How comfortable would you feel speaking your second language… on national television?
This is a question I got to answer recently, when I was asked to appear on a well-known French travel show, Echappées Belles.
Read MoreI met Bianca in the boxing gym, but in real life she is a translator and interpreter. She has been in France for 10 years now, and has built a strong and successful business. I’m fascinated and impressed by the way she has completely mastered the language, and the mental gymnastics she performs every single working day.
In exchange for Thai takeaway, Bianca let me grill her on the ins and outs of her fascinating job.
Read MoreThe Palace of Versailles, approximately 20km south-west of Paris is one of the most visited sites in Europe, and is on everybody's to-do list while in the City of Lights. It is an absolutely spectacular place, and one of my favourite sites in the Paris region, but it's not the kind of place you should just pitch up to and wing it.
Due to its size and popularity, a day in Versailles can easily descend into a disaster of long lines, bad timing, long walks in the dust and cancelled trains.
As a tour guide I've spent thousands of hours in the town and estate, and I firmly believe that preparation is the key. So read on, because I'm about to share as much advice as I can.
Read MoreAn island marked by centuries of conflict and bloody rule, a stone’s throw from Italy, ruled by the French and the birthplace of one of the greatest rulers of modern history, Corsica is under an hour’s flight from Nice but it is like no other place on earth.
Read MoreWatching the Paris Marathon isn't easy, even for a local. I was rushed, unprepared and even had to take a cab at one point. *shame*
Yet loads of people come to Paris from out of town to watch, so with this in mind, I've designed the perfect user-friendly Ultimate Paris Marathon Spectator Route.
Read MoreChartres is about 80km south-west of Paris, 1h20 by train. Perfect for a day visit, visitors go to see the UNESCO World Heritage listed Notre Dame de Chartres, arguably the most beautiful Gothic cathedral in France.
Back in May 2015, I spent a day in this beautiful little town with my Dad and his wife. Being the deadline-oriented, timely writer I am, I’ve let nothing get between me and this post.
Read MoreThe silly, gif-ridden listicle that became my most-read post gets another lease on life!
Enriched with input and interviews from some of my many guide friends, this insider piece about being a "good tourist" has been reworked for The Washington Post.
Read MoreThere’s a world you don’t see. Under your feet. A dark, wet, scurrying world. A muddy, candle-lit, labyrinthine world. Of immeasurable interconnected tunnels, dislodged boulders, vaulting galleries. Private dens, stone-carved temples and sprayed artworks. A world of pit-pat drips and natural springs, sagging electrical wires and bones.
A burrowing, endless honeycomb of a world under the huge, light, airy city you walk through every day. And one evening, this girl fell down the rabbit hole.
Read MoreSpeaking French is not a simple matter of flicking a switch and carrying on with life. It is inextricably related to feelings of legitimacy, falsehood, belonging and alienation. It is associated with anger and frustration, inadequacy, stupidity, and triumph. It is related to who and what I am, my place in the world around me and a constant negotiation and re-negotiation of meaning, intention and power.
Read MoreMeet Lynne Oakes, aka my mother.
Although she might not describe herself as such, she is a gutsy and adventurous lady, and last year she and her lovely fella rode their motorbikes over 7,500km across the middle of Australia. She generously agreed to let me wear my reporter hat and ask her all about it.
Read MorePublished in PRIMOLife Magazine, Autumn 2016
Le Rouge stands against the wall, taking up almost its whole length. He is smaller than I imagined, delicate even, built from acacia wood and painted a dark warm red. Le Rouge is only 17 years old, but belongs to a family that can trace its roots back to the middle ages. He has lived his whole life in France, but travels frequently to perform on lit stages.
Le Rouge is a harpsichord and we are going to get to know one another.
Read MoreSince when is Paris a place that needs to advertise? It’s one of the world’s top tourism destinations. However, 2015 was a shocker of a year for France, and understandably lots of people are have delayed or cancelled their Paris trips.
