• Mayfair Meanders and on to Little Venice

    Off we trot from the Elizabeth Line’s Bond Street station through Mayfair to the Halcyon Gallery on New Bond Street. I must admit that the easy-going attitude of the Whitechapel Gallery is more my style. Halcyon’s walkie-talkie clad, black suited doormen are perfectly well-mannered, but the formality makes me feel like an intruder. It’s worth…

  • Canary Wharf’s Sci-fi Skyline to Mayfair’s Church of Food

    The Elizabeth line’s Canary Wharf is our destination, with its sci-fi obelisks, very 2001. Soon we’re walking in the cross-rail roof garden where glass and steel meet giant palms, fatsia japonica, spices, cocoa, banana and coffee bean trees. The roof garden sits on the Meridian between the west and east hemispheres and features plants from…

  • Rambling from Liverpool Street to Farringdon

    As we walk from Spitalfields to Farringdon we stumble across a reggae band playing at Bishopsgate, then as if that’s not fun enough there’s the Illumino – City’s installation with its magical flowers. Children run between them to press buttons which play a tune reminiscent of an experimental jazz band. As we pass Liverpool Street…

  • A Three-day Jaunt Tracing London’s Iconic Elizabeth Line – Whitechapel and Spitalfields

    As my chauffeur eases the van between the over-hanging trees down the hill to Abbey Wood campsite, our excitement fizzes like Champagne in a flute. As two Londoners and now happy West Sussex denizens we still get that Champagne fizz when we return as tourists to the city of our birth. No sooner have we…

  • From Veliko Tarnovo’s Historical Sights to the Rural Peace of Dimcha – The end of our Personal Pilgrimage

    One ticket to Veliko Tarnovo’s historical sites lasts for two days. We spend a good portion of that time wandering round in circles searching for them. The Museum of the Bulgarian Revival is a gloriously colourful blue and white building. It is where the Bulgarian Constitution was negotiated by a multitude of representatives at the…

  • Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo – Tsaravets Fortress and Dramatic Gorges

    We arrive at the attractive Tarnovgrad Apartments, complete with gym, right in the middle of Veliko Tarnovo’s old town, round the corner from the Bey House, where the Turkish administrator lived. Redbrick, low-slung, surrounding a lush courtyard garden, it lends a little bit of Turkey to the town. The apartments sit just below the stunning…