A great new travel book published just in time for Christmas. A selection of travel stories from the more unusual parts of the globe that you can explore from the comfort of your armchair. These are places that you will never see advertised in a travel agent's window. ...

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When a nuclear accident destroyed much of Power plant number four at Chernobyl, the resulting radioactive cloud spread across much of western Europe, leading to restrictions on milk and farm animal consumption from affected areas, many of which have only been lifted in the last 5 years. Meanwhile, 5 km's from the reactor was a modern city called Pripyat, housing many of the...

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On the maps of Ukraine in the 1980's it was marked implausibly as a Young Pioneer camp. In reality the Duga, a mass of interwoven pipes, pylons,and wires, was a top secret experimental Soviet radar installation hidden away in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. ...

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I used to pass by the cooling towers at Didcot on an almost weekly basis on the main rail line between Bristol and London. They dominated the landscape pouring columns of steam in the sky from the coal powered plant, some saw them as a blight on the green country landscape of Oxfordshire. I just though they looked magnificent, symmetrical and a marvel...

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The fire button was grey, not red as expected. Applying gentle pressure from my finger on it caused the equipment lights to flash and a deafening bell to ring. I had initiated the unstoppable sequence to launch nuclear missiles, along with decoy rockets, from the silos outside. ...

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