Stories

Like the Berlin Wall of fond memory, the Great Wall of China has spent the better part of its existence as something like a rumour.

China was so inaccessible for so long, the wall took on the patina of myth. Among Westerners, it had only been seen by the lucky few and as a result, like Stephen King’s monster in the closet, it became an almost supernatural thing, so when China started opening up, which is still not so very long ago, the Great Wall of China shot to the top of everyone’s list of things that must be seen.

Shiraz is a city in Iran, once a centre of wine-making, an industry that shut down once Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979.

There’s something regal about train travel, about sitting comfortably in a seat beside a huge window as the world passes by just below eye level.

It may be blustery or fine, arid or swampy just on the other side of the glass, but you are enveloped in a perfectly temperate pod, food and drink never more than a few steps away, a book, Kindle or other screen of choice within easy reach whenever you want a momentary distraction from the scroll of life outside.

You may think you know Iceland, but Iceland doesn’t give up its secrets easily.

Sure, the Blue Lagoon is lovely. But that’s not Iceland.

Iceland is a place unlike any other, a sort of time capsule of a nation that’s preserved many aspects of Viking-age life.

On May 24, 1976, nine French wine experts sat at a long table in a small side room off the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel on rue de Castiglione in Paris to drink.

A couple of hours later, the world of wine had been, as the French say, bouleversé.

In the blind tasting, the best red wine and the best white wine were both from California.

Checklists are for chores. But bucket lists are more than that, more, even, than life goals. Your bucket list isn’t a to-do list, it’s nothing less than a guide to the world and your place in it.

There is no way to “do” India, any more than you can decide you want to see the world. All you can do is make a start.

The capital of Laos is the product of ancient Lao civilization and French colonialism, set on the banks of the Mekong River, the Danube of the Orient.

Norway is a nation of superlatives. Not only is her coastline longer than that of the Unites States, her fjords are one of the few natural wonders that exceed expectations.