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Impressions of Pennsylvania’s Amish Country

Having had a brief visit to an Amish and Mennonite area of Pennsylvania during a trip to the US earlier this summer, I watched with interest a recent documentary on Channel 4 here in the UK entitled Amish: World’s Squarest Teenagers.

The premise was simple: five Amish teenagers leaving their close-knit communities in America for the very first time, to travel to Britain on a cultural exchange.

The conservative dress and staunch religious beliefs of the Amish youngsters were viewed with a mixture of surprise and interest by the British teenagers they met. But, as is often the case when people from very different places meet in person, they found far more common ground than they might have expected and gradually came to accept and respect each other’s views and lifestyles.

For me this is the most valuable thing that travel teaches us. It opens our eyes to new ideas and perspectives. It reminds us not to always believe our view of the world is the right – or best – one.

I’d visited the Lancaster County communities of Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse – the latter’s name derives from the fact that it grew up on an crossroads, although of course it’s name does raise a chuckle or two for some… according to Wikipedia the town’s signposts are “frequently targeted by thieves”. A few souvenir postcards from Intercourse were enough for me, however.

The film Witness, which starred Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, was filmed in and around the village. Yet while this pretty heartland of ‘Amish Country’ allows visitors to take horse-and-buggy rides and learn about Amish culture from friendly locals, it’s by no means overrun with tourist hordes, thankfully.

Taking a buggy tour I was interested to learn that as many as 90 per cent of Amish youth decide to join the church after Rumspringa, or ‘running around’. This is a time when Amish youngsters are allowed more freedom for a year or perhaps several years during their late teens and early twenties. It’s a chance to see the wider world, wear non-Amish clothes, watch movies and drive cars if they choose – or, more often than not, to spend time with their peers in their own communities before making the commitment to join the church through baptism. They will then dress as Amish and adhere to the rules of the church for the rest of their adult lives.

It was a warm summer day and the sun shone brightly across the undulating green landscape of Intercourse. Washing, hung out to dry on lines outside farmhouse, swayed gently in the breeze. Fields of hay and maize were being harvested with the help of horses. I noticed one farmer dozing gently as his horse walked in front, his head nodding beneath a felt hat, now and then, to the slow rhythm of the task at hand.

Many things are done according to the old ways, but that’s not to say that technology doesn’t feature at all in Amish life. In some homes the cookers, fridges, some tools and farming equipment are state-of-the-art. But connectivity, I learn, is the important thing: power comes from generators and batteries rather than the grid. This has also allowed some Amish to start using mobile phones, as they’re ‘not connected’.

It was through this that one of the Amish girls in the TV series had contacted her mother while she was in Cornwall staying with some young English surfers. Having never seen the sea before she wanted to try this exiting but totally unfamiliar sport, but was concerned about the figure-hugging wetsuit that she would have to wear, which went against her Amish principles. Her mother wanted her daughter to experience as much as she could on this once-in-a-lifetime trip and wisely suggested a solution.

“Why not wear a T-shirt over the top,” she suggested.

‘Good on her Mum’, I thought. She gets it, she understands. Travel really can give us a great education.

Cabilla Manor, Cornwall

It’s not every day that you get to stay at the home of an explorer. So I wonder what’s in store as I approach Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, on the edge of which lives one of the UK’s greatest explorers, Robin Hanbury-Tenison.

Cabilla Manor, a delightful Georgian farmhouse high up on the moor, is home to Robin and his wife Louella, who, along with accompanying Robin on many of his equestrian journeys, also holds the title of High Sheriff of Cornwall: the legal document, dispatched from Clarence House, complete with the hefty wax seal of Prince Charles, lies on a table in the living room here at Cabilla.

Louella and Robin offer bed and breakfast at the farm, and make all their visitors feel very much at home. On arrival I’m welcomed with steaming hot tea and ginger biscuits, especially appreciated as my approach to the moor was gloomy. Wind and rain had closed in around my car, giving the gorse-clad moor an otherworldly feel as I found my way to the house down narrow country lanes and over cattle grids.

There are two other couples staying, and it is clear that the Hanbury-Tenisons enjoy the company and conversation of all their visitors, giving their time more freely than you’d expect from most B&B hosts. Even when family members or friends are at the house, their paying guests are treated the same as everyone else.

