"Short stories and travel reports from my life adventures around the globe".
October 2012. Anyone looking for an African style safari experience almost certainly wouldn’t think of The Netherlands! And yet Beekse Bergen Safari Park, located in the south of the country in Brabant Province, offers just the opportunity! This unusual wildlife complex opened its doors in 1968 and was designed by an English circus showman, Jimmy […]
Read MoreWhether you’re an Amsterdam expat or just visiting, checking out the city’s fantastic music scene is a must during your time in the Dutch capital. There’s a host of amazing music venues here and most of them have been converted from historical buildings with rich histories. I got to visit a bunch of these sites […]
Read MoreSeptember 2010. The Netherlands has an incredibly rich art history for such a small country. Moreover, a bunch of the world’s most famous painters were Dutch, including the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals. However, bragging rights for the country’s most celebrated and influential artist arguably goes to a man known […]
Read MoreOctober 2010. You can’t miss the imposing form of the old Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam. Dating back to 1867, this striking brown brick building served as Heineken’s main production centre for over 120 years until it finally closed in 1988. Having relocated to a larger, more modern facility in Amsterdam’s outskirts, the original structure was […]
Read MoreBack when I lived in Amsterdam, the biggest day of the year was always Queen’s Day. Livelier than New Year’s Eve and a damn sight crazier than Christmas, Queen’s Day Amsterdam took place on the 30th of April to celebrate the birthday of Queen Beatrix. However, the tradition of this intense, all-day city-wide street party […]
Read MoreVienna, Austria. October 2002. My maiden voyage to the Austrian capital, Vienna, certainly didn’t turn out as I’d expected. I landed in town with a couple of friends, loaded with ambitious plans for a weekend of high culture. However, in the end it just didn’t happen. I suppose I could blame it on the rain, […]
Read MoreAfter nearly five years as Leighton Literature, the time has finally come to relaunch this little blog of mine in order to better reflect what it is I actually do.
Read MoreToday I published my 500th travel report with my article on Tooting Bec Common in London. This is cause for celebration because a) five hundred is a sexy number and b) I never thought I’d get this far! Now I kinda like the sound of 1000. These articles of mine have evolved over time from simple […]
Read MoreIt’s Leighton Literature’s 4th Birthday! It’s been four years since I launched Leighton Literature and this last twelve months have definitely been my most transformative. It was over the summer that I felt like LL had arrived at a sink or swim moment. After so much hard work and only modest progress, I saw two […]
Read MoreIt’s Leighton Literature’s 3rd Birthday! One of the scariest things about getting older is the ever-increasing rapidity of the passing of time. I mean, how can it possibly be three years since I launched Leighton Literature? I was in Beijing at the time, my second stint. Between now and then I’ve been to South Korea, Singapore and […]
Read More
Traveling the world, one country at a time.
