Travel Talk
When travel IS about the journey
In this fast-paced world there are journeys where I actually do relish the voyage; where it might be a means of getting from A to B but one which gives an insight into a specific location. […]
Year: 2018
Food & drink
Slow Travel means being flexible with your eating patterns
It’s one thing to want to dive into the gastronomy of a destination, but an authentic Slow Travel experience means embracing its eating patterns as well. […]
Europe
Scenes of a stroll around 5 districts of Venice
Venice is one of those destinations which sat loftily on a grand cerebral column. But reports of it being an overcrowded tourist destination (regularly lumped in with Barcelona and Dubrovnik) had made us wary that it might be just another dreamy bubble waiting to be burst. […]
Travel Photography
Seven Slow Travel photos in 2018, part one
Our Slow Travel photos are often snapshots in time of an experience which has left a lasting impression. Why that is might only be obvious to us. As a photographer I can only hope that some convey the merest taste of what we felt at the time. […]
Europe
Six Setúbal Surprises
Economically and gastronomically upwardly mobile, the city of Setúbal, south of Lisbon, has more secrets than the average espionage agent; these are just six of them… […]
Equipment & Accessories
Behind the scenes of writing walking route directions
For anyone out there with an interest in how the walking directions in their hands came into existence, here’s how we put together routes. […]
Europe
Dancing in the Rain in Piazza San Marco
From behind the façade of Caffè Florian, the strains of a philharmonic orchestra drift into the piazza lending the scene an ethereal romance. I’m already spellbound when the orchestra begins to play… […]
Europe
Using online travel advice to choose where to eat in Venice
Not knowing Venice, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to use some of the online tools at hand to see which came out tops. […]
Food & drink
It’s time to banish boring salads
Any self respecting tomato salad is going to have a dressing which involves more than a waiter plonking a bottle of olive oil in front of you. It’s also going to include herbs such as basil and/or oregano. […]
Travel Talk
Can you feel the soul?
The link between these examples is both were about places which feel soulless to me; the travel equivalents of shop window mannequins, decked out in much the same gear as a human but with no beating heart […]
Europe
Turning Left, A Walk In Palmela, Portugal
For months we’ve lived at the end of a dirt track, in this lovely quinta with its enormous iron gates, always turning right beyond them, back along the dusty, rutted track to reach the road. Today we turn left, and I think of Jean Ainslie… […]
Andros
Swan bookends and beer on Andros
An easy, early morning stroll beside the beach below Chora took us past a brace of proud swans and a family of geese which stood, alert, like the points of the compass, on the lookout for danger as their not so ugly ducklings foraged among wild flowers. […]
Europe
13 reasons why we love restaurants in Setúbal
We already knew Setúbal in Portugal was famed for its choco frito (fried cuttlefish) restaurants, but we had no idea that the rest of the gastronomic scene was quite so, well, interesting. […]
Europe
Confused about the cuisine, gastronomy in the Canary Islands
A study into what visitors to the Canary Islands thought about the food they experienced has thrown up some interesting and illuminating findings. […]
Alentejo
The remote lonesome beauty of living in Alentejo
The clanging of bells as goats made their way to their daytime pasture was our alarm call in the morning; a mixed chorus of song from golden orioles, bee-eaters and azure-winged magpies serenaded us over breakfast under a grape covered arbour; […]