A nurse from North Yorkshire has taken up the challenge of walking 2000 miles across Western Europe for charity, using maps supplied by Stanfords. Andy Dennis, a staff nurse on the Intensive Care Unit at Harrogate District Hospital, will be walking from A to B - from Amsterdam to Barcelona - to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). MSF – or Doctors Without Borders – is an international humanitarian medical aid organisation that provides care to those affected by conflict, epidemics and natural disasters in over 60 countries around the world. Andy has previously worked for the charity on projects with displaced people in Uganda and Sudan.

So far, intrepid Andy has raised over £13,000 through talent contests, concerts, radio interviews and burlesque nights. He aims to bring this amount up to £16,800 with donations and further fundraising events. This money will then be used directly to fund two crucially important MSF volunteer placements abroad. Passionate about the vital work that the organisation does, Andy says: “I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work with MSF and I now wish to help provide this opportunity for others.” More...

The famous attractions of Barcelona are well known. My three personal favourites are: the interior of the church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Barri Gotic. It's stunningly beautiful, the simple lines and soaring light appealing to our contemporary aesthetic values. I was lucky enough to visit when a family wedding was in progress - moving and exhilarating.

Secondly, I recommend wandering the quiet residential streets of the Eixample. The Time Out guide to Barcelona is a comprehensive, More...

In Barcelona it's best to play the Barcelonan and simply hang out in one of Europe's most enchanting cities. Maybe it's ambling the length of La Rambla surrounded by examples of all human life. You wind between flower stalls selling fragrant lilies, roses and orchids and stands trilling to the sound of caged birds. Then dine on tapas at a shaded patio, whilst an aged accordionist plays his rheumatic instrument, attended by a mature groupie who's been a little slapdash with the Grecian 2000.

Perhaps it's tucking into pastries and chocolate con churros at Café Moka aware it hasn't changed since the civil guards barricaded themselves inside whilst George Orwell and his radical party colleagues fired on them from across the street in 1937. It could be dining on delicious king prawns at La Taxidermista. Once a shop for stuffed animals, patronised by Miró and Dalí, it's now been revamped as a well designed restaurant combining old and new - minus the animals - or it could be while visiting Snowflake at the zoo in the Parc de la Ciutadella, the only albino gorilla in captivity in the world.

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