Useful when travelling in Australia

National public loo registry, sure there are a lot more, such as department stores, restaurants etc, but possibly handy.

http://bit.ly/6kDqcz

Joanne
www.placesandspaces.com.au

Kammadhenu

This one had been recommended by Bobby Singh and Ben Walsh. They sometimes perform music upstairs.

The masala dosa was nearly as big as Arran.



The food was really yummy and lots of it.

Great value here in Newtown where we had mango lassi, 3 dosas, a beer and a soft drink for $38.

Kammadhenu
377a King Street
Newtown
9557 2186



Joanne
www.ceressolutions.com.au

Cupcakes and coffee

For some reason, in Australia we have been overtaken by cupcake fever. Cupcake shops abound and these little morsels can be found everywhere. They are marching along, like Thai shops against the Chinese restaurant in every country city in Australia - it is now cup cakes versus muffins. Early days yet, but I feel a takeover coming on.

The beauty of the cupcakes is that they are light and come in so many variations from regular to lemon merengue to this profiterole concoction.

The Cupcake Bakery have more than one site and they do a special coffee and cupcake offer for $5. The outlet in the Queen Victoria building, Sydney does a decent cup of coffee, which does justice to these tempting morsels.

We also go to Cupcakes on Pitt, at 323 Pitt Street. Although it has had some adverse reviews, the cupcakes we have had there have always been fresh and tasty.

Joanne Kee

http://www.placesandspaces.com.au/

twitter@joannekee

Assiette

Gorgeous restaurant in Surry Hills.

Lunch at $35 for 3 courses is an absolute bargain.

48 Albion Street
Surry Hills, Sydney
P: +61 2 9212 7979
F: +61 2 9212 3602

Where to eat in Canberra

We just spent a weekend in Canberra, went to the Canberra Theatre which has a great program. Saw Bangarra's retrospective, Fire, which was great.

After the show we went to Sammys Kitchen, for Chinese and malaysian cuisine. It was a little like a Noodle outdoor market, it was a balmy night. Good food, we had noodles and Beef Rendang.

Sammys Kitchen
Shop FG09, Section 84,
Canberra Centre, City
http://www.sammyskitchen.com.au/
T: 02 62471464.


Other places worth checking out for a meal are Italian & Sons. Thats a place for pizza and rustic Italian meals. We had very tasty potato and rosemary pizza and rib beef.

Italian & Sons
Shop 6, 7 Lonsdale Street
Braddon
T: 02 6162 4888



If you want a good coffee, Manuka is the place.

One suggestions is
Verve
Cnr Franklin street & Flinders Way
Manuka
http://www.vervecafebar.com.au/

They serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Joanne Kee
http://www.placesandspaces.com.au/

View from Shad Thames canal

Neal's Yard Dairy and Monmouths

More on the trek for good coffee and food.

Neils Yard Dairy and Monmouth Coffee Company


MALTBY STREET
Every Saturday between 9am and 2pm (ish), we will be joining Monmouth Coffee Company at their roasting site in Maltby St, Bermondsey, selling cheeses, milk, butter and eggs. Monmouth Coffee will have coffee beans as well as filter and espresso based drinks for sale.

Monmouths - coffee in London

Monmouths in Borough Markets

There is a two queue system, one to pay and then one to wait for your coffee. Obviously coffee is in demand as people are willing to queue. Or it could just be London/UK mentality of queueing?


The Borough
2 Park Street
London SE1 9AB
Monday-Saturday
7.30am–6pm
closed Bank Holidays

Inside is an oasis of tranquility if you find a seat. You can help yourself to baguettes and jam for an few pounds. A very civilised way to start the day.

Joanne
www.placesandspaces.com.au

London

Had a nice time wandering around London with Arran, stopping at the Lions in trafalgar square, wonder how many people have fallen from there. Passed houses of Parliament, Westminster and spent time at Foyles bookshop.

Found the comic book versions of Shakespere classics, which are fun.

Got picked for a busking show and jumped on lots of buses.

It was fantastic catching up with Robert, though I am sorry I didn't get to see his artwork.

Joanne

Hamleys, London dungeon

Two top spots for kids in London.

