501 Places

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 […]

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 […]

There’s something magical about an approaching storm. Of course, you may not feel this way if you’re stuck out in the open without shelter and about to get soaked. Wandering as we were through the lovely historic city of Evora in Portugal’s Alentejo region, we could admire the increasing menace of the blackening sky against […]

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 […]

Portugal was a country that in my world had long stood alone. For many years it had been the only gap on my western European travel map. It may be because it’s out on a limb; you don’t go through Portugal to get to anywhere. So it was a long overdue moment when we touched down […]

While Prague receives many accolades for its beautiful architecture and cheap beer its residents have developed a reputation as some of the least welcoming people in Europe. I’d come across this stereotype both in accounts from several friends who’d been there and in articles I’d read. Stories of miserable faces, a hatred of tourists and the […]

Narrow cobbled streets, a world-famous bridge, an architecturally splendid castle complex and a higher concentration of eye-catching classic buildings than perhaps any of its illustrious rivals. Is Prague the perfect European city? Well, it’s certainly not flawless, but it is perhaps as near to a perfect example as you’re likely to find of what appeals […]

It’s hard to believe that the UK has been smoke-free for less than four years. For much of my adult life I longed for the day when I could enjoy a meal in a restaurant without having my senses of taste and smell overpowered by someone lighting up at a neighbouring table. Once the ban […]

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 […]