Blizzards of blood at Towton
I’ve been obsessed with the Battle of Towton for as long as I can remember. On Palm Sunday 1461, outside the Yorkshire village of that name, Lancastrian and Yorkist forces […]
Monthly Archives: September 2013
Fans for the memories
This summer I dropped in to the Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul to see an exhibition which is the first of its kind in Turkey. It included a rare and […]
Cool calligraphy in Istanbul
Istanbul is the capital of the exquisitely fine art of Islamic calligraphy. In Ottoman times there were hundreds of libraries here, but the city was and still is a library […]
Tunceli – holy mountains, romantic castles and fine wines
Elazig’s history, as ancient Harput, goes back to 3000BC. Today, it’s home to a prestigious university and is a thoroughly modern town. I took a domestic flight here from Istanbul’s […]
The Crescent in retreat
Cyprus is especially good on castles, including Paphos, Buffavento, Kyrenia, Kolossi and a few more, reflecting the island’s long and eventful history as a major trading stopover in the Mediterranean. […]
No sanctuary in Durham Cathedral
“Dear Sir – I came to visit our (not just your) beautiful cathedral last week. As I was taking a couple of photos without flash a bossy little woman in […]
theromantictraveller 