That time I was shipwrecked

I recently undertook a 3000km round trip across Europe for entirely unexciting reasons. Unless sorting out stuff in a loft you’ve not been in for four years counts as interesting. This trip allowed me two things. One, lots of time to listen to Abba, as my Mum was in charge of the music selection. Two, lots of time to think of adventures to relate. And it occurred to me that you might like this story, about a slightly unfortunate boat ride I once took…

I was rather lucky at one point in my life to be able to call a tiny island in the Seychelles my home. The island really was tiny – far too small for such conveniences as a runway. Or a port for that matter.

Were I the owner of the island, or a proper hotel guest, or anything other than a dishevelled student, my mode of transport to the island would have been the rather glamorous helicopter charter.

Sadly, I didn’t quite qualify for the helicopter option in the eyes of whoever was in charge of these things, so my usual way of getting to this island was a boat.

On the particular occasion of this story, I was accompanied by a friend from University, who wasn’t what I would term a strong swimmer. Not in the sort of water that goes up and down and doesn’t have a nice tiled floor anyway.

The tale starts off with us in a little boat, not much bigger than a bathtub really, puttering across the magnificent turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. Sea birds drifted lazily by. Fingertips trailed in the sea. Nina Simone was probably singing in the background. I’m sure you get the picture.

On the way over, the boat driver chatted to us about the fishing, and said it hadn’t been so good of late what with the giant hammerhead shark that had been seen off the island. (That was the end of the fingertip trailing). Not the sort of thing you really want to hear about when you’re bobbing across the ocean in what is essentially a bathtub with an outboard, but there we were. Nina Simone was quickly replaced by the Jaws theme tune at around this point.

As it was, we arrived at our destination entirely uneaten and landed safely on the shore. Palm trees fringed the pure white sands. Waves gently molested the beach. Hopefully I am setting the scene for you as this being a nice place to be, with solid, non shark-infested ground underfoot.

As soon as we arrived, the island manager popped down to the beach, and mentioned that there was a large buoy that needed placing on the other side of the island, and would we be interested in helping take it round in the boat and putting it in place?

Having just arrived on nice safe shark-free terra firma, the correct response would probably have been “no, thanks, we’ll be in the bar, let us know when you’re done”. As it was, it sounded like a fun and exciting adventure, so we loaded a gigantic buoy into the (did I mention it was bathtub sized?) boat, squeezed four of us around it, and set off to the far side of the island.

This other side of the island was a far less inviting place. Barnacle coated granite cliffs rose out of the water, and the sea pounded them mercilessly. There were no palm trees to be seen. Just deep, grey, angry water, hammering itself against the rocks. Not a place for a nice swim.

We reached the location where the buoy was to be put, where an anchor had already been put in place with a smaller buoy as a marker.

At this point it became apparent that not much planning had gone into the operation. Getting the enormous buoy into the boat on the land had not been an easy operation. Getting it out again on a squishy unstable surface was going to be even less so.

We peered at the problem facing us for a brief while, before someone had the brilliant idea to attach the buoy to the anchor whilst it was still in the boat. This seemed like an exciting option, so we did that.

What this resulted in was that our boat was now attached to the sea bed by some rather hefty bit of cabling, designed to moor rather larger oil bearing vessels. A sticky situation quickly arose.

The motion of the waves was attempting to move us away from the mooring (towards the cliffs), whilst the cable we were attached to was attempting to keep us (or at least the buoy) firmly anchored to the surface of the sea.

The result of this was that the boat attempted to make both parties happy, with the back of the boat which was where the buoy was going down to sea level so the buoy could float, and the nose going happily skywards, following the waves. Large quantities of water entered the boat over its stern.

In fact, we took on rather more water than was strictly necessary to enable floatation.

All this water inside the boat started getting quite excitable. As the waves rocked the boat, the water inside the boat started to slosh from side to side. Clearly, it wanted to be reunited with the rest of the sea, not cooped up in a wooden shell. Within seconds, the boat was rocking from side to side to a tremendous degree, and the boat man uttered the words:

“Get ready to go over the side.”

At this point, my friend looked at me in a sort of nervous terror and said

“What does he mean, go over the side?”

I was wondering a wise response to this, when the boat answered for me, and turned turtle.

As a brief aside, I should point out that I have a background in dinghy, or small boat, sailing. One of the drills that you practice when sailing a dinghy is known as a dry capsize. The idea is that when a boat capsizes, you are fast enough to realise this, and as it rolls over, you pull yourself up over the side and onto the bottom.

If you practice this properly, you can actually climb around the boat as it rolls over, and remain entirely dry. With a small sailing dinghy, you can then reverse the process, using the keel to righten the boat, and get back in it. It’s a neat party trick, and one I practiced a fair amount back in the day.

This similar process was possible with the boat we were in. As it went over, the two of us with a background in this sort of thing ended up sitting, still dry, on the upturned bottom of the boat, whilst the boat driver (also not a strong swimmer) and my friend, who had less experience with this sort of thing, got rather more thoroughly dunked.