Of course, this is the toy shop which would have to be classified as the most famous in London, if not the UK. It is manic, so leave plenty of time to make your way through the crowds. However, we would recommend it as a must see if you have kids.

As one would expect, it is not the cheapest toy shop in the world, but when you take your child there the first impression is "magical". However, if you are budget conscious, do shop around.

Hamleys
188 - 196 Regent Street
LONDON
W1B 5BT
0871 704 1977

London Dungeon

This was at the request of our 9 year old and all the guide books including Time Out classified it as a great place to go. (someone needs to do a reality check and visit this tired old place again!) Well maybe it is great if you are under 10 and find any of it at all believable. Our daughter did enjoy it, but the three adults found it tedious and boring.

You are on your feet for the better part of 90 minutes, walking around recreated scenes of London, with some acting. I felt really sorry for the people who had queued for hours outside.

Tip is that you can buy tickets on line and go to the priority queue. It is also potentially cheaper to do it this way.

Tip the queues get really long in the holidays and during the morning.

London Dungeon
28-34 Tooley St
London, SE1 2SZ

Joanne

www.placesandspaces.com.au

Fountains in rome

On the brighter side, cooling down in the fountain.

Andrew at the colosseum.

At the Pantheon.

Plus trevi fountain at night.

Rome travel tips

Watch out for the taxi rip off from the station, we so got ripped off but were expecting it as part of the Italian experience. Make sure the taxi driver actually puts on the metre when you leave the stataion.

At the airport, go to terminal C, much nicer than the terminal you walk into on entry, which is really tacky. Much more pleasant in the C lounge.

the fountains around Rome are fantastic for cooling down on a hot day.

Joanne

Florence

Tips for Florence

Fab gelato, delicate flavours, ingredients sourced from around the world
GROM
V. d. Campanile Ang. v d Oche
Just moments from the Duomo

recommend Peach, apricot and blueberry

Nice restaurant, tuscan food
Trattoria da guido
via faenza 34r
Firenze
055 289746
Near the Central markets

Our other tip, is that it is worth pre-booking for the accademia to see David, it saves heaps of queuing time, you practically walk straight in. If not sure get your hotel to do it the day before.

tips for venice

great restaurant, fine dining, meal for 18 euro, good value.
An oasis amongst the tourist madness

Il ridotto
castello 4509 - 30122 Venezia
Campo ss Filippo e giacomo
041 520 8280
Just moments from San Marcos square.

Also tip for some nice jewellery in the same area
Saluti e Baci
Castello, 4362/A - 30122 Venezia
347 0509944

Florence

Arrived into florence, very steamy.

More later

Joanne
www.placesandspaces.com.au

venice

what a tourist rip off of a city.

Tips buy your ticket for the ferry into town from the actual pier. I paid a whacking 25 euros per ticket and even after asking the staff we ended up on the cheaper 13 euro ferry.

Easier to buy what you see.

Public transport is also a rip off, 16 euros for a day ticket, the girl was obviously not telling us the truth, I don't believe that individual ferry trips in venice cost the locals 6 euros each!

Gondoler was 120 euros, yes expensive too.



www.placesandspaces.com.au

glasgow edinurgh

Another Edinburgh fringe queue!

Joanne

Castle Kirk

View from the window of our B&B, Castle Kirk in Lochranza. They say that the Castle is the inspiration for Tin Tin and the Black Islands.

Definitely recommend the B&B, fantstic hospitality.

Joanne

Lamlash - swinging

Park at Lamlash on Arran

Euro Disney - 10 tips

Great buskers on the way to Eurodisney.

Tips,
1)Easy to catch the RER from central Paris, we got a zone 5/6 orange card
2)we went later in the day ie arrived at midday to avoid morning queues
3)Go to the far left hand side to buy tickets away from the queues, there is a series of shared booths there and quicker to access entry.
4)It seemed pricey, but the character meals were good value. An extra 10 Euro per adult on the normal buffet price. No queuing and lots of photo ops.
5) A good place to get your bearings is the Lucky Nugget while having lunch, you can plot your course.
6) The express tix are really good, they do save on queuing time.
7) You can only get one express ticket at a time, so choose wisely
8) There are definitely peak times ie after shows etc, if you do activities while the shows are on the queues are shorter.
9) the shops get really manically busy later in the evening
10) Whilst queues are shorter later in the day some rides start closing around 9.00, ie we couldn't get onto Autopia

Louvre tips

Best times to visit without queuing is later on the late night openings ie Wednesday and Friday when the Louvre is open to 10pm.

