The landscape of Spain’s Asturios principality, set amid the Cantabrian Mountains on the country’s north coast, is both spectacular and forbidding. Winters are cold, with snow present from October and May and rain lacing the winter winds with a high chill factor. This might explain, in some way, why Nicolas Parronda is serving tapas and Asturias cider from a bagpipe-like vessel to a crowded bar of Sunday lunchtime stand-up diners in … [Read more...]
About Ian Jarrett
Ian Jarrett compares freelance travel writing to tap dancing on a cliff. He never knows when cliff will give way. Luckily, he has been able to keep his feet on the ground, travelling extensively and writing for a number of specialist hospitality magazines, newswires and newspapers.
He is based in Western Australia, from where this year his travels have taken him to Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Seoul, Kazakhstan, United Kingdom and Bali. He is just a happy walking with his dog on a local beach or enjoying a glass of Margaret River red wine at home in Fremantle.
Astana: Whipping up a storm
This is the story of how Stalin lost his nose and why the face of former British prime minister Tony Blair pops up in the strangest places in a former Soviet republic. But first I want to tell you about Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. And later I’ll tell you about kyz kuu, a kind of lovers’ kissing game they play on the steppe of central Asia. Kazakhstan, independent since 1991, and squeezed between those other ‘stans’ (homelands) … [Read more...]