BlueLlama's VirtualTourist Home Page

Obsessively thinking about the next place to visit that is...

It's not my ambition to see every country in the world - although it's always fun adding a new one to the list. And I don't actively avoid the beaten track: I'm fascinated by those places not yet on the mass tourist map, but then again I've loved others such as Venice and Iguazu Falls. I've travelled alone, with friends, with family and I've also enjoyed tours. I like it all.

Having said all that, I prefer certain places and regions without really knowing why... I like to linger a while and revisit.

My particular 'things' are Europe and South America. I was properly obsessed with Brazil and Argentina from about the ages of 11 to 21, which finished up with a degree in Portuguese and a liking for travel in general.

One of my favourite travel activities is trying out new food and restaurants, and I love buying edible souvenirs and cookbooks. Most of my tips on here are food-related.

The other one is walking, especially around cities. Probably the single best thing to do wherever you are. So much do I like it that I've been known on long stays somewhere to miss all the major sights most people see in a few days. I'm trying to stop a bit more these days...

- Easter in Alghero, Sardinia. I'm salivating at the thought of all that seafood and the various Sard specialities already.

- Brussels 20k again. I think.

- Hoping to go to Albania as I was thwarted last year - I even had ferry tickets at one point. The easy way this time, by combining with Corfu.

Places I went in 2008:

- Alessandria and Turin just before Xmas. Was it just me, or were Turin's famous Christmas lights less thrilling than last year?

- Venice, then onto Slovenia via Trieste in August. A week spent visiting Ljubljana, Bled, Novo Mesto before heading back to Trieste to visit friends. Onto Padua for a break on the way to the airport of Orio al Serio. Note: don't go for flights in remote airports just because they're cheap...

- Puglia and (briefly) Basilicata in July. The plan had been to go to Bari and take a ferry to Durres in Albania but that didn't work out... Instead we went on to Cisternino, Ostuni, Lecce, Otranto and Matera before heading back to Bari.

- Brussels, taking part in the Brussels 20k with other people from my company. Over-enthusiastic sightseeing wore me out before I'd even started.

- Three and a bit days in Split. Ah, I want to live in Croatia now. So does half the world apparently. Day trips to the island of Hvar and Trogir.

- Easter in Stockholm. Very cold, but very, very pretty. A great city to walk around. The food was superb, so have a look at my restaurant tips.

- Bergamo, Turin, February - a very quick weekend trip to see the CioccolaTo chocolate show. And memorable food in Bergamo.

Places I went 2007:

- Alessandria, Turin, December
- Krakow, November
- Istanbul, November
- Oporto, August
- Marrakech, Essaouira, July
- Alessandria, Turin, Bologna, March
- Limerick, February

Places I went 2006:

- Kerala, November
- Riga, October
- Lisbon, August

While there aren't many places I'd turn down the opportunity to visit, these are the ones that make me positively envious when other people go:

Caucasus - mainly Armenia and Georgia
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Ghana
Mauritania
Colombia
Lithuania
Northern Cyprus

I live in Manchester and work in research. I studied Portuguese and English in London before taking an MA in Translation Studies (Portuguese and Italian) in Leeds. I'm still studying, but part-time now.

I've lived in a few different places, which probably helped my interest in travelling nicely along. I grew up in various places in the UK and was lucky enough to go to Houston, Texas for two years with my family. I went back to the Americas to spend my third year at university in Salvador, Bahia. Then, in between degrees I worked in Alessandria (Piemonte), somewhere I still regularly visit as I met my partner during that year. I hope to live abroad again, but I have nothing planned as work and study keeps me in Manchester for the time being. Italy was unexpected and I'd love to be surprised again!

I'm very interested in foreign languages and have had a go at the following (ranging from fluent through to can-put-a-few-sentences-together): Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, Mandarin, Catalan, Turkish, Greek. It's my ambition to learn a difficult European language (Armenian, Albanian, etc) at some point in the future. We'll see how that goes...

Holidays when I was little were mainly to France, as my mum was a French teacher, Belgium and Luxemburg. Then, thrillingly, we went to Germany when I was a little older. I remember my parents mentioning the possibility of Germany the year before and having dreams about this strange place. This was probably an early indicator of my becoming a little too preoccupied with travel!

My first plane flight was to Houston, when my family moved there in 1991. We managed to see quite a bit of North America in the two years we were there. Unfortunately, I have a very patchy memory of much of this - most of what I remember is the long car journeys from place to place, my brother and I fighting in the back of a rental car.

I started planning my own trips in my teens, going to Tunisia and Germany with my then boyfriend. Planning the holidays was great, although I now wonder what I was thinking of, spending a romantic weekend in... Frankfurt?

My first independent travels were in South America, taking the plunge on a three-week trip to the Amazon, and then Argentina and Paraguay.

These days I take shorter trips as I'm working, but I still enjoy the planning aspect almost more than the actual trips!

I mainly post the type of tips that I like to read myself: restaurants and hotels. A bit of shopping. But definitely food-related in the main. These are the things I like to get as much unbiased information as possible on before I travel.

Not so many on 'Things to do' as it seems to me most of the must-do sights have been covered, and because I rely on guidebooks and wandering myself. I will put things on if they aren't covered though.

I've also got some warnings and tourist trap tips as they always make good stories afterwards if nothing else...

My pages here can be divided into two; pre- and post-digital camera. Before I got the camera in 2006 I'd been using one disposable camera after another for years. Needless to say, nearly all my photos from the pre- period are terrible. It was great to be free from the need to capture everything on film, but the result is that I don't have a single picture of Buenos Aires - and I was there a month.

Post-camera I've gone a bit mad and take a LOT of pictures these days. Good because I have a bad memory, bad because I've lost that liberty to wander about without wanting to commit everything to memory card. Seems you're damned if you do, damned if you don't with cameras.

The point of this? That you'll notice a lot of places without pics. I've put a few scanned ones in, however, and am going to try and get some more on.

Language schools

http://www.ldt.am/
http://www.languageschoolsguide.com/listings.cfm/foreignlangID/47
http://www.icgl.org/