The United Kingdom of Fantasy Worlds

Edinburgh lived up to every expectation I may have entertained. It is grand, dark and seeping with the exquisite kind of energy that comes from an aged, stone city. I was delighted that I could walk for hours around this charming city, finding always one more dingy little alley or nook and always one more graveyard or gothic monument. The Scottish were good at 'grand'.

I visited The Elephant House, one of the cafes in which JK Rowling penned Harry Potter. Sitting in the back and gazing out the window (above), I would easily imagine her vision of Hogwarts creeping to life.

, I took a train to Exeter where I connected with a local bus into Dartmoor.

From Moretonhampstead I wandered up toward the high moors and was given a lift all the way to the Bellever backpackers.  Before the light faded, I lay down on the medieval bridge that has long since been defeated by floods, contemplating the centuries past when people had walked over those stones.

The next morning I slowly made my way down from the high moors through tracts of forest and along riverside paths. When the sky turned to charcoal and rain fell, I took to the shelter of trees from which flowing lichen hung like the beards of old men. 

I walked and hitch-hiked in steady northward increments, stopping off in the tiny villages that dot the landscape, laced together with paths that have been trod for countless centuries. 

I am in London now, sitting in Abney Park, an overgrown gothic cemetery (below).

The old town of Vanalinn

There is something magic about Tallinn. My last visit was in winter 2008 and now that the air was fresh with autumn, I found it much easier to explore and enjoy. Estonia was one of the countries that became a battleground for the converging forces of Nazis and Soviets in WW2. However, the Old Town (Vanalinn) remains charming and atmospheric.
I found a tree that I loved, who despite being quite healthy, has been trampled upon daily by hordes of photo-snapping tourists. I approached with a little more respect than most, but found its branches quite conducive to relaxation and creativity, so I availed myself on a number of occasions.

Baltic bliss

On the north coast of Poland is situated the once-German city of Gdansk (Danzig). In its satellite resort town of Sopot, I stayed for five nights with Slaven, a friend I met in Prague last year. Our first excursion was to the Stutthof concentration camp.   A military re-enactment was taking place on the road to the camp and some soldiers fired their machine-gun at us when we drove past.  Regardless of the fact that they were blanks, the noise and flamebursts from the guns still make you scream like a little girl when someone aims it at your face!  While it was not even a death camp, I still found it very difficult to walk through at times. The capacity of humanity for cruelty is both sobering and distressing to behold.My favourite spot in Gdansk was Mariacka street and I got up at 6am one morning to take the train in and enjoy the sunrise while no one was around to ruin the moment. It looks a little Harry-Potterish. A two-hour drive over dubious roads took us to a national park in the north west. We were joined on our walk through the swampy forests by a number of deer and about five billion hungry mosquitoes. The travelling sand dune cut suddenly into the forest with a blunt delineation so we climbed and walked all the rest of the way to the beach. In Helsinki I visited the cemetery and met some red squirrels.My stay was brief (only two nights) by I spent my last morning in complete heaven, exploring the island of Suonenlinnen. The ruined fortress there is riddled with tunnels and dungeons, through which I explored with boyish delight. Some were so dark I could see nothing but the garish glow of my lighter as I stumbled forward through the dripping passages. I felt like Steerpike exploring forgotten corners of Gormenghast. But there is never time to linger and I left before noon to catch a ferry over the sea to the Estonian capital of Tallinn...

The One With All The Polish Cemeteries

My first major stop in Poland was Krakow, a gem of a city that I wish I had given more than three nights. Finding the Rakowice cemetery after stretches of busy roads and traffic was like waking up from a bad dream into a bright new day. Of course, my bright new day is grey, melancholy and full of dead people.The morning of my departure, I visited the Jewish Cemetery. If I thought the previous cemetery was delightful, I was now in heaven. Great care was required to avoid walking through the giant spiderwebs that stretched between the graves and trees. Some were finely spun and shivered like silk. Others were two or three metres wide and supported by strands that were as thick as nylon cord. Many contained juicy, beautiful spiders. Suffice it to say, I came out of the cemetery draped with liberal quantities of spider webs. Edgar Allan Poe eat your heart out.

The Dark Tower

In Brno I went to a cave in the countryside with an old friend and lit a fire at its mouth. 

To say that the ruins of the dark tower of Hazmburk are dramatic is like saying that dead people are laid back. Climbing up the jagged rocks at the back of the tower was like stealing my way up a witch's stair. T

I adore Prague and it is one of my favourite cities ever, but I found it draining my energy after a while. There is a shadow in the capital of Czech that now and then nipped at my heels.