In the middle of Malta, on a weekday morning that smells of kebab shops and petrol on the high street, there is a church that looks as if someone has dropped Rome into a Maltese town. The Rotunda of Mosta — Malta’s Pantheon — is the reason I came, and the reason I filmed. If you are planning a wider trip around the islands, start with my Malta travel guide: knights, temples, Gozo and the grit as well as the limestone. I walked in from a little valley bridge, through traffic and lingerie sales and British telephone boxes that still look cleaner than half of London’s, and kept telling myself the dome would blow my socks off. It did. Watch the film first, then read on for the climb, the 1942 bomb that never went off, and how to visit today. Arrival in Mosta — cars, lanes and a main street that never really empties Mosta is not Mostar in Bosnia, as I said on camera, though some of the same empires — Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans — left footprints across both map-edges of the Mediterranean. The town sits almost in the centre of the island, which is how it got its name, and the main thoroughfare is busy at half past eleven on a weekday with people going about their lives, not tourists. Parking is the first Maltese lesson. White-lined spaces are free and effectively open-ended; yellow ones are time-limited. Most parking is free, private car parks excepted, and in peak summer the white spaces vanish. The Maltese, I said in the film, are some of the best parallel parkers I have seen — helped by Aygos and other small cars that can slip the narrow lanes without kissing a bus and losing the rental deposit. You also notice the high-street petrol stations that double as corner shops, the gas-cylinder deliveries because underground pipes are not the Maltese default, and the odd British telephone box that, unlike London’s, does not smell of urine. It is ordinary Maltese life, and then the Rotunda rises above it. Outside the Rotunda — Pantheon proportions in limestone From the square the church is pure theatre: six Ionic columns, twin bell towers, a broad portico, and behind them the dome that has made Mosta famous. The design came from Giorgio Grognet de Vassé, who was not a formally trained architect — he studied for the priesthood, served as a military engineer with the French in Egypt, and even published a book arguing that Malta was Atlantis. Whether you buy that theory or not, the man understood scale. He took the Pantheon in Rome as his model for the dome and the circular plan, and for the façade he looked to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Construction began in 1833. They built the new church around the old Renaissance parish church by Tommaso Dingli so the town never lost its place of worship. For nearly thirty years the people of Mosta worked on it — paid labour mixed with voluntary labour on Sundays and public holidays, men, women and children hauling stone and mixing mortar. By the 1860s the dome was closed and the old church was dismantled in a matter of days. What remained is what you see now. The Mosta Parish visitor page lists the outside diameter of the dome at 56.2 metres, the inside diameter at 39.6 metres, and the internal height at 54.7 metres. In the film I said we were standing inside what is still regularly ranked among the three largest unsupported masonry domes on the planet. That is the claim the parish still makes: one of the largest unsupported domes in the world. The spiral climb — seventy steps up, and the geometry of the dome You do not walk straight into the nave. I went behind the desk with headphones for the audio guide, then up a narrow spiral limestone staircase — about seventy steps up and seventy down, I reckoned on camera, hard work for anyone unsteady on their feet. From the outer balcony Mosta stretches out: pale limestone houses, flat roofs, streets running from the church in every direction. Everyday life continues below while the rotunda still dominates the view. Then you look down into the inner dome. The floor is a long way below — patterned marble, chairs in a circle, the altar dead centre. From up there the geometry is obvious: pure rotunda, roughly forty metres of open space with no columns interrupting it. Look up and the dome is completely unsupported, just as in ancient Rome. Walls about nine metres thick carry the weight. The stone is close enough that you can see the individual blocks. It does not feel modern or ancient. As I put it in the film, “It just feels inevitable.” Diego Delso’s photograph above is the view that stays with you: concentric coffers climbing toward the lantern, the same segmented logic as the Pantheon. When something works, why not repeat it? 9 April 1942 — the Luftwaffe bomb that failed to explode Then came the afternoon that fixed this place in Maltese memory. On 9 April 1942 Malta was under daily attack; at that stage of the war the island was among the most heavily bombed places on earth. Around 16:40, several hundred people were inside the church for prayer. The air-raid warning had sounded, but they stayed. Three bombs fell on Mosta that day. Two struck the church and failed to explode. The third, a 500 kg high-explosive bomb, punched straight through the dome, bounced off an upper wall and landed on the floor. Glass blew outward; stone and plaster rained down. The bomb itself just lay there. Not a single person was killed — not by a blast that never came, not by falling debris, not by shattered glass. Local accounts still say the candles on the altar were still burning. The congregation walked out. British Royal Engineers defused the bomb and dumped it in the sea. A full-size replica sits in the sacristy now — Il-Miraklu tal-Bomba, the Miracle of the Bomb. The parish’s own page puts it plainly: the bomb did not explode, no one died, and the church was not destroyed. You can talk about faulty fuses or statistical luck. The people of Mosta have never needed that argument. For them the building itself became the proof: raised by volunteer hands over three decades, protected when it should have been destroyed, still standing with the impossible dome holding the sky. In 2018 the church was elevated to the rank of minor basilica. The official title feels almost secondary. As I said leaving the building, this is not just a church that survived a bomb. It is a church built by people who refused to build anything smaller than their belief — and then watched that belief hold when everything else was falling around them. How to visit — hours, tickets and the bus from Valletta Check current details on the official Mosta Parish portal and the Mosta Rotunda Foundation visit page before you go, because feast days and private events can close the visitor route. According to the parish, visitor hours are Monday to Friday 09:30–18:00 (last entrance 17:30), Saturday 09:30–16:30 (last entrance 16:00), and Sunday 12:00–17:00 (last entrance 16:30). Two tickets are listed: €5 for a short visit covering the basilica, the Second World War shelter and a phone audio guide; and €8 for the full experience, which adds the crypt, church museum, the walk around the outside of the dome and the inner balcony. If you can manage the stairs, take the full ticket — the balcony is why you came. By bus from Valletta the parish lists routes 41, 42, 44, 45 and 48 to Mosta. From Qawra try 45, 186, 31, 48 or 280; from Mellieħa, 44 or 41. Bring earphones for the audio guide. Dress for a working church. And if seventy spiral steps each way sound unwise, stay on the floor — the nave alone still delivers the scale. Where to stay Mosta is central, but most visitors base themselves in Valletta, Sliema, St Julian’s or on the north coast and day-trip in. Use the Malta hotels map below (Stay22 Hub, AID thewonderingenglishman) to compare places across the whole island. Things to do around Malta Pair Mosta with Mdina, the Three Cities, or the prehistoric temples further south. For guided options browse Malta tours on Viator or Malta tours and tickets on GetYourGuide. For the full island context — knights, faith, forgotten civilisations and the films that go with them — read the Malta travel guide again before you lock the itinerary. Stay connected Malta’s buses and maps are easier with data from the moment you land. I use Roamless — an eSIM you can set up before you fly. Code WONDERING for 20% off. If you want a driver waiting with a name board after the flight into Malta International, book a private transfer with GetTransfer. Plan your trip Hotels: Booking.com Malta Apartments: Airbnb Tours: Viator Malta Tours and tickets: GetYourGuide Malta Private transfer: GetTransfer Mobile data: Roamless (code WONDERING, 20% off) Island guide: Malta travel guide Flights Flying to Malta? Compare fares below. The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world. Places like Mosta are why I keep going: ordinary streets, extraordinary stone, and a story that still makes a room fall quiet. Sources: Mosta Parish visitor information, Mosta Rotunda Foundation — Visit, and my film Inside Malta’s Pantheon. Hours and ticket prices were checked on 13 October 2026 and can change. Photo credits: Church of Santa Marija, Mosta (Rotunda of Mosta) by Simon Burchell via Wikimedia Commons, and Rotonda de Mosta by Diego Delso (delso.photo) via Wikimedia Commons, both under CC BY-SA 4.0. Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Edinburgh Airport is small, easy and quick, but the first ten minutes after landing still decide whether you reach your hotel relaxed or cross. The city centre is a short hop away, and you have three sensible ways to make it: the tram, the Airlink 100 bus and a taxi or ride-hail car. Here is how they compare, using the current fares and timetables rather than my memory of them. I filmed the whole route from the arrivals door. In the film I said of the terminal: “You can't get lost.” That is still true. Watch it first, then read on for the up-to-date figures. Out of arrivals, and which way to turn Domestic and international arrivals share the same hall, so there is nothing to decode. Walk out, follow the signs, and you will find the tram, the buses, the taxi rank and the car hire all gathered close together. The airport itself describes the tram stop as beside the terminal, linked by a covered walkway to the tram plaza. My advice in the film was to take public transport, and I still think that is right for most people. Both public options run to the same part of town, so the choice comes down to price, luggage and what you plan to do next. By tram The tram is my favourite, mainly because it never sits in traffic. According to Edinburgh Airport, trams leave every 7 minutes between 06:30 and 19:00, and every 10 minutes early in the morning and later in the evening. The first tram of the day leaves the airport at 06:30 and the last at 22:52. The journey to the city centre takes about 30 minutes, and the route runs on through Haymarket, West End, Princes Street and St Andrew Square to Leith and Newhaven. Waverley station and the bus station are a short walk from St Andrew Square, and you can change to the train at Edinburgh Gateway, Edinburgh Park and Haymarket. There is no railway station at the airport itself. On price, Edinburgh Trams lists an Adult Airport Single at £7.90 and an Adult