El Hierro
The AI view of the Canary Islands
It took me five minutes to write the destination descriptions below. That’s because I didn’t write them, ChatGPT did. This is the AI view of the Canary Islands. […]
La Palma
El Hierro
By the Time Dawn Breaks, the magic of the Canary Islands
By the Time Dawn Breaks is a story within a story. A young man seeking an off-the-beaten track spot on Tenerife in which to lick his emotional wounds stumbles across a mysterious journal. Within its pages, he discovers a fantastical account revealing an extraordinary side to the Canary Islands. […]
Hiking
Walking on La Palma after the volcanic eruption of 2021
La Palma’s world changes at Las Manchas. As well as the new ‘mountain’, the Volcán de Tajogaite (a name voted for by the islanders), there are smaller hills of ash, glistening in the sunshine as JCBs attempt to shovel them into some sense of order. […]
El Hierro
How many Canary Islands are there?
The Canaries are made up of large islands, small islands (islets), and lumps of land protruding from the sea that ambiguously lie somewhere between being tiny islets and big rocks. […]
Food & drink
The problem with recommending restaurants
In the words of the great Jim Morrison, people are strange… or they can be when it comes to food. As well as having very contrasting likes and dislikes, folk have very personal foibles, all of which makes recommending restaurants somewhat of a lottery. […]
Hiking
Five of my favourite hiking routes
The other day we chewed over our favourite hiking routes; not an easy task as we could compile an encyclopedia of great walking routes we’ve completed over the last decade. After much debating and discarding I settled on this five. […]
Austria
Europe’s just desserts, ten standout puddings
My least favourite part of a meal is dessert… unless there is something which awakens the sweet-toothed child that slumbers within. And there regularly is, no matter where we travel around Europe. […]
Europe
From Florence to fishermen’s jetties, 10 views of the year
The most valuable treasures, whatever form they take, don’t just fall at our feet. If they did there would have been no Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, or James Tiberius Kirk. We have to seek them out; to boldly go where, well, some others have gone before. […]
Europe
The end of spring in central Portugal
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. […]
As we walked out
Walking in Europe with a spring in the step
“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… ” […]
Europe
Discovering La Palma, again
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. […]
La Palma
Scenes from the water’s edge
As the wintery sun yawns and slips towards the duvet of the horizon there’s a mini pilgrimage in Alcochete on the southern banks of the Tagus. The place of worship is Alcach, a bar with jazzy sounds and chairs facing west. […]
El Hierro
Worlds of difference, comparing Canary Islands
Going into detail about the differences between the Canary Islands would fill a book, so I’m only going to provide a brief snapshot as an illustration why it’s essential to universe-hop when carrying out travel research. […]
Europe
Confused about the cuisine, gastronomy in the Canary Islands
A study into what visitors to the Canary Islands thought about the food they experienced has thrown up some interesting and illuminating findings. […]
Food & drink
Finding craft beers in the Canary Islands
When we returned to the Canary Islands we stopped ordering sunny Dorada cervezas in the western islands and light and frisky Tropical in the eastern ones and started looking for something with more of a swaggering personality. […]