by Jane | Nov 22, 2016 | Rest of the World |
Around the world, tragic events occur. As a result, international visitors are often put off visiting those countries – but, a lot of the time, this hesitation is unfounded and it is in fact safe to travel.
So, rather than shy away from such places, I want to set the record straight for six countries where recent events shouldn’t put you off visiting.
I haven’t been to Iran yet but it is high up near the top of my list.
Any uncertainty about visiting Colombia is due to its past. Back in the 80s and 90s, Colombia was Pablo Escobar’s territory and crime rates were high. Things are different now. The country is no longer ruled by the gun and all the big cities, including Medellin and Cartagena, have cleaned up their act.
Welcoming smiles in Colombia
Nowadays, travellers can visit and experience great food, friendly locals, adventure in the sports capital, San Gil, and spectacular natural beauty. Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, is a highlight. Only accessible by a five-day trek through the jungle, the breathtaking ruins date back to the 9th century. It’s often heralded as the next Machu Picchu – so head there before the crowds.
The terror attacks of 2015 incited fear in almost everyone – and put a lot of people off visiting Paris. In the week following, almost half of Telegraph Travel readers, for instance, said they’d be less likely to visit the city. But since the attack, security has been heightened, including extra border control checks at all entry points.
Vigilance, as always, is needed in public places and you’ve got to follow the advice of local authorities – but it shouldn’t stop you visiting the world’s most romantic city of Paris. So plan a trip to see world-famous museums and monuments and taste fantastic food.
The Louvre
Not long ago, Iran was officially part of the former US President’s (George Bush) ‘Axis of Evil’. In reality, the country is one of the world’s most welcoming – and, most importantly, it’s safe. Chasing the Unexpected says this safety doesn’t change whether you’re travelling alone or in a group. In fact, on her visit, she saw a large number of women travelling alone.
The Secret Traveller says Iran is one of those countries you probably wouldn’t think about visiting, but really should – citing it a friendly place. The real attraction of the country is all of the great people you meet when you’re there. Looks like it’s time to go and meet them.
The earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015 caused huge devastation. Now, the perceived risk continues to worry travellers. But natural disasters cannot be prevented and the negative impact on tourism continues to hurt places long after devastation hits.
So put Nepal back on your must-visit list. If you’re in any doubt, read this post to convince you. They do warn you’ll need a bit of patience as taxi prices might be higher and menus limited, however.
When the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU), following the ‘Brexit poll’, a lot of people were surprised. Loads of questions – including whether visas will be needed for EU visitors – continue to flood in. But until Article 50 is triggered, nothing will really change. Even after that, it could be over two years before the UK really ‘leaves’.
Cardiff Castle
The devaluation of the pound also makes it very cheap for international visitors – so come and enjoy the country now for a great price.
In 1991, the outbreak of the Yugoslav Civil War, including Dubrovnik being the target of a seven-month siege, obviously put visitors off. By 1996, Croatia had restored diplomatic relations
Nowadays, the country is a safe and welcoming place for travellers. It’s also a beautiful country with great beaches, architecture and food. It’s no surprise tourism is booming. Fortunately, prices are still reasonable. Go – and don’t miss two of Croatia’s eight national parks, the Unesco-listed Plitvice Lakes and Krka, both famous for their stunning lakes and waterfalls.
Have you visited any of these places? Share your experiences with me.
by Jane | May 24, 2016 | Europe |
What are the top things to do in Milan?
If you have 3 days in Milan you can cover most of the sights and get a really good feel for this Italian city.
Milan is a chic, charming city full of style. Quietly confident yet understated, it’s full of little boutique cafes and bars where people watching is the local pastime.
Milan’s Duomo
Milan’s duomo
The centre of the city is dominated by the Duomo – the massive cathedral which was begun in 1387 but which wasn’t completed until the 1960s.
For the best ‘wow’ factor transfer into the city centre via the metro and if you are lucky choosing your exit from the station you will come up the steps and exit into the piazza and see the main facade of the cathedral directly in front of you.
