The Lake District is best known as a place where you can (to put it not unkindly) “take a hike”. The wonderful English tradition of public walking paths comes to the fore, and you can literally travel by foot to almost any destination, be it village, mountain or lake. In fact, you can even amble to Ambleside!
New-fun-lan
Newfoundland is nothing short of a revelation; the sort of thing that happens when you travel to somewhere you thought you knew, but then realise is very different to what you had always thought. It’s a place of many wonders, and the discoveries you make of the natural world are simply superb.
Life on The Rock
When you experience the interior of Newfoundland, you realise that the coast was the only real place to live. And because there is so little soil, and a climate that doesn’t exactly lend itself to growing much besides potatoes and the odd cabbage, if you wanted to survive, you had to take from the sea whatever you could.
Snakes Bite & Nameless Cove
There’s nothing quite like Newfoundland for place names. You’ll find River of Ponds, Trouty and Camp Boggy, as well as Logy Bay, Boxy Harbour, Old Shop, and Ha Ha Bay. And verging into the realm of shear whimsy, how about Tilting, Seldom and Little Seldom, Happy Adventure, and the ultimate in the art of naming, Nameless Cove.
Newfoundlandese
Newfoundlanders are known for their accents, and the unusual words they use. The Lonely Planet Guide describes the way people speak here as “Irish meets Canadian while chewing a mouthful of cod”. The cod aside, there’s no doubt that English as it was spoken in both Ireland and England formed the basis for “Newfoundlandese”.
Speculating Cosmically
Some say it’s the most famous garden in the world. But it’s not open to the public, apart from one day a year. So how could two landscape lovers from the other side of the world manage to see the treasures hidden behind all the massive hedge rows?
Hippie-Peacenik-Greenie-Saint
It’s been years since I’d even thought of Saint Francis, although he was once an important source of inspiration back in the days of Flower Power. However, his life, especially as it was portrayed in the early 70’s movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon, came back to me when we decided to visit his home town of Assisi, high up a hill in Umbria.
Mad for Hiking
Bavaria provides some amazing opportunities for hikers. And it’s also the home of a famous schloss that sits in everyone’s subconscious, no matter where in the world they happen to live. The reason is simple – it matches better than any other building the image we all have of a fairy-tale castle.
A Field Guide to Houses
Nova Scotia is like a little jewellery box containing architectural gems from a by-gone era; a rural Eden of the 18th and especially 19th centuries. It sounds more than a little ironic, but fortunately, due to poor fortune, all these treasures have been left intact for tourists from around the world to see.
The One-of-a-Kind Dish
The labyrinthine thoroughfares of Ha Noi’s Old Quarter contain many mysteries. The street names sometimes give you an inkling, but only the initiated know what awaits up the stairs at 14 Paint Street, otherwise known as Chả Cá.