We walked straight to the ticket purchasing desk, after we had our dinner then walked right on in. Of course the Louvre is massive, so you can either just target a few places you want to visit or wander randomly.

Personally I find museums of this size overwhelming and like to reduce my visit to bite sized chunks, especially when travelling with a 9 year old.

Museum Opening Hours
The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (rooms begin closing at 5:30) every day except Tuesday and the following holidays: January 1st, May 1st and December 25, 2009. The permanent collection and temporary exhibitions will close at 5 p.m. on December 24 and 31, 2009 (Wednesday).

The museum is open until 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday evenings (rooms begin closing at 9:30 p.m.).

Admission to the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month.

The Pyramid and Galerie du Carrousel entrances are open daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Passage Richelieu is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Porte des Lions entrance is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Tuesday and Friday.

Address for the Louvre is a map on the website. So visit official site for more info.

Eurostar

Having not travelled on Eurostar for some time, was v. impressed with St Pancras, but couldn't understand why it was such a free for all when you actually came to entering the station.

All these companies are so obsessed with using online technology, but its all pretty useless if you are forced to use it and told not to approach a human and then your ticket doesn't read. Eurostar this happens, with a shrug of the shoulders.

East Midlands Rail is a worse offender with the journey to actually pick up your ticket taking you downstairs to another queue. You would be well and truly stuffed if you had left even a decent 10 minutes to get through the process.

A most helpful man at the automated ticket booth, contrasted with a really disinterested, verging on rude lady at the downstairs office. Is it my fault that the machine doesn't accept my credit card, or perhaps they should mention that this will happen if you dont have a chip in your card.

Joanne Kee
www.ceressolutions.com.au

Toy shops in Paris

We decided to check out toy shops and have only made it to two so far.

One being Jouie Club, which is a series of shops in an arcade, with a huge range of toys.
3-5 Blvd des Italiens
Metro Richelieu Droit, right next to the metro stop.

The other was the oh, so pricey, but absolutely charming Au Nain Bleu. Beautiful dolls, hand crafted tableux, costumes (lots of princess action happening in Paris). We drooled at Nain Bleu, but actually found some of the same stuff much cheaper at Jouie.
5 Blvd Malesherbes
Metro Madeline, also on the same circular line as the Metro, so relatively easy to find.

We were surprised to find out that letoyvan.com is actually an English company and that Lion Touch, which we could have sworn was English is actually Scandinavian.

Joanne Kee
www.placesandspaces.com.au

Eiffel Tower

The queues were phenomenal snaking around the Eiffel Tower. I have to say, why would you bother if you had to stand in a queue for an hour?

We took the up market option and had the most amazing lunch at the Jules Verne Restaurant. Expensive, but we really enjoyed it. Food was fantastic, view sublime and we felt extremely pampered. Not to mention we got our own lift on the way down.

Joanne
www.placesandspaces.com.au

Euro Disney

Tips for Euro Disney

Expensive in anyone's language.

Yes it probably is worthwhile to pack some food. Around $50 for 3 hotdogs and a couple of bags of chips and only 2 bags of chips. That was the cheapest thing we could find.

Character buffet surprisingly good value, as they only whack on an extra $20 per head, as compared to a main meal and dessert price in other food outlets. Plus the characters actually come to you during lunch and hug, sign autographs and pose for pics.

It beat queuing to meet the characters and have our photo taken.

Definitely worth using the fast ticket system and of course the queues are shorter later in the day. Just a shame you can only have one fast ticket until the next one is used.

Real lack of signage at Euro Disney.

If you don't like cigarette smoke, it will drive you crazy, parents are puffing away, as they hold onto their kids.

Joanne Kee
www.ceressolutions.com.au

Travel bits and pieces while on the road

Hi this blog is for us to share our travel experiences

Joanne, Sandy & Arran