This week on the blog we’ll be exploring what’s on in major cities around the world but for today we have a little gem for all those who have escaped the Winter cold.
Category Archives: Travel
Surviving the Australian Winter Without Hibernating
Winter has definitely arrived in Melbourne; with mornings at a record low and frost on the lawn staying home seems like the best way to survive the winter. But where’s the fun in that? All over the country cities play host to amazing events, gallery showcases and theatre extravaganzas that make it worth your while stepping out into the wintery blast.
Here are our top picks to get you out of the house this winter.
…for those of you that aren’t lucky enough to be feeling the cold here in Australia… don’t worry, next week we will be looking at what’s on in the rest of the world… and for those of you that do choose to stay indoors, we have paired these amazing events with a book version… just so you don’t miss out completely.
Melbourne, Victoria
This Winter the National Gallery of Victoria, is working in partnership with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, presenting MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition will be showcasing over 200 key works of the Museum’s iconic collection, including works by van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Picasso, Boccioni, Dalí and Kahlo. Click through the link here to book tickets and read more about the world of contemporary art.
This is a must-see attraction on Melbourne’s events calendar this Winter with all-new features and experiences in its very own purpose-built structure at the Paddock, Federation Square. Australia’s first Marvel’s Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N experience integrates science and modern technology with movie-based props. As a training agent of S.T.A.T.I.O.N you can train like an Avenger and delve into the history behind your favourite super heroes while checking out their equipment such as Captain America’s uniform and shield, Iron Man’s MK 45 suit, The Hulkbuster suit and Thor’s mighty hammer.
Find your favourite Marvel Books here.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London Palladium production of The Wizard of Oz is an enchanting revision of the all-time classic. This version has been developed from the ever-popular MGM screenplay and contains all of the favourite characters and iconic moments, plus a few surprises along the way, including new songs by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. You’ll get to rediscover the story of Oz in this fantastic musical treat, including songs like Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Over the Rainbow, Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead, If I Only Had a Heart, We’re Off to See The Wizard and The Merry Old Land of Oz…makes you want to pop on a pair of sparkly red slippers!
Sydney, New South Wales
The Bledisloe Cup returns to Sydney this winter and there is only one Test match being played on Australian soil this year so this is your chance to see the biggest Trans-Tasman battle on the sporting calendar live. After beating the All Blacks in the final Bledisloe Cup match of 2017, the Wallabies will be looking to go one step better to regain the cup in 2018.
South Australia
A Barossa winery tour with friends to warm the cockles of your heart in Winter. Sounds prefect! How about adding some of South Australia’s best French artisan breads, chocolate, macarons, crepes and croissants to go with your glass of Shiraz. Get ready to don your beret and striped jumper, Bonjour Barossa, Seppeltsfield’s French Festival, is returning on Sunday 8th July. Bonjour Barossa sees the Seppeltsfield estate reimagined into a Parisian style marketplace, bringing together food, wine and homeware vendors to the backdrop of French themed music and entertainment.
Canberra
Indulge in a feast of the senses and join in the fun as The Truffle Festival celebrates its 10-year anniversary. Each year from June to August more than 250 individual events are held across the Canberra region showcasing the region’s fresh Black Winter Truffle. Taste and experience the magic of these highly-prized gems. Indulge in the special flavours and aromas of truffle dishes at local restaurants and cafes. Join a hunt and see for yourself how the talented dogs unearth truffles. Learn from the chefs and other truffle experts at a cooking class or demonstration, or pop along to a market and pick up some truffle delights for yourself. The Truffle Festival is the ultimate foodie festival, and a fabulous celebration of winter in the Canberra region.
Tasmania
This is one week that will warm you up in chilly Tassie. The 2018 Tasmanian Whisky Week takes place from Monday 13th through to Sunday 19th August, with industry events held across seven days in many Tasmanian distilleries, bars, barns, stables, restaurants and hotels. Throughout the week distilleries open their doors to host behind-the-scenes tours to meet the distillers in person, provide access to unreleased whiskies, and offer dining opportunities where distilleries (both old and new) will recount the successes, challenges and events that have shaped who they are today.
Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland
Okay, so it’s not as cold in these states as some other parts of Australia so when the temperature is all little too much perhaps you could escape the winter blues to enjoy Broome’s sunshine, or the Gold Coast’s or Darwin’s.
Enjoy!
#tuesdaychat
On the blog this Thursday we’re uncovering the secrets to surviving winter without hibernating. What’s your favourite thing to do when the weather is freezing? We love ice skating and snowball fights.