It was at this point that our only real stroke of luck occurred. The boat had flipped entirely and trapped the buoy underneath it, which meant that it was still floating, and even better, still anchored. The buoy was very neatly jammed in the boat, so that wasn’t going anywhere. Even more excitingly, the boat had lifejackets on board (which, admittedly, none of us had been wearing). I fished some out of the sea and put them on everyone.

Then, the decision of course, what to do. There were no other boats on the island at this point, and even if there were, no-one was likely to notice we hadn’t returned for some time. There was no easy way to flip the boat back over, and even if we had been able to, the outboard motor was unlikely to burst into life after sitting upended in the sea for a while.

There was, really, only one choice. Someone was going to have to swim the couple of kilometres back around the island to get help. It wasn’t going to be the boat man or my friend, who were clearly much happier sitting on the keel of the boat than splooshing around. The island manager and I looked at each other, and figured that we’d have to go for it, sharks or not.

Leaving my friend and the boat driver sitting on the keel, carefully wrapped up in life jackets, we set off. The topic of conversation largely revolved around what sort of swimming action was least likely to attract a large shark. I believe the conclusion was splash free.

After a good period of swimming, which we achieved without being nibbled on by anything other than some seaweed, we made it to shore, and headed to summon help. The nearest boat which we could find that was available to help out was a few hours away, so that was summoned.

Help arranged, I decided that I would walk over to the other side to signal to the shipwreckees that help was on the way. I picked up a soft drink as I walked. On the other side of the island, I attempted to signal that help was coming, whilst supping from my beverage.

The response I got was less than enthusiastic. To this day, in fact, my friend believes that the only reason for my coming over was to point out that I had a chilled beverage and was on dry land, whilst he was bobbing up and down in shark infested waters, getting, as we discovered later, quite seriously sun burnt.

Still. All is well that ends well. Eventually help did turn up, and towed the survivors back to land. The next three days were spent sitting in the bar, me talking about the exciting adventure, my friend quietly dying of sunburn. No further boat trips were undertaken. Until it came time to leave….

Travel blogging tips from the experts: Travel yourself

In today’s travel blogging tips interview I’ve been able to grab hold of Cailin O’Neil, the writing and video talent behind no less than three travel blogs covering her life, her travel stories and food. There was me thinking one site was hard enough to run!

Cailin is the first person I’ve interviewed in this series to focus heavily on video as part of her work, and her dream is to have and host her own travel series. A dream that is quickly becoming a reality! Read on to find out more about what motivates Cailin to do what she does, and how she finds time to fit everything in.

Why did you first start writing a travel blog?

After finishing University with a major in Film I started traveling a fair bit and the blog just came naturally, originally as a way to keep friends and family updated back home.

After a few trips I thought to myself why not start making travel videos and my first time filming was in Spain in 2009 with my own camera man who followed me around for a week making the first episode of my own travel TV show and from there Travel Yourself was born.

At last count you were running at least three separate sites. What's that all about?

Sometimes I ask myself that same question :) Travel Yourself was originally meant to be a travel video specific niche site to create a following for my own travel TV show / webseries.

Cailin Travels was set up to be a more personal blog about my travels outside of Travel Yourself and the newly launched The Taste Of Travel was an idea I had over a year ago and finally just put in motion this January.

Food is such a big part of the way I travel and who doesn't like food? I thought it would be great way to put two of my favourite things together food and travel just like Travel Yourself put two of my favourite things together film and travel.

One of your passions is video. What tips do you have for travel bloggers looking to include video on their blogs?

My number one tip is don't force it. Video isn't for everyone, if you don't feel comfortable in front of the camera or can't afford the proper equipment then maybe it isn't for you.

My other tips are, 1. Use a tripod as often as possible. 2. Get a good microphone to record your audio. 3. Have good copyright free background music. 4. Have fun with it and make sure your personality shines, don't be dull and don't forget to smile.

How do you define success in terms of your blogs?

I think the success that I have had for my sites is far from what others might think success is but honestly as long as you are doing something that makes you happy and you can stick with it and sometimes other people read it too then you are pretty successful in my books.

What are your dreams for your blogs?

I think this might be an obvious answer from some of my previous answers but of course my long term goal is to hopefully (fingers crossed) get my own travel TV series out of this and to essentially get paid to travel the world for the rest of my life.

(Since sending this interview over, Cailin has announced a partnership with Ocean Entertainment to bring a new travel series to life. Way to go Cailin!)

Do you follow any metrics in terms of traffic analysis / site ranking, and how important do you think these are?

I check Google Analytics from time to time but I try to not get my head wrapped up in it all. I think they are important if you are wanting to make a business out of this but if you spend too much time worrying about it or putting yourself up against other people you are most likely going to make yourself crazy.

Everything is important for its own reason but try to not make it something you are going to lose sleep over.

Which social networks are you active on, and what tips would you give for success on these?

