Travel 2016 – Savonlinna, Day 12

Day 12, Saturday 16th July (Savonlinna) Moose count = does a photo of a moose count? The day started with a quick trip to the market to get supplies to have with the lörtsy for dinner, and to extact some items from the car like maps and guidebooks. The kauppatori at Savonlinna is smaller than…

Travel 2016 – Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Juva, Savonlinna, Day 11

Day 11, Friday 15th July (Tampere, Jyvaskyla, Juva, Savonlinna) Moose count = not a damn one, no moose here, why do you ask? This was another travelling day. We needed to be in Savonlinna by 16:00 at the latest so we made a reasonably early start and dragged all of our luggage back downstairs from the…

Travel 2016 – Tampere, Day 10

Day 10 – Thursday 14th July (Tampere) Moose count = not a single one! Today the weather was much improved after the storms of the previous night and for us it was all about Tampere. The apartment was in the middle of a building site (some sort of tunnel seems to be under construction, for…

Travel 2016 – Turku, Day 8

Day 8, Tuesday 12th July (Turku) Moose count = still none! I started the day by going for a run, foolishly assuming I would find my way back really easily. I hadn’t thought that the river I crossed might be more complicated than it seemed, and that there could be more than one area full…

Travel 2016 – Helsinki, Day 5

Day 5, Saturday 9th July Moose count = 1 moose fillet, 0 live moose Saturday saw a somewhat early start as we were booked on a walking tour with Happy Guide Helsinki and they were kicking off at 10:00am at the Vanha Kauppahalli. We arrived with 20 minutes to spare and so wandered into the…

Travel 2016 – Helsinki, Day 4

Day 4, Friday 8th July – Helsinki Moose = 1 bronze moose, 1 stuffed moose, 0 live moose The ferry disembarcation was quick and efficient and after a drive into the city that had us wondering where everyone was, we were in Helsinki and parking up by the hotel within 30 minutes, a fact much…

Food 2016 – Le Gavroche, London

Monday, May 9th 2016 – Le Gavroche, London So after what feels like years of completely failing to get a table at Le Gavroche an invitation came through to attend a celebratory event there. I just needed to reply quickly to the email and hope I was faster than anyone else. I was! I paid…

Travel 2015 – Bruges, Day 2

Sunday, December 13th 2015 – Bruges So it was up and at ’em pretty promptly on Sunday morning as we wanted to see as much as possible. It was a ridiculously mild morning so after breakfast in the somewhat disappointing breakfast room (which felt more like an institutional cafeteria than a dining room in what…

Travel 2015 – London, Bruges, Day 1

Saturday, 12th December 2015 – London, Bruges This trip came about because we’d fancied a “Christmas Markets” type weekend away in the run up to Christmas and as I was hunting for something that appealed a deal came up for a Eurostar and hotel package at a price that was too good to walk away…

Food 2014 – Baltic Bar and Restaurant, London

So after the harrowing experience that was the Crucible at the Old Vic, we figured dinner and a couple of drinks might well be necessary. With this is mind I had reserved a table at Baltic which is but a short, stunned lurch from the theatre. We’ve eaten there before and find that the food,…