All articles

Sometimes you just want to browse. Here you will find every article in the magazine, including those that have yet to find a home within a journey.

Back to Union Lido

Two orange sand spades standing in shallow water on the beach.

Why we still end up on the same beach

Our children are grown up, we now travel halfway around the world — and yet we keep returning to Union Lido. On holiday friendships, familiar paths and the stories woven into a place.

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Union Lido · 7 min

A pair of bright blue shorts lying on an orange camping chair.

Shorts. Two gas rings. A broom.

We travel far and like to find our own way. Yet in August, we get the little caravan out. On living our own life on a smaller scale, everyday life outdoors and what camping means to us.

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Union Lido · 9 min

An orange NSU Prinz 1000 parked among trees on a campsite.

Leading Camping

A beautiful wash block with too few toilets, a controversial Dog Camp and ever-larger pitches: Union Lido has to evolve, even though many guests love it precisely as it is.

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Union Lido · 7 min

A fully loaded folding wagon standing between parasols on the beach.

Union Lido for first-timers and regulars

Booking, arriving, shopping, cycling and getting breakfast rolls without a long queue: what we actually find useful after around 25 years at Union Lido.

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Union Lido · 14 min

A sculpture by Nick Cave showing a human figure whose head consists of branches and numerous birds.

From camping to art

In the morning we sit outside our caravan; a few hours later we are surrounded by contemporary art. On clichés, different ways of looking and works of art that stay with us.

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Venice · 7 min

Colourful houses on Pellestrina reflected in the calm lagoon water.

Island-hopping by bicycle

Cycling across Lido and Pellestrina to Chioggia: an unusually beautiful journey through the lagoon — as long as the bicycles are allowed back on the boat.

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Venice Lagoon · 9 min

Panificio Vianello with its coffee bar, outdoor seating and parked vehicles on Via Fausta.

Breakfast at Vianello

Almost every other holiday morning begins at Vianello: with cappuccino, bread rolls and half an hour in a car park on Via Fausta. No special view — and precisely for that reason, somewhere we love to sit.

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Cavallino-Treporti · 6 min

An illustrated book scene with Spinnenwilli, Wilma, Doctor Thang, robots, a flying saucer and the statue of Yang Li in Beijing.

Spinnenwilli and the statue of Yang Li

Nine-year-old Spinnenwilli only wanted a week’s holiday. But then spaceships hover over Beijing, Doctor Thang searches for a mysterious statue — and the Spinnenwilli phone rings again.

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Union Lido and Beijing · 12 min

America’s East Coast

The Manhattan skyline seen across the Hudson from Weehawken.

In search of the future

New York still fascinates us enough to make us stay longer than planned. And yet something is missing from the promise of the future that the city embodied for us thirty years ago.

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New York City · 5 min

Betsy Ross

We get off at the Betsy Ross House because the courtyard looks like a café — and begin to understand how America turns history into national stories.

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Philadelphia · 6 min

Watching for buggies

We stake out country roads in our hire car, looking for horse-drawn buggies. Later, we reflect on why the Amish seem so unfamiliar to us and yet command our respect.

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Lancaster County · 9 min

A view of Provincetown, the sea and the houses along the shore.

Good Vibrations

In Provincetown, we find ourselves just outside the mainstream as a straight couple. With Paige Turner and out at sea, we discover how exciting it can be not to be at the centre of things.

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Provincetown · 6 min

A view across the National Mall in Washington, with the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

America in the park

Washington stayed with us not as one story but as a sequence of images: Pride flags, school buses, monuments, a Texan, flags for headaches and an almost empty Mall in the evening.

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Washington, D.C. · 12 min

An opulently furnished interior in a Newport mansion.

Stucco or exposed concrete

Newport’s mansions bring to mind King Ludwig II of Bavaria and his extravagant palaces. Behind them lies a larger question: what are wealth, history and good taste meant to make visible in our homes?

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Newport · 8 min

The statue of Nathan Hale on the Yale University campus.

The spy, the statue and the CIA

Yale commemorates Nathan Hale, and so does the CIA. Yet with no known portrait to work from, the famous statue probably does not really look like him.

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New Haven · 4 min

Historical industrial buildings and pipes on the American side of the Niagara Gorge.

The falls reclaimed

Factory buildings, chimneys and thick pipes right on the Niagara Gorge: a historical photograph shows how thoroughly a landscape can be built over — and that it need not stay that way.

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Niagara Falls · 5 min

A view of the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls from every angle

From America to Canada, from viewpoints, steps, tunnels and twice from a boat: we tried almost every perspective on Niagara Falls. These are the experiences we would plan exactly the same way again.

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Niagara Falls · 11 min

3,600 kilometres towards the Balkans

A view across Dubrovnik’s red rooftops towards the city walls and the sea.

Dubrovnik’s rooftops

From above, Dubrovnik looks perfect. Yet its gleaming roofs also speak of war, reconstruction and the question of what beauty conceals.

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Dubrovnik · 5 min

A view of Dubrovnik with its old town, city walls and the sea.

Dubrovnik without the frustration

Dubrovnik is crowded, hot and expensive — yet it can still be a highlight of a journey if the timing, breaks and expectations are right.

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Dubrovnik · 9 min

Luggage and a cool box after returning from the Balkan road trip.

The search is our way

A white compressor cool box becomes the starting point for a question: do we really need to find one way of travelling that is ours — or is searching already our way?

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Balkan road trip · 9 min

The Pelješac Bridge between the Croatian mainland and the Pelješac peninsula.

A bridge around borders

The Pelješac Bridge is a beautiful structure. But it also tells of how old borders, access to the sea and political compromises still shape a journey today.

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Pelješac / Neum · 7 min

Plitvice in practice

From the outset, Plitvice Lakes was meant to be a highlight of our journey. It exceeded even those expectations. A little preparation and good timing make the visit better still.

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Plitvice Lakes · 10 min

A view across Mostar and the Old Bridge.

A German for Bosnia and Herzegovina

We expected a visibly divided city. Instead, we found a lively Mostar — and, of all places, encountered a political arrangement unlike any other in Europe.

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Mostar · 7 min

Ston

Some places seem to be merely on the way. Sometimes that is precisely why it pays not to leave them for later.

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Ston · 4 min

Angie outside the Croatian National Bank in Zagreb.

Our last kuna

How our last kuna became €69.02 — and why a detour to Zagreb was worth it.

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Zagreb · 5 min

Kotor and the cruise passengers

A bay whose scale only becomes clear with a large ship in it. An old town less crowded than expected. And the realisation that we are part of this tourism ourselves.

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Kotor · 9 min