Notes on…
Vienna
People get the wrong idea about Vienna and I blame Johann Strauss. His plinky-plonky waltzes have become the soundtrack to…
Vienna
People get the wrong idea about Vienna and I blame Johann Strauss. His plinky-plonky waltzes have become the soundtrack to…
Impressionist Paris
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the…
Impressionist Paris
The spectre of the Charlie Hebdo killings still hangs over Paris. Outside the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, opposite the…
Athens
My first visit to Athens as a student gave me a set of impressions that the present crisis has only…
Athens
My first visit to Athens as a student gave me a set of impressions that the present crisis has only…
The Turquoise Coast
Legend has it that Mark Antony considered Turkey’s Turquoise Coast so beautiful that, in about 32 bc, he gave it…
The Turquoise Coast
Legend has it that Mark Antony considered Turkey’s Turquoise Coast so beautiful that, in about 32 bc, he gave it…
Sicily
Syracuse is a handsome place, steeped in a rich historical broth. At the tip sits Ortygia, an island offshoot, which…
Fez
Fez is one of the seven medieval wonders of the world. An intact Islamic city defined by its circuit of…
Venice
I arrived in Venice believing it would reek of sewage. It didn’t. The walk into the centre went through cobbled…
Glasgow School of Art
I was working on the final edit of my book — a fictionalised account of the year Charles Rennie Mackintosh…
Galway
The Go Galway bus from Dublin sounds an unlikely pleasure, but it is both comfortable and punctual. There is free…
Hunting
This time three years ago, I hadn’t jumped a single thing for almost ten years. This season, I am happily…
The Isle of Wight
Every day the Isle of Wight becomes England’s smallest county: when-ever the tide comes in, the island steals the crown…
Botswana
As a boy camping with my father on safaris deep in the African bush, there were no tents involved; we…
The Northern Lights
Getting here took a long time. First a flight to Seattle, then a connection to Fairbanks, followed by a coach…
Cider-making
The fabulous October weather is now just a memory but it made for a golden, old-fashioned apple day down in…
The Stockholm Grand
We’ve all been there, I’m sure. You work your pan off to get everything done in time. You count down…
Hotels for dogs
The first time I checked in to a French hotel with a golden retriever — his name was Gregory, predecessor…
Malta
Fate occasionally leads travellers to places they had never planned to visit. Into this category, for me, fell Malta. I…
The Alps
For a melancholy example of the power of celebrity, head to the Alps. Since Michael Schumacher’s accident last December in…
Gibraltar
The British overseas territory of Gibraltar, or, as some would have it, the wart on the bottom of the Iberian…
Portmeirion
My husband and I stay for a week most summers in Portmeirion, the strangest and loveliest ‘village’ in the world.…
Barbados
Driving up the west coast, from Bridge-town to Speightstown, you soon see why people around here call this the Platinum…
