By Vicky Hampton I don’t think you need to be in a relationship (or even dating) to appreciate the romance of Amsterdam. You can go on a date with the city all by... The post Romantic restaurants in Amsterdam: from dinner date to high tea appeared first on Amsterdam Foodie ..read more

By Vicky Hampton When you think of bars in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital and the northernmost city in the Baltic states, you might think of strong liquor to warm the soul through the cold winters. Or you might think of hand-achingly huge pitchers of local lager with which to celebrate the white nights of summer. And while both of these are true, it was the wine culture in Tallinn that particularly surprised and impressed me. Estonian wine making Not only will you find some fantastic wine bars in Tallinn, but Estonia also has its own wine-making culture. When you consider how far north the country ..read more

By Vicky Hampton This article was first published in July 2021 and was updated in July 2024. I’d been to Lille once before… it could be 10 years ago, it could be 20. Either way, I didn’t remember much about it and I didn’t have particularly high expectations. The only reason I was going to Lille at all was because northern France was the easiest place for my entire family – coming from England, Belgium and the Netherlands respectively – to get to without having to quarantine in the midst of the second year of the pandemic. We hadn’t seen each other in 18 months – the location was pretty much i ..read more

By Vicky Hampton I didn’t have many expectations of Tallinn – capital of Estonia, the northernmost Baltic country on the border with Russia. And yet this quiet, compact, clean and efficient city enchanted me. Its walled, cobbled Old Town is much like many others throughout Europe, but the relative lack of tourists make it far more enjoyable to explore. The Kalamaja neighbourhood to the north is a combination of traditional wooden workers’ homes, hipster street art and modern docklands. While surrounding the centre and to the east in Kadriorg Park, there’s so much green that Tallinn is also par ..read more

By Vicky Hampton If Italian wines aren’t enough to wrap your head around, Sardinian wine needs its own chapter. The island is kept constantly cool (or at least cooler than many places at the same latitude) by the endless breezes blowing off the Tyrrhenian Sea. That means the whites are much fresher and more mineral, and the reds far less jammy, than you might imagine for such a Mediterranean climate. There are also a whopping 120 grape varieties that are native to Sardinia. And while you’ll find some international staples and several Italian favourites, there are plenty you won’t find anywhere ..read more

By Vicky Hampton A few years ago, right at the start of my journey as a digital nomad, I stayed in Porto – the biggest city in the north of Portugal and gateway to the entire fortified wine scene that is port. At the time, my husband and I didn’t have a car and we were particularly busy with work, which meant we didn’t have a chance to explore the Douro Valley – the iconic river valley to the east of Porto that’s characterised by thousands of hectares of terraced vineyards. I’d regretted that omission ever since.   And so in spring 2024, we decided to make up for lost time and spend a few ..read more

By Vicky Hampton Portuguese wine is best known for its fortified ruby and tawny ports, its full-bodied reds from the Douro Valley, and its lightly spritzy whites from Vinho Verde. All of these hail from the north of the country, but the south of Portugal is often overlooked. The Algarve region, spanning the southern coast from the Atlantic ocean in the west to the Spanish border in the east, is awash with vineyards that are rapidly catching up with their northern Portuguese counterparts in terms of quality. But because Algarve wines are relatively unknown internationally, they offer some pheno ..read more

By Vicky Hampton I first visited the Algarve way back in 2013 and wondered why it had taken me so long. I’d had visions of sunburned Brits abroad and fish & chips on every corner. But that stereotype couldn’t have been further from the truth: cool stone cottages, clay-coloured scrubland, wind- and wave-eroded Atlantic beaches and ramshackle local eateries. Not to mention carafe-loads of dangerously drinkable Vinho da Casa. It was the combination of all of this plus my first waterpark experience at the tender age of 33 (literally one of my favourite days ever!) that put the Algarve firmly o ..read more

By Vicky Hampton I have a bit of a crush on Portugal. I keep coming back for more. Over the past three years, I’ve digital nomad-ed (no-made?) my way around Porto, Madeira and Ericeira – to the point that this year I finally downloaded Duolingo and started learning Portuguese. But nomads gotta roam, so instead of returning to old flames, I decided to explore pastures new: Lagos – a small city in the western half of the Algarve, on Portugal’s south coast.   Travel to, from and around Lagos, Portugal The easiest way to get to Lagos (or indeed anywhere in Portugal’s Algarve region) is to fly ..read more

By Vicky Hampton The first green shoots for this article were planted way back in early November, when – on one particularly rainy and windy night – I found myself unable to walk more than half a block from my own front door for dinner. I didn’t have high expectations for Greek food in Amsterdam (I’d been to a couple of Greek restaurants here years ago, and they’d been abysmal) so perhaps that made it a little easier for The Greek Embassy to blow me away. This? Fifty metres from my front door? I was converted! But before singing about my new love of Greek food from the rooftops, I decided to e ..read more