Rant of the day:
1. The website indicates that rail cards are valid, but cannot be used with tickets bought online. Every other rail company manages it so why can’t you?
2. Rail cards can also not be used applied against tickets bought from the automatic ticket machines, one must join the long queue at the ticket [...]
While we were waiting for the waitress to take our order, I noticed a small group of chatting policemen in riot gear. Earlier at the airport we had heard rumours of a baggage handlers strike so we wondered if there if was some sort of demonstration or protest happening today. A few minutes later there [...]
Sadly the weather Gods decided not to smile on our trip to Dublin and
and the uniform grey backdrop did not inspire many photos except for a few snaps of the pretty parts of TCD:
Fortunately, the Guinness always tastes good in Ireland and we found some lovely pubs in which to shelter from the downpours.
O’Neills [...]
Flying ten hours to a ski resort when there are so many within a couple of hours seems like a bit of an odd thing to do, but Whistler has something of a reputation for being superior to the best Europe can offer and I was keen to find out what all the fuss was [...]
I’ve been very lucky this year to take two business trips, one to India and a second to the beautiful city of Budapest. The office I was visiting is a just outside central Budapest which gives me the opportunity to see the “real” city; although my initial attempt to interact with the public transport [...]
This week I spent a pleasant few days in the Roman City of Eboracum, (Jorvik to the Vikings and York to its present inhabitants). Modern day York is famous for its well preserved Viking heritage and religious eminence (being the seat of the second most important Bishop in the land), but I also found it [...]
The Rough Guide recommends afternoon tea as one of the essential London experiences and The Athenaeum Hotel is a lovely venue. After selecting our choice of tea leaves from the extensive menu, we were served posh finger sandwiches and then warm scones with gorgeous jam. After the scones it was time to select some cake [...]
Café Gerbeaud: This Grand European café is the perfect place to watch the world go by while enjoying mouth-wateringly delicious cake and excellent coffee.
Menza: Sublime traditional Hungarian food is served in a popular restaurant with chic retro decor. The house wine is recommended too.
Rézkakas, 1053 Budapest, Veres Paine u.3: Traditional setting with live “gypsy” [...]
Breakfast, Brunch and Light Lunch
Fuzzy’s Grub, 96 Tooley St: This café’s speciality is a large flat bread roll/bap filled with succulent roast meat, roast potato, yorkshire pudding and vegetables, complemented with a delicious red-onion marmalade. Also does full English breakfast and impressive looking salads.
The Greencoat Boy, Artillery Row: Their “Big Ben” burger is perfect hangover [...]
Bandipur National Park is about three hours drive south of Bangalore and was recommended to me by some colleagues as being a good two-day break from the hustle and bustle of the city. I arrived around lunchtime and was shown to my cabin which was (as expected) fairly basic, but beautifully decorated. After lunch I [...]
Clearly my previous month-long business trip to Bangalore cannot have been too psychologically scarring since I was quite happy to volunteer to return for another three week stint. Sadly there has been little excitement to blog about in this trip—having too much work on is hardly thrilling material to write about—and this time I am [...]
When a country gets as much sun as Australia does, it becomes very easy to take gorgeous-looking photographs such as these from our seven day tour of Western Australia. In fact, the sun was so incredibly strong that a lot of the photos were really over exposed and had to be corrected.
While I have previously [...]
Sydney has many famous beauty spots (photos), but I think my favourite has to Balmoral Beach. Sydney is famous for its beaches, but this one has something the others don’t: an Edwardian Bathing Pavilion which has been converted to a classy café serving excellent coffee and quite possibly the best breakfast in Sydney—and for a [...]
North-western Australia is pretty remote: we saw our last traffic light 3 days ago, and driving at night becomes a battle of the wills between the driver and the members of the local wildlife who regard mini-buses as objects of curiosity and wonder… Since I’m not driving, it’s all great stuff!
Today we have reached the [...]
After Sydney’s impressive harbour and beautiful beaches, it would easy to be disappointed with Melbourne which has few obvious tourist attractions. However, while Sydney is a stunning supermodel, Melbourne is a multi-layered “onion” of a city, each new exploratory trip reveals new layers: hidden gems of classy shops, chic food markets, interesting cafés, and funky [...]