In the heart of Transylvania lies the town of Sibiu – the place where I was born and spent the first 18 years of my life. It’s a fairly mid-sized town for Eastern European standards, but to me and everyone visiting it (especially for the Christmas market or its many festivals) it’s like a piece from a fairytale. Eventually I´ll do a guide to Sibiu, but for now I´ll leave you with a collection of my favourite restaurants and bars in this magical city where houses have eyes.
Welcome to part I of a series of articles about the six weeks we spent in South East Asia last summer. It took us pretty much forever to choose a place in the world where we´d want to spend six weeks of our sabbatical. Things we took into consideration when making this decision were: safety, weather, cost, variety of things we could do (since we were going to spend such a long time on the road), and cultural attractiveness. When we ended up choosing South-East Asia it was then just a matter of figuring out how much can we squeeze into six weeks and which countries were prioritary for us. In the end we were left with Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. My idea for this series is to walk you through our itinerary, with focus on how we got from point A to point B, as the planning of transportation bit took us forever and I want to spare you all that research, leaving all the information in one place. There will be other posts expanding on some of these destinations, the food we ate there, and more. But in this one I will just focus on the itinerary of our 15 days in Thailand.
On our first evening in Bangkok I was utterly overwhelmed by how bright and loud it was. This overwhelming feeling turned out to just intensify over the next couple of days. From the aforementioned sounds and lights, to smells in markets and sheer options of where to divert your attention at or even what to eat. In a city equally famous for its street food as it Is for its Michelin Guide restaurants, where do you even begin? Well if you’re a first time tourist to Bangkok, let me try to help you a little bit by sharing with you my favourite places for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
My first trip of 2023 (if we neglect that I started the year abroad already), was Barcelona with my family. It was my third time there within six months, so by the time I was back to Lisbon, I felt I had plenty of material to put together this article on #foodIlovedinBarcelona. As always, I´ll start with breakfast and brunch places (including a great coffee spot and an artisanal ice cream joint), then head over to lunch and dinner restaurants, finally ending with some cool cocktail and dancing bars. I´ll be back to Barcelona in June, and might add some new spots after that trip, so stay tuned with this work in progress article. But until then, let this list inspire you.
Paris, mon amour, and her finger licking food. Upon my last visit to Paris, in July, I decided it was high time for a city and a food guide of this tremendously incredible city. It took me long enough to finally get to writing it, but alas, here we are. As always, I divided my restaurant recommendations into breakfast, lunch and dinner categories, this time adding wine and snack spots, because well,´ were in Paris after all. Bookmark this for your next trip to the city of love and enjoy one of the ´worlds best cuisines.
Cadaqués – a town Salvador Dali described as a “mystical paradise”. A town that even to the ones without an artistic bone in their body will come across as full of a creative energy that is hard to ignore. Located up north on the Costa Brava, sprinkled with artistic studios, fantastic boutique stores and great restaurants, it´s no wonder Cadaqués attracted not just Dali, but also the likes of Picasso, Miró and much more. This June I spent a couple of days there, and as per usual, I just had to document where I recommend you stay, eat and what to do in this gem of a town.
A month ago today I was in very rainy São Paulo, eating a gigantic mortadella sandwich (more about this below) and marvelling at this grey city, which has so much to offer. Let me set something straight though: São Paulo is not exactly what one would call a beautiful city. Its buildings stretch towards the sky, as if trying to make a connection to a God that might have forsaken the many poor of the city. Bursts of colour appear here and there, but especially when one thinks of the other iconic Brazilian city – Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo pales. What the city does have plenty of though, is an impressive art scene, mouth-watering food and great restaurants, and music – lots of music. For the scope of this article though, I´ll focus on seven fun things to do in this enormous and intimidating city of contrasts.
Coimbra, the former capital of Portugal in the 12th and 13th century, is nowadays the most notorious university city in Portugal and a perfect weekend destination if you find yourself either in Lisbon or Porto. The city has an intriguing and tragic love story behind it, that of Infante Pedro and Inês de Castro (a Spanish lady in waiting to Pedro´s wife, Constança). You see, Pedro and Inês were in love, so after Pedro´s wife died, they stopped hiding their love affair, a thing that enraged Pedro´s father, the king. He was so angry, that he had Inês killed, a thing that in return turned Pedro incredibly angry. One thing led to another, an uprising against the king started, and Inês´ killers basically ended up with their hearts ripped out, earning Pedro the name of “the Cruel”. Had Shakespeare known about Coimbra, Romeo and Julia would have been an entirely different story.
I guess some skeptics among you might have read the title of this article and thought this would be a pamphlet. After all, the British are not particularly well known for their exquisite cuisine. True, but a real foodie will always find some yummy dishes, no matter the damp and rainy country she ends up in. So be ready to be immersed into the food universe I experience during my short weekend stay in Edinurgh. Read about the food I loved, but also the ones that were meh and the places I wouldn´t necessarily try again.
What do you do when you repeatedly find yourself in a city you hate? And moreover, when that city is the capital of the country you were born in? And your friends are divided about it as well – some love it and some hate it? I tried answering that question during my last two trips to Bucharest this summer. I met with people that see beauty in the city, I revisited the few places I loved and explored some new ones that took me by utter surprise. And I ended up fancying a city I had hated for over two decades. Here are the spots that made me change my mind.