United Kingdom

I returned to Edinburgh for Elizabeth II’s private rooms. W Edinburgh rewrote the script. By the time I reached Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II had already hijacked my Scottish itinerary from beyond the grave. Balmoral had top billing. It was the reason for returning to Scotland: the private Highland estate where the late Queen spent her summers, r

A £3.85 bus from Aberdeen, a castle seen from the outside and an easy coastal walk to Stonehaven There are places I visit because I want to understand them, and places I visit because I want one photograph good enough to justify the journey. Dunnottar Castle belonged firmly to the second category. I had known about it for years. It appears with s

Seven years after my first visit, I returned to discover what Oxford keeps behind its gates Had apparition been allowed inside Hogwarts, I could have travelled directly from the Gloucester Cathedral cloister where Mrs Norris was found petrified to the hospital wing in Oxford’s Divinity School. Unfortunately, it was not. So I had to take a train.

Scotland’s Oldest University, Medieval Ruins and the Town Where William Met Kate I had begun the morning at Dunnottar Castle. By the time I returned to Aberdeen, travelled south to Dundee and checked into another hotel, the sensible interpretation was that I had already done enough for one day. Sensible interpretations have rarely exercised much

A cliffside stay, a traditional seaside town and the fine art of apologising without acting London was not the destination. It was the large and inconvenient interchange between a flight landing at Stansted and a train leaving for the British seaside. After landing, I took the Stansted Express to Liverpool Street, one of London’s many mainline ra

The late Queen Elizabeth II kept Balmoral fiercely private — King Charles III now admits just twelve visitors per tour, at £110–£175 a head. Paying between £110 and £175 to enter Balmoral in a group of twelve is not exactly sneaking in. Still, the experience comes surprisingly close to being allowed into someone’s house while the owner is away. I