A perfect day

It's perhaps a little unconventional to nominate a perfect honeymoon day as one in which my sister and a friend tagged along, but last Saturday, we really did have a wonderful day. The weather was great, the scenery spectacular, the food good and the company fun.

Post-wedding, my sister took the opportunity to travel a little in Italy also, before heading back to New Zealand. By coincidence, we happened to be in Bologna on the same day, so in the morning, we set out for Ferrara, set a rendezvous point on the edge of Bologna, and picked up Jess and Jo for a trip to the Opera02 agritourism centre, located in the hills about 50 minutes from Bologna.

Emilia-Romagna, the region which is home to Bologna (and Ferrara, Parma, Modena, etc.) is known above all for its fine produce and cuisine. Amongst its world-famous products are Parma ham, Parmesan cheese, mortadella sausage (the original "baloney"), and Balsamic vinegar, as well as recipes like bolognese sauce, lasagne and tortellini. We knew we wanted to do some food tourism while we were there, and picked Opera02 because it offered two kinds of food tours - balsamic vinegar and lambrusco wine tasting, because it had good restaurant reviews, and for its stunning location in the countryside.

It delivered on all points. We learnt a lot I didn't know about Balsamico tradizionale di Modena. The first thing being that there is such a thing as Balsamico tradizionale di Modena. It turns out that, while the vinegar you can buy in the supermarket labelled "Balsamico di Modena" probably is authentically produced in Modena, it's actually not the super high quality (and expensive), certified "Protected Designation of Origin" stuff. The Tradizionale vinegar is aged longer, produced differently (from cooked grape must only) and must be certified by the governing body and placed in a specific bottle.

We tasted balsamics (by the way, the name comes from "balsam", as it was used to dress wounds and as a medicine for things like sore throats before people thought of it as a condiment) of different ages, plus one which was used as a traditional sweetener before Europeans had refined sugar. You really could taste the difference between them and the standard supermarket stuff. All the vinegars produced at Opera02 were made in the same process, but there was a big price jump between those which had the tradizionale label (aged longer and certified) and those that did not, so all of us opted to buy the 12 year aged but non-certified variety. This is meant to be used as a condiment with strong cheese or meat, rather than as a salad dressing, due to its strong flavour (and price!)

The "battery" where tradizionale vinegar is aged. It starts in the biggest barrel on the right, and then after a year, some is scooped out and put into the next barrel. The sizes decrease as the vinegar loses volume to evaporation, and each barrel is made from a different type of wood to impart different flavours to the balsamic. The barrel on the right can then be topped up again from a large vat.

Part two was a tour of the wine-making part of the operation, where they produce a variety of red and white wines, but particularly sparkling lambrusco wines. I'm no expert on Italian wine, but I gather lambrusco has a bit of a bad rap. A sparkling red is not to everyone's taste, but it was enjoyable, and we all particularly enjoyed the sparkling rosé lambrusco.

Bottles in riddling racks

Next was lunch, on the most beautiful terrace in gorgeous weather. It rained most of the next day, which made the recollection of our lovely lunch all the sweeter. The food was great too.

Our view

Lamp friend

My sister's travelling companion Little Shark trying to steal some dessert

The perfect day continued back in Bologna, but I think I'm going to have to make that a Part Two. Ciao!

My first trip to Wales!

Back in December, I celebrated my birthday with a trip to the UK, where my parents were staying. I've been to north-west England a ton of times, but this was Jules's first visit somewhere other than London (and Edinburgh, if we're talking UK), so we aimed for a blend of old favourites to introduce to him and new places for me.

Hence my very first trip to Wales! It seems strange I've never been before, since my family has Welsh ancestry on my father's side, and Wales is really not far from where my parents are from. Plus it has some pretty cool features - like the Snowdonia national park (which we didn't go to, but got close enough to see the Snowdonian mountains), and more castles than any other country in Europe (if you count Wales as a country, which it's not really, but over 600 castles is still very impressive).

