Forget jaw-dropping, breathtaking, mind-blowing, awesome or any such word. All are too feeble to describe first contact with Velika Planina. The feeling of standing on a ridge looking down on this scattering of wooden herdsmen’s homes is one of a sense of discovery. […]
My source for much travel related pondering, Tripadvisor, highlighted the potential minefield new walkers especially have to negotiate when deciding on walking destinations. […]
This was meant to showcase why Portugal is such a popular holiday destination. But not everything went exactly to plan. […]
Image a world where in the late afternoon in September In Scotland you could sit outside your hotel room and feel comfortably warm. I don’t mean in a parallel universe, or even sometime in the near future when the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have switched places. […]
Will we be up to the challenge? Have our muscles atrophied to the point of no return? A trio of leg muscle-loosening exercises before we set off is akin to slapping a slumbering drunk – “come on, wake up you lazy gits”. […]
There’s a diversity to Portugal’s countryside that surprises us on a regular basis. Where the Algarve’s resort scene doesn’t appeal, the range of walking that exists in the region is a different matter. […]
In the last decade and a half I’ve learnt a lot about hiking boots and shoes. Which is why we have a shoe rack inside our front door filled with them. We own five pairs each; different ones for varying conditions. Wherever we’re travelling to and whatever type of walking is required determines which comes with us. […]
A short route recommended by the folk at our hotel, the 15th century Knipoch, took us along a grassy path lined by bushy confers and moss-covered drystane dykes to an open hillock surrounded by crispy bracken and a tartan coloured vista which took in slender Loch Feochan, Mull, Islay, and a rolling landscape which had me wishing I was wearing my kilt. […]
“Bom dia,” the woman smiles at us. She leans on the granite window frame of a traditional farm labourer’s cottage, watching inquisitively as we stroll through the tiny hamlet. “Little does she know we might be harbingers of a mini invasion,” Andy ponders. […]
The season has changed. This hit home on Friday in the supermarket where there was a distinctly different vibe. People were dressed in full on summer uniform. There were telling empty places on the shelves where boxes of Sagres beer and sacks of BBQ briquettes should be. […]
“Em Abril, águas mil.” There’s a reason for these old proverbs. This is from Portugal, Spain has one almost identical. Incidentally, so has Chile. Even Disney alludes to a feature that April can be known for – “Drip, drip, drop little April shower… ” […]
Bejeques (house leeks) the size of small bushes burst from cracks in dry-stone walls. Sweet peas, snapdragons, and California poppies devoured whole sections of embankments outside traditional cottages. On grassy tracks between hamlets, wild flowers – proud tajinastes and aromatic wild lavender – took over the reins. […]
Just outside Furi we rested at another rocking mountain restaurant, huddled outside in freezing temperatures nursing authentically icy beers in gloved hands, our increasingly numb lips wishing we’d ordered glühwein. […]
The rosy glow from this rural community, people bonded by the production of Port wine for over 300 years, was like being wrapped in a Merino wool blanket on a chilly morning. […]
Rotenboden is little more than a hut, far fewer people alight here. Liam tells us it’s an easy walk to and from our lunch objective, the Igloo Village. He also mentions the snow might be waist deep, yet is easy to walk through – “like walking through powder”. […]
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