This morning I met a young woman named Claudia. She was checking out of our hotel, and I was preparing to sit in the lounge for the day, drinking mint tea while I battle a stomach bug. Claudia reminded me why I travel. She grew up in Switzerland in the 1990s. I grew up in …
Every trip has its highlights. Sometimes the highlight is exactly what was expected. Sometimes it’s the unexpected —even the dreaded —that produces the most delight. So it was with our first experience of a personal guide. Normally, we would avoid having a guide like the plague. We prefer to set our own pace and discover …
Marrakech is at its best early in the morning and at sunset. The blocky red buildings glow against the half-light in the sky. The palm trees and open boulevards give the city a graceful colonial feel. In the heat of the day, Marrakech is a cacophony of noise, smell and sweaty humanity. A bewildering array …
When we think of rural England, we are thinking of the Cotswolds; when we think of the Cotswolds, we are thinking of Blockley. The Cotswolds is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) located about a two-hour drive west of London. It’s a walker’s paradise, renowned for its honey-coloured stone villages tucked into dells between …
I stand, eyes filling with tears, surrounded by every item of travel clothing I own. I have nothing to wear. Seriously. We are weeks away from a trip to Morocco and I don’t know what I’m going to wear. One of the first things I did after booking this trip was to google “travel clothing …
My Oxford dictionary defines ‘hubris’ as ‘overweening pride leading to nemesis.’ Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retributive justice. Remember that at the beginning of the Highland Way, I was having trouble with my boots? The discomfort was in my instep. I dealt with it by wearing thinner than normal socks and keeping my boot …
The boys’ search for more Munros took us to Fort William, home of Scotland’s tallest mountain, Ben Nevis. I had rented a house for three nights to give us plenty of opportunity for a good climbing day. This was the unexpected view from our bedroom window. Yes, that’s Ben Nevis! The Neptune Staircase is in …
To prepare for walking the West Highland Way, I went to the gym four or five times a week, beginning last fall. Sometimes I got on the machines and lifted free weights, following a program given to me by one of the trainers, Sara. Sometimes I attended 75-minute circuit classes. They can be brutal, especially …
The West Highland Way is my first long distance path. In Spain we walked every second day for about 15 km; in Scotland I’m walking 5 days of varying length followed by a recovery day then another 4 days. The distances don’t seem bad — no more than 22 km on the longest day — …
We’re in Scotland again — a little under a year since our last visit. (Sorry to disappoint Julian’s cousin Jan who, after our trip to Spain, was hoping we were working our way through the countries in alphabetical order). This time Scotland is Niall’s choice. We wanted to take him somewhere to celebrate the finish …
For years, we have been dedicated users of Trip Advisor (TA). Before TA, booking a hotel online was a crap shoot. I remember a particularly memorable “lodge” in Scotland. It reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer and there weren’t any other guests, but we’d already paid for the first night so we were on …
Several years ago, we stayed in Rome at a small hotel that was run by a German named Carl. Carl was married to an Italian woman. In an early conversation, he gently warned us that we should be very careful about respecting Italians’ food culture because they are offended by tourists’ ignorance of it. For …
We decided to try something different on this trip. We wanted to get away from other tourists as much as possible. And we wanted to see what life is like for people who live outside cities – which are all beginning to look and feel alike. To be honest, our reasons for choosing Spain were …
Those of you who have followed my blog know that I’ve reached a stage in my life where travel feels paramount. This is a longing that I feel in my gut, driven by a sense that there is much more time behind than in front of me. I see my mother and my in-laws in …
The need to travel is like nostalgia in reverse: it is the longing for strange lands or unfamiliar places. So it is ironic that I often feel nostalgic when travelling. As I walk through the English countryside and quaint English villages, I am overcome with acute nostalgia for ‘home’ and the feeling of belonging associated …
In no particular order, the other things that impressed and amazed me about Scotland. The ubiquitous whisky distilleries (but you knew that). In 2014, there were 98 active distilleries in Scotland. We stopped off at this one to buy a treat for Niall to thank him for looking after the dog during our trip. Lucky …
One of the most interesting aspects of this trip has been our visits to the places where our ancestors lived. These visits have brought our people to life and put their stories into an historical context. I traced Julian’s branch of his father’s family back to his 4th great-grandfather, Henry, who was born in Grinton, …
When I think of Scotland, I think: rugged mountains, whisky without the ‘e’, men in kilts, haggis and ‘neeps’, Robbie Burns, Highland cows. I don’t think ‘beaches.’ I’d be wrong. On our first night in Scotland, we stayed in Dornoch, which is on the east coast, a few miles down the road from the Glenmorangie …
I always think you can tell a lot about a place from its signs. In the south of England, we were warned to keep to the path and stay in control of our dogs. In North Yorkshire both the tone and the message are gentler. And who can resist a village that allows sheep to …
No, the Jurassic Coast is not a theme park in which hundreds of dinosaurs come to life and terrorize Jeff Goldblum. It’s a 95-mile stretch of English Channel coastline, located in Dorset and East Devon. It’s a World Heritage Site because coastal erosion has exposed millions of fossils from three geological periods, including the Jurassic …