What a difference a year makes! My Greek sister Mirela has recently welcomed a new addition to her family, Master Alejandro – a perfect mix of Greek (Mirela’s) and Spanish (Enrique’s) genes. To say that Alejandro is a big baby is a massive understatement – by the time I visited he was only two months old but I swear he was practically the size of a six month old if not bigger! Not sure how Mirela housed him let alone pushed him out of her body! Ha!

I was only visiting for an extended long weekend and with the baby we couldn’t really travel too far so we didn’t move too far from the house in Athens. Which was fine with me as it was nice to catch up with all of Mirela’s family and also indulge in lot of local Greek cooking and food and relaxing on their lovely balcony.

One of the funnier highlights was attending a random Greek couple’s wedding! Apparently there is recent trend for couples with upcoming nuptials to attend other weddings in order to be able to sample the food. I guess the couple who are having the wedding get some sort of discount on their package to allow this to happen. At this wedding (as with most weddings) the reception was outdoors. The guests all sat around tables whilst we sat on couches on the edge. To be fair quite reasonably far away from the actual guests but you couldn’t ignore the fact we were there. When it came time for the food (it was a buffet) they started off with some of the guests but before everyone got to go up we were told to go and get our plates! A bit awkward! At least once we had our plates we were sat indoors hidden away.

There are two things that Mirela misses from London – one she doesn’t get to indulge in much (sushi) and the other (duck pancake) is unfortunately not available anywhere in Greece (apparently.) So, to let her indulge in at least one of her wants we went to a local sushi place for dinner which was nice without being too stuning.

The great thing about the way Mirela’s house is built (and I guess many Greek homes) is that she has plenty of family living in the same building from her grandmother at the bottom, to her aunt and uncle on the first floor, to her parents and sister (when she is home from Uni) on the second floor, and Mirela on the top floor with an extra room for guests. This is a fantastic support structure and clearly Alejandro is not going to lack for playmates (albeit not his age) or babysitters. That he is very much adored and loved by all was apparent on my visit.

Our weekend in Brighton was a bit random but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Other than where we were going to go for dinner on Saturday night we really hadn’t thought about where or what we were going to do! Checking into our very small but cheap hotel room (oh yes we had a shower in the room, but it was literally a shower in the room – no bathroom or anything!) Couldn’t really complain for only £33 each per night I guess we could hardly complain.

So what did our weekend consist of? Well, mainly walking around just checking things out. Beautiful sunsets, Brighton Pier, walking past the Royal Pavilion (Saturday was too nice a day to actually spend time inside!), nice food (breakfast at Jamie Oliver’s Recipease and breakfast at Bill’s Brighton, the latter being a particularly funky place and heaving with Sunday brunch diners), a couple of markets, a massage (yay!) and best of all – catching rays on the pebbled Brighton beachfront.

Bliss and just what the doctor ordered!

Budapest is such a lovely destination for a long weekend. Though increasing in popularity, supposedly now numbering approximately 20 million visitors a year, from my visit this weekend I still feel it is a largely untapped tourism destination and I kinda hope it remains that way for my future visits. The locals are incredibly friendly, and not all that hard on the eye – heh heh, the architecture is lovely to behold, the green spaces are absolutely charming and let’s not forget the numerous thermal spas dotted around the city for rest, relaxation and reviving.

Weather	Perfect gelati-eating weather, probably a touch too warm for those running half-marathons …
Tips	Bring comfortable shoes to walk in. Though most sights are within a reasonable walking distance its probably still more than you’re used to walking on a daily basis. Its also handy to grab a travel card for when your feet do get weary to hop on the very convenient and quick metro. I love how the metro tells you exactly how long there is to the next train to the 15 seconds!
	For a refreshing and delicious, non-alcoholic, drink always ask for lemonade (not 7-up or sprite, but the fresh variety.) Lemonades from different venues will differ, but each will be scrumptious in its own right.

The Experience

We were in Budapest this weekend so that Pat could run a half-marathon. He really couldn’t have picked a nicer first half-marathon! His route took him past many of the highlights of Budapest which started in the City Park (home to the Széchenyi Bath, Budapest’s largest thermal bath) and took him:
– down Andrássy Avenue (Named a World Heritage site in 2002 it is lined by beautiful mansions and townhouses)
– past the Opera House
– down to the water across the Chain bridge
– pass the Royal Palace
– across Liberty Bridge,
– past Central Market Hall, up again past the river up to Margaret Island and Paraliament
– before running through Heroes’ square again to the finish line at City Park.

