I had already encountered the fish shortage about six years ago in the Peloponnese, then again last year (see blog passim). This time it was on Skiathos, an island of the Sporades group which shudders as yet another planeload of Brits and/or Germans lands directly at the airport. In fact I’ve never spent a better pre-departure afternoon as we sat at a restaurant terrace jutting out over the bay, sipping retsina and devouring platters of succulent grilled seafood - all fresh - while watching plane after plane fly low over the harbour to the runway barely a kilometre away. Strolling from restaurant to airport terminal was sheer pleasure - and of course by then we were late. But last to arrive for check-in also meant no queuing - cunning.

Back to fresh food though, it was enlightening to discover that even the divinely grilled lamb wasn’t local - New Zealand we were told. “But what about all those happy herb-fed lambs gamboling over the inland hills?” I spluttered. “Not enough of them” said the restaurateur. And that’s what it’s all about. With a population of 11 million, Greece isn’t exactly overpopulated: 84 people per sq kilometre compared with 246 in the UK - that’s about a third. But then count the hundreds of thousands who pour in every summer and all presumably demand seafood or lamb. There was plenty of other fabulously fresh fodder though, including countless variations on the melitzanosalata (the Greek version of baba ghanoush) theme, so we hardly suffered. And once we’d definitively registered the name of the unbeatable table retsina, Malamatina, then we were up and running.

It’s hard to believe but I didn’t even realise that the blockbuster film Mamma Mia! was filmed on Skiathos and on neighbouring Skopelos. It’s not my kind of film - Meryl Streep leaping up and down on a springy bed in dungarees? it just didn’t entice me to the cinema. But I quite understand why they chose these islands. Even 20 odd years on from when I first visited them, they are still incredibly green, unspoilt and even dare I say it, low-key, though I’d hate to be there in high season. From the main road hugging the south coast we followed a track through pungent pine-woods to beaches on the north coast which at 10 am were deserted. A few more bodies arrived, but the sands were generous.

Then those transparent cobalt - turquoise liquid depths. With barely any fish - it is indeed worrying. But the mystery for me is how do the Libyans on the other side of the Mediterranean manage such an abundance (see previous blog on Tripoli)? It just doesn’t make sense.

Even the squid laundry-line looked distinctly bare.

But perfumed air and dramatic skies compensated - at least they can’t be destroyed by man - or can they?

What has definitely changed, apart from the ‘look’ he likes to project to his citizens, is Qaddafi’s attitude to the world at large. Only a decade ago Libya was a pariah state on a par with Iran, North Korea et al. Today, after endless overtures (including Tony Blair’s handshake in ‘that’ tent) resulting in a complete volte face, Tripoli now sees the stars and stripes flying over the newly opened American embassy, a momentous event which took place on May 13 - a first in 30 years. The new US ambassador even drew comparisons with Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, so that’s saying something.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi continues his open-doors policy to Africa, wisely turning his back on the vagaries of the Arab states of the Middle East. Tripoli sometimes feels like a crossroads of the entire continent, with a host of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa as well as North African neighbours from Tunisia and Morocco. Crafts are very much the domain of Tunisians, while restaurants monopolise Moroccans. And tucked away in the backstreets of the medina countless tailors stitching up lengths of brilliant wax-printed cotton turn out to come from Benin. In the souks too, many goods are imported, from python skins to leather babouches, making Tripoli a fantastic entrepot of the African continent (though it’s the gold souk that seems to be thriving - particularly with the new Polish tourists). With only 6 million people, a country roughly the size of France, Germany and Switzerland combined and blessed with fantastic natural resources, there’s obviously plenty of room. I even met a bunch of Vietnamese road-builders, contracted by a Tunisian company down in the Sahara.

Something I had forgotten was Libya’s short period of British rule, from 1943 to 1951. The Italians of course left a mega imprint, from Roman days and, much later, the colonial 1920-30s, but Britain was there too. This I was reminded of when revisiting Tripoli’s most over-the-top mosque, the Gurgi mosque, to revel in its interior of dazzling Ottoman-era tiles, glittering chandeliers, marble, strip-lights and wall to wall rugs.