 “They really are house guests in the old-fashioned sense,” Robin tells me later, after a leisurely breakfast in the conservatory, a lovely light room with views across the woods and fields surrounding the manor. Paintings of rainforests hang on the walls: recent additions, he tells me, by Charles Summers, an artist who accompanied him on an expedition to Guatemala.

Further hints to Robin’s life of exploration lie in each and every room of the house: a treasure trove of travel, you might say. In a hallway, a pair of colourful paintings show the routes taken for two of his earliest journeys: the first depicts ‘The Rough’, his 1958 east-west crossing of South America; the second, ‘The Smooth’, his subsequent 1964-65 north-south traverse of the continent from the coast of Venezuela to the mouth of the River Plate.

Best of all, Robin treats me to a personal tour of Merlin’s Keep, an outbuilding in which Robin stores many of the artefacts brought back from his travels, named after his son Merlin, now an officer in the Light Dragoons. Poison-tipped arrows hang on beams on the ceiling, while various other items are displayed in a tall cabinet. Robin opens it and picks out a few items: daggers and loincloths from Borneo; a Tuareg necklace from the Sahara made from ostrich shell; a Stone Age-style handaxe from the Dani tribe of New Guinea; some beautifully carved fishing weights from the Amazon; an arrow with clay on its tip, designed when fired to stun parrots so that their highly-prized feathers can be collected undamaged. So many wonderful items, each with their own story.

 

“I really should label them all up at some stage,” he admits as he picks up a nose flute and shows how to use it. Simple tribal sounds echo around a stone house in Cornwall. Then he’s rummaging around again, picking out one of his most treasured gifts: a sword given by a head-hunter tribe in Sarawak. “It’s claimed 100 heads,” he says, as we head back into the house.

The dining room walls are stacked high with books on travel and history, while in several rooms stand large backgammon boards, which Louella makes and sells. On a rail in the hall is a collection of finely made Kashmiri jackets, which she imports for sale. As well as Cabilla, she also looks after two holiday homes close to the Eden Project. She apologises as she dashes off with her housekeeper to clean one of the lets. “Changeover day,” she explains.

The work doesn’t stop there – Cabilla remains a working farm, with horses from the Camargue, sheep and cattle grazing in the fields. But with the gains to be made from farming ever lower, 74-year-old Robin has grand plans to use his land to produce sustainable energy. The champion of so many important causes – from the plight of the rainforests and of indigenous peoples around the world, to leading the Countryside Alliance and saving the London-to-Cornwall sleeper train – Robin’s own energies remain in abundance.

His plan is to harness power on the farm from all four elements: the power of the earth in the form of biomass; wind power via a turbine; ‘fire’ power via a solar installation; hydro power via a river that runs through Victorian watercourses.

“Cornwall aims to be self-sufficient in energy terms by 2020,” Robin tells me, but Cabilla would perhaps be the first site anywhere to generate power from all four elements. If he can achieve this, it will be a huge push for the profile of sustainable energy. And you can’t help but feel that he will: his urge to explore new possibilities and confront global concerns remains as strong as ever.

 

Chambers Hotel, New York

They say location is everything and if that’s the case, New York’s Chambers Hotel is especially blessed. Its position on 56th Street in Midtown Manhattan, opposite the modest facade of the Argentinean embassy, may not be the most immediately captivating. But it benefits from a prime position close to many of Midtown’s main attractions and is an unpretentious base from which to see the sights.

Carnegie Hall is close by. As are Times Square, Grand Central Station, Central Park and the Rockefeller Centre, to name just a few nearby landmarks. From the latter’s sixty-seventh floor ‘Top of the Rock’ viewing space, you can see the full panorama of Manhattan, a vista of concrete, iron and glass shaped into Lego brick towers. 

Even closer – a two-minute stroll along 56th Street – and you’re on Fifth Avenue, home to the gleaming boutiques of Gucci, Armani and Fendi et al. There’s also a strong touch of America amongst the international designer brands demonstrated by a group of topless male models with washboard stomachs wearing denim, standing alongside girls with gleaming smiles in lumberjack-style shirts, who entice shoppers into the Abercrombie & Fitch store. Yellow taxis pass by, stopping when hailed by shoppers laden with prized bags from the lavish outlets. It feels like a scene from Sex and the City.

It was in one such yellow taxi that I’d arrived at the Chambers, where a typically friendly and helpful New York doorman had greeted me with a warm welcome, before lifting my bags from the boot and leading me through a tall entrance of latticed woodwork framed by large green flags.

