The Complete Guide To Retreat Holidays

Record numbers of us are desperate to escape the hurly-burly of modern life and find true relaxation on a spiritual break. Belinda Archer shifts down a gear to find out what's on offer

START ME OFF GENTLY: WHERE CAN I SAMPLE A RETREAT FROM THE WORLD?

At a monastery with mod cons. There are numerous converted monastic residences that have been turned into hotels of varying levels of luxury, usually in superb locations. At the top of the scale, for example, is the five-star San Domenico Palace Hotel in Taormina, Sicily (00 39 09 42 61 31 11; www.thi.it), a converted 14th-century monastery. Double rooms start at a not-insignificant €290 (£207), for a "basic" room without a sea view but including breakfast. Italy boasts more than 300 monastery hotels, in fact, with every major city offering some sort of "monastic" accommodation. Visit www.go-to-italy.com for a full listing.

There's also the fabulous four-star Grand Hôtel de l'Opéra (00 33 5 61 21 82 66; www.grand-hotel-opera.com) in the French city of Toulouse - a converted 17th-century convent which had a sympathetic but full makeover in 1998 and now has every modern convenience. French personalities from Serge Gainsbourg to Charles Aznavour and President Jacques Chirac have checked in over the years. Doubles start at €161 (£115), room only.

A variation is to retreat to a beautiful, remote location with monastic associations - yet to stay somewhere indulgent. Set in an enclosed bay on the south-west point of the Greek island of Symi sits the Monastery of Panormitis. It is dedicated to the Archangel Michael, the patron saint of seafarers, and is a place of pilgrimage for Greek sailors from around the world. With Laskarina Holidays (01444 880380; www.laskarina.co.uk), you can make a one-week pilgrimage to Symi, staying at the Villa Panorama, a typically Symian house in the heart of the Old Town, for under £600, including flights from Gatwick (Manchester departures are £15 higher).

CLOSER TO HOME?

Getting away from it all does not have to mean leaving the country. Accommodation of a pseudo-monastic bent can be found at Penally Abbey Country House Hotel in Pembrokeshire (01834 843033; www.penally-abbey.com). This is an affordable hotel built on the site of a former abbey, with various holy ruins in its grounds and a range of pointers to its sacred past. It also has fabulous views over Caldey Island, one of Britain's holy islands and home to a community of Cistercian monks who welcome day visitors throughout the summer. Double rooms at the hotel start at £130 including breakfast. Caldey Island is contactable via www.caldey-island.co.uk, or call 01834 844453 for details of sailings and opening times.

SOMETHING DEEPER, PLEASE

Certainly. Most retreat holidays are aimed at feeding and nurturing the inner soul, taking the chance to develop one's spirituality amid our materialistic 21st-century lives. Retreat holidays are not about indulging in luxury or hedonistic external pampering; the focus is very much on the inside, a spiritual counter to the ubiquitous activity holiday. And these escapes are becoming increasingly popular: The Retreat Company (0116 259 9211; www.theretreatcompany.com), one of the leading UK operators providing retreats at home and abroad, reports record business.

The retreat industry - as it has become known - is opening itself up to the idea of broader spiritual-based holidays. You can find your ideal retreat anywhere from deepest Pembrokeshire to the hills of Tuscany, a 17th-century listed mansion in Somerset or the crumbling medieval village of Cazorla in southern Spain. The range is vast.

Some retreats are aimed at providing a generally spiritual respite from the hurly-burly of modern life, but most are tailored towards certain faiths.

HOW DO I CHOOSE?

A useful start is The Good Retreat Guide (Rider & Co, £12.99) by Stafford Whiteaker, a former monk hermit. This is a comprehensive listing of more than 500 places "to find peace and spiritual renewal" in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and Greece. It explains a typical day on a retreat, and covers many faiths - from "eco-spirituality" to Buddhism and the Christian religions.

Pluscarden Abbey ( www.pluscardenabbey.org), founded in 1230 in Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland, is the only medieval monastery in Britain still inhabited by monks and still being used for its original purpose. It offers fairly strict retreats where silence is observed in many areas and activities are dictated by the monastic day and its eight services. There is no charge, in accordance with the St Benedict rule, although donations are welcomed and most people offer to pay the equivalent rate of an average B&B. Men share lunch and supper with the monks, while female guests look after their own catering in a separate guesthouse.