And it was to one of these castles, Caernafon, that we headed for my first taste of Wales. Caernafon is really impressive. It's pretty huge, seems fairly intact in terms of the stones, although not as far as whatever was inside is concerned, and has an amazing location by the sea and mountains. And we were super lucky with the weather, as you can see.

View from the town side

Caernafon as it currently stands was built from 1283 under Edward I of England, as a way to keep the Welsh down, man. Edward took the pretext of rebellions in Wales to wage a war of conquest against the country, which was previously divided between a largely independent (although feudally linked to the English crown) Welsh principality and spheres of Anglo-Norman control. After Edward's war and the construction of the castle, it was captured in 1294 in a Welsh rebellion and besieged at the beginning of the 15th century, but subsequently things calmed down in Wales and it lost its strategic importance and fell into disrepair over the centuries.

On the battlements

I'm not good enough at mountain-spotting to tell if one of those is Mt. Snowdon, but it's a pretty view in any case

The large circular bit in the middle is where Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in 1969. The first Prince of Wales, Edward I's son (later Edward II) was supposedly born in the castle. Legend has it that Edward I promised to give them a prince born in Wales, who spoke not a word of English - and fulfilled it with his baby son. (It seems that this bit is bogus though, even if Edward II was born there.)

Me in the courtyard and Mum and Dad on the battlements

View from the towers of the River Seiont

Caernafon is known for having polygonal, rather than round or square towers. It was intended to be particularly impressive as a symbol of English power in Wales, with a design perhaps inspired by Byzantine or Roman examples.

A dragon sitting on top of a war memorial

Cute painted houses seen from the castle

 Afterwards, we grabbed a light lunch on the square in the photo above. I was mildly surprised that the staff working in the café spoke Welsh. I have known at least one Welsh-speaking Welsh person before, but it was kind of cool to see it in action as a working language, rather than something just taught in school or something. About 19% of the population of Wales said they could speak Welsh in the 2011 UK Census.

Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i'w gyfieithu, everyone!

A walk in the bush

Auckland so far has been hot, humid, and sometimes rainy. Not quite the dose of New Zealand sunshine we were looking forward to, but it seems to be clearing up now. We ventured out between rain showers to do a short walk in the "bush" (forest) in the Waitakere Ranges, not far from where my parents live.

Being away for so long is helping me see my native country with new eyes, and having gotten used to European forests, the New Zealand bush suddenly looks quite exotic. New Zealand's long geographical isolation means many of its native species are not found elsewhere in the world (and accounts for the many flightless native birds and the lack of native mammals). The profusion of ferns and palm trees in particular makes the New Zealand bush quite visually distinct from forests elsewhere in the world.

Blue skies appeared towards the end of our walk

A giant kauri, about a thousand years old

One reason people may be more familiar with the look of the New Zealand bush these days is, of course, the Lord of the Rings movies (and The Hobbit I suppose, I haven't seen it). My mum remarked that, after seeing the films, she half expected to stumble across hobbits in the woods near their house. I thought particularly of the hobbits hiding from the Nazgul near the beginning of the first film.

Source

When presented with some gnarled tree roots, however, I chose to channel my inner Gollum.

We finished off the day by going to a nearby RSA (this is I think like the Veterans' Association, assuming the Veterans Association runs pubs where veterans and general old people hang out) for a pub quiz. This was as much a way to stay awake until bed time as anything, since I'd been up for a few hours in the night and then woke up at 6 in the morning, yay. But we ended up taking out first place! Granted, not against the stiffest of competition, but since in Brussels we are always determinedly middle of the pack in our local pub quiz, it was a nice change!

I sadly won't be around to profit from the unbelievable prize

If you're tired of London, you're tired of life

One thing I've heard from several friends lately is that I'm "always on holiday". This is probably the impression I give on the blog as well, since I tend to only bother with blog and facebook posts when there's something interesting to report. That and I took my summer holidays a bit "out of phase" with everyone else, in early July and mid-September, so people just noticed it more. It's true I love to travel as much as possible though, and these past couple of months have been busy with long weekends.

