I have really enjoyed the festive season in Europe. As the days grow shorter and darker and colder, Europe turns on the twinkly lights and the celebrations begin. While Christmas is celebrated on the 25th December and New Year on the first of January, each city has its different customs, characters and foods symbolising the … Continue reading Le festività
Napoli is the capital of Campania in southern Italy, and sits on the Bay of Naples. We decided to take a long weekend to visit the city of Napoli as well as nearby Pompei and Ercolano which were destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 CE. We stayed in a bed and breakfast … Continue reading Napoli – home of pizza …and friarielli
In our apartment, we have an excellent if compact kitchen. We tend to prepare Italian food because with a few exceptions we can only buy Italian ingredients. However, I am not sure I will ever completely master cooking or eating like an Italian. The Italian day starts with calazione around 7.30. This is usually just … Continue reading Eating like an Italian
On Saturday we went on a 1/2 day food tour of Bologna which was a gift from my work colleagues when I left home. Thanks team. This has been a highlight of my travels to date. There were seven of us on the tour so it was a friendly group just strolling and chatting and … Continue reading Delicious Bologna
Here we are in Bologna, renowned for its food. The Italian classics we all know and probably have in our cupboards at home, Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar and prosciutto, hail from the region of Emilia-Romagna of which Bologna is the capital. The most famous Bologna dish is probably spaghetti Bolognese, which has the local Mayor … Continue reading Bologna basics
I spent two and a half weeks visiting family in Berlin. I was staying in a pension in Weissensee, which was a borough in East Berlin and is now part of the larger borough of Pankow. Fun fact – it is the location and title of a popular German soap opera set in the 1980s, … Continue reading Hello and goodbye to Berlin
I leave this town on Thursday and I thought I would share a few thoughts before I go. Top of mind is how summer happens outside. Almost every weekend we have been here there has been some kind of three-day summer event Thursday to Saturday. When we arrived there was a music festival that that … Continue reading Parting thoughts and Preiselbeeren
We decided to take a short break away while we are staying in Austria. A number of factors came together resulting in our stay at Gasthof Botenwirt in Faistenau. As some of you will know I have my mother’s 1956 diary of her European travels and I am interested in revisiting places where she and … Continue reading The Salzkammergut
The Friday evening before we travelled to Nottingham for the weekend, we thought we would take a stroll along the Danube, which we call the Donau in Austria. We arranged to meet at the Nibelungenbrücke and discovered the streets closed to traffic and filled with people due to the annual Pflasterspektakel ,which translates as pavement … Continue reading Pflasterspektakel und Schnitzel
We discover a market. Südbahnhofmarkt. It’s a bit of a walk from our apartment. I can’t quite tell which days it operates and it might be every day, which will be excellent. It sells fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, baked goods, flowers. All of the things I might want to buy. I will need … Continue reading Südbahnhofmarkt
