Author Archives: Grace

The Kuas in Rome

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The overnight journey into Rome went a lot smoother than our first. We all kind of felt into a routine to prepare for bed time – rather amusing how easily we slipped into it! Pat flew in from London (he couldn’t take the time off from work for the other Europe legs) so we were all reunited again as a family. Rome gave us an absolutely amazing start to the trip with gorgeous blue skies and extremely warm weather. I kind of accidentally led the family the long way around to our apartment … but we got there in the end!

Rome was absolutely heaving with tourists in a way that Salzburg wasn’t. Even after only a couple of days of relative quiet it was a bit of a shock to the system!

Highlights of the trip included:

Walking around seeing all the Squares, buildings and markets

Touring the Vatican. Lines and crowds at the Vatican were ridiculously long and large. Something to do with a tourist alert so security was really tough – and of course this had a knock on effect on the number of people inside. Great idea to do the guided tour though – everyone really appreciated the almost insider information to the Vatican. Even though I’d been on that tour before because we had a different tour guide he gave his spin and chose different art to discuss.

Touring the Colosseum. Again it was very worth doing the guided tour of the Colosseum. Despite the large number of people milling about with your own tour there is a sort of sense of privacy or exclusiveness which makes the visit more meaningful than it would otherwise be.

Riding these kind of pedalo type things in the Villa Borghese – a beautiful park in Rome. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. If you didn’t get one of electric pedalos it was very hard to ride – unfortunately that was us! Getting around these sculptures were tricky too!

Gelati. Lots and lots of gelati. In one day we had about five cones I’m sure including about three of them in the space of about an hour! Patrick had this list of top gelati stores to go to – one store was absolutely overwhelmingly busy. You had to get your “ticket” first and then fight your way through three people thick layer crowds just to even see the flavours on offer. Crazy.

The Kuas in Salzburg

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We had less than 48 hours to spend in Salzburg! Eek! I don’t know how we managed – but we did actually get around to do quite a lot of things, including fitting in visits to the Aldi for my Dad! Ha ha! Was this the reason Dad fell in love with Salzburg? He even had cause to comment that he was considering a crazy notion of getting a vacation house in Salzburg. Well – who could blame him – Salzburg is just one of those really naturally pretty places.

With our train pulling into the station the weather that greeted us was much the same as what we had when first arriving in Paris – gray and wet. But, just like Paris, the weather did go on to improve much to my delight.

We decided to walk from the main station into the Old Town which is where we were staying. Luckily Salzburg isn’t that huge – and it did us wonders to wake us all up from our long train ride from Paris! I have to make a special mention of Hotel Elefant – although a Best Western Inn its actually independently run and we were well taken of from the beginning. Everyone was very friendly and helpful and even better we were able to be checked in to at least one room straight away.

So what were the highlights of our stay in Salzburg. As I mentioned earlier we certainly got around to a lot of places. On our first day we simply walked around exploring the Old Town, and also set about organising to get on to the Sound of Music tour for the following day (yes a must-do for all.) We also picked up the Salzburg card which we made sure to make maximum use – from free public transportation and to reduced and free entry into attractions.

That night we even found ourselves making our way to the Salzburg Casino! Yep – double whammy of being Chinese and Australian is that gambling is in our blood! The Casino was a bit spooky walking up to – with the mist rising from the ground and the architecture of what I think was a former palace of sorts – it all combined to give a very vampire-esque feel to the area.

The second day was our Sound of Music tour. There are a couple of Sound of Music tours you can go on – I asked to be put on the original one but I don’t think we were as our bus was called the “most unique” Sound of Music Tour . Nevertheless, we still had a good time and saw all the sights we needed to. Plus had the all important soundtrack playing on the bus – Dad loved that! As an added bonus we even stopped long enough to do a toboggan ride down the mountain-side! Dad loved that too!

On the tour we had stops in all the relevant places including Leopoldskron Lake so we could look over to Leopoldskron Castle (the front being used as the Trapp family home), Hellbrunn Castle to see the glass pavillion, driving past St.Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang and stopping for some apple strudel at Mondsee – and any interested could visit Mondsee Cathedral, the site of the wedding between Maria and the Baron. The final stop was Mirabell Gardens.

Here’s the family and their funny posing again!

