Food with a View at the Cliffhanger Café in Highcliffe-on-Sea, Dorset
The Cliffhanger Cafe in Dorset has the best dining location in the area and it’s one of my favourite lunch-time eateries. Here’s why I keep coming back…
The Breathtaking Beauty of Bolivia’s Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve
Bolivia is often overlooked in favour of its more accessible neighbours Peru and Chile, but to bypass it is to miss out on one of the most captivating countries on Earth. With Amazonian jungle, Andean plains, colonial cities and the incredible Salar de Uyuni salt flats, the diversity of this landlocked nation deserves to be appreciated. And it was to one of Bolivia’s most striking landscapes that I was most drawn during my South American...
From Fishermen to Fine Art – A Walk Around Old Stavanger in Norway
It’s an uncommonly warm and sunny September morning in Stavanger, Norway. The locals go about their daily tasks as visitors stroll around the harbour taking in the picture-postcard prettiness of it all. It’s not somewhere I had thought to explore, to be honest. It stands to reason that when you imagine a cruise around the Norwegian fjords, what first comes to mind is the lavish scenery resulting from eons of glacial activity. I suppose the...
A Warm Welcome at the Star Hotel & Restaurant in Twynholm, Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland
My host, Linda, greets me as I pull up alongside the pub-restaurant front and apologise for my tardiness. I’m well over an hour later than I first said I’d be, thanks to some traffic along the (mainly) single-carriageway A75. ‘Oh, it’s not a problem at all, I’m only just down the road’ she reassures me. And with that warm welcome, I began my stay with the Star Hotel and Restaurant in the sweet little Scottish...
Impressions of India Part 3 – Mumbai and Home
India’s popularity as a tourist destination has increased in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years, but on arranged tours travellers often see only the surface of what this incredible country has to offer. To get right down into the underbelly of a place, you either have to stay a while longer and go for ‘slow’ or ‘experiential’ travel, or approach it from a different perspective altogether. Here, we do just that, as...
When Travel Dreams Fade – The Eclipse That Wouldn’t Wait
I knew I was tempting fate when I published that ‘travel plans’ post in January… I’m sitting here writing this tale of discarded travel plans, wondering whether I should have let it get to me so much. Why is this even an issue? I ask myself. The law of averages tells me it’s N.O.R.M.A.L for a travel blogger, isn’t it? No, scrub that, it’s normal in everyday life. We’ve all been there, having to soak up the...
Summertime Bees and Blooms – A Wildflower Meadow in Hampshire
This month has been a busy one beyond belief for me, for a hotchpotch of reasons, some good and others not so much. I’ve been industriously buzzing around sorting, organising, planning for everything from a likely house move, through a (not-looked-forward-to) operation, to a couple of weddings – one in the glorious setting of Amberly Castle, the other in Sweden. All of which hasn’t left me much time to put hands to keyboard and turn...
Hindu Blessings at London’s Neasden Temple
I’ve been to UK Hindu temples before, those converted community-hall type of temples you find in most urban population centres, where the shrines are modest and the furnishings sometimes a little frayed around the edges. I’d occasionally wondered if all such temples outside of India were the same. Last weekend I discovered that this is categorically not the case, as I accompanied my longest-standing friend and her family to Neasden Temple in north-west London. I knew nothing...
Solarsphere Astronomical and Music Festival – A Niche Festival For All
It sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? A niche festival for all. Hear me out though, I promise it makes perfect sense. I’m on the outskirts of the ancient market town of Builth Wells in Powys, Wales. It’s the middle of August, and we’re heading towards the end of the festival season…..
Why Cuenca is Ecuador’s Loveliest City
Some have said Cuenca stands on the site of what was once El Dorado, the mythical city of gold which the Spanish Empire searched for in vain. Today, this city in southern Ecuador owes its architectural heritage to those marauding Spanish Conquistadors themselves, and is the country’s most important city after the capital, Quito. I wandered the historical city centre and soaked up that ambience during a backpacking trip to South America, and found much...
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