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Stories from the road

How it actually was — no gloss, and no listicles.

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Sicily in seven days: Palermo, Catania, Etna, Taormina and Syracuse

From Arab-Norman mosaics in the north to a Greek theatre in the south-east: one route, one direction, no doubling back.

30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy

City breaks

Venice beyond the crowds: the sestieri, the early hours and how to arriveThe same canals, the same bridges, a different Venice. The difference is the hour, the quarter and where you sleep.
30 Sep 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Rome or Florence for a first time in Italy: which city first, and when bothOne city is antiquity that never ends, the other is the Renaissance gathered into a handful of squares and bridges. A…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Northern Italy by train: Milan, Como, Verona, Venice and BolognaFive cities, one railway that ties them together, and stations that are sometimes finer than the museums. Northern…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Palić: a spa built for a lake no one swims in nowEverything at Palić was built because of the lake, and the lake is the one thing not used. That's not bad luck but the…
17 Aug 2026 · 4 min read · Serbia
Two days in Wroclaw and the story of a thousand dwarfsIt starts with a smear of paint the militia used to cover slogans. What somebody drew on top of it back then now stands…
5 Aug 2026 · 5 min read · Poland
Liverpool minus the Beatles: two cathedrals and a stadiumA city that planned a cathedral twice and never got either one as drawn — and once chose between a dock and the World…
5 Aug 2026 · 4 min read · England
Amsterdam without the crowds: what to book and when to get upThis city isn't solved with a trick but with a calendar: half the experience is decided weeks earlier, online, and the…
5 Jul 2026 · 5 min read · Netherlands
Hamburg with the rain and the tide built into the planA city where you plan by the water rather than the sights: the water that falls, and the water that rises and drops in…
5 May 2026 · 4 min read · Germany
Lyon or Bordeaux for a long weekend, and how to pick oneBoth sit two hours from Paris by train and both sell themselves on food and drink. The difference is where that content…
11 Apr 2026 · 6 min read · France
Berlin or Munich, and what actually separates themTwo cities in one country that behave like two different countries. The question isn't which is prettier, but what kind…
12 Mar 2026 · 5 min read · Germany
Amsterdam or Rotterdam, and why they are not the same tripOne was drawn in the seventeenth century and kept that way; the other burned in a single afternoon and decided not to…
26 Feb 2026 · 5 min read · Netherlands
Why Berlin is still a cheap weekendIt isn't cheap because everything is priced low, but because a whole day can pass without a single ticket. Here is…
3 Feb 2026 · 4 min read · Germany
A week in the Tricity: Gdansk, Sopot and GdyniaA week here is not too long, but only if you stop thinking in city limits. The commuter train is the only plan you…
28 Jan 2026 · 5 min read · Poland
York in three layers: the walls, the Minster and Vikings underfootEvery age in York built on the one before, and you can see it in one tower, one muddy dig and one window.
19 Sep 2024 · 4 min read · England
A ticket between two continents: Istanbul from a city ferryFor the price of one city ferry ride you see from outside everything the old city charges you to enter. You only need…
16 Apr 2022 · 4 min read · Turkey
In the Netherlands the bike is transport, so it comes with rulesRed asphalt isn't a pavement but a road with its own lights and right of way. Here is what that means in practice, what…
21 Apr 2021 · 5 min read · Netherlands

