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Nerja, Frigiliana & The Caminita del Rey
On January 12th 1959, five male students failed to report for lessons at a local school in Nerja, not in itself an earth shattering event – indeed the tutor, one Carlos Saura Garre, assumed they had either met some girls or had decided that a movie would be more entertaining than a lecture. Neither of these was the case: the boys had in fact plucked up courage to go through a small entrance to a sinkhole and head underground to see what they might discover. What they did discover must have blown their young minds. Beneath the waste land just behind the village of Maro, they walked into a gigantic…
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Halong Bay
Sunshine greets us in Halong Bay and even that one simple fact is different from the miserable days when we bowled up here before, with the world starting to close borders and the grip of a pandemic stretching its dirty fingers everywhere. Back then, this entire place was a ghost town, just us two and a handful of others about to start the mad dash home. It was a hazy grey that day with a mist hugging the silent sea and all the tour boats waiting forlornly at anchor. Vietnam was already shutting down and tourist spots like Halong (or Ha Long) Bay had been among the first to have…
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Schinoussa & Iraklia: Further Down The Line
Schinoussa Whoever invented retsina deserves a medal. Whoever had the idea of drinking retsina to accompany fish was inspired, and deserves a medal. If the two were the same person, they should be made a saint. A few short hours after arriving on Schinoussa we are not only doing both, but we are doing it in a sun drenched beach bar where the tamarisk trees border the sand, the sun glints on the surface of the water, and just a handful of people share our space. There can’t be too many better feelings than this. Not long ago when we were being windswept on Astypalea and needing sweatshirts to deal…