Airport Open Return at £9.50, with a Child Airport Single at £4.00. Buy before you board, either from the machines on the platform, in the Bus & Tram app or online, because the on-board penalty fare is £10. Machine tickets must be used within 30 minutes of purchase. The airport stop is in its own fare zone, so a city-zone ticket will not do. Full tram timetables are published by the operator. The film was shot in 2025 and I quoted £7.50 for the single. Fares have moved since, which is why I have gone back to the operator's own page for the figures above. By Airlink 100 bus The Airlink 100 is the express bus, and it is the cheaper of the two public options. Lothian Buses lists departures from the airport up to every 10 minutes from 04:12 to 01:00, then up to every 20 minutes from 01:15 to 04:00. From Waverley Bridge it runs up to every 10 minutes from 03:40 to 00:20, then up to every 20 minutes overnight. The airport stop is Stop A for the city centre. The current Airlink fares are £6.00 for an adult single and £3.00 for a child (aged 5 to 15). An adult open return is £8.50, and a family open return, for up to two adults and three children, is £22.00. Contactless is accepted, but American Express is not, and cards issued outside the UK may carry fees from your bank. Standard Lothian day tickets are not valid on the Airlink 100, so do not assume your day pass covers it. One practical point: the airport also has services 17 and 18, which replaced the old Skylink 200 and 400 and use ordinary city fares. They suit you if your hotel is in the south or east of the city rather than the centre. By taxi or Uber The airport says the city centre is about a 20-minute drive. The official taxi company is Capital Cars, and the rank is in the East Terminus, a short walk across the plaza from arrivals. Fares are regulated by the council, so check the City of Edinburgh Council's current fare table rather than trusting a number from a blog, mine included. If you have booked a private-hire car or are using Uber, go to the charged Pickup and Dropoff zone on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park. There is also a free zone in the Long Stay car park, but the airport puts it at around a ten-minute walk. For a group or a lot of luggage, a taxi is easy. If you would rather have a driver waiting with your name on a board, you can book a private airport transfer in advance. So which should you choose? Travelling alone with a small bag, take the tram: it is predictable and it drops you in the middle of town. Watching the pennies, take the Airlink 100, which is cheaper and runs through the night. In a group of three or four, or with heavy bags and a late arrival, a taxi starts to make sense. Whatever you pick, buy the ticket before you board the tram. Stay connected on arrival Before you leave home, sort your data. I recommend Roamless for an eSIM that you can set up before you fly. Use code WONDERING for 20% off. It means maps, tram apps and ride-hail work the moment you land. Scotland uses the UK three-pin plug, so if you are coming from abroad, pack a travel adapter in your hand luggage and charge your phone on the way in. Where to stay Edinburgh rewards a central base. The tram runs straight into the New Town and the Old Town is a short walk from Waverley. Use the Edinburgh hotels map below to compare places and prices (Stay22). Things to do once you are in Once the bags are down, the Castle and the Royal Mile are an easy first afternoon. For guided options, browse Edinburgh tours and transfers on Viator, Edinburgh day trips on Viator or Edinburgh tours and tickets on GetYourGuide. Plan your trip Hotels: Booking.com Apartments: Airbnb Tours and transfers: Viator Edinburgh Tours and tickets: GetYourGuide Edinburgh Private transfer: GetTransfer Mobile data: Roamless (code WONDERING, 20% off) Flights Flying in? Compare fares to Edinburgh below. Sources: Edinburgh Airport by tram, Edinburgh Trams ticket prices, Lothian Buses airport services, Edinburgh Airport by taxi and pickup and dropoff zones. Fares and times were checked on 11 October 2026 and can change. Photo credits: Edinburgh tram, Princes Street by Dr Neil Clifton via Wikimedia Commons and Tram at Edinburgh Airport by Thomas Nugent via Geograph and Wikimedia Commons, both under CC BY-SA 2.0. Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Most visitors to Canterbury walk straight to the cathedral, and I understand why. But ten minutes east of the city centre, up a steep lane off Longport, there is a small flint-and-brick church that I would argue matters even more. This is St Martin's, the oldest church in the English-speaking world still in continuous use, and it was here, in the years before 597, that the story of Christian England began. It is not grand. You could fit it several times over into the nave of the cathedral. But as I said when I filmed there, this tiny church “isn't just old. It's the spark from which English Christianity grew.” Watch the film first, then read on for the history, how to visit and where to stay. Older than England itself St Martin's is one of three parts of the Canterbury UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1988 alongside Canterbury Cathedral and the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey. UNESCO's own description calls it the oldest church in England, and notes that it has been in continuous use as a place of worship since the 6th century. The parish itself describes it as the oldest church in the English-speaking world in continuous use. Think about that for a moment. People were praying in this building before there was a kingdom of England, before the English language had settled into anything we would recognise, and centuries before the Normans arrived. As I put it on camera, “This is older than England. This is a significant place.” Roman bricks you can still touch Look closely at the walls and you will see thin red bricks among the flint. They are Roman, reused from a Romano-British building that stood here long before the Anglo-Saxons came. UNESCO notes that the southern wall still retains its Roman fabric. The Romans brought the first wave of Christianity to Britain, and it all but faded when they withdrew in the early 5th century. Here, the bricks stayed. The building has been altered and extended in the 6th, 7th and 14th centuries, and the tower is later Perpendicular work. Standing at the back of the churchyard you can read it like a book: Roman, Saxon, Norman and medieval repairs, one layer on another. Queen Bertha, King Æthelberht and Augustine The human story is what makes the place. In about 580, a Christian Frankish princess, Bertha, came to Kent to marry the pagan King Æthelberht. She brought her chaplain, Bishop Liudhard, and was allowed to keep her faith. According to the Venerable Bede, she worshipped in this building, dedicated to St Martin of Tours, a saint from the part of Gaul where she grew up. In 597 Augustine arrived, sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons. He did not start from nothing. He used St Martin's as the base for his mission, and Æthelberht was baptised soon after. Land was then granted for the abbey and the cathedral, and from Canterbury the faith spread across the land. If you want the story in the words of the man who first wrote it down, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People is still very readable. Æthelberht was not English in any modern sense. He was a king of Kent, one of many small realms on these islands. His conversion was a spiritual choice, but it was also a political one, tying his kingdom to the Frankish court his queen came from and to Rome. St Martin's was where those worlds met. Why it matters to me The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world. Very few places I have filmed carry this much weight in so small a space. The rituals, the music, the law and the festivals that shaped England, and through England much of the wider world, trace a line back to this hillside. In the film I said: “Every layer is a reminder that what we have wasn't given to us freely. It was built, defended, and passed down.” That is my view, and it is why I think places like St Martin's should never be sidelined or forgotten. Once heritage like this is lost, it does not come back. Outside, the gravestones lean and twist, names weathered almost to nothing. This churchyard has outlasted Viking raids, the Norman Conquest, the Reformation, the Civil War and two world wars, and it is still a working parish church today. Visiting St Martin's St Martin's is on North Holmes Road, Canterbury CT1 1PW, roughly a ten-minute walk from the city centre via Longport, passing St Augustine's Abbey on the way. In the low season from 28 September, the parish says the church is usually open to visitors Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 3pm, with a Sunday service at 9am. Groups must book ahead. Check before you go, as it occasionally closes for private events. Be aware that access is limited for wheelchair users. There are steps up a steep hill and more steps inside the church, with no ramps or lifts. To see all three World Heritage sites in a day, start at St Martin's in the morning, walk down to St Augustine's Abbey, then finish at the cathedral. A good Canterbury and Kent guidebook helps you tie them together. For a guided walk through the medieval lanes and Cathedral Precincts, browse Canterbury tours on Viator or Canterbury tours and tickets on GetYourGuide. Where to stay Canterbury is compact, so anywhere inside or just outside the city walls puts you within walking distance of all three sites. Use the Canterbury hotels map below (Stay22 Hub, AID thewonderingenglishman) to pick a base. Plan your trip Hotels: Booking.com Apartments: Airbnb Tours: Viator Canterbury Tours and tickets: GetYourGuide Canterbury Flights Flying into the UK to see Canterbury? London's airports are the obvious gateway, and high-speed trains from London St Pancras reach Canterbury West in under an hour. Compare fares below. Photo credits: St Martin's Church, Canterbury by Noisar via Geograph and Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.0, and Interior of St Martin, Canterbury by Andy Li via Wikimedia Commons under CC0. