http://blog.fionadunlop.com Slow Track Through Civilisation Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:44:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A few weeks ago I was still revelling in the cradle of civilisation - well one of them, Damascus, which claims to be the longest continuously inhabited city in the world. A few thousands years old, a mere cough down the echoing tunnel of time. It's a city that draws ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/12/03/damascus-lightens-up/ I'm back at base after an extraordinary whirl through the Middle East, from the citadel and souks of Aleppo, to the fabulous desert ruins of Palmyra, to the Ummayad mosque and caravanserais of Damascus, to Jerusalem with its manic religious intensity and finally the West Bank, that bleeding wound at ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/11/02/palestines-wall/ Mea culpa. I haven't exactly been churning out the blogs recently - there's just been too much going on plus a lot of work. Big trips nada, but lots of short ones round these isles that I know so little of. And plenty of London's usual gourmet culture - from ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/09/30/mexico-comes-to-york/ August is often a cultural wipe-out for anyone chained to British shores. This year though, it's been the weather that has been the wipe-out. Otherwise things are pretty lively thanks to media obsessions, whether it's the (at last named) UK recession, American electoral shenanigans (currently immobilised on Palin's strident note ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/09/06/living-a-wet-london-summer-still/ All that stuff about credit crunch (but let's call a spade a spade, it's a recession) has meant that the UK travel supplements have recently orgied on the joys of British holidays, above all seaside ones. Dripping nostalgia, there is much talk of Nivea- and ozone-perfumed streets, fish 'n chips, ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/08/16/to-go-or-not-to-go/ With too much to write for work, the easiest way to capture some highlights of this trip to Australia is by lazily posting a few snapshots. To kick off, here's a slice of paradise up on the north coast overlooking the Timor Sea, at Faraway Bay. [photopress:P1010392.jpg,full,pp_image] A pretty eccentric, very hands-on ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/08/02/postcards-from-oz/ As dawn cracked through the clouds drifting across the southern hemisphere, the flight from London finally landed in Melbourne. That was several hours ago. A strange time of year for such a jaunt you might think, as downunder it's pretty grey and drizzly, but I was lured to this side ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/07/31/melbourne-kimberleys-southern-skies/ So there I was innocently strolling through bucolic Highbury Fields (that's a plane-tree packd park near where I live in London), when suddenly I landed in the middle of Outer Mongolia. There were yurts, people in pointy coloured hats, men in brocade gowns and turned-up boots, though I'll admit it, ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/07/07/mongolian-wrestling/ From Athens it takes nearly four hours to drive across the Pelopponese peninsula (via a region by the name of Arcadia - what expectations...) to the south-western corner, near Koroni. This is where my partner and I hid out last week, holed up in a pretty little swamped by olive-groves ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/07/05/pelopponese-tracks/ Don't worry - that's not the new museum below. Patience. The first time I went to Athens I remember selling my blood. Those were my 1970s student days of drifting across Europe and running out of money - pre-credit-card, pre-email. All very footloose and fancyfree but it does make me ... http://blog.fionadunlop.com/2008/07/02/athens-and-the-new-museum/