I had previously visited it three years ago, but this time I was lucky enough to have a guide-cum-translator, Jamal. So it was that chatting to the genial caretaker, a delightful little man of 83 years old, I learnt that he had worked for the Brits, met Churchill and seen General Montgomery as well as Mussolini. How extraordinary to meet such living history. Off he shuffled to dig out his old identity card from the British War Department, as well as an illustrated history book of that period. Bizarrely he mentioned how much he enjoyed being with the New Zealand corps, prompting me to wonder if he ever met my (late) father who had been a Kiwi pilot stationed in Libya at that time. Here is Bilghassam Buklal himself, proudly showing off his identity card.

Such is history, it goes in circles, and that’s one of the many reasons why I love travelling. Serendipitous moments such as that turn a mere ‘visit’ into something much deeper.

Luckily the sandstorm that very nearly DID blow us away on our 8-hour drive south from Tripoli decided to stop by the following day. This left limpid blue skies, clear light, deep shadows and blissful early summer temperatures in the early 30s. Hard to beat. But, as I said, it was the labyrinthine structure of the medina that seduced, semi-deserted as the inhabitants were moved out to a modern town in 1986. The supreme irony is that their cheap concrete apartment blocks are light-years away from the intelligent architecture of this old town. Built centuries ago to withstand the climatic extremes of the desert, its sinuous covered streets incorporate benches, niches and archways, and are occasionally perforated by a sky-light or open out into a small open square in a cascade of Saharan sunlight. Coolness therefore rules in this semi-underground universe while the twisting lay-out of the streets successfully thwarts any desert wind.

Berber decorative tastes are extreme, and it seems three-quarters of the medina houses are still maintained by their owners, their interior blanketed in a dizzying display of vividly coloured textiles, murals, family mementoes, brass pots and mirrors (both the latter designed to reflect the light entering a single opening in the ceiling). I was told too that the women’s domain was the flat roof crowning the three floors below, another world entirely of light, skies and interconnecting terraces - though limited shade under an awning or in a tiny kitchen. This is where I got a sense of the lay-out of the old town looking across the intricate pattern of roofs, each with its upturned finials and irregular walls, while the perimeter was fringed by date-palms. In the far distance rose the brash, gigantic mosque which dominates the new town - an ironically disproportionate building that seems to have been parachuted into the sands.

As this was Friday, there was a constant flow of men (no women) coming to the mosques, all still maintained and perfectly scrubbed. In a couple of semi open-air tea-rooms locals languidedly sipped tea, chatted and joked, while sub-Saharan workmen bent double over wheelbarrows continued with renovation - a sign that at least someone cares about this treasure. As Ghadames was a lucrative crossroads of the Trans-Saharan trade routes, its spring, gardens and palm-groves were carefully nurtured - and, in parts, still flourish. By late afternoon, post-siesta when the entire town closed down, a newly rebuilt pool area suddenly became a playground for local teenagers to dip and dive. In the background loomed an oddity - a gently crumbling hotel used by Sophia Loren and John Wayne in the late 1950s while filming the forgettable Legion of the Lost. Word has it that theirs was an emotionally tumultuous collaboration - but that’s history, or is it yet another myth?

Like its remote equivalent across the Sahara in Mali, Timbuktu, Ghadames specialises in legends, myths and exotic extremes - perfect material for tourist brochures. Yet surprisingly few tourists drift through. Most were Italian and French, both nationalities revisiting their former colonial stamping-ground. In contrast, a few years ago I found the more renowned Timbuktu rather a sad, neglected place, semi-commercialised for waves of tourists, unfriendly as a result, and with little interest other than its beautiful mud mosque. Even the surrounding sand dunes were dotted with litter. Meanwhile the easy-going and welcoming Ghadames population - whether local Berbers, Tuaregs, Moroccans or sub-Saharan Africans (and even Vietnamese road-builders) - struggle to find a place in our world, despite the fact that their ‘green’ architecture is exactly what hip architects of the west are aiming to recreate.

And then I remembered that the caravans that plodded across the desert exchanged not only ostrich-feathers, ivory, precious stones and essences, but also slaves - in Ghadames this ‘currency’ lasted right up until 1914. And the end of that trade spelt its decline. Just deserts?

