Monthly Archives: September 2015
Moldovan Arrival – An Extract From My Book
To set the scene, Hamish and I had just taken the overnight train from Bucharest to Chisinau…… Disorganised & Disorientated We arrived in the Moldovan capital in what can only be described as a severely groggy state. The hard seats had not given the most comfortable of nights and there had also been people constantly […]
Bourne Lucky
Bournemouth claims to be Britain’s sunniest spot. It didn’t let us down this late September weekend.
Tudor Grange Top Of The Range
My family and I have just spent a hugely enjoyable late September weekend in Bournemouth celebrating my Dad’s 80th birthday. More about that to come on another post….. Followers of this blog will know that I rarely write a review of the hotel I have stayed in. More often than not in my experience, the […]
Luxury Travel Fair
Click this link for a 2 for 1 ticket offer for entry to the Olympia show. Could be worth going to meet these guys: Great Railway Journeys Michael Portillo Thursday 5 November, 12pm Michael Portillo spent the summer of 2015 working on the seventh series of Great British Railway Journeys, the fourth of Great Continental […]
Norway By Train (Part One)
I have twice travelled extensively by train in Scandinavia, taking in all four beautiful countries that make up the magical lands. Whilst Denmark, Sweden & Finland are deserving of high accolades, it is Norway that really took my breath away, so much so that I still have a train trip there on my bucket list […]
Krak des Chevaliers
I have visited some brilliant castles on my travels (notably in Wales) but the number one for me by some distance is Syria’s Krak des Chevaliers (castle of the crusaders), situated in Western Syria close to the Lebanese border. It was built up by the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem from 1142 to […]
Umayyad Mosque, Damascus
It is not very often that the beauty of a building brings tears to my eyes, but a rare such occurrence happened to me when visiting the main mosque in Damascus, which has stood since 715 and is considered by many Muslims to be the 4th holiest place in Islam. During the daytime the Umayyad Mosque was […]
Hama Blow
My Lonely Planet described the atrocities of 1982 when the military of the Assad regime brutally crushed a public uprising that emerged out of Syria’s fourth largest city, Hama. Over 25,000 were estimated to have perished in the conflict. How could such an awful thing have happened in the modern era? That history has repeated […]
Hotel Baron, Aleppo
Aleppo is possibly my favourite city visited thus far and my stay in the Hotel Baron counts as one of my favourites too. Sad to read today in the Telegraph that the grand old lady is now a barracks and arms store for Assad’s army. I just pray that one day normality returns to the […]
