Europe
The Warsaw Gazette – Part 2
Tweet Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Praga and Zoliborz (pronounced “Jolly–Bosch”), two suburbs of Warsaw, with my colleague Maria. Maria and I are kindred-souls, particularly in our approach to food (“life is good on a full stomach” and “quality beats quantity”) and when she offered to show me around Warsaw I didn’t … Continue reading
The Warsaw Gazette – Part 1
Tweet The streets surrounding the Palace of Culture and Science were teaming with life this Friday evening and Poland’s tallest building looked beautiful illuminated. It was strange to walk around a shopping mall after 8:00pm and to have the time to browse through the grocery store aisles. As supermarkets don’t stay open late in Switzerland, … Continue reading
The Warsaw Gazette
Tweet I’m writing this to you from Warsaw, a city to which I have relocated temporarily on account of work. For the next four months my ‘home’ will be a series of hotel rooms from where I hope to bring you stories of life in this captivating country. This was a difficult to move to … Continue reading
The Fondue Train
Tweet If you’re looking for a fun weekend activity in the Swiss canton of Fribourg, The Fondue Train (or ‘Le train retro’ as it is known in French) may be just the ticket. It combines everything that’s admirable about Switzerland – impeccable organisation, a simple culinary concept, good wine and a picture perfect backdrop against … Continue reading
Put a fork in it!
Tweet After almost 10 years in Switzerland, I finally saw Vevey’s famous fork, positioned across from the Charlie Chaplin statue on the lake front! There has been much controversy around this fork, which at 8 meters in height and 1.3 meters in width, is made entirely from stainless steel. The fork was designed by Jean-Pierre … Continue reading
Echandens – My Hometown
Tweet Echanden’s chateau may not be as regal as the one in Versailles, but it was once the residence of Georges Simenon, the French language’s equivalent of Arthur Conan Doyle. And if that’s not enough it’s rumoured to be haunted. Ironically it was here that I attended a wedding party, 10 years ago. The couple had married in … Continue reading
An ode to cheese
Tweet There‘s a science and an art and to making cheese. And it’s precisely this combination of precision and love that makes cheese the perfect food for the Swiss to produce. And it’s not just the variety of cheese that is mind boggling. The Swiss have found a number of ways to melt, combine, fry, … Continue reading
In my backyard: A little bit of Colorado in the Canton of Vaud?
Tweet Should I be writing about La Tine de Conflens? I think I may be about to let the best guarded secret in the canton of Vaud out of the bag. But it was such a pleasant find that I think it would be a crime to keep it to myself. I don’t think I’m … Continue reading
How alcohol can help you win friends and influence people when you travel
Tweet I should remember Scotland for being ruggedly beautiful even in god awful weather. But a fortuitous encounter with three old men and a conversation that opened with the line, “So, is your toy boy a man of few words or is he just plain stupid?” will forever be etched in my memory. Not a … Continue reading
Sent. (Not forwarded)
Tweet Okay, so this is a a really corny way of introducing the town called ‘Sent’. It’s located in the Swiss canton of Grison not too far away from the haunted hotel that I wrote about in my last post. To me, the canton of Grison combines the prettiness and exactness of the German part of Switzerland … Continue reading