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Paris is a city I love. I have spent more time there than in almost any capital outside London, and I keep going back. That is exactly why this is the hardest post I have written. Over the past two years I have made four films in and around Paris that the tourist boards would rather you did not watch. This post brings them together, in order, with what I saw and what I believe it means. Let me be clear at the outset about what this is. It is my opinion and my commentary, built from my own footage and my own words on camera. Where I give a hard number, I link to where it comes from. Where I give a view, it is mine, and you are free to disagree in the comments. I am criticising policies, politicians and ideologies. I am not attacking anyone for being poor, foreign or looking for a better life. The argument, in short, is this. In my view Paris is two cities on one map. One is the postcard: the Seine at dusk, limestone, cafés and the Louvre. The other starts the moment you step out of the Gare du Nord. I believe the second city is being allowed to grow by politicians who will not say no, egged on by a far-left street politics that treats borders as a crime. I also believe parts of Paris now work as a depot for people heading on to Britain. And I believe Paris must be preserved, as French, for the generations who have not yet seen it. Film one: The Intentional Destruction of Paris — Next Stop England The lead film is the newest and the longest, about 44 minutes. I start in the 10th arrondissement, walk from Louis Blanc towards Stalingrad, go back to the Gare du Nord and Château Rouge, and then take the train north through Amiens to Calais. Watch it before you read on; everything below hangs off it. I open with a line I stand by: “Paris is a city I spend a lot of time in, and it's a city I love immensely.” Many travel creators show you the Emily in Paris version and stop there. I think that is a disservice to the people who live there and to the visitors who arrive with no idea what is around the corner. It is because I love Paris that I find myself dismayed at what is happening to it. Two cities that occupy the same map The phrase I keep coming back to in the film is that Paris is two cities that occupy the same map. One is sold to the world as the capital of the civilisation that gave us the rights of man, the metric system, and the idea that a street could be beautiful as well as useful. The other city is not out in some distant banlieue. It is right at the front door, around the station that receives the Eurostar. For a British visitor that matters. The Gare du Nord is where a huge number of us first set foot in France. The first impression of Paris for thousands of families, students and couples every week is the forecourt and the streets around it. In my view a capital that cannot keep its principal railway station in decent order has already told you what it is prepared to tolerate. Gare du Nord: the front door of the capital Outside the station I describe what anyone with eyes can see: men who are not waiting for a train, counterfeit cigarettes, pickpockets working the concourse, and a crowd that has learned not to make a scene. I filmed with a GoPro clipped to my chest, and you can hear people saying “camera, camera”. I don't think honest traders worry about cameras. Then there is the smell. I was a five-minute walk from the Eurostar terminal, and this is what I said on camera: “It is vile. It is absolutely vile what European leaders have allowed to happen to European cities.” Urine on the stairwells, rotting food and wet cardboard. I am not blaming any one group for that. I am blaming city and national governments that have stopped defending the public realm. A doorway becomes a toilet when there is no consequence for making it one. And yet, when I walk into the centre, the mood changes. As I put it in the film: “Right in the centre, there are some beautiful parts of Paris. Paris is a wonderful city. It's just unfortunately, our corrupt leaders are allowing parts of Paris to change beyond recognition.” Château Rouge and the Goutte d'Or A few hundred metres north you reach Barbès, Château Rouge and the Goutte d'Or. I have written about this neighbourhood before, in Paris Château Rouge: The Neighbourhood That Feels Like Another World, and I went back for this film to see whether anything had changed in a year. Here I want to be precise, because I was precise in the film. I said: “Commerce is not an occupation. A man selling plantain is not a dealer outside the Gare du Nord.” The market traders of Château Rouge are working. Selling food is not the collapse of a civilisation. My point is a different one, and it is simpler: this does not feel like France. The shop fronts, the language on the street and the goods on the stalls all belong somewhere else. You can call that richness if you wish. I think a visitor is entitled to notice it, and a Parisian is entitled to ask whether anyone voted for it. In my view the Republic used to have an answer to this: one law, one language, one public square. The answer now, too often, is to call the question indecent. People who remember what the square used to be are told that their memory is the problem. The camp under Line 2 Follow the elevated Métro between Stalingrad and La Chapelle and you reach the encampment Paris still tolerates under Line 2: tents, trolleys, sofas that will never go back indoors, portable toilets and no running water. The charities that work there describe the same conditions year after year. Whatever you think about migration, nobody should defend people sleeping like that in the capital of one of the richest countries on earth. What struck me is the pattern. The police clear the smaller camps, and the people move to the one place that has been allowed to become semi-permanent. The problem is shifted, not solved, and it always comes back. I call it a holding pattern in the film: large enough that it cannot be ignored, small enough not to force a political reckoning, and mobile enough that the next step is north. I spoke to one young man there. I asked him why he wanted to come to England. His answer, in broken English, was that in France he had no home and that in England they would give him a house and money. I don't hold that against him. As I say in the film, “I do not hate the men under this metro… Blaming them for walking through an open gate is a way of avoiding the people who took the lock off.” The responsibility belongs to the people who designed the gate. Hammer and sickle on the walls Now to what I believe is the political engine of all this. Walk the 10th, 18th and 19th arrondissements and look at the walls. Not the tags; the politics. The hammer and sickle, papiers pour tous (papers for all), calls to regularise the sans-papiers, posters from the Parti Communiste Français, Lutte Ouvrière and the NPA, and the student unions all saying the same thing in different typefaces. These are not my inventions. They are printed and posted in the open. In the film I stop at a folding table where a woman is recruiting for a communist group. She told me she was English. I lose my temper a little, and I will own that. What I said, more or less, is that communism killed tens of millions of people in the twentieth century and that I find it disgusting to see it sold to young, impressionable people on the streets of Paris. She asked how many people die under capitalism. I told her the people she was recruiting were far better off under it. You can watch the whole exchange and judge for yourself. In my view, this is a far-left takeover of the street politics of north-east Paris. Not a coup with tanks, but something quieter. One side may organise, occupy, leaflet the camps and fill the walls. The other side, the side that says a nation is allowed to choose who enters it, finds its meetings cancelled and is called fascist. I think that is not a balance. It is a monopoly, and the people of Paris are poorer for it. I was careful to make one more distinction, and I will repeat it here: “Some of the people working in these camps are doing what they believe is basic decency. Food, a blanket, a doctor for a child. I'm not going to pretend every volunteer is a conspirator.” My criticism is of the ideology that treats the border itself as the enemy, and of the organisations whose practical effect, in my view, is to keep people moving along the route towards the English coast. Paris as a depot: the train to Calais This is the part of the film that will most upset people, and it is the part I am most sure of, because I saw it with my own eyes, more than once. From the Gare du Nord I took the train north. I bought a ticket. On the leg to Amiens, nobody checked it. On the leg from Amiens to Calais there was a ticket inspector on the train, and he still did not check a single ticket. I asked him why. He was not keen to discuss it. I had seen the same thing on an earlier trip, which I filmed at the time. Groups of men got on at the Gare du Nord, looked round for staff, and rode to the coast. I am not claiming to know what orders were given to whom. I am telling you what I have seen on two separate journeys. In my view, this is why I call Paris a depot. The phrase in the film is: “They are not applying for asylum in France and waiting. They are in transit. Paris is a depot.” And so to Calais, the last French town before England. I stood under the statue of Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, inaugurated in 2017, which commemorates the defence of Calais in 1940 and the evacuation at Dunkirk. It was a strange place to reflect on what I had just seen. In my view the French state finds it convenient to pass the problem on to Britain, and Britain, outside the EU, has made itself an easy place to pass it to. As I said on camera, it is like a neighbour who chucks their rubbish over the fence into your garden. The Channel in numbers Here are the figures, from the UK government's own statistics rather than from me. According to the Home Office's immigration statistics for the year ending December 2025, 41,472 people arrived in the UK on small boats in 2025. That was 13% more than in 2024, and only 9% fewer than the record 45,774 in 2022. The average boat carried 62 people in 2025, up from 41 in 2022. The same release says 71% of all people detected arriving by illegal routes since 2018 were adult men. It has not stopped. The Home Office's small boat arrivals page for the last seven days records 1,343 people arriving in 17 boats between 29 September and 5 October 2026. That includes 609 people on 5 October alone. Those are provisional figures, and the government says they may change. I quote these numbers because they are official, not because I think a number tells the whole story. Behind each one there is a dinghy launched from a French beach, often by smuggling gangs who profit from every crossing, and a journey that, in my view, too often began with an unchecked ticket from the Gare du Nord. Who I blame, and who I don't I want to be fair about where I point the finger. I do not blame the people of Calais, who have lived with this longer than anyone. I do not blame the stall holders of Château Rouge. I do not blame France, the France that still sets a table, argues in a café and knows the names of its villages. I have spent years filming that France and I love it. I blame the officials who treat the capital as a sorting office. I blame the national governments in Paris and London who sign one deal after another while the boats keep coming. And I blame the ideology that has made it almost impossible to say any of this out loud without being called a bigot. In my films I use an old phrase for the people at the top of all this: the NWO. To me it stands for a class of technocrats and globalist politicians who think history has ended and that all that remains is management. In my view they would prefer a Europe of interchangeable residents to a Europe of distinct nations with memories and borders, because the first is easier to run. And in my view the politicians we elect too often behave like their puppets. I can't hand you a membership list, and I won't pretend this is a proven fact. It is my reading of what I see, and I put it to you as that. What I can show you is the evidence on the street, and I