The Ankorians wrote on banana leaves. As their society collapsed, and monks stopped meticulously copying manuscripts, the scrolls of leaves rotted away in the humid climate, and their history was…

Two weeks ago I had the great fortune to travel around Northern England with a friend of mine. He had just returned from his second semester in Cairo, studying Arabic,…

On a two day visit to the Eastern stretch of the Magreb, where the Atlas mountains dive into the Mediterranean and host the capital of Tunis upon the bay, I…

Padova boasts an ancient history, tracing a continuous line from nebulous mythology, stringing Roman and Byzantine beads along its course right up until the Italian present. Decorative footprints of these…

My favourite Sister has completed her first year of university and of course everyone rejoices. To celebrate after finishing her final exam we spend a weekend in Normandy, accompanied by…

Its Latin name might not betray her Islamic heritage, as Mallorca indicates “the larger one” in opposition to Menorca, “the smaller one”, but like the neighbouring Balearic Islands and most…

We drive over the outer edges of the French Pyrenees, fields of warm sunflowers and ripening grapes on both sides, occasionally passing a thin church tower sticking out above a…

We live in a hole in a sandstone cliff, carved by unknown hands, listening to some music after lunch, hiding there from the sun, and looking out over the sea….

The day is hot as the sun warms the golden fields of Tuscany. We enjoy the lack of humidity we suffered in Venice, making the summer here less stuffy and…

This will be an exercise in memory. In the first years of my childhood, my parents often took my sister and I travelling around the Provence, mostly choosing sleepy towns…