A tourist in Paris – the good, the bad and the ugly

The iconic Eiffel Tower

The Ugly

Let’s start with the ugly (because I always like to end on a good note). But let me be clear, nothing could actually be called ugly in Paris. Not the sights, not the food, the wonderful people or experiences to be had. Paris should be accordingly adored and revered by all. I love her.

But if you’re a tourist, there is some ugly and bad to be had….

The Palace of Versailles. Not, in itself, ugly at all! The Palace is so gorgeous and sumptuous, with stories singing out from every corner and bouncing off the gold walls. Here is history if not personified, then made real in architecture. Here it should be easy to recall the extravagance of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and picture the struggling masses outside starving and baying for blood. Every ornately painted ceiling, every vast and sweeping marble staircase, and every lavishly furnished room should transport you to another time and place. You should be able to picture yourself strolling in the gardens, entertaining fellow aristocrats and generally living a selfish and indulgent life.

But in fact what you’re most concerned about, right from the outset, is being in the right line and then fiercely guarding your place in it, careful not to let through any sneaky line hoppers who might get in approximately 30 seconds before you (you’re going to spend hours there, but still!). You approach the imposing, gilded frontage of Versailles with a sense of awe and wonder but before you’ve bought your ticket you’re defensive and antagonistic.

You get worse. You start elbowing your way through crowds, mocking umbrella wielding tour guides, and rolling your eyes in disdain at those arrogant prats who insist on taking flash photography even though, very clearly, the signs say ‘no flash photography’. Normally you’re benign and easy going, but now you glare menacingly at the back of the head of the person who just squeezed into the tiny slice of free space in front of you. People lose their senses – they push in, they push you over and they push your limits of patience and decency.

The Palace of Versailles with tourists edited out.

Then there is the ubiquitous and annoyingly lengthy line up for the toilets. Here my travelling companion and I coined the term ‘a Versailles incident’ to indicate a toilet cubicle that has been so defiled by an unhappy incident as to render it unfit for human use. If you take a moment to think about it (and I recommend that, actually, you don’t) it’s difficult to imagine how that incident might have happened. We wanted to use the Ladies before we left the Palace, but three out of the four cubicles were decommissioned and the lady in the fourth appeared to be settling in for a while, resulting in a rather expensive but deeply satisfying detour to a nearby hotel lobby bar instead.

Fellow tourists are ugly. Yes, yes, I was one of them. But somehow, others are always worse. Right?

The Bad

Stairs and urine. It’s a cliché I know, but endless metro stairs and the overwhelming smell of urine together are the undeniable ‘bad’ of Paris. A small price to pay, but none the less, it must be paid. The metro itself is excellent – quick, convenient and reasonably priced. But there were rarely escalators going up and never going down and so, at the end of a long day of endless walking, facing a long winding stair case made one sigh and frown just a little bit. In some metro stations the sour rancid smell of urine was overpowering. There seemed to be a little run off area against each wall – just wide enough to fit your foot inside. This was often the damp and undeniable source of the urine smell. Imagine then, my horror when I stumbled a little and stuck my scantily sandalled foot into one of these gutters. Had you witnessed this event, you would have seen my face silently transformed into the painting The Scream and my graceful but frantic backwards pirouette across the platform, arms windmilling, whimpering pitifully. A tentative examination confirmed that this was, mercifully, a dry gutter and that a soak in a disinfectant bath for 24 hours would probably suffice. Maybe.

But oftentimes our forbearance of urine and stairs was rewarded with an amazing busking performances – a middle aged duo delighted a crowded, tourist-laden train with every hokey wedding reception song imaginable, complete with accordion and guitar. Then there were the funky hip hop artists who turned the carriage into an instant nightclub, and who pole danced and made people smile and take photos. Worth it.

The Good

Where do I begin? There are so many very good things about Paris. Here is a city in which you have a moment to remember the special little things in life.  And they’re simple. We spent an afternoon sitting by the Seine with fresh pastries and a bottle of wine. We strolled through the Tuileries Garden, soaking up the early summer sunshine, and we meandered through the grand apartments and boutiques of the historically significant Marais area. There we found a fresh food market and we admired the luscious colours and smells, unable to resist some sweet peaches. Paris is a city in which you can just be. Full stop. Good. Very good.

