A highlight of a recent visit in Lebanon was Saida. Sidon is the city’s ancient, and possibly better-known, name. Legend has it, Sidon is named after the great grand-son of Noah (chap whose family had to repopulate the earth after a great flood, remember?) However cool that may be, locals today call it Saida, so I’ll stick […]
Day Out Split: Hvar Island and Stari Grad
My little quest to see world heritage – places that deserve special protection for future generations – has provided some truly amazing experiences I’d never even have considered otherwise. 10 days ago, I was in central Croatia to explore four of them. However, I seemed to be glued to the beaches! So how to explore […]
Surprising St. Gallen
St Gallen was one of the first foreign cities I visited. 15 years old and not a care in the world. Also, more interested in shopping than nature and architecture. Naturally, I missed most of what this Swiss gem has to offer. Now, decades later, it is time for another look. A grown-up look. I’m […]
Split awakening
There’s something magical about watching a city wake up. And if that city has an old medieval town, contained within a 1700-year-old royal castle, so much the better. Here in Split, in the middle of Diocletian’s Palace, it’s as if I’m watching 2018 waking up in ancient Rome. But who was this Diocletian, you may […]
Marian’s Guesthouse: An Oasis in Dushanbe
Considering a visit to Dushanbe and wondering where to stay? Dush-where, you ask? Well, Dush is where it’s at. Skopje, Pristina, Astana, Pyongyang, Vaduz, Chisinau – you may remember I’m forever intrigued by the quirky and often lesser-known national capitals of the world. A city of 800 000 people, and formerly named Stalinabad, Dushanbe is the capital […]
(Almost) 48 hours in Osh
At the end of a mind-blowing road trip along the Pamir Highway (which you can look forward to in a later post), my two fave travel friends and I are in Osh. Driving most of the day from Karakul Lake across the border in Tajikistan, we arrive in town late afternoon. We had booked a […]
Astana
What do you think of when you hear Kazakhstan? OK, let’s get it over with: Borat. If nothing else, Sacha Baron Cohen did place Kazakhstan on the map. Enormous flat steppes, once the secret home of Soviet gulags and a nuclear weapons testing zone. Also, once the secret home of the Soviet space programme: this […]
Welcome! I'm Sophie - writer, dreamer, negotiator, wanderer, mum - in search of the world's curious places. Mostly with my daughters, sometimes solo. The girls share their take on it, too.
- Gori: birthplace of the world’s most infamous dictator
- World at a Glance: Valencia’s ancient silk exchange, a temple to trade
- Split awakening
- 24 August 79: A Day Like Any Other
- Soviet Yerevan: time travelling in Armenia
