Muck Diving In Bali: All The Small Things
We’re trundling down a dirt track towards the sea on the outskirts of Amed, a jumble of villages stretching for miles along Bali’s east coast. Gentle waves lap against a beach of large, smooth stones lined with narrow, brightly-coloured fishing boats. Behind ...
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Kayaking The Naeroyfjord In Norway
I’m worried. I can’t even remember the last time I paddled a kayak for anything more than an hour or so. Or if I’ve even been in a kayak-for-one. Now I’m standing on the shores of the Naeroyfjord in Norway, decked ...
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Sogndal To Geiranger – The Most Spectacular Drive In The World?
For most of our three-week journey around Norway, John and I wore the look of the stunned, partly due to the cost of travelling there but mostly because the country is just off the charts in the natural beauty stakes. ...
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Hiking to Pulpit Rock – A Leg-Stretching Introduction To Norway’s Fjord Walks
My heart was hammering and my face was the shade of a ripe tomato. As we stopped to catch our breaths and take in the views, we started to laugh. We could still see the carpark. We’d just climbed the first ...
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De Ruien – A Tour Of Antwerp’s Underground Past
I’m standing in a chilly, dimly-lit brick-vaulted passageway. A frothy brown sludge is lapping at my ankles. John is a couple of feet away with his nose wrinkled, wearing an expression somewhere between bemused and horrified. A kid’s high-pitched voice ...
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Timeless Malta: Photo Gallery
Malta is a small nation with a big past. Its three islands – Malta, Gozo and tiny Comino – are interwoven with a long and often fraught human story that spans the Mediterranean Sea. On our visit, we spent one week milling ...
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Visiting Malta – A History In Nine Amazing Sites
It’s midday and the high sun has sapped the colour from the dry, dusty hills sloping down to the sea. Against a backdrop of wan blue sky, the ragged stone profile of Hagar Qim squats resolutely under a protective sail. This ...
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Island Adventures In The Galapagos
Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise in the Galapagos Islands – and the world. Sadly, his death also marked the end of the line for his giant tortoise subspecies. We ‘met’ George ...
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The Heavenly Highlights Of Assisi
We’re standing in the arched doorway of the Porziuncola, a tiny stone chapel said to have been restored by a young man named Francis, shortly after he renounced his wealth for a life of poverty in the early 13th century. Around and ...
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The Marvellous Mosaics Of Ravenna
We’re sipping frothy cappuccino in a café on a charming cobbled street while I run a crash course on the small town we’ve just arrived in. It’s a little over an hour since we decided to day trip here from ...
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Shifting Views Of Most Serene San Marino
San where? Few people have heard of the tiny landlocked microstate of San Marino, even though it’s been clinging precariously to the hills and high places of the Appenine Mountains in north-east Italy for more than 1,700 years. But staying ...
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Eat, Drink, Marvel, Repeat: A Wander Around Bologna
We had one major objective for our trip to Bologna: Eat ragu. Everything else would be a bonus. Having grown up on Spaghetti Bolognese, this was – for me – effectively a pasta pilgrimage. I’d done my research though and I ...
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