Lock’d invited Ms B, me, and two of our friends today to try out one of their escape room experiences. I have to admit that I mainly went along, because Ms B and her friends were absolutely convinced that escape rooms are brilliant. My 30th birthday is quite a few years back, I consider myself a pretty level-headed person, and I’m not a natural when it comes to being locked up with other people in a room in a stress situation, having to solve a puzzle within 60 minutes in order to be allowed back to join the living out there. I watch Sherlock Holmes movies to be distracted, to switch my mind off, to loosely ponder how someone with a funny face like Cumberbatch managed to become a world-famous actor and hottie with the ladies, and to relax, not to help the detective solve his crimes (I’m not a […]
Mayrhofen Spring Skiing in Tirol
I recently joined a friend on a one-week ski tip to Mayrhofen in Tirol, Austria… and I now have a taste for spring skiing which will be hard to quash! (Our husbands stayed in London, so it was girls-only.) Where is Mayrhofen? Mayrhofen is a town in the Zillertal (Ziller river valley) in the Austrian state of Tirol. It took approximately an hour to reach by bus from Innsbruck, following a short 1h 45min flight from London. The village is located between the Penken and the Ahorn mountains, and is also close to the Hintertux Glacier, the absolute highlight of my week in the Alps. The Hintertux Glacier At 3,250 metres above sea level, the Hintertux Glacier ski resort is open for business all year round, even in summer (when I may be back). The Penken I spent most of my time skiing (i.e. taking ski lessons) on the […]
Zigzagging through Paris on a Segway
Shortly after our visit to the Eiffel Tower, we did another tour with Flat Tire Tours, this time zigzagging through the area between the Tower, Pont Alexandre III, and the Rodin Museum (one of our top spots in Paris, which we visited directly after the Segway tour; tres romantique location, so to say). I’m 2 metres tall and weigh over 100kg, so did at first felt rather uncomfortable entrusting my life to a wobbly, 45kg light-weight thing that sits on just two wheels and is supposed to be steered simply by me moving my heavy weight forward or backwards, left or right, on the little steering stick that is attached to the wheels and the platform between them. The introduction and safety instruction was very short, but in Flat Tire Tours’ defence, spending more time on this would have taken the fun out of it. Nonetheless, I still […]
Rock-climbing, off-roading and a visit to a Roman gold mine (from Porto)
My Greenway Tours, run by Eduardo Mata together with a business associate, and which, on Tripadvisor, ranks #21 out of 133 tours to do in Porto (the other ones mainly being about food/wine, or tours of the town), invited BSqB to come with them on a one-day outdoor adventure tour while I was visiting Porto (Portugal) last week. My wife, who is writing this blog with me, only joined the following day, so I was accompanied by an old German friend of mine, who spent the whole week with me as my fellow blogger and as part of our customary boyz-only annual celebration of madness. I grew up in a small town at the doorstep of the Bavarian Alps and have done my fair share of outdoor adventures in the mountains, but this was an absolute blast! Eduardo also grew up in the mountains, and clearly was more serious about […]
RA Lates: New Soviet World
The Royal Academy of Arts hosted another great RA Lates event on Saturday night. It was themed on the “Revolution: Russian Art, 1917-1932” exhibition, which is on at the RA until 17 April 2017. There were actors, playing the role of Bolsheviks and Soviet Commissars, and the curious paying guests, like myself, eager to take part in the “immersive” experience. And it was an experience. The queuing, the stamping of coupons, the bureaucracy, the “Biomechanical” life drawing class, the rubbery sausages in the communal dining hall at Canteen No. 57. But we forgot all this as we were treated with a live balalaika performance… and of course, the telling art of the revolutionary new Soviet world. I look forward to the next RA Lates event, taking place on 22 April on the theme of America Dreaming. RA Lates: New Soviet World certainly was a blast. If we have whetted your appetite […]