Kingston-upon-Hull, or Hull as everybody knows it, has been chosen by Rough Guides as one of its top 10 cities of the world to visit in 2016. As it notes, “things are finally looking up for Hull”, far out in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the East, which is why so few of us go there. It’s… Continue reading
Browsing Category Travel Blog
From old Eastern Bloc crock to cool powerhouse – Leipzig’s soar story
Leipzig, the great city of Bach and Mendelson, has made a remarkable, if belated, advance since the days of the Monday Prayer meetings in St Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche), the peaceful cradle to the peaceful overthrow of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall. (This is an account of my recent visit.) At first the economy… Continue reading →
How Donegal’s brief encounter became permanent promotion
There’s a key scene in Brief Encounter (80th anniversary in 2025), when Laura and Alec reach the station where they are to part for the last time. She (Celia Johnson) tells him (Trevor Howard) “I will walk past here many more times, but not with you.” I don’t know how often they changed advertising posters… Continue reading →
Could Anglo-Saxon Lenborough Hoard lift a county’s tourism?
Buckinghamshire, my adopted county, is a place of minor, restrained tourist attractions. The Chilterns are its main landscape asset, a quiet conglomeration of hill and valley and wood. Not so tall and commanding, but appealing on a small scale, and very convenient to London. There are many attractive small market towns, their old hearts preserved… Continue reading →
British drivers still unsure on Continental roads, surveys show
It was the first night of our holiday in Brittany. Tired, hungry and not concentrating, I drove away from the holiday home we just reached on the wrong side of the road. I realised my mistake within a few hundred metres. There was nobody about, the road was empty and I was able to keep… Continue reading →
Leicester savours a Richard III-inspired tourist boom
Leicester struck touristic gold in 2013 when experts concluded that human bones discovered under a car park belonged “beyond reasonable doubt” to Richard III. The King Richard III Visitor Centre opened in 2014, and the king’s mortal remains are being interred in Leicester Cathedral on March 26th in a tomb of Swaledale fossil stone limestone,… Continue reading →