A few years back I thought my skiing days were over when Graham announced halfway through a week in Ischgl that flying down mountains strapped to thin bits of metal was not something he considered a particularly safe, let alone enjoyable, way to pass the time. But then family came to my rescue and gave me…
Category: Europe
King Ludwig’s Linderhof
King Ludwig II of Bavaria lived a strange life. Forced to surrender the independence of his kingdom to the all-consuming Prussia, reclusive and sexually confused, he sought consolation in the theatrical scores of Wagner and fantastical architectural projects. The palaces he built are among Bavaria’s most popular tourist attractions but for the king they sustained…
Dusseldorf: The architecture of MedienHafen
Contemporary architecture has given a new lease of life to Dusseldorf’s old harbour. The district known as MedienHafen features striking buildings by such world famous architects as Frank Gehry, David Chipperfield, Joe Coenen, Steven Holl and Claude Vasconi. On a day blessed with beautiful blue skies, it would be the conclusion to our walk through the…
Dusseldorf: A visit to Schloss Benrath
Dusseldorf isn’t blessed with palaces and historic houses but it does have Schloss Benrath, a summer retreat built for royalty in the late 18th century. It was our principal destination on a cold and misty December Saturday. Near our city centre hotel, the Hofgarten park looked fresh and inviting, its leaf-less trees throwing long shadows…
Dusseldorf: Art, museums and memorials
Dusseldorf may not be one of Germany’s picture postcard cities but it’s only an hour’s hop by air from London and has a festive Christmas market to brighten those depressing December days. Our base for a weekend break was the modern and comfortable Melia on the edge of the park known as the Hofgarten, a short…
Bateman’s and a walk through Sussex
A sweltering weekend offered the chance to escape the urban streets of London for a hike in the glorious heart of rural Sussex. We opted for a 9-mile walk from Stonegate to Robertsbridge, taking in the manorial home of author Rudyard Kipling – Bateman’s. And it was a walk that rekindled a few memories too. The…
Whitstable: Food, beer and sunshine
Our day out in Whitstable was accompanied by wall-to-wall sunshine and scorching temperatures. If only all our visits to the English seaside were in such glorious weather… On the north Kent coast and long popular with the bucket and spade brigade, Whitstable’s also become a trendy destination for Londoners seeking fine food. The town’s famous…
The memorials of Berlin
From the top of the Panoramapunkt viewing platform at Potsdamer Platz, it’s easy to see the grey slabs of Berlin’s Holocaust memorial on Ebertstrasse far below. The memorial was something I’d put on my ‘to see’ list because it was still being built when we were last in the city back in January 2004. This was…
Berlin: Prenzlauer Berg and Friedrichshain
In the district of Prenzlauer Berg, in what was once Communist East Berlin, is the undistinguished open space of Mauerpark. But it comes into its own on a Sunday when it hosts a famous flea market. It gave us the chance to explore a Berlin beyond the historic centre and the popular tourist attractions we’d…
Berlin: Palaces and Pride
In 2004 we went on our first holiday together, to Berlin. It was January, blisteringly cold and snow fell periodically on the grey city. But I fell in love with it. We always said we’d return to see the German capital in summer and we finally got round to it in July 2016, when we found a…
To the bottom of Italy’s heel
Italy famously looks like a boot and during our stay in the south we drove to the bottom of the heel that goes by the name of the Salento peninsula, to the town of Santa Maria di Leuca. It’s a peninsula of solar farms, polytunnels, olive groves and vineyards, orchards and fields of vegetables, derelict farm…
A week in Gallipoli on the coast of Puglia
The Puglian seaside town of Gallipoli looked historic, elegant and characterful in the photos I found on Google ahead of our stay. But as a seasoned traveller, I should’ve known that marketing was at play. Lonely Planet had warned me that it was a working town, where fishing is still a mainstay of the local…
The extravagant baroque of Lecce, Puglia
Puglia is poor. Driving from north to south, we witnessed grim estates on the outskirts of Brindisi, derelict buildings by the score and lots of litter. But the sun was shining and bushes bursting with colourful flowers lined the pot-holed motorway. The city of Lecce’s suburbs were as ropey as Brindisi’s but it was the…
The hill-top town of Locorotondo in Puglia
We have TV presenter Alex Polizzi to thank for our trip to Puglia. Her Channel 5 travel documentary a few years ago highlighted a string of treasures in southern Italy that we just had to visit. Our stops at Matera, Lecce and Alberobello were all a result of watching the programme. And so was Locorotondo,…
Life among the trulli of Alberobello, Puglia
Puglia is famous for its strange, conical-roofed trulli. They pepper the landscape, peek out from olive groves and stand lonely in the fields. But Alberobello is the place to see them in all their glory. In the heart of the town, nestled on both sides of a shallow valley, they pack the streets and alleys….