Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

He flashed like a meteor across the sheepdog horizon.There never was such an outstanding personality. Adam Telfer on Old Hemp You may wonder what Britain’s greatest export to the world is. Constitutional law? Parliamentary democracy? The steam engine? The Beatles? Scotch Whisky? Mr Bean? We can debate the subject until the cows come home. But

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Everyone who has visited the Basque country longs to return; it is a blessed land. Victor Hugo Shortly after 9am I passed a sign informing me that I was just entering the Pays Basque. Curiously it was written in both French and Basque, a language I am completely unfamiliar with. I was intrigued and spent

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Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. Tennessee Williams – A Street Car named Desire. The small things in life make the world of difference. A smile from a check out assistant: a cheery wave from a vague acquaintance; a like on a blog post. Random acts of kindness or

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Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love. Elisabeth David Today was a marathon of a day – 42km or 26.2km as the crow flies or as Pheidippides ran in 490BC from the Battle of Marathon to Athens with the message of Nike (‘Victory’) before promptly

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Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Oscar Wilde Corinne was a saint. She could, she told me, have charged a good deal more than 25 euros a night for a room if she did AirBnB. But she didn’t because she simply preferred the pleasure of meeting genuine pilgrims and charging

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Since most scientists are just a bit religious, and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific, we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole, while his religious intellect believes in them outside it. William Golding Do you believe in miracles? If so, Lourdes is

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Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air. Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1 – William Shakespeare When I poked my nose out of the window this morning, I could sense that in terms of the weather, all was not well with the world in this corner of south west

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The truly rich are those who enjoy what they have. Yiddish Proverb Entering Cathy’s house at the end of a 31km walk from Arès to Moulin des Baronnies was like stepping back in time. A time when life was simpler. The previous night’s mosquito attacks were quickly forgotten. The proprietor of the gite drove me

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If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito. African proverb With the benefit of hindsight, it probably wasn’t the cleverest of ideas to down a litre of cold beer in a café in front of the cathedral at Bertrand-de-Comminges, shortly after 2pm! My excuse

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Be wary then, best safety lies in fear. Hamlet Act 1, Sc 3 – William Shakespeare I was happy to have survived the night in the museum and wasn’t keem to repeat the experience in a hurry. People sometimes wax lyrical about the ‘good old days’ when life was simpler before the advent of the

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