Exploring the world with Bill Bryson
He’s sharp and witty and regarded as one of the world’s best writers of travel. Bill Bryson has penned numerous books that have made readers snort out loud and laugh until tears were streaming down their faces. He’s been a favourite in our household for years and we always look forward to his next release. Bill Bryson is one of those authors who sparks the reading bug where once you turn the last page in one of his books you’re instantly looking for his next.
Here are a few of our favourites…
The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain. In 2015, to mark the twentieth anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey round Britain to see what has changed. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognise any more. Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.
Bill Bryson goes to Kenya at the invitation of CARE International, the charity dedicated to working with local communities to eradicate poverty around the world. Kenya, generally regarded as the cradle of humankind, is a land of stunning landscapes, famous game reserves, and a vibrant culture, but it also has many serious problems, including refugees, AIDS, drought and grinding poverty. It also provides plenty to worry a nervous traveller like Bill Bryson: hair-raising rides in light aircraft, tropical diseases, snakes, insects and large predators. Bryson casts his inimitable eye on a continent new to him, and the resultant diary, though short in length, contains all his trademark laugh-out-loud wit, wry observation and curious insight. All the author’s royalties from this book, as well as all profits, go to CARE International.
Turning his attention to Australia, Bill Bryson takes a truly outrageous tour Down Under, revealing hundreds of entertaining eccentricities about the world’s largest island and about himself. Leaving no Vegemite unsavored, readers accompany Bryson as he dodges jellyfish while learning to surf at Bondi Beach, discovers a fish that can climb trees, dehydrates in sweltering deserts, and tells the true story of the rejected Danish architect who designed the Sydney Opera House. Definitely worth a read.
Bill Bryson has the rare knack of being out of his depth wherever he goes even (perhaps especially) in the land of his birth. This became all too apparent when, after nearly two decades in England, the world’s best-loved travel writer upped sticks with Mrs Bryson and his family and returned to live in the country he had left as a youth. Of course there were things Bryson missed about Blighty but any sense of loss was countered by the joy of rediscovering some of the forgotten treasures of his childhood: the glories of a New England autumn; the pleasingly comical sight of oneself in shorts; and motel rooms where you can generally count on being awakened in the night by a piercing shriek and the sound of a female voice pleading, ‘Put the gun down, Vinnie, I’ll do anything you say.’ Whether discussing the strange appeal of breakfast pizza or the jaw-slackening direness of American TV, Bill Bryson brings his inimitable brand of bemused wit to bear on that strangest of phenomena – the American way of life.
…and finally the book that prompted our love of Mr Bryson…
This book was voted the nation’s favourite book on modern Britain in a World Book Day BBC poll. After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the States for a while, to let his kids experience life in another country, to give his wife the chance to shop until 10 p.m. seven nights a week, and, most of all, because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, and it was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of the nation’s public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that produced Marmite, a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy, place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowells, people who said ‘Mustn’t grumble’, and Gardeners’ Question Time.
…and once you’ve read all of the above treasures you may want to have a look at these…
Enjoy!
#tuesdaychat
Some authors have an amazing ability to create wonderful worlds that you wish were true just so you could visit…Narnia is one of our favourites…imagine stepping through a wardrobe and arriving in a snowy land! Where would you go?
Monday Inspo
Bill Bryson is one of our favourite travel writers and this week on the blog we’ll be exploring the world with him…but first, here’s a little nugget to help you on this wintery morning.
Books in the Arctic
This is an amazing story of Oula who has been driving a mobile library in the Nordic Arctic for 40 years.
Librarians often go over and above their job description and are listeners, friends and more often than not, much needed human contact.
Top Travel Books to Encourage a Getaway
It’s been a long hot summer here in Melbourne and with February just around the corner, it’s now the time when we all start booking our getaways for later in the year. Whether you relax by spending time on a sandy beach, enjoy immersing yourself in bustling cities or prefer a simple camping trip we have some fabulous books for you to explore.
Wander Love by Aubrey Daquinag
Wander Love takes the world of Instagram and travel, and distils it in a beautiful pictorial book that will inspire your own adventures. Author Aubrey Daquinag is a travel blogger and photographer, most often found posting her adventures on her blog The Love Assembly from all corners of the globe. Featuring her incredible photography that shows you a world where travel meets style, her book includes sections on the essentials for a digital nomad office, how to be stylish while on the road, how to upgrade your travel photography skills, advice for solo female travellers, and unique destination guides for countries like Colombia and Morocco. Wander Love is the perfect mix of style, substance and travel adventures to inspire your own.
