Wandering Back

Hi there, all

This is just a quick post to say that I'm home again, and catching up with Blogger and other social media. I'm also catching up with sleep, and laundry and other chores, so it may well take a while before I'm commenting much.

I enjoyed Lithuania a lot, and definitely want to go back. Having "done" the railway system very thoroughly, next time is likely to be much more tourism-oriented. I think there's a lot to see: several historic cities, Trakai castle, the Hill of Crosses, the Baltic Sea coast, no doubt many other things I don't yet know of.

Take care

Mark

Wandering again

Hi there, all

This is just a quick post, to apologise for my increasing absence from blog-land over recent weeks, and also for what's likely to be complete absence over the next ten days or so.

The future absence is due to another overseas holiday: a week or so touring around Lithuania by train, followed by a couple of days travelling from there to Berlin via Warsaw. I should be back very early on Tuesday 28 May, UK time. As usual, I don't expect to have any opportunity to access Blogger while I'm away.

The past absence is due to being distracted by the bright lights of Twitter-land. Unfortunately, that little "1 new tweet" message is very seductive, and it's all too easy to keep on replying to others' tweets. After saying for some months that I didn't like Twitter, and couldn't compress my thoughts into 140-character bites, I suddenly seem to have got the hang of it!

Take care

Mark

One Year Later

Hi there, all

As you will no doubt be aware, I haven't posted here for over a year. I noticed the anniversary of my last post approaching, and then receding, and this seems to have spurred some reflection on what I might say next.

What have I been up to? As previously advertised, I visited Istanbul at Easter last year.
Hagia Sophia (perhaps my favourite building ever)

Then I spent five weeks touring Canada and the United States, sightseeing and visiting bloggers and other friends.

Quebec city and beyond

The Capitol, Washington DC

The Grand Canyon

During the summer, I largely kept my head down, ignoring the Olympics, but I had a couple of day trips to lesser-known bits of England.

Wells-next-the-Sea

Knebworth House

I even managed to look around my own city!

Cambridge: King's College chapel

Autumn saw some more weekend trips, several to Germany and one to (old) York.

Sangerhausen

York: city walls and the Minster

Winter was quite quiet, but last month (March), I had another couple of trips. The first took me travelling through the Balkans, visiting five of the parts of the former Yugoslavia, from Slovenia to Macedonia and Kosovo.

Skopje (Macedonia): the Stone Bridge and the castle

The second trip was a week touring Morocco by train - my first visit to Africa.

Marrakech: the Koutoubia mosque

Casablanca: the Hassan II mosque
For those interested in the pictures, I hope to make more detailed posts at some point, but please don't hold your breath.

At home, I've had other things to keep me occupied: I now have accounts on Twitter (@WanderingPomUK) and Facebook (find mark.pom.37 or my wanderingpom e-mail address), and I'm slowly learning how to use them in a way that suits me. If you're not already following me there, please feel free come along and say Hi. I also had an MSN account, but I guess that's now in limbo between MSN and Skype.

Take care

Mark