Archive for July, 2012

Dispatches. You flew thousands of miles for that?

By Paul Ash | 24 July 2012

The Mona Lisa looks down on a slow day at The Louvre. Click on the photo

June 3, 2012 EIGHT million people a year shuffle down the long galleries of The Louvre. On any summer Sunday, it feels like all of them are there on the same day. That’s the cost of modern tourism and who can argue with that when it pays The Louvre’s rent? Read More…

1time to fly to Vic Falls. Oh, hang on a mo …

By Paul Ash | 24 July 2012

The falls as a very lucky airline passenger might see them

Local no-frills carrier 1time Airlines plans to start flights to Victoria Falls as well as Harare. Apparently a test flight with civil aviation authorities aboard from both countries has been completed with smiles all round. So that’s all good. Read More…

The good side of being crazy: hauling a steam ship over the mountains

By Paul Ash | 6 July 2012

The Alwyn Vintcent steams out of the V&A in her tourist boat days

There was this old steam tuboat, see, lying forlorn in the Victoria and Alfred Basin in Cape Town. It had seen better days. Once it had been used to take pilots out to ships waiting in the roadstead, and to shepherd fishing trawlers in and out of their berths in the V&A. After that it was used – briefly – as a tourist boat, taking people on cruises around the harbour. Read More…