Dinner was at one of the recommended beer halls. I ordered the pork knuckle and the look on our waiters face when he went to put it on the table in front of me cracked us all up. He actually went to put it in front of Stephen before Dad corrected him. He was shocked. Loves me my pork knuckle!

Our final day in Salzburg was the day that we got around all over the place. We first stopped at Hellbrunn Castle where we toured the famous trick fountains. I can’t give away the trick but suffice to say – wear waterproofs! And that includes protecting your camera or any electronic goods! We then did a whirlwind audio tour of the castle itself – when I say whirlwind I mean less than probably 15 minutes. How terrible! Ha ha. But we had lots more to see that day! The art inside was actually pretty fascinating but its not that huge in there so didn’t take long to whip around.

We then hopped on the bus to get over to Untersburg to get the Cable-Car to the top of Untersberg mountain. I must admit that it was looking a bit sketchy for any sort of clear weather but once we cleared the clouds – wow! We were joined by a bunch of hikers who were hiking down I guess! It was truly a memorable experience for all of us and simply breath-taking.

I had worn my thongs that day and everyone at the top of the mountain was laughing at me – even the army dudes! It was rather amusing.

From the top of one mountain it was back into town, after a bit of lunch, to then climb up to Hohensalzburg Fortress – central Europe’s largest, completely preserved fortress dating from the 11th century. I would recommend doing a tour of the ramparts because then you get to climb to the tallest point of the Fortress for some nice 360 degree views.

After some more tomfoolery that was sadly the end of our visit to the beautiful Salzburg. Off to the train station then to catch another overnight train …

The Kuas in Paris

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I asked Dad, Mum and Stephen which European cities they wanted to visit during their short visit over this side of the world and they named Paris, Rome and Salzburg as their top pics. In Paris and Rome they certainly chose two of the largest and most popular cities in Europe to visit and with Salzburg they would get something a little smaller but no less beautiful and charming.

Hitting these three cities in just 11 days was going to prove interesting. I thought one of the ways of making the journey a true Euro-trip was to get everyone to use the overnight trains to travel between Paris and Salzburg and Salzburg and Rome. The fact that it was greener than flying was an added benefit. But before I get on to the train part of the journey – our first stop in Europe was Paris.

In Paris we spent a lot of time pounding the pavement – Dad loves nothing better than to just wander and explore. It’s a good sentiment because you do often miss quite a lot by just going from point to point – especially if you are stuck underground on the metro or something like that.

Here are the photo highlights of our Paris leg:

Walking around the Champs-Élysées and along the Seine

A day trip to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles was the centre of political power in France a long time ago but now welcomes many visitors to visit the beautiful golden gilded palace and lush gardens and fountains. If you can plan your visit to Versailles you would do well to buy your ticket in advance otherwise, like us, you will be subject to being stuck in the line for hours! Ticket prices are based on the bits inside the palace that you ant to enter but a visit to the garden is a must. Audio tours, for what they’re worth, are included in the entry price.

The interior of the Palace is as grand as the fence on the outside. Rather interestingly mixed in with the antique stuffs the Palace was also exhibiting some of Takashi Murakami’s work. Apparently he was on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list back in 2008. It was pretty cool combination of new and old.

The gardens were an absolute delight and at specified times the fountains are switched on so you can enjoy them in all their glory.

No visit to Paris is complete without a visit to the Eiffel Tower. The day for our visit was really nice – I was a bit cruel and made Stephen and my parents climb the Tower. Heh heh. But I think it would have been crueler still to make them wait in line for ages! Actually, I think we all had a lot of fun climbing the stairs. It really was a gorgeous day to be doing so.

The other must visit for many tourists is the Louvre. My family, including me, are not the greatest for art galleries and museums but the Louvre actually managed to hold our interest for more than an hour on this visit. Dad was absolutely fascinated by the sculptures. The line to get in was surprisingly long, even despite the fact it was a constantly drizzle. The entrepreneurs were out selling their umbrellas at ridiculous prices – but if you’re getting a soaking you’d probably pay the world for one!

There were some funny finds in Paris including the ability to order your own meals from a kiosk at McDonalds and the fact we went to the Hippopotamus Restaurant Grill for more than one meal! I asked Caro about the chain when I got back to London and I don’t think she would have recommended it – but we enjoyed the food enough – clearly enough to go back again for another visit!