The Duomo’s dome completely dominates the skyline yet it appears to float to float delicately above the huge piazza on which it sits.
Despite its massive size, the intricate stonework and marble gives it a feather-soft beauty, catching the changes in the light and ensures that it looks magical whatever the weather.
If you are physically able to, do pay to go up inside the tower and explore the roof of the cathedral. Clambering around on the sloping lead tiles and scrambling up and down steps at eye level with the old stone gargoyles, you really get an idea of the sheer scale of the building.
The main roof slopes gently away either side of the ridge but it’s easy to negotiate and there are many small corridors, balconies and nooks and crannies to discover.
The view across the rooftops of Milan from the top of the Duomo is, as you would expect, quintessentially Italian with countless domes and stone church towers poking up between the rusty coloured terracotta roof tiles.
Flocks of pigeons scatter in the path of children who run around on the large chequered piazza below and over in the distance you can see snow capped mountains.
For the best view of Milan’s Duomo
There is a large department store called La Rinascente which is just alongside the Duomo.
Take the escalator to the 7th floor where you will find a row of restaurants and bars and arguably the best place to experience the Duomo as you are looking AT it, rather than from it.
These little bars range from ‘not so cheap’ to posh, but do order a drink and sit and watch the tourists who are watching you from the balconies of the cathedral.
In nearly all of the bars in Milan you will be given tiny little plates of nibbles to go with your drinks. These nibbles can range from some nuts in a bowl to dainty crostini, pieces of chorizo or cheese and olives, to hunks of bread or cakes.
Snacking in Milan
Going out for a drink in the early evening in Milan can take this snacking cuisine to a whole new level. Track down a bar which is serving aperitivi and you are sorted.
Buying a drink (choose a Negroni or a sbagliato) in one of these bars advertising aperitivi and you will get access to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The drink may cost a little bit more, but the food will certainly make up for it. A myriad of tapas style snacks or a large pot of stew served with beans, a bar somewhere in Milan will be serving something that you like to eat.
And to drink? Milan has made the aperol spritz its own. Made with prosecco, Aperol and soda water and served in oversized wine glasses over ice and a slice of an orange, you should order one, settle back in your seat and watch the world go by.
Aperol spritzer
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
For a shopping centre with style, visit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which is also in the main square with Milan’s Duomo.
When it was constructed it was way ahead of its time, and now the iron and glass arcades are filled with the likes of Prada and Gucci and old-style cafes where waiters silently glide around in starched cotton aprons.
The architect Giuseppe Mengoni plummeted to his death from the glass roof just before the project was completed.
To ward off similar bad luck, stand on the testicles of the mosaic of the bull which is set into the floor near the centre and spin on your heel.
shopping in style
The Last Supper
Probably one of the most iconic paintings in the world is in Milan.
Technically not a painting but a fresco The Last Supper is well worth a visit but you will need to be a bit of a detective to obtain a ticket.
You can always buy a grossly overpriced ticket from an agent and you can of course, go along to the ticket office, but tickets generally sell out days or even weeks in advance in high season.
There is a website but I personally didn’t find it to be very user-friendly and I resorted to asking an Italian friend of a friend to organise one for me.
However, once you are armed with your ticket and you have found the building that the fresco is in, you wait for your time-slot and you are allowed into the hall with its subdued lighting.
The fresco has been damaged by time and also by the priests who once hacked a new doorway to the kitchens through it. The colours are now cloudy and lumps of plaster have dropped off it but the scale of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, not to mention the conspiracy theories and fictions which surround it, make it one special piece of artwork.
No photos are allowed inside, and to be honest, no pictures can do it justice, so you will have to go and see it for yourself.
Castel Sforzsco
Milan has a castle, the Castel Sforzsco . With imposing walls it sits in a large park, complete with a lake and a bandstand and lots of paths to wander around.
It began life as a fortress before being taken over as a stately home and it now houses a museum.
Arco della Pace
At the far end of the park with the castle is a piazza that is dominated by the Arco della Pace – a triumph of giant statues and arches. Sit on the steps or pause for a drink in one of the little bars that line the crossroads and the road to Paris and marvel at the pomp and splendour of the gateway.
