Hiking In Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Published on by Rachel Lishman7 Comments

I was lost metres from the main road. The midday heat of early May in Croatia’s countryside drenched the material of my heavy backpack, and I started to daydream about passing the afternoon with an icy beer instead.

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The Long Way Home: A Final Destination?

Published on by Rachel Lishman9 Comments

“One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” ~ Hermann Hesse

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Walking Through 500 Years At Hampton Court Palace

Published on by Rachel Lishman4 Comments

“Of all losses, time is the most irrecuperable for it can never be redeemed.” (Henry VIII of England)

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Celebrating 500 Years At Hampton Court Palace

Published on by Rachel Lishman3 Comments

There are few places that evoke the past better than Hampton Court Palace.

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Guardians Of A Mountain Kingdom: A Drive Through Montenegro

Published on by Rachel Lishman5 Comments

From across the dark water, it looked like fairy lights had been flung against the jagged mountain slopes. Forming arcs and triangles, occasionally broken by backlit towers, Kotor’s twinkles put on quite the show. “You see…” Slavko my guide explained, “The lights form the shape of an old man. He guards this city”.

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My Twenty Favourite UNESCO Sites Around The World

Published on by Rachel Lishman9 Comments

This week, UNESCO added 24 new sites to its ever-growing list of places worth protecting on this planet. The UK’s notable offering was the Forth Bridge in Scotland, a masterpiece of Victorian engineering, which I was lucky enough to see first hand last summer.

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European Travel: The Art Of Walking Past The Café

Published on by Rachel Lishman5 Comments

If you ever find yourself in Slovenia’s Vintgar Gorge, don’t stop at the end. When you reach the picturesque chalet providing temptingly cold beers and a picnic bench with a view, turn left and keep walking. Within two minutes, you will be completely alone.

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Dubrovnik’s Ancient Walls In Photos

Published on by Rachel Lishman10 Comments

Around the coastal city of Dubrovnik, solid ochre stone drops directly onto natural cliffs that plunge into the turquoise sea below. The ramparts of its protective walls once used for defence and embattlement, today stage thriving activity of a different kind.

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Walks Through Wildflowers: Exploring Slovenia’s North West

Published on by Rachel Lishman11 Comments

Two hours from the queues at Stansted Airport, I was transported to a world of snowy peaks and bubbling springs.

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Ljubljana Is For Love: 24 hours In Slovenia’s Capital

Published on by Rachel Lishman19 Comments

I became inexplicably teary as I listened to the accordion’s brassy tones. I was perched underneath a bronze statue of Preseren; Slovenia’s most beloved poet. From across the main square, his ‘Juliet’ gazed back at us. As a mauve dusk settled over Ljubljana I realised that I was rapidly falling in love…and I don’t even like the accordion.

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