#history

Lost photographs from a 2007 trip to Bulgaria bring back Plovdiv, Bachkovo, a global conference and a suitcase misrouted to Tirana.In 2026, while looking for photographs for a completely different blog, I found an old compact camera. I had assumed that whatever remained on it had disappeared from my life years ago, yet its memory card still contain

I was staying in Fes, but Meknes gave me my first medina — and the first lesson that Morocco is rarely as simple as the guidebook version.My first serious day of sightseeing in Morocco did not begin in Fes, even though that was where I was staying. It began about fifty-five kilometres away, in Meknes.Read "Fes — I Walked Through a Gate and Left the

Travelling to Fes can easily feel like travelling into the past. Pass through one of the monumental gates of its medina and the first question is almost inevitable: are we really still in the twenty-first century?There are sensible ways to visit Fes for the first time, and hiring a local guide is certainly one of them. Fes el-Bali is not the kind o

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 cheap flight from Nice, a newly reopened Marriott, free public transport and a freezing first encounter with Europe’s most understated capital Some journeys begin with one destination. This one began with a sequence. My New Year trip had started in Nice and would continue through Luxembourg, Brussels, Bordeaux and Paris. New Year’s Eve itself w

A journey beyond the Hollywood myth, through inland Sicily and roads that made a battered town sign feel like a summit Table of contentsThrough the corn to SalemiAn Accidental Stop in SalemiAfter SalemiWhen the Road Fell ApartThe signThe town behind the nameHow a Parallel Authority Took RootThe Museum I Failed to EnterWhat remained Morning in Mar

Hamlet’s castle, a brilliant royal tax, two queens and the grave of a man who never existed - “Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore!” London, Rome and Paris sell themselves. Helsingør needs a story. Fortunately, it has one of the most famous stories ever written. Shakespeare placed Hamlet in Elsinore, the English name for the Danish town of Hel