have. There is a line from the Château Rouge film that I think sums up where I stand: “No people on earth deserve to be erased. Not the French, not the Afghans, not the Congolese, not the Tibetans.” The French have as much right to their capital as anyone has to theirs. Film two: This Is Paris Now — Marché Barbès The second film, from July 2025, starts at the same front door. I tell viewers who have just come off the Eurostar that the front of the station is the perfect place to get a taxi or an Uber. Then I go round the back and walk north into the Sunday market under the Line 2 viaduct at Barbès. The market itself is a lesson in two economies. The traders along the sides have paid for licences, are happy to be filmed and pay their way. The sellers in the middle, with goods laid on boxes and blankets, don't have licences and don't want a camera anywhere near them. As I said on the day, “from a perspective, they got to start somewhere. But at the same time, they're undercutting legitimate people.” The cost of clearing up afterwards falls on the city and on the honest traders. In my view, that is a failure of enforcement, not of the people trying to make a living. I also met a man born in Paris of Algerian heritage who stopped to chat, warned me about pickpockets and told me about his brother in Leyton. It was a warm moment, and I left it in the film because it matters. My argument has never been with individuals like him. It is with the policies that, in my view, have turned parts of the city into zones that the state no longer polices and that the French were never asked about. The question I put in the film is: “Did the French really choose this?” And I close that film with a line I still believe: “Europe is great when the doors are ajar, not flung wide open.” A Europe that welcomes people who come to work, adopt its ways and contribute is a Europe that can last. A Europe that cannot say no to anyone, in my view, will eventually stop being Europe at all. Film three: Paris Promised Us Romance, with Angela Rose The third film, also from July 2025, was made with the American political commentator Angela Rose, who came with me through Château Rouge. In it we look back on that walk and I go back to the neighbourhood on my own. Angela's reaction is worth hearing because she came to it fresh. She told me her heart was racing, that she was frightened at moments because of how close and crowded it was, and that what really worried her was how quickly the people around us agreed that nobody wanted to be recorded. Her takeaway on migration was a simple one, and I think most people would agree with it. She said that if you move to a country because you respect it, assimilation is how you become part of it. Otherwise, what is the point of leaving? We also met a bar owner who, after some hesitation, told us he felt he was the only French person left on his stretch, and that it was not the same as it used to be. I am not presenting that as a statistic. It is one man's feeling about his own street, and I think it deserves to be heard rather than dismissed. In the walk-back section I answer the critics of my first Château Rouge video. Some said I was exaggerating, or exploiting poverty. My reply was that I have filmed in slums in Asia and Central America and in the forgotten corners of the Balkans, and nowhere else outside Western Europe have I seen a once-great capital so willingly abandoned by its own leaders. As I said: “This isn't failure, it's policy.” I also talk about unrefrigerated meat sweating behind fogged glass. We are in the European Union, and food safety laws exist for good reason. Defending that as diversity, in my view, insults Parisians and the migrants who do follow the rules. Film four: Walking through Versailles, ranting about real issues The oldest of the four films, from September 2024, is the most personal. It was made after the UK general election, for the many new subscribers who found the channel through my films on migration. I walk through Versailles, west of Paris, talking about politics, and keep interrupting myself because the town is so beautiful. Most of the rant is about Britain: my view that the Conservatives were conservative in name only, that Labour won on fewer votes than many people realise, and that the cost of living has risen faster than living standards for ordinary people. Those are arguments for another post. What I want to draw out here is what happened when I walked into the Versailles market. Roast chicken, fruit and vegetables, cheeses, quiche, four-red-fruit jam presented as if it were jewellery. I said on camera that this sort of travel calms me down. And then the line that, for me, is the heart of this whole post: “This is culture, this is heritage, and Europe is throwing it all away by changing itself dramatically too quickly.” I also noted something we have nearly lost in England. In France independent businesses are still encouraged. Market streets are closed to cars, and the butcher, the cheesemonger and the baker can make a living. At home, too many of our high streets have been handed to a few big chains. And as I said in Versailles, “thank God at least in some parts of France it feels very, very much French.” Why Paris is worth saving I don't want to end on the Gare du Nord. I want to end where I started: I love this city. Paris is worth saving not because it is perfect, but because nothing else like it exists. Haussmann's boulevards, the bridges of the Seine, the bookstalls on the quais, the Sainte-Chapelle's glass and the café on the corner where nobody hurries you. All of that was built by a particular people over centuries, and it belongs to their grandchildren as much as to the tourists. This is the heritage case. A city's buildings can stand for a thousand years, but its spirit lives in the people who inhabit them: the language spoken on the street, the bakery that opens at seven, and the market that has been on the same square since before anyone can remember. If the French lose that, the buildings will stand, the brand will be licensed and sold, and the substance will be gone. I believe Paris has to be preserved as French for future generations, not managed into one more interchangeable global city. It is also the tourism case. People do not cross the world to see a city that looks like everywhere else. They come for Paris. Every visitor who walks out of the Gare du Nord into a stinking forecourt and never comes back is a loss to the people who run the hotels, the restaurants and the museums. Keeping Paris French, clean and safe is not only a matter of identity. It is also how millions of Parisians earn a living. If you are planning your first trip, a good Paris guidebook will tell you where the postcard city is. A decent history of Paris will tell you why it is worth fighting for. Where visitors should still go None of this should put you off going. It should make you go with your eyes open. Here is where I would still send anyone I love. The islands and the Left Bank. Start on the Île de la Cité and the Île Saint-Louis, cross to the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain, and give the Luxembourg Gardens an afternoon. This is Paris at its most Parisian. Montmartre, early. Go before the crowds for the steps and the white domes of Sacré-Cœur, then walk down through Abbesses. I filmed the whole route from the basilica to the Moulin Rouge in my Montmartre walk. The Marais and the great museums. The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie are as good as anything on earth. Book ahead and go early or late. Versailles, by train. RER C or a train from Saint-Lazare or Montparnasse takes you there. See the palace, then walk into town for the market I filmed. Pick up a Versailles guide before you go, because the palace is overwhelming without one. Giverny and Monet's garden. Spend a day out of the city in Normandy, among the water lilies. My guide to visiting Monet's gardens at Giverny from Paris has the practicals, and my ultimate guide to exploring Paris has itineraries for a longer stay. For guided walks, river cruises and skip-the-line tickets, browse Paris tours and experiences on Viator. On safety, my practical advice is simple. Arriving on the Eurostar, take a taxi, an Uber or the Métro straight from the front of the Gare du Nord into the centre. Keep your phone in a zipped pocket on the Métro and around the big stations. And choose where you sleep carefully, which brings me to the map. Where to stay For a first visit, stay in the 1st to 7th arrondissements, around the Marais (3rd and 4th), or in Saint-Germain (6th). Use the Paris hotels map below (Stay22 Hub, AID thewonderingenglishman) to pick a pin that matches the Paris you came for. Plan your trip Airport or station transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless with code WONDERING Hotels: Booking.com Apartments: Airbnb Tours and tickets: Viator Paris Flights Not coming by Eurostar? Compare fares to Charles de Gaulle, Orly or Beauvais below. Why it stays with me I made these four films because the tourist cameras won't. A civilisation that cannot look honestly at its own streets, its own trains or its own coastline is in trouble. Paris is still one of the most beautiful cities on earth, and I want my children's generation to find it that way, and to find it French. The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world. Paris is one I will keep going back to, and I will keep filming it honestly. Tell me in the comments of the films whether you think I've got it right. Photo credits: Facade of Gare de Paris-Nord by Bobo Boom and Château de Versailles, Cour de Marbre by Kipp Jones, both via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 2.0. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

