From Red Rocks to Ostrava, my year of travel miracles

Sometimes journeys deliver unexpected wonders, as Simon Calder discovered roughly every month throughout 2025

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Time to wrap up a year of adventures in which flights have been cancelled, attractions were unexpectedly closed and I made decisions that turned out to be wrong or expensive - usually both.

But travel can also deliver small wonders that enhance the experience. As fortune would have it, miracles have come along at a helpfully regular rate of one a month. Some of these revelations were unexpectedly unfolding events, others are open to everyone.

January: Miracle of Melbourne

There was nothing miraculous about British Airways cancelling the Airbus A380 flight to Singapore at the gate because of a technical issue. BA staff rebooked me on Singapore Airlines, which delivered me to the city state in time for my onward connection to Melbourne. Once again, though, the Jetstar flight was cancelled at the gate - this time due to pilot sickness.

The business class flight on Emirates to get me to the big travel event I was attending was a disappointing “distress purchase”, not least because it arrived late. But getting from inside the plane to inside a taxi driving away from Melbourne airport in nine minutes was a miracle, and I reached the venue just in time for the speeches.

February: Miracle of Reggio di Calabria

Here’s a miracle you can experience yourself. Take a plane or train to Reggio di Calabria at the toe of Italy: a handsome, end-of-the-line city that totters down in terraces to the Mediterranean. Visit the National Archaeological Museum, spend three minutes in a dehumidifying airlock and step out to meet “A” and “B”, as these two life-size sculptures of naked males are prosaically named. These are the Riace Bronzes: created by the Greeks 2,500 years ago and found in the sea bed off the Calabrian coast by a passing fisherman in 1972. They are the most powerful figures from the past I have ever seen.