I have never written a post about my adoptive home city of Kraków on this blog, and indeed I have generally overlooked it when it comes to writing other than...

Overlooked City Slovakia is a country justifiably famed for its beautiful mountain scenery, stunning national parks, lakes and forests, and it's true that mo...

Is it Safe? The idea of going to Tunisia is one that I had been mulling over for a while - in fact probably more than a decade. The events of 2011, when a ma...

Sando where? Small town Poland is, by and large, a fairly unremarkable affair. Unlike neighbouring Czech Republic, say, Poland's provincial places don't real...

Faded Charm Flying in, the first thing you see is the TV mast: a huge, flashing monument which is lit up like Blackpool tower with garish neon lights, a kits...

Welcome to the Cognac Capital In the shadow of the fabled Mount Ararat, Yerevan stands at a crossroads between Asian and European civilization, and for centu...

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

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

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

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

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

Will There Be Blood? Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, the most populous of the three Caucasian capitals with around two million inhabitants, has come a long way ...

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

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

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 relax, but some come ...

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 restaurants as well ...

Bus logistics We took a bus from Agra to Jaipur, this one 'deluxe' and about twice the price of the regular one - but still very reasonable - about $20 for a...

Foreword This trip took place in August and September 2007. It was at the tail end of the rainy season and there were still occasional (very) heavy storms in...

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

This trip took place in September 2006. Most of what I wrote is still accurate. Morocco is a safe country to visit, with only the disputed Western Sahara reg...