Swansea has been shortlisted as one of the candidates for the City of Culture, 2017 Craning my neck I could see the dreamer’s window in one of the most famous back bedrooms in literature. From here, at no 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, a 20th Century superstar looked down over the town to the “twin tongued…carol-singing sea” and… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel
A link to my pieces on France
A link to my articles on France.
Amsterdam regains the Rijksmuseum, with an art-themed Andaz hotel to match
I was in Amsterdam recently, as the guest of Hyatt at their new Andaz Amsterdam Prinsengracht. If ever there was a hotel that refleted the culture and history of the city around it, it is this, set on a canal in a former city library. It opened (in 2012) just before the great Rijksmuseum, where builders were… Continue reading →
InterContinental’s grand new Hotel Dieu rises out of old Marseille
Marseille, for so long the dark, dowdy, run-down and edgy seaport on France’s Mediterranean coast, has been transformed in this, its year as European capital of culture (2013). Is this the year, too, when this renewed and restored city finds a hotel to match its proud new status? Time will tell, but the InterContinental Marseille –… Continue reading →
Electric car Twizy delivers green driving in the New Forest
We often see new cars advertised against the background of a beauty spot, the implication being that you have the freedom of such wonderful places if you buy that particular model. It is a spurious and somewhat insincere message if, like most people, you live in a town or city and must drive many miles… Continue reading →
How Abu Dhabi builds hotels, and keeps its hawksbill turtles
A wonderful thing will happen this spring at dead of night down on the shore in front of the Park Hyatt in Abu Dhabi. An ancient natural cycle – something repeated over many, many thousands of years – will be completed when a hawksbill turtle hauls herself onto the beach and labouriously crawls to… Continue reading →