The streets of Marais

One of the most wonderful evenings we had was also simple. After admiring the Eiffel Tower – ever present, compulsory, enigmatic – we wandered across the Seine, up the stairs to the Palais de Chaillot to appreciate it again from afar. We casually wandered into the Trocadero café and sat ourselves outside, in full view of the Tower and the early Parisian night life. We laughed and chatted over yet another glass of wine but sometimes we sat silently, people watching, utterly content in the present. A young couple held hands and smiled into each other’s beaming faces; a middle aged man trudged past in his suit, muttering into his phone, looking tired and glad it was Friday; a gaggle of high heeled girls squealed with delight at meeting each other before clambering into taxis.

The table next to us were organising their departure. The two men and a woman, all seemingly genuine Parisians, in their 70s or older, fussed with the cheque and each other. The woman went to freshen up before leaving and the two men took their time in collecting their things together and heading out the front to wait for her. They were both smartly dressed with jackets and a handkerchief in their pockets. Distinguished looking, but not stuffy. One of the men held the lead of a very small white fluffy dog who was suitably cranky and yappy. He cooed reassuringly at it but when the woman returned he gratefully gave the lead back to her. All three wandered off slowly, chatting amiably, relaxed. I wanted to be that woman when I was older – so obviously still engaged in life and enjoying it with friends.  

We left the Trocadero and wandered down the street in search of the Victor Hugo metro and it took us forever because we constantly stopped to peer through the most amazing window scenes of wealth and excess. The streets were getting dark and the chandeliers shone brightly. The buildings were impossibly lush and ornate and we wondered how people lived their lives in there. Did they think of their lives as extraordinary, I wondered? Or simply, wonderfully, just Parisian.

Melbourne melancholy*

I love Melbourne. Great city. It regards itself, justifiably, as the foodie capital of Australia. I’m not going to argue (too much) with that. It’s supposed to be awesome for Coeliacs – they hold a convention there for heaven’s sake. So I didn’t do any homework or research before I visited – I usually don’t bother with Australian cities because they are super easy. I didn’t even bring an emergency nut bar!

My fault then, that I was reminded of the annoyances of being gluten intolerant – ‘first world’ problem, I know, but annoying all the same (because I live in a first world!). I can’t blame Melbourne – I could’ve been anywhere. I could have been home! But I wasn’t, so this is my travel story.

A dinner in Lygon street was fantastic. Breakfast for five days was easy – cinnamon French toast with berries? Oh yes please! Bacon and eggs! Bring ‘em on! Throw some avocado on there while you’re at it. Oh lovely. I love that big smile some wait staff give me when I say I’m Coeliac: ‘We’ve got gluten free bread for you’. It’s like a big warm hug with a little bit of sunshine.

But just about every other meal made me sigh a little.

I tried to pick up sushi down Collins Street. I wandered into a little store, it wasn’t particularly busy and I just asked, innocently, curiously ‘anything gluten free?’ (cue smile). ‘No.’ But not just ‘no’, it was a no that made me feel dirty for asking. Like I had asked whether they sold any black market porn out the back. The counter person couldn’t meet my eye, didn’t give me an apologetic smile. Just a ‘no’ and looked past me. Silence. So I wandered away. Hungry.

 

The food court of the Crown Casino is the haven of the perpetual gambler. This is a no nonsense feeding station. Eat and then get back in there! There are about eight or so outlets with a variety of cuisines. My friend sits down to her duck and vegetable dinner while I do the rounds. I felt like a homeless person begging for scraps. I approached just about every counter and started off with ‘Do you have anything at all gluten free?’. The responses were mostly curt ‘No’s (followed by silence). One fellow smiled and said, ‘Yes, you can have tomato and lettuce with no dressing’. When I didn’t look enthusiastic about that he kind of huffed like I was being super fussy. ‘Well, that’s all we have, take it or leave it’. I left it.

Again, forget the sushi. No one could tell me why the usual gluten free options weren’t gluten free, but forget it lady. Shoo. 

