Puerto Pollensa (Port de Pollença, Mallorca) Running Route

Click here for route map
Length 4.7 km (2.9 miles)

By John Griffith, our specialist for exotic routes. Visit his running blog, The Briars. Multi-talent John also painted the picture of the church!

For more running routes, see the Route List

Holidays. Blink and they’re gone - well, the good ones are, anyway. Just back from a week in the sun on the Island of Mallorca. Took a small villa with a few chums on the outskirts of Puerto Pollensa where we used to go when the kids were small. Two hours from Luton, Palma airport is big and efficient and the route across the island to the North-East and Pollensa is now much easier thanks to a new motorway.

The “Pine Walk”, Puerto Pollensa

The sun was hot and the euros were cheap so the week passed in a blur of San Miguel, Sangrier and early morning runs along the Pine Walk, a lazy 2-miler that hugs the seafront round the old port and weaves between sturdy pines that seem to defy gravity. 

It’s a pleasure to chug through the folks enjoying their cappuccinos on the seafront but note that the surface of this path while scenic is very uneven, being made of rough-hewn stones set in concrete and every one or two is a little higher than you might expect so think “lift feet” as you jog.  I did take a dramatic tumble at one point only to be gathered by a delightful young lady from Sheffield who passed me my water bottle with a priceless “are you alright, chuck?”

If you’re a runner who likes to trip out on long flat coastal pavements (and I do sometimes) you can head off the other way towards Alcudia around the bay and turn around whenever you feel like it.  I tried both directions and found them equally pleasant, if different in nature.

I also climbed the 365 steps to the Calvary Chapel in Pollensa town with my daughter and read Nigel Farndale’s “The Blasphemer,” which is a top pick.

On a historical note, on August 2nd there is a massive Fiesta every year in Pollensa which is well worth seeing. The central event is a mock battle between Moors and Christians, to commemorate when the people of Pollensa fought 1,500 Moors led by the pirate Dragut on May 30 in 1550. The battle was won, thanks to one Joan Mas who went out in the main street, warned everyone of the danger and ran heroically into battle against his adversaries.

The battle has been celebrated since the XIX century and practically the whole town takes part, the Christians dressed in white and Dragut’s followers in multicolours. Some say personal and long standing scores are still settled in the back streets that night and certainly any real injuries would be hard to distinguish from those inflicted by the cardboard scimitars and drunks.

Sketch of Church in Puerto Pollensa

Mallorca is a beautiful island and one of my fave holiday destinations. There is rich variation between the bohemian hill towns of Deja and Soller and the waterparks of Alcudia. There’s architecture, cathedrals, beaches and a treacly local rum called Amazona which you slop into your coffee. You can eat well and feel welcomed wherever you go. And for the budding Bradley Wiggins-es it’s a perfect cycling training ground too and Mallorca sports more lycra than Lillywhites in the sales.

Barbados West Coast Running Route

Click here for route map

Length 4.5km (2.8 miles), terrain goes up hill

Article and photos by John Griffith

For more running routes, see the Route List!

This is the latest entry in John's Jogging the World series, which takes him to some of the most beautiful spots around, described as only John can do it. Thanks, sir! See more of his articles at the Route List.

Need some exercise? Go for a rum.

For an island that brews one of the world’s finest spirits (Mount Gay Rum) it’s not a little ironic that its most famous son is called Sobers.  Barbados is not an island for alcoholic temperance or indeed temperance of any kind yet here I am returned, almost intact, from ten days of sunshine and pepper sauce with a cheeky Easter holiday under the belt.

I took my Newton shoes (bit of a statement) but I only did one run as the roads and beaches are not conducive.  What I did do was swim with turtles, dance at the Oistins weekly fish fry on Friday night, mono-ski (yeah-man, still got it), eat for England (Lobster at “Lobsters Alive”) and of course drink to Olympic standards whilst trying to maintain a sense of decorum.

Island house

It’s been 25 years since me and Mrs G went to Barbados for our honeymoon and so we decided to go back to see how (if) things had changed from the comfort of Crystal Cove on the west coast.  Barbados has developed significantly in that time and is probably the most expensive and desirable Caribbean island but it is worth a visit.  Prices have surged with the arrival of Cliff Richard, Simon Cowell and Mr Abramovich but it still has charm, a local feel and if you keep clear of the more expensive resorts it’s good value too.

The North Point gives you a grandstand view of Atlantic rollers crashing into the cliffs below.  You can stand in safety to watch waves the size of cathedrals do battle with menacing black cliffs.  Each swell is like a line of double-decker buses, six abreast, driving headlong into Westminster Abbey.  Awesome is too small a word.

