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Miscellany

A mix bag of delights

Cusco and Machu Picchu

I arrived in Auckland on 5AM flight from Melbourne, only to find LAN flight to Santiago was delayed by about an hour, which made for a...

Painting in Tuscany (September 2019)

An early start out of Lucca saw us in Certaldo by 8:45am at the dealership responsible for delivering Karen’s hire car for use during her...

Syria - the Arab Spring (March 2011)

Now here's a funny thing - Syrians love soap operas! Especially during Ramadan when everyone's in abstinence mode. Sitting around the...

COVID Art - Venice

March 23, 2020. The first lockdown kicked in - just for six weeks. By this stage the pandemic had arrived in Europe, starting with...

Tippling around the world (vicariously) in lockdown!

My first task in lockdown (March 23, but who's counting) was to clean out the bar. And, given that my May and September travel plans were...

Jordan: Amman - Jerash - Madaba - Petra

After settling into my room at the Kempinski Amman, I headed down to breakfast at 6.30 and tucked into a pair of fried cackleberries but...

Iran – the “Hello” edition

Romance, jewellery, fashion, celebrity… The Iran Crown Jewels is the largest collection of its type in the world. It includes crowns,...

Iran - the (oil) drum

When Vita Sackville-West visited Iran in 1926, her husband, Harold Nicolson, was working there in the diplomatic service. No doubt part...

The Fairweather Range and Lituya Bay

A highlight of Alaska, Glacier Bay is good tourist stuff, but, as usual, I managed to get utterly sidetracked by a nearby attraction –...

Life and Death in Kamchatka

The native Kamchadals are pretty plucky folk. The aboriginal peoples (there are about five different tribes, but let’s not go into...