The lofty lobby space and mezzanine make an equally bold statement: walnut floors decorated with Tibetan and Turkish rugs; a scattering of silk-velvet sofas and comfortable armchairs; walls hung with striking pieces of modern art. It’s a compact space – the 14-storey building stands on a narrow lot, rather like an old townhouse – and has the feel of a private collector’s gallery, a place to sit and gather yourself for a few moments, before heading out into the hectic surrounding streets.

In fact, the character of the whole hotel is defined by modern art, with more than 500 pieces of original art, inspired by the cultural heritage of the city – fine art, literature, fashion and film – on display in the Chambers’ 77 rooms and five suites, together with the corridors and lobby. Artwork in the corridors includes direct-wall application in paint, custom silk-screened wallpaper, photography and mixed media.

The theme continues in the guest rooms, which are designed as simple, practical spaces akin to artists’ lofts, their ceilings showing exposed concrete slabs painted but ‘unfinished’, pipes and sprinkler taps showing. My room has a desk made of two custom-made sawhorses with a sheet of glass on the top, while steel spotlights and bedside lamps reinforce the industrial and minimalist feel. On the walls, meanwhile, hang a framed repeating pattern of spheres and a print of a dainty dress. The hotel’s literature claims this is ‘artistic genius’ from ‘among some of the freshest new ultra-mega superstars of the art world’, although I’ll confess that I’m not totally convinced. But then again, perhaps I just don’t get it.

The ensuite bathroom has a large sink and a walk-in shower. The double bed is comfy, although not especially ‘American’ in its dimensions. There’s also a green armchair with a purple footrest, another arty touch.

I have access to high-speed

 broadband connection, plus a 27-inch flat-screen tv on which guests are welcome to watch dvds from the hotel’s library – which throws up some appropriate titles: Annie Hall, American Graffiti, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Singin’ In The Rain.

Playing cards and board games including Trivial Pursuit, Chess and Monopoly are other distractions for guests looking to while away an hour or so before returning to the shops, taking a walk in Central Park or watching a Broadway show. I wonder what people would think if I started playing Twister in the lobby, but am not brave enough to find out for myself.

In all honesty, you’re unlikely to want to spend hours in your hotel room, with so much going on outside, and the Chambers seems fully aware of this. It’s smart and stylish, but doesn’t go overboard with its facilities. There’s really no need.

Dining also reflects the time-precious functionality of the hotel. Its basement restaurant is Má Pêche, a new venture opened in April 2010 by the award-winning Momofuku restaurant group from the East Village. The style is French bistro meets Vietnamese flavours, with food eaten at communal tables, including a fun and friendly criss-crossed dining table at its centre. Upstairs there’s also an outpost of Momofuku pastry chef Christina Tosi’s bakery, Momofuku Milk Bar: an afternoon tea menu on the mezzanine floor features cookies and colourful cupcakes.

Then, suitably refuelled on tea and pastries, it’s out once more to enjoy the busy streets and bright lights of Manhattan. As the Chambers knows so well, every minute is precious in New York.

On Top of the World…. And Out of a Plane

There are plenty of spectacular (some might say crazy) activities for thrill seekers in this wonderful planet of ours. Swimming with great white sharks in South Africa, for instance. Or cycling down the Camino del Muerte, or ‘Death Road’, in Bolivia. Others love the buzz of snowboarding off piste high up on a vertiginous peak, or climbing solo on equally dizzying overhangs. But I’ve just found out about a new challenge, which might just pip the lot…

Everest Skydive it’s called. Yes, you did read that correctly. A skydive over Everest. Incredible, huh.

 

‘The ultimate skydive experience’ – and you can’t really disagree – is being offered by Captive Adventure, a new company looking to create once-in-a-lifetime adventures for the adventurous spirited. The company were set up after the great success of ‘The Everest Test’ in 2009, the world’s highest game of cricket… proving just how extraordinarily dedicated and barmy cricket fans and players can be.

For this expedition they’ve teamed up with World Record breaking adventurer, Nigel Gifford OBE (who scaled Everest as a climber in 1976 and organised the first ever Everest skydive in 2008), for what they hope will be the first of a series of adventure experiences… I wonder what they’ll do to top this!

The trip (www.skydive-everest.com) runs from 30 September to 12 October 2010. After a five-day acclimatisation trek through the Khumbu Valley the daredevil expedition members will take their leap of faith from a Pilatus Porter P6 Turbine aircraft at 29,500 feet – the cruising height of most passenger aircraft – from within 6 miles of the top of Mount Everest. They’ll drop at speeds of up to 140mph before landing on the highest drop zone in the world, Syangboche, at 12,000 feet above sea level… higher than the total jumping height of most ‘normal’ skydives.

