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Meknes & Volubilis: Ancient Sights And Building Sites
According to the screen at the end of the carriage, we’ve just hit 313 kilometres per hour, a whacking 194mph, as we speed southwards through the changing terrain. Morocco’s new high speed railway, the first of its kind on the African continent, is comfortable, efficient and very impressive, and we arrive at our change point at Kenitra in the blink of an eye. From Kenitra to Meknes it’s much older rolling stock, the compartment-and-corridor combo reminding me of British Rail circa 1970. We have high hopes for Meknes, high hopes which are all but dashed before we’ve even settled in. Virtually everything we were intending to visit is closed for…
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Tarragona: Heart And Soul Of Catalunya
It is with an absolute, unbridled delight that I discover that nothing much has changed. Plaça de la Font is absolutely alive, almost every table at every restaurant taken, a stage set up in front of the grand Town Hall in readiness for tonight’s show of traditional dancing, the atmospheric square packed with families where small children, teenagers and grandparents mix as if socialising with all ages is the most natural thing on Earth. It’s gone 11pm and the children still have boundless energy as they ride stabilised bikes, burst balloons and indulge in games of chase. This is Tarragona, a place I have visited many, many times before and…
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A-Z In A Day: From Andorra to Zaragoza
There’s a proper mountain air feel to our last morning in Andorra La Vella, bright blue skies but crisp air, locals hunched in jackets and jeans as they make their way through town. From the window at breakfast it has the look of a Spring morning in the Alps and it’s odd to think that at the other end of our relatively short journey today temperature may be well into the 30s. It’s a couple of hours on the bus from Andorra to Lleida followed by an extraordinarily comfortable, and fast, train ride to Zaragoza. Sporting our backpacks and wearing our heavy hiking shoes, we suppose the taxi driver’s question…
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Black Bulls, Roman Ruins And A Missing Ear: From Aix To Arles
It was a waiter in Aix who first gave us the idea. “If you love Aix”, he said as he put down our sparkling golden beers on the table, “then please go to my town, Arles. It is even more beautiful than Aix”. Well, it’s going to have to go some to achieve that, but maybe we should give it a go – why not? And so we hatch a new plan. Counter intuitively, all the websites tell us it’s quicker to make the journey between the two towns by taking one train down to Marseille and another back up country to Arles, which feels a bit like going from…
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The Journey Continues: Monastir-El Jem-Gabes
Strictly speaking, El Jem isn’t a desert town, but as we step off the louage from Monastir and squint through the haze, it bears all the hallmarks of one. We arrive in a dust storm – or maybe a sand storm – which makes the whole town shimmer in the heat and minarets and palm trees drift in and out of sight. Flags whip and crack in the stiff wind, the sun is clogged and filtered by the sand which is so concentrated that it’s a bit like looking into a fog. Our glasses and sunglasses are quickly covered in a film of dust, layers of sand particles have coated…
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St Albans: Romans, Saints & Boudicca
With no opportunity to leave these shores just yet, we continued our exploration of our own country this week with a brief visit to Hertfordshire, centred on time in St Albans, an ancient city steeped in fascinating history. After a motorway closure made our journey somewhat tortuous we rolled into St Albans around lunchtime and set about exploring a city with some of England’s most dramatic history. St Alban the man was a religious martyr executed on the spot which today houses the cathedral, itself originally an abbey which was ransacked and all but destroyed by Henry VIII’s men during the Reformation. From a distance, the wide central tower of…
