Travels around the Continent
"Oh moon in the deep sky,your light sees far,you roam over the wide world,and peer into human dwellings."(Rusalka - Song to the Moon) In the summer, shortly after I had returned from seeing Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in Bonn, I asked my son if there was any opera that he wished to see. One of the …
"Bez cilja i nada mi smo samo mjerači vremena." ("Without goals and hope, we are just measurers of time." - Ranko Marinković (Croatian novelist) Continuing the account of my whirlwind tour of Europe, concluding with the time that I spent in Croatia and Hungary. Day 5 – Sunday 12th October 2025 – Maribor to ZagrebAlthough …
"The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment." (Johannes Kepler) I wished to see a performance of Puccini's opera La Boheme at my favourite opera house in Gothenburg, and to …
"Kes otsib, see leiab" (He who seeks shall find) - Estonian proverb Continuing the account, with the third and final part, of the recent trip I took with my wife to the Baltic States. Day 7 (part) – Wednesday 17th September 2025 – Valga to TartuNearly as soon as we had stepped off the LTG …
Continue reading "Europe Explored – Trip 18 – The Baltic States – Part Three: Estonia"
“You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one.” (Mikhail Tal - Latvian Chess World Champion) Continuing the account of the recent trip I took with my wife to the Baltic States. Day 5 – Monday 15th September 2025 – Vilnius …
Continue reading "Europe Explored – Trip 18 – The Baltic States – Part Two: Latvia"
"Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (Pink Floyd album, based on the title of a chapter in The Wind in the Willows.) Having not been on a full multi-city Europe Explored trip for several months, my wife and I decided to visit the three Baltic states. It was our first time visiting countries that had …
Continue reading "Europe Explored – Trip 18 – The Baltic States – Part One: Lithuania"
"Take it to the limit one more time." (The Eagles) Having circumnavigated London using the Superloop network of buses the previous month, which took just 7¼ hours, I felt like taking on a far more challenging bus odyssey. I was inspired by a Diamond Geezer blogpost, which identified the most northerly, southerly, easterly and westerly …
Continue reading "The extremities of the London bus network"
"Zum Ziele führt dich diese Bahn" ("This path leads you to your goal") - from Die Zauberflöte I had been due to attend a wedding on 11th July, but sadly this had been called off a few weeks beforehand. I decided to use the freed up time to make a short trip, the primary purpose …
"Here we go round the mulberry bush." (Nursery rhyme) In 2024 I celebrated gaining my Freedom Pass, allowing free bus travel within England, by making a cost free journey from Manchester to my home in Woodford (on the borders of Greater London and Essex). Also in 2024, the final leg of a new orbital network …
Continue reading "Superlooping – circumnavigating London by bus"
"Ieri son salita tutta sola" ("Yesterday I went alone") Madama Butterfly Having enjoyed so much my flying visit to see Carmen at the Gothenburg Opera in August 2024, I decided to go again should the opportunity arise. As soon as tickets went on sale for Madama Butterfly, I acquired one. This latest trip was similar …
Europe Explored 