It is certainly not in your face, like Marrakech or Fez, but beneath the surface breathes intrigue and covert dealings. Yes, there’s low-life but it’s a port after all and, more than that, it lived through over 30 years as an International Zone with an unusually tolerant attitude to homosexuality. And apart from that Tangiers has got the Atlantic and the Med - what a combination, what views, what fish!

I loved wandering through the medina backstreets with their splashes of colour, steps, viewpoints and twisting alleys. We chatted to a café-owner who told us stories of the golden days when Keith Richards and Mick Jagger would slump into kif-induced oblivion in the company of local fishermen. Across the alley he pointed out Barbara Hutton’s old house: the panoramic roof=terrace once witnessed parties like nothing since. Today Café Baba is distinctly has-been, but still.

There are loads of other places like this in Tangier, living on an idiosyncratic past which, if you know a little about it, makes them fascinating - part of living history. The last representative of the golden years, the writer Paul Bowles, bowed out just ten years ago, but his Moroccan protégé, Mrabi, continues to lead the Tangerine literary circles. Some places have undergone facelifts like the lovely old Hotel Continental down on the port, which appeared in the film, The Sheltering Sky. I remember a noisy parrot holding forth here 20 years ago; today it’s gone but the vintage piano in the foyer is said to be one and the same that Humphrey Bogart tinkled on in Casablanca (a film incidentally that was based on Tangiers during its international years).
Up on the hill, the Grand Hotel Villa de France where Matisse once stayed and painted the view is at last getting the renovation it deserves while the Minzah Hotel, opened by Lord Bute in 1930, trades on its historic stream of Hollywood celebs - Rita Hayworth, Douglas Fairbanks, Liz Taylor, Richard Gere etc etc. Then there’s the infamous Café de Paris, once favoured by secret agents and Jean Genet, just one of a stream of literary gurus, then the legendary bookshop, the Librairie des Colonnes, now distinctly unloved and semi-deserted. And there are more, like the Café Central on the Petit Socco, still a crossroads for the rich, the seedy and the passing trade.

But above all there’s a new vitality afoot which seems to be catapulting Tangiers forwards. Fresh blood is part of it. At the bookshop, an enthusiastic young Frenchman has ambitious plans. Other French expats are running new guest-houses in the Kasbah while Spanish restaurateurs and even Andalucian musicians are finding their place in this amazingly cosmopolitan town. And yet you still see large Berber women from the mountains in their broad hats gathering to sell fabulous fresh produce while, every morning on the Grand Socco, tradesmen set up the tools of their trade (plumber, painter, mason, electrician) like art installations ready to be hired for a day’s work. And some discreet gay cruising still goes on in the background, while hordes of day-trippers from Spain flood the overpriced shops of the souk.

Despite its eccentric cultural appeal and the new money being poured into the infrastructure, one thing to remember is that the Tangerine economy is based on three things: port activities (soon to move lock stock and barrel 30km east); illegal emigrants (many come on foot all the way from West Africa in a desperate bid for a boat to get them across the Strait to Spain - some lose their lives or their savings in the process), and finally drugs. On my last night, I found myself in a restaurant the middle of a traditional wedding party. The trumpets trumpeted, older women ululated, young women clapped or danced with trays balanced on their heads, and acres of diamonds glinted. It was obvious that vast amounts of money were present in that salon. Then I was told that the bride’s family money came from drug-trafficking to Amsterdam. Typical Tangiers, typically louche. Maybe it hasn’t changed after all.

I was amazed to spot this graffiti near Beaubourg as the curly script suggests an authentic Ben, an anarchic master of the short and succinct phrase who hit the big time way back in the 1960-70s. The Musée d’Art Moderne inside Beaubourg has a few of his pieces, including a handmade shop full of quippy signs but here he was back on a Parisian street. Chapeau, as they say.

A couple of days of wintry sunshine and Parisians seemed far chirpier than Londoners. The bars overflowed, the brasseries were packed though those soldes lingered on. Lucky them, they have no Evening Standard boards shouting the latest doom and gloom headline, so they can be oblivious to the bigger picture. The friends I caught up with were all in fine spirits, from a successful but impoverished writer who cooks like a diva to a photographer who always manages to achieve what he wants, however outrageous or ambitious his project, to a doctor who’s travelled the world for NGOs and is now happily settled back in Paris, to a gallerist who can still throw a splashy dinner-party as if he’d just won the lottery. Crisis? what crisis?

