Holidays to work your mind and body

If you are feeling jaded and need a holiday that taps your creative side, then an activity break could be for you, especially if you do it in a new and colourful country. When the fashion is for avoiding hours of punishing sun, why not enjoy the bright light abroad on a painting holiday.

If that doesn't take your fancy, perhaps a cookery course learning how to use herbs plucked from the Tuscan countryside. With evercheaper air fares, now ' s your chance.

Glynis Edwards of Travel Quest, a website dedicated to activity holidays, says that cookery and yoga are popular, as are weekend city breaks and holidays for singles. "There is an enormous variety, everything from cycling and creative writing to murder- mystery weekends. And the operators range from the very grand to the oneman band running a humble bed and breakfast in Shetland who lays on activities as and when requested."

The Skyros Centre pioneered alternative activity holidays more than 20 years ago. It now runs three centres, two on the island of Skyros in Greece, and one at Ko Samet in Thailand. A week's activities could include yoga, meditation, writing, backgammon and windsurfing. In Skyros Town you stay in village houses, while in Atsitsa, on the west side of the island, you can stay in simple bamboo huts dotted around the pine forest close to the sea. In Thailand the centre provides simple rooms situated between the rainforest and the beach.

A week's course costs between £625 and £925 on Skyros and between £450 and £925 in Thailand. Travel is extra. The course price includes up to three courses, accommodation, breakfast and one meal a day in Skyros Town and Thailand and two meals a day in Atsitsa.

Four years ago Lucy Bremner, a yoga teacher moved to Casperia, a medieval hilltop town south of Rome where she now runs yoga holidays. She and her husband, Alan Scheda, are restoring a 15th century house, Casa Latini, which should be finished in May and will be accommodation for those studying yoga. At the moment, guests stay in a traditional local village house or at La Torretta, a local bed and breakfast hotel.

The cost of a week's yoga teaching, bike hire, breakfast and accommodation is from £245. Accommodation in Casa Latini is from £325 and travel to Rome is extra.

The Retreat Company offers another value- for- money yoga holiday in Dahab, a peaceful Bedouin village in south Sinai. Visitors stay at the two-star Blue Beach Hotel, where yoga sessions take place twice a day in a purpose-built yoga room. A week's yoga holiday starts at £299, breakfast is included, but other meals are taken in restaurants and you must make your own way there either via Sharm el Sheik or Cairo.

The Ballymaloe Cookery School is the brain child of Tim and Darina Allen and is an offshoot of Ballymaloe House, the famous hotel and restaurant started by Tim's mother, Myrtle Allen.

Students can either arrange their own accommodation or stay in the hotel or in one of the pretty selfcatering cottages close to the Allen's regency house. Courses vary from one, two or five days and there are 12-week courses for those wanting to take up cookery professionally.

One-day courses cost £112 and five-day courses, £426. It will cost £14 a day to share one of the self-catering cottages and £17.50 for single accommodation. The hotel costs from £55 per person for a double room.

Cookery writer Anne Willan's La Varenne is one of the world's best-known cookery schools. You stay in the imposing Château du Fëy and attend a five-day master class which is limited to 10 people. The course, which includes all meals, wine and some excursions, is £2,350 if you are sharing a room.

Beautiful architecture and good food go together in Italy. Flavours

Cookery Holidays offers an online booking service for cookery holidays in Italy. It offers one-week holidays in northern Lazio between Rome and Tuscany as well as in Puglia in southern Italy. In Lazio, typical recipes include ravioli stuffed with truffles and ricotta and risotto with courgette flowers, while in Puglia, fish from the local fish markets is a strong feature. With both courses you make your own way to Italy. The cost of a one-week course in Lazio is £1,049 and Puglia £1,099. Flavours also runs short five-day, four-night courses for £599, which are often given as presents to mark important birthdays.

Activity

On the Greek island of Evia, two anda-half hours' drive north of Athens, is Candili, the estate of the Noel-Baker family. Their connections with the estate go back to the days of Lord Byron, when Edward Noel borrowed 10,000 gold sovereigns from Lady Byron to buy the estate from a departing Turk.

The estate is now run as a family and activity centre with living quarters above the converted granary, in the big house and in a small cottage. Last year there were mosaic and painting courses, and this year the family is adding inflatable power boat racing for the boys.

A two-week activity holiday costs around £1,000, with one night in Athens and transfer to and from the airport. You arrange your own flights.

Where to book

The Ballymaloe Cookery School: 00 35 321 4646 785, www.ballymaloecookeryschool.ie General activity holidays: www.travel-quest.co.uk La Varenne cookery school: 00 33 3 86 63 18 34, www.lavarenne.com Flavours Cookery Holidays: www.flavoursholidays.com The Skyros Centre: 020 7267 4424, www.skyros.com Yoga in Casperia: booked through Sunflower Retreat Holidays, 0116 2599422, www.sunflowerretreats.com Yoga in Dahab: www.retreat-co.co.uk Activity holidays in Evia at Candili: call Charlotte Nicholson on 0788 799 1931 or the Noel-Bakers on 00 30 974 062100; www.candili.co.uk