Good evening

“It’s the colours that hit you on Lefkada, especially in spring, when it is lush from winter rainfall, with glossy green hills and electric blue seas shifting over white sand. Up on the mountains, seas of crimson poppies carpet the plains.”

We asked five writers where they would most like to be at this time of year and their answers are as eclectic as they are enticing. Susan Smillie chose the Greek island of Lefkada, where locals have been clearing ancient monopati – old paths and mule tracks – to create a network of walking trails. The summer heat is too oppressive for hiking, but “spring is when the land really sings. Expect paths that are a delightful assault on all senses, a riot of colour and fragrance, the clanking of goat bells, seaview trails fringed with almond blossoms.”

The opportunity to enjoy glorious displays of spring flowers was a common thread in our writers’ choices, from the cherry blossom which appears in the parks of Copenhagen in March and April to the millions of tulips which bloom across the city of Istanbul, where Caroline Eden has selected two of her favourite walks. The American author Noah Charney, who lives in Slovenia, likes to make a spring pilgrimage to the Kamnik-Savinja Alps in the north of the country. Here the remote mountain plateau of Velika Planina “blazes purple with flowering crocuses. If the snow has lingered, it’s a striking symbol of the Earth’s annual renewal.”

The area has served as a summer pastureland for herders since the bronze age, and is now home to a unique Alpine culture, with herdsmen wearing ponchos made from strips of resinous pine and living in cottages that recall the Hobbit houses of Middle-earth.

And finally, Elizabeth Bennett finds herself dreaming of leisurely days spent cycling the network of “green routes” which criss-cross Formentera. Spring is the “sweet spot” on this Balearic isle, with wild flowers transforming the interior and a chance to take cooling dips on deserted beaches, before the heat and holidaymakers of high summer arrive.