Spectacular breakers at North Point

My one run took in a short section of the not too appropriately named “Highway 1” and a 3k climb towards the centre of the island.  Highway 1 bears the Barbados Marathon which goes from Bridgetown north for 13 miles and back.  You weave past Mahogany trees that have lifted the pavement (where there is one) and pass empty beaches and posh, gated hotels (Sandy Lane’s cheapest room is £1500/night -- or about US$2300).  Opposite Tamarind Cove Hotel take off inland at the Roti Shop and head uphill.

Mahoganies warping the pavement along Highway 1

You pass derelict Windmills (there are 506 in Barbados – second in density only to Holland) and small churches conveniently close to Rum Shops.  Lining the roads are colourful Chattel houses which are dismantled and moved from old to new foundations when occupants move on. 

The hill we chose to attack went on forever and to be honest, not knowing the area well or whether we could loop back we stopped and turned around after 3k or so.  But the views of along the white sandy west coast from several stopping points are spectacular and worth the climb.

You have to love this island and its people; it’s more than beautiful and proud of its heritage.  Despite being a poor spot for runners I was made more than welcome and I left wanting more.

Dublin Central Loop Running Route

Click here for route map  
Length: 4.9 km (3 miles)

Dublin Running Routes:
Georgian Heritage  
River Liffey 
Phoenix Park
Dun Laoghaire coastal run 
City Centre loop   
Howth Cliff Walk trail
See the other running routes here!

Article and photos by John Griffith
John is co-founder of the great UK RunningBug site, an entertaining writer, and now he's busy producing videos. Thanks John!

For more running routes, see Routes List.

For many years now, I’ve opened my house to friends and family for New Years Eve. It's always a good party; a roaring fire, a big slow meal followed by fireworks on the telly and lots of hugging amid promises and good intentions for the year ahead.

Statue on the Irish Parliament building

This year we handed the house keys with blind trust to our children and headed off to Dublin for a short break. It rained of course, but we packed the right gear and set our expectations accordingly. Cocooned in the delightful Merrion Hotel, you want for nothing. It feels “boutique” but with a 2-star Michelin restaurant it’s very definitely Dublin’s No 1 sleepery.

NOTE: see the Destinations Tips page for tips about spending your free time in this great town!
 
Running in Dublin takes little in the way of planning. It's flat, the pavements are wide and wherever you go there are buildings of interest and beauty. In better times, wealthy shipping merchants vied with each other for architectural grandeur. The result is a density of historic civic buildings and fine Georgian terraces seldom seen in any other town.

From Upper Merrion Street, I turned east down Baggot Street past Doheny and Nesbitt’s Pub turning north up Fitzwilliam Street past Merrion Square towards the river.

The Liffey (from the Gaelic Liphe or "life") bisects the town and is spanned by an assortment of bridges whose styles reflect the many years it has flowed there. Once the home of Viking settlers, it now provides (and receives!) almost 60% of Dublin's drinking and industrial water and is thought by many to be the source of Guinness who in fact pipe their supply from the nearby Wicklow Mountains.

Sally Gap in Wicklow, not only providing the water for Guiness, but a great running side trip

Ducking under the old railway bridge you reach the river, hook a left and start to enjoy the views from the long, manicured riverside Quays.  These include the new National Convention Centre and the old Customs House on the north bank.  The Quays are studded with massive iron rings which once secured the ships that brought so much wealth to Dublin in the 17th and 18th century. 

Turn south when you reach Temple Bar, you can choose any of the rat-runs through where the smells of last night's partying still hang in the air.  Catch the parliament buildings if you can on Dame Street, zig east a bit and choose south on pedestrian Grafton Street to run past the shops you may visit later. 

Finally east again past the shopping centre and then home through the serenity of St. Stephen's Green where the "Famine" sculpture is worth a view.

Dubliners are unfeasibly friendly and the town, although a little tired in places, is the jewel of the emerald isle.  Everything is very expensive but with over 1,000 pubs it's a haven for career drinkers and -- with The Wicklow Mountains only half an hour's drive away -- it’s also a fell-runner’s delight.

Many are poor and some are homeless; I watched as a Police car swooped up to a blanket-clad beggar on the street.  As the policeman got out of the car and donned his cap I feared the poor man’s day was going to get worse.  But instead of handcuffs he presented the man with a steaming coffee.  That’s the Irish for you.

Monchique Coast, Portugal Running Route

Click here for route map

Length: 10.4 km (6.5 miles)

Thanks to roving UK runner/reporter John Griffith for another off-the-beaten-track run through paradise! Wish I was there!

