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Salisbury Cathedral – A Most Beautiful Church
While I am not a religious person, I do greatly appreciate the beautiful art and architecture that religion can inspire, none more so than the awesome Gothic cathedrals of western Europe. These wonders in stone often took hundreds of years to complete; Cologne took 600 years. As architectural tastes changed over the centuries, the results […]
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Golden Circle Route – Iceland in a Day
I first wrote this post in August 2018 and suspect that if you are able to get to Iceland post Covid-19 that a tour of the Golden Circle Route will be a lot more pleasant experience than it was when we toured it then. The natural and historical highlights will remain as good as ever, […]
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Stonehenge with Francis Pryor
This is my third post on a recently completed trip to Britain with Canadian military history specialists, Liberation Tours. Titled Medieval Britain: Castles, Cannons and Crowns, the tour took us from London to Edinburgh with stops at an incredible variety of well known and lesser visited sites dating from 2500 B.C.E. to the Battle of […]
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HMS Victory – The Most Important Ship in Britain
Britain has a long sea faring and naval tradition that stretches all the way back to Alfred the Great. By the 18th and 19th century British sea power was responsible for the creation and protection of the largest empire ever created. Constantly challenged by the French, Dutch, Spanish and even the United States, the British […]
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Battle of Hastings – England’s Last Invasion
The peaceful and bucolic scene above disguises the fact that on October 14, 1066 the most important and decisive battle ever fought on English soil happened right here – the Battle of Hastings. It was the final successful invasion of this storied island and marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon rule that Alfred the Great had […]
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Beatles Tour with Guide Paul Beesley
If you are a baby boomer like me then you will never forget February 9th, 1964. That is the day The Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and the music world was never the same again. The passion that The Beatles aroused in their fans was unparalleled and the Fab Four went on […]
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Reykjavik – First Impressions of a Booming City
Alison and I have just arrived in Iceland on what I would hesitate to call an overnight flight from North America, but rather an inconveniently short half-hop across the North Atlantic that gets us in to Keflavik airport (which services international flights to Reykjavik), at the ungodly hour of 4:30 AM. Mind you, given the […]
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Chiriqui Highlands – Search for the Quetzal
This is my fourth post on a recent visit to the country of Panama with Canadian travel company Adventures Abroad. The first three were all centered around activities in and around Panama City including a tour of the old and new city, a half transit of the Panama Canal and a visit to an Indigenous village. As […]
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Colonial National Historic Park, Virginia
When I was a boy there was a monthly event that I looked forward to with almost as great anticipation as Christmas morning – the arrival of the latest National Geographic magazine. I loved poring over the maps and looking at the pictures for which the magazine was justly famous. In 1960 National Geographic started […]
From the road
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April 20th, 2023
I’ve had a bad case of writer’s block since getting back from Southeast Asia, but I did finish this post on the fan… https://t.co/HoJjP4jeha
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April 12th, 2023
One of the main reasons to visit the Galapagos is to see the giant tortoises. This latest post explains where you c… https://t.co/mQ8PWha8j3
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April 11th, 2023
Spring is very late this year so it’s nice to see the crocuses finally show up. https://t.co/7HD6wvsEJ6
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April 9th, 2023
Sunday morning is a good time to reflect back on another Sunday in Reading, England which I wrote about here:… https://t.co/EJ4Is2NSqz