Arco della Pace
La Scala
You may not be interested in opera or your visit to Milan may not coincide with a performance, but a peep inside La Scala theatre is a glimpse into another world.
Opulent red velvet and gold provide a spectacular colour theme and posters and costumes make you feel as if you have stepped back in time.
La Scala is one of the iconic theatres of the world and retains all of its old world magic.
The Navigli district
The Navigli neighbourhood runs alongside the canal, and while it is now sleek and modern and packed with bars, restaurants and independent shops, it still manages to retain a bohemian atmosphere.
On the last Sunday of every month antique dealers and second hand traders set up their stalls alongside the canal.
…and the other top sights in Milan?
The railway station.
If you happen to be passing take ten minutes to pop in and take a look at the marble columns and panels that were in vogue when it was built
Art – contemporary or ancient.
Home to many of the renaissance art schools and now dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty first century, somewhere in Milan you will find a gallery or a museum to interest you.
Wander around the masterpieces of the Pinacoteca di Brera in the substantial stone building with its sturdy veranda running around the central courtyard or find a modern gallery – its all here.
Leonardo da Vinci.
You have The Last Supper and the Museo Nazional della Scienza e Technologia Leonardo da Vinci with its reconstructed models of his ideas.
There are the fortifications of Castel Sforzsco which da Vinci designed and posters and references to him everywhere – you can’t escape reminders of this prolific man.
Shopping and fashion
From designer to vintage, artisan crafts or ingredients for the most discerning chef, the shops are a work of art in themselves. Never shabby or run-down they epitomize Italian chic with their tasteful window displays.
Pizza
Find a little backstreet pizza restaurant with an authentic stone oven and you are in for a treat. Where better to enjoy a pizza and a glass of wine or an aperol spritzer than in Milan
These are my top things to do in Milan. But don’t take my word for it. Go over there and see for yourself.
by Jane | Mar 22, 2016 | Rest of the World |
Without getting into the politics of Cuba or the rights and wrongs of the Castro regime, there are some very good reasons why NOW is the best time to visit Cuba.
Following the recent relaxation of the US embargo on Cuba, things are likely to change swiftly and part of its charm is its shabby decaying chaotic vibrant structure that is visible now.
The architecture
There is a big Unesco-led programme which is renovating the crumbling buildings of Cuba, and especially those in Havana. These old apartment blocks, grand mansions and the cobbled back streets are very carefully and painstakingly slowly being returned to their former glory. In its heyday Cuba must have been a cacophony of Colonial splendour. The old city of Cartagena in Colombia gives a glimpse of how Havana must have once looked before the Cuban capital began to crumble to dust. (click here for pictures of the splendid Cartagena)
Vintage cars
Along with the falling down buildings, the vintage cars on the streets of Havana attract photographers in their thousands. Beautiful to look at and a memory of times long gone, old Chevrolets, Buicks and Plymouths cruise around, offering rides as unofficial taxis or, more often than not, are propped up on bricks as spare parts are currently impossible to come by.
A peek into a pre-globalisation world
What is quite striking are the lack of signs attracting you to eat at the local Western style restaurants or hoardings advertising fast food or fizzy drinks. Unlike other countries which have a homogomous mix of everything and many high streets all look alike, in Cuba you really feel that you are somewhere very different without the all-consuming consumerism and greed for materialism which is everywhere.
As the political situation changes then Cuba is almost bound to become like any other place in the world so the best time to visit Cuba has to be sooner rather than later.
Low crime levels
Crime levels are much lower than in other cities around the world, although this is not to say that crime is non-existent. Heavy penalties and policing deter many, and there are eyes everywhere in the form of informers. Another factor is that much of life is lived outside. Because of the heat and humidity, overcrowded living conditions and simply a love to sit outside and natter to the neighbours, there are very few places that are unobserved and therefore people think twice before committing a crime
Higher happiness levels
People express their happiness through music, dance and socialising. They promenade along the malecon, sit and chat in bars and parks and work together as a community. There is a Caribbean vibrancy to life – but let us not beat about the bush, it can be a tough life for many people.