The only down-side was that it was stinking hot. Reaching a maximum of 31 degrees its no wonder the water stands were “over-subscribed” which Pat reporting that it was a total massacre as everyone went for some liquid hydration. Perhaps that was why everyone was given a sponge as part of their race pack!

Don’t think it was a walk in a park for us spectators either – it was surprisingly difficult to get ahead of Pat at a few key stages of the race, and that was even with the help of the metro! Guess I should have worn my running shoes instead of my flip flops. Heh heh. Congrats to Pat who just missed the 2:00 hour mark by a couple of minutes … gives him a goal for his next race I guess!

With the race over by mid-afternoon of our first day we had just about a day and half left to explore the city.

The Highlights

Our first port of call after Pat finished his race was to grab something to eat. We hadn’t really researched any places for dining but stumbled upon Spoon Café Lounge, located just in front of the Buda Castle, on a boat! It actually worked quite well as a venue as we had the benefits of being out in the fresh open air and the river breeze. And even though technically you should have a pasta party before a big race, we proceeded to have a pasta party after as well. Spoon Café Lounge is pretty cool – their toilets, the female toilets at least, are worth a visit with vistas out on to the water! I was expecting the restaurant to be a bit of a tourist trap but I was very surprised about the quality of the food we got. Following a Hungarian tradition I started with a cold soup – an iced apricot cream soup with blackcurrants and ricotta mousse to be precise. I found this to be much more to my liking than other cold soups I’ve tried like gazpacho! It was indeed a refreshing way to start the meal. For my main I couldn’t go past the fettucini with creamy porcini mushrooms served with sautéed slices of beef tenderloin. This was incredibly rich but oh so delicious. Pat’s meal of ghoulash followed by prawns sautéed with garlic bacon served with spagettini and parmesan were reportedly pretty awesome too.

After Spoon, poor Pat, we ended taking this rather long walk that took us over the Chain Bridge to explore the Royal Palace and Castle Hill. His legs must have been dying. Yes, things are walking distance but it probably wasn’t a good thing for poor Pat’s legs to be traipsing around for nearly two and a half hours. In my defense it was a lovely afternoon for sight-seeing and we had some beautiful vistas from the top of the Castle Hill. At least we took the funicular up to the top which saved at least 20 minutes of walking 😉 And we did stop for some afternoon tea to sample some Budapest baking (as pretty as it looked it wasn’t all it cracked up to be …)

The day after the race we decided to visit the Széchenyi Bath. We were hoping to get massages too but unfortunately they were all booked out for the day. Still, the baths were pretty fun to explore. The pricing can be a bit confusing, despite being in English, but basically just pay for entry which will give you access to all areas. You can hire towels but the towels are more like sheets so I would recommend bringing your own. Flip flops aren’t particularly necessary as you’ll take them off to get in the pools anyway. There is a variety of indoor and outdoor pools (15 in total) – all at a varying temperatures. The outdoor pools have some interesting water features including a ring-fenced smaller part within one of them where you get in and it basically carries you around in a small circle (very entertaining) plus there are massage water founts (you stand under them to get a massage) and bubbling baths. Indoor and outdoor pools range in temps up to a maximum of about 38 degrees and inside you have steam rooms and saunas.

The indoor section also has a pool which is extremely cold. Moving between that one and the hot one next to it will give you a very tingly sensation. Not only are the pools warmed but they are also therapeautic so good for joints and arthritis. Drinking from the water well supposedly helps with internal issues also. To top it all off it is a beautiful venue. Plan to spend about 1.5 hours there. Although the baths are conveniently right next to the metro the park is a lovely site itself so worth a walk through, in particularly over the lovely pond which has some interesting art in the water. You can also hire a row boat for fun.

