We recently visited Huangshan City, located in the southern part of China’s Anhui Province. We weren’t there for long - and it was a very hot day so walking about the old streets was probably not a good idea anyway. The area is renowned for its mountains, often enveloped in fog, and they attract countless visitors - but the city itself is a treasure trove of heritage, art, and history that deserves attention. A Stroll Through History: The Old Streets of Huangshan City 🏮 Tunx

Introduction to Samos Years ago, I travelled to the Greek island of Samos to take part in a walking week organised by Rambler’s Worldwide Holidays. The experience, filled with much laughter, unforgettable meals, natural beauty and cultural exploration, remains etched in my memory, largely thanks to the remarkable guide who led us on one particularly challenging and memorable hike. His name was Rupert Mostert, an unforgettable character with a charisma that left a lasting impr

Explore the Hidden Gem of Crete: The Lasithi Plateau Years ago we drove up into the mountains of central Crete and were amazed to come across a dead flat plain among the peaks. What was so surprising about this place was the number of windmills used for helping to irrigate the rich soils. I am told that many of these have since disappeared, but that some still survive. I hope so. It was one of the most magical places I have visited in the Greek islands…. Crete, the largest of

The Arrival of Slavery in North America and Its Strange West Country Echo It was 400 years ago that the first African slaves arrived in what was then colonial North America. This grim anniversary resonates in an unexpected and uncomfortable way in one of the most remote bays in all of the West Country: Beady Pool, on the southern shores of St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly. In all my UK travels, this beach - remote in the extreme - is one of the most haunting places I have ever

A short break in Marbella—a surprisingly wonderful town on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Surprising, because to many of us, it has a name for hen parties and that rather boozy world of short breaks which, in reality, is often exaggerated. There’s plenty of that in evidence, but Marbella also has a lot of laid-back charm. It also has a lot of very good food. Dining on the move in the tapas joints is, of course, one of the town’s must-do activities, although it is a tradition that ha

Many years ago,actually nearly half a century ago, I visited the town of Nafplion in Greece. That’s how we pronounced it but I see that you leave the final “n” off the name when you’re writing it in Greek. Anyway, we loved the place. And it’s easy to explain why. We had driven from England in 1977 in an old Renault 16 which had broken down a few times along the way. It is a very long way from the English Channel down to Greece via what used to be known as Yugoslavia. We had t

The Journey to the Iban Longhouse in Borneo 🏝️🌴 After an hour of travelling, some of which was at high speed, we reached the longhouse where we’d be staying as guests of the local Iban people. Even before our arrival, I could hear the welcoming bell echoing through the lush jungle. A woman and a child came down to the riverbank to greet us, and we were ceremoniously marched up the ancient steps, carved from a single log, that led to the entrance of the longhouse. I was the

It’s pumpkin time in the UK. All across the Northern Hemisphere, in fact. For 25 years, it was my job as a feature writer to track down various pumpkin farmers around the South West region of England so that I could write newspaper articles all about what kind of season it was… Were this year’s pumpkins bigger than ever? Were there new varieties that were tastier than ever? You know the sort of thing. Anyway, thinking about pumpkins caused me to remember the most pumpkin-ish

A Nostalgic Dream Come True A great many of us grew up dreaming of tropical islands, often inspired by books like "Robinson Crusoe" or perhaps the glamorous travels of James Bond. As a kid in the 1960s or 70s, visiting a sun-drenched island fringed with white sandy beaches and azure waters seemed like the stuff of fantasy—unless you were Princess Margaret. Fast forward to today, and those dreams can become reality in the form of a luxurious adventure to the small, private Car

An article describing how journalist Martin Hesp met an interviewed Tony Hibbert who founded Trebah Gardens in Cornwall

Years ago I visited the Similan Archipelago situated 40 miles from the mainland north of Phuket. This national park is widely considered to be one of the best diving areas in the world. Even my wife, who’d so recently been savaged by a giant iguana as she swam in the sea, couldn’t resist immersing herself in the underwater wonders of the Similans. It was like entering the busiest tropical fish tank you have ever seen. I cannot begin to describe the countless varieties of colo

Balance is an interesting word. The older you get, the more you realise just how important the idea of balance can be. In China, where I’ve been recently, they talk about yin-yang, so on the plane home I was inspired to practice a bit of balance and harmony. For example, I’d been in the Far East, so why not counter-balance that by going to the Far West? In UK terms, that means Cornwall. So, I thought, west of the Tamar I shall go… But, also in the search for a bit of harmo

Foreign places can grow in the imagination during a person’s formative years – we can nurture romantic and colourful ideas about a country or region and somehow they stick as you grow older. For example, mental images of the Middle East can be seeded and amplified by biblical stories. Then, perhaps, we may watch a classic movie like Lawrence of Arabia - and suddenly the hot dusty region takes on a whole new allure and fascination. What we see in our Arabian Night tinted imag

There are place names in the great European atlas that are enough to make the discerning traveller scuttle in the opposite direction – for example, having travelled to almost every corner of the EU in 30 years of writing travel articles, I’ve always managed to avoid the Algarve thinking it to be overcrowded and over-exploited. But one generalises at one’s peril. I am sure there are parts of Portugal’s southern coastline which are overbearing in certain seasons, but the south

It was a burning hot morning the day we visited this famous market situated in the heart of Provence. If I’m honest, I was beginning to dread facing the crowds and overheated streets, but then, I’d never been to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue before. The first thing I realised was that it features a great many cooling waterways, and these really did have the effect of reducing the sun’s heat. L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is a picturesque town which plays host to one of the region's most popul

Anhui Province, in eastern China, often sits in the shadow of its more famous culinary neighbours such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However, its cuisine, known as Hui cuisine (徽菜), offers a distinctive flavour profile that is said to reflect the rugged landscapes, abundant rivers, and rich history of the region. Anhui’s culinary traditions are deeply connected to its geography, drawing on local ingredients and time-honoured techniques that emphasise simplicity, freshness, and the

When you think about it, the invention of paper was a very important leap forward indeed. As a newspaper journalist, I would say that - but you only have to contemplate it for a second to realise we could be back in the Dark Ages without paper. Vellum and clay tablets were okay as far as they went, but you cannot keep endlessly complex records on lumps of clay or reproduce lengthy books on countless bits of animal skin. A big thank you, then, to the Chinese, who ‘invented’ pa

I am in the process of writing a plethora of articles about a recent trip to Anhui Province in China - but some reason I can’t quite put my finger on I decided to knock out a quick piece about Chinese motorway service stations and the truly weird and perhaps not so wonderful food that you can find to help fuel you on your way. Curiously, at none of the service stations we stopped at was anyone - not a single soul - eating in the restaurants. They were open. They were big and

The idea that one can leave one’s remote English home in the morning and be somewhere very foreign indeed by lunchtime will never cease to excite me, yet I know members of younger generations who shrug it off as being an ordinary fact of everyday life. Perhaps it’s because I can remember when such a thing was rare - the preserve of the rich. Now most people enjoy blasting abroad once in a while and we are fortunate to have a regional airport that makes it all the more easy to

There’s nothing quite like stumbling upon a location you’ve never visited before and discovering it to be surprisingly scenic and enjoyable. It is particularly rewarding for West Country folk when we come across some delightful corner of the coast outside our region, because we tend to be pretty much spoilt when it comes to having lovely bays and beaches in our own backyard. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting too much when, for family reasons, we found ourselves heading