History and culture

Matera: the city in the rock, from national disgrace to UNESCOA city carved from pale, porous stone, which the state emptied of more than fifteen thousand people in 1952 and which…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Ravenna and its mosaics: five monuments on one ticket, and three left outside itOne ticket, five entrances and gold set into glass. The order to walk them in, and the three UNESCO monuments the…
30 Sep 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Sicilian Baroque: Catania, Syracuse and Noto after 1693One earthquake, three answers: black lava stone in Catania, Baroque on Greek columns in Syracuse and honey-coloured…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Pompeii or Herculaneum: which of the two buried cities to see when you have one dayThe same day in AD 79, the same volcano and the same railway line, yet two very different cities. One is crossed for…
30 Sep 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Star Wars locations in Tunisia: what is left of the sets, and whereThree films were shot on the same desert, across six places scattered from Tozeur to Djerba. Some are still an…
28 Sep 2026 · 5 min read · Tunisia
Tunisia during Ramadan: what changes for a visitorSites open shorter hours, restaurants in the medina pull down their shutters, and after sunset the city changes pace…
28 Sep 2026 · 4 min read · Tunisia
Giza without the hassle: the plateau after the new gate and the electric busesWhat made Giza tiring was getting between the pyramids, and that had to be negotiated. Since the new gate and the buses…
21 Aug 2026 · 3 min read · Egypt
A ticket for the Last Supper: how you actually get oneThe ticket costs €15 and goes on sale in waves a few times a year, then disappears the same day. Here is the release…
26 Jul 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Why London's museums charge nothing, and what you still pay forBehind the words 'admission free' sit one tax clause and one political decision, not a curator's generosity. Here is…
7 May 2026 · 6 min read · England
El Jem after the Colosseum: all of it on one ticket, no time slotAt the Colosseum you choose between the underground and the upper tiers. At El Jem you do not — and that is the reason…
19 Mar 2026 · 3 min read · Tunisia
Sagrada Família: the world's tallest church, still unfinishedThe outside is what everyone photographs, and it's the weaker half. Inside is a stone forest, and the hour you walk in…
24 Jan 2026 · 6 min read · Spain
The Palio in Siena: ninety seconds that stop the city twiceThe race lasts under ninety seconds and the entire day belongs to it. Turn up unprepared and you stand all day for a…
1 Jan 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Kragujevac, Šumarice: how to read 21 October 1941The order fixed a figure of 2,300 people in advance, and nearly five hundred more were shot. Šumarice reads as that gap.
22 Jul 2023 · 4 min read · Serbia
Warsaw: the old town that is seventy years oldNearly everything in the centre is about seventy years old, yet it sits on the World Heritage list. The reason is one…
13 Feb 2023 · 5 min read · Poland
Fruška Gora has 16 monasteries. Here are six worth the detourSixteen monasteries don't get seen in one day, and don't need to. Each has its own story — some for their tombs, some…
14 Jul 2020 · 7 min read · Serbia

Day trips

Umbria: Assisi, Perugia and Orvieto, three hill townsUmbria is the only region on the peninsula with neither sea nor border, so everything it has stands on hills. Three…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Tuscany by car: Pisa, Florence, San Gimignano, Siena and Val d'OrciaWhite marble Pisa, the red dome of Florence, the towers of San Gimignano, the shell of Siena and hills without a single…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Puglia: Bari as a base, then Alberobello, Matera and LecceBari as the starting point, then south in order: coast, conical trulli, a city in the rock and honey-coloured baroque…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Sicily in seven days: Palermo, Catania, Etna, Taormina and SyracuseFrom Arab-Norman mosaics in the north to a Greek theatre in the south-east: one route, one direction, no doubling back.
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
A Nile cruise or the train: what you actually getThe same three temples, two entirely different weeks. The difference is not what you see but when you see it, and with…
18 Jul 2026 · 6 min read · Egypt
Pompeii and Herculaneum from Naples: what fits into one dayAll three sit half an hour by train from Naples, which is exactly why the day gets overloaded. Here is which two go…
16 May 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Bath and the Cotswolds with no car: trains, buses and villagesThe villages connect to the towns on the edge of the region, not to each other. So the plan is built backwards, from…
13 May 2026 · 6 min read · England
Tunisia or Morocco for a first time in North AfricaTwo countries with the same brochure — medinas, desert, Roman ruins — differ in one thing more than in all the rest…
23 Apr 2026 · 6 min read · Tunisia
Belgrade to Thessaloniki without a train: days, not hoursThe bus and the car each cost a day in each direction, the plane an hour and a quarter. Which is why two days in…
19 Apr 2026 · 4 min read · Greece
Oxford or Cambridge for one day from London, without regretsBoth towns are an hour from London and both are sold with the same photograph. The difference is what actually opens…
23 Mar 2026 · 6 min read · England
Road to the Sahara: Marrakech to the dunes, stage by stageThe road from Marrakech to the dunes is about 560 kilometres and eight to nine hours of pure driving. Anyone who stops…
6 Feb 2025 · 4 min read · Morocco
Auschwitz-Birkenau: how to book it and how the day runsThe common mistake is not a bad plan but a wrong assumption: that you can simply turn up at the gate. Here is how the…
4 Nov 2023 · 5 min read · Poland
The Tuscany everyone photographs isn't in any townThat postcard hill with the cypress row and one house at the top has no name on the map — just GPS coordinates, and a…
30 Nov 2022 · 6 min read · Italy