Oh and I made sure that we didn’t leave without trying out some frog legs … even if it was in a Chinese restaurant!

So, getting on the overnight train to Salzburg was interesting. The train was definitely a step down from the train that Pat and I took when in Finland last December … but we had at least booked out the whole cabin – which, if you can believe it, supposedly fits 6 people! With 4 people we could at least convert two of the beds into a couch. It was cosy and noisy but really good for me to get to sleep because of the rocking of the train.

Day 4: BBC Studio Tour, Borough Market and the Thames River

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For the last day in London for the first part of the Kua family trip it was off to BBC studios for a tour of the BBC Television Centre at White City. Although the presence of BBC in the area will probably be no more by the end of next year for the moment at least it was easily accessible to us. The television studios were one of the first buildings designed specifically for making and transmitting television programmes.

The tour of the studios took us behind the public veil and into a couple of the working studios. As with all studio visits there is also an interactive element where members of the audience get to pretend to be on TV – either as news casters like Dad, or participants in a quiz programme, or working the behind the scenes in the sound booth.

After the tour we headed over to Westfield to grab some lunch – we ended up at GBK which surprised my family with how big their burgers are. Heh heh.

Fully stuffed we made our way over to the other side of town to take a walk from London Bridge to through the Borough Market and along the River Thames to see both London Bridge and Tower Bridge.

I was hoping that we would be around to see the Tower Bridge opening up but we were too early for that and as we had a dinner date with Pat’s roommate at the Bleeding Heart Tavern we couldn’t really hang around too long!

Mum must have been in the mood for food resembling her head size she chose this baby chicken for her dinner:

Too funny!

The Kuas at The Berkeley

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A quintessential experience for a visitor to England is to indulge in afternoon tea. Although the Berkeley’s Prêt-à-Portea is less traditional than most I quite like the fact it has its own spin on afternoon tea and everything is just so pretty!

The season’s designers were Erdem, Paul Smith, Yves Saint Laurent, Jason Wu, Anya Hindmarch, Christopher Kane Jean Paul Gaultier and Sonia Rykiel. Honestly the chefs at the Berkeley must have so much fun interpreting the latest fashions – and because they don’t have to serve the same thing for the entire year it would certainly keep their interests up.

So, what treats did we have today? Including the usual assorted sandwiches and layer of savoury treats including a crab handroll thingy and grilled prawns we had the stars of the afternoon tea:

  • Anya Hindmarch light apricot sponge summer “Halen” bag, wrapped in almond marzipan with playful bow
  • Paul Smith orange, papaya and pink lavender bavarois top with chocolate bowler hat
  • Season’s must-have dog biscuit adorned with chocolate brown studs and white leather glaze
  • Yves Saint Laurent soft romantic white chocolate mousse and raspberry custard finished with crunchy meringue scattered with mini strawberries
  • Sonia Rykiel nautical vanilla and raspberry jam layered mousse topped with humorous yellow hat
  • Belted Jason Wu poppy-seed cocktail dress biscuit embellished with ruffled purple icing
  • Erdem dark silky chocolate cake filled with passion fruit and delicate lace
  • Christopher Kane pale pink almond macaroon filled with chocolate and elderflower ganache topped with a pink checkerboard
  • Jean Paul Gaultier fluorescent cheese cake on almond and oat base accessorized with a bright yellow sugar twirl

Yep – the descriptions are almost as fun as the delicacies themselves!

Apart from going into a sugar coma I think my family really enjoyed the afternoon tea. The also enjoyed the banter we were having with the waiters and waitresses which culminated, once again, in us walking away with cute doggie bags. 😉

Day 3: Westminster Abbey, Harrods, and Sister Act

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Day 3 of the Kua Family Visit to London was a bit dreary and wet but at least we had planned mostly indoor activities for the day. Additionally, the drizzle cleared off by the time we emerged from our first stop at Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey is the England’s coronation church. Many famous historical figures from the last couple of millennia are also buried underneath and its still a working church with regular services throughout the day. In fact, during our tour, each hour for a minute there is a pause for prayer.

