Travel tips to Patagonia

El Chalten

There are two main walks and a handful of smaller ones. For the day trips take plenty of food and water!

·         Laguna Torre: http://www.elchalten.com/eng/actividades/lagunatorre.php a very nice hike up the valley out of El Chalten

·         Laguna de los Tres: http://www.elchalten.com/eng/actividades/lagunadelostres.php quite a tough hike at the middle up to the lake. But an amazing view of Mt Fitz Roy

The smaller ones you can find here: http://www.elchalten.com/eng/actividades/caminatas.php

Pretty good steaks at La Tapera https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g316035-d1738600-Reviews-La_Tapera-El_Chalten_Province_of_Santa_Cruz_Patagonia.html

Good beers after a long hike at La Cerveceria: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g316035-d1544667-Reviews-La_Cerveceria-El_Chalten_Province_of_Santa_Cruz_Patagonia.html

El Calafate​​

We did the mini-trekking on Perito Moreno. It’s a long day of tourist buses and transfers for only a few hours on the ice. Though, it was pretty cool. Rug up! The Balconies, where you get an amazing view over the glacier, was arguably the best thing to appreciate the scale and power of the glacier.

Mi Rancho was really good https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g312851-d2542219-Reviews-Mi_Rancho-El_Calafate_Province_of_Santa_Cruz_Patagonia.html as was La Zaina https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g312851-d3538514-Reviews-La_Zaina_Restaurante_y_Wine_Bar-El_Calafate_Province_of_Santa_Cruz_Patagonia.html

The main street has all the car hire shops, hiking and tour shops etc.

We got empenadas most days from Panaderìa Y Confiterìa DON LUIS.

As mentioned we got stuck due to bus connections meaning we had to spend an extra night to get from El Chalten to Puerto Natales. The buses are few and far between. So, worth checking that you have enough time. They are quite reliable.

Buenos Aires:

We stayed in Palermo. It’s the only place to stay. There are plenty of cool shops and cafes amongst the leafy streets. La Boca, Barracas and Puerto Madero are ok to wander / bike around, but nothing special. San Telmo is very touristy but nice to wander the San Telmo market. We ate at Don Julio one night – sensational steak.

The highlight for me was the street art tour: https://graffitimundo.com/ as much as I don’t like guided tours, this was very well done.

Puerto Natales and the W Trail

If you get the chance to go to Torres del Paine there are some great days trips. Similarly, in Puerto Natales the highlight was champagne and dinner at The Singular. Very cool building and restaurant.

We stayed in the huts starting at Grey and had full board. The kayaking at Refugio Grey was fun. Book early to get a bed at the refugios! Follow your nose for the rest....

Have a great trip! You can find my pics here

Transalp Cycling Tour in August 2015

Some tid-bits from the ride for you...

https://picasaweb.google.com/108868047429968253232/Transalp2015

The route we took also on my strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1441177

A few notes:

We set off from Tegernsee having taken the train from Munich. Our first night was in Kramsach after a pretty wet afternoon. The climbing kept the legs warm! The second day we rode down into and along the Zillertal, through Mayrhofen and up to Dominikushütte. A stunning valley. At Dominikushüüte, the view over the Schlegeisspeicher is very nice, with a few glaciers as back drops. The next morning in thick fog and teaming rain we did a big up and over the Pfitscher Joch into Süd Tirol and down into Sterzing. As that leg was relatively short we took off for the afternoon having dumped our packs and did a big climb from Mauls over the pass to Rio di Pusteria / Mühlbach via Masl. Sterzing is very pretty - the hotel: Steindls was a highlight. Then the next day out of Sterzing was a long climb up Val di Racines (lots of carrying bikes up goat tracks) and then down into Walten then along the Passirio river into Merrano. We had a rest day in Merrano - cracking little town with a great public spa and plenty of beers gardens with Süd Tirol flair! Following the rest day again a lot of climbing and single trails past Masi di Sopra, past Saint Panraz through Ultimo, more climbing through tunnels to Tregiovo, past the beautiful Lago di Santa Giustino and down into Male. The last day up the Folgarida pass through to Madonna di Campiglio was very enjoyable. It was basically all fire trails in the National Park. The last afternoon was a stinker - a big dirty headwind, I snapped a chain and generally lots of climbing. We go through to Lake Garda in the late afternoon ready to smash some prosecco and nail some pasta!

