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It’s That Time Again…
We love this bit. Printed maps spread across the table, guide books poised and travel blogs open on the right page. The calendar sheets printed off from the iPad take centre stage, constantly being altered, updated, erased and re-pencilled, as we discover new destinations, unearth different transport opportunities and change the planned route one more time. Travel is such a joy that even the planning stage is always a significant source of excitement. Sparks fly every time Michaela moves. There’s only a few days to go now. Next week we head off to Heathrow, flying first to the Qatari capital of Doha for that stopover where we will discover whether…
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That Was 2024
Well, our travelling for 2024 is done and dusted and we eagerly await our first adventure of the new year. We think it’s fair to say that although 2024 was another splendid year of travel, not everything went according to plan. What with having to return home when Michaela’s Dad passed away, hiking ability being blighted by hip/groin trouble, becoming unexpectedly Africa’d out and heading to Turkey instead, the year ended up with a shape significantly different from the original plan. You could say it was a year of mighty rivers, as we saw or sailed upon the Amazon, the Rio Negro, the Mississippi, the Tennessee, the Thames and the…
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Time To Go
When the plane touches down in São Paulo on Friday morning it will be precisely four weeks since we made our way to Rio airport for our hastily organised and unexpected journey home, and frankly there hasn’t been much to shout about in those four weeks. Unless you are given to shouting about rain. One of the anticipated joys back when we were first planning long term travel was to escape the English winter. That word – winter – conveys, in many parts of the world, images of pristine white snow, frozen lakes and icicles hung from the eaves of roofs. It’s not like that in England, oh no. Winter…
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Unravelling Granada’s Complex Cultures
I don’t think we realised before we came here just what a melting pot of cultures exists in this fascinating, absorbing city, but we very quickly find ourselves being completely enthralled by the heady mix of history and evolution which has created the Granada of today. It really starts when we walk out of the cathedral, through a plaza or two and turn left into something which is the most stark of contrasts. For starters, the huge cathedral, Spain’s second largest after Seville, is a bastion of Catholicism absolutely filled with religious icons, glorious paintings and reliefs depicting many stories from the life of Jesus. Yet take just a few…
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Michaela’s Favourite Photographs: #2 The Seaweed Farmer
Paje, Zanzibar, 2013. Between the coast and the reef, in the gentle milky waters of the Indian Ocean, ladies farm seaweed, sitting in the water for hours on end before trudging, like this lady, back to shore with their haul. Michaela perfectly captured the loneliness of their working day with this beautiful shot.
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Farewell To Cornwall: Next Stop Cairo
As ever, we have loved this visit to Cornwall. Spring seems to have dawned before our eyes, colours have intensified, and Padstow, the estuary, the coast path…have all been as wonderful as ever. We always feel so at home here. We conclude our time here by climbing to the top of Brea Hill, the highest point in the area and consequently one of the best places from which to view the estuary. As we climb, we are again at low tide, vast reaches of golden sand either side of the river’s narrow channel where in just a few short hours water will stretch right across the divide. Windshields and windows…
