Europe's steepest road

The last poet: Farewell, Pushkin

The last of the Soviet Union's great ocean liners outlived the Soviet Union. The MS Aleksandr Pushkin made her first visit to Tilbury (in the lower reaches of the River Thames) in April 1966. For over half a century, this classic ship was a regular visit to Tilbury. Renamed the MS Marco Polo, she arrived in Tilbury the very last time in March 2020.

Rites of Passage: Hoek van Holland and the Nieuwe Waterweg

Hoek van Holland is a liminal spot, a place not quite of the land and not quite of the sea. We make time for a Dutch town through which generations of sea travellers have passed but few lingered.

Beware of Assassins: Life and Death in the Railway Carriage

The fear of being murdered on a train was once so great that affluent country squires donned old clothes to travel with the crowds in third class. It was, they judged, safer than travelling in splendid isolation in first class. We take a look at how the railway carriage changed through time.