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| | | TRAVELLER'S TREE
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Go to the Listen Again page | ![]() | | | | |  | | Monday 4.30-5.00pm | | | The BBC Radio 4 travel programme that inspires you with ideas for fulfilling holidays. | | | | This week | Monday 3 November 2008 |
| | |  | | |  | | |  | | | | Our studio guest was hotel guru Fiona Duncan. She selected some of her favourite places to stay in Britain. At the luxury end of the market was Hambleton Hall in Rutland. At the other end of the scale, she loves Gurnard's Head in Cornwall.
Two great value hotels in the capital she recommended are Base2Stay and the Hoxton Hotel.
Fiona’s most romantic hotel experience was on the Venetian island of Torcello at the family run Locanda Cipriani Hotel. She also mentioned Marco Pierre White’s Yew Tree Inn in Berkshire.
Reporting on the hotel scene in the Lake District, Susan Marling visited The Old Dungeon, Ghyll - a walker’s hotel in the Great Langdale Valley. For a taster of restaurants with rooms she went to The Drunken Duck, Ambleside. She spoke to the owner of Beech House B&B Kendal, and Lindeth Howe which was once owned by Beatrix Potter.
Still in the Lake District, Alistair Sawday recommended Cockenskell Farm near Ulverston. He also loves Gilpin Lodge a family owned and run hotel near Winderemere.
Sick of identikit hotel rooms? Fancy something a little bit different? Steve Dobson is founder of Unusual Hotels of the World. Katie met up with him at The Pavilion in Paddington.
Steve’s stayed in everything from prisons and a sewage pipe to the world’s tallest tree house, but one of his favourites is Crane Hotel in Holland. For something eco-friendly, cheap and a little bit different, Fiona suggested a hay hotel in Germany where guests stay a converted barn on a bed of dried grass.
Yixiu Wu reported on the impact of the Olympic on Beijing hotel scene. She spoke to Sarah Keelyside, founder of Bespoke Beijing who singled out the Golden Pineapple Youth Hostel or, for a flavour of authentic 1950s Beijing try the Red Capital Club. Yixiu also visited an authentic courtyard hotel, the Hotel Côté Cour SL which is in a protected hutong area and mixes contemporary chic and classic Ming.
Finally, it may have come as a surprise to hear that one of designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s favourite hotels is the Hilton in the middle of the NEC in Birmingham!
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