Category: Travel Article
-
Vietnam
Hanoi Hanoi. A charmingly chaotic city full of fascinating features, from the alleyways of the old quarter and its temples, to the grandiose buildings of the old French quarter. This capital city of Vietnam has been on my bucket list for some time. It is situated on the Red river, around which the ancient city…
-
The Falkland Islands, Part 2
Battlefield tour I am joining a battlefield tour today with the same knowledgeable chap, who we soon find out, has guided several TV crews and military experts and veterans. We are going to go up as far as San Carlos, where the troops were landed, back past Darwin, Goose Green, various memorials around those places,…
-
The Falkland Islands, Part 1
I wasn’t sure what to expect of the Falklands. A friend inscribed in a copy of his book, ‘Falkland Islands Shores’ for me thus: ‘Please visit these beautiful islands’. That was before Argentina invaded and occupied the islands in May 1982 and the subsequent war with Britain. 43 years later and I finally get here.…
-
Chile, Part 3: Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
Ana Te Pahu Our first stop today is at an area of collapsed lava tubes with gaping mouths. Inside the main cave here, Ana Te Pahu, after which the site is named, bananas are growing. The leaves poke out of it. Some bunches of green bananas droop from its branches. Also vines are grown in…
-
Chile, Part 2: Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
Stage two of my travels to Chile and it is away from the mainland to the magical mystery isle of Rapa Nui in the South Pacific. Settled by Polynesians from the Marquesas islands it is thought. With its legendary carved stone heads, the moai, monuments to the ancestors. The first European didn’t arrive on the…
-
Chile, Part I: The central mainland
So Chile is the destination for my winter excursion from UK. One excellent reason for this choice is that the country’s territory includes Easter Island (Rapa Nui), located about 2,240 miles west of the mainland in the South Pacific. And those enigmatic moai heads on the island are reachable only from Santiago de Chile, the…
-
The Southern Caucasus: Armenia, Part 2
The sights of Yerevan behind us, today we are driving west from the capital to see some more major sites, mostly of the religious variety. Various buildings and parks are pointed out en route, including a cemetery in which Armenian flags fly over the graves of every soldier who died in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war…
-
The Southern Caucasus, Part 3: Armenia
Well, if Georgia was all about wineries and Orthodox churches and monasteries, Armenia is all about wineries and Apostolic churches and monasteries ‒ with a bit of brandy thrown in. Stage three of my trip to the Caucasus begins with the border crossing into Armenia from Georgia. Another change of coach, guide and driver and…
-
Top Travel Spots and Experiences, 2025
The view over Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo It’s impossible to tire of this stunning view over the red tiled rooves and buildings of renaissance Florence. A blissful panorama over the magnificent dome of the Duomo, the spire of Santa Croce, the old white, yellow and cream palaces lining the river Arno, and the dark…