Travel tales : from our clients and consultants

Mosman Cruise Centre & Travel Choice is right next to Le Gamin de Paris café - a Mosman institution where Roger and Francoise serve their delicious French foods and coffee. Their café is the ideal spot to browse a brochure and perfect for our clients who want an unhurried consultation and a chance to consider their next trip. Drop in, or contact us at your convenience on 02 9968 1600 or by email to travel@travelchoice.com.au

Judy’s Italy

Consultants, Susan Le Bars and Judy McEnnally took a trip to Italy in September 2006, to experience the pleasures of the Italian kitchen and the glories of the Umbrian countryside. Judy writes:

Sue and I left Sydney on the 12th September to spend five weeks in Europe.  The highlight was to be participating in an Italian Cooking School in Umbria, Italy.  After a brief stop over in Florence we arrived in Spoleto, Umbria by train and were met by  the staff from Carol Searle’s “Living Italy”. 

We were transported by mini bus to our accommodation at  the  Agriturisom Camiano Piccolo, a farmhouse near Montefalco which has been updated to contain over 20 self- contained rooms and apartments. 

Susan enjoys the courtyard at Camian Piccolo

This is where we stayed for four nights and had some of our meals, breakfasts etc.  It is very comfortable and within walking distance of the town which was beautiful and old with cobbled streets, small bars and trattorias. The picture below was taken in the Village of Montefalco, an easy walk from our accommodation.

Our first cooking day began with preparing lunch at Villa Pambuffetti, a delightful small hotel with a commercial kitchen and chef to supervise. In the photo below Susan and fellow visiting chefs get started.

We prepared everything from pastas, to fresh oven roast vegetables, meat balls, tomato sauces, bread and strudels which we sat down and ate with a group of people touring from our farmhouse. 

Next day we visited the old town of Norcia with it's Boars' Heads shop.which was delightful.  Here we had a tasting of salamis, hams, cheeses all produced locally .

We also visited a farmhouse owned by Ettore Benedetti del Rio who, with his wife, showed us how to cook with local grains produced on their farm. The main dish was Pollo Con I Peperoni (chicken with capsicum) plus delicious pastry deserts with local berry fruit.  A lot of fun and laughs with a meal capped off with home made liqueur.

A beautiful farm turned into a luxury guesthouse in the hills called Borga La Torre, was the next day’s adventure. Here the mother and her son helped us prepare traditional recipes using local produce. Their home was filled with beautiful paintings by the father and ceramics by the son.

That afternoon we also visited Dorita with its beautiful pottery decorated in amazing designs and colours. 

Our culinary adventure finished on 21st September when we caught the local train to Geneva and then on the France for the remainder of our trip. 

Susan and I would personally recommend this trip to anyone with a passion for Italy, Italian food and cooking.

Travellin’in 2005

August brought a busman’s ‘oliday as

Carol and Martin were “orf to dear Old Blighty” to see the family!

Dear friends,

August was our holiday month and we spent it doing – what else but travelling! Now we are back and I would like to share some of our experiences with you.

Hong Kong was our first stop – a stopover to break the journey and take advantage of some great shopping in the Ladies’ Market, where you can also buy shirts for men. (At US$20 each were they really Hugo Boss?)

England is my favourite country to be a tourist in, and as a native born who would blame me! Where else can you wander down country lanes –who else even has such country lanes? – and just enjoy the day. In Spring, Summer and Autumn few countries have countryside as simply beautiful as England.

We made our base the 19th century seaside town of Eastbourne that is my father’s home and with our rental car we explored new byways every day. Strolling in the gardens of Herstmonceux Castle; dining on Wild Rabbit Pie in the ancient town of Lewes (where there is a wonderful little brewery to visit…); picnicking at Batemans – the 17th century house - now a National Trust property - that was Rudyard Kipling’s family home; walking across Beachy Head with sweeping views of the South Downs and those famous white chalk cliffs where the Downs meet the sea, and on to Birling Gap - where surfers wait hopefully – and not always in vain! – for a wave below the dangerously crumbling coastline,  and further on to the excellent village pub at East Dean; marvelling at ancient mysteries like the Long Man of Wilmington - a piece of Anglo-Saxon hillside art… we had an idyllic fortnight. Visit London? It never entered our heads!

Food was, as always, something to be taken seriously each day – and we worked hard to avoid an endless diet of fish and chips… particularly the chips!  Everything comes with chips in England, and indeed the same is true almost everywhere the English take regular holidays!

France – so easy and so cheap to reach from almost anywhere in the South of England. No need to fly - there are many alternatives. We chose to be foot passengers on P&O’s Dover-Calais ferry service, sharing the comfortable crossing with about 80 passenger cars and trucks. This is a popular route for duty free shopping and the savings outweigh the fare of just £10 pounds each way, which explained why some passengers did not disembark in France - not my idea of travel! Our goal was to see the battlefields of WW1 – Flanders and the Somme - so we headed to Amiens by train, and were met by our guide Brian. Our tour started on the way to our quaint country hotel in the village of Albert. This area of France is known as Picardy and has been the scene of battles – many between the French and English – for hundreds of years. The whole area has a wealth of WW1 history in museums, exhibits and memorials.

This moving memorial is Cobbers at the site of the Battle of Fromelles, July 1916

Driven by the dedicated and knowledgeable Brian our daily excursions took us to fascinating sites that brought the terrible WW1 history to life. A highlight was finding my grandfather’s name on a huge memorial wall – something special as his body was never found. We agreed that we would never have known which sites to visit, nor have discovered half of what our expert guide revealed.

