I have hesitated to tell the Guardian readership about Cafe Ariete in Moffat as it can be hard enough to find a table on some busy Saturday mornings already. However, it is the best stop-off on a UK motorway, so it had to be done. Cafe Ariete is a slice of Scottish-Italiano in the charming little town of Moffat; a perfect distance from the north-west for a stop-off. My current favourite choice for my second breakfast of the day is a scrambled egg roll with crispy onions and a tall glass of hot Vimto, garnished with a slice of fruit, but you may prefer the excellent coffees. Before eating, we call in at the paper shop next door to buy our Guardian and after eating we walk around the square window shopping, stopping to buy melt-in-the mouth Scottish Pancakes from the bakery for later. If walking around the pretty, bustling square isn't enough for you, then there is a pleasant two km circular walk along the river Annan to walk off the second breakfast. Really, Moffat deserves a page all to itself, but this will give you a flavour of this Scottish gem.

For gentle walks around Moffat check out:
www.visitmoffat.co.uk/attraction-finder/walking-2011-festival/take-5-gentle-walks-around-moffat
The site also has information on longer walks and the Moffat Walking Festival in September.
www.visitmoffat.co.uk/
The home page will take you to all the useful information about Moffat you need.
10 High Street, Moffat, Dumfriesshire DG10 9HF
+44(0)1683 220 313
Google map: bit.ly/osyE4V

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There's a cool looking toy shop and a well stocked Deli (oppo the Bookshop). There's also the narrowest hotel in the world...but otherwise a place badly in need of a kick up the noughties. No kids either and a horrible religious neo-con atmosphere in some places, culminating in the "singing potter" - bible bashing pot thrower who'll scare you to death should you venture inside - don't bother, the chintzy, dusty, drab earthenware visible in the window should be warning enough.

If I return it will be to enjoy the under-rated Southern Uplands (great walking & mtn biking, Grey Mare's Tail is a good spot for kids and adults alike, the waterfall stunning after rain and all set in a dramatic glacial U valley). As for the town itself, well it's all a bit disorientating. You're served by poor young blighters of Moffat, so prim and unsurly in serving you and so surely repressed by a ruling OLD order no doubt entrenched in cobwebs in the town hall - you want to offer em a free bus tkt to the bright lights of Glasgow (city, fun, music, dancing, sex) - honest - all these things are possible in the outside world. The Best Western hotel off the Market Place is all the proof needed that this is a town lost up its aged self - a fabulous looking building, inappropriately refurbished, externally at least, with a a garish perversion otherwise seen only in the axminster of the box room round your grans.

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Can't vouch for the stock! but a friendly, helpful owner...bringing you down to "Moffat-time" after you've hurtled up the M6 in that "2001"-type-rush thats possible in the flat borderlands north of carlisle. As for Moffat itself: a haven for bus tours and it shows, the cafe's look cutesy but they extend for miles behind a genteel fascade, to cater for millions of pensioners stopping for a wee on their bus tour to Balmoral! Forget nice coffee, cake or even decent locally produced fry-ups. Its in a country kitchen stylee but its as formulaic, dated, bland and tasteless as your nearest DFS.

Moffat, Southern Uplands, Scotland

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