They should have called it Portug-hill

By John Griffith

The good things about Portugal include fabulous wine, great beaches, reliable sunshine, Cataplana.  The bad things about Portugal at least as far as runing goes is that its all hills.  I stayed in the Monchique area about an hour west of Faro and 20 km north of Portimao.  Monchique is a pretty little hill town where not much of nothing goes on.  Close by is the highest peak in the country - Foia, which at 2963 ft. affords a fantastic view over the coastal plains and you can see from Cap St Vincent on the westernmost point right along past Portimao to the east.

View westwards to the sea from Monchique hills

But enough geography; the run.

We stayed in a beautiful villa just outside Monchique halfway up the Foia mountain with hills in every direction.  The best beaches are not on the south coast in my opinion where all the tommy tourists go but equidistant from Monchique to the west.

Driving to Aljezur from Monchique directly west through Marmelate takes about 40 mins and from there you leave the coast road just north of the village of Aljezur (by the public swimming pool) and take off left down a dusty but well made road/track towards the sea and Amoreira Beach.

The road has no name and no signs but around every corner you think you're going to see the beach but it teases its way round coll and corner past salt flats and cuttings through bright red soil until at last rising to a halt at a small beach restaurant.  From here, the view of the beach hits you like an epiphany.  Arrive early morning and the clouds blow in off the rollers tasting of pure Atlantic.  The waterline is peppered with surfers (there's even a surf school there the surf is so good) and the sand is clean and uncrowded.

Amoreira beach scene

Park the car, have a coffee in the restaurant, put your running shoes on and head back down the track towards the main road.  Its about 4 miles if you run the whole way back but just before the main road there's a little restaurant where you can refill your water supply and turn around and head back.

The view each way seems to change and you notice things you didn't on the way out.  That house on the hill facing seawards with an all-glass seaview lounge - I'll buy that when I can afford it.  The menu at the restraurant - I'll be hungry when I get there - what shall I order? The baby squids? The grilled sole? Or just a mediterranean salad rinsed with fresh lemon and olive oil?

It's not a hard run, and the rolling clouds will keep you cool until about 11 a.m., when the fierce sun wins the day.  Its not a particularly scenic run either if im honest, but the route is strangely intriguing and the reward is in the completing of it and lunch that awaits. 

And besides, it must the only one in Portugal that doesn't have any effin' hills.

Running The Malecon; Havana, Cuba

Click here for route map

Length: 6.5 km (4 miles), terrain flat

By John Griffith, video artist and founder of the great UK running site, www.runningbug.co.uk

John has a love of exotic routes: See John's Mediterranean hillclimb here: Amalfi, Italy Running Route

For more running routes, see the Route List!

For longer than is healthy I’ve had a burning desire to visit Cuba.  To shuffle out a salsa in a downtown bar to a rough ‘n’ ready band whose average age is about 76 while drinking dark rum or a Mohito cocktail then to chug back to a forlorn hotel in a ’64 Cadillac where in dim lamplight we smoke a fat cigar to round off a perfect evening.  Then after too little sleep and in a haze of cane syrup alcohols and flashing images of the night before to breeze out onto the famous “Malecon” – the coastal main road for an early morning run round the bay.

Well last week my dream came true.

It’s hard not to talk about Cuba without conjuring images of ancient American classic cars and women smoking cigars in brightly coloured headscarves.  All these clichés can be seen on almost every corner of Havana.  It’s been discovered, invaded, owned, sold, re-invaded and freed several times over in its history so it’s little wonder Cuba has character.  And that character is forged not just by the country’s history but to a large extent by the unique sight of the 60’s Cadillacs, Fords and Buicks that make up the traffic.  These were brought over by mafia money in Cuba’s only boom time economy which divided the rich (mostly unwelcome Americans) and the poor (mostly angry Cubans).  They were left in a hurry when the achingly handsome and very popular Che Guevara won the people’s hearts and their freedom in a successful people’s revolution.  As the last Americans left in 1964 he told the Cubans “If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine”.  Stirring stuff.

A '59 Edsel in Havana

The Malecon Running Route
But to the run: This loop is an easy, flat route of about 4 miles taking in the old town, the Malecon, a bit of their Chinatown and a piece of, well, just real Havana.  The Hispanic architecture, most of which went up in the period leading to the revolution that took place in the 60’s, has mellowed to a kind of crumbling colonial charm which makes for lots of eye-catching scenes, so take a camera if you can carry one (I used a blackberry to take my shots).

