Not many countries can have seen such rapid change as did Oman in the 1970s. When Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said overthrew his father in a bloodless coup in 1970, Oman was considered one of the most technologically and educationally deprived countries in the world. In the first 25 years of his reign it moved from a largely feudal society to a rapidly developing modern one.
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The crumbling red stone ruins of the Kasbah of Telouet hide a secret; within their walls lie the remains of a glorious and self-indulgent palace, where Pasha Thami El Glaoui asserted his power and wealth. These atmospheric ruins are relatively off the tourist trail, although easily visited on a day trip from Marrakesh.
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One of the most memorable and striking sights along the Northumberland coast is Dunstanburgh Castle. Its ruins stand on a remote headland, reached by a beautiful coastal walk from the nearby village of Craster. It is this distance from any other building, any other sign of human habitation, that makes Dunstanburgh seem rather magical.
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On the southern outskirts of the small fishing town of Tarrafel on Santiago, one of the Cape Verde Islands, is a haunting sight. Now a museum, this former concentration camp, also known as Campo da Morte Lenta, commemorates a darker time for the islands, under Portuguese rule.
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There is something about a tale of a deserted city that tugs at the imagination. Here on this rocky ridge near Agra in Uttar Pradesh, the third Mughal emperor Akbar built a new capital: the walled city of Fatehpur Sikri, the ‘City of Victory’. But soon after its completion he abandoned his great city due to a lack of water at the site.
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While the monks of Glastonbury may have taken a vow of poverty and lived a life of abstinence and poverty, the abbot lived in a vastly different style. He had a magnificent house, as befitted the abbot of the second richest abbey in the country. His kitchen needed to be able to cater to the many great visitors who came to the abbey, including Henry VII.
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Imagine this. You were born by the shores of the Mediterranean. Your childhood summers were hot and your winters temperate. But now you are grown, and you are a soldier, posted to the furthest reaches of the Empire where icy winds blow down from the north and snow falls in the winter months.
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‘The Palace of Bundi, even in broad daylight, is such a palace as men built for themselves in uneasy dreams, the work of goblins rather than of men.’ So said Rudyard Kipling of Bundi Palace. Also known as Garh Palace, it was home to the rulers of Bundi for centuries.
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'Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria, and miserably frightened the people: there were flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.'
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The early morning clouds hung so low over the forest that we couldn’t see the tops of the trees. And we certainly couldn’t see any howler monkeys! Just like us it seemed, they like a lie-in on a miserable morning.
