Inside the choir of Sainte-Cécile cathedral Albi wasn’t an important Cathar centre but it gave its name — Albigensian — to both the heresy and the crusade that the pope launched to eradicate it. The main entrance of Sainte-Cécile cathedral The crusade was also indirectly responsible for one of the most remarkable cathedrals I’ve seen in Europe. Albi’s Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile (Photo...
Carcassonne The steep escarpment above the river Aude was first fortified by 5th century Visigoth kings, who built walls that correspond more or less to Carcasonne’s present inner circuit. It became the property of the Trencavel family, viscounts of Albi and Nîmes, in 1067. They built their imposing Château Comtal — the city’s massive inner fortress — and the church of St-Nazaire, and in 1096...
Villefranche-de-Conflent Villefranche-de-Conflent was founded as a medieval garrison town in 1092 to block incursions from Rousillon by rivals of the counts of Cerdagne. It was remodelled by the military engineer Vauban in the 17th century after the region was annexed by France. and the little town’s streets and fortifications remain largely unchanged from that time. The streets of Villefranche...
The view from Peyrepertuse castle The road from the coast rose into hills as we turned off the Perpignan highway onto a smaller route. The landscape was scattered with vineyards that lay like rugs between rocky spines. As we rounded the corners, the blur of motion revealed roses planted at the ends of some rows. Roses are more sensitive to mildew than the hardy vine stock of the region, and...
Kapka Kassabova Kapka Kassabova is the most interesting new writer in the travel literature genre. I use the term “new” in the sense of my own reading. I mostly read older books, or new books by older writers, because so little of what’s being published today seems relevant beyond the present moment. I think Kapka’s work will stand the test of time. She was born and raised in Cold War...
I want to give you a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like being an investigative journalist in Malta after the car bomb assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. And so I reached out to my friend Caroline Muscat, founder and editor-in-chief of The Shift, the Maltese investigative news portal where I was a weekly columnist for over four years. If you’ve read my new book A Sunny Place...
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Ryan Murdock My new book is now available for your reading pleasure. It’s called A Sunny Place for Shady People, and it’s about six years I spent living on the island of Malta. I went there because I wanted to write an island book inspired by Lawrence Durrell — and there was light and laughter in those early years. But then there was an election, and everything...
Berlin residents must have felt one step closer to the future in the decade before the Cold War ended. That’s when a 313-metre-long spacecraft materialized in Westend. East Berlin was building their Palace of the Republic in the 1970s, and the West’s Congress Hall in the Tiergarten — known as the pregnant oyster for its unfortunate shape — was too small. A competition was held to...
The villa of the Wannsee conference Remembrance Day isn’t observed here in the country that started and lost two World Wars. But Berlin is filled with memorials which commemorate the Twentieth Century’s darkest events. I normally stand alone in my study for the 11am moment of silence. But this year I decided to observe Remembrance Day by visiting the Wannsee villa where Nazi bureaucrats met to...
Matthew Carr The Pyrenees is one of the great European landscapes. It cuts across the mouth of the Iberian peninsula, forming the border between France and Spain. It’s been a place of beauty and of terror; a passage for refugees, dissidents and resistance fighters; and the cradle of both religious heresy and religious pilgrimage. This fascinating region is too often overshadowed by the...