I use Twitter and Facebook the most and my only tips might be are stay consistent, be yourself, share other peoples posts/links just as much as your share your own and don't post too much.

What other techniques have you used to improve your traffic, and how successful have these been?

I link to my sites on my videos on YouTube and I use StumbleUpon. Also commenting on various other blogs gets your name out there as well.

What sort of time commitment do you put in to your travel blogs on a weekly basis, and how do you manage your time between your various ventures?

This isn't anything that I have actually thought about to measure. I put as much time into it as it requires to post about 7-8 posts a week amongst the 3 sites combined with more time being put into it when I have a new video being put out.

What have you found to be the hardest thing about running a travel blog, and how do you overcome this?

Often finding time to maintain the sites while traveling. I would much rather want to be out exploring a new place rather then sitting indoors hunched over a computer and sometimes it’s hard to find a nice balance between the two.

As I sit here and write this I am actually in Sydney, Australia but thankfully the weather hasn't been the greatest so I don't mind being inside instead of exploring.

If you started your blogs today, what would you differently?

I probably would have kept Travel Yourself and Cailin Travels as the same site. I also would have started making videos earlier than I have, aside from that I'm not sure what else I might of done differently.

Do your blogs generate any form of income, and if so, how did you achieve this?

I have made a small amount of money from links on one of them but aside from that they are not currently generating income. I am working towards changing that in various different ways through partnerships, sponsorships and more.

If you have questions or problems with your sites, where do you go to find answers?

Two words, Chris Richardson. I'm sure this is the answer many people give to this question. (It is!) Chris runs the site The Aussie Nomad and is a long time friend of mine that I have travelled with a couple times, once in Copenhagen and more recently to Cardiff, Wales. He actually just recently quit his job and created a website called RTWLabs to give technical support to travel blogs.

Travel blogging is becoming more and more popular. How do you differentiate yourself in such a crowded market?

I think I have the benefit that I have been doing this a lot longer than others and would like to think that I have a "known" name in the biz. Aside from that I just keep making videos and doing what I'm doing and try not to worry about things like that. Just being myself will hopefully be enough to keep me different from the others.

And finally, what advice would you give to people running, or thinking about setting up, their own travel or video blog?

Good luck. Hahaha :)

Tremendous thanks to Cailin for taking the time to answer my questions! You can find Cailin at her above linked blogs, as well as on Twitter as @TravelYourself, @Cailinoneil and @tasteoftravel or over on facebook at The Taste of Travel and Travel Yourself! Get following!

How to get an awesome view of Barcelona - for free!

When I arrive in a new city, I have a bit of a thing for finding the highest point around. This is for two reasons: first, because I like a good view, and second, in an attempt to orientate myself.

The orientation part only vaguely helped on my recent trip to Barcelona. The city is seriously maze like, particularly the old pedestriansed parts of the city centre. However, since wandering around maze like alleys getting lost is another thing I enjoy about a city, that wasn’t really a terrible issue.

If you’re heading to Barcelona, and like me have a tendency to head for the high points of a city like a fly that’s been taken over by a brain controlling fungus, here’s a quick run down of my four favourite places to get a great view of the city for free!

Parc Güell

I have mentioned the influence that Gaudí has had on Barcelona already. Parc Güell is one of the highlights of his legacy, and a UNESCO world heritage site to boot. It has incredible features, from raised balconies, to enormous sculptures, to weird and wacky houses.

What it also has is one of the finest views of Barcelona, available from a number of locations in the park. The most popular is up by the cross above the main entrance, but you’ll be able to get a fabulous view from pretty much everywhere in the park, what with it being up on a hill, without fighting for the perfect spot to take a photo.

If you go to Barcelona, you will visit Parc Güell. You may as well enjoy the view whilst you’re there!

Castell de Montjuic

If you have a convenient hill with a cliff situated next to a large harbour, it makes sense to build a nice big castle on top of it complete with guns to guard said harbour.

Montjuic Hill, rising to just over 180 metres above Barcelona harbour, is just such a hill, and features a rather splendid bit of fortification at the top, complete with rather large bits of defunct weaponry.

From here you are able to get a commanding view across the city of Barcelona as well as the harbour. The reverse view, in fact, that you can see from the photo taken from Parc Güell above.

You can also explore the Castle for free, although it isn’t really a castle so much as a large pile of walls designed to keep people safe, coupled with incredible views.

As an historical aside, Castell de Montjuic was also the place that the calculations that defined the measurement of the metre took place. In case you weren’t already aware, a metre is defined as being one ten millionth of the distance between the north pole and the equator. Which seems a marginally less arbitrary measure than the length of some blokes foot. A great view and a bit of metric history. What a combination!

Tibidabo

As you wander around the city of Barcelona and explore the other high bits that I’ve mentioned here, you will notice in the distance a large hill with a big church sitting on the top.

This is Tibidabo, the largest hill that looks over Barcelona, rising to a rather impressive half a kilometre above sea level.

