Berlin

Berlin is a city that I have wanted to go to for a long time. I also wanted to see a traditional Christmas markets and having heard that Germany is supposed to have the best we timed a visit to Berlin in December.

I wasn't disappointed. I thought Berlin was a lovely city - it's small enough to get around easily, the people were very friendly, which I have to admit I wasn't expecting, and the food was really good! All the ingredients for a good weekend.

We left on Thursday night arriving at our hotel quite late. In the morning, we decided to do a free walking tour that I'd heard about and as we walked out onto the main street we realised that we were right around the corner from Checkpoint Charlie. It was also really close to one of the Christmas markets and some great restaurants so in terms of location, cleanliness and friendliness we'd really recommend it.

Here's Checkpoint Charlie - reconstructed for the tourists. Very cheesy...


And at night, with the 'perfect picture point' stencil ironically place behind a tree...



The tour starts off at the Starbucks near Brandenburg Gate. So many people were there we didn't think we'd get a chance to go on it but they have about 20 tour guides and you get allocated into a group of about 20 based on language.

Brandenburg Gate

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe - This was a very moving memorial which we visited as part of the walking tour but went back to the museum (located underneath) the next day. There seem to be conflicting views about what the memorial symbolises but according to Wikipedia, the architect's description of the project is "the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason" which makes sense when you see it.


1950's propaganda mural...


One of several Christmas markets. Admittedly, they don't have the same atmosphere during the day as they do in the evening...


Empty bookshelves built underground in the square to symbolise the place where the Nazi book burnings occurred...


Weiner schnitzel can obviously be found all over Berlin but we were told that Lutter & Wegner is one of the best places for it (it also had a good wine list). Again, the people were really friendly and as someone who can give or take schnitzel, it was fantastic and I loved every mouthful!


Afterward we had a cocktail at the Newton Bar across the road (it has the largest privately owned Helmut Newton photo) and outside spotted this relic from the past operating as a modern day taxi. Given the freezing winter you would hope it has a good heater!


Next day we headed over to the Eastside Gallery which is an international memorial for freedom using the remains of the Berlin wall (just over a kilometre). Over 100 artists have contributed to the memorial and it's recently been cleaned up to remove graffiti. Here are a few which caught my eye...



Reichstag building, opened in 1894 - home of the German parliament (called the Bundestag). And yes, that is a ridiculously long queue of people waiting to go inside up to the dome (designed by Norman Foster). This was the queue on Saturday so we thought we'd go back on Sunday hoping there would be less people. There were fractionally less people but we waited about an hour in the rain and cold to get in!


The dome is open to the elements so even though we'd made it inside, we weren't being rained on but it was still cold...


The Guggenheim-esque spiralling walk ways - one for going up and one for coming down. German efficiency.

Tetbury & surrounds

After Fat Duck we went on to spend a couple of nights in Tetbury in the Cotswalds. There's plenty to see in the area and it was a pretty relaxing weekend. We dug into fish and chips from the local chippie and our Fat Duck lollie bags on Friday night, then on Saturday we headed out to Upper and Lower Slaughter (two very quaint villages) and to Malmsbury.

The imposing Upper Slaughter Manor...


In Malmsbury there's a beautiful garden that's privately owned but open to the public called Abbey House Gardens which, my mum conveniently forgot, is 'home to the naked gardeners' so we got a bit of a shock when we saw the male gardener walking around in wellies, a v-necked green jumper and nothing else. Fortunately, the jumper was long enough that we didn't see anything but it gave us a fit of the giggles.

Back of the beautiful old Abbey House, built in the 1600's:


In the gardens with the abbey ruins seen at the back on the right:



The house is next to Malmsbury Abbey which was completed around 1180. Around 1500 the spire and the west wing collapsed in a storm but it's still used as a church today. This picture shows the abbey building crumbling in the background.


Nick and I enjoyed our clay pigeon shooting experience in the Cotswalds earlier in the year and thought my mum and dad might like it to. We went to a different place this time - Cotswalds Clay Shooting - and had a great time.

My dad turned out to be a bit of a natural.

Fat Duck

Lunch at the three Michelin starred Fat Duck restaurant started a four day weekend in the country. It was so good, it deserved it's own, dedicated blog post as a tribute ;-). It's not just a meal, it's a sensory experience and as someone who works as a brand consultant, it's a great lesson in brand experiences.