We retraced a few of my old steps, in particular to a classic old bar in the rue Montorgueil, La Grappe d’Orgueil. It was a bit early, so almost deserted, but we happily went with the slow flow, sipping glasses of organic Cotes du Rhone and devouring oysters by the half-dozen. Freshly trucked from Britanny that morning, they were utterly divine. It sounds extravagant, but that’s the beauty of Paris. You can live like a king or queen in a backstreet. And when I chatted with the oyster-shucker outside, a man in his 50s sporting what looked like a fake handlebar moustache, it turned out he was the same man I’d bought my oysters from 15 years or so ago when I lived round the corner. Plus ca change…

I wanted to at last get to ex-President Chirac’s cultural baby, the Musée des Arts Premiers, now simply called the Musée du Quai Branly. This showcase of France’s fantastic ethnographic collections built up over the centuries by explorers and colonialists turned out to be yet another mega ego-trip by the Parisian architect, Jean Nouvel. What a nightmare, a formless jumble apparently conceived to recreate the pre-rational mind. How condescending.

It’s less than three years old but the exterior already looks well past its prime - apart from the savannah-style landscaping, which I actually quite liked. Something wild at last in this city of formality. But the grass planted down the façades is looking distinctly ropey as you can see above. Inside the madness continued. Walking up a curved ramp a la Guggenheim, we wondered where it was taking us, and why it existed. To give us a clearer view of parts of the ceiling under repair?

Then came the collections themselves. Fabulous, rare artefacts, particularly from Oceania, were displayed in huge glass cases in a depressingly relentless gloom. Sucked further into this amorphous cauchemar, we tripped over corners then couldn’t work out what we had already seen, which way we’d walked and which way to go; there was absolutely no sense to the lay-out. Even the four major sections (Oceania / Asia / Africa/ Americas) managed to merge due to indistinct signage.

I was nonetheless overjoyed to spot in the Australian section a group of pukumani poles made by the Tiwi islanders. Last year I visited their island and saw these carved burial poles in their natural location, out in the bush. But here the sunshine and spirit were lost behind dark grey designer blinds. So this was the French crisis, a complete crisis of perception, yet another triumph of thoughtless form over function, of ego over content. On the way back, as we strolled along the quais, we saw a mini-demo of students crossing the Pont des Arts. It was not quite big enough to bring the city to a standstill as had happened the week before, but it looks as if Paris, like everywhere else, is in for a strife-ridden year ahead.

The theatre has come up several times in the last month (including the complex play Be Near Me at the Donmar and the visually memorable perfromance, less theatre, more choreography: Les sept planches de la ruse, by Frenchman Aurelien Bory, at the Barbican) but somehow I’ve missed out on film. So this chill and grey weekend spelt catch-up time. Both films spirited me away to the US - perhaps the right timing in view of the groovy new President that every other western country wants to snatch away and make their own. If only.

But back to film. Milk is an incredibly moving and illuminating film about the San Francisco gay movement back in the late 1970s. Harvey Milk, the leading activist, is played by Sean Penn, as brilliant as ever, managing to be both charismatic yet poised. It could have been too easy to err on the camp side of gayness, but he doesn’t. Strange to be propelled back into a period that I lived through myself, though then I was suspended hazily between sex drugs and rock ‘n roll at university and winging it wildly in Italy then Paris. Homophobia didn’t seem to be an issue in those milieux - particularly Paris where I actually witnessed the opening of that legendary nightclub, Le Palace, along with half the city’s gay population. Their creativity seemed unstoppable.

But Milk shows how San Francisco’s activists gradually and bravely forced issues out into the open, finally winning political points and status against all the odds. Tragically, Milk becomes a victim of a jealous, homophobic shooting. What a loss. When I got home, I found an email from my old buddy Greg in San Francisco (excellent synchronicity) and after a quick exchange he told me how he’d seen the sets and filming in his neighbourhood and knew some of the actors. Yet the community still has so much to fight for, thirty years on. And he admits to not being able to judge the film yet - it’s all too close.

