Anthony Clark

Pants. Capri pants. Embarrassingly, that’s about as much as I knew about Capri before going there today. The Isle of Capri is about 50 minutes in a boat from Positano, along the incredible cliff lines of the Amalfi Coast. It’s where many of the rich and famous holiday. Apparently some bloke called George Clooney is a regular. And I can see why, after we dropped anchor and jumped into the bluest of blue water. I imagine George’s boat is a bit more impressive than ours. And it probably has Nespresso on tap. Once on the island, and after an excruciating […]

Let’s face it. In Australia, we are spoilt when it comes to beaches. They have beautiful golden sand, there’s always plenty of space, and they’re free. As I’ve seen in places like France before, European beaches are so different. The word best to describe them: gravelly. Like Joe Cocker. We decided to have a beach day today, walking around the track from Positano to Fornillo. As we’ve worked out well and truly by now, if you have to walk down lots of steps, you need to walk up them later. One we rounded the point, we got our first glimpse […]

Ravello is known as the ‘Jewel of the Amalfi Coast’. And I can see why. According to the tour guides, the American playwright Gore Vidal said: Twenty five years ago I was asked by an American magazine what was the most beautiful place that I had ever seen in all my travels and I said the view from the belvedere of the Villa Cimbrone on a bright winter’s day when the sky and the sea were each so vividly blue that it was not possible to tell one from the other. We set out for Ravello from Positano after walking […]

Our last night on Rome was spent just like our first – drinking too much at an overpriced rooftop bar, looking out over the rooftops, spires and domes of the Eternal City. Twelve years ago when we first visited Rome (admittedly, it was on a Contiki tour so the standard of hotels and behaviour has improved somewhat), we didn’t like it at all. It was hot, we didn’t feel safe, and the long lines were irritating. This time however we thoroughly enjoyed it, walking around the city and watching the world go by at little restaurants. One highlight this time […]

Our short visit to Rome started looking even shorter than planned, thanks to the crazy and chaotic Rome Airport. Long lines for immigration, baggage piling up on the conveyor belt. And then jumping into a taxi, I thought our visit might land us in the Rome Hospital, as the driver clocked up a top speed (that I observed) of 148kph. I was about to put my Google Translate app into good use. Once we had settled into our hotel, we started exploring. We had been to Rome 12 years ago and had already seen the sights but who could resist […]

Dubai isn’t all about big things and skyscrapers. While modern Dubai has only been around for a few decades, the city has a remarkable history built on trade through the Middle East. On our final full day in Dubai, we visited the old part of town around the Dubai Creek where small boats ply the waters and take people across to the spice and gold markets. After an afternoon looking around and having a great Middle Eastern lunch at a little shop well off the tourist strip, we went on a desert safari. Because when it’s 45 degrees in the […]

In Australia, we have lots of big things. Bananas, pineapples, prawns, sheep, just to name a few. However they pale in comparison to the big things in Dubai. They really seem to have a need to have the biggest and best in the world. Even at the airport they have the biggest fleet of the biggest passenger plane in the world. There are rows and rows of A380s on the apron. There is the biggest shopping centre in the world, the Dubai Mall. It’s complete with the world’s largest aquarium and an ice skating rink. Not sure why they have […]

Currently at 36,000 feet somewhere near Indonesia, on our way to our first stop in Dubai.