17 March 2017
The Empress Elizabeth of the Austro–Hungarian Empire is affectionately known as “Sisi”, as she grew up in a large family in Bavaria,…
24 February 2017
Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther, as well as Calvin, Zwingli, and our very own John Knox, changed the world for ever. These men not only over-threw…
20 February 2017
This is different from my normal travel articles. During a recent trip to Belgium, I became fascinated by keep stumbling across “Beguinages”,…
07 January 2017
A GUIDEBOOK perused before departure warned that Amsterdammers could be blunt to the point of seeming rude.
06 January 2017
Now I must say at the start that it is not me who called the proud Ghent folk troublemakers, but it is reputation that they are happy to continue. Ghent…
02 December 2016
There is no doubt that London has more attractions than anywhere else in the UK, all in a fairly compact centre. There is only one way to go there –…
04 November 2016
Belgium is underrated as a holiday destination. We tend to pass through, or fly over, but there are many places worth a visit. Mechelen is one of them.…
21 October 2016
Utrecht, in the middle of the Netherlands, is one of those places that you’ve probably heard of, but have never been there. It is certainly worth…
07 October 2016
Lausanne is a great city; it has a town crier, and has had one for 611 years continuously. It has the biggest fresh water aquarium in the world, and a…
26 August 2016
The French speaking western part of Switzerland, curves round the north side of the banana shaped Lac Leman, or Lake of Geneva as we sometimes call it.…
15 July 2016
Austria is famous for "The Sound of Music", Mozart, skiing and mountains – but all that is in the west, over in the east of this long country is…
17 June 2016
Obviously the massive destruction of World War 2 cleared the way for rebuilding on a grand scale. Streets are wide, many with tram tracks down the centre.…
27 May 2016
To go somewhere refreshingly different and fascinating usually involves a lot of hassle to get there, cost and maybe overnights here and there. Not in…
15 April 2016
Domodossola is a lovely town with a population of around 19,000 people, at the centre of seven valleys in the top of Italy, in Piedmont. The town is in…
11 March 2016
BUTE is an island in the Clyde estuary, 15 miles long, 4 miles wide and has 57 miles of coastline. It is a little over an hour from Glasgow, but…
04 March 2016
Perhaps the epitome of this high culture is the superb Rijksmuseum. The actual museum was founded in Den Haag in 1800, and moved to Amsterdam in 1808.…
15 February 2016
To travel to Windsor from Keith is easy – if you take the train. Flying would take almost as long and involve a lot of undignified hassle. The Scotrail…
29 January 2016
Efteling is a theme park in the Netherlands that was unknown to me – and yet it welcomes over 4 million visitors a year, and is just fantastic (click…
22 January 2016
There is quite a buzz about Bristol, and it is easy for us to get there now that EasyJet have started scheduled flights from Inverness. In 2015 it was…
24 December 2015
BACK in Victorian times, when young men had completed their education, they were sent on the “Grand Tour” of Europe (maybe the origin of the…
