Posts about Travel and tourism
The plot of land which has become Bonnington Square Gardens was cleared by a bomb during the Second World War and stood empty until the 1970s, when the local council made a weak attempt at turning it into a playground, before abandoning it to wild grass and stinging nettles. The council were reminded of its…
There’s plenty of history within a short distance of this part of Whitechapel; the next on my short list is at the junction of Fulbourne Road, in the midst of the Whitechapel Market. The upstairs rooms of a building adjacent to the thriving street market on this junction – now a clothing store with a…
Whitechapel is best known in history for scenes of violence, crime and poverty: from Jack the Ripper in the Victorian era to the Kray twins in the 1960s. Founded in the twelfth century, Whitechapel was historically a poor and working-class neighbourhood where the less salubrious businesses in the city found their homes; tanneries, breweries and…
What remains of the original Blackfriars station on the Charing Cross railway in London – this signage – was restored in 2005, and is clearly visible within a short distance of the current Tube station at Southwark. The site of the station, now referred to as Blackfriars Road in order to avoid confusion with the…
Walk along the north side of the river Thames at Lambeth and only the comparatively new wooden boat sculptures will even make you notice White Hart Dock. It’s an enclosed pool of tidal water, fed from the river, which dates back to the 14th century. Now filled with little else than rubbish, it was once…
I have spent a lot of time walking around London over the past week, with the intention of finding new sights and things of interest instead of just repeating the same old sights I’ve seen and visited a million times before. One of them was unexpected, as I walked from Stockwell back to the West…
I am often asked for ideas what to see and where to visit in Scotland. This route takes in many of my favourite spots in the west and centre of the country and is great for first-time visitors.
Compare and contrast the trends on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris. The first of these photos was taken in 1996 or 1997 and the second was taken last weekend. These days, the lattices (and some of the old-fashioned street lights) along both sides of the bridge are covered completely in personalized padlocks, attached…
Travellers, historians and winter sport fanatics (and those of us who are less fanatic but still enjoy the mountains) will love this old film by Ronald Haines, shot in 1956 in the Swiss mountain resort of Grindelwald and on the surrounding mountains. (Link via Grindelwald Tourism on Facebook.)
A wonderful time-lapse sequence from the southern borders with Italy, ranging from the Nufenen Pass to Zermatt and the Matterhorn. Film maker Christian Mülhauser writes: Through fog, rain, snow and even wind gusts of up to 120 km/h I am happy to have completed this project. Mountains of Valais is by far my most time…
The first crossing for the M4 motorway across the River Severn was opened in 1966. This bridge features heavily in my memories of travelling to Pembrokeshire as a child, as well as later visits to friends at university in Cardiff. Back then, I didn’t know the extent of the history of river crossings here. Until…
I took a walk up through the woods from Heimwehfluh, near Interlaken. The top of the walk, after half an hour or so of wheezing and muscle aching, was high above the end of Lake Thun. Aside from enjoying the walk, having some exercise, and enjoying the view, I also discovered that the golf course…
One of the most iconic pieces of landscape in the world is the stretch of white chalk cliffs along the south coast of England. Visible from many miles away when arriving by sea, the cliffs are one of the most famous symbols of England and its independence. The white cliffs are most often referred to…
The small but widely scattered collection of buildings at John o’Groats has one claim to fame: it’s at the northern end of the longest distance between two inhabited places on mainland Britain. There’s not much there: a few houses, some new holiday homes, a couple of shops, a hotel and car park, and a shed next…
Jo and I took a stroll around the Ballenberg open air museum on her birthday weekend a couple of weeks ago. The museum and its buildings are officially open to the public between April and October, but the site, its paths and woodlands are left accessible after the business closes up for the winter. It’s a…
I really like Austria (at least, the little I’ve seen of it just recently). We were on the border between Bavaria and Tyrol for our anniversary and it was the first time I’d done more than pass through a narrow sliver of the country on the south-eastern tip of Lake Constance to photograph a wedding.…
Probably at number one on the list of “places I’d love to visit but probably never will” is the Mittellegi Hut, perched on the ridge of the same name near the summit of the Eiger. It’s famous amongst climbers as it’s along the approach route from the Eismeer station of the Jungfrau Railway, en route for…
A twin-rotor transport helicopter carrying another helicopter from the BOHAG company from the Mittelleggi hut down to their base station at Gsteigwiler. Crazy stuff. (Although, thinking about it, how else would you transport a helicopter if it broke down on top of a mountain?)
Fear and exhilaration on the other side of the safety fence, at the absolute “Top of Germany”.
The winding and bumpy single-track mountain road leading to the hamlet of Applecross, on Scotland’s west coast, is quite a thrill.
After so many years of driving up random little tracks and small roads in the Bernese Oberland, it’s rare to come across somewhere I’ve not been before. So when we decided to take a spontaneous trip out on Sunday, and found a little yellow line on the map leading south into the mountains from Kandersteg,…
