peaks and valleys thick with dark firs, passing below the highest peak in Romania: Moldoveanu, at 2,544m (for committed masochists another 30-minute ascent).
Kicking off from a chalet in Valea Simbetei, the four-day trek is a slog from the word go - two hours or so up to the ridge, from where the leeward mountain slopes rise, still snow-coated in summer. Dropping down nightly to valley cabanas, you may find yourself in a tumbledown timber-shack dorm with basic facilities, dining on pork-and-spuds suppers (polenta for veggies), or some grander mountain resort, say, a former summer retreat of the Ceausescus, by the shores of shimmery Lake Bilea.
Do it: High Places (0114 275 7500; www.highplaces.co.uk) has guided four-day treks from £850 full board, with flights.
GR20, Corsica
How tough? Strenuous
Since 1972, France has refined a national system of wayfaring routes called grandes randonnées. The most punishing is the GR20, a 10 to 14-day trek along the backbone of Corsica, from the department of Corse du Nord to Corse du Sud, bedding down in simple village two-stars or, in fine weather, bivvy bags under the stars.
Don't let the laidback departure town lure you into false sense of security - on the first day you exchange Calenzana's ecclesiastical baroque and narrow streets for 580m mountains, chestnuts and pungent maquis ; and demanding cols, where scents of dog-rose and juniper drift on breezes from the far Med. Ascents and descents are dramatic, the route a panorama of intimidating granite rising high into the sky, carpets of forest far below.
Halfway point is Vizzavona, home to cascades once popular with Victorian bathers, who would flee the heat of coastal Ajaccio as soon as their boats, bound for India via Suez, docked to restock. From here the going gets greener, forested with cedars and lariccio pines, the hair-raising highlight Cirque de la Solitude - a glacier-scoured basin with a 180m drop requiring wires and chains.
Do it: Sherpa Expeditions (020 8577 2717; www.sherpaescorted.com) has 14 nights from £836, with flights and some meals.
Wicklow Way, Ireland
How tough? Easy to moderate
The first of Ireland's official way-marked long-distance walking routes is also one of its most popular - 121km or so from Marlay Park, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains, south through Co Wicklow, aka the 'Garden of Ireland', concluding at Clonegal, in Co Carlow. With a bit of exertion it can be walked in its entirety over a long weekend: the route takes approximately 46 hours. However there is much to be said for stretching it out into a leisurely week.
The terrain is some of the most dramatic in Ireland: lakes and fresh pastures, glens and penumbrous wooded paths. In places the landscape rises up in shaggy expanses of heather and peat. Glenmalure glacial valley - the longest in England and Ireland - pulls itself up at its western end to a mighty 930m peak, Lugnaquilla, cloaked in moody cloud.
Sights on a human scale are just as stirring: in the Wicklow Mountains National Park, where ravens and peregrine falcons circle the mountains, Glendalough is a place of ancient sacred ruins. Here, in the 6th century, St Kevin established a monastery that flourished as a centre of learning renowned across Europe.
Do it: For route information contact Wicklow County Tourism (www.wicklow.ie/tourism); or Waymarked Ways of Ireland (www.walkireland.ie); for accommodation details contact the Irish Youth Hostel Association (www.anoige.ie).