I could have gluten free cake. Which is nice – cake is most excellent. But not for dinner. I didn’t feel like it for dinner.

I spied the carvery – roast meat and vegetables. I couldn’t go wrong, surely! In fact, I could. I could have the meat, but the vegetables were covered in toxic chicken salt. How about a vegetarian frittata instead? Yes! Yes, bring me a vegetarian frittata!

I ate that frittata like it was my last meal on earth.

The Sherlock Holmes provided me with the Vitamin C
I needed to keep the scurvy at bay, via G&Ts.

For dinner the next night, we eyed a great looking Chinese place. The smells wafting out the front door were making my mouth water. But before we sat down I did my ‘Twenty Questions’ thing and was reassured there were at least a couple of options in the multi page menu that I could eat. Great! I only need a couple!  

At first they kept trying to sell me the dumplings. Forgive me but I was certain dumplings were lovely little floury bags of goodness. ‘Are they made with rice flour?’. The waitress looked at me as if I was crazy and actually laughed, ‘Er no’. (I could visualise her making that crazy loopy finger around the temple sign). ‘Ok, then maybe I’ll give those a miss.’ This makes me nervous. Very, very nervous.

Over the next 15 minutes, I talk to about three different people before it’s decided that I can have crispy fried chicken (though I confess the idea of this makes me break out into a sweat too), fried rice (minus the soy), and some steamed vegetables. My friend, not accustomed to this hoo-hah, has sat patiently, stoically, in bewilderment, while I do this little dance. I try to smile charmingly and be charismatic (and fail, because really it’s a quality you cannot summon but really have to be). I nod and speak quietly, I reassure everyone that really, anything is ok, it’s perfectly fine. Everyone has to be patient and accommodating. It’s quite exhausting to order a satisfactory meal. But it’s worth it. This meal will be positively memorable.

The waiter returns with some bad news: the crispy chicken has sold out.

I laugh. You have to laugh. It’s inconsequential nonsense. No use getting upset.

I’m offered the chicken san choi bao instead. Perfect. He brings me the duck san choi bao. Perfect.

My biggest challenge, however, was the F1 Grand Prix. Take-away city. Crumbed, doughy, deep fried glutinous goodness everywhere. It was always going to be tricky to find something that wasn’t nestled lovingly inside a bun, wrap, or sliced bread. But Eureka! I found a Cajun chicken outlet that actually had a sign that said ‘Cajun fries – gluten free!’. Oh yeah! I love crunchy hot potatoes. I prepared to eat that for lunch for the next four days. Happily! There were lovely sauces on offer so I asked the cashier if she knew whether the lime chilli mayo was also gluten free? Not sure, she turned to shout to her boss, busy cooking over the hotplate. ‘Hey, is the mayo gluten free?’. ‘Err, no’ he said confidently, ‘there’s no egg in it’. Egg does not contain gluten. At all. Ever.

The cashier actually put her face in her hands and groaned. She looked at me, embarrassed, ‘Sorry about that’. Actually, that did make me laugh. To be on the safe side, I gave it a miss.

Best. Damn. Chips. Ever. Really! They were great and I was very happy. And I did eat those for the next couple of days!

In the end, scrabbling around for snacks at an expensive motor race is a first class, first world problem and I get to talk about food for pleasure, not survival. I’m pretty darn lucky. 

And of course, I’m heading back to Melbourne first opportunity I get. I’m just doing some homework first!

___________________________________

*What is Coeliac disease?

In people with Coeliac disease the immune system reacts abnormally to gluten (a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats), causing small bowel damage. The tiny, finger-like projections which line the bowel (villi) become inflamed and flattened. This is referred to as villous atrophy. The surface area of the bowel available for nutrient absorption is markedly reduced which can lead to various gastrointestinal and malabsorptive symptoms.

This extract has been sourced directly from the Coeliac Australia website (http://www.coeliac.org.au)

Blame it on the rain

Storm clouds gather in Copenhagen, Denmark

The weather can make or break a place. No matter how majestic, picturesque, or well renowned a place is, it has the potential to fail miserably if the weather is off key.

