Barcelona: where history and culture meets the Nou

Robin Nowacki combines culture and cuisine with football on a visit to Barcelona – the capital of the Catalonian region of Spain

The English seaside

Photographer Peter Williams celebrates the peculiar eccentricities and quintessential charms – from helter-skelters to lighthouses, pirates, palmists and Punch and Judy – of this cherished and rapidly changing English landscape

Irish Aviation Authority

From the website:

“The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) is a commercial state-sponsored company which was established on 1 January 1994 to provide air navigation services in Irish-controlled airspace, and to regulate safety standards within the Irish civil aviation industry through…”

Guilin City of Water

It was a two hour flight from Xian to the southern city of Guilin and the contrast between the former and the latter could not be more different. Before getting in to the interesting bits its perhaps worth remembering that the city’s Jiangbei Airport is a bit archaic so despite how desperate you may be to use the washrooms avoid the first few you come to as these are basic Chinese style and clearly have not been cleaned since Allcock & Brown flew the Atlantic!

Macau made easy

Finding Macau’s most popular tourist sites, such as the A-Ma Temple, iconic Ruins of St. Paul’s and elegant Senado Square, has been made easier for visitors, as a result of new apps and tools for mobile devices introduced for digitally-savvy travellers

The Viking Connection

I automatically think of 4 places in our countries when I think of Vikings; the Isle of Man, Orkney, Dublin and York. Were they a rampaging bunch of blonde warriors bent on raping and pillaging as the Horrible Histories tell us or is there more than that?
Yes that isn’t the total story. As usual it is more complicated but mixing the truth with what people think is a great way of attracting people to your event and none is better than the Jorvik Viking Centre in linking the two.

One Woman and Her Dog (and this time her mother!)

The first opportunity to pack the dog (and this time my mother) and get away for a dog-friendly weekend arose at the end of March. Both my mother and I are avid Geologists, and after checking for recent storms and landslides (which mean higher likelihood of finding fossils), the Tide Time Tables and the last minute availability of dog-friendly B&Bs, luck was on our side, and we drove down to Lyme Regis slowly (road works EVERYWHERE) one Friday night.