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Living in Granada, with its attendant places of interest, I’ve never had much time for the throngs of visitors who flock to its world famous tourist attractions. I’ve always seen them as a bit of a nuisance. For starters they get in my way as I try to cross the city. They walk too slowly, often whole groups of them at a time blocking the pavement, giving no consideration to us locals going about our business. I make a point of avoiding the places they go to eat beca...

Saint Magnus cathedral set a tone for my visit to the Orkneys. There was an absence of that grandeur one feels in more traditional larger cathedrals and you sensed a real affinity between it and the local population. It’s not merely a building maintained as a tourist attraction but remains an active and genuine part of the fabric and soul of the islands. The other things I saw there too, the various Neolithic, bronze age and iron age sites, had a rawness and ...

Every inch forward I moved from the Cromarty Firth took me further north than I’ve ever been before in my life. John O’Groats was one of those odd experiences. A place I’d heard and read about most of my life (forever twinned with England’s Land’s End, it’s ingrained in the brain of every Briton), it wasn’t really what I’d imagined. That said, I have no idea what it was I had actually expected. Let’s...

It was with great anticipation that I steered my car over the Skye road bridge and into Kyleakin. The last time I’d visited I’d been a passenger and it had been easier to take in the sights. This time I had to focus more on the road. That said, as is typical for this part of the world the weather wasn’t particularly welcoming and low cloud reduced the sightseeing possibilities anyway.

I did an island tour and tried to ge...

Barely a week has passed since I left Cádiz and I’ve had precious little time to process the events of my Spanish travels. After spending a night at home in my own bed I took another bus journey, this time to Málaga, in readiness for a flight over to the UK for the next part of my extended holiday. There was only enough time to unpack, tip the sand out of my suitcase, wash a few things, water my plants, re-pack and then engage a different mindset for the coming ...

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1. On long bus journeys avoid sitting in a front seat where you have a full view of the driver. I sat in the front row three times and was horrified every time I saw the driver take his hands off the wheel to fiddle with a bottle of water or try and unwrap a sweet. Only once the bus’s wheels hit the rumble strips on the motorway would the driver yank back...

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Me sentí mal por Sevilla. Hay tanto a apreciar en la ciudad, además de la estupenda catedral, pero simplemente no disfrutar de mi visita. Era tan caliente. Pasé mucho tiempo cualquier lugar que tenían aire acondicionado. Yo he experimentado que es peor, en Granada muchas veces, pero de alguna manera q...

El tamaño no lo es todo. Excepto, tal vez cuando se trata de catedrales. El tamaño es más o menos de pu...

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Eso, fue Cáceres. Es una ciudad relativamente pequeña, pero está lleno de cosas interesantes y me gustó mucho. Realmente no sé por dónde empezar aparte de eso, no debería perder el tiempo describiendo lugares y edificios se puede leer en otro lugar en Internet.

Photographs of the tour can be viewed in full at

The Art of Derek Dohren Facebook page.

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El viaje de autobús de ayer de Oviedo a Salamanca era una prueba de resistencia para decir lo menos. Puntuado por paradas en las ciudades más pequeñas el viaje duró más de cinco horas, la últim...

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I didn’t see the best of Oviedo. I was exhausted when I arrived so decided to use my time here to recharge the batteries. It’s a nice place to do that. The centre of town has a wonderful park, the type that could easily exist anywhere between Land’s End and John O’Groats.

I also loved the sta...

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I don’t know what will happen to me in the future but I hope to cross paths once more with Pais Vasco. Bilbao was a perfect accompaniment to San Sebastian. I think they exist in a kind of yin and yang, combining as a whole to impart the region with its cultural focus. Surprisingly, neither city is actually the capital of the area. That...

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I’m in a country within a country. There is a clear feeling of having crossed a border into another realm even though the Basque Country (Pais Vasco) still politically remains part of Spain. Euskera. That’s what they speak here. And no one outside of Pais Vasco understands it. No one even unde...

More images can be seen at my Facebook page - The Art of Derek Dohren

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I’ve become one of those annoying people on trains. No, not the type who yells into his mobile phone for 45 minutes, but the more passive aggressive irritant – the one who gets h...

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I checked into the wrong hotel by mistake yet the receptionist booked me in, having seemingly confirmed my booking in her records. She made some disapproving comment about Brexit as she checked my passport. Finally she gave me my room key, first floor, number 103. It turned out to be the wrong key....

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At the charismatic yet slightly menacing Mestalla stadium

I can...

“Un juego de dos mitades, Jeff.” (referencia a futbol Inglés)

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