After spending a few days in big, bold Boston, Providence in Rhode Island comes as a bit of a relief. The capital of the USA’s smallest state has a population of fewer than 200,000 souls and is pleasant and walkable, full of street art and history. It’s also an example of urban regeneration done well….
Tag: Museums
The industrial relics of the Ruhr
The Ruhr was Germany’s economic powerhouse for years but with heavy industry in decline, the big question has been what to do with all those old coal mines and steel and iron works. While many have been cleared, several sites have been saved as a reminder of the region’s importance to the nation. Intriguingly, nature…
Oaxaca – creativity and colour
Oaxaca must rank as one of the most colourful cities on earth, offering rewards with every step. Its buildings are painted a multitude of glorious shades and it has some of the best street art in Mexico. Famous for its Day of the Dead celebrations at the beginning of November, in the weeks leading up…
Mexico City – that sinking feeling
There aren’t many cities in the world I’ve struggled to like but Mexico’s capital is one. Perhaps it’s my age? These days I find it harder to cope with chaos, noise and millions upon millions of people all being in the same place at the same time. It’s one reason I went off London. Mexico…
Mérida – colonial capital of the Yucatán
It’s hot in Mérida. And very humid. Mould clings to the stucco on its colourful buildings, mosquitoes bite and I cross the road to find a spot of shade whenever I can. After the relative cool of Mexico city, it comes as a bit of a shock. The capital of the Yucatán Peninsula, it was…
The mystical city of Teotihuacán in Mexico
The ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacán has striking pyramids and grand avenues, yet little or nothing is known of the civilisation responsible for its construction. But whoever they were, you can’t fault the scale of their ambition. The city contains the third largest pyramid ever built – the mighty Pyramid of the Sun – and…
The city of Salta and its Inca children
Salta in the north west of Argentina is a jumping off point for adventures in the Andes, but there’s more to the city than tour operators competing for tourist pesos and coaches heading west. True, we used it as a base for a trip to the Salinas Grandes salt flats but we also found interesting…
History and waterfalls in Quebec City
If Montreal is the brazen youth of the French-Canadian province of Quebec, the capital Quebec City is the maiden aunt. Staid, proper and well turned out, it’s also packed with history and great architecture. At times it’s got the look and feel of an ancient French village. But this is also where the indigenous people…
A spring break in Montreal
Quebec’s largest and most energetic city has a charming old town, great bars and restaurants, but also a touch of the chaotic about it. It’s not a city that’s easy to fall in love with. Much like Toronto, it feels like it’s been thrown together with little thought to the whole. A motorway ploughs through…
Cologne and its Christmas markets
Nobody does Christmas or Christmas markets quite like Germany. So when I asked my friend and expert Nicky for tips on where to find the best, I wasn’t surprised when she recommended Cologne. The largest city in North-Rhine Westphalia may be best known for its imposing Gothic cathedral but, having spent a December weekend there,…
A weekend in Belfast
Belfast was synonymous with bomb blasts and shootings in my youth, a city where Ireland’s Unionist and Nationalist traditions clashed violently. Today, thanks to the peace process, it’s very much on the tourist trail and not shy about being the birth place of the Titanic. The conflict that raged for around 50 years, called The…
24 hours in Malaga
Malaga has a reputation for being a jumping off point for holidays elsewhere in Andalusia rather than a destination in itself. But it was bonkers when we visited, full of tourists who’d decided it was worth a day or two of their precious vacations. And while it doesn’t have a wealth of things to see,…
Cordoba’s Mezquita, an architectural masterpiece
The magnificent Mezquita in Cordoba is without doubt one of the world’s great buildings, once a mosque and now a cathedral. It’s also somewhere to shelter from the city’s oven-like heat, for even at the end of September the thermometer was recording late 30s centigrade. I really struggle with the heat and spent much of…
Discovering Krakow’s war
Krakow is synonymous with the Second World War. It’s the city of Oskar Schindler, of the horrors of the ghetto and the death camps. Some miles out of town lies that most infamous of concentration camps, Auschwitz, where up to one-sixth of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were killed. It’s a museum now and…
Exploring Krakow, night and day
You’ve got to love a city when two can eat a hearty meal in a city centre restaurant, consume two beers each and be charged a total of less than £30 for the pleasure. Welcome to Krakow… OK, our choice of eatery wasn’t exactly Michelin-starred but, while Restauracja Polska must have had a particularly unimaginative…