Way in advance, I came up with the perfect present for Jules's birthday in October, a trip to London. He had mentioned wanting to visit several times, since he'd only been once on a school trip before, and then I came across somewhere the fact that an Escher exhibition was opening up the day before his birthday, so it was fate. Eurostar tickets booked, hotel picked, all that remained was to wait and not spill the beans to him on our surprise destination.

Until, that is, my parents were visiting Brussels in August and suggested that we might want to come over to London at the end of September to celebrate their 45th wedding annversary. 45 years, that is definitely an achievement worth celebrating! So I buttoned my lip and figured that, while I may not have planned to take two trips to London within three weeks in normal circumstances, we would probably still get a lot out of it.

Amazingly, even though all my family and friends that we hung out with in September knew that we were coming back again a few weeks later, no-one said a word. My parents even said a final goodbye, "see you in New Zealand" that was evidently very convincing. I managed to keep Jules in the dark right up until we went through the check-in for the Eurostar. It was quite funny, we had a little time before getting on the train, so I encouraged him to sit and drink his coffee just outside the Eurostar terminal, and right up until the last minute he couldn't make up his mind whether I had brought him to the Eurostar bit as a trick or if we were really going to London again.

Since Jules hadn't really done the big London sights, we tried to pack in several of the big museums, including the British Museum, National Gallery, and the Natural History Museum. As well as the Escher exhibition of course, which was out in the middle of nowhere in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. I would probably describe myself as indifferent to Escher, but it was a really good exhibition. Seeing the original prints up close, you could really see the artistry and skill. It was amazing to see the different techniques he mastered, from using different methods to create the prints (engraving, carving etc.) and the different kinds of optical illusions and artifices he employed. I definitely came away with a greater appreciation of his work.

Egyptian art at the British Museum

Cute medieval hunting scene, seems to be a jolly jape for all involved

Jules and a pharaonic friend

Scary Aztec mask

Yuss!

In Chinatown

People crossing the Millennium Bridge

In front of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square (we had beautiful weather by the way)

A bit windy crossing the Thames

For their anniversary dinner, we went out to a Michelin-starred Peruvian restaurant, Lima. I suppose if you're going to try Peruvian cuisine, it makes sense to start with the best! The vibe was quite different from other starred restaurants I've been to, more casual service and even oontsy oontsy background music! It was actually quite nice for a family dinner as opposed to the more formal French fine dining tradition. The menu was quite eclectic, featuring cactus desserts and blue potato chocolate mousse (which I had) amongst other exotic fare. I don't know how representative it is of your average Peruvian cuisine, but it was good!

Guess that lady in the background really didn't want to be in our photo

On our second trip, after the Escher exhibition and saying goodbye to my parents on the Friday night (coincidentally, their flight back to New Zealand was on the Saturday), birthday boy opted to spend his special day in the Natural History Museum. Ye gods, it was crowded. Turns out gigantic strollers are not content to restrict themselves to annoying the crap out of everyone on pavements and buses anymore, but have invaded museums. The whole place basically looked like a daycare centre, but was as crowded as a nightclub. The only part we did was the dinosaurs, because Jules wanted to and I couldn't really say no since it was his birthday. The dinosaur section has a really cool concept - you go up some stairs and along a suspended walkway, so you are eye level with a lot of fossils and some animatronic dinosaurs, and then come back down to the bit with all the proper museumy information about the dinos. However, it was so busy and (as we found out later) the whole line is held up by the giant animatronic T-Rex at the end of it, that we spent a good 20 minutes packed into this walkway shuffling along with no escape. Nightmare.

We walked through Hyde Park from our hotel to the Natural History Museum (full of cute dogs!)

Jules and the T-Rex

Seems this T-Rex had to be put down

Outside the museum

I crowdsourced suggestions for our birthday dinner, and one of my friends suggested we try one of Peter Gordon's restaurants, Kopapa. Peter Gordon is a New Zealand chef, I think mostly known in New Zealand for pioneering a kind of Pacific Rim fusion food, and maybe known in the UK for now running Gourmet Burger Kitchen. Anyway, I thought it was a cool opportunity to have a little taste of home - not that Kiwis are running around eating fusion food all day long. It was the sort of menu where you look at it and feel a bit worried whether or not you're going to like it, but everything was really good.