I won't go too much into the menu (which is a 12 dish tasting menu) as it's on the internet here, but Heston Blumenthal is known for unusual dishes, pushing the boundaries and for his love of liquid nitrogen and the menu doesn't disappoint. I will let the photos do the talking.

1st dish - cooking the Nitro Poached Green Tea and Lime Mousse...



2 - RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO (Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream)...



3 - JELLY OF QUAIL, CREAM OF CRAYFISH (Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast)


4 - ROAST FOIE GRAS (Rhubarb Puree, Braised Konbu and Crab Biscuit)



5 - MOCK TURTLE SOUP (c.1850) "Mad Hatter Tea"



6 - "SOUND OF THE SEA"
This is the dish with secret ingredients that they ask you to guess. It looks just like the shoreline of the sea and everyone gets a shell with a ipod shuffle to listen to a beach soundtrack as you eat this dish...





7 - SALMON POACHED IN LIQUORICE (Artichokes, Vanilla Mayonnaise, Golden Trout Roe and Manni Olive Oil)



8 - POWDERED ANJOU PIGEON (c.1720) (Blood Pudding and Confit of Umbles)



9 - TAFFETY TART (c1660) (Caramelized Apple, Fennel, Rose and Candied Lemon)



10 - THE NOT-SO-FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST
part a - Parsnip Cereal

part b - Nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice-cream



part c - Hot & Iced Tea


11 - CHOCOLATE WINE "SLUSH" (c. 1660) (Millionaire Shortbread)


12 - WINE GUMS (Historic Trade Routes of Britain)


"LIKE A KID IN A SWEET SHOP"
Our very own lollie bags to take away.


After our five hour dining experience we all agreed it was the best meal we ever had.

Northwest Italy road trip

Our road trip of north west Italy started with a night over in Genoa then on to lunch in Portofino - which we loved. It's small, colourful, picturesque and has a much more natural surrounding than St Tropez (but in the height of summer is as busy). After lunch we walked up to the castle - which has really nice views - and then decided to keep moving.

Portofino...


View from the top....

We ended up at Monterosso which is the first of the Cinque Terre towns in the north. We stayed in Monterosso for four nights and on one of the days did the Cinque Terre walk end to end. The walk is quite hard in parts - steep and rocky - but the views are stunning. We found that the best way to walk is in a southerly direction as the path coming back from Manarola to Corniglia ends with hundreds of uphill steps so we were pretty glad we were walking down them!

On the first leg of the walk from Monterosso, overlooking Vernazza....


Our next stop was Pisa (with a quick detour via Lucca on the way). Nick and I had been there last year on our way to Tuscany but this year we got tickets to walk up the tower which was worth while doing. We had an amazing meal at Osteria La Mescita which I would highly recommend - very friendly service, great food and great wine).

In Lucca, outside the place Puccini was born...


On top of the leaning tower...


Dinner at Osteria La Mescita where they had the biggest wine glasses we'd ever seen...

On the Sunday, we dropped Nick off at the airport in Genoa (he had to go back to work), picked up my aunt Emily from the station and kept going on our tour of northern Italy. Our first night was in Asti (after hitting the outlet mall between Milan and Genoa ). We had a great rustic local meal, including a layered seafood and vegetable dish which is a specialty of the region.

The next day we drove to Turin (home of FIAT, Nutella, Lavazza, Tic Tacs, the Shroud and the 2006 Winter Olympics) where we spent a day and a half. It's a really lovely town and not very touristy (despite having an open-top tourist bus) but there's lots of sights to see and they have great hot chocolate and claim to have started the 'aperativo' tradition picked up in other Italian cities like Milan. The National Museum of Cinema is worth a visit - it's in a building that was originally designed as a synagogue and has a glass lift that takes you up through the interior of the building, through the dome and spire and out to a viewing platform where you have a 360 degree view of the city.

A main goal of our trip was to go to the Barolo wine region. It was the start of the truffle and mushroom seasons so we had a lot to get excited about each evening at dinner. We stayed a couple of nights in Diano D'Alba at an 'agriturismo' - a b&b/farm stay. The closest main town is Alba and all the deli's had displays of mushrooms and the sought after black and white truffles.

Truffle sniffing...


Mushrooms...


Driving back to Nice, the tunnel through the mountains between France and Italy is one way... so here we are stopped at the lights waiting for our turn.



If you are looking for something a bit different to do in Italy, I think the Piedmont region is definitely worth a visit. Portofino is also a beautiful alternative to St Tropez and Cinque Terre is stunning.