Daylesford, Victoria – the postcard rolling hills, quaint shops and boutique restaurants. Countryside as seen in a lush period drama. But not so pretty with slashing rain, gale force winds and thunderous grey skies. Unfortunately, the weather helped generate a rather gloomy slant on Daylesford – a grit your teeth, just shut up and like it, kind of forbearance.  My niece and I had some excellent meals, a fantastic time at a Hepburn Springs spa and in general, enjoyed our stay. But we also sighed a lot. We drove to the pretty lake ready for a brisk walk, but instead sat silently in the car enjoying the view through persistent drizzle before driving away for another latte. The lavender farm driveway required a sturdy four-wheel drive vehicle (we didn’t have one) and when we got to the property entrance we discovered it was completely flooded anyway. We were also creeped out by some odd things. At a lovely restaurant there were prints from local artists on the wall. We shared a table with a scribbled ink drawing of ‘Marianne’. Marianne seems to have been locked up in the attic and fed raw tuna and rotten tomatoes. The look of anguish and torture on her face almost put us off dessert. Marianne, beloved of someone, sent shivers up our spine. Then we had to walk out into an icy dark country night, full of whistling winds and unfamiliar squeaks.....

Beijing was equally ‘ruined’ by below freezing temperatures that inhibited walking and breathing, let alone proper, joyful sightseeing (see Beijing Disconnect). But it’s not always the cold that has an effect on your holiday happiness. In the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains I was on a walking tour and every day it climbed to well over 30 degrees Celsius. Had I been at home I would have been sitting under a pleasant air conditioner sipping iced tea. But if you sign up for a walking tour, you really should go walking. So every day I would slip on my warm chunky hiking shoes, grit my teeth and go out into the Spanish countryside.

It was glorious and fragrant with herbs and citrus trees. The blue sky was grand and overwhelming. We picked our own cherries and mulberries and dipped our grateful hands into cool fountains. But we also walked up a bare and shale covered mountain with the sun beating relentlessly. The back of my legs were so burnt I could only sleep on my stomach that night. My feet were swollen and my head pounded with a killer headache.  The thing that irked me was the British tourists who kept looking at my quizzically and snorting incredulously if I dared to say something mild like, ‘Good God it’s hot’. ‘Surely’, they said, ‘you would be used to this heat?’. Oh yes, I know what this heat feels like – I just don’t like it! Apparently, because I’m Australian, I should be immune to unpleasant feelings of being fried by a demonically hot sun. Surprisingly then, I confess I am not.

Overcast but recognisably pretty - Ponza 'before'

Unfortunately, I think the rain is always worse that the heat. When the sun grills you, at least you know it’s summer/holidays and that’s the proper way of things. In Ponza, it was summer but it rained in biblical proportions. Mum, dad and I had arrived for an overnight stay on the little island just down the ‘road/sea’ from Capri. You can see it can’t you – white washed stone, idyllic blue sea, Campari and lemonade. We sat on low wall at the beach, watching kids kick around a soccer ball and eating cheese and bread. Ah bliss.

The next morning it was grey. Nothing serious. Nothing to worry about.  Just overcast. We managed a little sightseeing, and then, just before lunch, it started to pelt down. Bucket down. Niagara Falls. It  creating spontaneous cascades down the quaint white washed steps. We collected our luggage and headed towards the ferry terminal. The ferry was at least two hours away so we huddled together under a veranda wretchedly wet and gloomy, the rest of our sight seeing written off as just too hard. The restaurant who’s veranda it was took pity on us (or, if your cynical, spotted an easy sale) and opened early just for us. We sat contentedly eating steaks and translating signs for the lovely restaurant owners until it was time to head to the ferry terminal. They kindly offered us giant black plastic rubbish bags, so we scampered across the terminal carpark in our impromptu raincoats, luggage flapping, arms waving, shouting in consternation. I tried to tip toe through the water but I looked down and realised it was half way up my calf anyway. At that point I laughed my head off, gave in and splashed happily through the rain.

Ponza 'after'. Barely recognisable. 

The thing about extreme holiday weather is that it’s association is never forgotten, good or bad. Never mind the spectacular scenery, the picture perfect setting, I’ll remember Ponza as the island on which we could have relaunched Noah’s Ark.

