Inside the Travel Lab

I stand in the queue, a man turns me back.

I stand in another queue. Alone, in silence. Paperwork in one hand, a heap of clothing in the other, limp yet heavy like the body of a sleeping child. It’s cold outside.

I wait.

I queue.

I hand over my camera…

Cold War. Iron Curtain.

Four words, two phrases, several meanings.

When I went to school, a third of the world lived under “communist” rule. Travel was restricted…

I hope to bring Ljubljana to life for you here on Inside the Travel Lab, piece by piece, over the course of 2012 as part of my #IronRoute Project. Yet to spare you the overload experienced by my hard drive, oh long-suffering reader, I’ll start with this bite-sized list and fill in the gaps later.

There are hotels. And then there are hotels. Places so imaginative, so extraordinary and so unusual that they stand out as experiences in their own right. The Egerton Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, is one of those hotels…

Italian food. There was a time when I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but I can barely remember that now. The moment my train slowed to a stop in Trieste (and, if I’m honest, quite a while before that) my daydreams wandered…

I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve longed to visit Ljubljana. I’ve longed to let my tongue run over the improbable syllables of its name before I even knew how to say them…

Trieste, Italy Behind me, I know that sapphire lights stud their way across the stone. Right now, though, I’m watching darkness. Behind me, flames from an occasional car streak across the empty velvet sky, backlit by the brilliance of a long forgotten empire. Ahead I see nothing. Black, dark, empty, silent. Just the sound of [...]

So, to celebrate gingerbread, gluhwein and twinkling bright lights, I bring you this post: the Best Christmas Markets in the World. (Only, it’s not really the whole world. Just the countries between Turkey and Germany. But let’s face it, that wouldn’t make such a good title…

Eighteen days ago I set out on a journey of more than a thousand miles. It took me through nine different countries, six different currencies, two continents and it strayed both in and out of

Blinking with sleep into the buttercup-yellow light, I stood on the platform and looked around.

An abandoned train stood opposite, incoherent graffiti scrawled along its length. The escalators had seen better days (I hoped) as they slumped…