I was a teenager when I first heard about Oasis. It was 1993, maybe 1994, and everyone was talking about this new band from Manchester. Some lucky so-and-sos had already seen them play in Cambridge. I had not. I had the singles, the albums and the radio, and then I had the parties, the ones we held at 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18, where Oasis was forever on the stereo. They were the soundtrack of our youth. So walking up to Wembley Stadium in the summer of 2025, with my mates and a camera, felt like a coming of age in reverse. I had not felt that sort of excitement since the 1990s. I asked as many fans as I could find one simple question: what is your earliest memory of Oasis? The answers are the film below, and this post. Watch the film On YouTube — Oasis Wasn’t Just Nostalgia – It Was a Reminder of Who We Were... — about half an hour of fan interviews outside and inside Wembley, from first albums and mixtapes to Danish bedrooms and Chilean cassettes. Into Wembley — and almost backstage We came in shouting that we were backstage. We were not. We were heading down to the right, towards the front, which on a night like this is almost as good. Cast were on first, and they were pretty good, actually. Later, Richard Ashcroft was playing while I was still grabbing interviews. The people around me had come a long way. In one small patch of the pitch I met fans from England, Wales, Yorkshire (which, I was firmly told, is God's country), Australia, Malta, Denmark, Sweden, Chile and Denver, Colorado. A friend asked if I was collecting people like Pokémon cards. Fair question. First albums, mixtapes and Sunday afternoons The earliest memories tumbled out. One fan's school friend, Steven Walker, copied him a disc of (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, his first proper album. Another remembered a Sunday afternoon at home with his brother, listening to Don't Look Back in Anger. A third was in class in 1995 when a mate played him Live Forever, and he has followed them ever since. Another fan bought Morning Glory as his very first album, at 12 or 13, with what was basically all his pocket money. That started the oldest argument in Britpop right there on the concourse: is Definitely Maybe the better record? One man said the band peaked with their debut, and that its cover looked just like his living room at the time. A Denver fan called Scott got Definitely Maybe for Christmas in high school and wore it out. It just sounded different, he said, to everything else around. My favourite tape story came from a woman who brought her goddaughter. She heard Oasis on Radio One in the 1990s, pressed record and decided there and then that she would love them for life. Then came the double tape deck, the stop-start to cut out the DJ, and before you knew it, you had the whole album. Another fan's girlfriend put Roll With It on a mixtape for him in 199-something. It did not end well, he said, but here he was. A new generation, mad for it What struck me most was how young so many of the fans were. A lad from Yorkshire was six when the band split in 2009 and first heard Cigarettes & Alcohol on YouTube. Another's dad introduced him to it on the way to football when he was ten, which, he admitted, may not be textbook parenting. Tristan's dad got him into Oasis; the first song he heard was Lyla in 2005, and Wembley was his first time seeing them. His dad, a huge fan from Swansea, got a shout-out on camera. For others it was mum and dad blaring the records out at home. One young man remembered his mum playing Supersonic in the kitchen. Another young fan said her song with her best friend was Wonderwall. An older fan's first memory was singing Wonderwall in the pub at 18, and another young fan's parents were playing it at home from her first footsteps. A Danish fan told me his first memory was singing in his room in Denmark, and his favourite song was Slide Away. He had flown over only for this. A man from Chile had done the same. His uncle had taught him about music and handed down the cassettes, and he could not have imagined, as a 14-year-old in Chile, that he would one day be at Wembley listening to Oasis. The tickets, the queue and the wait Everyone had a ticket story. One pair got lucky on the ballot and found themselves right next to the stage, far closer than they expected. One man sat in the Ticketmaster queue for about six hours and got nowhere, then sorted a ticket in the pub a fortnight before the gig. Another was meant to see them at Wembley in 2009, but his mate's housemate ripped up the tickets, and then the band split. Ray, who was at Knebworth in 1996, said his earliest memory was coming home from school, putting on Definitely Maybe, then playing Supersonic and Live Forever again before his paper round. On the way out, I asked him how it was. It was worth it, he said, and if they fall out over nothing again and split for another 25 years, we will still be alive. Definitely maybe. Oasis tour dates: what is next If the film has you reaching for tickets, here is where things stand in October 2026. The Oasis Live '25 tour is finished. It began in Cardiff on 4 July 2025, played Wembley across the summer and twice more in late September, and ended in São Paulo on 23 November 2025. The band then announced what they called a pause for a period of reflection. There are no Oasis shows in 2026. On 14 September 2026, Live Nation announced Oasis Live '27, with Richard Ashcroft as special guest at every show. Four extra dates were added on 23 September, taking the tour to 42 shows, and one Paris date was moved because of railway engineering works, according to Music Business Worldwide. The full list, as reported: Glasgow, Celtic Park: 21, 23, 25, 28, 29 May 2027 Manchester, Etihad Stadium: 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 22, 25, 26 June Munich, Allianz Arena: 2, 3, 6 July Barcelona, Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys: 10, 11 July Amsterdam, Johan Cruijff ArenA: 16, 17 July Paris, Stade de France: 20, 23 July Rome, Stadio Olimpico: 26, 29, 30 July Boston (Foxborough), Gillette Stadium: 10, 13, 14 August Las Vegas, Allegiant Stadium: 20, 21, 24 August Slane Castle, Ireland: 4, 5 September Knebworth, Hertfordshire: 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 September There is no London date this time. Apart from the Manchester homecoming, every city is new compared with 2025. And if you have not got a ticket yet, I am sorry to say the whole tour sold out during three days of registration-only sales from 25 to 27 September, and the band says no more shows will be added. Oasis's own site says resale tickets will only appear nearer the dates, at the price originally paid, through Ticketmaster and Twickets, and warns fans about fake tickets on social media. In the UK, the Guardian reported standard prices of £71.50 to £266.60. How much money is the reunion making? A lot, though the totals depend on who is counting and which shows they count. Pollstar's year-end chart put Oasis Live '25 at an estimated $405,428,435 gross from 36 shows, with 2,228,471 tickets sold at an average price of $181.93. That made it the second-highest-grossing tour in the world in 2025, just behind Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour at $407.6m. Pollstar's chart year missed the last five South American shows. Celebrity Net Worth adds those back in and estimates the full box office at around $443m. It also estimates, and it is only an estimate, that each brother could clear about $125m once costs, merchandise and the film are counted. Other trackers publish higher totals, so treat every figure as an estimate rather than an audited account. The knock-on effect was bigger still. The band's own Live '27 announcement says more than 10 million fans from 158 countries queued for tickets, and puts the money generated for the UK economy at an estimated £1bn. The Guardian reports that, according to UK Music, the five Heaton Park nights helped push music-tourist spending in the north-west up 16% year on year to £1.4bn. Meanwhile, Morning Glory overtook Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in July 2026 to become the UK's best-selling studio album of all time, the band's announcement says. The records to start with If a fan in the film has sent you back to the records, start where they did. Definitely Maybe (1994) is the debut: Supersonic, Live Forever, Cigarettes & Alcohol and Slide Away. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) has Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger and the closing Champagne Supernova. For everything in one go, the Time Flies… 1994–2009 singles collection does the job. And if you are a London visitor, the Morning Glory cover was shot on Soho's Berwick Street, which I walked in Berwick Street – Soho – Mad for it!. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Going to a gig at Wembley — the practicals Getting there: Wembley Park station on the Jubilee and Metropolitan lines is the classic approach, straight down Olympic Way to the stadium. Wembley Stadium station has Chiltern trains from Marylebone, and Wembley Central is on the Bakerloo line and the Overground. After a big gig, expect queues at every station and give yourself time. Arriving from abroad: Like the fans I met from Chile, Denmark and Colorado, you will probably fly into Heathrow. A private transfer is the easy option if you have bags, and a Roamless eSIM keeps your tickets and maps working the moment you land. Use code WONDERING. Make a weekend of it: London has more music history than you can fit into one trip, from Berwick Street to Carnaby Street, where Oasis ran a pop-up store during the 2025 tour. Browse London tours and experiences on Viator if you would rather have a guide. Where to stay For a Wembley gig, stay near the Jubilee or Metropolitan lines and you can be back at your hotel without a second change of train. The map below shows hotels across London; Booking.com and Airbnb are worth checking too if you are travelling as a group. Flights Flying in for a gig? Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton all serve London. Compare fares below before you book. Why it stays with you Oasis never really went away. Every lyric was still sung, every record still played and every pub still echoed with their songs. That is why the reunion mattered. Wembley was proof of it: three generations, fans from across Europe and beyond, and one question, with nearly everyone's answer ending in the same place. Their songs are more than music to the people I met. They are memories. What is your earliest memory of Oasis? Tell me in the comments of the film. Photo credits: Liam and Noel at Wembley and Oasis on stage at Wembley by Raph_PH; Oasis Live '25 store, Carnaby Street by Matt Brown. All via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0. Filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3 with a 256GB micro SD card — affiliate links, costs you nothing extra. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Heydon is not the sort of place that makes the brochures. It is a small village on high ground in the far south of Cambridgeshire, so close to the county lines that a mile in one direction puts you in Hertfordshire and a mile in the other puts you in Essex. On the morning I filmed, the fields were wet, the sky was the colour of porridge and the view stopped at the first hedge. I grew up walking these tracks, and I came back with something I had wanted since I was a boy watching old men sweep the farmland: a metal detector. What follows is part day out, part history lesson and part honest test of a kit that DR.