Nature and mountains

The Dolomites in summer: Cortina, lakes, passes and cable carsFrom the pale towers above Cortina to the largest high alpine pasture in Europe: two arms of one mountain range, in a…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
Cinque Terre by train and on foot: how to get between the villagesThe villages are strung along the coast like stops on a single line, and footpaths run between them that take a few…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Mount Etna: how to get there and how high to goIn Catania, Etna begins at the end of Via Etnea, and the bus to its foot leaves in the morning. This is the story of…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Namibia by hire car: what to know before you set offNamibia is one of the few African countries where self-driving needs no previous experience on the continent. That does…
28 Aug 2026 · 7 min read · Namibia
Sossusvlei at dawn: the sun by month, a dune's shadow and a balloon for the second morningDawn at Sossusvlei moves by an hour and forty minutes between December and July. When the July sun is just rising, the…
24 Jul 2026 · 4 min read · Namibia
Kilimanjaro: who can get up, and which route gives you a chanceKilimanjaro is not decided by who is fit but by who may go to altitude and how fast their sleeping height rises. Both…
9 Apr 2026 · 4 min read · Tanzania
Serbia got a glass skywalk, and everyone went the same monthMore than three thousand people went up Kablar on the first weekend, while entry was free, and over twenty thousand in…
19 Mar 2026 · 3 min read · Serbia
Two days in the Sahara from Tunisia that are actually worth itThe Tunisian desert is sold as a day trip from a beach hotel. That is five hours each way for one hour on a dune, and…
26 Feb 2026 · 5 min read · Tunisia
Fleeing 1000 degrees: two mothers, two daughters, one mountainTwo mothers who'd known each other for years got out of the same car with two daughters meeting for the first time — a…
5 Jun 2023 · 5 min read · Serbia
Madeira levadas: which walks are easy and which are mountain routesThe island is one big network of channels you walk along, but the gap between a stroll and a serious mountain route is…
3 Jun 2021 · 5 min read · Portugal
Six lakes across Serbia, and no two look alikeVlasina has islands that physically float on the surface. Perućac fills and drains on the hydro plant's schedule, not…
23 Nov 2020 · 7 min read · Serbia
Montenegro has a north — without the coastal crowdsThree and a half hours from that coastal traffic jam sits a town at 1,450 metres, with eighteen glacial lakes locals…
6 May 2020 · 6 min read · Montenegro
Zlatibor in three days: Drvengrad, the Šargan Eight and a terrace with no planDrvengrad ahead of the tour buses, the Šargan Eight without a phone in hand, and a third day on a cottage terrace — a…
11 Jan 2020 · 4 min read · Serbia

Safari and wildlife

Kenya or Tanzania for a first safari: the month decides more than the countryKenya is recommended as the cheaper one, and in the migration months it is not. The difference between the Mara and the…
6 Aug 2026 · 4 min read · Kenya
What a safari really costs: what you pay before you see a lionA safari is sold by the day, not by the item, which is why nobody sees where the money goes. Here is one day broken…
2 Jul 2026 · 7 min read · Kenya
Etosha or Kruger: two parks you watch in two different waysIn one park you look for animals, in the other you wait for them. That difference changes the shape of the day and how…
18 Jun 2026 · 6 min read · Namibia
The great migration month by month: what the calendar knows and what it only promisesWhere the herds are each month is known, the day of a river crossing is not, and the number in the brochures dates from…
4 Jun 2026 · 5 min read · Tanzania
What to pack for a safari, and what to leave at homeThe biggest safari packing mistake is not a forgotten item but the suitcase itself. Light aircraft weigh your bag and…
5 Mar 2026 · 5 min read · Kenya

Food and drink

Coffee in Italy: the counter, the table, morning cappuccino and caffè sospesoAn Italian bar is where coffee is drunk in a minute, standing, to the clatter of porcelain and the hiss of the machine…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Street food in Naples: pizza in hand, cuoppo, frittatina and sfogliatellaIn Naples the street itself is the table: pizza folded in four, a cone of hot fried things, a golden-crusted frittatina…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Emilia-Romagna by food: Modena, Parma and three cheeses, hams and vinegars kept by lawThree cities on one railway line and three products with a protected name. This is the order to take them in, and what…
30 Sep 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Bologna without the myth: why spaghetti bolognese does not existThe dish half the world names after this city is served in no serious kitchen here. Here is what stands in its place…
25 Aug 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
Oktoberfest without the romance: the beer, the tent, the bedGetting onto the ground costs nothing; everything after it costs more than expected. This is how the system works, with…
9 Aug 2026 · 5 min read · Germany
Strasbourg's Christmas market, and how old it really isThe title of Europe's oldest market does not survive a check, though the title is not why anyone goes. The problem is…
15 May 2026 · 5 min read · France
Pintxos for beginners: how to eat bar by bar in San SebastianThis isn't tapas and nothing comes free with the drink — every piece is ordered and paid for separately. The system is…
29 Mar 2026 · 4 min read · Spain
Is Valencia a cheaper Barcelona? Where it is, and where notThree Gaudí buildings in Barcelona cost more than the whole of old Valencia. One Valencia ticket still costs more than…
5 Nov 2023 · 4 min read · Spain