Yesterday cinematic escape continued when the Man and I went to see Revolutionary Road, Sam Mendes’ follow-up to American Beauty, covering the bleak emptiness of 1950s suburban America. Kate Winslett was impressive as the beautiful but disillusioned housewife, as was pretty boy Di Caprio as her husband, and again, the period was perfectly rendered. But somehow I felt I’d seen this scenario before, the unfulfilled housewife/ mother dreaming of better things. Having just googled crazily I’ve come up with just one previous film of the same ilk - Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, in which Julianne Moore played a stifled 1950s housewife (sandwiched in the trilogy between Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf and Meryl Streep as an engaging New York editor (?).

And as the snow continues to fall burying London into a full-stop, maybe it’s time to get out there and experience it - the real thing. To finish, here are a few snowmen hanging out in the park nearby.

A few weeks ago I snapped a repeat photo of one of many we had taken in what was then a much emptier Alhambra. Here it is above, a zelij-faced wall and Spanish chairs in the Patio de los Arrayanes (named after the myrtle hedges). This time round it was Christmas Eve therefore probably one of the least busy days of the year - though you wouldn’t have believed it. Hundreds of people milled around. Since my previous visit - 5 years or so ago - they’ve introduced an annoyingly regimented visiting system, not only to enter the Nazrid Palace (the star of the show) but also everywhere else. The beautiful gardens of the Generalife for example are on a one-way ticket: once visited, that’s it, you can’t return. But who can complain? The carved plasterwork as fine as lace, the soaring ceilings edged by muqarnas, endless perspectives, slender columns ending in intricate capitals, light and shade, trickling fountains, enclosed spaces opening onto patios…it’s another world.

My partner, never having been there before, loved it, despite the wintry vegetation and chill in the air. The snow-capped Sierra Nevada in the background and gentle sun gave the whole afternoon a magical edge, lessened when we realised we had only minutes to scour the shops down below for the final elements of our Christmas lunch. All done, as doors clanked shut around us, we sped back through the inky night to our little casita in the Alpujarras, just an hour away. Next day, it was Christmas lunch in the sunshine beneath orange trees heavy with fruit. That too is a Moorish legacy, brought to Andalucia along with rice and the pomegranates that gave their name to Granada.

The big three cities of Andalucia - Granada, Cordoba and Seville - all proudly bear the stamp of centuries of Moorish occupation (Granada resisted the Catholic reconquista for 800 years, the longest) and of course it’s much vaunted by the tourist industry. As Obama now extends a much belated hand to the Muslim world, so they too are becoming more aware of what their culture bequeathed to the West. A year ago I met a dynamic Malay tour-operator who specialises in tours through the Islamic world; not surprisingly, Andalucia came high on his hit-list.

Granada’s Albaicin, above, (the old Moorish quarter which sprawls over the hillside opposite the Alhambra) may be a classic case of over-priced restaurants with views, but it is also full of atmospheric carmen (patio houses with leafy gardens), Moroccan tea-houses and even a spiffy new mosque looking across at the Alhambra. It’s good to see that as the Moroccan population grows (both legal and illegal - there are endless tragic stories of ‘boat-people’ exploited &/or drowned as they cross the Strait of Gibraltar), the Spanish government is at last waking up to their needs. Just a few years ago, the welcome was far from warm, even xenophobic. Yet look at a typical Andalucian and you could be looking at a Moroccan, or vice versa.

Last weekend I was back down that way again, this time closer to Cordoba. I had been dying to return there ever since visiting Damascus last autumn, as the Syrian capital was where the great Ummayad dynasty originated, before it headed through Arabia and across North Africa to finally invade the Iberian Peninsula. Cordoba became their first capital, reaching its zenith well before Granada. So there it is, the mezquita (mosque) of Cordoba which locals insist on calling the catedral ever since a Baroque carbuncle was plonked in its centre. But you can forget that heavy-handed symbol of Christianity as you meander beneath the double height horseshoe arches, their rhythmical bands of red brick and limestone echoing the black and white of Damascus and you breathe in this exotic soul.