Starving after a relaxing morning at the baths, heh heh, Budapest surprised me again with its food. Mix is probably better know for being a nightclub but it also has a restaurant arm which during the week day offers an awesome, and very cheap, “business lunch” – ridiculously less than £5.00 for three courses plus mineral water! Actually, our drinks were nearly more expensive but we both had an iced coffee and lemonade each. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the quality of the food with the kitchen supposedly being led by Nicolas Delgado, who was responsible for earning Hungary’s first Michelin star at restaurant Costes. My paprika chicken, though mild in flavour, was incredibly well cooked and tender but it was Pat’s ribs which were the real winner. Juicy, falling off the bone and perfectly flavoured. I could have had lunch all over again just to have the ribs!

Energised after lunch we took a walk to the Central Market Hall or Great Market Hall. The largest indoor market in Budapest it offers all sorts of treats from fish and pickles, to meat, pastries, candies and spicies. It also offers a good place to pick up souvenirs and grab a bite to eat. There is a very popular, probably thanks to various guidebooks, Langos stand. This is a Hungarian specialty which consists of a deep fried flat bread topped with various toppings which could be sweet (fruits, chocolate syrup, raisins etc.) or savoury. Shame we’d just had lunch!

To properly walk off lunch we decided to head over to Margaret Island, stopping at quite a few ice cream/gelati joints to cool down. By the way I finally got to indulge in the infamous rice flavoured ice cream – which I had been going on about all weekend. I was happy that we finally spotted it as Pat was starting to think I’d made it up!

Margaret Island is only a couple of kilometers long and half a kilometer wide and its quite a popular green space. We spotted some of those pedalo bikes we’d had some much fun with in Rome. To be honest I was surprised that Pat was up for it as I thought his legs would be stiff from running the day before! We weren’t let down as it proved to be equally fun and it was a good way to see the highlights of the island pretty quickly.

Last Words

Although we’d seen a fair few things around Budapest I feel like we only scratched the surface of all the sights. For example, I’d like to come back and visit Parliament. It looked very grand from the outside and I imagine the interior is equally stunning. To visit a few more of the baths on my next visit would also be pretty cool. I was so happy by the friendliness of all the locals we came across. With the exception perhaps of one lady in the baths (she was still helpful but very slow!) everyone was super helpful and friendly. I heart Budapest!

One of the best ways to indulge in a totally relaxing weekend is to hop over to a friend’s house in another country and spend the whole weekend eating, sleeping, playing cards late into the night (or learning anyway!), relaxing in the garden, and acting like a kid again. The latter was achieved thanks to Nate and Caro’s very active son Gaspar, who is reaching that age where he wants to be part of everything and play everything, and their not-quite-crawling-yet-but-trying-hard-to baby Cesar. It is honestly astonishing how smart Gaspar is just a few months past his 2nd birthday he already knows how to switch on the TV (though this skill is yet to extend to realising that he should only put one DVD into the player at once ..) and, even more astoundingly, he already knows how to search for his favourite videos on youtube on the iphone! On the flip-side it means that you have to be on your toes in terms of keeping his attention! Cesar is pretty easy to handle at this stage – basically hold him and he’s happy! He is actually a very endearing baby and at the moment is very low-fuss 😉

I have to publish these photos of Gaspar though. Cracked me up and shows he has that modeling instinct in him!

The reason I was in Chateauroux with Nate and Caro was that basically they were introducing Cesar to extended family and friends. It was quite a party and the cooking and preparation was quite extensive. Aurelie, Caro’s sister, is quite the baker and it seemed like Caro and Aurelie were cooking and preparing non-stop for a couple of days!

In the mean time I was lucky to just sit back and take it all in, especially the delicious food that included:

Gourmet pizzas. Leave it to the French to put foie gras on their pizzas available for delivery! Even better, for me, is that the particular pizza place we ordered from had a number of crème fraiche (as opposed to tomato sauce) based pizzas which are right up my alley.

Fresh rotisserie rack of ribs, paella and pate from the local market. The ribs were Nate’s choice and were incredibly good. Tasty, tender, juicy and just oozing from the drippings of the roast chicken. So good. The pate was massive – the terracotta tray?bowl? not sure what to call it – was easily the 40cm in length. Caro said that she didn’t even have to pay for it until she returned the container to the market!

Tarte flambée – so yum.

And this is a treat that shouldn’t be overlooked. An incredible pastry … not sure why I thought it also needed ice-cream. It was pretty delish on its own. Caro’s family were very lucky that at this stage I was over-stuffed from the ribs and paella!

