Travels on Planet Earth - A blog
Thousands of years ago in Britain people liked to erect giant stones in circles. Theories abound about how and why but no one is exactly sure. Was it religion? Was it science? Clearly it was a matter of some importance given that it would have taken considerable effort to achieve. Whatever the reason, the engineering [...]
Inveraray, Scotland; June 2009 The population density of the United Kingdom is one of the highest in the world – there are 61 million people packed into a rather small island. You wouldn’t know it in the hills of Scotland. About five out of six people in Britain live in England and within England, the [...]
Today brings another bumper collection of links to great travel content on the web. I hope you enjoy it – let me know in the comments. If I link to you below, please pay it forward and give link love to someone else. Debates, trends & reflections Island caretaker. I was less than complimentary in [...]
Advice for travellers planning to visit Douz in the Tunisian Sahara for the annual Sahara Festival. I recently heard from Greetje from Holland who is researching a trip to the Sahara Festival in Douz in Tunisia. She had seen my Photo Friday entry from the festival and wanted to know if I had any advice. [...]
Krak des Chevaliers, Syria; July 2008 Okay, they are not actually Crusaders and Saracens – they’re my friends and actually they’re both Arabic. The ‘swords’ in question are bits of blade grass. But we are at a genuine 11th century crusader castle in Syria. How cool is that? It took a long time to get [...]
We have returned to London in the glorious throes of spring, with blue skies and brilliant sunshine and the signs of new life throbbing all around us. As we walk through the parks, the lawns and canopy of new leaves in the tree tops seem unnaturally green in their jewel-like hues. The meadows are alive [...]
London, UK; June 2007 If a map of the United Kingdom marks a certain area as ‘forest’, it pays to check what is meant by that. There may not actually be any trees. In medieval times, the word ‘forest’ was used to denote deer hunting grounds. The Caledonian forest in Scotland, for example, is mostly [...]
British Museum exhibition on Babylon: Myth and Reality. In many ways Babylon is more an idea than a real place. There were other city states in Mesopotamia but you don’t see Sumer as a major preoccupation of art through the centuries. So what does Babylon have that the others don’t? The answer is easy of [...]
When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney One of the wonderful things about London is how much the place is steeped in history. No matter where you are in London, it seems you can’t turn around without stumbling on something of historical interest. Our Christmas Day walk through the East End was no [...]
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