I toured around Cuba in the spring of 2013. I flew out to Havana and I joined a small adventure tour group, visiting a lot of the island.
I trekked up into the mountain jungle region where Fidel Castro and Che Guevara holed up during the revolution and I slept outside on the verandas of haciendas. I adored the picturesque towns of Trinidad, Camaguey and Santiago de Cuba and I drank my body weight in mojitos.
After the tour ended, I stayed behind and I lived in a casa particular with a Cuban family in the suburbs for four more days.
The best time to visit Cuba – before it changes
Cuba is a fascinating island with fascinating people BUT a lot of them live in substandard homes which are leaking or falling down around them. Cars break down regularily and the roads are atrocious with massive potholes and a very poor public transport system.
As tourists we want to see the vintage cars but be honest, if you had the choice between a rusty, unreliable heap of metal or a gleaming Chinese model (because of the US embargo the Chinese are in) – which would you choose to run your family around in?
Would you opt to take a donkey cart to the shops or jump on a bus or a tram? Would you want to struggle with the ration system in very poorly stocked shops or take your children out to a burger bar for a hamburger, fries and a shake?
by Jane | Oct 13, 2015 | Rest of the World |
Two and a half years ago I quit my job and I went exploring.
I thought that I may be gone for no more than a year before I satisfied my wanderlust and I settled back down again.
Europe 2013
How wrong was I! I really threw myself in at the deep end that first summer in Europe.
- I went to to my first ever proper festival (in Lisbon),
- I worked on a farm in the Algarve,
- I was house sitting in Italy
- I looked after (sort of) 7 golfers in a gite in France
- I went to a wedding in Gibraltar
A year in South America
Scarlet Jones Travels – Brazil
And then I fulfilled my childhood dream (thanks Paddington Bear) of going to deepest darkest Peru. I was in South America for 364 days but I hardly scratched the surface. I usually travel slowly and I try to integrate with communities so I didn’t cover half of the ground that I had planned to, but I did manage to get to
- Peru
- Bolivia
- Ecuador
- Colombiaaaaa
- and Brazil
After a month or so in the UK over Christmas and the New Year I spent nearly a week in Tampere in dark snowy Finland before heading back to Spain for a break and I prepared for my next adventure – which was…..
Blasting through the Baltics.
The initial plan was to travel from Finland to Morocco in a camper van with a friend who I had met in Colombia but stuff got in the way and I had to fly back to the UK from Warsaw. However I did manage to see Helsinki, and then the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the top right-hand corner of Poland. Those few weeks were crazy and emotional for many reasons (you will have to wait for the book) and the weather threw everything at us from the most idyllic winter weather ever in Helsinki and Estonia to blizzards, icestorms and biting winds at other times.
Scarlet Jones Travels – Estonia
I spent my third summer away from my 9 to 5 job…
Cavorting in Catalunya
I worked hard and I played hard. I spent HOURS tapping away at my keyboard, designing an on-line course (watch this space as it will be launched very soon now). I would often put in more than 10 hours a day writing content but luckily I found plenty of time to explore the region led by my willing accomplice Debs.
And that brings me to now. Two and a half years on I am just beginning a new chapter – this time in South East Asia. I have a very loose, tentative plan, an idea of a route around the region, but if travel has taught me anything it’s to not over plan so I’m not going to set it out in print at this stage.
What I do know is that I will spend some time in Bangkok where I am very excited to be attending my second TBEX (Travel Bloggers Conference), and then…..well, you will have to wait and see.
I will also be launching my on-line course very soon and as a result of that I may have to rent a room somewhere and base myself in a place with decent wifi in case there are any last minute glitches with the launch.
And I don’t know why, but dramas always seem to follow me around and this trip so far has been no exception. Getting to Thailand was always going to be a bit of a slog but I had managed to buy an excellent value ticket with a decent travel time and just a 2 hour transfer in Mumbai. And then, just 17 minutes in to my overnight coach journey to the airport I received an email which told me that due to ‘an incident’ over Turkish airspace my flight had been seriously delayed and I would miss my connection.
