The Taverna San Trovaso has been a mainstay of Venetian dining for a great many years, with a faithful following that includes Yours Truly. When I was an intern in Venice (many years ago), this restaurant served as a home from home for our group of foreign students. Its warming atmosphere exuded from everything – the staff, the rustic decor and, naturally,…
Category: Travel – bon voyage!
Travel, travel and more travel
No knives on the tube, puh-leeeeease!
Monsieur and I visited Borough Market on Saturday. Borough Market was great fun; getting there was a little fraught. On the tube we were sat opposite a case of Arrested Development (and I’m not talking about the band). He was dressed in jeans and a lot of red – red sweatshirt bearing some hip insignia I…
Bandes Dessinees weekend 1 – The Case of the Missing Navette
There are too many people in this world who simply don’t understand the fascination of bandes dessinées (otherwise known as graphic novels). Monsieur and I are not among these people. We still read Tintin, raced madly through a series called XIII (Treize, as in ‘thirteen’) which gripped us with political intrigue and Kennedy-esque family, spent last…
Malaysia Part 9 – Melaka Moments
As Monsieur had selected most of the hotels for our Malaysian holiday, I decided to find something a bit different for our time in Melaka. Trawling tripadvisor, I found repeated reference to the Hotel Puri, its fabulous antiques and themed rooms and the über-efficient Madame Jo who ran front desk. If the five-star hotels we’d…
Malaysia, Part 8: Hey Mambo, Melaka!
We were soon to leave the island state of Singapore to return to Malaysia, but first we enjoyed a last breakfast on the terrace outside The Line. There was no more rain. Isn’t that typical? It had rained off and on the whole time we’d been in Singapore but on our day of departure the sun…
A Tale of Two Mexicans in Paris
‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’, or so they say, but what about ‘when in Paris, eat as the Mexicans do’? Deciding to turn our backs on canard and moules and other typical French fare, Monsieur and I felt like dining on something different. That’s how we came to experience two very different…
Say it in French at Latitude Sud
On the corner of rue des Bernardins in Saint Germain, Paris, there’s a wonderful little boutique full of tee shirts bearing witty French slogans. Suddenly, saying “j’aime pas le matin” (I don’t like mornings) looks chic. Unfortunately, when Monsieur and I spotted this retail gem (named Latitude Sud), it was well past the owner’s bedtime, so we couldn’t…
Malaysia/Singapore, Part 6: From Fortunes to Frogs
Today Monsieur and I swam before breakfast. Down at the pool it was raining hard and an attendant wearing bright orange gators stopped us before we could swim. “If there’s thunder or lightning, you must get out of the pool EE-ME-DEE-AT-LEE.” he stressed each syllable and looked us hard in the eyes to be sure…
Malaysia/ Singapore, Part 5: In the Night Zoo
I’m not really a zoo person, but I’d been assured that the Night Safari in Singapore was different. Curious to see for ourselves if it was as animal-friendly as we’d heard, Monsieur and I went back up the road for Johor Bahru to talk with the animals. The park itself was opened in 1994 and…
Malaysia, Part 4: A Cold Bus to Singapore
The morning of our journey to Singapore, we were woken by an orchestra of wake-up calls and alarms, set the night before to ensure that we did not sleep late. With somewhat fragile heads, the legacy of hitting the KL night life the previous evening, we made it to Pudu Raya bus terminal intact. There,…
Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson
This is one of the most unusual travel books I’ve ever come across, written by a Canadian teacher of English as a second language, who decides to follow the appearance of the cherry blossom by hitchhiking from one end of Japan to the other. I haven’t yet finished, but can’t resist sharing a couple of…
North Bridge Brasserie, Edinburgh
Having survived a flight delay and (temporarily) lost bag, by the time I reached the hotel in Edinburgh, Monsieur’s stomach was audibly protesting its emptiness. Mine rumbled back in sympathy, so out we went in search of decent grub. This we found, by chance, at the North Bridge Brasserie attached to The Scotsman Hotel on…
Epicurienne 