For info:
Grand Canyon CF SL 6.9
35L backpack
2 x cycling kit
Shorts
2 x t-shirt
1 x long sleeve icebreaker thermal
1 x gore-tex jacket
1 x arm warmers
3 x socks
3 x jocks
1 x running shoes
1 x tube / small pump / allen key set / tyre lever
1 x Leica X
1 x rucksack cover
1 x cycling cap
1 x phone charger
1 x wallet
1 x bike lights
1 x toiletries
6 x cliff bars

Fintech 2.0

I'm pleased to have been involved in the production of the report. I am grateful for the numerous people I interviewed for their input to this report and those who helped shape the story.

http://www.oliverwyman.com/content/dam/oliver-wyman/global/en/2015/jun/The_Fintech_2_0_Paper_Final_PV.pdf

Frankfurt

Some favourites from Frankfurt
 

Maincafé, Schaumainkai, Frankfurt, Deutschland – great for sitting by the river and drinking Apple Wine

http://goo.gl/maps/CjPOf

Schwedler See Bar, Frankfurt – out in east Frankfurt there is a outdoor swimming club which opens up at night for live music and chilled atmosphere bar

http://goo.gl/maps/D4fOa

Hoppers, Schneckenhofstraße, Frankfurt – suburban cocktails

http://goo.gl/maps/o0Guo

Cafe Karin / Walden- Great brunch spots

http://goo.gl/maps/JNXOq

Maintower Restaurant & Bar, Neue Mainzer Straße, Frankfurt am Main – great view and good for high-end food

http://goo.gl/maps/cvh4R

Flemings Terrace Bar, Frankfurt – cool lifts and nice view for good cocktaisl

http://goo.gl/maps/tT1bO

22nd Lounge & Bar Eurotheum Residence, Neue Mainzer Straße, Frankfurt – piano bar (not hipster really!)

http://goo.gl/maps/KX1Xm

Vai Vai, Grüneburgweg, Frankfurt – a favourite modern Italian restaurant

http://goo.gl/maps/IEqum

Shirn Kunsthalle – great modern art gallery

http://goo.gl/maps/Hj8zu

Day trips:

Heidelberg - wander the old town, the Neckar River and go up to the castle

Rheingau wine region - take a car out to the numerous wineries within an hour of Frankfurt

Lorelei - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorelei

Change my name

Øst   ::   Öst  ::  Oest

Lisbon - some favourites...

ROOFTOP BARS:

• Barrio Alto Hotel: take the lift to the top floor and then walk the last floor. Small and often busy (you can't book) but a great view
• Park: Walk up through the carpark (Calcada do Combro) to the top floor and it opens out to a wonderful rooftop garden with a cracking view
• Insolito: also a restaurant - lovely view overlooking the city, towards the Castello
• Not actually a rooftop: Miradouro Sao Pedro Alcantara. - but a park with a fantastic view over the city. Grab some beers / wine and sit out here

BARS:

• Best area is Cais do Sodré for bars. I like Pensao Amor. Also there are a couple of discos there which you can then go to. People generally stay outside having drinks.
• Just walk around Barrio Alto and Alfama - no shortage of bars
• Panorama Bar: Top of the Sheraton - smashing view. Actually the food is quite good - quite expensive

FAVOURITE RESTAURANTS:

• Cervejaria Ramiro    Best seafood in the world, great price, take a cab to get there
• Belcanto    Michelin star, Chiado
• O Talho            Modern Alentejo, Avenida Liberdade
• Cantinho do Avillez    Informal place from a Michelin-star chef, Chiado
• MiniBar            Modern take on an american bistro with a Michelin Star-esque heritage / Portuguese spin
• Café Lisboa         From the Belcanto guy. Typical Lisbon food in a semi-laid-back-semi-formal setting in the Sao Luis opera house café, Chiado
• Sea Me            Very good fish place, on the expensive side, Chiado
• Restaurante Cabaça    Hot stone steak - cheap and cheerful and a great way to start a night in Barrio Alto
• Café Buenos Aires      Excellent steak in a relaxed family style quaint restaurant
• Chafariz do vinhoChafariz do Vinho    Wine and tapas in an aquaduct
• Zebras do Combro restaurante    Simple, fast and good Portuguese food

