My new book is now available from Amazon. Travelling By Train Across The Balkans chronicles my trips over the past twenty years or so in the intoxicating region. It features train travel in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Northern Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and European Turkey. The Balkan Peninsula conjures up images of […]
We arrived on an early October Thursday via Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen (the far less frenetic Istanbul airport on the Asian side of the great city). We had actually stayed the previous night at an airport hotel situated there – a first for Hamish & I. This was our second visit to the Georgian capital having […]
I first visited Prague in 1992 on the tail end of my third and final interrail trip. It was love at first sight, never before had I ever been so smitten by a place. The rattling old trams up to the castle, the amazing views across the rooftops down to the serene Vltava River and […]
One of my favourite views in the world to brighten this wet Monday morning in the UK.
The need for speed has seen Europe investing for many years now in ultra-modern rail networks with state-of-the-art trains running on them. The likes of the TGVs (Train à Grande Vitesse) of France, ICE (Intercity Express) trains of Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc. and Spain’s AVEs (Alta Velocidad Española). The UK is also now catching up […]
Borjomi to Bakuriani Train in Georgia The Kukushka is a 37.2-kilometre narrow-gauge railway line linking the National Park town of Borjomi to the village and ski resort of Bakuriani in Georgia. The construction of this 900 mm line began in 1897, when Georgia was still part of the Russian Empire and was completed in 1902. […]
Aleppo, Syria – population 1.8 million (estimated) Vying with Damascus to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world (6,000 years and still counting despite the recent devastation), Aleppo became my favourite from the moment that we met in May 2009. I had travelled by train from Istanbul to Adana in Turkey and then […]
