Travel Stories

Bristol, England: A photo essay

17 Feb 2025 | 3 min read | 1

Like so many cities and towns in England, the port city of Bristol in the southwest sits on its history. Here is a city where human occupancy of the area dates back to the Palaeolithic era, was settled by the Romans (Bath is nearby) and Normans, has been the home to merchants and traders, ne'er-do-wells and patrician businessmen. One of the latter – the 17th century... > Read more

Abergavenny, Wales: Celebrated in song?

8 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

Reg Smith from London was a decent looking teenager who got caught up in that first wave of rock'n'roll in the late Fifties. He was singing in a club (as Reg Patterson) when he was spotted by the impresario-cum-svengali Larry Parnes. Parnes knew a good thing when he saw it – it was taking the pocket money of impressionable teens – and so he built a stable of young British... > Read more

Abergavenny

POSTCARDS FROM EUROPE # 1: Bucharest, Romania

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

Over the Christmas-New Year period 2024-2025 we travelled to Scotland for a family reunion then went to London and finally Bristol where my wife Megan has a niece and her family. As I did when we travelled in the time of Covid for three months (see here), I filed a series of weekly columns for the Listener. They don't appear to be online at the Listener so I reproduce them here as Postcards... > Read more

Turda, Romania: The salt of the earth

2 Feb 2025 | 5 min read

Our driver Mihai turns the van down a narrow street, we bump across a broken parking area and he announces we are there. Where we are is a bit harder to be exact about, but we have driven an hour or so south of the city of Cluj-Napoca in northwest Romania to get here. Which is where we want to be to take in a most extraordinary sight. We turn a corner, walk down a wide lane and an... > Read more

Bucharest, Romania: The museum of oppression

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

If you wanted to create a Museum of Communism somewhere, you could hardly go past Bucharest, the capital of Romania, for the ideal location. This is a country that was bent under the yoke of the ruthless dictatorial communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu for decades until his sudden fall in December 1989. Ceaușescu seemed an unlikely character to rise to a position of power: he was of... > Read more

POSTCARDS FROM EUROPE #2: Braemar, Scotland

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

Voices affect me first: in Edinburgh I hear the soft cadences of my mother and uncle John; further west and north the harder sound of Jock and Alice. Over Christmas we were back in Scotland again. Almost three years ago we were doing something like this: buttoning up for the chill wind and snow flurries. It was the time of Omicron and post-Brexit blues in Britain, and -- the afternoon... > Read more

Braemar, Scotland: The story of the stone

2 Feb 2025 | 1 min read

Scotland has no shortage of ruined castles and churches, ancient sites, graveyards, battlefields and stones marking significant people, places or events. On the way into the historic village of Braemar in central Scotland from the east -- in the Grampian Mountains and a gateway to the Highlands -- there is a marker very easy to miss. It's a white stone and the plaque says it was placed... > Read more

Cam Ye O'er Frae France (by the Whistlebinkies)

Peterhead Prison, Scotland: The graveyard of hope

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

“In and out on the same day,” the guy in uniform at Peterhead Prison said to me. “That's rare.” No doubt it's a joke he'd used on visitors before, but it's a good one if you only hear it once. Peterhead Prison on the stormy coast of Scotland north of Aberdeen is a forbidding fortress and was in operation right up to 2013. It's in a cold place and you can... > Read more

Dunnottar Castle, Scotland: The stories of the stones

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

The imposing Dunnottar Castle, about half an hour south of Aberdeen, is one of those picturesque ruins Scotland is famous for. On a precipitous rocky outcrop with the cold North Sea below the sheer walls and cliffs, and linked to the mainland by a narrow bridge of land, Dunnottar would have been easy to defend in medieval times. What we see on this day – with a brisk cold wind... > Read more

Land o the Leal, by Grey Dogs w Kathryn Joseph

Elgin Cathedral, Scotland: A photo essay

2 Feb 2025 | 2 min read

In the far north of Scotland about halfway between Fraserburgh and Inverness is the city of Elgin, home to one of the most spectacular ruins in a country renown for them. This was Elgin Cathedral, and at its peak was the second largest cathedral in the land. It was the only cathedral in Scotland with three towers. A church on this site was started in the early part of the 13th century... > Read more

