Five things... Canada

It's taken me a week to write this (things have just been a bit busy), but here are my five things about our trip to the east coast of Canada in September:

1. A great atmosphere and brilliant movies at the Toronto International Film Festival
2. Properly mulitlingual cities where you could happily speak French or English
3. Some great traditional food and drink - maple syrup, ice wine, ice cider...
4. A chance for me to drive abroad, on the wrong side of the road and in an automatic car, for the first time
5. Stunning scenery in Algonquin National Park

I've also not yet had the chance to write a piece about our trip, or sort through/ upload any photos. They are coming though - hopefully by next weekend!

Now working on Issue 43

I've finally made a start on Issue 43 of PALS - this will be the third in the Southern Spain series this year (Issue 39 and Issue 41 are numbers one and two in the series). This issue is going to cover our road trip to Portugal and Southern Spain in September 2010. It's still in the process of being put together, but to give you a taster of what it will include here are my "five things" for this trip:

1. Impossible-to-find Portuguese campsites
2. Beautiful, but extremely busy with a festival atmosphere, Ronda
3. Driving through stunning mountain passes in Southern Spain
4. The beautiful long, sandy beaches in Tavira, Bolonia and Zahara de Los Atunes
5. A beautiful wedding ceremony in stunning surroundings with far too much food!

Five things... Venice

So, we just got back from Venice yesterday. Here's my list of five things that I think sum up our few days there:

1. Not knowing anywhere near enough Italian to communicate with the apartment owner or speak any complex sentences. At least I could order beer and wine.
2. The incredibly peaceful feeling of floating along the canals on a gondola ride
3. The massive number of bridges everywhere you went. We counted walking over 40 one day
4. Not having to deal with any cars at all
5. How expensive everything is in Venice – to sitting down in a café to drink beer, to paying for the toilets, to the cost of the museums

I've managed to write a piece about our trip for a future issue of PALS, which I'm planning to add to an Italy Special (we've visited enough times now so I can create one fairly easily). Although there is still another Spain Special to come this year so it might not appear for a while yet...

Photos are also on their way, but have yet to be sorted through!

Five things...

I've decided to begin a "five things" section, both on this blog and in my newsletter. The aim is to give an impression of some of the places I've visited, or the things I've been doing. I'll make these "five things" introductory articles for the special issues of PALS I write, but would love to see your "five things" choices as well!

If you have visited somewhere recently, or have five things to say about something specific that you're interested in, just let me know. I might add your lists to a PALS special if they're about somewhere I've visited and am planning on writing about anyway. Alternatively, if you have some related photos (or lots of people write "five things" about the same thing), I would happily turn them into individual articles.

To get you started, here are five things which I think sum up our recent visit to Paris! These will, eventually, make it into a future issue of PALS, but I'm hoping my "five things" lists might be a nice (slightly speedier!) way to give an impression of holidays/ visits/ trips I've been on before they make it into a newsletter issue...

Five things: Paris

1. Excellent restaurants. Incredibly friendful, helpful staff, amazing food, and cutlery/ crockery I wanted to steal everywhere we went!
2. Queues everywhere. For the Eiffel Tower, for the Louvre, for the Catacombs, for (all) the toilets...
3. Stunning views - from the Eiffel Tower, Montparnasse Tower and Sacre Coeur
4. A great, but very busy, metro system
5. World class museums, worth the crazy queues - including seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre and lots of Monet at the Musee d'Orsay

Photos are on their way, but may take a few days!