ÖTEK sent me to try. Watch the film On YouTube — Why Did I Choose This Rainy Day for Metal Detecting? — about fourteen minutes on the Cambridgeshire border, from the foggy fields to the kit, the law and what I have dug up here over the years. How to visit — the practicals Where: Heydon, South Cambridgeshire, on the borders of Hertfordshire and Essex. The fingerpost on the village green gives Fowlmere at 5 miles and Cambridge at 13. Getting there: This is car country. The nearest railway stations are Royston and Audley End (for Saffron Walden), and from either you will want a taxi or your own wheels — compare car hire here, or book a private transfer from Stansted if you are flying in. When: In summer the fields fill with wheat, rapeseed and, depending on the farmer's choice, potatoes, and the village is far prettier than it looks in my film. After harvest, when the ground is bare, is when detectorists tend to get the most out of farmland. Permission: Ask the farmer or landowner before you sweep a single field, and tell them what you find. In England, anything that counts as treasure under the Treasure Act 1996 must be reported to the coroner within 14 days, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme will record other finds. Data while you roam: Visiting from abroad? A Roamless eSIM keeps your maps working down farm tracks where the signal comes and goes — use code WONDERING. The land we stand upon You might look at this landscape and think it unremarkable. Most of it is farmland now, with a few dirt tracks and stands of trees, but much of it was forest once. Below the ridge runs the Icknield Way, one of the oldest routes in Britain, a road the Romans knew and used. Another old lane climbs from it up to Heydon, which looks out towards Cambridge. On a clear day you can see Ely Cathedral beyond the city. On the day I filmed you could barely see the field. If you wanted to protect your family from invaders, you picked higher ground, and that is why this end of Heydon is known for Iron Age finds. A hill fort is thought to have stood where the trees are now. As a boy I found Roman coins here, a couple of spearheads, flint axes from before anyone worked iron, arrowheads and, once, half of a blunt sword. Romans, Angles and Saxons, Normans after 1066 and Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarians have all crossed this ground. Today the old fort site is where gamekeepers raise partridges and pheasants, which is a good reason to keep your voice down and your permission in your pocket. The kit — and the disclosure Full disclosure: DR.ÖTEK supplied the detector, and I get to keep it. I turn down most of the sponsorship offers that land in my inbox, but this one was a childhood wish. The DR.ÖTEK MXTR metal detector sits easily over the shoulder, is light enough to swing for hours and packs into its own bag. Through headphones it gives different tones for different metals, from cans to coins to silver and gold, so you can detect in silence without announcing yourself to the whole valley. The MT6 Pro pinpointer slips into a pocket and narrows down a signal once you have one, and the kit includes a small digging tool marked in inches so you know how far down you are. Use the code ENGLISHMAN at checkout for 10% off. I will be honest: I found nothing remarkable on the day, I was probably in the wrong spot, and I realised afterwards that I had fitted the rod slightly backwards. It still worked. That is the reality of the hobby. Not every step turns up treasure, and most of the fun is the walk and the wondering. Why not the Thames? Living in London, my first plan was to go mudlarking on the Thames foreshore. You need a permit for that, and when I looked into it the waiting list ran to more than 20,000 names and many years. So the Thames film will have to wait. Beaches are another option for a detector, but check who owns the foreshore and any local byelaws before you start. Where to stay — Cambridge, Royston & Saffron Walden Heydon itself is tiny, so base yourself in Cambridge for colleges and pubs, or in Royston or Saffron Walden for market-town quiet within a short drive. Booking.com covers hotels and inns across all three, and Airbnb is better for a cottage if you are bringing the family and the muddy boots. Plan your trip Car hire: DiscoverCars Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer Hotels: Booking.com Cottages: Airbnb Metal detector: DR.ÖTEK MXTR — code ENGLISHMAN for 10% off Pinpointer: DR.ÖTEK MT6 Pro eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Flights Flying in from abroad? London Stansted is the closest big airport to this corner of Cambridgeshire. Compare fares below before you book. Why it stays with you Detecting is a little geeky, and I will not pretend otherwise. But walking a field that Roman soldiers, Saxon farmers and Cromwell's men have walked before you, waiting for a buzz in your ear, is a different way of reading a landscape. It turns a wet, grey morning on the Cambridgeshire border into something closer to detective work. If you have found something with a detector, tell me in the comments of the film. And if you know a place where a bit of Time Team action would fit into one of my travel films, I would love to hear about it. Filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3 — affiliate link, costs you nothing extra. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Warsaw's Old Town is not a Disney reconstruction pretending the twentieth century never happened. It is a UNESCO World Heritage streetscape rebuilt brick by brick after the Warsaw Uprising — cobbles, Beer Street, the Barbican, both market squares, pierogi and craft beer — and out onto Castle Square where Sigismund's Column and the Royal Castle hold the edge of the Royal Route. I first saw this pocket in 2003 on a business trip, when façades were still being restored and cobbles were still going down. Returning years later with a camera is less a checklist stroll than an appreciation of Polish ingenuity: a capital that refused to leave its historic centre as concrete grief. Watch the film On YouTube — Warsaw Old Town Walk: Basilica Views, Warsawian Streets, and an Olympic Moment — I climb the steps, stand at the basilica, wander toward Castle Square, cut through Piwna Street, and end at the Barbican. Watch before you treat the Rynek as a checkbox photo stop. How to visit — the practicals Where: Warsaw Old Town, Warsaw Stare Miasto. Landmark: Royal Castle. Route: Castle Square → Piwna and the market squares → Castle Square → Piwna Street → the Barbican on the Royal Route. Getting there: Castle Square (Line 2) for the tourist stairs; Śródmieście (Line 12) for the village; Piwna Street / Blanche for the Barbican end. From Chopin/Modlin via Gare du Nord, or GetTransfer with bags. When: Morning for thinner crowds; late afternoon for golden domes. Evenings change the walk down toward Piwna Street — treat the tourist stalls as a corridor you understand. the Barbican tickets: the Barbican tickets via the film’s affiliate link — book ahead. Data: Roamless with code WONDERING. Brick by brick — walls, beer streets, and market squares The Old Town and the boulevard are one continuous walk: white stone, souvenir funnel, Piwna Street’s blunt tone, and the Sigismund's Column. Walk with open eyes — bag zipped, polite camera etiquette at the Royal Castle, hotel pin matching the Warsaw you want. The craft multi-tap handover outside the Barbican was a reminder that photographed façades still host live civic moments. Where to stay — Old Town, Śródmieście & Powiśle Sleep near Śródmieście / the Royal Castle for the ridge; Castle Square / Piwna Street for Line 2 and cabaret; Gare du Nord / 10th for rail. Use the Warsaw Old Town hotels map below (Stay22 Hub — AID thewonderingenglishman). Tours & tickets Browse Warsaw experiences on Viator; for the cabaret use the Barbican tickets. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 Warsaw hotels map Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering the Barbican tickets: viator.com/Warsaw/d528-ttd Warsaw tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/Warsaw/d479-ttd Flights Flying into Chopin or Modlin? Compare fares below. Why it stays with you Warsaw, here, sells a historic centre rebuilt from memory and masonry after an attempt to erase it. Watch the film. Choose your bed with open eyes. Filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3 — affiliate link, costs you nothing extra. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Montmartre still sells the climb — white domes, souvenir crêpes, a view that earns the Metro — and then the steps remind you that Sacré-Cœur sits on a butte. In the film I walk from the stairs to the basilica, through souvenir streets, past Pigalle, and on to the Moulin Rouge as the Paralympic torch changes hands. About thirty-five minutes. Street-level from the Montmartre steps to Boulevard de Clichy — with practicals for stays, cabaret tickets and the climb. Watch the film On YouTube — Montmartre's Wonders: Basilica Views, Parisian Streets, and an Olympic Moment — I climb the steps, stand at the basilica, wander toward Anvers, cut through Pigalle, and end at the Moulin Rouge. Watch before you treat the butte as a checkbox photo stop. How to visit — the practicals Where: Montmartre, Paris 18th. Landmark: Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Route: Square Louise-Michel steps → souvenir streets → Anvers → Pigalle → Moulin Rouge on Boulevard de Clichy. Getting there: Anvers (Line 2) for the tourist stairs; Abbesses (Line 12) for the village; Pigalle / Blanche for the Moulin Rouge end. From CDG/Orly via Gare du Nord, or GetTransfer with bags. When: Morning for thinner crowds; late afternoon for golden domes. Evenings change the walk down toward Pigalle — treat the adult strip as a corridor you understand. Moulin Rouge tickets: Moulin Rouge tickets via the film’s affiliate link — book ahead. Data: Roamless with code WONDERING. Montmartre, the basilica, and the boulevard below The butte and the boulevard are one continuous walk: white stone, souvenir funnel, Pigalle’s blunt tone, and the red windmill. Walk with open eyes — bag zipped, polite camera etiquette at Sacré-Cœur, hotel pin matching the Paris you want. The Paralympic torch handover outside the Moulin Rouge was a reminder that photographed façades still host live civic moments. Where to stay — Montmartre, 18th & beyond Sleep near Abbesses / Sacré-Cœur for the ridge; Anvers / Pigalle for Line 2 and cabaret; Gare du Nord / 10th for rail. Use the Paris hotels map below (Stay22 Hub — AID thewonderingenglishman). Tours & tickets Browse Paris experiences on Viator; for the cabaret use Moulin Rouge tickets. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 Paris hotels map Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering Moulin Rouge tickets: locally.link/9moB Paris tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/Paris/d479-ttd Flights Flying into CDG or Orly? Compare fares below. Why it stays with you Montmartre takes half an hour of your feet and asks whether you came for the white dome alone, or for the whole ridge. Watch the film. Choose your bed with open eyes. Filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3 — affiliate link, costs you nothing extra. If useful, subscribe to my YouTube Channel. Or SubscribeStar. Or buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Paris still sells the postcard — Haussmann limestone, café terraces, the Métro’s tiled certainty — and then you step out at Château Rouge in the 18th and the brochure goes quiet. In the film below I walk the streets around the Line 4 station and ask what happens when a neighbourhood stops feeling like the city that claims it. About thirteen minutes. No travel-agent gloss. Street-level observation from Barbès toward the trafficked pavements visitors rarely put on an itinerary — and the practical question of where to sleep if Paris is still the plan. Watch the film On YouTube — The Paris Neighborhood That Feels Like Another World — I walk Château Rouge’s denser blocks, note the gap between “vibrant” marketing and sticky pavements, and talk through why filming drew hostility on one stretch. If the 18th is on your map this year, watch this before you treat every arrondissement as interchangeable. How to visit — the practicals Where: Château Rouge sits in Paris’s 18th arrondissement, north of Gare du Nord / Barbès–Rochechouart, on