THINGS TO EAT

• Pastel de Nata - eat like them like there will be none tomorrow
• Bacalhau (cod fish): Pataniscas de bacalhau, bolinhos de bacalhau, bacalhau a gomes de sá, bacalhau a braz, bacalhau a ze do pipo
• Seafood, seafood, seafood
• Cabrito (Lamb)
• Cozido á Portuguesa (heavy)
• Whenever it says Alentejo and Black Pig in the same sentence, eat it (best if the sentence also includes the word "pig cheek"
• Tripas á moda do Porto (heavy - tripes)
• Ameijoas a Bolhao Pato (clams) and Carne de Porco a Alentejana (pork with clams)
• Percebes: Gooseneck barnacles - just like sucking from the ocean
• Cheese: Queijo da Serra and Queijo de Azeitão

And don't forget to drink ginjinha at all the little bars dotted around the city.

THINGS TO DO

• In Lisbon: there are few 'sights' per se to see. Best to wander down Avenide Liberdade, the long boulevard, down the hill into the city. There are plenty of downtown streets to wander down. Praça do Comércio is the main square at the foreshore that is quite nice and a good spot to sit in the sun to eat and drink. The other areas for exploring are Barrio Alto and Alfama - plenty of restaurants, bars and old stuff to look at
• Belem is a tram ride from Lisbon centre. Its the home of the famous portuguese tarts that the masses line up for. There is the big monastery and a museam of contemporary art. A walk along the harbour at Belem up to the Torre de Belem is quite nice.
• Sintra is worth a visit for a touristy day trip - the castles are quite quaint amongst the rolling hills. Although the traffic gets jammed up in Sintra it is a very beautiful part of Portugal.
• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/travel/how-i-fell-for-lisbon.html?_r=0 gives a good feel for the city.

The best english speaking website for clubs / food etc:
http://www.golisbon.com/

Lance

For me, the key question is "did you believe Lance used performance enhancing drugs"? If you, like me, believed that he did, then you accept he is a winner as a result of being an incredible athlete who hid drug use better than everyone else. Further, you also implicitly accept drug use in cycling and implicitly support it. None of these things I can resolutely say I'm proud of. If, however, you believed that he was clean - like he wanted you to believe- then you have been deceived. No one likes being deceived and for that it is only to be expected he is receiving this destruction of his character. So, how do you answer this question?

36hrs in Vilnius, Lithuania

Tucked away in the south east of the Baltic region, Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania is a little gem just waiting to be explored. Sometimes a little rough around the edges, the city can be excused for needing more time to re-establish itself. For the past 60 years Lithuania, along with its Baltic friends Estonia and Latvia, have borne the brunt of a bitter bloody violent pan-European struggle between the Soviet Union from the east and ze Chermans from the west. However it is that very mix of influence left behind from both directions that underscores the charm of this lovely city and country.

Vilnius, Lithuania. Smiles and Raw Food

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania. I didn't know this before Friday. However I also can't be accused of the common mistake of saying that Riga is the capital of Lithuania, because of course Riga is the capital of Latvia. Whatever, i'm here and on my first wander around I have found it to be a lovely little city.

Before take-off I read up on Wikitravel: http://wikitravel.org/en/Lithuania  and came across this hilarious paragraph. While there might be some facts behind it, I think it is on the whole: wrong.

"Lithuanians may appear sad, depressive (suicide rates in Lithuania are among the highest in the world), a little bit rude and suspicious, so talking about your good health, wealth, and happiness could be sometimes taken negatively. Smile at a Lithuanian in the street and most likely they will not respond in kindness. Smiling in Lithuania is traditionally reserved for friends; smile at a stranger and they will either think you're making fun of them and there's something wrong with their clothes or hairdo, or that you must be an idiot. Furthermore, an automatic Western smile is widely regarded as insincere. "

So, plenty of Lithuanians must think i'm an idiot. The problem is now every time I pass someone in the corridor or in the street I want to smile at them. This only means I bail out at the last minute and give a half-assed face scrunch. Yep, a real idiot.

