I'll try to be a little less caustic and cynical today, but can't promise! We've now been in Rajasthan, "The Land of Kings" for two weeks, and it's been, on the whole, a pleasant if often fraught experience. The bits inbetween all the haggling, begging, fighting through crowds and past cows, being chased by various craftsmen and rickshaw drivers have been quite fun. It's been hot and generally sunny most of this time, and we've only had the odd downpour as the...

We left the Julian Alps on the sixth of September, and there had been a longed-for return of decent weather - the sun was strong at altitude, and made cycling hard, because of the thin air - I was using a fair bit of sun-cream. We had a huge climb out of the Lake Bohinj valley, and it took a hell of a lot out of us. The climb from the foot lasted approximately two hours and was twelve miles long. It took us up to an altitude of 800 metres, and it included a brok...

On the cusp of Europe and Asia, Tbilisi offers a truly fascinating glimpse into a rapidly changing post-Soviet city. Stuart Wadsworth investigates.. Flying in, the first thing you see is the TV mast: a huge, flashing monument which President Sakashvili has, for reasons best kept to himself, decided to light up like Blackpool tower with garish neon lights, a kitsch 200m symbol of modernity, of the city's reaching for the skies, and symbolic of its eager attempts ...

Long in the shadows of hipper, more well-known destinations in Poland such as Kraków, Wrocław and Warsaw, Lublin has traditionally languished, economically and politically, out of the limelight and happy to be a big fish in the small pond of eastern Poland. In recent years however, Lublin has seen an upturn in fortunes, as European Union money has flooded into its coffers, infrastructure has improved and architecture has been spruced up. The city today is a con...

As Prague seems to draw a never-ending stream of tourists to its beautiful but over-crowded old town, Stuart Wadsworth heads to one of its lesser-known but equally appealing towns, Olomouc and discovers that there is more to Czech than the Charles Bridge and Wenceslas Square…and not a stag night to be seen. For many years now, Prague has completely dominated tourism in the Czech Republic, so much so that most other towns are, unfairly to say the least, put i...