At the Capitolio: a '59 Plymouth

Starting at my Hotel, The Saratoga, which is about opposite the old government building known as the Capitolio (now a museum) I headed down to the old town via the street known as “Obispo” to see Plaza Viejo, now tastefully restored and looking mighty fine in the morning sun.  On one corner stood the Café Taverna where later that night I was to see the Buena Vista Social Club – a must if you have the time.  It’s old blokes making dance music and completing salsa moves that made me reach for the glucosamine.

Along the Malecon

From there straight down to the seafront and turn left towards the harbour entrance now aglow in golden morning sun.  Round the point and onto the Malecon with the sun on your back from where you can see right round the bay that the town is on.  All along the front are houses that spoke of better times and one or two Hotels once owned by American Mafiosi but now state-run.  Peddlers selling beads and artefacts offer cigars and currency swaps (DON’T take up these offers – you’ll get Cuban Pesos worth nothing at all and not the international convertible Pesos usable in the shops by tourists).

Plaza Viejo in morning light

Turn left onto Belascoain and you head into some real downtown Havana.  Kids on their way to school, restaurants washing down pavement terraces, shops re-stocking, broken down cars undergoing open heart surgery by engineers up to their elbows in black engine oil.  Keep going until you reach Avenue Zanya where you throw a left and head up towards the Capitolio again.  This time you pass Chinatown, the Rail museum which is really a steam train graveyard – guarded by a fierce dog as I passed.  Back onto the pretty open square next to the Partagas Cigar factory and you’re home.

Go to Cuba for sun, rum, music by old blokes, dancing, cigars, beaches and value for money but don’t go for luxury - not much works and nobody in Cuba has any money, although of course they'll welcome some of yours.

The cars are older than the musicians in Havana

Amalfi, Italy Running Route

Click here for routemap
Length: 5.5 km (3.4 miles), terrain hilly

Article and photos by John Griffith, co-founder of the great UK running site, the Running Bug

John has a love of exotic routes. See John's Havana waterside run here: Running The Malecon; Havana, Cuba. Or check the Route List to find even more of John Griffith's runs!

View from town

Somebody once said to me "No wonder God was an Italian".  The implication is that the best things come from Italy: good wine, good food, good looks, good architecture and so on so given the choice that’s where you’d become flesh.   And if ever you are in pursuit of some of these fineries from Italy you could do worse than start your search on The Amalfi Coast.  When I went there I stayed in the luxurious Santa Caterina Hotel; pricey but one of the best in the area (the other being The Sirenuse in nearby Positano).  It was a short break for my partner and I with the intention of some relaxation but as she hit the Spa I put on my running shoes.

The Amalfi coast is pretty much vertical.  What I mean is the coastline doesn’t have a shore – it’s more of an escarpment.  For reasons best known to those that live there, everything is perched on an almost sheer drop.  Houses are etched into the hillsides and roads snake from promontory to promontory with the occasional gasp of a bridge or gloom of a tunnel.  Finding a route for a run that didn’t take in some stiff hills was just going to be impossible.  The scenery however is breathtaking from almost anywhere you stop.    

Taking a local footpaths map from the Hotel I headed out of the lobby onto the main road turning right down into Amalfi town centre on the inappropriately named Via Quasimodo.  There’s enough of a footpath to remain safe but keep your elbows in.  Enjoy the downhill because pretty soon you’re going up and I mean UP!!!

When we say up, we mean UP!

As you head into town, watch for the central road on your left that takes you up towards the Duomo.  This is Via del Duomo - a street or a street market depending on the time of day and it was full of wandering tourists the day I jogged through.  Watch for the absurd breast-fountain in the market square and take a drink if you’re thirsty.
Head on up the road about 1/2-km and watch on your left for Via Casamare – I think there was a police station there too – it’s a cul de sac, but head on up round the bends and at the end you will see the start of the 1,700 steps up to Pogerola.  I don’t think there is a sign but press on up the steps which snake back and forth up the mountainside past inquisitive goats and wild horses.

You arrive in the little hamlet of Pogerola with burning calves twenty minutes later, take a left on Via Papa Leone X and bless the downhill that lies ahead.  Stick on this road and you can get back down to the coast road again where a left will take you back towards the Hotel and Amalfi town.  For the brave, take one of the footpaths that weave through the netted lemon groves, heavy with the scent of citrus and steaming in the midday sun.

The sculptor had a sense of humour with this fountain

Amalfi is a small town with not much to offer except the architecture and some fine seafood, but while you’re there visit Ravello, Positano and spend a day on the Island of Capri.