The weather was incredibly nice in Chateauroux whilst I was there. So nice that Caro even set up my laptop so I could sit in her garden and work on this blog! Heh heh. The good weather continued to the day of the lunch where more food and whole lot of alcohol was consumed.

There was literally a whole box of champagne that was consumed right at the end of the day. And, as happens when people have imbibed, the natural next step is to try and fit a latex glove over one’s head! LOL.

There was sooo much food that surprisingly one of the crumbles wasn’t even touched at the end of the day. I soon took care of that problem … and I’m not ashamed to admit that on my last day in Chateauroux I had some of the rest of the crumble with salted caramel ice cream for breakfast! A perfect end to my visit!

The trip to San Sebastian was probably one of the most enjoyable holidays I’ve had and its probably down to the fact that we were so relaxed about everything. Sure, we planned our fine dining experiences in advance, but other than that we kind of chilled and let things flow as they flowed! The fact that the weather was superb didn’t hurt either.

The Experience

Bilbao

We flew in to Bilbao from Stansted before making our just over one-hour journey to San Sebastian by bus. Bilbao. There are a few “things to do” in Bilbao but undoubtedly the number one reason for visiting Bilbao is to visit the Guggenheim Museum.

Now I don’t normally like going into museums but the modern and, more specifically, contemporary art is the stuff I will make an exception for. Entry into the Guggenheim is 13 euro and includes a free audio tour (which was pretty good when you could find the right number to press!) In addition, there are regular free guided tours but these are not always in English so you have to time your visit well. The free coat check helps which luggage so that was handy for us. The Guggenheim collection is found inside and outside the building however no photos are allowed inside. The building itself is an intriguing piece of art and the front entrance is marked by a giant flowering bush dog. Very cute.

We didn’t visit every exhibition inside the Guggenhiem (such as the Chaos and Classicism special exhibition) but saw as much as we could. The Luminous Interval: D.Daskalopoulos Collection is one of the most significant private collections of contemporary art and we were very privileged to be seeing it. There was some really interesting pieces such as this red monstrosity which part of a video/car/assorted object installation by John Bock. The video was this weird story about these two German assassins sent to LA on a mission and the physically installation included props from the movie. The collection also included pieces from Damien Hirst (his evacuated victrine) and my favourtie Paul McCarthy’s “Tomato Head (Burgundy).” The collection also included Thomas Hirschhorn’s catacomb “Cavemanman” which is basically this cardboard cave taped over with packaging tape strewn with empty cans, porn magazines, philosophical books etc. Actually, I think I’ve seen it before – perhaps at the New York Guggenheim? There were so many interesting pieces in the collection that I could go on an on! I loved it.

The permanent collection was pretty cool too. Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time took up an entire room and consisted of giant spirals of differing twists and turns which you are asked to move around or in. Jenny Holzer’s LED of Truisms is another installation I’ve seen at another museum, or at least something similar, but the sentiments would never grow old, nor the installation less fascinating.

Outside of the Guggenheim are Jeff Koons’ Tulips which provide endless hours of photographing fun in the as does Louise Bourgeois’ iconic spider sculpture last seen by me at the Tate Modern.

Sights of San Sebastian

We had effectively three full days to make the most of San Sebastian although you had to take away a couple of evenings for our fine dining which was just about the right time to fit in the beach, long walks, and a spa afternoon. We really taxed ourselves on this trip didn’t we 😉

The Beaches

The beaches of San Sebastian are undoubtedly some of the most beautiful I’ve seen and La Concha Bay in particular with the two beaches, Concha Beach and Ondarreta Beach, is a golden treasure which is not only good for laying on and sunbathing, but also great for long walks at sunrise, sunset … or any time of the day!

Zurriola Beach is great for checking out the surfers … I thought it was also supposed to be a nudist beach but we didn’t see any when we were there – though to be fair in Spain the ladies are mostly topless anyway … so that’s halfway there!

One of the great things about the San Sebastian beaches was that all have fresh water showers (fee for the warm showers) and free water fountains and toilets so that made it quite easy to stay beachside for a large part of the day. The sun was so good and we were so starving for Vitamin D that we spent at least part of everyday on the beach sunbathing. Great weather for getting the Fried Eggs out!

