A glass (or four) half full of…Austrian bubbles
Lunch at Hollmann Salon, a designer restaurant in a quiet cobble-stoned courtyard in Vienna’s 1st district, couldn’t go past today without a glass of bubbles. It was a birthday celebration, after all! What were we toasting with? Austria’s Szigeti Brut. A Glass Half Full travelled to Vienna as a guest…
Read articleGoodbye to 2020
To say that 2020 was not a good year to be a travel writer is an understatement. It was a year in which my colleagues and I considered an uncertain future, and learned to adapt and diversify, if and when we could. Patience and positive thinking became essential tools in…
Read articleMy 2018 travel highlights
I was already travelling when 2018 kicked off, mid-way through a 10-week trip to Europe. There were times this year when I wished life would slow down a little, and allow me to wake up in my own bed more often – but travel writing is a life of constant…
Read articleA treasure of a hotel
In the course of my work as a travel writer this year, I’ve stayed in 59 hotels in seven countries (as well as some islands that should almost count as countries on their own). Do all those hotels start to look the same? Not at all, although I confess to…
Read articleThings I love about hotels
They may not ever be perfect (although some come close), but there’s a lot to love about hotels. And after staying in countless different types of accommodation over the course of my travel writing career – from castles to caves, lighthouses to log cabins, coaching inns to country pubs, tents…
Read articleWhatever happened to the Von Trapp children?
Dame Julie Andrews is 80 now, but the stardom surrounding her role as Maria in The Sound of Music has never dimmed. Although she was absent from the 50th anniversary celebrations in Salzburg, along with her co-star, 86-year-old Christopher Plummer (who played Captain Georg von Trapp), her name was on…
Read articleFifty years of The Sound of Music
When Maria von Trapp led her Captain and seven children across the mountains – or, more accurately, her nine children out the garden gate to the train station that lay behind their Austrian villa – to escape the Nazis in 1938, she could never have imagined that their story would…
Read articleMy 2015 in pictures
As 2015 comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on all the wonderful places I’ve been during the year. Many of my travels weren’t too far from home, something that gave me the chance to learn more about my own corner of the world…often a great revelation! Here are…
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A Glass Half Full 