Vancouver slipped out of the top spot and Melbourne, Australia became the Economist’s most liveable city in their latest six mothly Liveability Ranking and Overview released August, 2012. Again. In fact, four of the world’s most liveable cities, according to the Economist, are in Australia and one is in New Zealand. Canada has three. Helsinki and Vienna are Europe’s representatives. No US cities made the cut. Living conditions in 140 cities around the world are assessed across 30 indicators in five broad categories including Stability, Healthcare, Culture, Environment, Education and Infrastructure There are a number of these liveability surveys eg the Mercer Quality of living Worldwide City Rankings which places Vienna…
Place Reviews (Thursday)
Category Archives for Place Reviews (Thursday).
Fish Soup in Baja, Hungarian
Type “Baja” into Google and you get the resort area of Mexico and not this ancient Hungarian city. Baja is approximately 140 Km south of Budapest, sitting at at the confluence of the Danube and one of its tributaries the Sugovica. The town has been settled since the Iron Age and has had town status for over 300 years. It was a major trading centre then manufacturing centre. It has been ruled over by the Turks, Austrians, Serbs and now Hungarians. Yet until a few months ago, I had never heard of it. Baja holds an annual…
Wild About Berlin
Berlin Rocks! Every time I return, I feel the city gets better and better. In fact I rate Berlin the second best city in the world. Established as a cultural capital of a united Germany, Berlin became home to artists, intellectuals and hedonists who enjoyed its freedom before becoming the centre of Naziism in the 1930s. Hitler hated Berlin and longed to see it completely rebuilt architecturally -and socially. He almost got his wish as the city was 80% bombed in World War Two. For most of the rest of the twentieth century, Berlin operated as two separate cities split by walls…
London Pre Olympics
This week I celebrate my Birthday in “sunny” pre Olympics London. Lots of building work around the place. I am still not sure how the city will cope with the actual Olympics!
Bloomsday 2012
For the last few years, I have run in the annual Bloomsday race in Spokane, Washington. It is a 12 kilometre (7.5 mile) event that starts and finishes downtown. The course includes several stretches of running alongside the river, some sections through suburbia and one of the toughest hills in the world for a run. Spokane has made this event, in my mind, one of the best foot races I have done on the planet. It is very well organised and the people of the My results this year were a Finish Time: 1:09:09 and an overall place out of 47,841…
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires, Argentina is the 170th city of 100 000 people I have visited! Argentina is the 54th country I have visited! Bit more trivia: Buenos Aries EZE airport is the 2o0th airport I have been to! I rated it 84.3% on my ranking. Our plane touched down 23 minutes early into a grey 9 degrees celsius (48F) day. The curse of landing early and getting through means that my car was not of course waiting for me, so I got to watch the airport activity for a while with people greeting each other with hugs,…
Japan- One Year On from Tōhoku Earthquake
Thoughts with the people of Japan, one year after the horrific disasters inflicted on their country: March 11, 2011. More than 19,000 people died or went missing in the natural disasters, which also destroyed more than 370,000 houses. “The devastating disaster has had an enormous impact on Japan’s inbound tourism. While many areas in Japan remained unaffected by the disaster, they are also suffering from the sudden decrease in international visitors,” Tadatoshi Mamiya, President of the Japan National Tourism Organisation The number of tourists visiting Japan in 2011 was down by 27.8 percent on 2010 , the…
Marathoning in Hobart
I have just run a half marathon in Hobart, Tasmania. One of my 2012 steps toward my fitness goal is 12 major runs of 12km (7miles) or more. Of those I aim to do six half marathons. A half marathon is 21km (almost 13 miles). I am aiming to do a half marathon in Paris in March. Maybe one on the Gold Coast of Australia in July. Anyone want to join me? Or for any of them? Open to suggestions of interesting places to run. Today’s race: The Cadbury Marathon was relatively well organised. There were very…
My Favourite Cities at end of 2011
In 2011 I visited eleven new cities with a population of 100 000 people plus. This brought the number of cities I have been to with that size population to 167. The new cities were (in order of how highly I rated them) Seoul, S Korea…I was blown away by this amazing vibrant capital city. I ve decided it is the best city in Asia and my 11th favourite in the world! Here I am pictured in down town Seoul Exeter, UK….a cute small English city with amazing Roman ruins and a very old and grand Cathedral Dubai, UAE…as fun, spectacular…
My Top Twenty List for England
Today, I am going to try and nominate my Twenty Favourite Spots in England. What do you think? Lakes District National Park- Steamer trips on the lakes, steam train, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Beatrix Potter and days of hiking in all weathers! The Yorkshire Dales -wild and stunning Stonehenge- if you get a chance get onto one of the few tours that actually lets you walk around the stones – it is mesmerising Little Venice and the Canal Path to Camden Markets, London– stroll through the countryside in the middle of London. Have walked this many times…
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