Tag: walking
Foster Powell, the great pedestrian
When he was 21 years old Samuel Taylor Coleridge came to Wales for a walking tour with his Cambridge friend Joseph Hucks. In a letter written in Denbigh in July 1794 to Robert Southey he summarises the trip so far, and writes, From Bala we travelled onward to Llangollen, a most beautiful village in a […]
Grass for pillow: early Japanese travel poems
Last year Penguin published a selection of classical Japanese writings about travel. Travels with a writing brush, edited by the Australian translator Meredith McKinney, didn’t receive much attention at the time, but it’s a wonderful and wonderfully varied introduction to poetry and prose written in Japan between the seventh and seventeenth centuries. For anyone who’s […]
A reader walks out
In the huge and magnificent William Blake exhibition now on in Tate Britain there are many images that were new to me, even though I’d seen the earlier big Tate shows of his artistic work, in 1978 and 2000. One of them comes from a series Blake produced during the last three years of his […]
Werner Herzog’s pilgrimage to Paris
Many think Werner Herzog our greatest living film-maker. His major fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s will always find new viewers. Aguirre, Wrath of God, a study in conspiracy, tyranny and madness, has a claim to be one of the most powerful ever made. Once you’ve seen it the first time, with its dense […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 14: Clwyd Gate to Bodfari
This was the day we were not looking forward to. For a while the weather forecast was adamant: heavy rain in the morning, lighter rain for the rest of the day. But the heavy rain cleared early, and it was just spitting when I went out into the streets of Ruthin in search of a […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 12: Trefonen to Castell Dinas Brân
Today was due to be rain-free, and it is. This fact alone lends us a lightness of spirit that lasts all day, another long one. We’re joined by our guestwalker and friend A., fit after his holiday in the Italian mountains. A taxi returns us from Oswestry to Trefonen. We’re immediately unable to find the […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 11: Buttington to Trefonen
At nearly seventeen miles this is going to be our longest day, so C, M and I set out early from Buttington Bridge. It’s already raining steadily. The path takes us along the towpath of the Montgomery Canal, no longer navigable and the preserve of great sheets of algae rather than narrow boats. We pass […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 10: Cwm to Buttington
We start out early, with a spring in our step: no rain’s forecast, the wind’s slackened, and the day’s climbing is limited. After a short walk along lanes we rejoin the Dyke, and follow it, still tall and well-ditched, downhill and northwards, through trees. The tree roots need constant watching, to avoid a fall. On […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 9: Knighton to Cwm
Four months have passed and we’re back in Knighton. In another seven days we’ll have finished a project started six and a half years ago to walk round the edges of Wales. This time, C. and I are joined by M., who walked the southern half of Offa’s Dyke 39 years ago, but has never […]
Offa’s Dyke Path, day 7: Hay-on-Wye to Kington
Yet another sunny, warm day. This will be a three-water-bottle day, since it’s fifteen miles to Kington and there won’t be anywhere to eat or buy food en route. C and I pick up supplies from a shop and cross the Wye. Instead of carrying on along the road to Clyro, the Path turns immediately […]