Yes – things are back to normal!
If you would like to receive my blog articles directly by email and read what other dramas are going to befall me – you can guarantee that there will be many – make sure that you go to my site and sign up. You will also get a free copy of the ‘Top 10 things that you should know before travelling’ and you will be one of the first to learn about my course when it launches.
Are you ready? Watch this space for…
Scarlet Travels Solo in South East Asia
Scarlet Jones Travels – Bangkok
by Jane | Oct 6, 2015 | Europe |
Farming and Fiestas: work hard, play hard.
And after all the work that I told you about in my previous article, you must agree that the Catalans certainly deserve to party.
Everyday, somewhere in Catalunya there will be a fiesta happening. Celebrating the birth, life or death of a patron saint, a religious day or a national day, there will be a reason to party. Rows of trestle tables covered with white paper are set up under the trees next to the river and clouds of mosquitoes dance and hover in the fairy lights which are strung between the branches, or village-sized marquees are thrown up overnight and the entire population stuff themselves inside for up to a week of celebrating.
Scarlet Jones Travels: preparing to party
For a very reasonable price you can be served three plates of food, with the offerings usually including the local delicacy of blood sausage and the flaky pastissets and of course, plenty of sangria or wine. There might be a band or a DJ or a mixture of both and people will dance together, cha cha cha-ing or later salsa-ing or grinding away to reggaeton.
Claire serves the sangria
I have described the Corrofoc in a previous article – the adrenaline fueled fire running event (click here if you missed it) which a lot of the towns and the villages host, but there are also parades of gigantes (those massive ‘It’s a Knockout’ style puppets), medieval festivals and Corpus Christi. And as a birthday bonus, you get extra celebrations rained on you on whatever birth date you share with the saint that you were named after.
Scarlet Jones Travels; the crazy correfoc
One evening almost the whole village decamped to the opposite side of the river and went up into the hills to the Old Station Fiesta. Years ago a railway line was built up into the mountains but later fell into disrepair. Now restored and converted to the Via Verde (the Green Way) you can cycle or walk along it for miles, over spectacular stone viaducts and through long, pitch black, bat inhabited tunnels. A group of local businessmen restored one of the old station buildings and during the summer they open the terrace on the old platform to diners and hold live music events.
The old station building
The fiesta at the old station is a relatively new event which is rapidly becoming absorbed into the timetable of local customs. A shuttle bus ferried people up and down to and from the village, there were the tables crammed together, cauldrons of food bubbling away, buckets of sangria of course, and music. I watched and then I was later invited to join in with the local dance called the jota which, believe me, is much trickier to do than it looks. Men and women dance in snakelike lines moving deceptively slowly while doing some frantic and complicated footwork and elegantly twisting and turning in tune with each other (apart from me of course). The men wear spotless white shirts with bright red sashes and the ladies wear black, delicate embroidered lace shawls
Scarlet Jones Travels: letting the amateurs loose on the dancefloor
Films and slides were projected onto the side of the station building, some documenting the history of the station and its connection with the village and there was much cheering and shouting as the villagers recognised themselves or their friends and relatives in the pictures.
And then we danced until dawn; spinning, salsa-ing and bouncing until the cry went up that the final shuttle bus was about to depart, and we fled the dance floor at 6am and got back into the village just as the sun came up over the mountains.
The end of a perfect night. And the start of a perfect day
by Jane | Sep 29, 2015 | Europe |
Farming and fiestas.
Work hard and play hard. That seems to be the motto and ethic of the majority of Catalans the region in Spain where I spent my summer. Fruit and nut trees grow where the River Ebro has formed plains at the foot of the mountains and the climate is perfect for vines. The coastline has miles and miles of amazing beaches and the region is littered with Roman (and earlier) remains, churches and gravity defying terraces which stretch upwards into the hillsides.
