Torcello is a laid-back island with only 10 or 11 permanent inhabitants, but at its height several thousand people lived there. Don’t let this figure fool you, though, as it’s packed with tourists looking at the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta, Chiesa di Santa Fosta and the museum. There’s a […]
Venice is a city of a hundred million details. They are everywhere from small carved bosses half way up buildings, to the 16th Century wells that stand proud in the multitude of piazzas. You have to look upwards to get the full magnificence of Venice because the vista is completed […]
Burano is completely different to Venice in terms of its architecture. We visited it as part of a 20-Euro half-day tour of Murano, Burano and Torcello. It sits about 7km from Venice and you can catch a ferry directly there which takes about 40 minutes. Burano’s multi-coloured houses Burano is […]
Rotorua is a three hour drive from Auckland and we set off at 4pm on a Friday, which unfortunately made it closer to four hours as we fought rush hour traffic out down the Southern Motorway. We had booked into the Rydges Hotel next to Rotorua Racecourse, just a couple […]
The most picturesque golf course in Auckland is located on Musick Point, but why spoil a good walk having to stop to knock a ball in a hole! Park next to the sign at the beginning of the course, next to a few houses which look like they might have […]
While most people would think of the Waitakere Ranges as being the place to go hiking in Auckland, there’s another water catchment area with dams and a mixture of gentle and rugged walking tracks: the Hunua Ranges. Bird watching The area has been undergoing some fairly intensive predator trapping and […]
Gibbs Farm is an artistic experiment in the use of the landscape to influence and display large-scale works of art. It’s set against the backdrop of the Kaipara Harbour and is owned by entrepreneur and arts philanthropist, Alan Gibbs. Of the 19 works on display, three dominate the park: Neil […]
Cubadupa in Wellington lasts just for a weekend and this is a weekend you don’t want to miss. The dates change every year, but they are generally falling at the end of March, to farewell the summer with the best party possible. Cuba Street and the surrounding lanes and public […]
40km west of Auckland is a bay that doesn’t want to be accessed by mere mortals. Mercer Bay sits between Piha and Karekare on the west coast of Auckland. We went on an amazing early autumn day. The sea was a gently rippling cape edged in white lace and a lone boat […]
Bay of Pigs (Bahia de Cochinos) was so beautiful that we ended up being there twice. The first time was on our way from Cienfuegos to Viñales, the second time was after the Cuban Adventures tour, during our stay in Playa Larga. The first time we went to Cueva de […]
