Paris is a wonderful city to stroll around. It’s full of gardens, monuments and beautiful shops – galleries, boutiques, perfumeries, bookshops, antiques, bric a brac and some really quirky stores. Wandering aimlessly in a city this size can seem a bit daunting though, so on my last visit I created a DIY walking tour centred […]
Counties Kerry and Cork, in the very south of Ireland, are routinely listed as the most beautiful parts of a country famous for magnificent scenery. There’s great produce too, from delicious raw milk cheeses to great fruit and veg and some special craft beers. The highlight of this region is the five southern peninsulas: beautiful […]
“Why on earth would you go to Wales on holiday?” a British friend scoffed. He was even more shocked when I said it was as much for the thriving food culture as the gorgeous scenery. How often we overlook what’s in our own back yard! Despite our high expectations, this tiny bilingual corner of Europe […]
Brittany’s capital city is a charming university town just 2 hours from Paris by TGV. There’s much to recommend it as a short break destination, from cobbled streets of beautiful half-timbered houses to art-deco buildings covered in glistening mosaic tiles, a huge Saturday market that spans several streets and covered halls, and food ranging from […]
The Wild Atlantic Way is a 2,500km driving route along half of Ireland’s coastline; it’s far too much to tackle in one go, so is divided into more manageable sections like the southwest ‘Cliff Coast’. Sure, you’ll see the famous Cliffs of Moher with thousands of day-trippers, but Ireland’s Cliff Coast has so much more […]
One of the less visited areas of France, Jura is a diverse landscape of plains, vineyard-clad hills and the rugged Jura Mountains, which it shares with neighbouring Switzerland. There’s some spectacular scenery and delicious food, but most exciting of all is the unique vin jaune (‘yellow wine’) that has made this region famous among oenophiles […]
Top 5 International Dishes 2018-2019 This year was the toughest yet to stop at just five dishes, and I’ve cheated just a little as you’ll see. So here are the five best dishes I’ve eaten overseas in the past 12 months – I would travel many miles to eat any of these again! Honourable mentions […]
Top 5 Places to Stay in the British Isles For a couple of relatively small islands, Great Britain and Ireland offer an awful lot to discover. They’re the perfect size for a driving holiday, whether it’s a long weekend in just one area or a few weeks taking in as much as possible. The scenery […]
Lyon was dubbed ‘the capital of world gastronomy’ by celebrated culinary critic Curnonsky in 1935 and today boasts over 20 Michelin stars – though you really come here to eat in bouchons, traditional casual restaurants, similar to Parisian bistros but unique to Lyon. Best of all, Lyon also has a lot to offer between meals […]
Top 5 Barossa (regional guide) Australian wine areas don’t get much more iconic than the Barossa. Without getting into too much detail, the Barossa ‘wine zone’ is divided into two official ‘wine regions’: the cooler, higher Eden Valley in the east and the warmer Barossa Valley in the west; plus a small stretch further west […]