Perched atop this hill are all kinds of things, including the Temple de Sagrat Cor, an amusement park, and an absolutely enormous telecommunications tower. You can go up the latter for even more staggering views, but that’s not free.

Getting to the top of the Tibidabo can be achieved on foot, making it free, but if you’re short on time, or not feeling up to it, you can drive, take the bus, or hop on the funicular railway. You can see the communications tower and church in the next photo which is taken from the:

Roof of Las Arenas

We stumbled across this location quite by accident when heading to Barcelona’s Magic Fountain. A city with a magic fountain! What’s not to love? Anyway, Las Arenas is a large circular shopping mall just near the Magic Fountain.

This probably doesn’t sound too exciting, until you realise that it has been transformed from what was once Barcelona’s famous bull fighting stadium, also known as Las Arenas.

When bull fighting fell out of favour in this corner of Spain, the building became somewhat derelict, until its recent revival as a shopping mall.

Its entire roof is a circular promenade, upon which you can wander to your hearts content, gazing across such sights as Montjuic Hill, the Magic Fountain, the nearby Parc Joan Miro and the wonderful skyline of Barcelona. Not bad for free!

Have you been to Barcelona? Any other places you’d recommend for a great view? Do let me know in the comments below!

A storm time lapsed

We had a huge storm go past recently. That’s it coming in the photo above. I thought I’d use it to try out some time lapse photography, which I’ve never really done before. The video of that attempt is embedded below.

Note.. you’ll probably want to click the little cog wheel at the bottom right corner of the videos and switch to 720p, for some reason the embed won’t let me force it to HD. Sigh.

Then, flush with excitement about this new found technology, and post storm.. I did the below. It’s a learning curve, I hope you’ll indulge me ;)

Dear future technology: a travellers wishlist

Today, I’m going to do one of my rare technology themed posts. I’m writing about what I’d like to see from my technology in the coming years. Don’t worry. I’ll be back to talking about the rest of the world’s awesomeness soon enough.

I’m not one to complain. I already have the equivalent of a 1970’s supercomputer available to me in my pocket (there’s a joke there somewhere), with a great percentage of the worlds knowledge available a mere few screen taps away.

I can call friends around the world for free, with video. I can control my bank accounts, book flights, find my way, get restaurant recommendations, look up the weather, and learn how to build a fire with nothing but a bucket of water.

Ok, that last one I made up. Hopefully my point is made. We live in an incredible time. But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of dreaming. So. If I was in charge of a giant tech company, with billions of dollars sitting around, wondering how to make a travellers life easier, this is the sort of thing I might be thinking of doing. As well as driverless cars that is. And clean drinking water and free healthcare for all. You know, the little things...

Near-instant wireless charging

When travelling, you can’t escape the need to take some devices with you. Be they cameras, phones, laptops, e-readers or music players (or one device that does all of the above properly, come on world... let’s get moving on this convergence thing!), they all have the same thing in common, a requirement for power.

One thing that doesn’t appear to have kept up with the pace of technological change is the humble battery.

Firstly, there is no universally accepted charging solution, which means taking a mass of wires with you when you travel. Second, devices take time to charge. Promises of “fast charge” batteries have been around for a while, but as yet not delivered.

The future, therefore, should fix both of these complaints. First, I want to be able to charge my devices wirelessly. This technology exists, but it’s not exactly a common standard as yet, plus it’s darn slow. I want charging to happen very quickly, ideally in less than a minute.

I hope for a future where power charging pads are like vending machines, available all over the place. You take your fading device, pop a credit in the unit, hold your device against the charge pad, and moments later, you are ready to rock, all charged up. With a charge that lasts more than a day. Can’t be that hard. Right?

Real-time translation

Communication is important. It would be so nice to have a little yellow fish I pop in my ear that automatically translated everything I heard, but that’s somewhat unlikely to happen. What is more likely, is that a smartphone app evolves to let this happen.

Currently, Google translate works to a point. And Microsoft are working on this one too. Both options currently require a connection to the internet, which isn’t generally available in all the places you want to translate things. (That is another point, but I’m ok if the technology folks roll out clean drinking water for all before free internet for all.)

Of all my future dreams, I think this one may come true first. Then I’ll be able to order beer everywhere I go, and even understand how much I’m supposed to pay for it! Hurrah!

A single universally accepted payment option

In every science fiction novel ever, there is a universally accepted payment option, usually known as a credit. A single world currency would be a utopian solution, but even just one form of payment that is accepted everywhere would be nice.

And yes, I’d like it to be something electronic too. Because nice though sacks of beans or gigantic triangular rubber coins are, they do have some impracticalities when it comes to ease of packing. Google Credits. Apple iCredits. I can almost taste their electronic goodness.

Electronic paperwork

One thing you can’t escape when travelling is the need for documentation. A passport is the most important bit of paperwork, but you probably also carry all kinds of other bits of paper with you. From insurance receipts to booking confirmations to other forms of ID, it all adds up.

