Tolkien, the feature film, follows the author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, two of the greatest fantasy stories in the English language, from his schooldays in Birmingham, through his days as a student at Exeter College, Oxford, to the First World War, when he served as a soldier. The film was directed… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel Blog
Early risers walk easy on Turkey’s newest long distance path
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 →
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 →
Liverpool celebrated Summer of Love with new attractions
Liverpool celebrated 2017’s outstanding nostalgia anniversary. “50 Summers of Love” celebrates the brief and localised ascendancy of the flower over the gun, the pacifying power of rock music and, er, free love. San Francisco can claim authorship, but it was some boys from Liverpool who gave us Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and All you… Continue reading →