In the mid 1930s a young couple set sail on the SS Moldavia with a group of friends, cruising to Lisbon, Madeira and the coast of north Africa on what they termed a ‘proper holiday’. They captured their adventures in photographs which they carefully stuck into an album and labelled. Later they added to the album: photos of a walking holiday in Germany, camping in Devon and more.
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Nothing makes you feel more welcome in a country than to be invited into someone's home, however humble. And language is no barrier to connecting with a friendly hostess and her curious children.
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When the first Spanish explorers arrived in what is today northern New Mexico in 1540, and saw the adobe structures of Taos Pueblo, they believed that they had found one of the fabled seven golden cities of Cibola. These were rumoured to be dotted across the desert plains of this region. Some say the sunlight glinting off the straw embedded in the adobe mud fooled Europeans into thinking there was gold in the soil.
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One of the pleasures of a stay by the sea is an early morning walk on the beach. The waves lapping the shore, the sound of sea birds, a gentle breeze … a tranquil spot in which to recharge the batteries. But what most of us regard as a welcome break from our day to day lives is for others a place of work, and hard work at that.
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When Newcastle United reached the last 32 of the Europa League in 2013 we held our breath to see what team we would be drawn against, dreaming of a February trip to warmer climes, maybe Italy, Spain or Portugal. Instead we got Metalist Kharkiv, a team we had never heard of, in the eastern depths of chilly Ukraine. Would we go? You bet we would!
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Weaving his way expertly between the throngs of sellers and buyers, our driver and new friend Habib led us deep into the heart of the market. The place was so packed it was hard to make progress at times, especially with the occasional car or bush taxi trying to squeeze through the crowds, and the many porters with their wheelbarrows shouting at everyone to make way.
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Despite the invasion of modern living in many parts of their country, the Maasai cling proudly to their traditional way of life. They never cultivate land (they consider it demeaning) but instead graze cattle, which hold a god-like status in their culture. The cows provide almost everything they need to live: meat, skin, milk, dung for the walls and floor of their huts, and warm blood extracted from the neck of a live cow and mixed with milk as an iron rich food.
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None of us are able, at the moment, to gather new travel memories. Perhaps for that reason, the recollections of travels past become all the more precious. And what better way to trigger these memories than browsing through your mementos – old photographs, scrapbooks perhaps, and for those of us who buy them, objects and souvenirs.
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Why celebrate one festival when you can celebrate three? We hadn’t planned our visit to Cuenca to coincide with this particular weekend, when the city parties, but we were lucky to be here at this special time and to be able to join locals and other visitors in some of the fun.
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There's nothing like a carnival parade to stir up the emotions. There’s the anticipation among the spectators as they wait for the parade to arrive – can we see it in the distance yet? The excitement when finally it arrives, with all the colour and spectacle. The joy on the faces of the participants in the parade as they see the reactions. And the slight feeling of let-down when it has passed, seemingly so quickly after the long wait.
