Tag Archives: europe

Tyneham: the British village that time forgot

Imagine receiving a notice to say that you must leave your family home within the next month in order to ‘help the national war effort’. Few would have begrudged the cause in the autumn of 1943, but for the villages of Tyneham in Dorset this would still have been a letter that they hoped they […]

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Monaco: another day, another country

We had rushed out of our hotel in Nice to make it to the station in time. In our haste we had left our passports in the room. I sat on the train for the 20 minute journey feeling annoyed with myself. Would I regret this? We were entering another country after all. Surely Monaco […]

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A night at Chez Papa, Paris

First it was the Asian guy. He was sitting at the table next to us when we arrived and had just polished off his plate of whatever it was. Although he’d done a good job there was enough left to see that it was probably a good choice. After exchanging greetings (it’s the done thing […]

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Why Zaragoza should be part of any trip to Spain

Zaragoza has a tough time getting itself noticed. Almost halfway between Madrid and Barcelona, thousands of people on the high speed AVE trains pass through Zaragoza every day as they make their way between the two Spanish giants. Yet this city of 700,000 people registers on only a few tourists’ radars as they that pass […]

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Merida: a Roman marvel in western Spain

Merida was intended as little more than an overnight stop. We were travelling eastwards from Lisbon; it was Easter Sunday and the transport connections, poor at the best of times between Portugal and Spain, could not be trusted to take us beyond Merida in a single day. Being such a major holiday we also decided […]

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Crap Travel Diaries: stranded in Ciudad Real

It was entirely my fault. I had looked for a place to stop a few hours east of the Portuguese border. Ciudad Real immediately jumped out of the map at me. “Royal City”: it sounded promising. I further compounded my mistake with a quick search on Google images: a grand looking plaza, a few fine […]

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Paris through other people’s lenses: Photos of people taking photos

We spent yesterday walking the streets of Paris and visiting the famous spots we’ve had the pleasure to see many times before. Paris is choc-full of instantly recognisable monuments and symbols, and on a sunny day is a photographer’s dream. Add to the mix tens of thousands of tourists on any one day and you […]

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Henry Moore at Hatfield: a Philistine’s review

The Henry Moore exhibition at Hatfield House opens on April 23rd and will run throughout the summer months. It is the largest exhibition of Moore’s distinctive work ever shown in a private house. I was involved in organising a preview event for the exhibition recently and as a result was invited to attend. A great […]

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10 reasons why people hate London

I have a soft spot for London. I enjoy living a 20 minute train ride away from the city and being able to venture in for a wander through the streets, for a meal or to see one of the daily events that takes place somewhere in its vast sprawl. But it wasn’t always like […]

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London walks: Hammersmith to St Pancras

Making the most of a glorious sunny day, we got off the tube at Hammersmith and started walking towards the river with no fixed plans in mind. A few hours later we had arrived at St Pancras Station, feet aching but having seen a wonderful cross-section of London life across many of its different neighbourhoods. […]

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