travel

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Europe, horse riding, Horses, Iceland, volcano
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Volcano pony trekking in Iceland

In June 2014, I travelled to the Nordic island of Iceland with a friend to ride Icelandic horses in the countryside and up into the volcanic mountains that dominate the landscape through a company called Eld.Hestar. We flew into the capital, Reykjavik, and were then picked up from the main bus stop and taken to the Eldhestars farm Vellir which is situated in the heart of Iceland‘s south-western countryside close to the town Hveragerði, one of Iceland’s most popular tourist destinations nestled between volcanic mountains in a green valleys with steaming hot springs. We spent four days riding across the most dramatic landscape including treeless countryside, through marshes,[…]

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Amman Jordan, Blogger, Cambridge University, Eileen Ruth Gedge, history, Lebanon, Middle East
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Arab interlude – Summer in Lebanon, 1939

In 1939, my grandmother, Eileen Gedge (pictured above with my grandfather), met a wealthy Lebanese Law student called Ahmed Tewfik Bey Al-Khalil at Cambridge University where they were both studying. They became firm friends and according to family rumours, Ahmed fell in love with my grandmother – a tall, fine boned, beautiful woman, always impeccably dressed and an exceptional tennis player. Sadly my grandmother was forced to reject Ahmed’s advances as it was impossible then for her to marry an Arab.  In those days, inter-racial marriages were frowned upon in High Society. After university, they lost touch, but not before[…]

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Bucharest, Dracula, Europe, monkey, Poiana Brasov, Romania, Sighisoara, skiing, Transylvania 2005
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Thieving monkeys and grumpy vice presidents in Transylvania

By Jane Wynyard – Poiana Brasov, Transylvania, 2005 Forget Dracula, vampires and werewolves. The most menacing creature you’re likely to encounter in Transylvania these days is a thieving monkey dressed in a blue suit that hangs around nightclubs. A resident at the ski resort of Poiana Brasov in the Southern Carpathian mountains, the jittery, red-eyed primate with the sharpest fangs in the business, is usually shoved by its Dracula-like owner into the arms of gullible and unsuspecting tourists. If you don’t pay the 150,000 lei (three pounds, fifty) for a photograph, the monkey bares his fangs, extends his long spidery[…]

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