I’d like all this to be replaced by something less tangible. Various attempts at biometric ID have come and gone. For a while you could sign up to enter and leave the UK using a retinal scanner. The future was here!

Sadly, technology revolutions don’t seem to happen entirely overnight. Or for free. That system is being canned, presumably because passports are still what everyone in the world uses. So whilst my passport has a chip in it, and is terribly Passport 2.0 in that sense, I’d really like to not have it at all. Because if I lose it, for some reason I am no longer me to the border authorities. Which just seems wrong. So yes. I want to be my own document. Surely there is some part of me unique enough that I can be identified by it…

Virtual addresses

When you travel long term, not having an address or permanent base can start to become a serious hindrance. The world does not seem to be entirely set up for people who don’t have some form of postal address. The common solution is to use a friends address… or that classic fallback, a parents address. (Also useful for long term storage of all those things you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away.)

This does seem rather ridiculous though, as you’re not actually living there. It’s a loophole in a flawed system. If only there was some way to have an address that large institutions actually recognised as being linked to you, without the need for actual bricks and mortar. Like.. an electronic mail address, to which “electronic” versions of documents could be sent. It could be called.. “e”mail. Patent pending on that one folks.

Well, that’s what I’m hoping the not too far off future may hold from a travellers technology viewpoint. As well as flying cars of course. And teleporters. And space flight.

Got a wish for some future technology that would make your travels or life easier? Do share below!

Win stuff with Roomorama! (And why you would want to!)

I recently had the absolute pleasure of visiting Barcelona for a week. I’ve got a number of posts up already, including one on what I learnt and one stuffed full of photos of Gaudi’s masterpieces. More posts will be coming on the Barcelona theme – this is one awesome city!

Today’s post is all about where I stayed in Barcelona. I went for an apartment rather than a hostel or hotel for the trip - it’s an accommodation option I’ve mentioned before as being highly practical for the independent traveller. They offer a great deal of flexibility married to that other thing folks get excited about: namely a good price.

I was therefore delighted to partner with Roomorama for my trip to Barcelona. They helped out with the cost of my accommodation, and I get to share my experiences with you. But first:

Win Stuff!

If reading my prose wasn’t enough for you, I’m also happy to say that Roomorama are offering three of my readers (that’s you!) the chance to try out their service, and are giving away three Roomorama credits worth 50 USD each, or equivalent in your currency.

Even more excitingly, this prize is open to you wherever you are in the world, none of those annoying geographical restrictions on my watch. The only thing you need to do is use the credits within six months of winning them. Easy!

You can enter right now using the rafflecopter entry below. It’s pretty straightforward – the more tasks you complete, the more entries you get. Then, why not check out the search widget on the right hand side of the blog page to start planning where you’ll go if you win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The contest will be running until the 11th May to give everyone a chance to enter, and I'll contact the winners once they’ve been chosen with all the details of their winnings!

What is Roomorama?

But wait, Laurence, you say. Sure, I’m all up for winning fifty dollars worth of free accommodation anywhere in the world that Roomorama operates. In fact, I’ve already entered. But.. what am I entering to win? Who are these Roomorama’s, and what can I do with their credits?

This questions is nice and easy to answer. Roomorama is a service that puts people who have property available for short term lets in touch with people who want to stay in property for a short period of time. It’s the classic consumer to consumer model of business that you will know from your marketing 101 class. (You did take marketing 101, right?)

Roomorama’s website lets you search for properties in locations all around the world. It then lets you filter your search by all kinds of options, including price, number of bedrooms and even amenities such as internet access or whether or not the property comes with a pool.

Properties available run from the simple “I have a room to spare in my house and you can come live with me if you like” right up to some seriously luxurious penthouse style apartments. Those didn’t fall inside my budget for this trip. Maybe next time…

Once you’ve found a property you like, with a price range, location and amenities list that matches your needs, you fire off an inquiry to the host, who will get back to you to confirm (or deny) availability and the overall price. If you’re both happy, then you just go right ahead and confirm. You then pay your money to Roomorama, who give you a code to present to your host.

What’s good about it?

The best thing about the Roomorama service, in my opinion, is the way it keeps your payment secure. You don’t pay the host directly, and they can’t get at your money until they get your code, which you give in person when you meet them at the property. This is the main advantage of using a third party system over something like a classified ad.

The rest of the service is also well polished. The site is easy to use and navigate and there are loads of ways to filter the results to get exactly what you want. You can also read reviews on the properties and on the hosts prior to making a decision, to make sure the nice description matches what people found.

The overall benefits of an apartment compared to other types of accommodation are also myriad. You have the place to yourself, to come and go as you please. You can save money by cooking for yourself, you can pop to the markets, and you feel like you have your own little house in your destination. Perfect if you’re over hostel life.. but aren’t quite ready for the impersonal practicality of a hotel room.

What could be improved?

You know, I’m racking my brains here. All the things that you could complain about with a service like this are common to this type of operation, where a site is operating as a third party go-between rather than directly offering a product.

