What’s a country that’s at the top of your bucket list?

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I figure I’ve done about all the “new” travelling I’m going to do.

There are, however, places I’d love to revisit.

I posted a few weeks ago that I used to visit France a lot. Different part each time. One of my earlier visits was down into the deep south west.

I guess if you were to look on a map, it’d be around Barcelona, but maybe 30-odd miles into France. It was sufficiently close to the border that the cash machines were bilingual – French and Catalan. Perpignan was the nearest city I visited but I was actually based a lot more inland in the Aude department, I think.

I suppose if the area had a name, it was the Cathar region. The foothills of the Pyrenees, many of the hills were topped with thousand-year-old ruins of castles. Over the years, I ended up going back to the area four or five times. It was the part of earth I felt I most belonged.

I’ve toyed with the idea of going back again. And I guess it’s possible. Close. There is a budget airline flies between Bournemouth (my nearest airport) and Carcassonne, but that’s a lot of carbon that I’d have to burn.

But all other things being equal, I’d love to go back.

Another place I used to love was north Holland, a region of the Netherlands north of Amsterdam. I’d love to go back, but I used to go in the car, and I don’t know how easy it would be to use public transport. I know I could get the Eurostar to Amsterdam, then the train on to Alkmaar. I loved it there. To be honest the biggest obstacle would be getting across London to the Eurostar terminal.

In Holland, I’d not only visit Alkmaar but would love to go back to an island in the North Sea called Texel. If you know about sheep breeds(!), you’ll know the name. That place used to be fine in the car, but it’s only about 10km end-to-end, I’m not sure it even has bus services. But it’d be great to go back.