Travel
I'm lucky enough to travel a lot but I also aim to understand a place in some depth. So I like to find out about the local history, sociology, wildlife and local arts. I prepare for a trip by looking up photos of the famous sights, they're usually a good guide both about the local visual interest and also a warning of what has already been done or over-done.
I try to use the tools of modern photojournalism and photography to communicate how I feel about a place. You’ll see that I have used Portrait, Street, Interior, Historical, Abstract, Landscape, Historical, Wildlife, Phone-camera and Selfie genres at different times for specific effects.
That’s the end of what feels like a quite spectacular period of travel adventure over the past few weeks. Travel is a privilege so it’s great to be able to share photos of the wonderful variety of scenes of my adventures and thank you for your interest.
But travel isn’t always easy: it’s not easy to show the cancelled flights, the TGV reservation seats which didn’t exist, yet another prematurely-failed motorbike battery, the lost/delayed suitcase, the puncture and other hire car woes as well as this winter’s stormy weather, fuelled by the 2023-24 El Niño event and two sudden stratospheric warmings.
Time to rest up for a few days, time to be ready for more.
Exploring the gatehouses and passageways of the San Remo old town; the medieval circular network was built as three concentric fortifications against pirates and invaders.
At the top there is a church, a villa and the shade and waterfall of the Giardini Regina Elena.
Brief visit over the North Downs to Longfield in Kent. It’s the first stop after Bromley South on the fast train to Dover. Brian showed me a short hike up to Ruffet’s Wood for the views towards the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf in the London Docklands. There’s a feeling of wide openness under a huge and distant horizon but it’s impossible to ignore the pylons in every direction.
Longfield is an intriguing place because it stayed small for so long; it’s recorded by its Norse/Danish name as Langafel in the Doomsday Book and before but there are only the church and rectory shown on the OS map of 1869. The railway passed through but didn’t stop here until a station was paid for in 1872 by a landowner in nearby Fawkham. By 1897 the OS map shows a smithy, a children’s nursery near the station, chalk and clay pits, brickworks, farms, orchards and pub: an infrastructure has been established, including a National School in the next village for “Lost Boys” (orphans), presumably also to supply labour.
Longfield has a small church, the tradition locally is that much of the early church was built c.1343 with major additions in 1886, including the tower.
Crystal clear day thanks to the Mistral, the autumn light showing Marseille’s Palais Longchamps to great effect. A plentiful flow of water through the cascades, though the lower fountains weren’t running. The stone comes from upstream at Calissanne (near the A7 péage of Lançon) with the figure of Durance surrounded by Cérès et Pomone at the centre of an allegorical ensemble. Historically, Palais Longchamps, the château d’eau, was the end point for the Canal de Provence which first brought plentiful drinking water to Marseille from the Alps in 1849, following a terrible cholera epidemic and droughts in the 1830s.
Troc Café, 38 Impasse de la République
This is l’Isle sur la Sorgue, Vaucluse and it’s Provence at its touristy height. Often unbearably hot in summer but pleasantly warm in the low twenties this afternoon.
L’Isle sur la Sorgue is in an unusual and picturesque location being an island as the river splits but despite flooding, medieval sieges and fires the old town survives with the architecture of a Provençale town that was previously fortified.
The poetry of Frederic Mistral is how the French know of L’Isle sur la Sorgue but I was intrigued to seek out the “restaurant” which Keith Floyd set up there in the Seventies, before his more well-known and longer-lasting venture in Wiveliscombe, Devon. Keith Floyd took cooking on television out of being a public information slot to being fun and entertainment. He paved the way for all the modern television chef personalities. My connection is that I worked the vision for a mini-series he did on location for GMTV in the Nineties.
More photos: L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue - in the steps of Keith Floyd (updated Jan 2024)
