Category: Travel

Strangers on a Train

It is April 2015, so pre-blog, I take a train to Berwick-on-Tweed to meet friends who have driven from East Anglia. So you are in the picture, as the army is fond of saying, we plan to walk down the coast to Alnwick.

Georgia On My Mind

Eleven years ago (2009) I went with a few friends to Georgia in the Caucasus for a holiday. We took a flight to Tbilisi from Heathrow and when we walked into the baggage hall I knew what was going to happen.

Sweetness and Light

“The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light … He who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and the will of God prevail.“ (Culture and Anarchy, 1869, Matthew Arnold)

Gap Year

In late September 1972 I arrived by train at Rheims. It was the beginning of an eventful gap year.

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Categorised as Travel

Catch a Clipper

In 1961 you either had to have a vaccination certificate or quarantine for fourteen days if you arrived in the US from the UK. But you know that, because you read it here in 2017. It looks like next year that’s what will happen again; that’s if an effective vaccine is found. It’s a funny… Continue reading Catch a Clipper

Trieste

The very name, Trieste, is redolent of sadness: I’m thinking of Françoise Sagan’s novel. I went for a Ryanair weekend in 2008 and, to avoid repetition, you can read about it in a post misleadingly titled Tahiti .

A Russian Ramble

Let’s go for a virtual walk round St Petersburg.  Jean-François Thomas de Thomon is a French neo-classical architect who designed the Stock Exchange in St Petersburg. Come over to Alexander Park and look at this fine bronze group, The Architects, installed in 2011. Do you recognise Thomas de Thomon? No you don’t because the sculptor… Continue reading A Russian Ramble

The Easter Egg

I hoped to wake up in Skopje this morning; in the Balkans following in the footsteps of Saki who was there before the First World War as foreign corespondent for The Morning Post; a warm, sunny Easter weekend ahead.