The interior of the Abbey is quite a bit larger than one would imagine – no photos allowed inside however. You can do a free audio tour which is included in your entry fee or you can pay a few additional bucks for a special tour led by the one of the Abbey Vergers, and includes a visit to the Shrine of St Edward and a chance to sit in the choir area – both of which are not normally accessible.

Because the wet weather had cleared by the time we emerged a couple of hours later we had a nice stroll to our next top – Harrods. Purely a window shopping experience of course! Heh heh. Whenever we’re on holidays one thing that my Dad loves to do is visit a supermarket – in Harrods this consisted of the Food Hall which even I admit can be quite fascinating. Mum loved the Christmas Shop (a permanent shop fixture!) as it was bright and colourful and evoked memories of her childhood Christmas holidays.

After we’d had our fill of Harrods we headed over to my favourite afternoon tea place in the whole of London – the Caramel Room at The Berkeley. Awesome as always!

We walked off our afternoon tea by heading over to see Pat’s flat which Mum and Dad really liked before going to see Sister Act. Although everyone enjoyed the musical it was clear the heavy itinerary was getting to Dad, Mum and Stephen as they all fell asleep! Ha ha. Mum only briefly nodded off but I’m sure Stephen slept through the end of the first half … if not more. Poor things 🙂

Tierra Brindisa

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In contrast to the service at breakfast, the service at the end of the day at Tierra Brindisa couldn’t have been friendlier or responsive. Pat suggested Tierra Brindisa for a meal option to give my family a chance to sample some typically Spanish fare – tapas. I’m sure we have Spanish restaurants in Australia but I don’t think my parents or Stephen really frequent that scene. Its one of my favourite types of meals – but in London it can get expensive.

Tierra Brindisa is a small venue located in Soho – small and popular enough that you actually need to book well in advance to get a sitting. Its very cosy inside and as a result if you have any sort of large group near your, or a particularly loud person, it can get very noisy and disturbing. But still, we were famished enough to overlook the very loud table of bachelors sitting next to us …

The menu at Tierra Brindisa is not overlong and it is also constantly changes – in face the menu serves as a kind of place mat. Rather interestingly for tonight we had three different menus on the table! The waitress was a bit devastated … it took some time to work out which was the right menu but we got there in the end.

Food was pretty good although someone certainly had a heavy hand with the salt as most dishes were a tad on the salty side. The toast with the allioli was certainly tasty (though you probably wouldn’t want to be kissing someone afterwards the garlic was that strong) with my favourite items including the chicken croquette, a scallop dish, and leon chorizo.

Things I would pass included the cod croquette (again it was mainly the salt that got me on this one) and a squid dish which was kind of boring. The Patatas Bravas looked good but was a little flavourless – went well with the allioli from our toast! Everything else like the prawns, mushroom and spinach salad, kind of fell in between.

This is the kind of restaurant that I would happily return to – although not particularly cheap the constantly changing menu is appealing in the way that its almost like coming to a brand new restaurant on every visit. In terms of when to come, however, I would definitely try to come when its less busy because after a while the noise of what in total was actually not that many diners almost became unbearable.

Day 2: Changing of the Guards, Buckingham Palace, London Duck Tours

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Day 2 was another early start for Dad, Mum and Stephen. Although let’s face it the start of every day of this holiday was potentially going to be an early start. Heh heh.

After filling up on breakfast at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand we meandered through over to await the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. On the way we stopped in at Trafalgar Square and The Mall for the requisite photos. I got Mum do some silly poses in front of some sculptures and there were some workmen sitting down having their morning tea – they vastly entertained by us if their p!ssing themselves with laughter (in a good natured way) was any indication. I love how Mum will do pretty much anything I ask her. She’s great!

The Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace must surely be one of the most overrated tourist attractions in the world but its still gotta be done! You can read all the guides you want about the Changing of the Guards but the key to getting a good spot is to get there early. We thought that we would do something a little different and move around a bit so we could actually see the guards moving around – and not be stuck pressed to the gates of Buckingham Palace itself.

This kind of worked for us but it did involve quite a bit of running around!

It seemed fitting that having seen the Changing of the Guards that we would actually go in and visit Buckingham Palace itself. Although they try to regulate the numbers inside the Palace it still gets tremendously crowded – but it was worth the visit to see how much Mum thoroughly enjoyed it. She didn’t have to but she kept on thanking me for arranging for us to visit it! What a sweetie. I don’t know what Dad and the boys thought of it as we were milling around – we soon lost them to the crowd inside!

