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Destinations
Newspaper features about:
South Africa
“Newspaper offices have never been known for their flash
interiors and the one in East London - in South Africa’s
Eastern Cape - was no exception: worn stairs, doors leading
to other doors, framed copies of out-of-date newspapers on
the wall. ”
Interview with Donald Woods,
indefatigable anti-apartheid editor.
Eastern Cape
“Things have changed
in Burgersdorp. For one thing, it takes the great train
only 14 hours to lumber to the town from Johannesburg,
compared with the two days it took under apartheid.”
Dream
of the new South Africa in the Eastern Cape.
North Africa
Western Sahara
“Shoes were left
outside on the burning sand. Although it was the end of the
summer, the temperature was still hitting the hundreds and
entering the tent was like going into a cool, shady garden. ”
Staying
with the Saharawi in the Sahara
The people of Western Sahara continue to live in exile, hunkered down in refugee camps across the border from their land, in Algeria.
Here is a piece from The Irish Times which gives an account of a recent visit to the desert…
Australia
Sydney
“Their ghosts
are everywhere. In the dormitory where they slept, a canvas
hammock swings slightly as if someone had been there only
a second ago.”
Hyde Park Barracks
Museum and Irish Famine Memorial
“Scene in
a street in Oxford: visiting Aboriginal musician, Goomblar
Wilo, is playing his didgeridoo. Local bystander instructs
him: “You should go to Stonehenge and see where our indigenous
people used to live. ”
An Australian Republic – dream
or nightmare?”
Tasmania.
Wallabies, wombats and
wilderness: walking in Cradle Mountain
Austria
“The grey cobblestones, gleaming silver in the unlit street, give off a feeling of unease. Something’s not right.”
The Third Man in Vienna
Scotland
Faslane
“Loch Lomond has its scenery,
Loch Ness its monster and Loch Long, on the Clyde estuary,
its four Vanguard-class, nuclear-powered Trident submarines…” Britain’s
nuclear weapons submarine base un Scotland.
Meeting the
peace workers
England
Dorset
“The old wooden signpost
points not to roads but tofootpaths leading to Puddletown,
Lower Brockhampton, Rushy Pond and, further down the lane,
to Higher Brockhampton.”
A visit
to Thomas Hardy’s cottage.Hardy Hunting Ground
Oxford
“. A whole pig's head is spiked on the paling opposite Magdalen College, and from the branch of a nearby tree hangs a single silk stocking.”
- May
Morning
click
here for the sound of May Morning
Northampton
“On
June 16th last, a group of people stood around in the warmth
of the summer’s evening and did what many people had
done that day: they read a bit, here and there, from James
Joyce.”
What happened to Lucia, daughter of James Joyce and Norah Barnacle?
The Lake District
“When
their mother died, in 1777, William Wordsworth and
his sister Dorothy were sent off to different parts of the
country to be brought up by relatives. He was six…”
A
visit to Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage.
Canada
Newfoundland
“Summer’s the
time to be here,” they said, “when the flowers
are out and the icebergs floating past are at their best.”
Irish Week in Newfoundland
Eastern Caribbean
Antigua
“He’s been called
many things including God, Derek, Slowhand and x-Sample but
at Crossroads, he’s plain Mr. Clapton.”
Mister Clapton,
please. ” Eric Clapton’s drug dependency centre
on the island.
Antiguabuses: “You take
your pick from the line-up: Iron Eagle,Risky
businesss or De Outlaw.” - local transport
on the island.
Dominica
“WAITKUBULI, a lush and
fertile island, rises tall and green from the clear, blue
waters of the Caribbean. I first caught sight of it
from the bows of the Danny Boy, a ramshackle little cargo
boat that does the rum run between Antigua and the islands
of the eastern Caribbean.”
A
visit to a Carib
Chief.
Montserrat
“Sister
Cecelia reads out the programme of events for March
17th, a day celebrated with special fervour on the eastern
Caribbean island of Montserrat. “At first, there’s
breakfast in St Patrick's School. Then a Freedom Run,
followed by a bicycle race and a cricket match and, for the
night before, a pub brawl." I look over her shoulder
and read pub crawl.”
St
Patrick’s Day on Montserrat. The
Island of the Golden Oriole
Finland
ENONTEKIO
“THERE'S no
such thing as bad weather, someone said, only inadequate clothing
and every stitch of clothing I had, Rune decided, was totally
inadequate.” Mary Russell dons super-warm clothing
to venture into the reindeer domain of Finland’s Saamipeople
in the Arctic Circle
France
Strasbourg
“It’s the home
of cranes - the feathered variety - and the
place where the Marseillaise was composed.”
Georgia
“When I first had the idea of writing a book about
Georgia, home of Stalin
and Medea, I mistakenly thought
that everyone there spoke Russian.”Stalin
was a Georgian.
Iraq
Baghdad
“At 2 am, the border-crossing
is stark: customs sheds, trucks with their engines running,
noise. My palmtop computer and camera are examined carefully
though -it’s the cell phone that gives me most grief. ”
Across
the Syrian desert to the city of Haroun el Rashid.
Iraq and the Gandhi connection
“When
a group of people met in London recently to discuss their
concern about the effects of UN sanctions on the people of
Iraq, it was no coincidence that they did so in a building
where, sixty years previously, the political activist
MohandasGandhi, had stayed ”.
Diary. Iraq conference
Najaf
“His
picture in the newspaper could only be described as biblical:
the US soldier who went into battle in Iraq with the 23rd
psalm inked onto his helmet: “...and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord for ever.”
