Following the wedding of my friend Angel Faus in the towns of Besalu and Olot a couple of weeks ago I headed to the mountains. This entailed getting a bus from Olot to Ripoll….

….and then a train from Ripoll to Ribes de Freser to catch the rack railway to Nuria (1954m). The Valley of Nuria [...]

Took a trip to Snowdon at the weekend. Getting to Bangor on the train at the weekend is not recommended: it involved 3 changes of trains and took over 6 hours, the last leg along the north coast of Wales.

From Bangor we went to Llanberis by bus from where it is a short walk to [...]

Denver, the mile high city (part 1, two miles high, is here).

The enormous Recreational Equipment Store will cater to all your needs and desires as far as outdoor kit is concerned. The second photo underneath is taken next to a canal which runs near 14th for a while before joining the river.

There’s a Federal [...]

Apologies for the two week hiatus.  I’ve been sequestered in the mountains waiting for an apocalypse that never came.  Hang on a sec…… *checks stock portfolio*…. turns out it did come.  Eeek.
There is one big drawback of taking a skiing holiday, namely that there is no way I could possibly lug my camera out on [...]

On Sunday we took the train to Lake Como where it transpired to be carnival day. Town centre was busy and bustling, and we had to be careful not to get hit by any of the aerosol foam that kids were squirting over one another.

A couple of police cars crawled through town centre being sprayed [...]

Last weekend I headed to Milan for a couple of days respite from my arduous academic duties. First stop, il Duomo, the largest gothic cathedral in the world and the second largest Catholic cathedral in the world (by floor area), it magnificently features much naked ass.

I stayed with a friend of mine who, unforewarned, did [...]

(See also parts 1 and 2)
Ala-Archa gorge I took a trip into the Ala-Archa gorge which was pleasant and very peaceful, the only people around being me and my guide, Ayk-ke-kul, a student from the American university. One route takes you up past a climbers’ cemetery to a valley from which several peaks are accessible.

The snow got [...]

(See also part 1)
Issyk-KulIssyk-Kul, the “Pearl of the Tien Shan” is one of the biggest inland lakes in the world. I was told it has 20 rivers flowing into it and none flowing out, maintaining its level through evaporation. In summertime the resorts here are the big place for youth to hang out on the [...]

It takes almost 10 hours to get to Kyrgyzstan from London Heathrow. Luckily I was in business class so the trip was very bearable, although the assumption of air hostesses that being on a plane means you want to get off your face on free alcohol is a strange one. The skies were blue-grey as [...]

In Kyrgyzstan it's the law that foreigners have to carry their passport about with them at all times and show it to police when demanded, which it often is.  Experiencing this unpleasantness reminds me why ID cards are a Godawful, idiotic, unBritish proposition.
On a positive note, the Ala-Archa gorge is lovely, even if there is one heck of [...]