After Buckingham Palace we had some time before we did our London Duck Tour so we walked over from Buckingham Palace to the Eye, or pick up location for the London Duck Tours. Its so great how London is just so walkable!

The London Duck Tour was okay – though many of the sites it took us around were already part of our itinerary. Not sure it did much for our orientation but I guess it was pretty cool to take a dip into the Thames and see London from a different perspective. Our tour guide did his best to liven up the tour cracking some funny jokes and giving us some very random facts about London … sadly it was a little lost on the audience who didn’t seem to get it! Ah well.

After such a long day of running around hitting the tourist sites it was a very satisfied family that sat down for a rewarding meal at Tierra Brindisa.

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand

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Simpsons-in-the Strand is one of the oldest and most traditional English restaurants in London so I thought it would be an ideal please for us to get a great big breakfast to start off our day. There is a large variety of offerings on the menu from traditional English breakfasts to omelettes to fish dishes (e.g. smoked haddock kedgeree and grilled kippers) and other breakfast suspects like eggs benedict.

The item that intrigued me the most was the Ten Deadly Sins breakfast which basically was a full English breakfast with lamb kidney, fried bread, bubble & squeak and baked beans. Yep – I wasn’t going to go hungry for a long while! This is priced at £21.50 with the full English being priced at £19.50 – both prices are ridiculously expensive but justified on the basis that you’re paying for the venue and the price also included toast, pastries, coffee / tea, a choice of choice of cereals, porridge or half a grapefruit, and a juice – so I guess not to bad value.

Breakfast was a pleasant meal but that was purely because of the company! And certainly not because of the service which was ever so disappointing. For a start the restaurant did that terrible thing of asking you what drink you want before even giving us a chance to look at the menu, for another our waitress was sooo not interested in what she was doing that she barely explained how the breakfast worked. The last straw was that Mum’s dish had some strains of a steel wool in it! How that got in there is anyone’s guess. At least the manager had the good grace to comp us the meal – we didn’t ask for it and were certainly surprised he did so since he seemingly begrudgingly admitted the restaurant had made a mistake!

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand today was a restaurant let down by the disinterested and almost what I would consider cold service.

Day 1: Stonehenge, Bath, Windsor

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My parents and Stephen have less than three weeks to fit in London plus three European cities. I was determined that they would see as much as I could cram into their schedule … hence despite their arrival near midnight last night I made them get up super early so that we could fit in a day trip to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor. Poor family! Ha ha!

For our trip I didn’t want to join one of those massive bus tours so I found International Friends who promised a more intimate visit (maximum of 16.) We met at the Cumberland Hotel where I took Dad and Mum inside to check out “our” bar before being picked up.

The most frustrating thing about day trips out of the London is that you quite often spend most of the day in your vehicle – especially if you’re trying to hit three different destinations like we were. Thankfully the traffic wasn’t too horrific and the time in the bus, when the guide wasn’t speaking, could be used by everyone to rest their eyes!

The way International Friends tours work is that the guide gives you a bit of a story whilst your in the bus, a short introduction when you get to the site and then you’re pretty much left to your own devices. This suited us perfectly.

Like anyone who visits Stonehenge everyone expressed their surprise at just how small it was. Although I was pleased to see that Dad was very excited and was taking photos all over the place. We had quite a bit of time at Stonehenge and pleasingly we’d beaten most of the giant tour buses so pretty much had it to ourselves. Having said that it was freakin’ cold so as soon as we were ready we ran into the shop! Ha ha!

A short drive after Stonehenge we got to Bath. Bath is known for its hot springs so we obligingly entered the Roman Baths museum. It was majorly crowded but, for me, extremely boring! But only cause I’d been there before. The most fascinating part of the museum was the video projection they had inside one of the baths of roman men taking baths … could you blame me for finding this interesting? 😉

Next up for the day was a visit to Windsor. By this time it was about mid-afternoon and we only had about an hour at Windsor. So what do we do? Oh no, we don’t visit Windsor Castle, instead we went into TK Maxx shopping for coats! Ha ha! We did have a fun time looking around though!