Again, I managed to grab a relatively quite moment. It was a rainy Sunday and the mezquita-catedral was just about to close for Mass, so most people were leaving. What a place, what a civilisation it reflects. Then for nostalgia’s sake I slipped down a side-street to Bodegas Campos, an illustrious tapas-haunt where I sipped a glass of crisp Manzanilla while indulging in a quite divine salmorejo. Que viva Andalucia!

Back there again in November to research a magazine feature together with a brilliant and fun young Dutch photographer, I realised how infinitely slowly those changes actually take place. There is now a growing influx of foreigners buying properties in the medina, many of them hoping to make a sybaritic living running a riad hotel. Some do, some don’t, but as the numbers grow so does competition. I was told real estate prices haven’t budged in two years, though the number of riad-hotels now easily tops 100. The problem is partly the climate. Unlike Marrakech’s brilliant blue skies, winters here tend towards the cold and damp when woollen djellabas become your best friend.

Five years or so ago there were only a handful of guest-houses, and in 1996 only one. At that time the only chic hotel was Palais Jamai which sits high on the northern hilltop, overlooking the medina walls. For picture research sake and for nostalgia, we trekked up there, the first time I’d returned in about 20 years. I even remember meeting the illustrious Edward Said holidaying there with his family when I first stayed there - around 1983 . The view is still breathtaking, the gardens still luxuriant and the old 1879 wing still stunning - but it was deserted. We took mint tea alone on the vast terrace and soaked up a few rays of winter sun before grabbing a petit taxi and whizzing back to the Place Rcif, the beating gastro-heart of the lower medina.

Now this is where I enter into a kind of gastro dream-world. Knowing what goes into Moroccan tagines, I revel in what the market offers here. Pure heaven, as much for the quality of produce as for the displays. I see still life after still life, and can never resist buying a few little bagfuls - fresh pink garlic, preserved lemons, purple olives, luscious dates - some of which find their way back to London with me - pungently. I also take masses of pics, taking care not to hurt anyone’s feelings (it’s their country, after all), particularly in the case of women. And there are a few faces I know - like the chicken-seller with his triple-focal specs, who features in our book. He’s still there, plonking live chickens on the scales before dealing with the necessary then producing them plucked and trussed to the client 15 minutes later.

What I love too are the seasonal aspects. At this time of year the great delicacy is snail soup. Every evening a stall sets up with a huge steaming pot of it - crowds materialise instantly to buy a bowl and sup on the spot, crowding round for warmth. It’s less enticing to see the creatures live - crawling around a huge basket as they await their maker, in all senses. Here they are - and of course wherever I travel there will always be an olive or two on the horizon, as in the basket below.

Back at base I feel I belong to a family. On my last three trips to Fez I’ve stayed at Dar Seffarine (www.darseffarine.com), a strategically located riad right beside the venerable Kairaouine mosque and library, easy to get to though typically tucked away down a side-alley, and quite stunning. The owners, Kate from Norway and her husband/ partner, Alaa, from Iraq, have done wonders to restore this beautiful 18th century mansion. They are architectural and design purists, so there’s virtually no sense of the 21st c other than a functioning bathroom and electricity. Even at night they favour candle-light, making evening arrival a magical experience, enhanced by subtle incense. Sounds hippy - but it isn’t, it’s very chic.

What I love above all is the roof terrace, with fabulous views - as above. Far over the medina rooftops to the hills beyond, and at specific times (prayer) with a soundtrack of wailing muezzin - all tones, all volumes in one mega cacophony. It’s stirring stuff and stone benches piled high with cushions invite long-term contemplation. Breakfast is served just below the terrace in a dining-room flooded with morning sunlight - crisp, freshly baked Moroccan bread, divinely soft mille trous (baghrir), a spongey pancake that melts in your mouth,

along with homemade jams, quince, orange, raspberry.

Then there are the malaoui, flakey, hot, sweet pastries, the freshly squeezed, naturally sweet orange juice, the strong dark coffee… Fez I shall be back again.

The whole experience was uplifting - despite the weather conditions and the frightening crush that resulted from a stubborn group of 100 or so protesters fimly entrenched in front of the Israeli Embassy. They spoilt it for the rest of us, as the huge crowd was forced to squeeze through a much narrower space behind them to continue. Some gave up, turned round & pushed their way back through the demonstrators. We hung in there at the edge, watched parents lift prams over the barriers helped by policemen/women, then eventually broke through to reach a welcomingly empty stretch leading past Kensington Gardens. Then up there on a big screen was the MEP George Galloway speaking to the hordes. He’s not my favourite, so that also encouraged our retirement.

