Travel stories, quotes and fun facts

The Faroese fog

We drove through a tunnel and came out in a different weather system. The village on the other side had sun, sheep on the roofs, and a shop that sold both fishing tackle and cake.

Cornwall has its own language

Cornish died out as a community language in the 18th century and has since been revived, with road signs and schools bringing it back.

We travel to change

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.

Faroe Islands hire sheep as cameras

When Street View cars skipped the islands, locals strapped cameras to sheep and mapped the roads themselves in a campaign called Sheep View.

A bear on the trail

The guide stopped, put a hand out flat, and we all stopped too. Two hundred metres up the slope a brown bear crossed without looking at us once. Nobody took a photograph until it was gone.

Greenland's ice is kilometres thick

The Greenland ice sheet averages about 1.5 kilometres thick and presses the island's bedrock down below sea level in places.

Andorra has no airport

Andorra has no airport or railway station. Everyone arrives by road through the Pyrenees, which is part of the charm.

The stone that fit exactly

Our guide slid a bank card at a joint in the Inca wall and it would not enter. He did this for tourists twenty times a day, and it still made everyone go quiet.

Travel is more than seeing

Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.

Monaco is smaller than Central Park

Monaco covers about two square kilometres, and much of its newest land was reclaimed from the Mediterranean.

Marrakech at first light

At six in the morning the Jemaa el-Fnaa is empty except for cats and a man sweeping. By nine it is a market, by seven a food court, by eleven a drum circle. Same square, four cities.

Gibraltar's runway crosses a road

Traffic on Winston Churchill Avenue stops every time a plane lands, because the road runs straight across the airport runway.

Turkey's underground city held thousands

Derinkuyu descends eighteen levels and could shelter around 20,000 people with livestock, wine presses and ventilation shafts.

Man cannot discover new oceans

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.

The tea ritual

Three glasses: the first bitter as life, the second strong as love, the third gentle as death. Our host poured from a great height each time and would not let us leave until all three were drunk.

Istanbul spans two continents

Istanbul is the only major city built across two continents, with commuters crossing between Europe and Asia by ferry every morning.

Cappadocia's rock is soft enough to carve

Volcanic tuff in Cappadocia is soft when freshly cut and hardens in air, which is why entire churches and hotels are carved into the cliffs.

Sand in everything

Two months after we came home I found Saharan sand in the spine of a paperback. It had crossed a continent inside a book and I could not bring myself to shake it out.

A ship in harbour

A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

Pamukkale means cotton castle

Calcium-rich hot springs have built white travertine terraces down the hillside at Pamukkale over thousands of years.

Blue in every doorway

There are at least nine blues in one alley and the paint is refreshed by hand each spring. A woman repainting her step let me help for two minutes and then politely took the brush back.

Cyprus has a divided capital

Nicosia is the last divided capital in Europe, split by a buffer zone patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers since 1974.

Europe's oldest restaurant is in Madrid

Sobrino de Botin has served roast suckling pig continuously since 1725 and still uses its original wood-fired oven.

Throw off the bowlines

Throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.