Métro Line 4. The station itself is the landmark; the streets around it — Poissonniers, the market edges, the approach from Barbès — are the film’s ground. Getting there: Métro Château Rouge (Line 4) drops you on the doorstep; Barbès–Rochechouart (Line 2/4) is a short walk south. From CDG or Orly, reach Gare du Nord / Magenta first, then one stop or a short walk — or book ahead with GetTransfer if you land with heavy bags and prefer not to learn the RER with jet lag. When: Daylight is the honest hour for a first look — markets and shopfronts open, denser footfall, fewer excuses for getting lost. Evenings change the geometry; treat it as a corridor you understand, not a novelty stroll after midnight with a camera held out like a dinner menu. What the film shows: Château Rouge as a neighbourhood the city has struggled to manage; overcrowded pavements and unregulated street trade; beautiful old façades looking down on sticky streets; the claim of “gentrification” set against what you actually see; and a frank note that wanting streets that work is not the same as rejecting the people who live there. Data while you roam: A French eSIM beats hunting café Wi-Fi when you need maps north of Gare du Nord. Roamless with code WONDERING keeps navigation honest without the airport SIM markup. Château Rouge, postcards, and Paris realities Guidebooks still fold the 18th into a Montmartre day-trip — Sacré-Cœur, artists’ square, a crêpe on the steps — and leave Château Rouge as a Métro name you pass through. The film’s point is simpler: some pockets of Paris no longer match the story the city sells about itself. Overcrowding, street commerce that never quite becomes a managed market, and a sense of civic neglect are not inventions of YouTube thumbnails. That does not mean you should never set foot north of Barbès. It means you walk with the same street sense you would bring to any dense European market quarter: phone not dangling, bag zipped, camera etiquette that does not treat residents as exhibits, and a hotel pin that matches the Paris you actually want to wake up in. Montmartre’s ridge is close on the map; the mood on the pavement can feel a world away. If your trip is still the Louvre, the Seine, and a proper dinner in the 6th, plan the stay accordingly — and use Château Rouge as information, not as a compulsory “hidden gem” checkbox. Where to stay — Paris, 18th & beyond Sleep near Montmartre / Abbesses if you want the ridge and tourist infrastructure with a short Métro hop. Gare du Nord / 10th puts you on rail links and a blunt walk or one stop from Château Rouge. Central arrondissements cost more and buy you the postcard evenings most first-timers actually want. The film mentions Hotel Meliti as a pin in the neighbourhood — compare carefully against your comfort level rather than booking blind on proximity alone. Use the Paris hotels map below (Stay22 Hub — AID thewonderingenglishman), then cross-check Booking and Airbnb in Plan your trip. Tours & tickets If you want a guided Paris layer — Montmartre walks, museum tickets, or a Seine cruise that keeps you on the postcard side of the city — browse Paris experiences on Viator below. Book what fits around a self-paced day rather than a coach circuit that never lets you stand still long enough to read a street. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 Paris hotels map (AID thewonderingenglishman) Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering Paris tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/Paris/d479-ttd Flights Flying into CDG or Orly for a first Paris weekend? Compare fares below — then decide whether Château Rouge is a Métro name you understand, or a street you intentionally leave for another kind of trip. Why it stays with you Paris’s great museums will still take your week. Château Rouge takes thirteen minutes of attention and asks whether a capital can keep selling romance while some of its streets feel abandoned by the people who are supposed to manage them. Watch the film. Choose your bed with open eyes. Then walk the bits of Paris that still match the story — knowing the city is larger, and sometimes harsher, than the postcard. The walk was filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3. That link is an affiliate link — it costs you nothing extra, and it helps keep these films coming. If you found any of this useful, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel. Or become a sponsor on YouTube or SubscribeStar. Or if you would simply like to buy me a coffee, you can do so via Ko-Fi. I provide this information as I believe it will be helpful to readers like yourself! Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

London still sells the grand boulevard — The Strand, buses grinding west toward Trafalgar, tourists peeling off toward Covent Garden with fresh sterling in an envelope — and that envelope is exactly what a certain class of thief is waiting for. In the film below I stand on The Strand outside a currency exchange and explain a simple, ugly pattern: watch the shop, follow the customer, lift the cash once they feel safe. About four minutes. No scare pamphlet. Where the geometry actually is, why rear pockets and backpacks lose, and how to change money without handing Artful Dodger a second career. Watch the film On YouTube — London Travel Alert: Beware of Money Theft Outside Currency Exchange Shops — I walk The Strand, point out a busy bureau, and talk through the follow-and-lift game that has become common enough that visitors need it in the mental checklist before they ever open a guidebook. How to visit — the practicals Where: The Strand (WC2) runs from Trafalgar Square / Charing Cross toward Fleet Street and the City. Currency-exchange shops cluster along this corridor and in other high-footfall tourist streets — the tip is not Strand-only, but Strand is the stage in the film. Getting there: Charing Cross (National Rail / Northern / Bakerloo) or Embankment put you on the western end; Temple (District / Circle) for the eastern stretch. From Heathrow the Elizabeth line or Heathrow Express into central London beats learning the Tube with a bulging cash envelope in hand. When: Exchange shops are busiest late morning through early evening — which is also when followers have the most cover. If you must change cash, do it when you can walk straight into a bank branch, hotel safe, or a seated place where you can stow notes properly — not mid-pavement with an open envelope. What the film shows: The Strand as theatre; how thieves scope bureaux; why envelopes in backpacks and jacket pockets still lose; and a practical checklist that does not require dressing like a bank vault. Data while you roam: A UK eSIM beats hunting café Wi-Fi when you need maps after a cash run. Roamless with code WONDERING keeps navigation honest without the airport SIM markup. Currency exchanges, envelopes, and Strand realities The pattern is older than the latest crime wave headlines. Dickens wrote Artful Dodger into the English imagination for a reason — dense pavement, distracted visitors, and a city that rewards professionals who can read a crowd. Currency exchanges concentrate the soft targets: people leave with more cash than they walked in with, often in a branded envelope, often looking at their phone for the next stop. That does not mean you should never change money in central London. It means you treat the exit like a busy terminus: notes split and stowed inside clothing or a zipped front pouch before you rejoin the flow; no waving the envelope; no backpack as the primary vault; no pausing mid-stream to count. Brits with a bank app should move cash to an account as soon as practical. Visitors should prefer card and a small float over a holiday's worth of notes in one place. Visiting London from abroad? Sort your travel insurance before you fly. The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world, so I always check my cover before I go. SafetyWing Nomad Insurance is built for travellers and nomads. New Nomad Essential members can use code WONDERINGENGLISHMAN for 8 weeks of free electronic theft cover. Affiliate link: I may earn a commission if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you. Note the offer is electronic theft cover, so it's no reason to carry a holiday's worth of cash. Rates still matter — some bureaux are better online than at the counter — but rate shopping is a separate film. This one is about not financing someone else's evening. Slip a block toward Covent Garden, the South Bank, or your hotel once the money is secure, and the geometry changes. The Strand is the funnel. Your bed for the night does not have to sit on the funnel — which is why the stay map below matters. I have been building Money Maps, a map of cash foreign-exchange bureaux so you can see where to get a better rate nearby. The app is not released, and it is iPhone only. You can join the iPhone waitlist at www.moneymaps.net. Where to stay — Strand, Covent Garden & Trafalgar Sleep near Covent Garden or the South Bank if you want walkable evenings without parking yourself on the busiest bureau strip. Trafalgar / Charing Cross puts you on the western doorstep of The Strand. Holborn and the Temple end trade a quieter night for a short walk into the tourist spine. Use the London hotels map below (Stay22 Hub — AID thewonderingenglishman), then cross-check Booking and Airbnb in Plan your trip. Tours & tickets If you want a guided London layer — West End walks, river cruises, or museum tickets — browse London experiences on Viator below. Book what fits around a self-paced day; the cash-safety tip costs nothing and pairs with any itinerary. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 London hotels map (AID thewonderingenglishman) Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering London tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/London/d737-ttd Flights Flying into Heathrow, Gatwick, or City for a first London weekend? Compare fares below — then treat every currency-exchange doorway as a place you leave already organised, not a place you linger with an open envelope. Why it stays with you London's galleries and theatres will still take your week. The Strand takes four minutes of your attention and asks whether you can change money without becoming the softest target on the pavement. Watch the film. Stash the notes. Then walk the city knowing the theatre is part of the capital — and so is the craft of the people who work the crowd. The walk was filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3. That link is an affiliate link — it costs you nothing extra, and it helps keep these films coming. If you found any of this useful, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel. Or become a sponsor on YouTube or SubscribeStar. Or if you would simply like to buy me a coffee, you can do so via Ko-Fi. I provide this information as I believe it will be helpful to readers like yourself! Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