Later, watching coverage on TV news and reading today’s newspapers, I see as usual the emphasis is on the hardliners who smashed the window of a Starbucks and clashed with riot police. Why only mention the extremists? We saw nothing of this - at the most a few teenagers waving sticks, their faces swathed in keffiyehs to look hip and heavy.

Otherwise, all we witnessed were these thousands and thousands of good-humoured, completely ethnically mixed demonstrators marching through central London carrying banners, flags or boards, determined to take a stance regarding the atrocities in Gaza. Muslims, Christians, Jews were all there, young and old, prams or walking-sticks, middle class or otherwise, it was an extraordinary multi-cultural mix. Last Saturday’s march past Westminster (when we ended up throwing shoes at Downing St) in brilliant sunshine seemed like a mere warm-up - in all senses. This felt altogether more momentous and concentrated.
Here’s a pic of just a sample of last week’s highlight: old shoes destined for Gordon Brown a few yards from Downing St., following the example of the Iraqi journalist who chucked his shoes at George W.

But for anyone who wasn’t at yesterday’s demonstration, how will they know the intensity of feeling and the incredible will of thousands who came from all over the country to express themselves? Our media focuses on violence, a drop in the ocean compared with the majority attitude from peaceful yet incensed protesters. And does the Israeli government care? Of course not. But let’s not forget…

Of course I loved the Ummayad mosque, the beating heart of the old city and number three in Islam’s pecking order after the Kaaba (or is it the mosque in Medina?) and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The vast marble-paved courtyard is usually chocka with Shiite pilgrims from Iran who flock like crows to see one particular shrine in the east wing. Just outside the mosque walls is Saladin’s tomb, surprisingly low-key considering how thoroughly this Kurdish warrior thrashed the crusaders. The mausoleum stands next door to a “putting on special clothes room” - aka a cloakroom where western women have to dress up like monks in hooded robes. They look at you and say - “size 2″! In the main prayer hall the head of John the Baptist is another big draw. And in the middle of the complex is the fabulous courtyard, some façades blanketed in extraordinary mosaic, serenely spacious, colonnades down one side and ablution fountain in the centre - all in all, a push-over conversion.

Even more astounding is the fact that this mosque started life B.C. as an Aramean temple to the storm god, then became a Roman temple to Jupiter, next a Christian church, and finally in the 7th century (that’s extremely early days in the Islamic calendar) started to function as a mosque. Sign of those tolerant times was the fact that both religions worked side by side for decades until there were too many Muslims and the Christians were forced to move on. If you’re in Damascus, don’t miss a last glimpse of the mosque as the light fades and the minaret takes on wonderfully garish hues.

Not far away is another great Damascene institution, Bakdash. Founded in the 1890s this ice-cream parlour is seemingly on everyone’s itinerary. I’d first heard about it when talking to Lucy and Greg Malouf (authors of Saha, a book on Syrian and Lebanese food) in Melbourne last summer, who said the elastic ice-cream was tops. So there I headed, armed with various guide-books that said just the same thing. The secret ingredient apparently is the ground root of a kind of orchid which replaces egg. I went, I saw, I tasted and I have to say I was slightly disappointed. But the pistachio topping was ace and the almost studious atmosphere at the tables in the back parlour quite extraordinary.

There’s something captivating about the light in this city. When I was there it was autumn and the sunlight still strong. There are moments when shafts of light slip through apertures in the ceilings of a caravanserai or sneak into shadowy souk passageways to create pure magic. In the evening the heavy brass lanterns are hard to better, often perforated to make dizzying patterns of light and shadow. Moroccans, eat your heart out, the Damascenes did it first. In fact I can’t wait, as I’m soon to return to Cordoba, the Ummayad’s first European site, via Morocco, in the 8th century. Damascus gave me a strong sense of this Andalucian city, so time to see it again.

Finally - well for this blog anyway - there are pomegranates. Juices of deep crimson, darker and thicker than blood, a liquid that you feel pumping through your veins. Divine.