Inspiring Travel Writing from Mark Hudson
Mark Hudson's first book, Our Grandmothers' Drums, won the Thomas Cook Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. His second, Coming Back Brockens, won the NCR Award for the best non-fiction book of 1995. A novel, The Music in my Head, was published to critical acclaim in 1998. He writes on travel for the Daily Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times.
Articles by Mark Hudson
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Before You Die: The Ummayad Mosque
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Mark Hudson
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Syria
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The Southern Provinces
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Damascus
The Ummayad Mosque, Damascus, Syria. Built by Byzantine masons with the stones of a vast Roman temple - the antique, Islamic and medieval Christian worlds incorporated in one breathtaking building. Mark Hudson
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Before You Die: Upper Franconia
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Mark Hudson
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Germany
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Bavaria
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Upper Franconia
Vierzehnheiligen Pilgrimage Church, Upper Franconia, Germany. Wildest rococo. If this doesn’t lift your spirits, forget it. Mark Hudson
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Before You Die: A great African market
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Mark Hudson
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Senegal
The Marche Sandaga, Dakar, Senegal. The visceral energy of a great African market is one of life’s essential highs.
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Before You Die: St Just to St Ives
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Mark Hudson
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United Kingdom
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Devon and Cornwall
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St Ives
Coast Road, St Just to St Ives, Cornwall, England. Megaliths, granite outcrops, tin mine engine houses, and fields sloping away towards the end of England. Mark Hudson
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North African Music
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Mark Hudson
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Morocco
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Marrakech Region
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Marrakech
A woman, not three feet away, is going into a trance - stamping heavily, her torso rocking to the rhythm of iron clappers and a booming bass lute. As she collapses to her hands and knees, the clapping and the surging anthemic singing fall away, and...
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Rome
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Mark Hudson
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Italy
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Lazio
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Rome
It’s dusk as we stagger, dripping, into Piazza Navona. The black cobbles look damp with perspiration. The ancient buildings, their facades washed in wonderful shades of orange, ochre and red, appear to be sagging in the heat. My two year-old...
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Penarth
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Mark Hudson
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United Kingdom
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Wales
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Cardiff
I remember stepping onto the cliff-top at Penarth, one blazing July morning, looking out over a dazzling panorama of the Bristol Channel with Thunderclap Newman’s ‘Something in the Air’ ringing through my mind. ‘We’ve got to get together sooner or...
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Elusive Aleppo
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Mark Hudson
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Syria
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The Northeastern Desert
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Aleppo
I’m lying on a rooftop in Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world. Pigeons gust over the ramparts of the ancient citadel, as the call to prayer goes up from first one mosque, then another - the long wavering notes overlapping, filling the...