Superlatives abound with this sensory overload of a lifetime.

The 8,848-metre-high mountain – Sagarmartha as its known by Nepalis – will be in full view for expedition members as they enjoy 60 seconds of free-fall (compare this to the usual 10-20 seconds for most jumps). Then, parachutes safely open, the skydivers will be able to savour a gentle descent amidst some of the highest mountains on the planet.

It’s not just for experts. Beginners are welcome to take part and will skydive in tandem with a leading skydiver from the Swiss Boogie Skydiving Team.

It doesn’t come cheap. A solo jump costs £15,250 (roughly $23,290 US) and the tandem skydive is £20,000 (around $30,500 US), with a portion of the fee donated to local charities in Nepal.

But a fair price, you might say, for a snapshot of the fear, challenge and sense of achievement that Everest has provided for so many climbers over the years.

The ultimate high in every sense.

Mavida Balance Hotel, Salzburg, Austria

It’s Saturday morning and Chapter Square – the Kapitelplatz – is alive with the sound of music. Not the music of the von Trapp family, nor the music of Salzburg’s most famous son, Mozart – in Mozartplatz, a statue of him stands tall, overlooking a winter ice rink and a huddle of wooden market stalls selling Christmas decorations, glasses of gluwein, spicy bockwursts and mustard-topped frankfurters….

But for once this is not a Mozart moment. A rat-a-tat of marching drums and pipes drifts across the square, followed by the clip-clop of shod hooves and the shuffle of polished boots. All becomes clear when 100 men enter from a side street, wearing immaculate uniforms, tricornes on their heads, frilly shirts and socks pulled up to their knees. Cavalry and infantry come to a halt, some lining up in front of the grand baroque cathedral, the Dom, others on the opposite side of the square with the 900-year-old Hohensalzburg Fortress as an imposing backdrop. And then the small contingent from the village of Zell am See raise their rifles and let off a volley into the crisp sky.

 

Later, as I head out of the city towards Zell, I ask my taxi driver about the troops. “I’m not sure,” he says. “There are so many occasions like this in Salzburg – any excuse for the men to get out their lederhosen and play oompah music!”

Zell is an hour-and-a-half’s journey from Salzburg. It’s a pleasant transfer through pretty passes. Looming above are high peaks, ice and snow etched on the upper slopes, the result of the first dusting of the winter season.

At the Zeller See, a beautiful alpine lake, my driver pulls away from the shore road into surroundings that are unexpectedly suburban, to drop me off at the Mavida Balance Hotel.

‘Ma vida’ (in Spanish it means to adopt a certain attitude to life – to enjoy it and to celebrate food and drink) is the region’s first design hotel. It seeks to be an alpine sanctuary, a place to restore personal harmony. And, it has to be said, despite its rather utilitarian appearance and the car park on the doorstep, it does this well.

Unlike many hotels in the region, there’s no cutesy rustic Alpine theme, but the sharp angles and warm tones that characterise the interiors of many of the Design Hotels group, of which Mavida is a part. The design is minimal, the bedrooms small and compact, but with pillows the size of hay bales and cosy beds positioned so that you look out of the floor-to-ceiling window towards the snow-capped Schmittenhöhe mountain, framed by curtains like a theatre stage.

‘Relaxation by design’ is Mavida’s mantra, and there’s a ‘sleeping menu’ in the room, should you prefer a sturdier mattress or a different softness of pillow. The options already provided seem comfortable enough: I slip into a deep sleep for 12 hours straight. After this hibernation, I’m fortunate that the Mavida has such generous breakfast hours, allowing guests to wander in until 11:30 am. I take full advantage of this leisurely start to the day, happy to adopt my own interpretation of the hotel’s underlying premise of ‘balance’.

But there are plenty of things to do should you feel more energetic. The hotel runs a daily programme of indoor and outdoor activities: from Nordic walking beside the lake and snowshoe hiking in the foothills, to Pilates, yoga and circuit training classes. Personal horoscope sessions are another option, but I decide to follow my own path, ambling along the 3-kilometre-or-so trail through farmland to the hotel’s private beach area.

The path is a cross-country ski trail in winter and makes for a pleasant Sunday stroll, passing other walkers who smile and say ‘Grüß Gott’ in greeting.