Rome | Home

Colosseum, Rome

When I visit Rome, I have a sense of being home, of coming home. Why this should be is curious. I do have an Italian passport but no Italian would ever regard me as such. Ever. I accept that, I understand. I am Australian first.

Perhaps I feel a sense of comfort because Rome looks so familiar, even at the first visit. Almost everyone in this world would have some sense of what Rome looks like. It’s large. Rome is so large in many dimensions  – time and space. But also less conventional ideas of dimension like memory and connection. There are so many layers of history in the buildings  and under your feet and they’re not neatly layered one on top of the other but merged together to create one overwhelming present. The Roman practice of rarely knocking anything down but rather, enterprisingly, using the existing structure as a foundation creates so many mesmerising tableaus – the modern day apartments merging with a classical structure like a vine that hugs a trellis.  

At the centre of Rome (for me) is the Colosseum. It’s broken, but it’s solid. I’ve only ever experienced Rome when it’s shimmering hot and the cicadas are deafening. Walking towards it from the train station, the Colosseum emerges from bright heat, curved and grey against an achingly blue sky. You try to shut out the tourists masses (of which you are one) and picture the gladiators and lions, etc., a task made harder by the fact that there are chubby modern day Italians wielding plastic swords and smiling for the cameras. Inside the Colosseum it’s ugly. It’s ugly because it’s all cavities and unfinished walls and yawning arched doorways. But it’s beautiful too. Because it’s standing, because it’s a real thread of connection which we can follow, hand over hand, back into the past. Because the outer walls are delicately layered like wedding cake tiers. Because the colonnades are lofty and grand. Because there are gasps of astonishment and smiles of incredulity. People stand around gazing and shaking their heads (and laughing and taking silly photos). It seems as though once you have seen the Colosseum, you can say you’ve seen Rome.

The British Grand Tourists of the 18th century were equally enamoured of Roman history but their experience was raw. The Roman Forum was referred to as the Campo Vaccino – the cow field –because indeed it was full of cattle and goats and rubble and rubbish. Rome was dirty, dusty and hot, very hot, when compared to London. When I see Rome, I see the togaed Senate, but I also see pale young Englishmen, dressed in wool suits, pulling charcoal and sketchpads from their satchels. They must have walked around the Forum with their superior swagger and sophisticated sensibilities, dutifully appreciating the heck out of every monument but without really seeing them. I see them wrinkling their noses at the unfamiliar, head constantly dipping into a guide book which told them exactly what to see, what to avoid and how to feel about both. I see their shocked and disappointed faces when they look up– ‘oh, there are live Italians and they’re lazy, poor and trying to swindle me of my money!’.

On the contrary, Romans seem enterprising, forthright and self-assured. The Roman character was crystallised in my mind when I watched a scene unfold in Piazza Venezia. A clean cut kid, maybe ten years old, was sweetly playing classical music on a violin, busking for change in prime tourist hunting ground. The carabinieri came by, had a quiet word and gently asked him to move on. I was too far to hear why – perhaps he didn’t have a permit? His reaction was comical and shocking at the same time. He started shouting and waving his hands around, angrily, with vehemence. His indignance – he wasn’t doing anything wrong! His disdain for authority (so young!) his passion (so vibrant!). His cunning and entrepreneurial air! But the carabinieri were firm. Surprisingly patient, but firm; completely accepting of his outrage and indolence but casually threatening too. Move it. Now.

View from the Duomo, St Peters 

I can sympathise to a degree though – with being shocked by the present. I remember climbing the 320 steps to the top of St Peter’s dome, my body bending to accommodate the curvature of the structure. Inside the dome it was light and surreal. The fantastic height already takes your breath but then you shake your head in astonishment as you realise that all the cherubs, saints and angels you first viewed from far below are not merely painted (as if that was easy) but in fact, depicted in complex and detailed mosaic. Outside the dome Vatican City was laid bare for me. The colonnades and streets formed an easily recognisable key shape – the key to the church, Pope and heaven itself. My head was full of Michelangelo and Bramante, of 16th century Popes and political religious power struggles. I stood for a moment of contemplation alongside my friend, eating sweet summer peaches and nectarines, utterly at peace and content.

