Searching for the Puente Maria Pía, I picked my way along the long-disused and much-overgrown remnants of the railway line. It clung to the steep side of the valley overlooking the Douro River like a shelf on a wall. A light drizzle fell as I lifted my camera to get …
Strangers become friends The first night of our first Camino was extraordinary. We had climbed what seemed like an 8km (5 mile) staircase — without the stairs. At Orisson where we had booked to stop for the night, we found ourselves bunked in with another Australian couple and we quickly …
The Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, near Frankfurt, Germany presents a wonderful collection spanning the history of printing from its beginnings in Asia to Gutenberg’s press and into the modern era. The collection also houses two 42-line Gutenberg bibles.
The Bocca della Verità is a bit special. In the absence of a handy lie detector, how do you know if someone is being truthful? Trial by ordeal? Convince people that the gods know if you’re being truthful? How could that work? To find out, we need to go to …
I shivered in the winter chill, as the sheep grazed unconcerned in the paddock next to the giant metal dish. Magpies warbled in the distance and I wondered what it must have been like for the technicians worried, as heavy wind gusts tugged at the dish, yet knowing they were …
Notre Dame, Easter 2018 in Paris was something special — and it will be again —when the damage from the fire has been restored along with a new roof and spire. We celebrated Easter Sunday with the Gregorian Mass at the famous cathedral, before setting off to walk the medieval …
“The Camino is a wonderful metaphor for life – what’s your take on that?” Camino podcaster Brendan Bolton posed this and many other questions when he interviewed me recently. You can catch the interview here on Project Camino My response was three-fold. Firstly, yes it is indeed a great metaphor …
Camino podcaster Brendan Bolton asked recently: “When you hear the phrase ‘Post Camino Blues’ what is the first thing that comes to mind for you?” The way I see it, it’s kind of a late night Tapas bar staring into your vino tinto listening to a lone musician singing a …
I heard the music first, then turned a corner in the park and the explosion of tulips filled my eyes with Spring. It’s Floriade time in Canberra – with more than a million blooms, it is the Southern Hemisphere’s greatest flower festival that runs from 15 Sept to 14 October. …
