Tag: Art
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Sur Le Pont D’Avignon

I’ve wanted to go to the Palais des Papes in Avignon since I read Charles Dickens’ travelogue about visiting it on a cold winter’s day, with his wife and children, before repacking them all into carriage and horses to continue to Genoa. We tried once ages ago, our teenage children with us, in blistering August…
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Gracious Genoa Proves to be a Mediterranean Gem

Slaloming round Genoa’s spaghetti looped motorways always brings out the startle reflex in me. But Seán, insouciant as ever, just rolls with it. When we leave the motorway at Pegli, a suburb just north of Genoa’s centre, I hold my breath as he squeezes the van between mopeds, motorbikes, cars, pedestrians out for their evening…
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Luminous Lumbier – A Beautiful Basque Town
My well-battered book map of Spain is a go-to when we need a campsite with a view. I just look for the tent symbol and a green edged road. That’s how I find Camping Iturbero, in Lumbier. By the River Salazar and surrounded by the foothills of the Pyrenees, the town clings to the cliff…
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Bounteous Bantry
As usual Bantry has so many gifts to offer, not least the wonderful parking spot in the hotel grounds, which were once part of the grand estate of Bantry House, which lies beside it. This means that there’s sub-tropical planting, along with woods of hazel, oak, wych-elm and willow. The sea-fed lagoon hosts the resident…
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L’Ametlla de Mar – Vertigo Enhancing Tracks over the Sea, Underground Poseidon Fields and a Real Fishing Town
Our first glimpse of L’Ametlla is not a postcard pretty one, the AP7 motorway and railway run against the back of the town and concrete apartments. But the minute we see Camping Nàutic we’re won over. The terraced campsite is shaded by Mediterranean pines and olives, and it looks out on a sea that deserves…
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Pocket Friendly ways to while away the time on the Euston Road and a traditional Italian Restaurant in Paddington
We always think of major cities as pocket heavy destinations. Euston Road bucks the trend. First there’s Gothic St. Pancras Station and hotel, which takes opulence to its extreme and is great for a drink, or to take in the poet, John Betjeman’s statue, or the giant soldier kissing his partner farewell. Free entry…
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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…
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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…