So yes, you may end up with a turkey of an apartment. There is a review system in place, but if no-one has stayed in the apartment with Roomorama, or left a review, then you could be the first to discover a disaster. And there are plenty of properties without reviews at the time of writing this article.

There is what is called a “certified host” program, but this just means that the host has had three positive reviews from other clients – better than none, although you need to rely on your travelling peers.

Roomorama could of course inspect all the apartments that are advertised, but this would probably add such a cost to the operation that it would no longer offer good value. Maybe they could offer hosts the option to pay to have their property “validated”, for peace of mind.

There is also the potential issue of time lag between enquiry and booking, although again, this isn’t specifically a Roomorama problem. When you are travelling independently and booking a variety of things at the same time, it can be vexing to have to wait for a reply to confirm availability on accommodation prior to booking your transport, particularly as good deals have a habit of vanishing quickly.

As communication between you and the host is handled through the Roomorama system, you have to wait for your host to check their mail and get back to you. If the host is away from their e-mail, this could cause you a problem, although there are usually enough properties available that you could have backup options on hand easily.

This is a very minor niggle, and I can’t think of a way of improving it whilst keeping the site as safe as it currently is, so I’ll stop blabbing on, and tell you about our actual experience.

Our experience

Our experience was very positive. The booking process was easy and smooth, with a friendly host confirming availability very quickly.

After making our booking, our host enquired as to how we were arriving in Barcelona, and we agreed on an apartment check in time. The only hitch was that I misread the map, and we ended up standing outside the wrong apartment – a quick exchange of texts later and he came and rescued us. Totally my fault that one.

The apartment itself was everything we wanted. It had two nice rooms – a bedroom, plus a lounge / kitchen area. There was a nice big flat screen TV that we never turned on, a compact bathroom with shower, and funky Japanese inspired decor throughout. We even had our very own balcony with washing line.

When we arrived, our host gave us a run down of the facilities, issued us with the wireless code (internet included!), and then gave us a whole bunch of information about what to see, where to go, and what to eat when in Barcelona.

He also gave us some tips on staying safe in a city that is notorious for pick pockets. Then, after letting us know that we could call him should we have any problems, we were left to our own devices.

The apartment came with a variety of cooking utensils and cups, as well as a stove top espresso maker, which meant I was pretty much sold. These did need a bit of a clean - It wasn’t that they were particularly dirty.. just that they didn’t seem to have been used in a while. Maybe not everyone was as cooking minded as I am.

One other minor niggle was that some light bulbs were out, but this wasn’t exactly a deal breaker. Otherwise everything was exactly as advertised.

As I said above, this really was the perfect option for us. We felt like locals with our own place. We weren’t disturbing anyone if we came home late, or inconveniencing the cleaning staff if we had a lie in. The place was secure, quiet, and we could leave our stuff without worry.

We were surrounded by all kinds of tiny bars and tapas places, there was a supermarket within two hundred metres, and we never had to take public transport anywhere. Absolutely brilliant.

Was it worth it?

The apartment we chose cost €60 per night, plus Roomorama’s 12% booking fee (8% for stays longer than 30 nights) and a €25 cleaning fee. Not all hosts charge a cleaning fee, and the rate varies – but the good news is that the fees are all displayed up front on the apartment booking page – no hidden fees just before you put your credit card details in like some low cost airlines I could rant about.

Overall, without Roomorama’s help, the price would have been €35.50 each per night. For a city centre location, in a major European city, within minutes from both the beach and a whole host of attractions, including wireless internet and even linen, we considered this to be a seriously great deal.

We’ll definitely be using Roomorama again for trips like this in the future. The feeling of independence and value for money were an unbeatable combination for the traveller looking for a slightly different, more immersive experience. Highly recommended!

In Photos: Gaudi’s Barcelona

Gaudí. It’s kind of hard to visit Barcelona without spending your time gaping in awe at the architectural and artistic genius that he left behind all over the city.

A great deal of my week in Barcelona was therefore spent, gaping in awe, at his many truly incredible constructions. As well as gaping, I was also taking the odd photograph, which I’m sharing with you today. I wasn’t able to visit every bit of work he did, but I’d like to think that I took in the serious highlights.

In a future post I’ll be going more into the details of what to see and do in Barcelona. For now though, less detail: more eye candy.

Lets start with…

The Sagrada Familia.

We might as well start at the top. The Sagrada Familia is Gaudí’s masterpiece, the building that obsessed him in the later years of his life, and which is still under construction. It’s an ever evolving masterpiece, an easily visible part of the Barcelona skyline, and one of the most incredible buildings I’ve ever visited. You cannot go to Barcelona without visiting it.

Parc Güell

Parc Güell was Gaudí's attempt at creating a garden city development. I say attempt, because of the 60 buildings planned, only two were built, neither of which was actually designed by the man himself.

