This morning, December 8th, 2024, we heard that Bashar al-Assad’s unspeakable government in Syria had fallen. This was a piece I posted in 2010, just before the country entered its age of agony, when it was still open to tourists. ___________________________________ We stood on the high, haughty ramparts of Crac des Chevaliers. The rest of… Continue reading
Posts by Gareth Huw Davies
Can rewilding call back the cuckoo?
The rewilding movement is burgeoning. But how much can be restored? Could species threatened by climate change soon be gone for good? Walk around my village in Southern England, and it’s a rare day when I don’t see the red kite gliding nonchalantly overhead on wide wings. I even see this familiar scavenger… Continue reading →
City of the high thrills – take the train to Lincoln
Lincoln is one of England’s finest old cities, dominated by its glorious cathedral, sitting high on a hill. But it has many smaller-scale marvels too, as I discovered. My don’t-miss list includes one very steep street, an original tank, an all-cheese restaurant, and the room where Tom Hanks stayed when he starred in the Da Vinci code.
Continue reading →The bicentenary of John Keats death in Rome, 23rd February 2021
One of the most poignant places in Rome has nothing to do with imperial grandeur, or centuries of accumulated art and architecture. It’s where a doomed 25 year old lived his last six months. Standing in the room where John Keats died of TB in 1821 was intensely moving, while everyday life continued just outside… Continue reading →
The Singular Case of the Portsmouth Doctor – or Sherlock takes the train
Feb 23rd, 2021. Another in my series of easy, post-lockdown trips to take in the UK. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle set his Sherlock Holmes stories all over England, but you can follow the trail of both Doyle and Holmes, without leaving London. If you want to make one trip out of the capital, it has… Continue reading →
Five years on from Paris, where is the urgency?
Five years on from the Paris Agreement on climate, there is still more talk than action. Levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to rise. Green schemes should be all around us. But they are not. Just before Christmas I noticed scaffolding on the roofs of a line of a dozen or so… Continue reading →