Further afield, the Abbaye de Lérins (00 33 4 92 99 54 00; www.abbayedelerins.com) occupies an idyllic small island off the coast of Cannes in the south of France. It is a 5th-century Cistercian monastery and, as such, one of the oldest in the West, with an eventful and sometimes troubled past, including Saracen raids and pillaging by pirates. You can stay for up to a week, and must book at least two months in advance. Silence plays a large part of any stay on the island, but visitors who speak some French get the most out of their time there. Prices start at €12 (£8.60) per person per day. Boat access is provided exclusively through Société Planaria (00 33 4 92 98 71 38) from Cannes, with returns starting at €10 (£7.10).

I WANT AN ORGANISED TRIP

Leisure Time Travel (0151-287 8000; www.lourdes-pilgrim.com) is a Liverpool company specialising in pilgrimages and holidays combined. It offers weekly trips to Lourdes in south-west France, Easter excursions to Rome (including a papal audience), and journeys to Fatima in Portugal and Knock in the west of Ireland. Prices start at £169 for a five-day escorted coach trip to Lourdes from Liverpool including two nights' full-board accommodation in the Pyrenean shrine.

Retreats Beyond Dover (020-7379 7273; www.retreats.dircon.co.uk) runs rather more novel religious breaks. One example is the Passion Play of Sordevolo in * *northern Italy. This is a dramatic open-air production involving all 400 villagers. The locals have been staging this particular version of the Passion for 150 years. A four-day break in July or August costs £575, including flights from London to Turin, accommodation and tickets to see the play.

I HAVE BUDDHA IN MIND

The Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery (01387 373232; www.samyeling.org) is a Tibetan Buddhist retreat in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. It runs a variety of breaks, from two-day weekend retreats covering topics such as Introduction to Meditation and Overcoming Obstacles to longer stays. Prices start at around £100 for the weekend retreats.

Manjushri Kadampa Meditation Centre (01229 584029; www.manjushri.org), based at Conishead Priory just south of the Lake District, also holds weekend meditation retreats and Buddhist programmes. Weekend prices start at £60 for a room in a dorm and all meals.

To seek out the source of Buddhism, London-based Spiritual Holidays (0845 456 1007; www.spiritualholidays.com) runs tours which explore ancient teachings and visit sacred sites such as Buddha's birthplace and Potala Palace, the former home of the Dalai Lama. Its portfolio includes a two-week Timeless Tibet and Nepal trip, leaving on 17 October. This costs £1,795 including breakfast and some meals but excluding flights to Kathmandu, which are approximately £650 with Gulf Air (0870 777 1717; www.gulfairco.com).

A 14-night In the Footsteps of Buddha trip is offered by Indus Tours (020-8901 7379; www.industours.co.uk), which specialises in longer excursions to India and Sri Lanka. This costs £1,385 including B&B accommodation and flights from Heathrow to Colombo on SriLankan Airlines. Indus also offers a 22-day Spiritual Essence of India trip for £2,280 including flights from London Heathrow to Delhi on British Airways.

I NEED A RETREAT DEVOTED TO ME

Many retreats focus on personal development. There are a whole range of topical themed retreats, from painting, writing and walking to gardening, or music - all combining meditation or some form of spiritual exploration.

Bootlace Walking Holidays (00 34 958 068 012; www.bootlace.com) offers walking trips in the silent conservation area of a national park in Sierra Nevada, Spain, with meditation, yoga and t'ai chi exercises on offer back at base, as well as fine vegetarian food. The next walking break is scheduled for 24 September-1 October and costs £350 for accommodation, food and guides but not flights.

Humanity's original relationship with dance was for the purpose of worship and healing. Thus dance, or dynamic meditation as it is sometimes catchily called, is a particularly popular retreat theme. All forms of dance, from belly dancing to "dancing with dolphins" are on offer, the latter via UK-based The Dolphin Connection at a retreat centre at La Gomera in the Canary Islands (01273 882778; www.dolphinconnectionexperience.com). The next dolphin retreat runs from 3-10 February 2006 and costs £550 for full board, excluding flights to Tenerife.

Belly dancing is deemed spiritual because it loosens up one's chakras - if one is tight and inflexible, spiritual energy can't flow freely around the body. A week-long belly dancing break takes place in Dahab, Egypt, with Sunra Yoga from 2 October and is priced £296 for the week, including B&B and all classes. Flights to Sharm el Sheikh are not included. Contact The Retreat Company (0116 259 9211; www.theretreatcompany.com) for more details.