The New York Times Footsteps; From Ferrante’s Naples to Hammett’s San Francisco by The New York Times
Based on the popular New York Times travel column, Footsteps is an anthology of literary pilgrimages, exploring the geographic muses behind some of history’s greatest writers. From the “dangerous, dirty and seductive” streets of Naples, the setting for Elena Ferrante’s famous Neapolitan novels, to the “stone arches, creaky oaken doors, and riverside paths” of Oxford, the backdrop for Alice’s adventures in Wonderland, Footsteps takes a fresh approach to literary tourism, appealing to readers and travel enthusiasts alike.
The New Paris: The People, Places, and Ideas Fueling a Movement by Lindsey Tramuta
The city long-adored for its medieval beauty, old time brasseries, and corner cafés has even more to offer today. In the last few years, a flood of new ideas and creative locals has infused a once-static, traditional city with a new open-minded sensibility and energy. Journalist Lindsey Tramuta offers detailed insight into the rapidly evolving worlds of food, wine, pastry, coffee, beer, fashion, and design in the delightful city of Paris. Tramuta puts the spotlight on the new trends and people that are making France’s capital a more whimsical, creative, vibrant, and curious place to explore than its classical reputation might suggest. With hundreds of striking photographs that capture this fresh, animated spirit, The New Paris shows us the storied City of Light as never before.
Havana: A Subtropical Delirium by Mark Kurlansky
During his decade-long tenure as the Chicago Tribune’s Caribbean correspondent in the 1980s, Mark Kurlansky began traveling to Cuba. Since this introduction to the island nation, the journalist grew to know and love the beautiful, messy capital. Drawing on Havana’s history, Kurlansky starts with Columbus’ arrival in 1492 and examines the city’s role in the slave trade and its lasting effects. But he also brings us into the contemporary culture, highlighting the city’s lively music, dance and art scenes, and supplying us with recipes to tasty Cuban dishes.
Beaches by Gray Malin
Gray Malin is the artist of the moment for the Hollywood and fashion elite. His awe-inspiring aerial photographs of beaches around the world are shot from doorless helicopters, creating playful and stunning celebrations of light, shape, and perspective, as well as summer bliss. Combining the spirit of travel, adventure, luxury, and artistry, Malin built his eponymous lifestyle brand from a deep passion for photography and interior design. His work forges the synergy between wanderlust and adventure, creating the ultimate visual escape. Beaches features more than twenty cities across six continents.
Camping Around Australia by Explore Australia
Now on its third edition, Camping around Australia has become the go-to guide for all recreational campers. And this edition is bigger and better than ever! With over 3200 campsites included across the country, particularly highlighting free and dog-friendly campsites, the problem isn’t finding somewhere to camp – it’s deciding where to camp out of the many great options.
Enjoy!
Books That Inspire Your Inner Explorer
The weather is getting warmer now that it is spring here in Australia, and it’s time to start planning our summer vacations…or next winter’s if you like running away from the cool weather…
Here’s a few titles that are inspiring us to pack a suitcase and start exploring…
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
It’s an oldie but a goodie, and has inspired many of us to look at our life experiences through a new lens.
Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different and far more satisfying than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognising opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.
The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
My Dad put me onto Bill Bryson when I was travelling around Europe and while I was a bit hesitant at first, I laughed out loud so hard that everyone on the boat to Naxos turned around…trust me, it’s worth dipping your toe into a previously considered ‘something-for-Dad-author’.
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain. Now, to mark the twentieth anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey round Britain to see what has changed. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognise any more. Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.
The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman
Rachel Friedman has always been the consummate good girl who does well in school and plays it safe, so the college grad surprises no one more than herself when, on a whim (and in an effort to escape impending life decisions), she buys a ticket to Ireland, a place she has never visited. There she forms an unlikely bond with a free-spirited Australian girl, a born adventurer who spurs Rachel on to a yearlong odyssey that takes her to three continents, fills her life with newfound friends, and gives birth to a previously unrealised passion for adventure. As her journey takes her to Australia and South America, Rachel discovers and embraces her love of travel and unlocks more truths about herself than she ever realised she was seeking. Along the way, the erstwhile good girl finally learns to do something she’s never done before: simply live for the moment.
Wallpaper* City Guide – New York by The Editors of Wallpaper*
Wallpaper City Guides not only suggest where to stay, eat, and drink, but what the tourist passionate about design might want to see, whether he/she has a week or 24 hours in the city. Featured are up and coming areas, landmark buildings in an ‘Architour’, design centres, and the best shops to buy items unique to that city. Wallpaper City Guides present travellers with a fast-track ticket to the chosen location. The edited guides offer the best, most exciting, and the most beautiful of that particular city. As well as looking beautiful, the guides are expertly designed with function as a priority, and have tabbed sections so that readers can easily find the information they are looking for. The guides include rate and currency information, maps and a colour-coding system to help you navigate the different parts of the city. They are the ultimate combination of form and function.