Then it was time for the next leg of our trip and on the 19th we flew from Heathrow to India, landing in Delhi in the cool of a night that belied the 40°C heat of the days to come! Our experience of India included much heat but very little dust – it was the monsoon season! Our 7-day itinerary took in Delhi, the Taj Mahal, the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri, the Palace of the Winds, elephant rides up to the Amber Fort at Jaipur, and Mumbai (Bombay).

With our own car and driver, 5-star hotels and guides at each location, we saw and experienced a great deal in our short stay. Our local operators proved their worth when we did decide to vary our itinerary – it took just a single phone call.

In organizing this trip we treated ourselves as clients, ensuring that everything that could be was booked and paid for before we left home. I am pleased to say that we returned with increased confidence in our overseas suppliers and in our ability to deliver a great holiday experience to you, our clients.

Martin
Fallows

Copyright: Martin Fallows

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The World Tango Festival in Buenos Aires

"You don’t need your own partner to tango, you need to be flexible and willing to dance with many partners" said Sandra Truilzi about her experience of the II World Tango Festival held in Buenos Aires from 5 to 12 October, 2003.

Sandra was one of 40 Australians who travelled to the home of tango for the festival which was also attended by over 260 other people from all parts of the world. For Australians it all began earlier in the year when Pecky Zoghby, Anibal Land and Martin Maldonado visited Australia to promote tango. Their workshops, milongas and mini-shows gave Australians in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth, a taste of tango in Argentina. In Sydney, as in other cities around the country, there is a growing interest in tango, and it is possible to dance at a milonga every night of the week. But we have a long way to go before we can offer many milongas every night, many of which last until dawn, and such an intensive of tango as was on offer at the World Tango Festival and at other festivals in Buenos Aires.

“Really good value”

Working with Pecky, Anibal and Martin, was Travel Choice, an agency in Mosman, Sydney. Martin Fallows, the manager of Travel Choice is a keen tangueros and had visited Buenos Aires in March, checking out hotels and venues that would be on offer for the festival. “As an organised week of intensive tango it is very good value,” said Martin. “If you booked all this privately it would cost you much more and the Opening and Closing shows are something that you cannot book.” Kerry Hanton, another Australian who made the trip, agreed. “It was far too expensive without the package,” she said. “If you add up the cost of the 12 classes, five milongas and two performances that are part of the package, you will soon see where the value is.”

Different expectations

Sydney, Australia had by far the largest group of ‘delegates’ in Buenos Aires for the World Tango Festival. For most it was their first experience of the country and the city as well as a great opportunity to go to classes and milongas - 24 hours a day if they wanted to. “For someone who had never been to Buenos Aires and the tango scene, it was a great introduction,” said Aimee Suchard who has already decided that she is going again in June. Others were not even sure they wanted to attend at all. “I had to have my arm twisted,” said Geoff Walker. “I’d heard nothing but bad reports about the economy, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Downtown Buenos Aires is a wonderful place with great things to do, excellent shopping and it is essentially clean, well laid out and easy to get around.”

As part of the package delegates could choose 12 classes from 129 on offer and they could also do extra classes at a cost of 30 pesos (around $A15) each. It also included two tango shows, ‘Tangos de la Cruz del Sur’ by Compania x 2, headed by Miguel Angel Zotto and ‘Esquina Carlos Gardel’; five milongas and the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the splendid Palacio San Miguel with the opportunity to hear some of the leading orchestras of Buenos Aires, including Color Tango and Los Reyes del Tango.

The Australians generally had a wonderful time and were delighted to talk about their experiences. For teacher Jairo Rivera, principal of the Sydney tango school Tangueros, “It is a gathering of the best teachers and orchestras in the world and a fabulous opportunity to mix with other tango dancers.” Jairo also worked with festival organisers and has brought back to Australia plenty of new material for his Sydney students. It has whet Aimee Suchard’s appetite for more and when she returns in June she will “find a studio that I like and teachers I get along with where there are plenty of young people my own age. It gives you an instant social scene,” she added. Aimee found the festival gave her the knowledge she needed to plan her own trips in the future. Martin Fallows from Travel Choice agreed that such a package is a wonderful introduction for someone who had never been to Buenos Aires and its tango scene. For Geoff Walker, who was surprised at how much he enjoyed the city, the festival was also a surprise. “It was very well organised, with a sufficient range of classes to choose from - the human body can only do so many classes,” he said. The Opening and Closing ceremonies were also a highlight , “I particularly liked Los Reyes del Tango and the vampire tango to La Cumparsita by Eduardo Cappussi and Mariana Flores,” he commented.

Overall impressions

Kerry Hanton was impressed with the dancing and the Great Masters, though she was disappointed with some of the classes where she found herself dancing with people of a similar level when she really wanted to dance with people of higher standard. Sandra Triulzi really enjoyed always having a partner and was particularly pleased that the classes were balanced out with local male dancers. Sandra found the festival gave her a “Broader understanding of the social and cultural politics of tango and where it sits in the lives of the people of Buenos Aires. It gave me the capacity to better understand what goes on between the man and woman in the dance. And” she added “ I learnt how the music evolved.” Sandra was “ proud of the Australian contingent and their expertise - and that,” she said, “ comes down to very good teachers. Now we need to try to create the essence of Buenos Aires tango here in Australia and make it just as memorable!”

Learn tango

To find out about tango classes, practicas and milongas in Sydney visit;
www.tangoaustralia.com.au/blog/

www.sydneytango.com.au

www.alittlebuenosaires.com

www.clubdetango.com.au

www.dancetango.com.au
www.patiodetango.com.au

www.tangoentreamigos.com.au

www.tangueros.com.au

To find out about tango in other parts of Australia visit

Adelaide:

www.southerncrosstango.com.au

http://www.siempretango.net.au/

Canberra:

www.tangocanberra.asn.au/diary.htm

Melbourne

http://mtd.socialtango.com/

This article first appeared in Viva magazine, November/December 2003

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