Category: Uncategorized
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Albania in a day: Sarandë, Lerkusi Castle & Butrint
After chugging its way 15 nautical miles across the still Ionian Sea, the Finikas Lines ferry is pulling into the Albanian resort of Sarandë. Modern and gleaming white, from the deck of the ‘Georgia’ Sarandë is an attractive port, affluent in appearance, immediately challenging the western stereotype of Albania. I only have six hours’ shore…
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Corfu & Paxos: Ionian emeralds
“Confused by our clumsy gestures of interpretation, history is never kind to those who expect anything of her” – from Prospero’s Cell by Lawrence Durrell. Corfu Corfu is green and blue, sounds like cicadas, and smells like cigarettes. The green covers the island like an ill-fitted carpet, except where the magnolia and peach villages poke…
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Madeira: a photo essay
A belated post from a November 2024 family visit to Madeira. 300 miles west of the Moroccan coast, the Portuguese island of Madeira rises steeply up from the Atlantic to heights of 1800m. The population of around 250,000 mostly live in settlements that cling to the island’s coastline, leaving an almost untouched interior – lush…
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Dungeness & Rye: a photo essay
A trip with friends to Dungeness and Rye in the far south-east corner of England. Dungeness is a shingle headland, or cuspate foreland, formed by the longshore drift of the English Channel dragging along the coastline where Sussex becomes Kent. Completely flat and with the Dungeness Nuclear Power Plant looming in the background, the area…
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Madrid and Toledo – great art, fine dining, bad buskers
Five days of food and art in Madrid, plus a day trip to Toledo. (Above: the view north-west from Palacio Real, Madrid) LunesPigs die well in Spain. Allow me to correct that: carnivores are likely to enjoy the porky afterlife of pigs in Spain. For pigs, see also octopi, prawns, chickens, etc. This much I…
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Home: this must be the place
Home is where I want to be,Pick me up and turn me round,I feel numb, born with a weak heart,I guess I must be having fun Talking Heads – This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) Useful feedback from a trusted ally about my recent Warsaw post got me thinking about the roll that ‘home’…
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The Train Was on Time: Poland and Lithuania by rail
“Soon can mean in one second, Soon can mean in one year.” Heinrich Böll – The Train Was on Time What is this special type of anxiety that travel can provoke? The lady at London City Airport, repeatedly asking the airline staff what time we’ll be boarding – “you said ‘three minutes’ three minutes ago”, then…
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Gdańsk & Malbork: where history happened
Gdańsk is an artist’s dream. Its waterfront a haven of activity, primed for a watercolourist in carmine, vermilion, chestnut, cinnamon, cream and brick. Akin to Bruges or Amsterdam, it suffers from a similar deluge of tourists (says the tourist), noticeably attracting budget airline weekenders. I hear more British accents here than anywhere else in Poland. It’s also…
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Białowieza: Searching for Silence
“Ah, look! Scratch marks from a wolf! They’re fresh, too.” Joana, my guide, points to a fallen branch, across which are clearly visible lacerations. Paw prints create a pattern in the surrounding mud, which even to my untrained eyes looks to be only recently made. From the paw prints, my eyes follow a trail up…
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Warsaw: Contrast & Compromise
My introduction to Warsaw came as an 11 year old through Ian Serraillier’s children’s novel The Silver Sword, a story of hope about a family whose lives are turned upside down by the decimation of the city by the Nazis in 1940. I recall how much I loved the book – probably the first novel…
