It’s been a while since I got back from Paris but things have been so hectic since then that I’ve not found the time to document my trip.

The last time I was in Paris as a tourist I did most of the obvious stuff which meant that this time I was able to just hang out and wander around without any particular aim. That I also had great weather and some luck factored in to make a great weekend.

As I write this I should have just returned from a trip to Istanbul. Unfortunately the now infamous Ash Cloud put a stop to that before it even started. I spent a Friday evening going through cancelling my flights, hotels and tour.

Dispiriting doesn’t begin to cover it.

But I wasn’t going to let something like that completely ruin my week. Limited to the UK, I decided to go to Salisbury and the near by Stone Henge, two places that I’ve not been to for a long time.

I’ve not been to Oxford for… um… since I was seventeen and applying to various universities around the UK. I remember having a fun trip last time but I have zero recollection of where we went and have no photos.

At first I thought that might happen again. Not because I’m suffering from amnesia but because when I arrived it was raining pretty heavily and, for a while, it seemed that the hotel might be a better option than trudging around in the rain.

The first few years of my November Plan were all business trips, but the truth is that I rarely get to see much more than the airport, an office and a hotel room when I go away. Oh, and maybe a restaurant if I get the chance.

That made last weeks trip to Paris and Frankfurt the exception. Meetings finished early in France and I couldn’t change my train reservation so I took the Metro a few stops south a hung around Notre Dame for a couple of hours.

While there was a very long short-list of places to go, Vienna eventually won the coveted prize of being the destination of my November trip, 2009. Before I stepped onto the plane I confess that I have little idea what there is to see in Austria’s capital city. It certainly has a famous name but you can’t base an entire trip on an Ultravox song and the teenage home of one of the least loved people from the twentieth century.

I spent a week walking around the Sierra Tejeda Natural Park, staying in Canillas de Albaida which is about an hours drive from Malaga in the south of Spain.

Over the following few posts I’ll be talking about and showing pictures of the tiny, white-washed villages, the diverse and beautiful mountains and, as a contrast, the buildings and culture in Granada.

• Canillas de Albaida — the town that I stayed in
• Walking in Andalucía — what I went to Spain to do
• Granada — what I did on my “rest” day

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Despite Californian voters failing to reject Prop 8, the graffiti in Los Angeles shows that not everyone agrees: Post No Bills Prop.

In stark contrast to pretty much everything else, Time Lords in the US are clearly smaller than their British equivalent.

One thing that I wasn’t really expecting to see in Southern California were a series of wind farms. With their quiet grace and purpose against the desert backdrop they are oddly beautiful.

What can you say about Yosemite that hasn’t already been said? And what can you photograph that there aren’t already ten copies of on Flickr? (Don’t even get me started on some of those people that used film rather than CMOS sensors.)

Having said that, it didn’t stop me trying. There is no two ways about it: Yosemite is an absolutely stunning location. Everywhere you look there is more beautiful scenery, forests, water falls.