So we’re in the Douro Valley? I’m not sure if it was the three days of intense activity at Wine Pleasures’ International Wine Tourism Conference in Porto, Portugal – watching presentations, live-tweeting, blogging, networking, lunching, drinking and dining, and, on the last day, giving a presentation on Grantourismo. Or whether it was the twelve months of … Read more
From chilly Edinburgh, where our yearlong grand tour officially ended, we went to the splendid Atlantic coast city of Porto in Northern Portugal, where we shed some layers, soaked up some welcome sunshine, saw cobalt skies for the first time in months, and attended Wine Pleasures’ 2011 International Wine Tourism Conference. As wine, along with … Read more
“This is the graveyard of a young woman, eight months pregnant, who was killed by an elephant,” 55-year old Jane Mwamburi of Msorongo Village, Kenya, tells us through our guide and interpreter, Oliver. There are actually two graveyards, because the Taita people do not believe in burying a pregnant woman with her baby, Oliver reveals, … Read more
In Cape Town, as we did in Barcelona, we decided to play at being tourists for a day. Here are a few ways of seeing Cape Town and our verdicts as to which are worthwhile. We’ve resisted sightseeing and ticking off attractions in most of the destinations we’ve visited on our grand tour so far this year, … Read more
I discovered the satirical blog The Gangs of San Miguel de Allende by Richard Lander* while doing research on the Mexican town. It was the first blog that had made me laugh out loud in a long time. It was hilarious but it especially resonated because we were already in San Miguel de Allende and we … Read more