We found that the beach was a popular place for kids to try their acrobatics. It was very cool.

Cute Old Town

The Old Town is very cute and sweet and extremely explorable by foot.

Sights

Two much explores are Mount Igueldo which is an old, but still running, amusement park. It can be reached by taking a very quick furnicular a short stroll from Ondaretta Beach. Mount Igueldo gives amazing views back towards the centre of San Sebastian.

At the top you should hop on to the log ride. Childish and short but fun.

Speaking of childish we found this playground on one of our walks. I couldn’t help going and playing around on the equipment …

On the other side of La Concha Bay is Mount Urgull which has the La Mota Castle (cannons) and the Sacred Heart monument. This view point is closer to the old town than Mount Igueldo but requires a bit more hiking to get to the top. Its not hard but its not as easy as getting on the furnicular to take you to the top. Again, outstanding views at the top.

La Perla Thalassotherapy

We set aside our last afternoon in San Sebastian to relax with a massage and a couple of hours at a Thalassotherapy spa. The spa is set right on La Concha Bay, so a perfect setting for relaxation!

Thalassotherapy is a form of therapy that uses seawater and at La Perla they had lots of different circuits which involved the use of pools of seawater. In one pool it was a series of different spa jets focusing in different parts of your body like your neck, knees, groin, etc. which you moved around, and in another it was like a waterfall in the Hydrotherapy pool. In yet another pool there was the activity pool (with underwater bikes, rowing machines, weight machine, ski machine, stepper, climber!)

Other points of interest was the giant panoramic Jacuzzi, a sensation labyrinth (you walk through a curved corridor with jets of hot water (red light), cold water (blue light), sprinkles (black light), cold water (red light), and hot water (blue light); Water beds; Sea vapour bath; Ice fountain and a dry sauna.

It was absolutely bliss.

Food

San Sebastian is not only about fine dining. It is also synonymous with these little bite-size pieces called Pintxos. I still haven’t quite mastered how to pronounce it but I certainly didn’t have any problems getting it down. There is a street in San Sebastian which is packed full of all the really good pintxos bars and boy do they get full! We ended up at Fuego Negro which was probably not a typical Pintxos bar. We were drawn in because it looked so cool but it ended up being an almost fine dining kind of pinxtos. Ha!

We indulged in six dishes and don’t they all look stunning: Mushrooms, ham and “egg”; Spheres of shredded spider crab, avocado purée and a scoop of sweet liquorice ice cream (to be combined together in small mouthfuls); Garlic risotto with herbs and shades (incredible); Cheese with tongue and polenta; Wild chicken, corn, leaves and skin; and Lumagorri pate, soupfoam and corn.

Our food, though, wasn’t always fine dining. We loved our local “greasy” spoon which had this signature of cutting a hole out of the top of their toast or burger to let the egg come through. Mystified how they always knew were the yolk was!

Also had desserts of churros and a fondant chocolate which I was drawn to because of the curried coconut ice-cream. Different!

We didn’t actually get around to many of the other sights that San Sebastian has including supposedly Europe’s most modern Aquarium, the Chillida-Leku Centre which was temporarily closed and the Sagardoetxea-Cider Museum. There were also quite a number of interesting sounding tours that we didn’t get to take such as this Running Tour and all these food courses that you can take from learning to make pintxo or “low temperature” cooking. Things to look forward to on my next visit!

The big question on everyone’s lips in recent months was what would they be doing for the two bank holidays. Given the fact that the Royal Wedding gives us an extra bank holiday you could effectively take only three days off from work but still benefit from a 10 day break. I hadn’t really thought about my plans much – instead when I was in Oz two separate trips on the two bank holiday weekend was planned for me. I just had to give my credit card details. Heh heh. As a result I ended up working a day in between the two bank holidays but I think this actually worked out quite well as it gave me a chance to recharge.

As it turned out both weekend were trips away to Spain, the first was to Tenerife with Laney and Jonny and the second to San Sebastian with Su Yin. I’ve heard that Tenerife is the party island, or it would be if you stayed where all the tourists/hen parties/stag dos stay – in Playa de las Americas. But it turns out we were there to explore the natural wonders of the island instead.

