Yapp Travel

Having been fully immersed in all things Balkan during the last week after just returning from a family skiing trip to Bulgaria it feels only apt than I write a few notes from the perspective of an oenophile - Bulgaria is most certainly red wine country – the only known folk song about white wine […]

  A recent whistle-stop visit to the Loire valley confirmed that 2012 was a tough year in Northern France. Some wine growers, such asJoel & Ludovic Gigou in Jasnières, lost as much as 80% of their harvest due to a combination of mildew and hail. Yet, as ever, it doesn’t pay to generalise about a […]

  The ‘Grand Départ’ of the historic centenary of the Tour de France will start next June in the picturesque port of Porto Vecchio on the south-eastern coast of Corsica and should attract thousands of cycling fans to the Granite Island. One hopes that some of them will acquaint themselves with the local wines which […]

This year we broke with tradition. Our regular summer break to North Wales was put on the back burner following the last trip up there this year that coincided with the wettest June in living memory. With the old adage of ‘a change being as good as a rest’ the Catanach clan headed off to […]

If I had £1 for everyone who told me that they enjoy using our wine list as a handy shopping guide when touring in France I’d be a tax exile in Monaco lamenting how hard it is to find a good mooring for my yacht. Still, if you can’t beat them join them, so as […]

Bastille Day. I stood in Start Pen 7 (out of 9) in Pau’s Place de Verdun at 6.15, surrounded by 8,000 other riders. A sea of lycra and bikes. They say that cycling is now worth £2bn to the UK economy and most of it seemed to have turned up in Pau. Half the participants […]

The phrase Curate’s Egg? I’ve always liked it, I know it means ‘good in parts’ but I’ve never known the origin of it – maybe a job for Google tonight but it’s still a very apt description of last week. So, that was the week that was. I’m back at Yapp HQ after a week […]

You know that your accommodation is at the lower end of the spectrum when you receive an email prior to arrival listing additional charges for sheets and towels. It didn’t matter too much as within half an hour of getting to Luz-Saint-Sauveur, 10 km south of Lourdes in the Pyrenees our studio kitchen resembled a […]

In December 2011 a Swiss journalist called Rolf Bichsel published a creditable (if slightly sexistly titled) book called ‘Tavel – des Hommes et des Vins’ that ran to 151 pages and weighed in at 840 grams. While it is unlikely to top the best-sellers charts (with the possible exception of a small hot spot 10 […]

Le Grand Café de la Poste in the new town (Gueliz) of Marrakech is a short ‘petit taxi’ ride from the delightful Riad Njemma (www.riad-njemma.com) where we were staying in the old walled city (Medina). In fact, you’ll probably pass more time negotiating a fare with the taxi driver than the actual amount of time […]