The Prophet, his wife, her necklace and a battle: a
story about Najaf.
Ireland
Donegal
“There’s something
special about Donegal town and it’s not just the town’s
water bus.”
Donegal
town’s water bus.
Donegal
“There’s
the usual chaos backstage: costumes and props spill out of
boxes, the level of talk is high.”
Nativity play in
Donegal school
Donegal
“Isabella
(5) phoned me the other day: “My front tooth has gone
sideways,” she sobbed, “and I want it to go back
the way it was.”
I know the feeling: I too want everything to go
back the way it was but the trouble is, nothing does and
nowhere is this more evident than in Donegal.”
Donegal’s Community Bus in action
Dublin
“It’s such a modest
house for its time that it’s hard to believe it supported
a kitchen maid, nurse, governess and a cook.”
Number 3, Synge Street: home of George Bernard Shaw
Dublin
“History
has an uncanny way of folding in on itself.”
Royal Dublin Fusiliers: the
Irishmen who fought for Britain in World War One.
Dublin
“A teapot is a dear companion,
to be cherished as much for itself as for what goes into
it”.
Tea-time in Bewley’s and
other world famous places
Last year, there was talk of reviving the group which had formed to oppose the closing of Bewley’s, Dublin’s most famous coffee shop:
The economic news is bad, but Ireland's coffee houses continue to thrive. Plans to develop them as artistic focal points, combined with a more leisurely era, could mean their best years are yet to come, writes Mary Russell
Click here to read about it all
Dublin
“Times change and so too
does the language. When I first moved into Dublin’s
Portobello, there was a dairy which also, as it happened,
sold candles. Now it’s a stylish Afro-hairdresser’s
where you can have your hair corned.”
Changing faces in Portobello
Dublin
“We met in Manhattan,
Fred and I, in a small café near where I was then
living, not far from the Bowery.”
Rubbing
the wrong relic: James Joyce’s door knocker.
Dublin
“It was a favourite
walk on warm summer days, through prickly yellow gorse
and juicy, green fishscale fern.”
The Ballycorus
Skull Hole
Kildare
“Swords
are potent weapons. Heated by the passionate fire of peace,
they can be forged into ploughshares. ” La
Feile Brigide.
Saint
Brigid’s Day in Kildare
Tara
“Don’t
try this at home in the back garden. Instead, get yourself
to Tara and spend this shortest of nights sleeping out under
the stars.”
Summer Solstice at Tara Summer
Solstice
Walking in Ireland: “ Have you packed your drum-up,
got a preparatory rush from your pure carbohydrate drink
and put dubbin on your boots? ”
Some walking
festivals in Ireland.
Israel
It's not difficult to spot him: a small old Jew with glasses, which is how he describes himslef.
Aharon Appelfeld, holocaust survivor
Nederlands
“There’s one thing you have to practice if you’re going on
a cruise and that’s sitting and though not a sitter
by nature I soon got the hang of it”
Cruising the Nederland canals
Russia
“There’s a lot of gold in Russia these days: gold tooth fillings, gold domes on newly-built churches and gold interlocking wedding rings atop the flower-decked stretch-limos and pink Rolls Royces hired for the big day.”
An Irishwoman’s Diary
Spain
“First what you do is look out for a nice little bar
not too far from your refugio (hostel).” Walking along the medieval camino to
Santiago de Campostela
"It started small but grew big and before you could say blister, we were 13 and that’s a
crowd." Solo traveller Mary Russell wonders if she’ll survive a group outing on El Camino de
Santiago. Walking the Walk
THE NOCTURNAL SIGHS, snores and flatulence of my sleeping fellow travellers in our 500-bed pilgrim hostel encouraged me to rise at 5am and venture into the dark for an early morning start on my way from Santiago to Finisterre
Click here to view the full article
Sweden
Dalarna
“It
was the nearest I'd got to a phallic symbol of such proportions
for some time - all 30ft of it, crowned by a cockerel rampant.” Summer
solstice in Dalarna.
The day the sun stands still.
Syria
Damascus
“‘Welcome,’ the
perfume seller cried when I walked into his tiny shop in
the souk in Damascus.”
Ahlayn – twice
welcome to the capital of Syria.
Tadmor/Palmyra
“The dusty,
little bus trundled into the small oasis town of Tadmor,
in the middle of the Syrian desert and I felt I’d come
home.”
Winter solstice at Tadmor, in
the Syrian desert.
Quneitra
forgotten town of the
Golan Heights.
click here for
the sound of Quneitra
Syria
“In
a cafe in Damascus, the men sat looking disconsolately at
the television: Syria had just been beaten by Iraq in the
West Asia Football League.”
Syria,
a secular Arab state demonised by the west. True or false?
United States
New York
“ My
neighbour Mo had advised against the whole thing: ‘It’ll
be a crush, people fall off in front of your eyes and you
spend ages waiting to get onto the bridges.”
The
Great New York Bike Ride
Upstate New York
“ One of the loveliest
journeys you could make - once you’ve got yourself
to New York - is to take the Metro-North train from Grand
Central to the small town of Irvington - a journey of about
40 minutes. ”
Sleepy Hollow – Washington
Irving’s home.
Newark Airport
“ Flying from Heathrow to Newark, last
month, the flight attendant announced the video channel
might be slow to work: “ All 500 of you will probably
be switching on at the same time, ” she
explained.”
Travel warning: with an Iraqi stamp in your passport,
entering the US may take time.
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