Extracts from my travel musings

Why write everything down? I'm not sure exactly where the inspiration came from, although I remember my parents encouraging me to do so very early (perhaps beginning with our first substantial family holiday at the age of nine) - although their main motivation was probably to keep us children occupied on the long journey! Unfortunately, those early scribblings are now totally lost.

Some years later, when I started travelling with friends and on my own, I started to keep a brief diary of where and when. I wasn't sure in what form these would eventually end up, although when I did get around to writing these longer accounts this information was invaluable (along with the inevitable souvenirs, guidebooks and of course memory). As well as a daily account of what we did, I sometimes expanded them (either from memory or researched from other sources) to include background information and references.

Enough of this rambling, here are some of the results. I hope you find reading them them as interesting as it was for me to recall, research and write them.

 

Mull, Staffa and Iona - Three Scottish islands, all very different and all fascinating. Now with pictures! [July 1996]

The «Village Martyr» at Oradour-sur-Glane - A small French village destroyed by the SS during WW II and now preserved as a memorial. With some pictures. [July 1997] The WW I battlefields around Verdun - Eighty years ago, but the signs of the fighting are still there. Read, or visit if you can, and remember. With some pictures. [November 1997] The French Hotel Experience - A slightly exaggerated (but entirely based on personal experience) account of their idiosyncratic small- to medium-budget hotels. [Written December 1997] More practical hotel advice for budget tourists travelling there. [Written April 1998]

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Page by Jonathan Marten Last modified: Sat Dec 13 12:57:52 GMT 2008