The Experience

I hadn’t really thought about it but Tenerife is MILES away from London. I guess if I’d bothered to look at a map beforehand I would have realised that it was further even than Morocco! At any rate, we started with an early morning flight on a Friday morning and it wasn’t until late afternoon that we finally settled in at our hotel at Puerto de Santiago on the West Coast of the island. It was almost an hour drive from the airport and at first the novelty of the twisty roads caught our interest but after a while we just wanted to get to the hotel, get into our cossies, get some food and then get on to the beach!

The day we arrived weather wise was probably the nicest and warmest of the three that we were in Tenerife. After lunch on a particular sunny terrace overlooking the beach we headed down to wait out the sunset (by then it was nearly 5pm! The beach had a lovely black fine sand which sparkled beautifully in the sun light. Took in the heat like you wouldn’t believe though and it got everywhere … especially if you throw it on someone! LOL.

I wonder if many people take the sand away from the beach because there was this sign on the beach.

It really was pretty stuff.

On our second day in Tenerife we had planned to climb Mount Teide, a volcano and the third highest volcano in the world from its base. It is still active but last erupted in the early 1900s … so we felt pretty safe with the plan to walk up it. The day dawned beautiful and bright but it was wicked as all get up. You could feel that a storm or something crazy was just around the corner. It was weird because one moment it would be like this:

And the next it would be like this!

The drive to Mount Teida and around the National Park was dotted with some lovely scenery. There is something about the volcanic ashes that gives something different to the local fauna.

When we got to the information point we were disappointed to find that they had closed the final climb up to the peak of Mount Teide due to the conditions. To get to the top you actually have to apply for a pass. I guess to ensure that they know who has gone up and to be able to account for numbers for safety reasons. At any rate the highest point that could be reached the day we climbed it was the rest point at 3,260 m on the No.7 trail and just under 7km in distance. 500m short of the 3,718m peak but to me still quite an achievement.

To say that we were hardly prepared for the walk would have been an understatement, and me probably the least prepared. All we had were our trainers and not nearly enough water for the entire walk. Seeing the looks on the faces of the “real” hikers in all their hiking gear, with their sticks, etc. was vastly entertaining. But hey, we made it in the end, even if it took me over three and a half hours to climb (the walk down was ridiculously shorter taking only two and a half hours!) The map at the start said the entire climb (to the peak of 3,718m one presumes) should take five and a half hours, rating diffulty, HIGH!

Jonny was heaps faster, at least 45 minutes if not more, and Laney was not much further behind him. Laney was really good though – she was trying to stick with me but in the end I sent her off because I felt bad for holding her back. I have to be honest, there was a stage on the walk right at the end when I thought, stuff this, I can’t make it I’m just going to sit back on these rocks and sunbake until the other two get back down! But the hikers who were coming back down from the peak were very encouraging and I did make it in the end. It was definitely one of the hardest walks I’ve ever had to do, especially as it was so windy at times that I thought we would actually get blown off the mountain! And it got soooooo cold despite the sun. At the peak it was actually something like 5 degrees!!

It is a stunning walk with a landscape that reminded me a lot of Arizona … but it was a huge relief when we finally made it back to the car. Exhausted (and starving!) much!

That evening we returned to our hotel to find the little village (cause the night before we’d concluded it was a sleepy little family village) were getting set to have a big party! There was this huge music marathon with live bands in this square near the water. Clearly a huge community thing. Disturbingly there were young girls, and by young I mean no older than thirteen surely, in extremely short and skimpy dresses and high heels. It was loads of fun.

Because one walk wasn’t enough for us the next day we decided to take another walk … but this time on a peak which wasn’t so challenging. I was even less prepared than the day before though. Once again I was tricked by the fact that the day started warm, but by the time we got to the walk it had cooled down a bit so I had to resort to using my towel to keep me warm. Actually, I had brought a sweater but had left it at the hotel at breakfast.

This walk felt like we were walking on the moon!

When we were done the weather had really taken a turn for the worst. Very disappointing as we had been looking forward to spending some time with Mr Sun baking us brown!

With very little sun in sight we decided to drive around the island. It got well hairy at times when the twisting winding narrow roads became one lane and it was pot luck that a car wasn’t going to come screaming around the corner. Then we got a flat tire!!! … but Jonny and Laney proved they were handy at replacing it. Shame that our insurance covered pretty much everything … except blowing a tire! Would have been better to drive the car off a steep hill and into the ocean!

