Liz just wrote about the view from the Langham, Melbourne, where I also stayed this past Spring.  It reminded me of something that happened to me on that visit.

I am in no way a morning person, but my body never quite accommodated to Australian time. I was routinely up before sunrise. One morning, I threw back the curtains on the day to admire the skyline and…what was this? In the gray pre-dawn sky, I observed three gray flying objects — apparently bearing down on the city.

Occasionally they changed color, flaring orange. I rubbed my eyes, blinked a few times.

The flying objects were still there. Was I dreaming? I going crazy? Was Melbourne under some sort of attack? I got my camera, perhaps to document the end of this lovely city, but more sensibly to use the zoom lens as makeshift binoculars.

Aha, hot air balloons.

I hadn’t planned on going to Melbourne, Australia.

But the abrupt end to my ‘around the world’ trip resulted in having to return home to a cold and wet New Zealand a couple of weeks earlier than planned. And cold and wet was something I wasn’t quite ready for.

So when friends, who were heading to Melbourne, Australia for a few days,  suggested I join them, I jumped at the chance. Surely, I thought, it would be warmer in Australia.

Sadly, I was wrong.

Turned out that Melbourne was just as cold and wet as Christchurch. In fact, it might have even been colder, thanks to a wind that felt like it had blown through from the Antarctica.

Not willing to let a little thing like rain and icy winds stop us from sightseeing, we soldiered on, adding layer after layer of clothing to keep out the cold.

We walked the streets, wandered through the huge open air Queen Street Market, and examined Federation Square‘s fascinating architectural designs.

In the end we had to give up.

Tired of cold noses and wet feet, we headed back to The Langham hotel for warmth, hot tea …and dry shoes.

We arrived too late to partake in The Langham’s Chocolate Indulgence Afternoon Tea.  But that was okay, because we got something just a good -  a room with a view.

Located on the nineteenth floor, the room had a bird’s eye view of the Yarra River that flows through the center of Melbourne. 

On this side of the river you can just make out the Southbank Promenade. Sparsely populated during the winter months, it becomes alive in summertime, with locals and visitors alike strolling around and checking out the area’s upmarket shops, restaurants, cafes, food courts and  five-star hotels.

Across the river to the right is the award winning Melbourne Aquarium with it’s 360 degree Oceanarium housing giant sharks and stingrays .

Directly across the river are numerous well worn train tracks that allow commuters, and the occasional tourist, to get into and out of the city with ease.

A little more to the left, just out of sight, is the Flinders Street Train Station. Built in 1910, it’s not only Australia’s oldest train station, it’s also the busiest suburban railway station in the Southern Hemisphere.

Throughout the evening, sipping first hot tea and later wine, we sat and watched the flow of the traffic, the trains, and the river.

Sometimes having a ‘room with a view’ is really all you need.

The Falls Road runs west out of the center of Belfast, up in to the hills that ring this part of the city. It is a road whose name resonates through the Troubles, that term which is describes, accurately, the harder parts of contemporary Irish life and recent history: the divisions over politics and religion which have at times turned bloody and bitter, and at times, still do.

There are murals on the walls of buildings along The Falls. Some express solidarity with oppressed people across the world, some offer hopes of peace, others honor those who have died in the Troubles. One such man was Bobby Sands. On a mural honoring him is a line from his writings: “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

A Presbyterian Church, a headquarters for a branch of a loyalist Orange Lodge, a small Irish language school: the building that is now Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich has had a varied history. It is in the Falls Road, not far from that mural of Bobby Sands.

You’ll hear laughter if you stop in at An Chultúrlann.

It is a warm and welcoming place, with a tourist point to help you find out about Belfast, and a bookstore with a wide ranging selection of Irish language material as well as English language works on the history of Ireland. There’s a friendly cafe where, at the weekends, you will find traditional music sessions. There is an art gallery, a theater troupe is based on the top floor, and classes in Irish language, art, and other subjects are on offer.

The building is named for two men, Robert Shipboy McAdam, a nineteenth century Presbyterian businessman, and Tomás Ó Fiaich, a twentieth century scholar, who was from the Catholic tradition. Both of them contributed to respect for and continuation of Irish language and heritage. Cultúrlann is meant to be, and is, a friendly place where neighbors from all traditions are welcome to drop in, and where travelers find welcome as well, to talk, to laugh, to learn some words in Irish or brush up knowledge, to meet a new friend, to share a cup of tea.

