501 Places

The boxes of white pills were passed around by the curious passengers, who read the home-printed labels with varying levels of interest. Meanwhile, the salesman continued with his monologue. Back ache? Abdominal pains? Infertility? Pregnancy? Depression? Arthritis? Cancer? These pills would cure whatever it is that troubled you, and a packet could be yours for [...]

There are tours of London for just about everyone. You can take the open top bus, you can sail along the river, or even cross it in the yellow Duck tour bus. Think of any theme vaguely connected to London and the chances are that you can do a related walking tour. So when I [...]

Many places lay claim to the much hyped label ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’. A recent entrant to this list of aspiring wonders is the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandi, better known as the Neasden Temple. This unglamorous corner of London is better known to millions as home to two giant symbols of worship of a [...]

I think I know London pretty well these days. I’m in the city most weeks, and a couple of times a month we take a long walk through different neighbourhoods and see what we can find: blue plaques depicting famous residents of the past, surprising remnants of wars or fires that have shaped the city [...]

One of the first topics we will read or hear about Albania is usually the bunkers. Of course there is so much more to this fascinating country than the concrete mushrooms that litter the landscape and I felt it right to write about some of these highlights first. At the same time however a description [...]

The biggest danger of travelling through the Balkans is that you’ll run out of time; there’s just so much to see. Perhaps those who pass through the region as part of an open-ended ‘Grand Tour’ are able to while away the days in one place without a car; we were not so fortunate. Our flight [...]

Looking out over the mass of tiled roofs from the famous city walls it’s hard to believe the traumas that the city of Dubrovnik and its residents has been through in the last 20 years. The near perfect uniformity of the earthy red colour hints at a world recently restored, yet the evidence of a [...]

The first thing that most visitors to Albania will notice is that little has been done to make the place look nice. While further up the Adriatic coast the Ottoman treasures in former Yugoslavia have been carefully and expensively restored, this has not happened in Albania. Apart from the dramatic rainbow coloured transformation of some [...]

Montenegro is one of those places that rarely makes the news. Even in the Yugoslav war it remained largely unaffected, siding firmly with the Serbs before quietly voting for independence in 2006 for the first time in almost a century. The James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ was supposed to be set here; although it is [...]

Of all the places we were due to visit on our trip to the Balkans, I was most excited at the prospect of finally visiting Sarajevo. Famous for the events that triggered the start of the First World War, for Torvill and Dean (especially in my home city of Nottingham) and for the horrific siege [...]