Meanwhile, on another part of the planet...

We passed through a gate, and halfway up a forested mountain arrived at the monastery under darkening skies. Imposing buildings in traditional style rose from the hillside at intervals: long, black-tiled roofs, the eaves painted in delicate pinks and greens, decorated with flower and animal carvings; sturdy red wooden pillars, delicate trellised doors with paper windows. We stopped and the monk disappeared into one of the halls, asking me to wait. I watched the mist rise from the trees. I couldn’t help thinking he was going to emerge embarrassed, having discovered I had no invitation, no right to be here. Instead, he invited me in and asked if I wanted to eat. When I said I wasn’t hungry, a boy of about twelve gave me an umbrella and two monks led me across the sandy courtyard, skirting puddles, past a stone pagoda and towards the Hall of the White Lotus. Sliding wooden doors were drawn open on a bright, bare room. I left my shoes outside as was customary and from behind more s...

  Friday, 12th January 1894 : “Our journey was seven hours, always along the valley, more like a plain it was so wide. We intended to go on to Al Khatan, where the Sultan of Shibahm lives, but a messenger came saying he expected to see us tomorrow and we were to encamp at Al Furuth. So when we reached that place, where there is a very beautiful well, shaded by palms and with four oxen, two at each side, drawing up water, we set up our five tents in the smoothest part of a ploughed field. Towards evening came two viziers, gaily dressed on fine horses, to welcome us: Salem bin Ali and Salem bin Abdullah, cousins. “[The viziers came to greet us] about 7.30 next morning. We had all stayed in bed till it was quite light and they brought two extra horses… While the camels were loaded a lot of women came to see me and I sat in a chair and took off my gloves at their request and let them hand my hands round. They asked to see my head, so then they got my hair down, dived their fingers down...

  Rob received a phone call offering him a new job, back in Prishtina. We were going back to live in Kosovo! To walk a city haunted by stray cats and streets acrid with roasting coffee and brown coal, where people looked each other in the eye as they passed, expecting to see friends they recognised. Where the neighbourhoods throb with the muezzin’s wail every day, and all summer with endless distorted music over wedding loudspeakers, and old men might still sit against a wall at dusk while rooks wheel and shimmer in the sky above them.     Back, to beyond Prishtina’s streets, to landscapes of blond streaked cornfields and egg-shaped haystacks, where hedgerows bloom and plums tinge a tree blue and above them, even into summertime, the cool mountains tower with patches of snow that bathe your eyes just to look at them, and where you know you can forage tiny mountain strawberries. Where markets bulge with tomatoes that still have the spice of the stalk on them, and driving h...

  I have reservations at two ‘monasteries of the rocks’ perch ed like seabird’s eyries on pinnacles jutting out from the cliff. What possessed the founders? To get closer to God? Fear of Pirates? Imitate the hermit’ s vertiginous cave? It is a fasting day so I set out on a sugar high with nutty halva and dark chestnut honey with yesterday’s bread. Simonopetra is a five mile hike from Dafni along the coast road, a dirt track bulldozed out of the ancient footpath. The temperature must be over thirty degrees with no breeze an d a malevolent sun. S oon hat, boots and all my clothes, including those inside my backpack, are sodden with sweat. T he road is covered in thick yellow dust. I hold my breath and put my hand over my eyes and nose as trucks and SUVs barrel past, leaving sandstorms in their wake that stucco my damp clothes and turn me into a terracotta warrior. None of them stop to offer a lift. But the views are lovely. Over the indigo sea is the middle finger of the Halkidik...

  When Melissa Bingham grows tired of being a hippie in 1970s London, a series of haphazard events followed by a tragedy lead her to Maoist China. She obtains a scholarship and in the summer of 1976 Melissa, together with a handful of foreign students, arrives in what was then called Peking. Despite the eventful period (the Tangshan earthquake, Mao’s death and the campaign against the Gang of Four), the first year is a disappointment. The foreign students are segregated from the Chinese; classes are rigid and dull. Even her roommate spouts only propaganda. Melissa leaves for Hong Kong the following summer but returns a year later when it becomes clear that things are moving on the mainland. Now change is palpable, and nowhere more so than in Peking’s Xidan intersection that November, where a wall covered in posters has been nicknamed Democracy Wall. Here Melissa meet a young activist called Jianguo and they start an illicit relationship. Now ten years later, in the summer of 1989, ...

Memory is visceral. All I can recall, about the drive into the southern Nigerian town of Oshogbo that November afternoon in 1986, is the screech of worn tyres on khaki-coloured roads, the all-pervading dust, the torrid heat and the rivulets of sweat trickling down the back of the albino driver’s neck. After the 150-mile drive from Lagos on a gridlocked highway I was desperately thirsty and dying for a pee. So intent was I on finding somewhere to satisfy my bodily needs that I scarcely took in my surroundings. Victorian explorer Henry M Stanley used ‘dark’ in the title of his book Through the Dark Continent to describe that which is mysterious and unknown. Little did I realise, that day, that this would be the start of my journey into a dark, hidden Africa . Pulling up outside her home – if you could call it a home – was a different matter. After all these years the image of that baroque, semi-dilapidated Portuguese-colonial edifice with alien-like carvings clinging to its walls r...