Lunch was at Garachico …

… before we finished with a further drive along the coast to watch our final sunset for our visit.

It has been over four years since I visited Berlin and this visit was a vastly different experience to that one. For a start I wasn’t hitting the city with a bunch of friends though ironically Laney and her crew were in town as well, rather I was visiting my brother who had been working in Berlin since the beginning of the year. I was happy to skip the typical tourist attractions that I hit last time like Museum Island, Checkpoint Charlie and all the various other historical sites. Instead this visit was filled with animals, Lego, long exploratory walks and … food! (Surprise Surprise!)

The Experience

These were the highlights of my visit to Berlin.

The non-profit group took us through the main Gesundbrunnen bunker situated under the Gesundbrunnen U-Bahn. Lasting around 90 minutes you wind your way through the various rooms in these these very well preserved WWII bunkers. Along the path of the tour are also various artefacts which demonstrate the ingenuity of the survivors as they crafted various items from military waste. Its amazing to think just how many people crammed into these bunkers during the war – even with just 30 or so of us it felt extremely crowded! And, many years later, the smell is clearly significantly improved – back then it would have been horrific.

There were other disturbing stories and artefacts that we saw including toilets were many women took their own lives rather than live with the stigma of being raped by the Russians. Here is one fact that may surprise – much of the “mountains” or “hills” that exist in Berlin are actually the result of an accumulation of rubble from the war. It is also the reason many roads collapse – the rubbish under the roads settling and causing cave-ins.

Patrick refused to believe me that there are brown bears in a random park in Berlin. Not attached to any zoo – mother and daughter Schnute and Maxi are brown bears who live unassumingly in the heart of Kollnischer Park, and are the Official City Bears of Berlin. It is a little disturbing to see these lumbering beasts sitting in their little enclosure but I sure was happy that they made an appearance for us.

This was clearly my suggestion for the weekend and though Patrick was a bit doubtful at first I think he ended up really enjoying the experience. The best thing at the Discovery Centre is the Miniland. Its so incredible what can be re-created with Lego – the Miniland even had the fall of the Berlin Wall (with the wall falling and then being re-erected in preparation for falling again) and a rock concert by U2! I like how there was even a time lag effect so that you could see what Berlin would look like from sunrise to sunset and all the way around to sunrise again. Really smart.

Check out Checkpoint Charlie!

The Bob the Builder 4D movie was also interesting … especially as it was in German!! Had us giggling though – especially when we were getting splashed by water … It’s a shame part of the Discovery Centre was shut for renovations – so we missed out on the Lego Factory 🙁

The former airport site (closed in October 2008) was opened in May 2010 as a city park. It is now the site for recreational activities and today that seemed to include flying kites, biking, skating … and even dry wind-surfing.

1.3km of the Berlin Wall is dedicated to paintings of over 100 artists from around the world. Its inspiring to walk along the wall and witness the paintings expressing the relief and hopes for a free future.

Mauerpark translates to “Wall Park” and refers to it being part of the Berlin Wall and its Death Strip (thanks Wikipedia.) Most of it is now an open green space but part of it is dedicated to regular a flea market. It has a real bohemian feel to the place. It is also a venue for open air karaoke – quite a crack up!

It was absolutely brilliant weather over this weekend so we took lots of long strolls including around the river.

A lovely weekend discovering a very livable city. I can totally understand why it’s the next big thing after London, New York and Paris.

And now on to the food!

My gal pals Jen and Rita had arranged a special weekend for my visit to Bris-vegas. We started with drinks at the Salon Cocktail Lounge in Teneriffe which was a kind of mini-reunion of sorts with some former work colleagues including James and Mel (although technically I didn’t meet her until she came to London!) and also some new people to meet in terms of Mel’s partner and Rita’s friend Will.

The Salon Cocktail Lounge had some pretty awesome drinks on their menu – its just a shame they’d run out of liquid nitrogen which was a feature in a few of their drinks. The gals made me go for this crazy drink called The Monkey Gland Hand. It kind of was exactly what it said on the tin – served in surgical glove, on a surgical metal tray, with surgical scissors and glass. It was pretty lethal too consisting of Beefeater gin, Kubler Swiss absinthe, Blood Orange juice, homemade grenadine glaze.