Instead, Gaudí spent his time focusing on the little details, like the enormous terrace. Gaudí also lived in the Parc for 20 years. These days, the garden is open to all, and is well worth the visit.

 

Casa Batlló

Casa Batlló, also known as the House of Bones, is one of the finer examples of a town house designed and built by Gaudí for a rich Catalan family. It is most well known for it’s striking exterior wall, made up of balconies which to my mind looked rather like the masks one would wear at a ball. Should one be invited to a masked ball that is. 

My favourite bit of the house was up on the roof, where what appeared to be the spine of a dragon was laid out as the roofline. I’m not sure it was a dragon, but given Barcelona’s close connection to St. George, I have hope.

 

Casa Mila, also known as La Pedrera

Not far from Casa Battlo is Gaudi’s other famous Barcelonian town house, the Casa Mila, which is known by pretty much everyone as La Pedrera, which translates as the Quarry. The locals at the time not being entirely enamoured of Gaudi’s style choice with the building.

As with the Casa Battlo, this was built for a wealthy family, and broke pretty much every planning rule in the book when it was put up. The price of great art in this case coming with plenty of building regulation fines, and rather irate owners.

Cascada in Parc de la Ciutadella

This fountain, in the pretty Parc de la Ciutadella, near Barcelona’s parliament building, was mostly erected by Josep Fontsere. It is understood that Gaudí did work on it, during his early student years. It’s nowhere near as organic as some of his later works, but is still a great looking bit of building! When we visited, it wasn’t in operation, and had a wonderful air of decay going on.

So there you have it. Five of my favourite bits of Gaudí work in photos. Obviously Gaudí left behind more than these pieces, and Barcelona is just stuffed with incredible architecture from people other than this great man. But for sheer madness, it’s hard to beat what he got up to! Let me know what you think of the photos, of Barcelona, or of life in general, in the comments below!

Also... don’t forget to check out my site’s facebook page, where I share lots more of my photos!

Things I didn’t know about Barcelona!

I’ve just spent a week visiting Barcelona. I’d like to say that I did a whole bunch of research before setting off, but to be honest, I’m not that great at research. For example, I managed to get through an entire University degree without stepping inside a University library.

Plus, I like a place to surprise me. I asked you guys for your tips, and you supplied them in plentiful fashion. Barcelona’s tourist board, who hosted me so splendidly on this trip, sent me over a whole bunch of stuff too.

But none of this meant that I really knew the following things. I was ignorant… now I am less so. Yay for travel!

Barcelonés, or Barcelonians, aren’t exactly Spanish

Ooh, I’ll start off with the contentious one first then. Sure, Barcelona is *in* Spain. But it is in the Catalan region of Spain, a region which has its own language, own culture and… if the local population had its way... its own borders.

A basic study of Spanish history probably would have helped me out here, but I was never that great at history, particularly after spending two very dry years of my teenage life studying in great depth the Russian revolution of 1917. Something about reading the account of peasants being tyrannised in a frozen wasteland just turned me off history.

So, whilst officially Barcelona is a part of Spain, there are hints everywhere, from flags to language, even to domain names ending in .cat rather than .es, that really, the locals consider themselves somewhat separate. I’m sure there’s a whole world of politics and history here that I could get bogged down in. Instead, let’s move onto other, less contentious and more tasty subjects.

Lunch is a somewhat lengthy affair

I’ve never really travelled in a country which has that Spanish themed approach to lunchtime. I thought the French took lunch breaks seriously, but they really can’t hold a candle to the Spanish.

Lunch time starts a bit later than I was used to (turning up before 1pm raised eyebrows.. try that in France and you’ll be lucky if they still have a plat du jour left), and runs.. well.. until dinner time as far as I could see.

The other thing is that the traditional concept of starters and main courses isn’t the standard here. Possibly because tapas is so popular. Instead, meals consist of two slightly smaller main courses, followed by dessert and coffee.

Food is also incredibly cheap, by Western European standards anyway. It’s not hard to find a meal that includes first and second dishes, dessert, coffee and a beverage, for under 10 euros. No wonder everyone eats out all the time!

Barcelona is a seriously popular destination

I had a vague hope, when planning my trip for early April, that i would be able to miss the peak visitor months of the summer, when visiting European cities is… well... a bit of a chore.

And, when we blearily stumbled off the train at 8am on a Saturday morning, the wonderfully deserted narrowly winding streets of the Gothic Quarter were reassuringly empty. We had Barcelona to ourselves!

Of course, the reality wasn’t entirely in line with this first impression. Pretty much any city is largely deserted at 8am on a Saturday morning. As the day wound on, and people started to wake up, it became rapidly apparent that Barcelona is an incredibly popular destination. The major sights were always crowded, as were the streets, restaurants and even the parks!

It wasn’t really a problem – a city is a place of people after all. It was just a little busier than I had imagined for April. Good news for the tourism economy though. I’ll be writing a post on my tips for surviving a European city in summer soon, although in the case of Barcelona, the tips will probably apply year round…

Barcelona is eminently walk-able!

