England:

Perhaps the best thing about England is that there is no one 'England' as such. The country is comprised of a complex collection of villages, towns, forests, moors and lakes bound together by a history that has just as much divided the country's 48 counties as it has unified them.

For instance, you've got to love a place so locked in with history. Here, in the Cotswolds, just a couple of hours west of London, the major connecting road - Fosse Way - is a Roman road named for the ditch that once ran beside it. And the worst thing that could happen in the Slaughters, despite the violent name give them in the Middle Ages, is that you might slip over and sprain your wellie. That's because it's simply a medieval term for a marshy, muddy place.

Not that this place is in a time warp. All the current celebs and blue-bloods choose to live here. Prince Charles hides out at Highgrove, near Tetbury. Stella McCartney, Liz Hurley and Kate Winslet all own property here, and even posh-noshing chef Allan Coxon lives at Evesham.  read more....

And then there,s Land's End. Yes, it's commercialised - you can get your photo taken here with the date and your place of origin, so you can prove you've been here - but it's also severe and soberingly beautiful. Waves burst on those awesome cliffs and there's little point in looking out to sea. Unless you can glimpse the Isles of Scilly, there is no landfall until Newfoundland. Read more...

One of the drawcards at Hartlepool, in the country's north-east, is the magnificent Hartlepool Maritime Experience. The quayside has been reborn. Now, restored period houses, with shops and cafes offer something for everyone and it is the ideal setting for the HMS Trincomalee, the oldest British warship still afloat. Built in Bombay in 1817, this beautiful vessel was brought to Hartlepool in 1987 and fully restored. We took a tour of it with one of the very knowledgeable guides that are on hand to take visitors over it. Read more...

London, England's largest city, with almost eight million people, is a vibrant cosmopolitan mix of cultures overlaid on history which can be traced back to Roman times. Taste of London in late-June is a great opportunity to catch up wih food from the latest and brightest restaurants as well as with produce from all over the British Isles. Read more....

London's food scene is constantly changing - and improving all the time.

You don't expect to find this close to the heart of London. Little Venice, they call this part, (aka Regent's Canal) and it sounds a good deal more romantic than the name of the nearest tube station - Warwick Avenue. The canal itself was opened in 1820 to join the Grand Union Canal at Paddington Basin with the River Thames at Limehouse. Today it is the street address of dozens of red and green and yellow narrow boats used as houseboats, that are moored along its banks.  Read more....

Newcastle-upon-Tyne is a welcoming, friendly city in the north-east, now known more for its festivals and arts scene than it is for steel and industry. The river Tyne loops lazily through the metropolis and is crossed by many bridges, some of them avant-garde, like this one which opens to allow larger ships through, and others more classically built.

Read more...

......more about English food

Eccles cakes

Named after the English town of Eccles. It is not known who invented the recipe, but James Birch is credited with being the first person to sell Eccles cakes on a commercial basis, which he sold from his shop at the corner of Vicarage Road and St Mary's Road (now known as Church Street) in the town centre, in 1793.

Nicknames for the Eccles cake include Squashed Fly Cake, Fly Cake, Fly Pie or even a Fly's Graveyard, owing to the appearance of the currants that it contains. You'll see why when you make them or eat them.

....see recipe

Eiffel Tower:

That lacy structure, 320 metres tall, was never meant to be still here. Built as a temporary structure, a one-off look-at-me confection of iron and steel, in 1889 for the Universal Exhibition, it somehow stayed around, a massive kitsch whimsy. Until the Empire State building was completed in 1931 it was the world's tallest building. It still probably has one of the world's most inaccessible post offices, located on the first level, a pulse-quickening 360 steps from the crowd below. Of course you could take the lift, but in summer when queues move at escargot speed, you'd be faster (and fitter) on foot.

If it had been removed as intended, Parisian tailor Reisfeldt would have sewn a few more suits. Instead, in 1911, he decided to test the aeronautical potential of a new cape he had whipped up. Sadly he forgot to add a motor, or any other way of staying aloft and he plummeted from the parapet to the collective horror of the crowd watching the experiment.

The top, third, level at 274 metres appears fit only to serve as a launch pad for the odd seagull, yet guidebooks reliably inform us it can hold up to 800 people at any one time. From this vantage point the clean lines of the limestone apartments and public buildings of Paris are clearly visible, laid out below; the radiating streets, the superb balance of the major buildings and the grand tree-lined boulevards and avenues as drawn up by Baron Haussmann. Surely central Paris has to be one of the world's most beautifully designed cities. We knew too that, depending on the angle of the sun, the shadow of the tower would fall like a dagger over one of the twenty arrondissements or municipal councils.

Escargots aka snails.

Large land  snails are prized by many European nations as delicacies. The usual method is to purge the snails, (often by keeping them in a container with flour so that all impurities are excreted) then killing them and sauteing them in butter and garlic until tender. They are often then returned to their cleaned shells when served.

(drawn by Martouf)

Eels:

Even though they look like snakes, eels are fish ranging in length from five centimetres to four metres (the giant moray). They can range in weight from 30 grams to well over 25 kilograms. Most eels live in shallow waters and burrow into sand, mud, or amongst rocks. They can migrate long distances.

(pic: kat jungnickel)

As food, they are particularly liked by Japanese who like to serve them gilled, although jellied eels are a delicacy in Britain.

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