Tag: travel
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Looking Back V: Fifth trip of 2026 – Bilbao and the Basque region
Having not been to mainland Spain for around 30 years, I had mixed feelings about returning. On the one hand, I was curious to see how it had changed. It had been a long time, and I wondered whether my mental picture of the place remained in any way valid. On the other hand, after…
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Looking Back IV: Forth trip of 2026 – Malta
I’ve worked for the Maltese government since 2024, so you might assume I’d visited before. I hadn’t – at least not until this year. The irony is that I booked this trip entirely on my own dime after deciding I’d probably never get to Malta through my contractual work. About a month later, I was…
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Looking Back III: Third trip of 2026 – Iceland
Iceland gets rave reviews, so I knew I had to see it for myself eventually. As it turns out, every one of those reviews was deserved. This became one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Nature feels wonderfully raw here. The island’s volcanic and tectonic origins aren’t hidden beneath the landscape—they are the landscape.…
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Looking back II: Second trip of 2026 – Kosovo
Tiny Kosovo has played a greater role in history than many in the West can imagine. In 1389 King Lazar of Serbia halted the march of Islam into central Europe on Kosovo’s battlefields. Were it not for this, Western history may have been unimaginably different. More recently, the meltdown of the former Yugoslavia started with…
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My “OG” house in a wonderfully green estate
I’ve lived in my house in Rugby for a year and a half now, and it’s slightly embarrassing to admit that in all that time I hadn’t properly explored the area on foot. The estate itself has grown in phases over the last twenty years, and my house is one of the “OG” properties, built…
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Being Brompton-less as a London Commuter
They say you don’t know the value of something until it’s gone, and there may be some truth in that. Halfway through the autumn semester, something freaky happened to my Brompton at work. I strongly suspect it was damaged by someone—accidentally, I assume—as it had been left somewhere safe, yet the chain inexplicably became jammed…
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Unforgettable Winter Trip: Belfast and Carrickfergus Highlights
I took a short, wintry escape to Northern Ireland, spending a couple of nights split between Belfast and Carrickfergus, and it turned out to be one of those trips that feels compact in time but rich in atmosphere and history. I based myself first in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter, a fitting place to begin any introduction…
Dr Martin James 