Post Script from Turkey

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After my return from Greece I did not mean to go away again for a while but I had an unexpected invitation to board a beautiful Turkish gulet, the Randa (above), and sail along the Lycian coast of Anatolia. At the airport on the way out, I came across a copy of Herodotus's Histories, a book I had never had time to read. Now I had time: and the opportunity. As I sailed the Mediterranean, book in hand, I reflected on what my past year in travel had taught me. This is my summing up.
O, and this is what it was like to sail in the sublime Mediterranean. Click here...
I would like £10,000 of travel prize every year for the rest of my life.

The Ultimate Trip

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This is Dionysus, a painting on a marble bed in the tomb of Potidia in Macedonia, from around 300BC. It can be seen in the excellent Archaeology Museum in Thessaloniki where I spent the first and last few days of a the final prize-winning trip. It is a fine city, beside a wide blue bay looked down on by the distant snowy Mount Olympus. Its streets are studded with Byzantine churches (fortuitously open on Easter Friday) and sparkling bars that are rammed on Saturday nights by people dressed for a party. The market is the best place to eat and the old port area, Ladadika, where the Hotel Bristol resides, the best spot for a quiet ouzo.

From Thessaloniki I drove some 1200km, first east to Thrace and Xanthi, where, on Easter Sunday, the muezzins called the faithful Pomaks, an island of Muslims in the Greek sea of Orthodoxy. Then back across to the far northeast corner and Lake Prespa, 1,000 metres up, shared with Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Dalmatian pelicans, pygmy cormorants, golden oriols, nightingales and sombre tits were the wildlife performers. A speed boat is the only way to see remote cave churches, and it is possible (but not in the car I hired) to tour the lake through the three countries. I stayed in a pretty mountain village, Aghias Giorghias, which had its own handsome 12th-century church, and the landlord of my taverna was relaxed when I realised I did not have enough cash to pay for my stay – he just gave me his bank details and told me to pay him "sometime".

The only black spot was losing my camera while roaming the hills, hence no pics here (and also discovering on my return home that my annual insurance had expired). But being without a camera was also liberating.

Coming down from the hills I eventuually landed in Sithonia, the middle finger of the Chalkikidi peninsula where Mount Athos hovers. The beachside taverna I fell into at Nikiti was perfect, its beach, as almost everywhere here, empty, unspoiled, and idyllic.

Now I am back, brown, and altogether a much better person for my travels. It was £10,000 very well spent.
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But that isn't quite all I have to say, because during all these travels a number of things have been going over in my mind. This is what I th0ught....

Northern Greece (Trip No.6)

Well, this is it, the last £1,000, which I am spending on a week in the north of Greece, the country I visited when I first went abroad, at the age of 19, and where I had so many adventures. Brenda at North-South Travel is just booking the tickets. For the first three days I will be in Thessaloniki, a city I have for a long time wanted to get to know, particularly after reading Mark Mazower's Salonica: City of Ghosts, and from enjoying Rembetika music – how do I upload an audio clip? Then off to Thrace to see the Pomaks and the surrounding region, looking for signs of Philip of Macedonia and Alexander the Great. Finally to Ali Pasha's Ioannina, and the Pindos hills, where spring should look fantastic. A full report will follow on my return on May 4.

Meantime, this prize money has not only allowed our family to take holidays they have not had in years, it has let up pressure on work, and I have managed to get out a novel that has been in the making for a while. It's called Burning Barcelona, and it is the most entertaining book in the whole world.

Thank you, Dorling Kindersley/Rough Guides. Long may your books travel far, too.

New York (Trip No 5) Dec 4–8

_The fun goes on, and Joby (daughter) and Pam (wife) benefited from the travel prize (and Roger’s generosity) by spending a few days in New York in December. It was magical. We stayed in Greenwich Village in a cosy little guesthouse with friendly management and eccentric electrics. We made a few forays uptown – to visit the Metropolitan Museum, to walk in Central Park – beautiful with a crisp dusting of snow – to watch the skaters at the Rockefeller Center and lunge, briefly, into the madness that is Macy’s at Christmas. We took a trip on the Staten Island ferry, too, and almost froze. And Joby ran beside the Hudson every morning, while Pam didn't.

But mostly we walked around Greenwich Village, Soho and Little Italy, checking out the shops, galleries, markets and restaurants, and diving into warm cafés for coffee when we needed to thaw out. There were Christmas trees for sale on every other corner, coloured lights in the streets and a cheerful atmosphere that belied the reputation New Yorkers have for being abrupt. We had Sunday brunch in one of dozens of cafés heaving with people, discovered a dim, book-lined cigar bar that was exempt from the strictly observed no smoking ban, and listened to some great jazz in the Blue Note club. New York, as the song says, is a wonderful town.