"You're in Buda, looking over Pest aren't you, Raphael?" - My Father

Me, somewhat smugly, "No, specifically the other way round."

"Oh, Pest is on the hill?" 

"Yes."

The next day, we were wondering around Budapest and realised our error. The day before, we had in fact been...

You can often pinpoint, with some ease, the moment on a trip abroad that you miss home. For my most recent trip, the subject of this post, it was about 24 hours before I was due to leave. I was homesick for a home that I had not left yet, missed a country I had not beg...

Not many people can say that a friend of theirs co-wrote something that is doing rather well at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. My friends are not so lucky and get to hang their heads in shame as they admit they know someone who writes not one but two blogs but that's n...

Allow me to add my voice to the presumably infinitely long list of people who describe Rome as unique. There is no better word to describe its sheer majesty. My friend and I were astounded right from the walk from the main station to our accommodation for the few days...

Stockholm was not, if I am honest, somewhere I saw myself visiting. No reason. I guess I just had other cities on my ever expanding wish list. Uefa's decision to host the Europa League Final here and United's decision to actually be okay at football and beat teams they...

Vienna, much like Prague and Odessa, is beautiful. Stunning, in fact. There is so much wonderful architecture, from palaces to libraries to opera houses. Plenty of places worth visiting, not that I was able to see everything I wanted to or, indeed, was entitled to (for...

Odessa might not be quite as beautiful as Prague or Paris. It might lack the hustle and bustle of a New York or Hong Kong yet still lack the peaceful tranquility of Amsterdam but none of that stops it from being the most unbelievably charming city. You would not have t...

Prague is bloody cold in December. I mean, seriously cold. You probably knew that, but no piece on Prague could begin without mentioning how cold it is. Because it's mention-how-cold-it-is-every-three-seconds-and-frequently-rub-your-hands-together-whilst-mentioning-how...

To force you all to read the post, the punchline will be posted with awful comic timing at a random point in this post.
 

 Following a historic British Summer Holiday tradition, I visited the seaside. However, that is where my following of the tradition pretty much stop...

Okay, so that's not strictly true. At no point during my trip to Amsterdam did I nearly fall into a canal, though given the number of canals and my propensity to jump at the slightest surprise there was a very real risk. Indeed, part of my pre-trip planning involved tr...