Less than 50 km from Stockholm, Sigtuna is ideal for a day trip from the capital. It is Sweden’s oldest town, founded in AD 980, and until the 13th century it was one of the most important cities in the country. Today it is small, and its importance has waned,
There are stones everywhere. Wherever you go in Gotland they are scattered on the beach and by the road, in fields and in forests. They must have provided plentiful building material for the ancient labyrinths around the coast. And, as I discovered, these stones were also used for a quite
I went to Gotland in search of its stone labyrinths and the medieval city of Visby. But, as so often happens, it was the unexpected that caught my attention. And I found two things that took me by surprise. The first was the old fishing stations that are dotted around
Rows of tiny wooden cottages in streets radiating out from the medieval stone church. Each painted in the typical red and white of Swedish rural dwellings. But there are no permanent residents, and these are not holiday cottages. Welcome to Gammelstad Church Town, part of a tradition that arose in
Somehow I didn’t expect to see the ruins of an old stone church behind the high wall. After all, we were in the United States, the so-called New World. But this was San Juan Capistrano, the oldest town in California. A place jam-packed with historic houses, and an old Spanish
One of the things I love about California is the profusion of different cultures: Chinese, Japanese and, of course, Mexican. I also take a perverse delight in ferreting out historical sites among the glass and concrete of the gleaming modern cities. So it’s no surprise that, on a return visit
Regular readers of this blog will know that I love old walls. I’ve explored walled cities like Girona and Lucca, and I’ve walked the whole 84 miles of England’s Hadrian’s Wall. So I was intrigued to discover that Verona’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site rested partly upon its