Ten kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz lies Kolmannskuppe, a ghost town in the Namib desert, once a small but very rich mining village, until no diamonds were found here any more. In 1908, in what was then German South-West Africa, the worker Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while clearing the railway tracks from sand. Soon after, German miners began to exploit …
We had spent the night in Jermuk, in front of the Gladzor hotel, which we wanted to explore more. It was a sunny day, so we walked to the “giant deer” and took the “rope way” up the mountain. We had spotted the deer from the town, and as it reminded us of the giant …
We made our way to Jermuk, where we went to explore the spa town which is known for its hot springs and mineral water which is also bottled in town under the brand Jermuk. Many hotels are waiting for tourists, others are not in use anymore, as we found some abandoned Soviet time buildings. We …
Tsqaltubo is known for its radon-carbonate mineral springs, whose natural temperature of 33–35 °C enables the water to be used without preliminary heating for balneotherapies. The “Spring No. 6”, the largest thermal bath and still open, was built in 1950 exclusively for Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union at the time. The spa was especially popular in the Soviet era, attracting around …
South of Guadalupe, we found this Via Verde called Via Verde Vegas del Guadiana, which leads from the river Guadiana north through rice fields and the dehesa landscape – pastures with oak trees. It is a 57km long track between Villanueva del la Serena and Logrosán. This railway was not even completed before the project …
Granadilla was an important walled town, capital of the region known as Tierras de Granadilla and head of the judicial district. The town was evicted in the middle of the 20th century, when the area became a flood zone due to the construction of the Gabriel y Galán reservoir at the río Alagón, a tributary to …
On Google Earth we had found an abandoned power plant, called La Fabrica de la Luz, at the Tajo. The road there clearly was without tarmac, but it didn’t look so bad on google earth. You could see a car parked, so we decided to give it a try. After going through Valdeverdejo – nothing …
A town completely destroyed during the Spanish civil war, any reconstruction prohibited by the dictator, the ruins left to remind us of the cruelties of warfare, that is Belchite el viejo. A new town was built next to it by captured Republican soldiers who were interned in the nearby concentration camp. Belitche is a place …
After spending a cloudy day working and getting all our washing done at a self service laundry in Fuentes del Ebro, we reached the village of Rodén in the evening. During the Civil War (1936-39) the village was destroyed and abandoned. The new village lies now below, with the ruins on the hill preserved to …
With not much to do during the lockdown, we enjoyed the Peloponnese in a very relaxed way, staying on each place a couple of days and exploring our surroundings on foot. First we found a little beach at an abandoned holiday resort near Porto Cheli (37.353256, 23.096413) from where we took hikes along the coast. …
