Postcards from the World

Talk like a man

Benny Lewis gives some great advice right out of the box in his “Language Hacking” books. Don’t worry about being perfect in your new language. Be like Tarzan. “Me Tarzan, you Jane” gets the message across, even if the grammar isn’t top notch perfect. Learn a few words, put them to use immediately, see how it goes. You know, just like you learnt to speak your own native tongue. It took a while,…

Paris France 15 Apr 2018

Sunday morning in the middle of the Seine

The heart of Paris lies on the two islands of Île de la Cité and Île Saint Louis. Smack dab in the guts of the city, and we were right in the centre of the middle of the heart.

Not a lot of places open for breakfast on a Sunday morning, but.

Monday morning we had a couple of cars booked for a three day road trip down to Bordeaux.…

God’s Hotel

Paris France 14 Apr 2018

Emergency room, vite!

My idea of long-haul travel involves comfy chairs, good food, several hours of uninterrupted horizontal sleep, a reasonable amount of champagne, and a shower or two.

Not this time. My stock of Qantas points had seen their tide go out with last year’s excesses. We were travelling at the back of the bus, no lounges were involved, we’d been delayed for…

Bungendore New South Wales 13 JUn 2018

A local France

I was actually in France last month, and the world’s laziest travel blogger – moi! – must get around to writing that trip up one day. I just happened to be in Cannes when the film festival was on, and that was a busload of fun, for sure!

I returned to France a couple of days ago, and it was a quick and pleasant trip. No passport required, no…

Delphi Greece 20 Aug 2017I

Smoggy day in Delphi

I spent a few days in Delphi last year, and we got to tour the historical site of the Temple of Apollo from the Classical Greek period. It was a bright sunny morning, but the air was full of smoke from bushfires in Greece, and dust blown across from Africa.

Amongst hundreds, I got a shot I liked. It was shot into the rising sun, the air was full of…

A jolly hour on the trolley

San Francisco California 2 Apr 2011

San Francisco is home to an amazing number of icons. The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, Lombard Street zigzagging down a hill…

And of course, the cable cars. If there is one thing you do in SF, you have got to ride a cable car.

San Francisco has the world’s only surviving cable car network. Once relatively common – even Melbourne had cable cars – the technology…

My heart lies there

San Francisco California 28 Apr 2010

As I write, it’s April in Canberra. The days are getting shorter, the morning fog chills the air, and my thoughts turn outwards, as they generally do at this time of year.

I’m wearing a cheap red fleece this morning. I bought it in 2009 at Fishermans Wharf, just before hiring bikes and riding over the Golden Gate Bridge with a merry companion on a sparkling…

Sydney New South Wales 25 Jan 2018

Dawn

Sydney Cove as the sun comes up is a surprisingly busy place. The first ferries are coming in from the far reaches of the harbour; the seven-mile ships from Manly full of yawning shop assistants, the smaller boats from the harbourside homes of millionaires, a freighter bound for an upstream dock.

People are opening cafes, throwing wide the shutters of…

“Every Iranian I’ve met wants to drink alcohol, every couple I’ve met here want to hold hands in public, and every Iranian woman I’ve met wants to ditch hijab. So why not just, you know, stop doing it?”

What?” asked our guide, “And give the government an excuse to crack down again?”

I’ll admit I viewed Iran with suspicion and fear before my first visit there in 2016. A place of repressive…

A travel blog that isn’t crap

The start of a new year is usually marked by people writing down 2017, crossing it out, and writing 2018. Sometimes it takes a while for that sort of irritating muscle memory to cut out. Me, I’m still writing years starting with “19”…

It’s also the traditional time for travel bloggers to take stock of where they have been, how much they have made, where they want to go next, how many thousands of…

Edinburgh is a city close to my heart. Perhaps my Scots ancestry has something to do with that, but Scotland’s ancient capital stands proud in delighting tourists and locals alike. The Royal Mile, with its gradual ascent to the craggy Castle, and its mediaeval warren of lanes and closes, invites exploration. The New Town – construction commenced 250 years ago – is elegance itself, full of grand…

Canberra Australian Capital Territory 7 Jan 2018

Black and White

In years to come, we’ll probably laugh when we look back at these Trumpian days, when people believed, that if they just believed hard enough, then black would be white.

The days of fake news and alternative facts, when what was written down in black and white could be denied, if one said it often enough and loud enough.

On that…

Heaven’s above

I’m not a religious person myself, but on my travels I have found the grand sacred places of the world to be nodes of tranquillity and majesty, places where the spirit soars and one might reflect on one’s place in the cosmos. Ayasofya, Sagrada Familia, the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, Kinkaku-Ji Temple in Kyoto; all sublime and uplifting.

But even a modest chapel has a peace about it. I visited a…

One of my favourite movies is that George Clooney classic, Up in the Air. George plays Ryan Bingham, a frequent flyer with millions of miles under his belt. As he says, “Last year I spent 322 days on the road, which means I had to spend 43 miserable days at home.”

Living in hotels, airport terminals, and yes, up in the air, demands certain skills and equipment. If you are going to thrive rather…

World’s best foods: Countdown from Fifty

CNN has produced a comprehensive list of the world’s best foods. I cannot argue with a list that places chocolate in the top three, and there are many national dishes, such as Peking Duck, Seafood Paella, Pho and so on. 

Just looking at the list, and I’ve enjoyed 35 of the 50, seventeen of them in their native lands. Possibly a few more, if I were able to go back and check. I can’t remember…

I’ve previously talked about the backwaters of Kerala in India, and how I’d love to take one of their houseboat cruises. The contrast between the colourful, noisy, and chaotic Indian town of Alleppey, and the majesty and serenity of the lakes, rivers and canals beginning a few hundred metres away could not be greater. India is an acquired taste, to be sure, but I was enchanted by the waterways,…