Free music at France’s Fête de la Musique

There is a reason I am standing in front of an entire French village clutching a microphone and preparing to launch into a rendition of Sonny and Cher’s “I got you babe”. That reason (other than beer, and the effect it has on my perception of my singing capability) is the insidious figure that society generally refers to as “the man”. Allow me to explain.

Wherever you go in the world, there will exist “the man”. As far as I can tell, this man is responsible for ensuring that anything that might be deemed to be a fun and exciting activity is carefully frowned upon, and metered out in small chunks.

Read More

Guest post: The Wonderful World of WWOOF

Today I’m pleased to introduce a guest writer on to the site who is going to tell you all about the wonderful world of WWOOF’ing - an awesome way to get all kinds of amazing experiences from your travels.

Sophie, who is writing today’s piece, is about to abandon her house-boat based UK lifestyle and venture to the Orient, where she’s going to be writing full time for HeadingThere. Sounds like a bit of alright to me. Anyway, enough of me, and on with the post, which is all about WWOOF’ing. This, despite the name, is not about dogs!

Read More

Sunset explosion

If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you’ll be aware that I’m a bit of a fan of taking pictures of sunsets. I was recently given the opportunity to provide a guest post to online ezine Take me to Travel, and naturally I thought of sharing some of my favourite sunsets from around the world.

So, from California to New Zealand, Germany to Australia, click on through to see some of my favourite sunsets from around the world!

Read More

In photos: from the Facebook Page (Edition i)

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone out there has this thing called Facebook. You poor hapless individuals you.

In the case of this blog, I share a lot of photos over on Facebook, many of which don’t make it here. Rather than force you into using Facebook merely to keep up with the Joneses, I’m going to address the problem by doing the odd round up post here of particular highlights from the page of late.

Read More

The art of procrastination, and an introduction

I started this travel blog quite a long time ago. Just over two years ago in fact, as this recent post illustrates. Throughout that whole time, I’ve had a silent partner who has been helping me out, providing handy feedback, checking my grammar, researching destinations and carting bits of camera kit around.

And other than the odd mention, she’s never really had a voice of her own on the blog. Not that I haven’t offered, of course. In fact, I’ve had a long standing open invitation to Vera to hop on in and post something. But, as you’ll see in the post below, if there’s one thing Vera is better at than anything else, it’s procrastination. Why do today what you can do next year? (Anyone who has ever e-mailed me will notice that it’s a trait we share). Anyway. Enough about me. Here’s Vera’s first ever post. Hopefully the first of many!

Read More

In photos: Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter

I found Barcelona to be a remarkably photogenic city. In fact, I’ve already shared some of my favourite photos of Gaudi’s Barcelona. Today I thought I’d highlight Barcelona’s Gothic quarter.

This is a very windy, largely pedestrianized part of Barcelona’s city centre. The streets are narrow and looming, making for challenging photography conditions, and the whole place just drips in gothic. Bram Stoker would be proud.

When you visit Barcelona, you will end up walking through this area. You’ll also get lost. It’s part of the fun... just don’t forget your camera!

Bicycles are a popular way to get around Barcelona. This one looked like it had seen better days, but it was brightly coloured nonetheless!

Barcelona’s main cathedral, which is the first photo in this post, has a fairly impressive rear end as well. Not to mention its side door, photographed below.

Here’s another of those churches that dots the place. I haven’t the foggiest what this one was called.

And finally, a hobbit hole! Actually, Barcelona doesn’t have a resident hobbit population. This is the original ticket booth for the Palau Musica, a world heritage listed building in Barcelona and well worth visiting for a guided tour.

Those were some photos from Barcelona’s gothic quarter! Have you been to Barcelona? Do you plan to go? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Read More

The Queen and I.

The Queen and I have a fairly relaxed relationship. She gets on with being all regal and attending charity events and wearing hats, and I get on with, well, the sort of things I get on with. Mostly our lives don’t overlap terribly, and I am totally fine with that.

I have no problem with being a subject, so long as I am not subject to. I suspect some fairly important grammar rules have just been broken.

Read More