And then, strangely, I hear cheap dance music. Someone up there, an Italian, was blasting bad Italian pop on a little radio. I was immediately annoyed and outraged – such a modern intrusion on such a spiritual place and moment! But then I laughed. This is Italy today, not two thousand years ago, not six hundred years ago and not even two hundred years ago. I was being one of those an insular and blind Grand Tourists I mocked, and I had no right, no right at all. I had to accept all of Rome. We sometimes think time has stood still. We don’t like to remember that Romans need to embrace and respect their past (I don’t think they can’t avoid it), but somehow they move forward too. We need to move with them.

Group tour. It’s not a dirty word. (Or even a dirty phrase made up of two otherwise clean words.)

Yes travel is all about novelty, adventure, pressing back the boundaries of our ordinary lives, meeting new people and discovering new things. Why isn’t that possible within the safety of an air-conditioned coach? It doesn’t have to be all umbrella wielding guides, generic food and fifteen countries in nine days. There are some tremendous experiences to be had within the confines of an organised schedule.  

Small is delightful

 

A suspect gaggle of tourists in Macau

When researching our Canadian holiday, my cousin and I honed in on the phrase ‘small group’. Twelve max. Great. A personalised, four-wheel drive around British Columbia. We waited patiently to be picked up on the first day, were warmly greeted by our jovial guide and led to a van. An empty van. ‘Are we picking up the rest now?’, we asked timidly. ‘Nope! It’s just you two this time round. We’re going to have a whole lot of fun’. Big grin. Teeth. My cousin and I looked at each other a tad nervously – was this perhaps a kidnapping instead? Should we ask for ID? And we were also a tad disappointed too. This concept of ‘small’ just seemed a little too small.  

It turned out to be one of the finest tours I’ve ever experienced – back roads, introductions to locals, getting to know whole families, and dinners and movies that weren’t part of the program. It was very much like driving around the countryside with well informed and well connected friends. We were eventually joined by two other Australians from a rival state. The lovely and easy going Canadian guide was constantly taken aback by our light hearted by ruthless and scathing banter about football. And I don’t even follow football. It’s just the Australian way.

A walk in the country

Walking tours are like therapy in the sunshine. Hours of meandering along, getting to know yourself, each other and plenty of time to confront the big questions of life. There’s bonding and a slow focus on every hour of the day. Lovely. Of course, that’s the ideal. That was the Spanish Sierra Nevada mountains for me – I read books on my white washed, wrought iron balcony, danced around my cool tiled lounge room and ate mulberries and cherries right off the tree. Sangria, sunshine and good fresh food. Bliss.

I confess, it wasn’t ideal on the day it was 38 degrees Celsius, when I struggled up a shale covered mountainside and severely burned the backs of my legs. It definitely wasn’t ideal. There was little dancing after that. But overall, walking tours are slow and intense – in a good way! You don’t see a lot of a country but what you do see is authentic and concentrated.

Day tour

Short and sharp, this is the perfect way to politely acquaint yourself with a city fast. It only takes up a couple of hours in your day, you learn a bunch of stuff and sometimes they’re free. Travelling on my own it has been the perfect way to meet folks. From one such two-hour tour of Chinatown in Singapore I met a fellow Australian, who invited me to lunch and introduced me to a fascinating American cancer survivor/writer/actress, and later another friend of hers who lives in Singapore. The next day we visited other sites, hung out in my suite at the Marina Bay Sands, went to high tea at the Raffles, cocktails at the Fullerton and then, finally, for dinner on Clarke Quay.  And I thought I’d be on my own for my birthday!

The “noble” solo travel experience can be a quiet and lonely one. When you’re travelling on your own, the day tour gives you a chance to talk to people without making any commitments. This opportunity to flirt a little, to go out on a date but not give your phone number at the end is perfect for commitment phobes.

 

 

If you're going to be herded like a gaggle of sheep, it might as well be in a rural setting.

(Sierra Nevada mountains, Spain)

 

Contiki/ Topdeck

Failing all other civilised options, you can fall back on the tried and true – the debaucherous, raucous, clichéd, obvious and tactless Contiki or Topdeck.

