Keeping it short and sweet today – New Year, new style. More often, less is more, more or less.
Just wanted to show you how incredible technology can be as a traveller, or for anyone who is perma-curious.
Look at this little exchange of information and niceties between myself, Serena Puosi (currently in Italy I think? To be confirmed…) and Jodi SchmEttenberg*, who is mid-flight somewhere between Canada and Vietnam!…

Tis the season to be merry, and I decided to wish you Happy Christmas in travel photos from places I visited in the last 12 months!
H
H is for Hamburg, where the cultivated shapes and new developments at Hafencity put me in mind of an architects model. With some fluke Christmas trees too!

A
A is for Amsterdam… and all the red lights, which I’m sure would make Santa happy.

Earlier this week, I nominated some of my favourite blog posts of 2013… for a HostelWorld Best Travel Story Award. Not quite big-headed enough to choose only from an assortment of my own posts, I think I broke some unspoken rule by actually nominating other people. Read on for the dazzling content I trawled my memory banks for. They will all be appearing again soon on my new ‘Recommended’ page, along with many other things.

A series of rough seas pictures from Malta, that I’ve decided to call The Other Great Siege of Malta.
The actual Great Siege of Malta was a long and bloody affair between Christians from the West and the Ottoman Empire to the East. You can read a great account of the build up and outcome of the events in 1565 on this post by ilovemalta.com.mt (a website dedicated to Maltese gastronomy, which there is plenty of.)
However, when I visited Malta and Gozo, I witnessed another attack on the islands that still goes on today.…

Earlier this year I spent a month studying Italian in Rome, taking two weeks of lessons at an Italian language school. I made some great progress there and in Sicily afterwards, gabbing away in my patchy Italian whenever I had an excuse.
Whether you prefer to learn the language before you visit a place or you don’t mind jumping into the deep end, here’s why I think you should learn Italian in Italy…, and Rome in particular.