Travelling at a leisurely pace Jack explores the Wales & the border counties taking in mountain summits, enchanted woodlands, wild seashores, shimmering lakes & ancient ways. Enjoy 36 rides with maps: * Ride on traffic free cycle tracks from the seashore into the heart of Snowdonia & the birthplace of British mountaineering. * Cruise from cove to cove along the stunning Pembrokeshire coast, on quiet lanes bejewelled with wildflowers. * Explore the ruins of the lower Wye Valley, from lost medieval villages to Roman remains, Norman strongholds & the aweinspiring Tintern Abbey. 36 specially selected rides with downloadable information. Graded from easy to challenging, with handmade maps, best pubs & tea stops, wild swims & finest viewpoints. Overnight stops, from B& Bs to camping under the stars. Most rides are accessible by train. Jack ...

Jack Thurston, best-selling author of Lost Lanes series & presenter of the internationally acclaimed Bike Show, takes you on a freewheeling tour of the lost lanes & forgotten byways of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset & Wiltshire. Enjoy 36 of the best rural rides in the region: Ride on traffic free lanes from the seashore into the heart of the west country. stunning photography, downloadable GPX, handmade maps. Discover car-free routes through the grand estates of Longleat, Stourhead, Lanhydrock & Ashton Court. Escape to ancient trackways of Wessex`s chalk downs, passing the prehistoric remains of Avebury, Silbury Hill & Stonehenge. Ride traffic free paths along the River Dart, River Camel & River Exe stopping for river swims & picnics in sun-dappled woodlands. Climb to the windswept heights of Dartmoor & Exmoor & descend beneath the towering crags of Cheddar Gorge. ...

Lost Lanes: 36 Glorious Bike Rides in Southern England presents an imaginative selection of interesting bike routes in southern England including the Home Counties. 30 tours are grouped geographically, with a special “best for” section providing a selection of best rides for families, wild camping, pubs, gourmets, history, etc. Six of the routes are the well-known organized rides, including the annual London to Brighton charity event. Each tour has an interesting description mixing instructions with plenty of information on landscape, sights, history, etc. The accompanying map is just a basic sketch of roads linking the main locations, but the description

Includes:: the web address for downloading more route information. Also provided are recommendations for “pubs & pit stops” & each ride is illustrated with interesting colour photos. The introductory section

Includes:: a table listing all the rides with length, ascent & grade; the appendix has more practical information.



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Beginning with the stories of three great decipherments Egyptian hieroglyphs, Minoan Linear B & Mayan glyphs, Lost Languages moves on to dissect the most well-known & enigmatic undeciphered scripts from around the world. They include the Etruscan alphabet of Italy, the Indus Valley seal script, Rongorongo from remote Easter Isl&, the Zapotec script of Mexico (probably the first writing system in the Americas), & the unique Phaistos disc of Crete. Lost Languages reports from the front lines of scholarship where obsessions, genius, occasional delusion & sometimes bitter rivalry are de rigueur among those currently competing for the rare honour of cracking these ancient codes & giving voice to forgotten worlds. ...

Lost London is the story of the city as told through the buildings, parks & palaces that are no longer with us. Places like the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, the leading venue for public entertainment in the city for over 200 years, or the Palace of Whitehall whose 1500 rooms made it the largest royal residence in Europe until it was destroyed by fire at the end of the 17th century. From bull rings to ice fairs, plague pits to molly houses, this is a fascinating journey through London's forgotten past, unearthing the extraordinary stories that lie beneath familiar streets as well as shining a light in the city's darkest corners. ...

Lost London 1870-1945 is a collection of more than 500 black-&-white images of the capital, arranged by region & compiled from the archive, now held by English Heritage, of the former London County Council. Most of these images have never been published before; they were taken to provide a visual-historical record of whole districts in London as they were vanishing & are displayed here in full plate images, with text provided by English Heritage’s Planning & Development Director for London & South-East Engl&, Philip Davies, & a foreword written by HRH The Duke of Gloucester. The photographs truly depict a London in transition
- from the late Victorian age through to wartime devastation. Images depict all social strata, from Marshalsea Prison lodgings to the Prime Minister’s bedroom, from squalid slums to aristocratic mansions.
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This fascinating compilation of early London photographs takes us on a tour of one of the world`s greatest cities, but rather than picturing the historic scenes dating back to the 1850s in the traditional sepia & black & white monochrome, new realism is given here by reproducing the images in full colour. We can therefore explore not only some of London`s world renowned landmarks but also less frequently pictured aspects of the capital including its street characters, local markets, shops, theatres & early cinema, & the historic River Thames by whose banks London began as a Roman town nearly 2000 years ago. There is also a look at some of the local neighbourhoods where Londoners live, & at the city`s transport as horse & steam traction gives way to electricity & the internal combustion engine. Great exhibitions & royal events are featured as are wartime photographs recalling the inferno of the Blitz in the 1940s, while a further sequence recalls London`s old docklands. Principally sourced from ancient albums & private collections, Lost London in Colour unites a wealth of rare & unpublished images to reveal that the London of a century & more ago was as colourful & vibrant a city as it is in the present day. ...

Christof, Christophe, Christopher & Cristofol are four brothers
- sons of the same father & four very different mothers, yet
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Christof, Christophe, Christopher & Cristofol are four brothers
- sons of the same father & four very different mothers, yet
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' Last night my son wanted to appease me because of some annoyance he had caused. Show me your desert things, he said, show me your crystals & stones. However tired & grumpy I might be, he knew how to revive me. I unwrapped everything from its newspaper roll. The chipped flint knives, the silica glass arrowheads, ancient porous pottery shards I'd found in the Gilf, fossils, the jawbone of a gazelle, palm nuts so desiccated they were like stone.. .' Robert Twigger's latest journey is in search of paradise: a desert adventure in the footsteps of seasoned explorers such as Theodore Almasy (the Inspiration for THE ENGLISH PATIENT) who tried to locate the lost oasis of Zezura, reportedly home to hoards of treasure, flocks of birds & a lush, verdant valley. The Egyptian Sahara is one of the most arid & hostile environments on earth. But it is also a wonder of desolate beauty, where in the ultra-clear light of the desert you can see for miles. Armed with plenty of water & a homemade wooden trolley (his Lada being too heavy for the sand), Twigger embarks on a desert trip ilke no other.. . ...