Back at the hotel and it’s time to check out the spa. I’ve had a crick in my neck since the flight from London and a 50-minute full-body massage soon fixes that, leaving me feeling revitalised and relaxed. Massage is, however, but one of the many treatments that earned the hotel the Gala Spa Award 2009 for its ‘innovative spa concept’, the first time this prestigious international prize has made its way to Austria. There are light, sound and even weightlessness treatments, plus two saunas, an outdoor and an indoor pool with waterbeds for relaxation, and a private spa suite for two.

In the street outside, the bells of a small church sound faintly every 15 minutes, a gentle reminder that time is passing, even if it seems so much longer here than normally. This tranquillity continues with afternoon ‘calm time’ in the lobby and stylish lounge bar. Although it’s not busy during my stay I imagine the latter – laid out around an enticing 360-degree open fire – being a super place for the après-ski crowd to thaw off, sip cocktails and share stories of their day on the slopes, before moving up a floor to the gourmet restaurant to carry on their merriment.

Of Moose and Men

Phuh! It was a strange sound, a sudden burst, like a whale emptying its blowhole, following an equally unusual, almost bovine noise: long, deep and guttural, haunting too, like the distant rumble of thunder.

“A male moose,” explained Ronnie Ward, who’d produced this unexpected and remarkable impression. Ronnie is one of the Mi’kmaq, the First Nations people of Maritime Canada, and the moose – a noble if ungainly creature – has for centuries been a crucial part of his ancestors’ lives. Moose skins were used for clothing; bones and antlers for medicine and tools; its dark meat for sustenance. And the sound of the moose was evidently Ronnie’s party piece for visitors to the Metepenagiag Heritage Park where he works – a place that brings to life the culture and history of his forefathers.

These ancient Indian lands were named Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by the European settlers: provinces that are small by Canadian standards, but appear boundless and unpopulated to my British eyes. Long straight highways are fringed with forests thick with pine and beech, while others pass through pretty villages like Wolfville in the Annapolis valley, an area reclaimed from the sea by the descendents of French settlers, the Acadians, for farmland.

In the eighteenth century, the British enacted a ruthless policy towards the Acadians across the provinces, forcefully deporting those who refused to pledge allegiance to the British Crown. Some were sent to other British North American colonies, others to France or Louisiana – where the word Acadian gradually became ‘cajun’.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s nineteenth-century poem Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, about a woman and her lover who are separated by the Great Expulsion, is a set text in many North American schools, and it is possible today to follow the Evangeline Trail created by the local tourist authorities through the eponymous heroine’s Acadia.

Driving along the trail, I try to imagine the swathe of destruction as villages were torn down and communities driven out of their homes, but it’s hard to visualise such turmoil as the morning rainclouds begin to clear and sunlight brightens up the furrowed fields of this gently rolling and verdant valley. The only disputes nowadays are over a dollar or two at the yard sales on the road out of Wolfville, where neighbours wander over one another’s otherwise pristine lawns picking through cast-offs for bargains.

Beyond the town, the land reverts once more to fields of asparagus and orchards of apple trees, their branches speckled with pink blossom. Farms with bright red barns stand out against the open farmland, while the sky above is streaked with ripples of cloud like a crumpled duvet. Patches of violet lupins sway in the breeze as the silhouette of a bird swoops into the scene, an eagle hovering on the gentle thermals overhead, its eyes searching for carrion.

Lunch is at a local vineyard, where buttercups grow amid rows of vines that slope away towards a smudge of water on the horizon – the Bay of Fundy, a vast stretch of water between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which splits at its end like a whale’s tale. An astonishing 100 billion tonnes of seawater flow in and out of here from the Atlantic each day. Its famous 50-foot tidal range has inspired the annual ‘Not Since Moses’ fun-run, at Five Islands in the Minas Basin of the bay, in which competitors run along the sea floor when the tide is out, scurrying to the finish before it comes back in.

The Mi’kmaq believed that these islands were created by Glooscap, the Native Indian god-like man who lived on the high bluffs of Cape Blomidon. A disrespectful beaver, the story goes, had built a large dam and flooded Glooscap’s garden. He threw giant handfuls of mud at the beaver and smashed the beaver’s dam, which allowed the water to pour in, thus creating the Bay of Fundy tides. Glooscap also taught the people about the constellations and stars, and how to hunt, fish and cultivate.

