2025 Istanbul

Atmospheric corridors inside the Büyük Valide han

It is dark, with few lights, and all kinds of junk piled in the corridors.  On each side there is an amazing variety of small rooms.  A few are surprisingly glamorous showrooms.  Others are simple workspaces, with people cutting cloth, or making jewellery.  Some are half-bare rooms full of tools and equipment, a few men working with pieces of metal.  One or two are on two floors, with internal stairs rising to another level.  In one corner, there is a café, supposedly with a fine view of the sea.  Since we had already enjoyed a fine view from Mimar Sinan café, we gave this a miss.

A return after three decades to the ancient and amazing city of Istanbul, now a pullulating supercity of 16 million people.  Alongside the famous sights – Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern and Topkapi palace – and the mosque masterpieces of the world's greatest architect, Mimar Sinan, a host of out-of-the-way gems to be discovered among the city's many steep hills.

2025 Brescia

A perfectly-preserved Roman statue of Victory, found in Brescia

To Pinacoteca Martinengo.  We’re practically the only visitors, of course.  A room with some great frescoes – one with a huge, shaggy dog.  Another room, with two Raphaels – real ones.  Weird pic by Moretto – Last Supper.  Christ has a hippy hat with badges, and a shell pinned on the left shoulder. Pilgrim symbols, apparently. The maid is carrying a dish of what looks like roast monkey, and none too fresh.  Striking pic of Christ and Veronica, with lots of soldiers looking fearful.  By Il Cariani.  

A day trip to the hidden gem of Brescia, a northern Italian city full of Roman remains and excellent modern museums.

2025 Azerbaijan

A river to ford, a blocked road to clear, a broken bridge to circumvent

Journey from Quba was amazing, not least because it was in two distinct parts.  For half an hour, we passed 12 to 15 hotels, dozens of restaurants.  Already very developed there, beautiful, but tamed, rather like the landscapes around Lake Garda.  Then suddenly, through a narrow gorge and we are in a wild, beautiful country.  Stone walls rising hundreds of metres, a deep valley.  It’s raining, but that adds to the beauty.  After the narrow gorge, some stunning rock formations.  Beyond, a long road was visible, rising, rather like the one that led to Song-Köl in Kyrgyzstan.

Because of the broken bridge here, we had to drive across the river bed, ford the river, and then drive up a steep bank.  The lorry finally moved, and we were able to descend along the road it had blocked.  The bridge was being rebuilt with two concrete walls, but there a huge gap from the old road, which had been swept away with the bridge by the immense force of the river in spate.

A trip to the little-visited but fascinating Azerbaijan, passing from its fast-developing seaside capital Baku to the isolated hilltop village of Khinalug, deep in the heart of the Caucasus mountains.  Unforgettable.