They had special Rugby World Cup-themed cocktails. Jules betrayed us all by going for South Africa

Delicious terrine with a crispy poached egg (the ball on the left). I didn't know what they meant by it and had forgotten it was on the plate by the time it came, so I was delighted when I cut into it and the yolk came out. It normally annoys me when TV chefs describe food as "playful", but it was accurate for a change 

Main course cod, polenta and pea puree

We had a three-course menu, because I found a special deal for it online, but some of the people around us were having a tapas-style meal, which I would definitely go back for, looked yummy! We're probably Londoned out for the moment, not least because it's bloody expensive, but as Johnson and my blogpost title say, it takes more than two trips in three weeks to see all there is to see in the city.

Family fun in Luxembourg and France

The weekend before we went to the Belgian Grand Prix, my parents came for their first visit to Luxembourg, to see Jules's home country and meet his family for the first time. It was nice to show off what is, I think, a pretty underappreciated destination. The weather wasn't playing into our hands, but we still enjoyed walking around the key areas of Luxembourg City with them. We even went over the fortifications to the other side of the Grund valley, where I'd actually not been before (obviously I had been on that side of the river plenty of times, but not specifically the part straight across from the Bock). The large amounts of green space, the different levels between valleys and plateaux, and the old city fortifications makes it a very picturesque city for a walking tour.

View of the Grund

Ha, me and a small child

It got a bit drizzly by the time we got to the far side of town

The next day, we went just over the border to France, to visit Château Malbrouck. The route passed through the town of Schengen, in Luxembourg, and you can really understand why it gave its name to the Schengen zone. When you're in Schengen, you drive onto a bridge across the Moselle river and you're in Germany for 100 metres or so, and when you get to the bank on the far side, if you turn left you stay in Germany, but if you turn right, as we did, you're now in France. After we visited the château, we had lunch just down the road in Germany before driving back over into Luxembourg for a drive along the Moselle. It really made you realise just how inconvenient things would be if they ever did end up going back to proper borders.

The Château, which is actually named after the Duke of Marlborough, Churchill's ancestor, who came here at some point during the War of Spanish Succession or something (there was an explanation of this in the château but I got a bit lost in all the details), is mostly reconstructed, but it's been done really well. One interesting thing in one of the towers was a display of the methods used to reconstruct the site. The level of detail and the care they took to make sure they used authentic methods and tried to reconstruct exactly what was here before it fell into ruin was very impressive. I think it's one of the biggest and most expensive castle renovations undertaken in France.

On the walls of Château Malbrouck

View from the Château

The main reason for visiting the château on this occasion was that I saw a friend's photos of its current exhibition, Knights and Samurai, on Facebook. It's a pretty interesting concept for an exhibition - to compare and contrast the culture, lifestyle and history of European Knights and Japanese Samurai. On one level, the similarities are obviously - both noble classes of fighting men. But it went deeper to show how the two groups fit into the wider culture of their homelands - the influences of things like courtly love poetry and adventure literature in Europe and the place of knights in Japanese art and literature, knights and samurai on film, the different ceremonies that took place to become a knight or a samurai, the codes of honour - chivalry and bushido - etc.

There were some great displays of samurai armour and masks too. I'm usually not that interested in displays of armour and weaponry, but the intricate Japanese armour really was a work of art. Interestingly, most of these pieces came from a single, private collection, which I imagine must be someone's lifework and passion (or maybe they're just really rich?)

Samurai armour

I liked how you could really see the influence of traditional Japanese art on things like manga (not that I'm an expert)

Got to have that fake moustache

Cute 19th-century owl

We finished off the weekend with a very nice dinner with Jules's family in the heart of Luxembourg - with our old friends the péckvillercher standing guard outside. I think it was a pretty successful family visit!

Péckvillercher outside the restaurant