Driving into New Brunswick, I wonder what Glooscap would make of modern methods – husbands returned from their day’s labours in the offices of Fredericton to sit atop tractor mowers in baseball caps and plaid shirts, keeping their lawns immaculate with apparent ease. Others relax on swinging chairs in the shade of their porches, watching the world go by, or resting a moment before taking their children off to ice hockey or swimming practice.

Wooden bungalows, many freshly painted and so keeping up with the expectations and standards set by neighbours, line both sides of the highway. Once in a while there’s a whitewashed Evangelical church, a cemetery or a gas station. But beyond the road there’s little but trees. I begin to wonder where they go for a newspaper or a pint of milk. It’s so unpopulated, so wild. My overwhelming sense is of the size of this place.

I stay overnight on the wooded banks of the Miramichi river, from where the forest sprawls on to unfathomable realms. This land of green and blue continues virtually uninterrupted all the way to Canada’s frozen north. Ferns grow here too, their coiled ‘fiddle-heads’ gathered in springtime and cooked in butter and salt – a great accompaniment to the wonderful local salmon and washed down with Moosehead beer.

The Miramichi is famous for its superb salmon fishing, and I have a good long spell trying to land a suitably impressive specimen: but a few trout later, I decide to take the chance to find a bigger beast, and set out to find a moose.

As raindrops cast ripples in the river and mosquitoes buzz in the evening air, I head out in a four-wheel truck into the forest with Dion Carson, a guide at a nearby river lodge. He drives us carefully along the muddy tracks that run through densely packed fir trees, looking out from under his baseball cap for anything that might appear, suddenly, from among the trunks.

“If you hit a moose in your car, its legs would come up to the dashboard: its body would come through here,” he says, waving his hand from the windscreen to the back seat.

“I’m a woods person,” he tells me in his gentle drawl. “I love it here. It’s my life.”

We pass a few clearings and rivers dammed by beavers, one swimming on the surface in the pond. It circles the pond, head above the water, before returning to its lodge. And we move on, too, to a large clearing where a tranquil lake has formed. This is a good place to spot moose, as they often come here at dusk during the summer months to feed on waterweed and to drink the salty water, which their bodies need after the long winter.

The still waters reflect a blur of browns and greens from the encroaching forest at the lake’s edge as the evening light fades. Moss hangs like a wizard’s beard from the trunk of a pine, which I lean against while preparing to wait. Bullfrogs croak in the long grasses underfoot. And then I see them.

A few hundred metres out into still waters are eight or nine moose. Silent, stocky shapes, unaware of our presence. They wade into the water and feed, lifting their outsized noses every so often, their eyes watchful and their ears alert to sudden noise. But there is none, and they carry on as before.

It’s like stepping back in time and watching prehistoric beasts grazing, I think, as the trees swallow up the last traces of light and we return to camp.

“Pretty neat, eh?” says Dion. And he is absolutely right.

Travelers’ Tales Festival

Hugely looking forward to the Travellers’ Tales Festival, taking place at the historic headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society in London later this month. I think it’s the only festival in the world dedicated to travel writing and photography, so it’s probably a must for anyone interested in either or both – and probably for anyone passionate about travelling.

Intrepid explorer Benedict Allen is due to open the festival with what promises to be a riveting account of his extraordinary journeys around the world, which should provide a suitably inspiring start to a weekend’s worth of talks by equally well travelled photographers and writers.

And closing the festival is Don McCullin, arguably the greatest war photojournalist who I understand is making a very rare appearance.

The weekend stars numerous travel photographers including greats such as Frans Lanting who is one of National Geographic’s in-house-contributors and Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher, well known for their striking African portraits.

Writing-wise, there are two rare appearances: the grand dame of travel writing Jan Morris and Irish writer Dervla Murphy who wrote From Ireland to India with a Bicycle will both be there. Other speakers are the inspiring and wildly witty Chris Stewart and the acclaimed BBC special correspondent Fergal Keane, who is as poetic as he is hard-hitting.

In addition, the festival will run workshops and solo spots by emerging new talents dotted about the building’s many rooms and halls so punters can pick up a few hints and tips from the experts.

I’m sure it’ll be an interesting and pretty inspiring weekend. It runs from the
19-21 February in London and should provide a refreshing pause from the rather rotten winter.

Visit the website for tickets… www.travellerstalesfestival.com

Pictures by Paul Harris from Travellers’ Tales Festival 2009

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