It was probably a good thing I had this one first before I’d had anything to drink because it was tricky enough to try and drink it whilst sober! Jen was much more lady-like in sipping from the glove than I was when drinking from it like it was an udder!

Other interesting drinks here included the Original Zombie, Willy Wonkas Waffle Waffer (Martell VSOP, Frangelico, Chestnut liquier, grilled lemon juice, Smoked maple syrup, vanilla ice cream and a waffle, cherry garnish), I think something called the Thailander (garnished with the Chilli) and the Marshmallow Man (Russian standard, framboise, lemon juice, orgeat and cooked marshmallow foam.) This was only a sample of drinks that caught the eye – if I could have handled my alcohol a little better and if I had money to burn (cocktails were between $AUD16-$AUD20 each – ouch!) I could have happily made my way through the entire menu.

Food was pretty decent at the Salon Lounge too with a special mention to the beer battered chips which came with the most amazing brown coloured sauce and aioli. I don’t know what the brown sauce was – but it was the most unique sauce I’ve ever had. A mixture of chilli, brown sugar, coconut or something like that. Divine. Oh! And waitstaff at the Lounge are pretty friendly and helpful too!

After quite a few rounds of drinks and dinner we decided to hit the Valley to see what was going on. Cloudland, more lounge bar than club, is very appealing to the eye – with lots of different sections each decorated a little different to the last. It is a very tall venue and most of the open space in the middle was opened up all the way to the roof.

Yes, the photo in the middle above is one of the toilet …

The next morning we woke up (relatively) early to take a walk up Mt Coot-tha. Mt Coot-tha is a mountain that can be seen from all over Brisbane. Not only is it a popular venue as a lookout, it was quite often known during University as the place to go to park your car and make out! Hmmm … For our morning adventure we decided we’d try to trek up to the top – we started off on this track along which was a display of art works produced by local Aboriginal artists but made an executive decision that being a bit pressed for time we would drive to the top instead and indulge in some ice chocolate. Haha.

And, just proving how small Brisbane is, we ran into one of their colleagues on a date!

At lunch we head to a tapas train venue, pinxto. Very dangerous in the way that sushi trains are dangerous – you don’t really think about how many dishes you’re eating until its too late and you see all the plates stacked up around you!

Having worked up an appetite we then headed over to Kangaroo cliffs for some abseiling. I’ve never done abseiling so I was looking forward to it. The gals had arranged to do the event with Riverlife. Unfortunately no photos as they don’t advise that you bring your camera – if I’d known that they get you to abseil one by one I’d have brought mine as we could have easily passed the camera amongst us. Oh well!

It was a stinking hot day – which made the climb to the top of the cliffs (via stairs) tough – but even harder when we were coming down as the rope got so hot, even through the gloves, that I was really afraid I’d let go and I’m pretty sure I have a burn on my hand from it! The abseil itself was pretty comfortable but the threat of me accidentally letting go of the rope freaked me out a bit. A good afternoon.

We finished the day with dinner at Urbane, yes another fine dining restaurant. More on that later!

The grand finale of the weekend was a trip North of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast! Mel joined us for this part of the weekend. The weather had turned a little bad unfortunately so the day started off gray and a little wet. We stopped off at Mooloolaba for some breakfast and to dip our toes into the water. The weather didn’t really stop people people from being on the beach that’s for sure, however cold and windy it was.

We were heading up to Noosa Heads for a very specific reason though Rita and Jen were being very circumspect about what we were doing and what I would need to wear etc. Turns out the surprise was that we were supposed to be doing a Camel Safari on the beach! Unfortunately due to the recent rains something happened to the ground were the camels were staying and they couldn’t move around. How odd!

Disappointing but we gladly hopped on to riding horses on the beach instead. I must admit – still pretty cool to, especially when the girls let us go for a canter.

Though we had dipped our toes in the water at various times of the day – we thought we’d wrap up our visit to the Sunshine Coast with an actual swim. It wasn’t raining by that point but the moon must have been in overdrive as the waves were ridiculous. At one point I think my top nearly came off and I actually lost a contact lens! It was crazy – but really good for body surfing, a skill which Rita seemed particularly good at.