"The beauty of chess is it can be whatever you want it to be. It transcends language, age, race, religion, politics, gender, and socio-economic background. Whatever your circumstances, anyone can enjoy a good fight to the death over the chessboard." (Simon Williams) In June 2020 I should have travelled on the special 10th running of …
City Visit – Leuven (and Brussels)
"Reassuringly expensive" (Advertising slogan used in the UK, 1982 - 2007, by Stella Artois (brewed in Leuven).) [This months post looks back on another city visit made last year. Little did I know that this trip would be the last foreign excursion that I would be able to make for over a year.] I had …
City Visit – Oslo
"A forest bird never wants a cage." (Henrik Ibsen - The Master Builder) [Without the confidence to plan any European adventures at the moment, I look back to another short trip I made last year.] Tuesday 7th May 2019My flight to Oslo was about an hour later than the one to Bologna earlier in the …
City Visit – Bologna
"Bologna is celebrated for producing popes, painters and sausage" (Lord Byron) [Had things been normal this year, I would have expected by now to have planned and booked a number of Europe Explored trips for the autumn and I would probably have written a blog post providing a preview of my plans. Instead, this month …
Europe Explored 