Brighton? Isn’t it full of spivs with ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hats tipped at a jaunty angle? Old habits die hard, as do old impressions handed down through a legacy of grainy, clichéd black’n’white movies and postcards, a world of working class civilians taking in the bracing sea air for a saucy weekend of single malts and double entendres. Forget
Santiago de Compostela, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984 and Galicia’s greenest city, is a place of pilgrimage for many people – the discovery of the body of the Apostle James transformed this city into the most important focus of religious worship in Europe during the Middle Ages. These days, many thousands of people continue to walk the Camino
Think Turkey and you automatically think of the summer tourism resorts of Bodrum, Antalya, Marmaris, Fethiye and Alanya – just several of the hot spots that pepper the Aegean shores. It was far from these resorts I experienced when I arrived in Turkey some years back as part of an international delegation of journalists which was invited to see
It hardly seems like almost 30 years ago when your friend and mine, a certain skinny punk rocker by the false name of Elvis Costello, issued forth a spittle-flecked diatribe on the shallowness of the fame and fashion industry in a song called (I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea. We’ve no idea why Costello framed the song title in
The taxi driver on the journey from Inverness train station to our hotel just outside the Scottish town was obviously a measured and reflective type. Instead of an AA roadmap, a well-thumbed copy of the collected works of Shakespeare lay in his open glove compartment. The composure and calm of the man indicated that not all Highlanders are fuelled by
Here’s a question for you: given the choice between the carefully crafted, historically imbued and Viennese-style elegance of Café Gerbeaud and the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink, Mad Max, punk rock-style demeanor of Szimpla Kertmozi Café, in which one would you choose to nurse a coffee while either gazing into the distance, avoiding eye contact, reading a magazine or tapping away at a laptop?
It doesn’t come as too much of a surprise to discover that Sicily has always been coveted by those who know a good thing when they see it. That fact that it’s the largest island in the Mediterranean certainly made it noticed; more significantly, perhaps, was its central Mediterranean position, which strategically made it a point of convergence between the
For no good reason that I can think of, Perpignan hasn’t been on the list of people’s must-see destinations. True, it doesn’t readily spring to mind when you tick off places in France you might want to visit, yet after spending a few days here in early April (raining in Dublin; 20-degree plus in Perpignan), a conclusion is quickly reached:
Tony Clayton-Lea is an Irish-based freelance journalist/writer/editor who writes on music, arts, and pop culture (and travel/hospitality) for a variety of print and online outlets.
Email: tclaytonlea@gmail.com
This is the personal website for Tony Clayton-Lea.