I’m limping on both feet—if that’s possible—in scorched wheat fields somewhere south of   Siena. I’m a woman alone and I’m lost. The sun’s heat pummels the earth, and my limbs are like basil leaves, crushed by the stone pestle of the sun. Dusty tracks are scratched across the brittle fields. Sharp rocks push into the soles of my shoes, and I chide myself for bringing trail runners instead of day hikers with thicker soles. My spine is slimy against the pad of my pack and my teeth clench at the pain in my feet. A farmhouse comes into view, suggesting a greener, shadier route to come. When I reach the farm, the trail disappears. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, trying to relieve their ache, wondering which way to turn. The sound of a motor causes me to look toward a field where a man on a tractor waves me over. As I walk closer, he calls out,   “Devi tornare indietro!”   (You have to go back.) I call to him,   “Ma quanto indietro?”   (But how far back?...

  'The ale-brown, ankle-deep water, riffling in the shadows of alder, ash and willow, is surprisingly cool. As I feel my way across the shallows with my toes, I spy an up-bubbling in a deeper stretch... an otter. I strain my eyes until the bubbles disappear, and wade on.' Riverwise , a volume of slow river prose centred around Afon Teifi in west Wales, from the centre of Wales to Cardigan Bay, is a book of wanderings and wonderings, witnessings and enchantments, rememberings and endings.  Weaving memoir, poetry and keen observation into its meandering course, it shifts across time and space to reflect the beauty of hidden, fluvial places, and to meditate on the strangeness of being human. Click here for more information and/or to buy the book Click here to see otters and other wildlife on the author's YouTube channel

  Alex Kemp had never really thought of Greece before. But then he met an unhappy-looking, beautiful Greek girl who had come all the way to England to teach for the summer in the same school as him. Within a year, he was slogging his way to the top of Mount Olympus with an engagement ring in his pocket and Greece, the real Greece – its places and its spirit – indelibly fixed in his mind. In Here is Greece , he takes us on a long journey from frantic Athens to the scattered islands of the Ionian and Aegean Seas; from the remote northern territories to the very southern point of Europe, far beyond Crete. With humour and insight, we navigate through his new Greek life and meet a procession of vivid characters who all help him feel Greece has become his home, and sometimes make him wonder if he made the right decision. Click here to review/buy the book

  A holiday can change everything… …it did for Fred. He went on a two-week break with three friends to the Spanish island of Ibiza in July 1976. It was so enjoyable they all vowed to come back for the following season. In April 1977, Fred returned to Ibiza, alone, in pursuit of his dream. Behind him, he left his family, his girlfriend, and a promising career in banking. Challenges lay ahead. This would be no holiday. Summer of '77 follows 21-year-old Fred’s adventures as he acclimatises to living abroad.  If you enjoy reading about people’s life-changing experiences, then this book is for you. Click here to review/buy the book

  Cycling Norway  chronicles a month-long trip from the south to the north of Norway and is filled with insights about the 2000-kilometre trek, humorous stories, notes about tunnels, ferries, camping in the wild, and more. This entertaining travel story contains thoughts about life, exploring your limits, and, of course, crossing a country from a two-wheeled, solo rider perspective.  If you’re an adventure cyclist, a novice cyclist who craves adventure, or someone who dreams of travelling the globe, this inspirational memoir is perfect for you. Follow this reflective travelogue in which the challenges were aplenty and the rewards worth every moment. Click here to review/buy Watch the trailer

In the afternoon light details were coming more into focus, colours had refreshed and shapes reasserted themselves after their bleaching in the noonday sun. Wakes from boats on their workaday trips to the island wove patterns on the azure counterpane as they descended the hill towards Elounda. From the terrace in her village house, Popi surveyed the same view from a different perspective. Even through the mish mash of telephone poles, water tanks and solar panels, the little piece of paradise that confronted her was a reassurance as she sat typing a letter. Forced to leave Crete as a child, can a family tragedy help Popi rediscover happiness on the magical island of her birth?  A heartwarming story of loss, love and redemption set against the backdrop of the dazzling Cretan landscape.  Click here to preview/buy the book.

Geordie Stewart left his home and his job in the army to cycle across Europe and Asia. Alone on a bike, he experienced freedom and isolation travelling across open deserts and through a vicious Siberian winter. His journey took him 13,000 miles, but this isn’t a story of the number of miles ridden. It’s about choosing an unfamiliar path which led him to discover and confront previously unknown truths. It’s a story of people met and insights gained, whether from friends in Europe, farmers in Kazakhstan or the police in rural China. It’s about the impact of feeling humbled, saddened, angry and amused on the road. Above all, it’s about what life is really like on a bike without a home: a rolling stone. Click  here  to buy:  https://www.geordiestewart.co.uk/