In the very north of England near the Scottish border, the remnants of the Roman occupation live on. Vindolanda lies on a flat desolate patch of land exposed to the frigid northern UK winds. There is a pretty gully where the cafe, modern museum, gift shop and toilets sit alongside a wee stream. The main site however, is desolate. Its… Read More A Bleak Roman Outpost
Wednesday 17th May. Today I went to Toledo. I caught the train from Madrid’s Atocha station for €20 return & 33 minutes each way. Outside the Toledo station, I turned right, walked along to the bus stop, passing the lady selling hop on hop off tickets and jumped on the local bus. It was €1.30 for a… Read More Holy Toledo!
After a nearly 3 year passionate and intense love affair with Italy, (which continues to this day), I am being disloyal and this year heading for her big sister, Spain! I have spent the last 2 years or so learning about the walk to Santiago de Compostela, (Camino de Santiago), in Galicia, the north west of Spain.… Read More Unfaithful
Pre 1900s Rome suffered damaging flooding on a scale unimaginable to us, a couple of times every 100 years. The Jewish ghetto area seemed to take a large share of the brunt. Much of Rome was a marshy wetland between the seven hills. The last time the Tiber was in flood was December 2008, the last… Read More The Floods of Rome-At the Mercy of the Tiber
Classics, Ancient History, Linguistics, Academia and more
Life in small-town central Italy