Yes, you have to get up at the crack of dawn and eat stale bread rolls with jam. Yes, you have to slouch in a coach, half asleep and bored for hours each day. Yes, you will have to stay close to a loud and fearless guide who carries some sort of beacon (umbrella, flag, etc etc) and herds their flock of sheep safely through piazzas and churches, markets and museums. There’s petty but tearful arguments about the front seats, there’s ruthless time keeping to stay on schedule and, in that big crowd of people, there is, without doubt, going to be someone who irritates the crap out of you.

But you can also be anonymous and blend in with the crowd. You can let your hair down and really revel in that anonymity – be someone else for a little while. You can still challenge yourself and you will definitely learn something about yourself. You can meet people from many different countries and background and if you ask enough questions, you’ll learn something cultural and thought provoking. But you will only get bite-sized, pre-packaged pieces of countries – high in sugar and fat and alcohol.

There’s nothing essentially wrong with this. Will you have a great time? Probably. Will you remember Ireland? I certainly don’t.

 

Maybe just a little slice - travelling and food (or food and travelling)

Outdoor dining: Clarke Quay, Singapore

Food and travelling go hand in sticky hand. It doesn’t have to be high end or even particularly exotic (though it does seem to be more acceptable to spend a disproportionately large amount of cash on dinner when you’re travelling than it does on any given Friday night at home – see ‘'Two girls'). It’s just lovely when it helps you connect with a place and with the people in it. In Hong Kong, my friend and I stopped to buy pepitas and marvelled at the fact that this was common in three different cultures (Chinese, Venezuelan and Italian) and that something as simple as a dried and salted pumpkin seed could make three disparate people smile and chat. Aw, see – so warm and fuzzy!

When travelling, however, there’s often a tug between wanting to try the local cuisine and opting for the safe and familiar. When it’s tripe and offal, sometimes we flinch a little. When the local cuisine is pizza and gelati, it’s not such a great tussle. Although when I was with a group of folks eating pizza in Venice, we munched on the thin crust scantily clad in tomato, cheese and basil in silence.  None of us wanted to say what was really in our hearts – the pizza was rubbish.  Yeah, yeah we were in Italy but the pizza was rubbish.

A little piece of Mickey at
Hong Kong Disneyland

It is, however, the thing you have to try. Each place has one of these ‘things’. Peanut butter and jam on thick sliced white bread in Canada was surprisingly heart melting. Sangria was festive in Spain, Hainese chicken was delicious in Singapore, and the chocolate cornetti and lemon granita were decadent in Rome. But the borsch in Russia made me frown, and the prospect of frog soup in Singapore made me twitch (I didn’t actually get to try that one). I did try snails in France and in my dad’s village in Italy (predictably garlicky but surprisingly hard and nuggetty), and how could I have left Scotland without trying a little pile of haggis.

But it’s the homemade meals that count the most. That’s when connection with place really kicks in. When staying with my aunt in Formia, Italy for a few weeks, food was always quite an item of discussion. First, there was the giant box of Cornflakes she showed me, smiling knowingly, when I arrived. She thought that this was compulsory Australian breakfast food and it was her way of saying welcome, and here’s a little piece of home. Then she decided that actually, it would be far more lovely for me to have a squidgy warm sugared donut from the local bakery for breakfast. She would walk down there before I woke up and then present it to me with a strong espresso. Heavenly. I mean heavenly. However, one cannot eat a donut the size of one’s face every day for weeks without feeling a little unwell. I had to go on a donut hunger strike before she would really take no for an answer.

At my aunts, we had feasts for lunch – exquisite local seafood, oversized bowls of pasta with fresh sauce, and buffalo mozzarella and prosciutto with crusty bread. But one of my favourite dishes was her tomato salad. It was just tomatoes with slithers of onion, basil, salt and oil. I questioned her time and again about her secret ingredient that made this tomato salad so mouth watering but she would just laugh. I snuck into the kitchen one day to discover her splashing some water into the salad. ‘Ha! You caught me!’ she said. ‘It’s just water. I add a little and it draws more juice from the tomatoes.’ She shrugged, almost apologetically.

