We spent a fantastic 8 years in Sydney, living by the beach and exploring the city and we recently put together some of our favourite things to do with visitors that aren’t on the usual tourist route.
Author: Michelle
Newfoundland was one of our favourite trips ever. The friendliness of the locals is legendary for a reason. It feels like coming home even if you’re not from there. Here’s a nutshell of travel tips to help you make the most of your visit.
For many people, food in Newfoundland means fish and chips. But if you take some time to look, Newfoundland has a lot more to offer in terms great restaurants, pubs and craft breweries. This list is just some of our favourite Newfoundland restaurants and pubs from our visit in 2022.
Hiking in Gros Morne National Park is a lesson in plate techtonics and a day out in a stunning landscape all rolled into one. Given the nickname for Newfoundland is ‘The Rock’ it’s not surprising most of the hikes vary from boulder hopping to scrambling up steep slopes of scree.
You can get screech’d in at many place, but Christian’s in St John’s is legendary. The entire bar shuts down during the 45 minute ceremony which is run by Lukie, a local dressed in his full wet weather fishing garb (sou’wester hat and heavy raincoat).
Our last few weeks in Spain we planned to spend in relaxation mode. A few days in the Pyrenees mountains followed by two full weeks at a small cove beach in Costa Brava (NE Spain, near the French border). It absolutely delivered.
Bilbao: We’re in Basque country now, where everything is written in a font that looks remarkably like Asterix and Obelix and the letters X and Q appear way more often than our English-speaking tongues can fathom.
From Madrid the plan was to head North to the Basque region. Since we’d been city-hopping a bit, we decided to break the trip up with a few days in a small town in the wine region of La Rioja.
At its peak Córdoba was the second-largest city in Europe, and a world leading centre of education and learning. By far its most famous remaining landmark is the truly spectacular Mezquita-Catedral, or Mosque-Cathedral.
Our time living in the UK has meant that the mere mention of the city of Málaga or the Costa del Sol was enough to send shivers of ‘tourist nastiness’ down our spines. Images of European tourists (well, truthfully, Brits on holiday) and stag / hen weekends quickly came to mind.
After the sensory overload of Valencia we head southwest into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, to explore the rich Islamic history of the Andalusian region with our first stop of Granada.
It’s hard to do justice to Las Fallas, the incredible Valencian festival, in a single blog post. There are many activities that go on during the festival, from paella competitions to music concerts, local bands to street performers. But like a drumbeat underscoring everything is the constant sound of fireworks.