January 24 2025

Hard pressed

Place

In a balloon over Burgundy

I said I’d never go up in a hot air balloon again. But that was a terrified me forty-five years ago. And here I was, relaxed and enjoying the views of the French Côte d’Or with my family and a handful of French people at 1,500 meters, hovering over vineyards, pastures and fields. In 1979 I was contacted by Hans Büker, a thirty-nine-year-old German balloonist who was hoping for some free publicity in the International Herald Tribune, for which I was the Swiss correspondent. Büker was trying to launch a ballooning festival in Château d’Oex in the Bernese Oberland, known for its cheese and rolling pastures pierced by imposing alps.

Estella Shardlow

Pure shores: a Scottish sea safari

In the narrow strait between Jura and Scarba, the sea does strange things. Standing waves barrel over phantom surf breaks. Steely waters seethe and swirl, as if stirred by invisible hands. No wonder the gulf’s name, Corryvreckan, means “cauldron of the speckled seas” in Gaelic; this is the world’s third largest whirlpool, classified as “unnavigable” by the Royal Navy. Yet here I am, aboard a thirty-seven-foot rigid inflatable boat (RIB), riding the rapids. Skipper Sandy Campbell cuts the engine so we can try “boat surfing,” the swell dragging us apace past Scarba’s looming quartzite cliffs. Islanders of old dreamt up mystical explanations for this phenomenon.