Actually they have a whole host of city guides…come and check them out here.
The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell
This is the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Chateau de l’Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960. At the heart of this was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Chateau and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Windsors and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his ‘wilderness years’ in the thirties. After the War the story continued as the Chateau changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworth. Mary Lovell tells her story of high society behaviour with tremendous brio and relish.
Enjoy!
A virtual tour of the world’s most beautiful bookshops
There’s a subculture of book lovers who tour the world’s most beautiful bookshops. Who wouldn’t? We use beautiful in the figurative sense because although some of these bookshops are breathtakingly beautiful (such as Liberia El Ateneo Grand Splendid), others like the Honesty Bookshop are striking in their simplicity. Here are our recommendations for a virtual tour of the world’s most beautiful bookshops:
Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Image from m4caque’s photostream/ /CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
What’s more amazing than a bookshop built from a disused theatre? Theatre boxes are used as reading rooms, there are comfy couches scattered throughout the area and many of the original features are intact. We love that the red stage curtain is a centrepiece, which adds a touch of theatre to the room. Walls feature intricate carvings and the ceiling contains beautifully painted murals. Buenos Aires appears to be a city for bookworms with many snug cafes encouraging a love of reading. We can’t wait to visit…
Poplar Kids Republic, Beijing, China
Image from www.designrulz.com
If you’re designing a bookstore for children, there’s a great opportunity to play with structure, design and colour. Well, this bookshop in Beijing, China, completely nails the brief. There are a ton of interesting areas for children to explore the wide range of books and to find a comfy spot in which to read them. Opened by the Beijing POPLAR Culture project, the premise of the building was to encourage cultural awareness, with a focus on multicultural picture books. Designed by SAKO Architects, this organic and maze-like bookshop turns the idea of the conventional bookstore on it’s head as it is built around the needs of it’s customers. A+.
Cafebreria El Pendulo, Mexico City, Mexico
Image from mnn.com
Books, coffee and gardening! Whoever designed this bookshop certainly took into account some of my favourite things! Named after the pendulum that hangs from the ceiling, customers are invited to give it a nudge as they pass by, which allows it to swing back and forth, making patterns in the sand as it does. This double-level cafe houses books in both Spanish and English in shelves that are packed to the brim! Casually laid-out, books are placed in piles on the floor, giving the cafe a lovely casual atmosphere. Containing novelty gifts as well as books, DVD’s and CD’s, the friendly staff are on hand to offer some assistance in selecting the perfect gift.
Corso Como Bookshop, Milan, Italy
Image from Pinterest
10 Corso Como resembles an art gallery in it’s most minimalist sense. Designed by American artist Kris Ruhs, it’s becoming an institution with outlets now also in Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul. A shopping and dining complex, it offers a range of shops that display works of art, fashion, food, design and other cultural elements. Hosting a wide range of events and exhibitions, 10 Corso Como is a regular haunt of the culture vulture!
Honesty Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye
Image from Nexxo
For some reason, the small Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye is a hub of bookshops and literature-related events. Its literature festival was described by the then US President Bill Clinton as “the Woodstock of the mind”. Housing over 30 bookshops in narrow streets, many tour groups offer tours to this fabulous little town. We love the Honesty Bookshop, which is basically sets of aged shelves full of books that can be purchased with a donation. All funds go towards the restoration of the town’s Norman castle – whose grounds house the Honesty Bookshop. Such a beautifully simple little shop!
Shakespeare and Company, Paris
Image from Shakespeareandcompany.com
“Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise,” is the theme of the bookshop; it’s written above the entrance to the reading library. So strangers do come – some of them sleep in beds tucked behind the bookshelves, often helping out around the bookshop in place of board. Since opening, an astounding 30,000 people have slept in the bookstore. Quite often they are artists and aspiring writers who make Shakespeare and Co their home for a while. For these reasons, we feel this bookshop is quite extraordinary.
Shakespeare and Company is actually the name of two different bookstores that have opened on Paris’ Left Bank. The first one closed during WW2 but was, in its day, a gathering place for such imminent writers as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. The second still operates today at 37 rue de la Bûcherie. Operating as an antiquarian bookseller, selling new and second hand books, it also doubles as a free reading library to the public.