POSTCARDS FROM EUROPE #3: London, England

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

New Year’s Eve never really meant much to me, even as a teenager. All that forced levity. I’m no Grinch and if it’s your thing, then knock yourself out. As many do. But this last one was different: we were in London staying near my oldest son Julian and his wife Natasha, and wanted to put the past couple of years behind us. Two years ago the Auckland floods wiped out... > Read more

POSTCARDS FROM EUROPE #4: Bristol, England

2 Feb 2025 | 3 min read

When Black Lives Matter protestors in Bristol pulled the statue of 17th century philanthropist, merchant, MP and slavery profiteer Sir Edward Colston off its plinth in 2020 and dumped it in the harbour, it might have seemed like the cathartic end of on-going protests about the city commemorating such a divisive figure. But it was just another instalment in the city coming to terms with its... > Read more

Arthur's Pass, South Island, New Zealand: The silence of the lands

26 Apr 2024 | 4 min read

It was the strangest thing. We went inside for 20 minutes and when we came out everyone had disappeared. There was also no traffic either way down the long road. Arthur's Pass Village on Highway 73 through the centre of the South Island sits a bit more west than the halfway point between Christchurch and the West Coast, right there in the Southern Alps. It was a warm Friday... > Read more

Broadfield Garden, New Zealand: In-A-Gadda-Da-Canterbury

24 Apr 2024 | 2 min read

The seemingly endless, straight road out of Christchurch to Rolleston cuts through the flat and often undifferentiated Canterbury Plain of farms punctuated by houses and sheds. But along Selwyn Road, an offshoot from State Highway 1, amidst the fields and paddocks is a property hidden from view by a high green wall of hedging. And behind it lies an unexpected and quite magical 3.5... > Read more

McMinnville, Oregon: Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose folly

8 Jan 2024 | 5 min read

In a flat field outside the small town of McMinnville in northwest Oregon is a building so large that cars visibly slow on the highway so the occupants can take a look at it. Even in America -- the birthplace of bigness -- this enormous squat A-frame with its frontage of glass panels is an outstanding structure. And it houses one of the biggest and most eccentric aircraft in the world.... > Read more

Alberobello, Italy: Toytown in late summer

16 Apr 2023 | 5 min read

The undistinguished slice of autostrada is almost deserted. Just us, and a gun-metal grey Mercedes -- a minute ago but a dot in the rear-view mirror -- disappearing into the distance ahead. We're in no such hurry so pull off to the Adriatic Coast which has been somewhere to our right this past hour as we have driven up this east coast of southern Italy The dismal motels and... > Read more

Balmoral Castle, Scotland: One sugar for me, ma'am

12 Mar 2023 | 3 min read

In early 2022, because we were passing we decided to drop in at the Queen's house, Balmoral Castle, in the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands. Her Majesty wasn't in, but with time to kill on our way to nearby Inverness, we spent a very pleasant morning on this 20,000 hectare estate which the Queen has used for private family holidays in summer, away from royal duties.... > Read more

Ellora, India: Photos of the air around the majesty

13 Feb 2023 | 1 min read

The remarkable thing about the temples at Ellora in Maharashtra state, India isn't in what you see. It's in what you don't. These temple complexes with annexes, tall shrines ornately carved and deep caves where Buddhist, Hindu and Jaina figures dominate the massive spaces were carved between the 5th and 13th centuries. They are among the great wonders of the world for their... > Read more

Thillana, by Jyotsna Srikanth

Fort William, Scotland: He knocked the bugger off

23 Jan 2023 | 2 min read

Henry Alexander wasn't a heroic adventurer in the manner of the great mountaineers, but he did pull off one remarkable feat: he went to the top of Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Britain. Yes, a lot of people before and after him achieved that but Alexander did it in a unique manner. He drove to the top and back, through the valleys and cervices, across the open spaces and over ragged... > Read more

Changi, Singapore: The art, the park and other things

23 Jan 2023 | 3 min read

Anyone who has spent time there will confirm that when Singapore decides to build something, it gets on and does it with speed, efficiency and sometimes a real flair for design. Whether it be the huge Tampines Mall – a spacious suburban shopping centre for locals with a library overlooking the football stadium, an indoor free cinema, supermarket, dozens of hawker food stalls and... > Read more