While some may come to Madrid for the many wonderful art galleries, the culture, the shopping (do they come for the shopping?) I've made the focus of my trip (aside from some compulsory tourist-ing) the local food markets. The Spanish food has been rather too good to me so far, but luckily an enforced diet … Continue reading Madrid Mercados Part 1
FOOD Barcelona is a gastronomically wonderful city, but it is expensive. The main tourist strip is aligned around Passeig de Gracia - which also happens to be where the cities luxury stores are, so, you know. If you are happy to stay in the tourist centre and are keen for convenient, trendy bars, I highly … Continue reading Eating Barcelona
Why on earth would an Australian who doesn't ski choose to visit the Bavarian alps in the middle of winter? Who knows. Some overly romanticized ideal of snow capped mountains and Alpine villages perhaps. All proved true, so that makes it worth it. I spent 10 days in a little town called Greiling at a … Continue reading Greiling
Strasbourg, a slightly more abrupt than usual post! Strasbourg is on first impressions a charming town. Although I arrived late in the afternoon and didn't have much of a walk around that evening, I could already tell that I was going to like it. It helped that I stayed at an incredibly renovated hotel called Graffalgar … Continue reading Strasbourg
It could feel awkward when you find yourself on a rainy night, the sole diner in a very romantic French restaurant where they don't speak a word of English. Or you could go with it. I went with it by ordering an aperitif of KIR Cassis wine and apologising for my terrible French. The venue … Continue reading The one where I accidentally have one of the best meals of my life
GENERAL DRIVEL The holiday is over and the journey begins. I am well and truly museumed out. In 27 days, I managed to visit/see (mostly with Dad, plus a few extras): 7 churches and cathedrals 14 palaces and historical buildings 6 art museums 17 historical museums The Louvre (which is really a bit of all … Continue reading Museumed Out
In other words: Lyon OVERVIEW This was the place where I realised I'd made a terrible baggage mistake. It's not easy carrying a heavy square suitcase up three flights of narrow, time-worn stone steps. The decision was resolved to seek out a suitcase-backpack hybrid when we arrived in Paris - but more on that later. … Continue reading Screw the museums let’s have a long lunch.
ATTRACTIONS This was a big day of again cramming a lot into a short amount of time before we headed out of Italy and into France. I had my sites set on the Archaeological museum - little did I know trying to get in there in itself would be a confusing endeavour, and none of … Continue reading Turin – Part 2
OVERVIEW For some reason I had in my mind this was a smaller town with nothing to its name but a musty old Shroud. That's what you get for not reading up. It's not. It's a fairly large city with a long history originating from Roman times, and no less than 18km of shopping arcades. … Continue reading Turin – Part 1
OVERVIEW Unfortunately, out of all the places we had visited so far, Florence had the seediest feel - immediately evident on arriving from the main station. As we were walking to our hotel, we heard some screaming and shouting, then two girls running - it seemed like they had been robbed? It's also possible they … Continue reading Florence
Eating Our Identities 