So simple.

But, back home, every time I make that salad (and yes, I add a splash of water) I remember the warm summer sunshine of Formia and I connect.

What food reminds you of place?

Niagara Falls please, with lots of cheese

The Whirlpool....at your peril

Niagara Falls is an enigma. On the one hand here is a place of natural wonder. There is an enormous river, a fierce whirlpool, and not one, not two, but three amazing waterfalls. On the other hand, there is the dreaded and hard core commercialisation. Concentrated around the waterfalls are an enormous adventure park, a fierce ferris wheel, and not one, not two, but three colourful casinos.

The best idea is to let go. Just let go. Embrace your inner cheesiness and have some plain old good fun. It’s good natured Canadian cheese. The commercial element may be hard core, but it also comes across as an earnest commitment to make Niagara Falls as darn pleasant as possible.  

Niagara Falls is also perfect. I would have to say perfect in slightly disquieting way. Lawns are manicured, flowers grow regularly and with just the right happy shade of violet. There is no litter, there is no traffic chaos. There was a particularly unnerving corner cafe, Applebees, which ran a friendly and welcoming message on loudspeakers mounted outside. The message was something along the lines of ‘Please, come on in! We’ll welcome you like you’re the returned prodigal son and try to make your dreams come true with pancakes and maple syrup’. Everyone goes about their day in a friendly and orderly way. And did I mention this is Canada – stereotyping I know, but everyone is easy going, smiling and helpful.

You have to visit the Falls. (You really can’t avoid them. Let’s face it, that’s probably why you’re there.) Your options for visiting are surprisingly vast. They are, of course, milked for all their worth, but they are worth it. Waterfalls are just running water, really. But what Niagara makes of them commercially is pretty impressive. Along the river bank downstream, you can gaze transfixed at the Class VI rapids and imagine yourself being violently swept away on a tiny rubber raft. You can press up against like-minded tourists in the crowded tunnels set behind falls – yep, to view rushing water through tiny reinforced windows. If you’re adventurous / crazy, there’s a cable car that will swing you perilously over the Whirlpool – a roiling, seething bend in the river. Or you can even enjoy a decidedly damp (and far more sedate) re-enactment of the Falls’ creation in the interactive movie show ‘Niagara’s Fury’.

Perfect town. Disquieting.

The highlight, however, has to be the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Since 1848, passengers have donned blue plastic raincoats, drifted past the American Falls and crept right up to the base of Horseshoe Falls. (The cheese here involves resembling a posse of Smurfs. I’m only 5ft nothing so this analogy is particularly apt.) A journey of a few minutes, the boat chugs confidently up to the Falls, turns around and just powers the motor against the current so that people can enjoy the unique perspective. The noise is astonishing. I was soaking wet in an instant (despite the Smurf coat) and barely able to open my eyes against the spray. Try, try to take photos.

The tendency is to laugh nervously because, in its direct line of fire, I could feel the unbelievable and destructive force of the water. The Horseshoe Falls is not the tallest in the world, but it certainly is one of the most powerful. Surprisingly, of the sixteen people that have deliberately attempted to go over the falls (many in the requisite barrel and one with their pet turtle, yes, a turtle), eleven have survived. When you’re trapped in this vortex of liquid power, it’s terribly hard to imagine intentionally throwing yourself over the edge. Let alone with a turtle.

When you’ve experienced the Falls in every legal way possible (it is now illegal to attempt a tumble –without a license), there is plenty more to do in Niagara. There’s the butterfly conservatory, printery and newspaper museum, historic McFarland House, an adventure park, a Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, nightclubs and casinos.  There are two minigolf courses – one Dinosaur themed and the other glow in the dark – gaming arcades, a haunted house, a Strike bowling alley and tourist shops galore. All this squeezed into a town you can just about walk end to end, if you’re really keen (and fit). Just remember to smile and say ‘cheese’ and you’ll have a wonderful time.

And if you’ve truly had enough of the decidedly good intentioned but hyped up, glittery, shiny tourism bauble with jacked up pricing you can just sit by the waterfalls all day long, soaking up the spray. And it won’t cost you a cent or stink of cheese!