Scarlet Jones Travels: food of the gods
I was living in a proper working village – where the community is still very much alive and kicking. The buzz and hum of tractors, forklift trucks and lorries are there; as are scents of one sort of another – peaches, apples or almond blossom fill the air at their respective times of the year. The elderly residents are gnarled and sun-browned, a lifetime of hard physical work obviously doing them no damage at all and they now sit outside their front doors watching the world go by. Many of these people were some of those who took to the mountains as children and hid with their families when the last days of the civil war played out around them.
Scarlet Jones Travels: the cherry harvest
Rugs with piles of almonds laid out to dry are spread in the tiled streets outside front doors and crate loads of fruit can be seen piled up alongside the refrigerated distribution centres waiting to be taken up to the markets in Tarragona or Barcelona, and everybody gets up at the crack of dawn and it’s all hands to the deck to pick and harvest when the crops suddenly ripen or when winds or rain are forecast.
Scarlet Jones Travels: drying almonds
I began my summer here in Catalunya helping friends out with their cherry harvest – which is always a pleasurable experience although this year’s crop was especially poor; and then the peas and the beans arrived – with the sweet sugar snap peas hardly requiring any cooking at all; and the apricots, peaches and greengages. I have NEVER had a shop bought apricot taste as sweet as those plucked direct from the tree for breakfast.
Scarlet Jones Travels: concentrating on the crop
I helped to prepare and dry countless trays of cherries and plums and I sun-dried tomatoes – although I guess technically they weren’t sun dried at all as I used a drying machine, and I soaked them in garlic and olive oil trapping the summer flavours, and sprinkled others with salt and basil eating them like sweets throughout the day.
Chillies were hung up on strings to dry, chopped and soused in vinegar or cooked up into the most amazing pepper and mango sauces; and then the tomatoes arrived. They were to prove the bane of my life, as every fresh batch that ripened seemed to coincide with either heavy winds which flattened the canes or sudden thunderstorms which saturated the ground and caused the fruit to explode. There were green tomatoes, plum tomatoes and yellow light bulb shaped tomatoes as well as currant tomatoes and your bog-standard ordinary ones too.
Scarlet Jones Travels: tomatoes
I chopped and dried, boiled and bubbled, I made salsa and I ate gazpacho every day through the summer. I was taught how to cook spaghetti squash (recipe at the end of the article) and I marvelled how on earth a courgette which was just 3 centimeters long one day and hiding in the shade of the leaves could suddenly turn into a marrow the next.
Scarlet Jones Travels: I can put together a supper from these
Sadly the apple harvest, like the tomatoes didn’t fair too well with the high winds and tons fell from the trees, with the majority also damaged by wormy things. The figs, which began slowly, with the tree producing about 6 ripe fruits per day – just enough for my breakfast – suddenly exploded in sweet, sticky sappyness and I was hard pressed to keep up with those. I discovered that there was a fine line between unripe figs, perfect figs, figs with a maggot in and those which contained a mass of tiny little beetles which abandoned the fruit as you picked them and ran up your arms, resembling something like the scene with the scarab beetles in ‘The Mummy’.
Scarlet Jones Travels: figs ready for drying
We had the hottest July for 3o years so after a long day in the fields or up on the terraces it would be down to the bars, where tables and chairs would overflow into the main street and cars would have to pick their way around chattering groups as they drove down the road. Children would go out to play at midnight – it was cooler in the dark – and people took to pulling mattresses out onto their terraces and balconies to sleep and a cold shower just to find some respite at 3am became the norm for most of us.
Scarlet Jones Travels: bird’s nest in a cherry tree
Yes,the Catalans work hard but in my next article I shall show you how they also know how to party
Spaghetti Squash.
This was a new vegetable to me but I shall certainly look out for it in the future. It resembles a bright yellow honeydew melon and its almost as simple to prepare.
Slice it in half and scoop out the seeds from the middle then microwave both halves for 14 minutes. When cooked you drag a fork across the flesh – which pulls it out into strands like spaghetti. Serve as a vegetable on the side, in a salad or as spaghetti with a tomato sauce poured over the top. Easy, tasty and very very healthy.
