Tourism - 4

Aside from the big news, obviously A and I have spent the long weekend in London, an annual event quickly becoming a bit of a tradition.

As with every trip to London, there's a little bit of tourism, a lot of shopping, a lot of slobbing about, and a lot of walking.

A and I have just returned from a week in Montréal. Canada has always been a bit of a curiosity to me and I've wanted to visit for some time now, and after finding some cheap flights with Air Transat and a cheap, central, funky hotel, there was no reason to put a trip off any longer.

As usual, we arrived with not much of a plan beyond general exploration, this time armed with Google Maps on our phones (with an international data plan). I always like to get a feeling of what it's like to live in cities I visit rather than try to put together an itinerary of stuff to see and do.

A surprised me this (long) weekend with a trip to Barcelona for my birthday. I'd been before very briefly on a road-trip back in 2006 with Scott and loved the relaxed and friendly atmosphere of the city considering the size.

As per usual, no real plan existed for the weekend, so we relied on random wandering and the occasional geocache to navigate to interesting spots, so there's not a considerable amount to say really, and I haven't sorted through the photos yet. I tend to avoid playing the tourist and try to live like a local on holiday, so city trips tend to be more about shopping, eating, and exploring the life within the city, rather than queuing to see monuments.

Looking for cheap flights on the Internet? Yeah, me too. The travel industry seems to intentionally make it hard to find the best prices, so you're doomed to play the game and hope you score a deal when you buy your tickets.

Like a casino, the odds are always in favour of the house, but there are a few tricks I've discovered over the years to try and help beat those prices down. I hope you find some of these tips useful.

Following a successful long weekend last year, we returned to London again for another long weekend of shopping, vegetating, and a little bit of sight-seeing.

Here is a tiny selection of photos from what we got up to. I'm glad I took my DSLR.

I'm in the states for work for two weeks and was encouraged strongly by our financial director to take a trip over the weekend. I decided to head to San Francisco, despite people thinking I'm mad (the office is in Greenville, South Carolina).

Maybe it is a bit mad to travel ≅4000km for a weekend city trip, but it's nothing compared to travelling between Brussels and Melbourne! I flew to San Francisco immediately after work on Friday, via the hilariously named George Bush Intercontinental Airport (presumably because “International” just isn't enough). Well, maybe a bit before “after work” since I… err… snuck out to catch my flight…

Visiting Port Arthur in Tasmania? Stop off in Doo Town (Eaglehawk Neck), in part to check out their blowhole. We visited on a whim (and because we were amused by the Navigon's pronunciation of “blaew-hole”), but soon discovered the real reason to visit is probably to see a tiny town with a healthy sense of rivalry and humour…

It's coming up to six years of living in Belgium, the perfect launch-pad for travel around Western Europe due to the number of European institutions based here, and yet despite promising myself to travel while I'm here I haven't really done much.

One of those glaringly obvious places to go is London, being just under an hour's flight away (and with the time-zone difference you land a few minutes before you take off), or just over two-hours on the Eurostar high-speed train. What excuse could I have for not going yet?

This long weekend I've finally managed to go (following a lot of encouragement from A), so here are a few photos and stories of the visit.

A big thank you to the splendid Tauana Hotel in Corumbau for the visit.

This was taken at the wonderful Pousada “Loin de Tout” in the beautiful village of Corumbau.