The Guardian has blown the Night Manager’s filming locations cover. This elegant BBC production based on the John le Carre novel flitted from sumptuous Alpine setting to smart hotel verandah, from a real Istanbul to a make believe Egypt displaced to somewhere else in North Africa. The location of one pivotal scene, where the Tom… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel Blog
La Rochelle – green city of the sea, and Inspector’s Maigret’s Simenon
La Rochelle strives to be different. Facing the world on the Atlantic coast, it has always stood apart from the rest of France, one of the great seafaring cities. With typically French poetic verve, one of La Rochelle’s unofficial names is “Daughter of the Sea.” The English crown ruled it, between 1154 and 1224. It… Continue reading →
No gear change for Barbados, top island in the sun
2016 is the year to celebrate Garfield Sobers, probably the greatest all-round cricketer who ever played the game. He was born and still lives on the Caribbean island of Barbados, and that connection is reason enough to pay a visit. I suspect, however, that this scintillating island would be noticed and remembered by more people this… Continue reading →
St Petersburg, City of War and Peace where bedtime is abolished
St Petersburg is vying for a place among the world’s great short-break destinations, after the BBC’s War and Peace. I remember this city from long ago, as black and white Leningrad. But I much prefer the remastered Technicolor version, with its fine palaces, canals to match Amsterdam, wide boulevards on a par with Paris, and… Continue reading →
BA drops plan to power flights with municipal rubbish
Just three weeks after the world’s governments signed a deal to cut Co2 emissions to slow global warming, BA has announced that it has been forced to mothball a project to create 16m gallons of jet fuel from London’s rubbish every year. It cites a number of reasons, (speaking to the Guardian) including low crude oil prices,… Continue reading →
A new age of rural railways promises big benefits
As well as building better defences against floods, in response to the destructive storms of December 2015, the UK government, and the governments of Wales and Scotland, should consider building new railway lines. Some of these lines would back up routes closed by the waters. There is one obvious candidate for a new link. Rail… Continue reading →