I did try and stare down some people. This worked really well. I got 'stared down' back and felt I had connected. When in rome....as they say.

Of all the Lithuanians I have interacted with, whether that be working with them or a waitress at a restaurant or a cab driver, I can say (admittedly on a small sample size) that they are lovely people with very warm smiles. And this is important.

I just had dinner at a place called RawRaw. The food was....yep...raw. Which would be fine because I love steak tartar, except it was vegetarian. Which is also fine because they did some amazing things with veges and nuts and berries. Beetroot ravioli with cheese filling - where the beetroot was sliced to make the top and bottom of the ravioli and in between the cheese filling was not cheese but rather a cashew paste. Dessert was titled parfait. And being a parfait fan I was attracted to it immediately by name. This version was not brutally chocolatey nor flammable nor bad for my health. It was indeed a mousse of pumpkin, raisins, and orange covered with a cranberry mash topped with crushed cashews, haselnuts and almonds. And it was delicious.

Take-aways: Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs

Why the article written by Greg Smith has gained so much traction, at least in my view, is that it is completely emotionally driven. In the same way a whistleblower communicates what everyone knows, but no one says, he has caught the attention of the mass media in a big almost viral way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I have my views on the content of his letter to the editor. Each person is entitled to take a position on this - whether it be a) he's a courageous person for speaking up against something he doesn't believe in or b) what a sour puss - he probably didn't get the promotion or make the millions he had hoped for. In the end, as a rowing coach of mine once said "you are the master of the spoken word, however the written word is the master of you". Greg is now bound by his words, something that will probably make his future difficult.

Having something interesting or important to say, together with a willing and hungry audience is a powerful combination. More often than not, the barrier to not saying what you think is a certain rationality recognising the ramifications of speaking up. However to break the silence, there are only two things that can achieve this - 1) torture although even then it's not certain you'll find the truth and 2) an emotional drive to capitalise on the power given to you by your audience. The same emotional drive that wants retribution.

I would love to know the full story behind this letter to the editor!

Knowing when it is time to leave an organisation is usually an epiphany. It comes at a time when you realise you have moved on or things have moved on around you or you don't have the influence you once thought you had. For right or wrong. In a rational mindset it is easy to say c'est la vie, realise the situation and either try to do something about it or walk away. More often than not you can't do anything about it and out of principal don't want to walk away. This is where rationality gets throw from the window. This is where there the search for power starts to play out. This is where an inner burning for retribution is kindled. Subsequently this is where the trouble starts and the opportunities for those who wish to capitalise on their power -of speaking out to an audience who wants to hear- are realised.

Have we gained anything from this story? I would argue not. We have read a sensational piece of news, supporting what we already knew, what we already subscribed to (knowingly or unknowingly) but not moved forward. Soon, Greg will be forgotten, another story of GS will appear but again be swept away and the crux of the issue, bankers allegedly behaving badly, will be left to the markets and associated regulators to deal with.

I see the real takeaway from this article being the average readers' ignorance as to the inner workings of the world we live in and also the wasted opportunity that a, now former, employee had to change things that he once believed in.

Ciao

Interesting takeaway from the weekend: the word "ciao" meaning both hi and bye in italian is derived from the word "schiavo" meaning "slave". So entomologically speaking each time you say ciao you are (generously) saying "i am you slave / at your service".

The other takeaway is that the mountains in the north of Italy are spectacular. Photos to come!

Ciao ciao!

384 hours in Australia (16 days)

Day 1: arrive long haul flight. But it's all worth it as the sun is shining and a dry warm wave of air greets you together with the embrace of family at the terminal exit. That and breakfast at the Adelaide Central Markets - eating Green Eggs and Ham (by Dr Seuss) and a flat white

Day 2: Find a spot to sit (The Adelaide Uni Boat Club is the best vantage point) and watch the "Tour Down Under" the only UCI Pro Tour in the southern hemisphere and the start of the season for the riders who will soon be tackling the long lumpy roads of France.

Day 3: Head down to Aldinga, on the Fleurieu Peninsula, for a bite to eat the Victory Hotel and then have an icecream at the Star of Greece over looking some of the most glorious beaches in South Australia