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Tuesday, January 18, 2022

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$When Blaise Hopkinson first went to Beirut in the late 90s, it was a beaming city, full of beautiful people, good food, culture, class and history. The Phoenicians had left their mark. ‘Gemmayzeh’s street life, bars and restaurants were enchanting, although as a foreigner I never felt welcome at all. I always found the Lebanese very excluding, fractious and abrasive, even when I worked with them in Dubai. Gemmayzeh was one of the earliest gentrifications in Beirut and its unique, French mandate architecture is charming, although the port explosion has laid waste to many a façade. Mar Mikhaël is a later addition to the trendy bar and dining scene, but it too has suffered untold damage. It will take another generation to restore old Beirut. In Johannesburg, we grew up with Lebanese folks and until I went to their country I always wondered why they left. For all the beauty the fractiousness of the country made it, for some, unliveable. Today it is even stranger.’ #beirutexplosion #beirutblast #beirutportexplosion #portofbeirut #beirutport #talkaboutbeirut #beirut #lebanon #travelbeirut #travelwrite #travelwritespotlight #beirut$

Wild cat lovers are in for a treat at Emdoneni Lodge near Hluhluwe in KwaZulu Natal where you can combine a spa-getaway and pleasant stay with Instagrammable cheetah action. Trish Beaver had a wild time here that included getting up close and personal with some of South Africa'smost endangered cats and spotting hippo during a cruise on the St Lucia estuary @emdoneni @trishbeaversa
#travelwritespotlight #emdonenilodge #travel #travelblogger #travelawesome #southafrica #southafricaza #southafricatour #africa #safari #safaritour #cheetah #travelwrite #endangeredcats #ZululandCatConservationProject #Zululand

Come summer, the slow Norwegian sun casts a magic spell over the cinematic landscape of glorious fjords, mountains, forests, remote farmhouses, and wooden churches dating back hundreds of years.
In a hired #SkodaSuperb, @danishengineering and I took the Helsingør ferry to Helsingborg in Sweden and beetled up the West Coast passing Halmstad and Gothenburg, before crossing the Svinesund Bridge into Norway.
Just over an hour after crossing the Svinesund Bridge, we drove into Oslo and checked into the @amerikalinjen hotel, where staff were warm and friendly.
From Oslo, we headed for Lillehammer and onto Hafjell in Øyer, famous for the pine-covered slopes, lakes, and valleys of the soaring Øyerfjellet mountain range. Above a squiggle of precipitous bends along a toll road is the @pellestovahotell in Hafjell set amid lakes, wooden farmhouses, bucolic meadows and clanking cowbells.
At Larvik, famous for Norway’s biggest spa at the @farrisbad hotel, we spent a blissful afternoon exploring saunas with sea views; and pools that massaged your feet. Later that evening, we tucked into salmon steaks on our balcony overlooking the beach filled with wheeling seagulls and holidaymakers.
#flyBA #NorwegianRoadTrip #Amerikanlinjen #FarrisBad #SummerinNorway #øyerfjellet #pellestova #hafjell#visitlillehammer #pellestovahotell #Larvik #travelwritespotlight #traveltuesday

The aesthetic past is ever present in this an archipelago of decaying beauty slowly succumbing to the sea
Venice – its temples and palaces like “fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven” according to Percy Bysshe Shelley – is a magnet for poets, lovers, tourists, pigeons, and thieves. And, you have to hand it to them.
The San Marco pickpockets – among the most skilled in the world – nimbly lifted 100 euros from my purse, while I paid for a T-shirt – making it the priciest in my wardrobe.
The tanned gondoliers are more upfront about parting tourists from their money but Venice wouldn’t be the same without a glide in one of these sleek, black boats. You can see the wooden oars being carved in a shop just behind San Marco’s Piazza, a tourist tabernacle of mosaic and marble, where sunlight bouncing off the golden angel atop the bell tower bathes spires in an iridescent benediction. We drank coffee, listening to the melodic strains of a string quartet.
In this exquisite city that seems miraculously built on water, the light is an alchemist blending slimy brick, dirt, and battered agate, into rosy tones and romantic dereliction.
“Under the day’s azure eyes” (Percy’s prose) we traversed an emerald lagoon across to Burano to find the gaily painted houses of a fishing community and little old ladies sitting outside their cottages making lace.
I couldn’t imagine living here for too long tho – think of the damp (!) – but dreamy Venice is a poetic antidote to a surfeit of reality.
We sailed here on the #OceaniaRiviera
#ThrowbackThursday #travelwritespotlight #venezia #PercyByssheShelley #floatingcity

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