Though I enjoyed the films, I wouldn’t say that I’m a Star Wars fan so to speak, but I did know that some parts of the movies were filmed in Tunisia; in particular, that there were scenes filmed in the Tunisian desert which looked amazing. Therefore when I found out that the places in these scenes are actually real, I thought that with the time I had available in Tunisia, that they would be worth checking out. I generally always have a Lonely Planet on my phone for the places I visit and I am normally quite reliant on them to guide me in terms of determining where to go, what to see and how to get to places. For Tunisia, there wasn't a Lonely Planet available so I was travelling somewhat blind this time. I ... read more

My time in Iran wasn't quite over yet. Indeed I was on my way home but after worrying ever so slightly about getting to Shiraz International Airport on time, navigating the poorly-signed said airport, catching two a hour flight and arriving at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, I still had about ten hours to kill in the capital before catching my (two) flight(s) back to Berlin. I had missed out on seeing the Treasury of National Jewels when I was in Tehran last and knowing the very short opening hours it had, I headed straight there from the city's domestic airport. Travelling super-light made this a feasible proposition! Locked in a steel vault of metre-thick walls inside the Central Bank Of Iran, are the Iranian crown jewels, a breathtaking collection of precious gems and jewel-encrusted objects that were ... read more

It was supposed to be so easy. Have the hostel book me a taxi to the bus station, buy a ticket to Yazd at the station, get on the bus. The first part went according to plan apart from my driver not being able to change a 500,000 rial note, so he asked some fellow taxi drivers if they could help him. One guy with very light eyes and who could easily have passed for being Spanish or Greek was able to give my driver change. He asks me where I am going. “Yazd”, I tell him. He then tells me in very broken English that I was at the wrong station and that there wouldn’t be a bus leaving from here to Yazd for another three hours. He says I can get a bus leaving ... read more

Twenty years ago, if someone had told me that I'd one day be going to Iran, I would never have believed it. In fact even now I was met with raised eyebrows when I told friends and colleagues of my holiday plans. Requiring a deal with major world powers to curb nuclear ambitions, being a conservative Islamic republic and having recently and arbitrarily detained foreign nationals, the country gets a bit of a bad rap in Western media but even taking this into account, I was still slightly concerned about what might happen to me while over there. But then on the other hand, I had heard of many tourists who had been there and I had never heard anyone say a single bad word about it; only that the food was amazing, the architecture beautiful ... read more

We had now come to the last couple of days of the trip, a trip that had seen us so far sample three very different environments; the strange atmosphere of the divided city of Nicosia; a slice of Turkey in Northern Cyprus; and then the unique, energetic and intriguing liberal Arabic vibe of Beirut. Now we were back in Cyprus and we were going to explore what the Greeks and British have left behind in the Republic Of Cyprus. It had been a long day being carted across the Lebanese countryside and at the end of it, we now we were on our flight back over to Larnaca where we arrived around midnight. We had still to arrange a rental car however so we still had to keep going a bit longer before we could ge ... read more