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Category: Europe: British Isles

A place in my memory: Blackheath

If you did not come to visit us during our years in England, it is unlikely that you ever did or will set foot in Blackheath. At the edge of Greater London, it lies beyond major tourist routes. In my recent London guide, I did not mention it as a…

Shoulda, Coulda, Wouldn’t: London

Shoulda, Coulda, Wouldn’t: London

I lived in London for three years. As more and more time separate me from that period I find myself feeling increasingly nostalgic. Which is rather surprising given that London is technically not my kind of town in terms of walkability – in a vast city with seemingly unlimited options…

A place in my memory: Cambridge

I can no longer pinpoint where I got my first mental image of a proper university town from. It was surely a book, but my attempts to recall which one failed to yield a definitive answer. In my youth, Soviet institutions of higher learning almost always resided in major towns…

Re-counting World Heritage sites: #49 (Canterbury)

The town of Canterbury in English Southeast has several monuments collectively recognized by UNESCO for being the historic seat of the head of the Anglican Church. If you have been following my blog for any period of time, you have heard me express my admiration for religious architecture. Canterbury Cathedral…

Counting World Heritage sites: #75 (New Lanark)

My high-school history curriculum included something on the Utopians of 18th-19th centuries, and although I could no longer recall the particulars the name of Robert Owen was definitely familiar to me. So it was not only for opportunistic reasons that I planned a visit to New Lanark on our journey…

Urquhart

The picturesque ruins of Urquhart Castle that date back to 13th century offer a significant amount of history and an even greater amount of wonderful photo opportunities. There is also Loch Ness, dramatically overseen by the castle. (No, we did not see the monster.)     One of only a…

Eilean Donan

Eilean Donan castle regularly contends for the top billing on the “most beautiful Scottish castles” list, so even though it was a bit out of the way for our whisky itinerary, I made a point to steer in its direction.     The castle, dating from the 13th century, has…

On the Scottish whisky trail

In our four days of touring Scotland, we visited twelve distilleries in the Highlands and Speyside whisky-making regions. The visits ranged in depth, duration and quantity of sampling. Some were delightful, some simply educational, some brief but pleasant, and a couple marginally disappointing. I will eventually process more detailed notes…

Solar eclipse

On Friday, March 20th, as we were driving towards our first planned destination for the day alongside Loch Ness, we came to realization that Europe was experiencing a partial solar eclipse. Of course, we stopped and attempted to take a few pictures. Here is the best result. With heavily overcast…

Shoulda, Coulda, Wouldn’t: London

Re-counting World Heritage sites: #7 (Westminster)

My very first visit to London, nearly 15 years ago, happened sometime before we started travelling extensively abroad, which explains London’s sites’ relatively early sequential numbers on my World Heritage roster. On that week-long business trip I ended up with sufficient spare time to check out main attractions of the…

My favorite sights of Glendalough, Ireland

A bit of a misnomer, the title of this post. While I certainly want to include another country in this series at this point, we have neither spent significant time in Ireland, nor photographed it enough, in order to properly designate destinations or sights as “favorite”. Nonetheless, Glendalough Valley, within…