What it costs

Italy by train: Frecciarossa, Italo and regional, and how to validate a ticketItaly has two fast trains competing on the same tracks and one slow one that stops everywhere. On the fast ones the…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
African visas: what is required and when to sort itSix African countries, six different procedures. Three are settled at the airport, two online before departure, and one…
4 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Kenya
Egypt in 2026: the base tickets have held in euros, the extras have notHeadlines about tickets that have tripled are counting in pounds. In euros the base tickets have barely moved since…
2 Sep 2026 · 4 min read · Egypt
A London weekend for two: where the bill has a ceilingA London weekend's bill isn't made by the city but by what's paid before you leave. In London itself almost everything…
19 Aug 2026 · 4 min read · England
How cheap Poland actually is in 2026, item by itemThe country's cheap reputation is running a few years behind its actual prices. The line between cheap and dear in…
9 Jun 2026 · 5 min read · Poland
The Sinai stamp: when Egypt needs no visaOne sentence at passport control changes about €26 and the whole shape of the trip. It is worth knowing which sentence…
14 May 2026 · 4 min read · Egypt
Rome for a weekend: what we spent, and what we would change"Rome for a weekend" is a phrase everyone says easily. This isn't a guide but the bill from one actual trip in October…
26 Jan 2026 · 5 min read · Italy
The Paris Museum Pass in 2026, and the maths that changedFor a traveller who lives outside the EEA the same museum pass now behaves differently than for a visitor from Vienna…
24 Jan 2026 · 6 min read · France
Haggling in Marrakech: a benchmark instead of the rule of thirdsThe trick worth more than any haggling advice: stop by the state-run fixed-price craft shop before the souk, so you…
30 Mar 2025 · 4 min read · Morocco

Sea and islands

Capri in a day: hydrofoil, the Blue Grotto and AnacapriAn island of two towns and a cave you enter lying down, taken in the order in which everything can be reached from the…
30 Sep 2026 · 7 min read · Italy
The Amalfi Coast by bus or by ferry: Positano, Amalfi, Ravello and SalernoOne road along the cliff and one sea beneath it: the coast can be covered by bus, by ferry or by a mix, and each has…
30 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Italy
Tunisia: all-inclusive resort or independent travelA week in a beach hotel and a week moving through the interior answer two different questions. The difference is not…
28 Sep 2026 · 6 min read · Tunisia
Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh: where the difference really liesTwo resorts on the same sea that look identical in a brochure. There are four differences, and all four show on the…
11 Jun 2026 · 5 min read · Egypt
Zanzibar: which beach, and why the tide changes everythingOn Zanzibar two beaches ten kilometres apart do not have the same sea. The reason is not the hotel but the tide, and no…
21 May 2026 · 6 min read · Tanzania
Mauritius: which coast, and why rain decides more than windThe west coast of Mauritius has fewer rainy days than the east in every month of the year. The east has its window, and…
7 May 2026 · 5 min read · Mauritius
Greece in October: a June sea, a day three hours shorterOn the Cyclades the sea is warmest in August. In September it matches July, in October it matches June — except that an…
9 Apr 2026 · 4 min read · Greece
Brighton from London: when a weekend beats a day tripThe sea is cold and nobody comes to swim, so Brighton can be done in a day. A night buys what starts once the…
5 Apr 2026 · 4 min read · England
Mauritius beyond the resort: the island a sunbed never showsNearly three in four visitors to Mauritius sleep in a hotel. The island beyond the fence works, but by day — the buses…
2 Apr 2026 · 4 min read · Mauritius
The Bay of Kotor off season, before the cruise ships arriveThe gap between August and October in the bay is not only the price of a room. It is also how many people stand on the…
24 Jan 2024 · 6 min read · Montenegro
Rhodes beyond the package deal, the old town and two coastsThe island is sold as a week in a hotel on the east coast. What that skips is a town inside four kilometres of walls…
25 Aug 2021 · 5 min read · Greece
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Photo credits and licences (90)

All photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the licence stated beside each one.