Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Holiday in the Balkans (5): Albania
October 9th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
It was another long but interesting day (Wednesday) with collection from the hotel in Petrovac at 8 am and return towards 6 pm. It was a day of two halves: one in southern Montenegro and one in northern Albania. So the morning involved time in the nearby town of Ulcinj. This is the southern-most town […]
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Holiday in the Balkans (4): forest and monastery
October 8th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Tuesday in Montenegro started in Kolasin in the mountains in early morning when it was just 4C and ended in Petrovac on the coast where it was a balmy 22C. First we visited the National Park of Biogradska Gora which is one of only three primeval forests in Europe. The trees here are around four […]
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Holiday in the Balkans (3): Serbia to Montenegro
October 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Day three (Monday) of our Balkans trip was totally a travelling day – a train journey of almost nine hours (9 am till 5.40 pm) from Belgrade in Serbia to Kolasin in Montenegro with a short passage through a bit of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was not that the distance travelled was so great, but that the […]
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Holiday in the Balkans (2): Belgrade
October 6th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
On the first full day of our Balkans holiday (Sunday), the Voyages Jules Verne group – 18 of us in all – were taken on a four-hour (9 am – 1 pm) tour of a few major Belgrade sights by local guide Dana. First stop was the ruins of the Belgrade or Kalemegdan Fortress overlooking […]
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Holiday in the Balkans (1): arrival
October 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
What we knew as Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1992 broke up into what are now seven separate nations. I have previously visited two of them – Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia – and on this holiday I will be visiting two more – Serbia and Montenegro – with a quick look inside next-door Albania. This will bring […]
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Visit to Iceland (4): South Coast Adventure
September 27th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
On our third and final full day in Iceland, Silvia and I left our hotel at 8.30 am and only returned at 7 pm as we went on an organised tour called the South Shore Adventure, a round trip of some 400 km involving five stops. The weather was so unseasonably pleasant that our female […]
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Visit to Iceland (3): Reykjavik
September 26th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
On our second full day in Iceland, we spent the day in the capital Reykjavik (the name means “smokey bay”) which is the most northern capital in the world. There are many walking tours on offer, most of them expensive, but we selected City Walk which is “free” (at the end, you donate what you […]
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Visit to Iceland (2): Golden Circle
September 25th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
On our first full day in Iceland, Silvia and I left our hotel at 8.30 am and only returned at 6.30 pm as we went on an organised tour called the Golden Circle, a round trip of some 300 km involving four stops. The weather was cool and sometimes misty but generally excellent for such […]
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Visit to Iceland (1): arrival
September 24th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
For more than a decade now, my sister Silvia and I have had a tradition of most years taking a holiday abroad together without our partners and this year our 13th such trip is to Iceland with Regent Travel. It is a new destination for both of us and the 74th country that I have […]
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A (very) brief history of the River Thames
September 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
For the last five months, I’ve lived in a flat in a block which is less than one minute’s walk from the River Thames as it snakes its way through central London. So I see the river every day and, throughout the day and night, it changes level and character considerably because of the tides. […]
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