Shortlisted for the Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature in 2018, The Distant Barking of Dogs vividly presents life near a heavy...

Putin has convinced many Russians that he has raised their country from its knees. But for how much longer, asks this short book by Mark...

In 1917 an entire world went mad; a madness that came to be called the Soviet Union. The persecutions and wars that began with the...

Mr Jones film review, Ukraine, 1930s famine, Holodomor, Agnieszka Holland film, eastern Europe cinema

"Everything is Illuminated" (2005) is based on the first-time novel by Jewish-American writer Jonathan Saffron Foyer (2001), and it came...

Easter's Damp Squib Easter in Poland, as in all deeply Christian countries, is an incredibly important time of coming together and...

Adoptive City I have never written a post about my adoptive home city of Kraków on this blog, and indeed I have generally overlooked it...

Overlooked City Slovakia is a country justifiably famed for its beautiful mountain scenery, stunning national parks, lakes and forests,...

Sando where? Small town Poland is, by and large, a fairly unremarkable affair. Unlike neighbouring Czech Republic, say, Poland's...

Tumultuous History 'Gdansk' is, by Polish standards, an easy city to pronounce for foreigners. In many other ways though, it is perhaps...

Coming out of the Shadows Long in the shadows of hipper, more well-known destinations in Poland such as Kraków, Wrocław and Warsaw,...

The Hipster's Choice For many years now, Prague has completely dominated tourism in the Czech Republic, so much so that most other towns...

A Lion-hearted city There are some cities in Eastern Europe which defy logic. Lviv to Ukrainians, Lwów to Poles, Lvov to Russians,...

Elegantly wasted Centre of Europe, grand old dame of the Habsburg Empire, inventor of ‘goulash communism’ and now emerging in the 21st...

Baroque Beauty Hungary, similar to nearby Czech Republic, is a country which is known chiefly for its capital, which dwarfs all other...

Out of the box tourism Krakow: a city of dreaming spires, ancient castles, dragons, myths, cobbled streets, cosy bars and coffee shops;...

Feeling the therms “This is the place where Budapest comes to chill out,” Laszlo, a banker in Pest, tells me. “many people come here to...

What? Why? Where? Wroclaw's island area is the soul to the Market Square's heart in Wrocław. Home to a growing number of cafes, bars and...

Łódź (pronounced 'Woodge') is a city for which the words 'gritty', 'down-to-earth' and 'unpretentious' barely do justice. It's Poland's...

Foreword/Disclaimer This blog was originally written as a rather embittered email during a fairly lonely and frustrating bike tour in...