-
Through Two Tourist Hotspots: Obidos & Sintra
Portugal is on fire. TV screens are filled with graphic footage of firefighters tackling any number of wildfire blazes throughout the interior and a state of emergency has been declared in some areas. Eyes in bars are glued to the screen, with much shaking of heads. On the train journey south from Braga, we pass under a gigantic smoke cloud drifting from some of those fires towards the coast, blocking out the sun for nearly an hour of the journey. After three changes and four trains – one of them unplanned as train number three unexpectedly aborts at Leiria – we alight at the rather remote station at Obidos which…
-
Around Northern Portugal: Lamego-Amarante-Braga
As you approach Amarante by the road from the main A4 motorway, you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about, for at this point the absolutely lovely old town is hidden behind an array of modern structures, traffic islands, concrete and steel. Walk no more than 200 yards from the bus station, turn in to Rua 31 Janeiro, pass the lively traditional tabernas and head towards the São Gonçalo Bridge, and yet another enchanting town quickly reveals itself. And oh wow is it lovely. Almost impossibly lovely. The Rio Tamega flows slowly through the centre – serenely slowly, except now and again when it skips over…
-
From Pinhão To Lamego Via The Police
I am, admittedly, a bit obsessive about checking my belongings – is the wallet still there? Is my phone safe? The bad side of doing this is that it’s obvious now that an adept pickpocket watches such things and therefore knows exactly where to pounce. The good side is, I knew within seconds that my wallet was gone, quickly enough to cancel the debit and credit cards before the scoundrel could do any damage. Plus of course, we didn’t have everything in one place, so the disaster of a stolen wallet is not total. We lost a handful of euros and those two cards, but our other cards and cash…
-
A Tale Of Two Cities And A Kebab
It went something like this, you see. When we arrived home from the Philippines in late March, it meant that I would be spending my birthday at home instead of abroad for the first time since COVID (remember that?). So we looked at a quick city break, homing in on either of two European cities which had been on the wish list since ever, Porto and Mostar. But neither was straightforward. Easter airline prices were inflated enough to take Porto out of the equation, simply too many sovereigns for a quick city break. For Mostar, it was more a case of logistics, it’s too time consuming to get to for…
-
Samaipata: Finding Our Happy Place
You know how it works. Places are never quite how you picture them to be: some places exceed expectations, some don’t quite get there, some turn out to be completely different from how you imagine, one way or another. It’s quite rare that somewhere is precisely what you were hoping for, and is the perfect setting for the next part of your travel plan. Samaipata is exactly that. We pictured as our last destination on this fabulous journey a quiet, peaceful village surrounded by beautiful scenery, maybe an apartment with fabulous views, where we could relax and enjoy our last few days, maybe meet a few people, become, albeit briefly,…
-
Sucre: In The Footsteps Of Dinosaurs
No doubt about it, the centre of the city of Sucre is beautiful. Picture a city brimming with grandiose white buildings, each looking as if they’ve had a recent paint job from top to bottom, where armies of street cleaners are busy sweeping the sidewalks, where a battalion of gardeners are tending to every ornate corner of each smart plaza. Sucre is a city with all the grandeur of a Spanish gem, all the majesty of Vienna, but on a much smaller scale than either. Add a calm, relaxed atmosphere and one of the lowest crime rates of all South American cities and you have a very pleasing and welcoming…
-
Potosi: Down Into The Mine Then Down From The Mountains
Only about half the seats are taken as the bus ambles out of Uyuni despite company reps repeatedly bellowing the name of the destination so we think at first that we’re in for a comfortable ride. What we don’t know is that the bus will, in the first few miles, make multiple stops and take on passengers until not only every seat is full but so is the aisle. Not so comfortable after all and not in the same class as Cruz del Sur in Peru, but we’re on our way to Potosi, one of the highest cities in the world. Four hours later a battered old taxi takes us…
-
The Salar de Uyuni: Part 2
We’ve survived the bitter cold night. The Danish boys Johannes and Valdemar have also slept well, Max is feeling a little unwell. Carlos bursts through the door in his usual animated style, enthusiastically running through today’s programme. Edwin is out in the cold, filling the fuel tank from the spare can and letting air from the Landcruiser’s tyres. Over the course of the three days Edwin will drive over 1,100 kilometres, precious little of it on anything resembling a road. There’s dirt roads in the sand, there’s rough rocky tracks, there’s sections where two tyre tracks are the only clue as to the way – and there’s times where he…
-
The Salar de Uyuni: Part 1
We are lucky enough to have seen many wonderful places around the world on our travels, yet this journey through Peru and Bolivia had already become one of our best ever trips even before we headed towards Uyuni. From Uyuni we set out on a 3-day journey which took us to some of the most incredible places and unbelievable natural sights we have ever seen, so much so that Michaela commented that it felt like we were moving from one National Geographic cover to another. A truly amazing journey with so many pinch-yourself moments…. When we first heard about the remote town of Uyuni and its incredible salt flats, we…
-
From The Sublime To The Surreal: The Enigma Which Is La Paz
We enter the city of La Paz and find ourselves in a place where lurking just beneath the veneer of an ordinary large city there are strange stories, mysterious behaviours and rituals from a different era. This is a city where dozens of witches still practice, where shrivelled animal embryos are on sale, where families buy human skulls and keep them in their home for good luck, where a museum celebrates and documents the history of cocaine, where public transport is a network of cable car lines. After all these years of knowing smugly that La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, it turns out that it’s…
