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Aachen cathedral survived the aerial bombings and urban battles of WWII The ‘Low Countries’ are well-named; the landscape, as we travelled eastwards across Belgium, is pretty flat and geologically featureless. As we passed into a small southern finger of the Netherlands, we crossed the Meuse north of Maastricht (meaning “ crossing of the Meuse ”). Here the landscape gradually changed to become more undulating and wooded. We passed into Germany almost at once, and into the his

The Two Venices The First of Two Venices Rather than jetting back to Missy Bear for her fifth season, I had the mad idea to drive there instead: a top-down, grand tour to Leros in the red S5. She had just had her paintwork touched-up, finished with a ceramic coat and she was gleaming like new. It still surprises me how many complete strangers continue to take the trouble to hail me saying, “ Beautiful car! ” But which route to take? There are innumerable permutations. There a

View from Marathakampos village After our lovely night in the quiet anchorage on northern Samos, we sailed around to the small marina at Ormos (Marathakampos). The wind had picked up early morning, and was still blowing southerly, stronger than we had anticipated. We put a reef in, and set off. We had an excellent sail down through the windy channel between Samos and Fournoi. We knew it would be windy as it’s marked as such in our pilot guide. The wind funnelled and squeezed

The time had come to leave Lesvos and to continue our way southwards. The forecast was still looking good for a Monday morning departure, and a trip of 48 NM, for which we would allow just over 9 hours. Normally, with these longer voyages, we would be on our way by 06:00, but as we were in a Mytilene marina, we had to wait for the marineros who start work at 07:00. But it turns out that the marina would let us leave unassisted, and we were already slipping our lines when a f

We were up early on Friday morning to make use of our hired car. I needed to call into the marina office before we left, and Richard waited for me outside. He wasn’t hard to find as he had used the time to pair his iPhone to the car's media system. Alongside Google Maps, he had “ Bla Bla Bla Cha Cha Cha ” blaring out. I suggested we put the music off until we were outside the town, as it’s easier to navigate in a bit of peace. Unfortunately, this was impossible. We would clo