One thing that really stood out about Barcelona, which isn’t always the case with large cities, is how easy it is to walk around.

Sure, there is an awesome public transport infrastructure, with all modes of transport offered, from trams to buses to a metro and even bicycles. But for me, the best way to experience a city is on foot, and Barcelona is a city that is just so wonderful to experience from the pavement.

It has distinctly separate districts, all of which have their own character and beauty. The aforementioned Gothic Quarter is all tiny maze like passageways framed by looming buildings.

There’s the gorgeous beach fronted Barceloneta. There’s the Eixample... full of beautiful art nouveau buildings in a modernist style. Something for everyone, and all just so easy to get between! A walkers haven.

St George is not an exclusively English Saint

For most of my life, being English, I have been living under the misguided impression that St. George was this English chap who slayed a dragon, saved a princess, and gave us a national day that we largely ignore.

Then I visited Barcelona, and discovered that St George is also the patron Saint of Catalonia. Some further research has indicated that he also happens to be the patron Saint of nine other countries, including Portugal and Germany, as well as four cities including Venice. This was a chap whose dragon slaying abilities clearly  travelled well. He was also Turkish.

Unlike the English, for whom the St. George flag only really appears when we want to celebrate our football team being dire, the Catalonians really revere this guy. He appears all over the city in statues and artwork, and his national day is a seriously big deal. Poor old St. Valentine doesn’t get his own day in Catalonia – rather, St George’s day is the day to celebrate love. After all, what’s more romantic than a day celebrating a bit of princess saving and dragon slaying.

On St. George’s day, it is popular tradition for men to give women a red rose, which symbolises the blood of the poor slain dragon, and for women to give men a book, which symbolises knowledge. These days, what with women being allowed to read and everything, the exchange is more balanced, with everyone getting everything. Which seems fairer.

So that was some of what I learnt in Barcelona! More posts will be following on the subject of this wonderful city. In the meantime, if you’ve got stories to share about what you’ve learnt on your travels, or any feedback on this post, do hit up the comments below!

Angouleme–wanders around the ramparts

This is my third post on Angoulême! Who would have thought one French town could hold so much appeal? Admittedly, Angoulême cheated slightly, by seducing me with awesome street art. That’s a good way for any city to get my attention, and more than one post. See Berlin’s street art for example.

So I have now thoroughly covered the paintings on the walls of Angouleme in this post and this post.

There is, I am pleased to tell you, more to Angouleme than just great street art. Although, if you ask me, that’s enough to make a city worth a visit anyway. 

Angoulême is the capital of France’s Charente department, in the Poitou-Charentes region. Charente is also notable for being home to the town of Cognac, for the drinkers amongst you.

The Charente department is named for the river Charente, above which the main centre of the town of Angoulême perches. The rocky outcrop upon which the old town sits was, back in the day, splendidly defendable, and this is a town which has seen its fair share of sieges and plunders, with a history of invasions dating back to the 5th century.

These days the fortifications that surrounded the old town have been turned into boulevards which sit upon the old city walls, and afford the visitor a rather jolly set of views across the valley surrounding. A valley which is, admittedly, rather full of industry, but still. The thought is there.

The old centre of Angoulême is rather more interesting than its surrounding industrial area, being home as it is to a fine pedestrianised and cobbled town centre, which is just stuffed full of restaurants and quirky little streets to explore.

It also has its fair share of interesting looking buildings, including a fine cathedral (as seen in the photo above), and the “hotel de Ville” (first photo), which incorporates into its design the old chateau of Angoulême.

Angoulême is a very vibrant town, made so perhaps by its large student population. There is a really positive buzz in the city centre, with lots of people wandering and plenty to see down the twisty alleys.

When wandering, if you’re in the mood, there are a number of museums that could while away a rainy afternoon. These include the Fine Arts and Archaeology Museums, as well as the Paper Museum and Comic Book Museum. The latter sounding more interesting to me, although to be honest, museums have to be pretty damn amazing (or featuring Dali) to get me excited.

If you’re like me, and wandering aimlessly peering at street art or sculptures is more your thing, then you should swing into the tourist office and pick up the map of the notable street art in Angouleme, which will guide you past the main highlights.

If you’re more into formalised art with a side of greenery, then there is a lovely park under the ramparts to the west of the city, which features sculptures and fountains. A nice way to round off a bit of exploration.

Finally, Angoulême is also notable for its events and festivals. As well as the yearly international comic book festival, held every January, there is a classic car race which takes place around the roads of Angoulême , held every September since 1939. There are also music, food and animation festivals. Something to suit every taste!

If you’re in the area, I can really recommend taking a bit of time out to explore Angoulême. It’s a fascinating town with loads to see and do, and no shortage of excellent restaurants to fill up on fine French food!

As always, I’d love your feedback on this post! Is Angoulême somewhere you’ve been, or somewhere you’d want to visit? Never heard of it before now? Hit up the comments below, and let me know!