In many ways Lyra was a barbarian. What she liked best was clambering over the College roofs with Roger, the Kitchen boy who was her particular friend, to spit plum-stones on the heads of passing Scholars or hoot like owls outside a window where a tutorial was going on; or racing through the narrow streets,…
Category: Travel
Oxford//eat: The Handle Bar
28-32 St Michael Street, Oxford, OX1 2EB I don’t write café reviews often, but when I do, there is a common theme: brunch done well. These three words could comfortably sum up the three café reviews currently on my blog: The Locker Café in Cambridge, Wild Café in Bath… and now The Handle Bar in…
Cambridge//eat: The Locker Cafe
54 King St, Cambridge CB1 1LN Founded two summers ago, The Locker Cafe has suddenly shot to popularity among the student body in Cambridge over the past two terms. It’s a new favourite spot for brunch, equal only to Fitzbillies and Queens’ College buttery. Varsity (the student newspaper) reviewed it, and soon ‘you’ve not been to Locker Cafe yet?’ became a…
10 tips for choosing the perfect Airbnb
It’s holiday-booking season! Airbnbs are a very popular accommodation choice, but the wide variety available means that it’s easy to get caught out when trying to choose the perfect one for your trip. I’ve got plenty of experience booking Airbnbs – I’ve stayed in 11 now (6 in Italy, 2 in Edinburgh, 1 in Bath,…
A Wintry, Festive Trip to Edinburgh
Edinburgh is so beautiful at any time of year, but particularly in the winter, just before Christmas. Its grey stone buildings are impassive against the cold, reaching up into the sky. The streets are busy with people hurrying along, but there’s still a friendly atmosphere; the Christmas lights are glowing everywhere, buskers are playing bagpipes…
Ravenna’s Byzantine Mosaics// photo diary
This small local town on Italy’s east coast is home to the most eye-watering collection of Byzantine mosaics, set in several sites across the town – eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The colours, detail and sheer size of these artworks will take your breath away, especially considering their age. You can get…
Florence: is it worth it?//photo diary
Florence has got to be one of Italy’s busiest cities in the summer. It is swarming with tourists, the narrow cobbled streets packed with people from all over the world – but all for good reason. The ‘birthplace of the Renaissance’, the city is a hotbed of history and art, one of the most unmissable…
Abetone and the Mountains of Pistoia//photo diary
Abetone is a small ski town in the mountains on the border between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. We visited on 1 August 2018, and like all ski towns in the summer, it seemed surreal – the chalets, built for snow, transformed by the green all around them and the colourful flowers in their window boxes, everything…
Bath: eating cake and thinking about Jane Austen
Last weekend I was lucky enough to visit Bath with my family. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, but it’s not an easy (or short) trip from where we live in North Yorkshire, so not knowing when I’d be able to return, I made sure to appreciate the city fully. Bath is a beautiful…
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