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

National Travel Health Network and Centre

From the website:

“The National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) promotes standards in travel medicine, providing travel health information for health professionals and the public.

NaTHNaC is funded by the Health Protection Agency.”

Kenilworth and Warwick Castles: A Photo Feature

Kenilworth and Warwick are two of my favourite castles in the UK. It always makes me smile that they are so close together geographically but so far apart in almost every other respect.
Kenilworth is the ruined and wounded fortification perched at the edge of Kenilworth It’s a massive sprawling building draped over a gently rolling hillside with its red stone catching the light at sunset and coming to life as the day ends. Visit Kenilworth if you love romance and the stories that surround romance. It has inspired great writers like Sir Walter Scott and has an engrossing story to tell of a powerful Earl and a queen of England. The romance ruined the Earl and his life ended like his castle appears now, in tatters.
Kenilworth then is low key and understated both in its appearance and the way it tells it’s story. Wander round at ease and undisturbed, take in the beauty of the building and the surroundings and let the messages slowly sink in.
But the building still gives the full sense of the power and vitality that the place once rang to. A real sense of the times in which it was created and it is one of the finest castles England has to offer.

Didn’t England Do Well

Visit England has announced the results of the business that its members did over the Christmas period and for the whole of 2009. And, it looks like pretty good news for them as many recorded an increase in business over 2008.
44% said that they had more business than previously and 42% said that they had the same level of business meaning that only 14% recorded a drop in business. A drop could mean that it wasn’t due to the overall level of business around but because of new entrants, better marketing or weather or other unforeseen factors (like a long period of roadworks for example) and those hit sales.

Free Wi-fi: should hotels offer it to their customers?

Another weekend, another wedding… this one was in Cambridge – a bustling market town famous for its bicycles, choristers and one of the most respected universities in the world, if not its affordable accommodation

Its Autumn! Pack your dog/kids/grandkids in the car and go for a walk!

Autumn leavesAutumn. Sigh…. My favourite time of the year! Clear blue skies (sometimes), crisp morning frosts and leaves varying so much in colour and contrasting with the skies that artists struggle to reproduce this wonderful time of the year on canvas!
In a country which offers such a large variety of geological/topological [...]