Here are my top five reasons for why you should come to Paris now.
Read MorePublished in לאשה Laisha Magazine, January 2016
Bing! I hop out of the way as another tram trundles through the middle of a busy street. Having long since disappeared from many cities, the tram is still very much part of Melbourne, a quirky patch on the quilt that is this complex, vibrant city. A melting pot of cultures, of interests, languages and history, Australia’s second largest city has a lot to offer visitors, and I’m eager to get to know it a little on my three day visit.
Read MorePublished in The Washington Post, January 10 2016
A short train ride from Paris, visitors can enter a serene but spectacular Eden cultivated by the impressionist artist.
Read MorePublished in PRIMOLife December 2015
A man shouts in terror as dirty fingers rake at his clothes. Frenzied, shambling ghouls moan with an ungodly hunger as they pile upon him, teeth bared. There is an agonized, terrified scream as teeth bite into living flesh, tendons are torn and blood spurts onto the ground.
“Damn!” I gasp. “I dropped a stitch again!”
Human civilization as we know it has been destroyed, dead people have become terrifying zombies while the living are grimly hunted, and I can’t seem to keep my rows even. Don’t let those Granny’s fool you. Knitting, as it turns out, requires a lot of skill- especially if you watch TV at the same time.
Read MoreI’ve tried to write something about the attacks of November 13th for weeks. It never feels like the right time, or the right way. Still doesn’t. How can one possibly begin to put words to the enormous confusion of horror, pain, death, anger, grief, emotions, news reports, lack of sleep, tears that was it. How can one begin to describe something that you can’t touch, and which changed the very world in which you live, has coloured the way you see everything, and has made everything Before and After?
How can I, one among millions begin to even try? What right do I have to tell this story?
Like pushing magnets together, my words resist one another. The harder I push, the more violently they slip away into a messy pile on the other side of meaning.
Read MoreI got to interview the inspiring Raewyn Hill, director of new Perth contemporary dance company Co3 for the Summer 2015/2016 issue of Marque Magazine. We talked about their opening season, getting out of your artistic comfort zone, and off the record, drinking cognac in Montmartre, her old stomping grounds.
Read MoreI had a lot of fun recently chatting with Margaret River tour guide Sean Blocksidge, who I interviewed for the inaugural issue of Your Margaret River Magazine. In 2010 he won Western Australian Guide of the Year, he’s been rated the #1 Thing To Do in Australia on Trip Advisor, and he once took Jeremy Clarkson on an adventure tour and lived to tell the tale, yet the journey hasn’t always been a smooth one.
Being a tour guide myself it was fascinating to get his perspective on the scene, and the story of his business, as well as some insider tips for that even a locals will appreciate.
Read MoreWelcome to "Hey You! Yes You", a new series in which I'll introduce you to a new marvelous person that I have encountered here on Earth, each with their own interesting story.
For the first ever post of I have chosen a friend of mine here in Paris, Ellen. Ellen is a seriously talented musician and singer, who has just finished recording a to-be-named new album.
By regularly coaxes the magic of unicorns out of her voice and into our ears on the Paris music scene. By day she works in one of the most beautiful places on earth: The Eiffel Tower. As a tour guide, and has been up the Tower more than a hundred times. Like, way more.
I thought it would be fun to ask her a few questions about what that is like.
Read MorePublished in PRIMOLife Magazine November 2015
I’m in a tough position and I can’t see a way out. My chalky fingertips are pressed hard into the rock. The knot at my waist grates against the wall, and my legs are zinging with tension. I look like a ninja mid fly-kick, splattered against the front of an unyielding cliff. It seems that every muscle in my body is flexed, straining to keep me perched in this unlikely position, and I’m burning energy fast. My right leg begins to ‘Elvis’, shake uncontrollably under the pressure and I know I have to make a move soon. I really, really don’t want to fall.
Rock climbing in the wilderness is well, exactly as tough as it looks.
Read MoreAnna Hartley is an Australian writer based in Paris.
