Posts about Travel and tourism

  • Lizard Point, Cornwall

    As time goes on, we’re getting to see more and more new parts of the U.K. One goal we’ve set ourselves is to visit all of the most remote corners of the British “mainland”, as well as more remote spots on outlying islands when we can. We’ve already visited John o’Groats and Dunnet Head –…

  • Whilst many travel up to the top of the Niederhorn ridge by cable car – one of the most expensive ones by distance in the whole region – there’s a much better alternative for the fitter visitor. There’s a private, tolled road leading up from Waldegg, at Beatenberg, to farm buildings on the mountain, which drivers…

  • Tintagel, Cornwall

    I was a little disappointed that the “castle” at Tintagel was little more than a few bits of wall at the coast. (I suppose I have been spoiled by the castle ruins at Dunnottar and Tantallon.) Our walk along the coast path, doing battle with the wind, was lovely anyway, with foxgloves (a memory from…

  • Trebarwith Strand, Cornwall

    We recently spent a lovely couple of weeks on holiday, touring the south of England and spending a full week in Cornwall. On arrival at the self-catering cottage we’d booked, we chose to make things easy for ourselves and head to the Port William Inn for a pub dinner in one of the few buildings at the seaward…

  • Brienzergrat, Switzerland

    A testing and rewarding hike from the peat moorland of Lombachalp to two summits on the vertiginous Brienzergrat ridge.

  • Nature.Urban.Lights

    It’s always nice to enjoy a time lapse sequence filmed in Swiss locations. Even more so to enjoy one filmed in places across the region I call home – Canton Bern.

  • Arco Felice

    A two-thousand-year old Happy Arch.

  • A thousand-year-old castle on the lake shore near Thun, with wonderful gardens, terrific views, and a hideously ugly restaurant.

  • Arisdorf, Switzerland

    A picturesque village set in a rolling landscape, whose name is perhaps more often associated with a nearby motorway tunnel.

  • “Hiking” the path from Grindelwald First to the Faulhorn and on to Schynige Platte using Google Street View.

  • The Someiyoshino (Japanese cherry trees) on the hillside below Bern’s Rosengarten park were given as a gift by Yoshiyuki Urata in 1975, after he visited and was very taken with the city. They bloom in early April and the spectacle only lasts a few days, before the blossom falls. I was lucky enough to get time to photograph them…

  • A reminiscent photo of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which I only took because of a fortuitous London downpour.

  • Visiting lake shore villages in the French-speaking Romandie region of Switzerland feels like a little foreign holiday.

  • Laufenburg am Rhein, Germany/Switzerland

    The picturesque and history-rich town of Laufenburg straddles the river Rhine: one half being in Switzerland, the other in Germany.

  • Schloss Laufen, Switzerland

    Information and tips for photographing the large Rhine waterfalls at Neuhausen, near the northern border of Switzerland.

  • The Lorraine quarter in Bern, not far from my office, used to be the trendy area in which to live, meet, dine and hang out. These days, a lot of the trendies seem to have moved on, but the quarter is still a nice network of little streets in which to take a stroll. Despite the…

  • Raetia Prima – high-resolution aerial film of Graubünden

    If you have a large monitor, use the options in the embedded video player to go full-screen and to switch to 4K (2160p) resolution. By Kevin Walker, via TechBlog.

  • How tourist popularity has lead to access being closed to a popular site in Iceland.

  • The sad way in which the success of a local tourism industry is putting paid to the draw of a peaceful, beautiful region of northern Italy.

  • Views from home across the lake to the Niederhorn on a winter Sunday.

  • City walking

    Walking from my office around a variety of city streets before returning to the office is a good way to put aside the complexities of my work for a short time.