La Rambla still sells the Barcelona postcard — plane trees, living statues, café tables facing the throng — and it still attracts the people who treat that throng as inventory. In the film below I walk the boulevard and ask the blunt question every first-timer googles: do thieves still target tourists on La Rambla? About eleven minutes. No scare pamphlet. Street-level habits, where the pickpocket geometry actually is, and how to enjoy the walk without giving your phone an unscheduled Catalan holiday. La Rambla from the cable car, Barcelona. Photo: Silar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Watch the film On YouTube — Do Thieves Still Target Tourists on La Rambla in Barcelona? — I walk the Rambla stretches visitors actually use, talk through the classic distraction games, and weigh what has changed against what has not. If Barcelona is on your list this year, watch this before you put the phone in a rear pocket and call it a day. How to visit — the practicals Where: La Rambla (Las Ramblas) runs from Plaça de Catalunya down to the Columbus monument / Port Vell. It is a pedestrian spine through Ciutat Vella — not a single square you do in ten minutes. Plaça de Catalunya looking toward Rambla de Canaletes, Barcelona. Photo: Txllxt TxllxT / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Getting there: Metro Catalunya (L1/L3) for the top; Liceu (L3) for the mid-section; Drassanes (L3) for the port end. From Barcelona–El Prat (BCN) the Aerobus or RENFE into Plaça de Catalunya beats learning the metro with jet lag — or book ahead with GetTransfer if you land with heavy bags. When: Late morning and late afternoon are the thickest tourist hours — which is also when the distraction games get the most raw material. Early evening is lively; after dark treat the Rambla as a corridor, not a place to stop and recount your wallet under a streetlamp. What the film shows: The Rambla as theatre and target; common pickpocket setups; why rear pockets and dangling phone straps still lose; and a practical walker's checklist that does not require dressing like a bank vault. Data while you roam: A Spanish eSIM beats hunting café Wi-Fi in the Gothic lanes. Roamless with code WONDERING keeps maps honest without the airport SIM markup. Pickpockets, theatre, and La Rambla realities On La Rambla, Barcelona. Photo: Stefano Vigorelli / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). La Rambla's reputation is not a myth invented by travel blogs. Barcelona's historic centre has long been a professional pickpocketing zone, and the Rambla's density — tourists looking up, locals cutting through, hawkers working the edges — is ideal for teams who need confusion more than darkness. That does not mean the street is unwalkable. It means you treat it like a busy London terminus: bag zipped and in front, phone not in a rear pocket, cash split, and no pausing mid-stream to check your booking confirmation with the screen held out like a dinner menu. The film's point is habits, not hysteria. Zipped bags and front pockets do most of the work, but sort your travel insurance before you go too, especially if you're carrying a phone and a camera down the Rambla. The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world, so I always check my cover before I go. SafetyWing Nomad Insurance is built for travellers and nomads. New Nomad Essential members can use code WONDERINGENGLISHMAN for 8 weeks of free electronic theft cover. Affiliate link: I may earn a commission if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you. Slip a block into the Gothic Quarter or toward El Raval and the geometry changes. The Rambla is the funnel. Your hotel, dinner, and museum tickets do not all have to sit on the funnel — which is why the stay map below matters as much as the tip sheet. Where to stay — Ciutat Vella, Gothic & El Raval Sleep near Plaça de Catalunya or the upper Rambla if you want doorstep access and do not mind the tourist premium. The Gothic Quarter puts you in lanes a short walk off the spine. El Raval west of the Rambla is the value play if you compare carefully. Port Vell / Barceloneta works if beach mornings matter more than Rambla minutes. Use the Barcelona hotels map below (Stay22 Hub — AID thewonderingenglishman), then cross-check Booking and Airbnb in Plan your trip. Tours & tickets If you want a guided Barcelona layer — Gothic walking tours, Sagrada Família / Park Güell tickets, or a Rambla-adjacent old-town walk — browse Barcelona experiences on Viator below. Book what fits around a self-paced Rambla walk rather than a coach day that never lets you stand still. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 Barcelona hotels map (AID thewonderingenglishman) Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering Barcelona tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/Barcelona/d562-ttd Flights Flying into BCN for a first Barcelona weekend? Compare fares below — then put La Rambla on the walking list as a spine you cross wisely, not a place you linger with your passport in a hip pocket. Why it stays with you Barcelona's great buildings will still take your week. La Rambla takes an hour of your attention and asks whether you can enjoy a famous street without becoming the softest target on it. Watch the film. Zip the bag. Then walk the plane trees knowing the theatre is part of the city — and so is the craft of the people who work the crowd. The walk was filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3. That link is an affiliate link — it costs you nothing extra, and it helps keep these films coming. If you found any of this useful, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel. Or become a sponsor on YouTube or SubscribeStar. Or if you would simply like to buy me a coffee, you can do so via Ko-Fi. I provide this information as I believe it will be helpful to readers like yourself! Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

Deep in the basement of a Mitte hostel — a few steps from Rosenthaler Platz — Berlin keeps one of its stranger Cold War souvenirs: a shrine to David Hasselhoff. Not a civic museum with marble stairs. A basement room of Baywatch red, Knight Rider chrome, and a chunk of Wall that treats The Hoff as half joke, half genuine Berlin folklore. The film below is the walk-in: why Berliners still grin at Looking for Freedom, how a pop star got tangled up in 1989 mythology, and what you actually see when you ask at the Circus Hostel desk for the Hasselhoff Museum. About seven minutes. No tourist-board polish. A Shrine for The Hoff — Berlin’s unexpected basement attraction. Film still / YouTube thumbnail. Watch the film On YouTube — A Shrine for The Hoff? Berlin’s Most Unexpected Attraction! — I arrive around Rosenthaler Platz, talk through the Hasselhoff-and-the-Wall story, and head downstairs into the museum itself. If you collect odd corners of cities, this is one of the better ones in central Berlin. How to visit — the practicals Where: The David Hasselhoff Museum sits in the basement of The Circus Hostel, Weinbergsweg, Berlin-Mitte — beside Rosenthaler Platz. It is not a freestanding municipal museum; you enter via the hostel. U-Bahnhof Rosenthaler Platz, Berlin — nearest stop for the Hoff shrine. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Getting there: U-Bahn Rosenthaler Platz (U8) drops you almost on the doorstep. S-Bahn Hackescher Markt is a short walk south. From Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER) the airport train plus one U-Bahn change beats a taxi crawl — or book a car ahead with GetTransfer if you land with heavy bags. When / cost: Hours and access can shift with hostel operations; ask at reception. Expect a small fee or donation rather than a national-museum ticket. Go when you are already in Mitte — this is a 20–40 minute oddity, not a half-day. What the film shows: Street approach and Rosenthaler Platz; the Looking for Freedom / Wall story; a sponsor beat for a travel wallet (WhimHold, code WONDER15 if you still want one); then the basement shrine — memorabilia, humour, and that piece of Wall. Data while you roam: A German eSIM beats hunting café Wi-Fi between U-Bahn hops. Roamless with code WONDERING keeps maps and translations honest without the airport SIM markup. Why Berlin still laughs with The Hoff Looking for Freedom mural, Berlin. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Hasselhoff’s bond with Berlin is equal parts kitsch and history. Looking for Freedom charted hard in Germany at the end of the 1980s; the New Year performances on and around the Wall sealed a myth Berliners still tell with a straight face and a wink. The basement museum leans into both: Baywatch and Knight Rider sit beside Wall concrete. It is not solemn. It is also not empty irony. That mix — pop culture welded to a city’s hardest decade — is why the place works. Piece of the Berlin Wall in the David Hasselhoff Museum, Berlin. Photo: Brücke-Osteuropa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). You will not need a PhD in GDR history to enjoy it. You will want a sense of humour and ten minutes of curiosity. Pair it with a walk through the Scheunenviertel, Hackescher Markt, or up toward Prenzlauer Berg rather than treating it as a standalone pilgrimage from the Brandenburg Gate. Weinbergsweg, Berlin-Mitte — the street of the Circus Hostel. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Where to stay — Mitte & around Rosenthaler Platz Sleep in Mitte if you want this shrine on foot: Rosenthaler Platz, Hackescher Markt, and the northern edge of the Scheunenviertel put you among hostels, mid-range hotels, and late kitchens. Prenzlauer Berg is the next neighbourhood north if you prefer quieter evenings. Friedrichshain and the East Side Gallery are a short U/S-Bahn hop if murals are tomorrow’s plan — see our East Side Gallery walk for that stretch. Use the Mitte hotels map below (centred on the Circus Hostel / Rosenthaler Platz), then cross-check Booking and Airbnb in Plan your trip. Compare hotels on the Berlin Mitte map above, then cross-check Booking and Airbnb in Plan your trip. Tours & tickets If you want a guided Berlin layer — Wall history, Mitte walking tours, or museum tickets — browse Berlin experiences on Viator below. Book what fits around a self-paced basement visit rather than a coach-loop day that never leaves the coach. Plan your trip Airport / private transfer: GetTransfer eSIM: Roamless — code WONDERING Hotels via Stay22: Stay22 Berlin Mitte / Rosenthaler Platz hotels map (AID thewonderingenglishman) Booking.com: booking.com/s/34_6/vanter15 Airbnb: airbnb.co.uk/rp/wondering Berlin tours & tickets (Viator): viator.com/Berlin/d408-ttd Flights Flying into BER for a first Berlin visit? Compare fares below — then put Rosenthaler Platz on the Mitte walking list alongside the bigger monuments, not instead of them. Why it stays with you Berlin’s great museums will still take your week. This basement takes a corner of an afternoon and leaves you with a story: a city that can host the Holocaust Memorial and a Hasselhoff shrine without blinking. Watch the film. Ask at the Circus Hostel desk. Then walk back up into Mitte knowing the capital’s humour is part of its history. The walk was filmed on the Osmo Pocket 3. That link is an affiliate link — it costs you nothing extra, and it helps keep these films coming. If you found any of this useful, then please consider subscribing to my YouTube Channel. Or become a sponsor on YouTube or SubscribeStar. Or if you would simply like to buy me a coffee, you can do so via Ko-Fi. Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman