Wildschoenau: what I miss, and why I may never return

Wildschoenau: Wild and Beautiful. This Tirolean high valley has much to live up to, and delivers in digger-sized buckets. It is though the use of the aforementioned construction apparatus that is slowly dragging the valley back into the pack, from its once nonpareil position of being perfectly formed and relatively untouched by human intervention. It…

Bohinj: what I miss, and the things that I look forward to seeing

The last two years have been a serious reality check for globetrotters, frequent fliers, and those who usually got away as often as they could. Travellers now inhabit that rather uncertain no man's land between unrestricted movement and outright lockdown, with day to day pandemic-related uncertainty impacting upon decision-making of whether to venture forth, and…

Oetzi the Iceman – 30 years on

Thirty years is a long time in the lives of most people but to Oetzi, the mummified iceman monikered as such due to the location of his discovery, it represents barely a blink of an eye in the timeline from when he roamed the high alps to the present day, via his introduction to the…

A personal odyssey within western Shropshire and Mid-Wales

Shrewsbury Castle & Shropshire Regimental Museum Picturesque side streets of Shrewsbury The remaining features of the 11th century Clun Castle. The more manorial 13th century Stokesay Castle Bucolic examples of Shropshire countryside straight from the pages of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad Welshpool's Powis Castle, gardens, and surroundings The Powys-based, man-made, and almost Bohinj-like…

Kobla ski resort must seek relevance and a realistic rebirth

It is several years, perhaps half a decade ago, since I last wrote about the proposed Bohinj 2864 ski centre, an ambitious project to not only reactivate the redundant Kobla 'resort' above Bohinjska Bistrica, but to develop it into a Tirol-type winter sports' destination that are ten-a-penny in neighbouring Austria. Slovenia has never sought to…

Third time’s a charm: Hotel Bohinj finally lives up to its name and location

My first memories of Bohinj's then Hotel Kompas stem from the late-1990's, a time when Slovenia was still in its infancy as an independent state. Although the era of Marshal Tito's rule over what by 1991 became the former Yugoslavia had concluded on his death in 1980, Slovenia's briefly fraught secession from the collective of…

Hotel Zlatorog: Decline, fall, and rebirth

The imminent demolition of Bohinj's iconic Hotel Zlatorog is now the best and realistically only course of action available to an ailing edifice left to wither on the vine by its previous owner. Once favoured by Marshal Tito as a bucolic setting in which to receive fellow Non-Aligned and Communist leaders when Slovenia formed the…

Air Adriatic falls at the first hurdle in its quest to replace Adria Airways

Should a country the size of Slovenia expect to have a national airline? A nation of just over two million citizens is not an ideal market for an established flag carrier or one that is considering starting up, and had the former Yugoslav republic not previously been serviced by the now defunct Adria Airways, I…

Ashgabat: Expensive living rings hollow in a deserted land of make believe

For most expats, Turkmenistan or for the purposes of this exercise its capital Ashgabat, would not rank highly on a list of locations they expect to find themselves. The hydrocarbons sector is heavily underpinned by foreign nationals brought in by countries sitting on a wealth of gas and oil, and accounts for a significant proportion…

Wildschoenau development precedents threaten its wild and beautiful reputation

When I returned to the Wildschoenau three years ago after an absence of over a decade, I was quickly reminded why my 2007 vacation in Niederau was perhaps up there with the best I have ever had. In the twenty years I have been travelling to the Austrian Alps throughout Salzburgerland, Carinthia, and Tirol a…

Lake Bohinj sets the agenda for responsible, sustainable tourism

The four sides of Lake Bohinj afford visitors diverse pleasures and limitations, but the body of water itself has become the subject of much debate along a common theme: limiting the impact on its ecosystem from outside influences, both human and otherwise. The road along the southern edge of Bohinjsko Jezero links Ribcev Laz, where…

The Tirol’s Oetztal – where social distancing is an established bonus

For those accustomed to overseas travel the last twelve months has been a time of great frustration, but also represented an opportunity to reflect on the places we have missed so much, and what makes them special to us. It is now twenty years since my first visit to the Oetztal, which served as a…

Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine, Sardoncillo, Valladolid, Spain

Nestled within north-western Spain wine country, a truly five-star experience awaits those staying in this former 12th century abbey. Opened in 2012, Abadia Retuerta LeDomaine offers sophisticated, contemporary accommodation and attentive service within natural surroundings as luxuriant as this converted former home of Premonstratensian Order canons. Guests staying in the 27 rooms and 3 suites, many…

The Internet of Things(IoT) revolution will only be limited by any failures to secure end user data

Such has been its runaway success and the seemingly endless possibilities of its application, future developments within the Internet of Things(IoT) sphere of interrelated connectivity were unlikely to be disrupted by an unprecedented pandemic which has arguably future proofed its purpose to control devices not previously thought of as ripe for ‘internetization’. As tentative steps…

Ballard and Simms the standout performers of Blackpool’s loan rangers

As the dust continues to settle since Blackpool FC brought their 2020/2021 League 1 season to a close in perhaps one of the most stunning turnarounds in the club's history, thoughts have inevitably turned as to how promotion will affect the squad's makeup in the Championship, which of the players won't make the cut, and…

League One play offs: Blackpool FC entertain the football world and quieten any of coach Critchley’s lingering critics

In my junior years, Lincoln biscuits represented a rare treat that to this day are sadly missed, both for their unique taste and ubiquity of availability. Putting aside the obvious but lazy dreaming spires and punting on the Isis(river) cliches, Oxford is brought to my mind for reasons of Robert Maxwell, the old Manor Ground,…

Bohinj strives for greater balance between agriculture and sustainable tourism

One of my earliest memories of vacationing in Slovenia's Bohinj region was of a headscarf-wearing lady of indeterminate age, perhaps in her late fifties or early sixties, cutting pasture grass by hand; in other words, with a scythe - before placing the presumed silage in a back-mounted basket. Now, if I was to ask you…

Climate Change demands diversification away from winter sports, but viable alternatives are far from obvious – nor straightforward

With 40 fewer days of snow cover than 60 years ago, the alpine regions of Austria are not only losing the very element on which its leviathan winter sports sector relies upon, but also the use of melted snow that impacts river flow, hydroelectric capabilities, and the ability of farmers to harvest precipitation to water…

Slovenia’s Juliana Trail puts alpine sustainability at the very forefront of its purpose

Awarded the Best Europe Tourism Project by the British Guild of Travel Writers, Slovenia's innovative Juliana Trail has been recognized for providing a tourist-centric product designed to take the strain off traditionally popular, but at times overwhelmed areas of the Julian Alps. Without it sounding like a tired cliche, there is more to Slovenia's alpine…

The Maritime Alps of Slovenia and Italy may see more snow and glacier consolidation, but deny Climate Change at your peril

Standing up to your knees in snow at 1,800 metres above sea level whilst at a ski resort is not an unusual occurrence in itself but indicates one potential anomaly: assuming the scenario doesn't relate to off piste terrain then why hasn't the particular area been groomed for winter sports aficionados? The answer might surprise,…