WHAT ABOUT NEW-AGE SPIRITUALISM?

If this is your thing, there's plenty on offer. Spiritual Holidays (0845 456 1007; www.spiritualholidays.com) runs meditation retreats to sacred energy sites for "renewal, rebirth and replenishment". These include magical trips to Glastonbury, embracing Stonehenge, Avebury and Camelot country, as well as retreats to the St Mary/St Michael ley line in the Dartmoor National Park.

The UK's most northerly retreat on Orkney (01856-841207; www.orkneyimages.com) gives visitors the chance to experience "the sun, moon, stars and planets" as well as the spiritual magnetism of the island, which has Bronze Age burial mounds and sacred standing stones.

The centre celebrates the winter and summer solstices, in addition to other pagan festivals by following the Celtic island calendar. The next organised retreat, the Sea Stories and Sacred Stones trip, runs from 1-8 October, costing £430 full board including all workshops and walks.

Shamanic or trance dance retreats are also abundant. This ancient practice of communicating with your own "body intelligence" through sound, rhythm and breathwork can be experienced at any number of locations, including the Seventh Annual Hawaii Shamanic Retreat from 7-14 May 2006 (001 512 708 8888; www.trancedance.com). This costs $1,695 (£942), including full-board accommodation but excluding flights to Hilo.

Some more loosely spiritual holidays are single sex, either for men only (such as www.granitemen.com - a New Hampshire, US-based group offering breaks with a "holistic approach to manhood through workshops, affinity groups and group gatherings") or even weight-conscious women. Beyond Chocolate, for example (020-8883 0472; www.beyondchocolate.co.uk) gives the fatter female the chance to work on her approach to weight loss from an intellectual and emotional perspective "amid the breathtaking olive groves of Puglia". The next seven-day retreat runs from 26 May-2 June 2006 and costs £1,250, including everything except flights.

Silence is a key aid for nurturing one's spirit, and many retreats incorporate silence in some way, offering visitors the chance of short periods (30 minutes to an hour each day, based around meditation sessions) or entire weekends or even longer periods of social abstinence.

The Self Realization Meditation Healing Centre near Yeovil (01935 850266; www.selfrealizationcentres.org) is based in a beautiful 17th-century farmhouse in Somerset surrounded by four acres of gardens. It is open all year round and timetables two three-day silent retreats over Christmas and Easter, as well as silent breaks for individuals at any time.

The three-day retreats cost £120 including full board, while weekend breaks are priced £110. The centre also has sister units based in Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, the US and Canada.

WILL THERE BE WEIRDOS?

If by "weirdo" you mean genuine people who have a real desire to develop their spiritual side and commune with god, whoever their god may be, then yes. But these characters might be anyone, from any walk of life and of any age. The holidays attract a broad, ahem, church.

There are numerous reasons why people go on a retreat, according to The Retreat Company. An individual might be suffering from some form of life crisis (such as a serious illness, the break-up of a relationship, work burn-out, bereavement) or they could be seeking a little "maintenance" to avoid any such crisis happening.

Alternatively they might just be in search of a kind of topical retreat from the world (via any number of the aforementioned activities such as art or dancing).

MAY I DRINK AND SMOKE?

Alcohol? Absolutely. Monks and other such religious sorts have a long history of enjoying the fruits of the vine. Drunkenness is not exactly next to godliness, but it can oil the process a little. Some non-Christian centres may be dry, however, and you will probably come across the usual restrictions on smoking.

As for iPods, mobile phones and other such noisy trappings from the material world, these tend to be frowned upon, particularly given that silence is the order of the day at many of the retreats.

And finally...

A few months ago BBC2 ran a reality TV series called The Monastery, in which five men in search of inner truth spent 40 days and 40 nights living like monks in Worth Abbey, West Sussex.

It turned out to be not so much a holiday, as a religious journey. Tony, an atheist former adman who worked in the porn industry, found God and dramatically gave up his job when he came out.

And the Benedictine Worth Abbey (01342 710318; www.worthabbey.net) is now offering retreats on the back of the series, though rumours of it cashing in are wholly sacrilegious.

The abbey is offering special weekends for "exploring faith and sanctuary" as well as longer residential events at its Open Cloister. The breaks are ecumenical, but are offered from a broadly Catholic perspective.

Prices start from £92 for the weekends, but forthcoming retreats are rapidly filling up as a result of the television exposure.