• Ho Chi Minh City: Part 2
    Asia

    Ho Chi Minh City: Part 2

    05/31/2023 - By 

    Just before lunch we headed to the Reunification Palace in the centre of Ho Chi Minh City. Home to the president of South Vietnam in 1975 when the North’s tanks came rolling in, it’s stood in a virtual time warp ever since. To get to the palace, we walked through the large pale grey gates surrounding it and past an immaculate round lawn where we headed up a flight of steps to the main entrance. Inside, the palace is home to ceremonial spaces, a banqueting hall, meeting rooms, seating areas, a dining room, screening room and even an indoor rockery.…

  • London: The Wallace Collection
    Uk

    London: The Wallace Collection

    02/12/2023 - By 

    I first heard about The Wallace Collection years ago when I was writing a secret guide to Marylebone for a magazine I was working on at the time. As part of the feature, I was interviewing locals to find out their favourite spots in the area and one woman I talked to mentioned The Wallace Collection. Intrigued, I decided to check it out the following Saturday and discovered an utterly delightful collection of art, porcelain and furnishings inside a magnificent mansion. The Wallace Collection is a collection of European artworks, furniture and armoury amassed by the 4th Marquess of Hertford…

  • London walks: Belsize Park, Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park
    Uk

    London walks: Belsize Park, Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park

    02/05/2023 - By 

    When I lived in London, I used to try to get out for a long walk most weekends. One of my favourite walks was from Belsize Park to Marylebone or Regent’s Street in central London, via Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park. If I was feeling particularly energetic and had the time, I’d sometimes start the walk in Crouch End, making my way to Highgate Woods, through Highgate village and across Hampstead Heath to Belsize Park before continuing into central London. Short on time this trip and keen to pack in as much as I could, I decided to keep it…

  • London: Westminster, St James’s Park and Hieroglyphs at the British Museum
    Uk

    London: Westminster, St James’s Park and Hieroglyphs at the British Museum

    01/29/2023 - By 

    On my second day in London, I headed into town bright and early to start the day with a little touristing. My destination? Westminster. Situated on the banks of the River Thames in the heart of London, the historic district is home to a slew of the capital and the country’s most iconic landmarks, including the eponymous Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Inspired by the previous day’s visit to St Paul’s Cathedral, my first port of call was the magnificent Westminster Abbey. The abbey, which has played host to countless royal weddings, funerals and coronations, dates…

  • London: St Paul’s Cathedral
    Uk

    London: St Paul’s Cathedral

    01/22/2023 - By 

    I didn’t have much of a plan when I went to London, I had lots of vague ideas about different places I’d like to visit, but nothing set in stone and I found myself changing my plans on a whim during the trip. One of the places I’d thought about visiting was St Paul’s Cathedral. I’d visited St Paul’s some 10 years earlier and when I lived in London, I was a regular visitor to the café in its crypt. So I was keen to revisit one of the capital’s most iconic landmarks. After spying St Paul’s through a window…

  • Nantes: Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne
    Europe

    Nantes: Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne

    12/18/2022 - By 

    Nestled in the heart of Nantes’s medieval centre lies the magnificent and imposing Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, the former home of the dukes of Brittany. It was the place I was most excited about visiting in Nantes and on my first full day in the city, I made my way to the chateau, keen to get there soon after it opened at 10am. The chateau dates back to the 13th century and its famous former residents have included Anne, Duchess of Brittany, who went on to marry two French kings, and her father Fran?ois II. It’s also said to…

  • Sainte-Anne-d’Auray
    Europe

    Sainte-Anne-d’Auray

    11/27/2022 - By 

    You’ve booked a week in Brittany. Carnac is on the list. Vannes too. Then someone mentions Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, and you search it. The results are mostly religious pilgrimage content. You’re not sure if it’s worth an afternoon detour if faith isn’t your thing. It is. But only if you go prepared. Sainte-Anne-d’Auray is the most important Marian pilgrimage site in Brittany — France’s second most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination after Lourdes. But it also holds a compelling war memorial, a genuinely surprising museum, and an atmosphere that’s hard to find anywhere else in Morbihan. The trick is knowing what to prioritize…

  • Vannes
    Europe

    Vannes

    11/20/2022 - By 

    Is Vannes worth a detour on your Brittany trip — or is it just another pretty French town? That question is reasonable to ask. Brittany has no shortage of attractive historic towns, and Vannes doesn’t appear on most first-timer shortlists the way Saint-Malo or Mont-Saint-Michel do. What the city actually offers is a combination that’s genuinely hard to find: a well-preserved medieval walled core, direct access to one of France’s most unusual coastal ecosystems, and a scale that stays human without feeling like a museum piece. Most travelers who seek it out find it delivers. Those who stumble in expecting…

  • Carnac
    Europe

    Carnac

    11/06/2022 - By 

    Are you wondering whether Carnac’s stone alignments are actually worth the detour through rural Brittany? I asked myself the same thing before my first trip. Then I went three times over six years — and each visit revealed something the previous one missed entirely. What Makes Carnac Different From Every Other Megalithic Site Carnac isn’t one site. It’s a landscape. Spread across roughly 4 kilometers of Breton countryside, the Carnac alignments contain over 3,000 standing stones arranged in long parallel rows — the largest concentration of prehistoric standing stones on earth. Nobody built this in a weekend. Construction started around…

  • Auray and Saint Goustan
    Europe

    Auray and Saint Goustan

    10/29/2022 - By 

    When Benjamin Franklin set foot on French soil in December 1776 to seek support in the American War of Independence, he came ashore in the tiny Breton port of Saint Goustan. Situated on the banks of the River Loch, adjoining the town of Auray, Saint Goustan is a delightful, picturesque affair. With a cobbled quayside lined with colourful timber-fronted houses, it’s a suitably charming spot for an influential American founding father/writer/politician/inventor/all-round-genius to disembark. Unlike Benjamin Franklin, we ambled into Saint Goustan on foot via a path along the river (above) and as we approached the centre of the medieval port…