Travel

Since reading Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana many years ago I wanted to visit Iran, the heart of the ancient Persian empire, to see the ruins of Persepolis, the beehive-like ice houses in the desert, the ancient palaces and mosques, the scented gardens and of course to taste the food. I was fortunate enough

As you go south along the coast road from Trapani to Marsala in western Sicily you come upon an unusual and beautiful panorama. There is a geometric pattern of canals and multi-coloured ponds – sea blue, dark blue, pink and white – extending for some kilometers. Windmills dot the landscape amid the ponds, and nearer

The history of the spice trade is essentially about the quest for pepper. Peppercorns and long pepper (small spikes of tiny, grey-black fragrant fruits with a numbing aftertaste), native to the Malabar Coast of India, reached Europe some 3,000 years ago.  The ports along the Malabar Coast traded with Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome, selling

The food of Georgia ‘You aren’t a vegetarian, are you?’ enquired my Georgian host as we sat down to lunch in a light airy restaurant on the edge of one of Tbilisi’s parks. I assured him I was not, but discovered in the next ten days that I could have lived well on fruit and

When my daughter and her family lived in Japan I greatly enjoyed my visits and came to appreciate so many aspects of Japanese culture in addition to the excellent food. Ceramics, art, Zen stone gardens, the reviving experience of bathing in an onsen, a hot spring, were wonderful discoveries. The one I found most unusual

Pongal is the harvest festival of Tamil Nadu, celebrated over four days in mid-January. It marks the beginning of the Tamil month Thai, and is to thank the Sun God for a successful harvest. The atmosphere everywhere is joyful, happy and relaxed. People greet each other in the street with cries of ‘Happy Pongal!’ The