Cycling all over the world
A veritable peleton of healthy, environmental bike holidays has been announced for 2005, just weeks after the stampede of walking breaks.
Explore has introduced 17 new trips in 12 countries, including New Zealand and China. The 15-day Great Wall and Guilin trip costs from £1,744pp, taking in the old imperial city of Chengde, the extraordinary humpbacked landscape and Li River fishing villages.
Almost as prolific, Exodus has included 13 new routes including a "strenuous" off-road trip to western Canada around the foothills of the Rockies and wilderness trails of the Banff National Park.
Equally spectacular is a new 450km ride through Vietnam with the Imaginative Traveller, while closer to home Freewheel is offering a new Viennese Whirl with four days' pedalling and plonk along the Danube valley.
The wonderfully named Bicycle Beano aren't promoting any new trips. Instead its holidays around Wales and its borders will again offer the "finest views, quirkiest castles and friendliest watering holes" along with veggie food and "scrummie home-made cakes".
· Explore (0870 3334001, explore.co.uk/cycle). Freewheel (029-2078 6650, explore.co.uk/cycle). The Imaginative Traveller (01473 667337, imaginative-traveller.com).Bicycle Beano (01982 560471, bicycle-beano.co.uk).
They did it Mayan way
Things are looking up in the world of Mayan spa treatments. In a bizarre twist on the all-over body massage, the Central Americans used to tie people up into a ball with twine before bouncing them down hundreds of pyramid steps. If yousurvived, you were free - a lovely little stress reducer.
Now the new Kinan spa at Mexico's Maroma Resort has turned to Mayan astrologists for inspiration, with every therapy room and spa building aligned to the stars to ensure positive energy flow, apparently putting the body, mind and spirit at peace - as opposed to pieces.
You can also have a Temazcal, a traditional treatment from the Central Americans who used to rip out people's hearts as sacrificial offerings. This is a little less painful, with water mixed with herbs and flowers poured over red-hot volcanic rocks to create a sweat lodge experience.
Kicks for kids
If this summer's Women's Euro 2005 in Manchester inspires your daughter to take up the beautiful game and billow it over the bar like Beckham, PGL Travel may have the perfect solution. The children's activity holiday specialists are running a series of residential football breaks for mixed seven to 16-year-old groups at their Boreatton Park Centre in Shropshire and Marchants Hill in Surrey.
A week's full-board stay from £373 in July and August will see them nurturing their inner Brazilian with lessons from qualified coaches for half of each day, followed by activities including abseiling, climbing, archery and kayaking.
It's a good deal: you get them off your hands for a week of the long holiday and in five years it may produce an American college scholarship followed by that lucrative Nike sports bra deal.
· PGL Travel (08700 507507, pgl.co.uk)
New mother's day
You can ease the strain of coping with a new baby at one of Europe's largest thalassotherapy centres. Mare Nostrum Resort & Spa on Tenerife is offering a range of specialist treatments including firming and hydro massage, reducing thermo therapy and passive gymnastics. New mums can tailor-make a one-day package for €85 - includes three treatments, a medical examination and access to swimming, saunas and steam rooms. Peaceful nights are, sadly, not on the list. Airworld Tours offers seven nights' B&B with flights from £399pp.
And finally . . .
Fancy an aggressive yet safe holiday sport to release the pent up frustration of modern life? Then head to Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parcs for a bout of sumo wrestling. Unlikely to pit you against perspiring 30-stone Japanese men - if it does, they've lost their Buckingham Palace tour group - your opponents will be other visitors in heavy inflated fat suits, neck braces and sumo head masks. Grapple or belly them to the padded floor before victoriously pushing them out of the ring. See next month's column for details of inflatable Mongolian goat polo in Skegness.
· 01271 870343, woolacombe.com
