Long-distance paths. Now aren’t they a particularly British thing? Not really. France has a most intricate spiders web of ways, the Chemins de Grandes Randonnées, threading throughout the countryside, marked with regular flashes of colour painted onto rocks, on buildings, posts, or anything that stays still. Spain draws the various converging arms of the St… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel Blog
Rotterdam’s revival – how direct London trains will boost Holland’s second city
Jan 2019 update. Eurostar is to start a third daily direct service from London to Rotterdam and Amsterdam on 11 June, 2019. The existing two services a day have been selling well since they were introduced through the Channel Tunnel on 4 April, 2018. Fares on the high-speed rail service will continue to start at £35 one way, with… Continue reading →
The great (rail) way west – to Pembrokeshire
The holiday express: through trains will run from Paddington to Tenby and West Wales in summer of 2019, continuing a link which began in the days of Queen Victoria. “If there be any one train more than another, the sight of which stirs the patriotic pride of an enthusiastic Great Westernite, it is the Tenby express leaving… Continue reading →
How Guernsey welcomes the world with Potato Peel Pie
The film was actually shot at locations in London, Bristol and Devon. The scene where German soldiers march through the streets of Guernsey was filmed in Bideford, in Devon. In Bristol, Princes Wharf, alongside a dockside museum, with cranes, steam railway and transit shed, was the location for a 1940s harbour – to represent Weymouth Docks. In London the cast… Continue reading →
How to beat the redeye airport morning blues
I never had to get up seriously early until I was into my 20s. Then the redeye mornings started in earnest. These days, as a species, we –children included–are now doing more getting up at unearthly hours to set off on long journeys than probably any people since our distantly wandering ancestors. Although I also… Continue reading →
Never mind the weather: Patrick Leigh Fermor takes meteorological liberties in A Time of Gifts
The man widely regarded as one of the finest British travel writers of the past century set off from London 84 years ago next week on his epic hike across Europe. It was weather just like this week (late November, the start of December 2017). Just above freezing, snow flurries, a biting north wind. Except… Continue reading →