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…
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…
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…
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…
You will most likely spend less time admiring Stonehenge than it would take you to drive there from London. You will have to keep to the designated tourist path, never getting closer to the humongous rocks than a few dozen yards. There will be plenty of other visitors sharing the…
The Rotal Botanic Gardens in London are recognized on UNESCO World Heritage List for their place in development of both garden art and botanical science. In our years of living in London, we only visited the place once and – as my Travelog entry attests – came away sufficiently impressed.…
Assorted views from the recent trip. An extended gallery can be found in my Flickr photostream.
Edinburgh is a town after my own heart, a vibrant place full of eye-catching architecture. As our point of entry (and exit) on the whisky trip, it was a not-to-miss destination. I am again left to lament the brevity of our stay in town – a single afternoon – but…
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…
I expect to be entirely opportunistic and non-discriminating in my pursuit of UNESCO World Heritage sites in the foreseeable future. If I am in the vicinity of one with time to spare, I intend to visit it, regardless of what it represents. Which I now understand can throw up a…
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 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…
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…
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…
Of the four properties listed in this UNESCO World Heritage site we can claim reasonable familiarity with two. As unabashed lovers of medieval castles that we are, we planned on seeing at least one of the group of castles in Northern Wales as a definite part of our itinerary when…
I first visited Greenwich Park and climbed up to the Royal Observatory on a business trip to London in 2000. A few years into that decade, as we officially resided within the borders of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, this World Heritage site became the one we undoubtedly visited most…
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…
The Tower of London, dating from William’s Conquest in 1066, is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list for a number of reasons, among them as an outstanding example of medieval military architecture as well as for its role in the European history. It is certainly one of the must-see…
In our years of living in London we took a fair amount of day trips to interesting locations in the South East region of England. There are at least a couple dozen places to see within an easy driving distance from London – and here is a handful of my…
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…