There’s an Irish language choir which rehearses every week, and you’ll be welcome to sit in if you’d like. There’s also a intimate jewel box of a performance space, where that theater troupe performs plays and where top international artists such as Cathie Ryan and Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh sometimes offer their music, in English and in Irish.

When Cathie Ryan gave a concert there, she asked her audience to sing with her on the song So Here’s to You, a song of leavetaking and hope for reunion. She told of an idea she’d learned while traveling in the southwestern part of the United States. “The Native American people there have the belief that when you sing in a place, you leave your echo there,” she said. “ So you all have left an echo here tonight. Thank you.”

An echo, perhaps, of peace. There is another mural along The Falls Road not far from An Chultúrlann, this one a painting of a man playing a fiddle, and his grandchildren listening. The words on this wall say ceol gan teorainn. Music without borders.

Our three days of indulgence in the Cape Winelands flashed by like an ’80s movie montage, all postcard-perfect backdrops, long laughs, rental cars, and red teeth.

During our three-day splash here in this, the biggest wine-producing region of South Africa, we managed to squeeze in stops at 25 different vineyards and taste some 120 wines while scooting around between Stellenbosch, neighboring Franschoek and Paarl, as well as, a few days later, the Constantia Wine Route in the suburbs of Cape Town.

Half the fun was never knowing what to expect at each vineyard. A handful of recommendations (Delheim, Fairview, Delaire) came from new friends we made in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and we loosely followed some of the tips in our trusty Lonely Planet and Time Out guidebooks. Mostly, though, we just picked names out of a hat (or, more specifically, randomly chose ones listed on the free wine maps) and left it to chance.

Would it be corporate or boutiquey? Would the tastings be free, or cost 10, 20, maybe 30 rand? How aggressively would the staff push the wine, and would they be easygoing, knowledgeable about the products, or clearly full of shit? Would it be packed with tourists, or would we have the tasting room all to ourselves? How did I get stuck driving and spitting again while she gets to sit back and imbibe?

The autumnal mountainous scenery and clear, cobalt-blue skies were intoxicating. We met so many great people making good wines and working hard to make them even better. The menus at restaurants like the Delaire Graff Estate’s Indochine and Kleine Zalze’s Terroir were inspired, and “el vino did flow” at night in downtown Stellenbosch at bars like Vinehuis and Jan Caats. We really had such an amazing time.

Here are just a few quick notes and snapshots from along the way.

Though KWV’s tasting room in Paarl was one of the slicker, more corporate ones we visited (along with Ernie Els Wine in Stellenbosch), the friendly staff, surprisingly laidback vibe, and accessible everyday wines belied its bigwig status as one of South Africa’s biggest global wine exporters. Our tasting offered a choice of five wines from an expansive menu that included 40 different wines, liqueurs, and brandies to choose from; the 2006 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and 2007 Cathedral Cellar Shiraz stood out.

We had one “best meal ever!” after another during our wine-tasting tour, but a hedonistic lunch at the Delaire Graff Estate’s Indochine restaurant, dramatically perched on the Helshoogte Mountain Pass between Stellenbosch and Franschoek, was a highlight. It began with a melt-in-your-mouth, pepper-seared tuna starter, above, which came drizzled with zig-zags of olive tapenade and was served with a side of quail eggs, watercress, and tomatoes. I washed it down with a glass (and generous pour) of Delaire’s crisp, grassy 2009 Sauvignon Blanc Coastal Cuvee. My main, seared salmon trout with crispy potato rounds and an avocado remoulade, was brilliant.

Our afternoon cruising the Constantia Wine Route, which runs along the backside of Table Mountain in the suburbs of Cape Town, began with a stop at Groot Constantia, where the first grapes in South Africa were planted back in the 1650s.

From there it was on to the stunning Constantia Uitsig, pictured above, for a tasting led by one of the bubbliest, most-enthusiastic winery employees you’re likely to meet. Uitsig is best known for their whites, so no surprise that the 2009 Unwooded Chardonnay, 2009 Sauvignon Blanc, and 2008 Constania White were highlights. The Muscavet D’ Alexandrie, the first cultivar ever planted in the country and made from Uitsig’s oldest vines, was the best of the bunch and, at 285 rand a bottle, it was also the priciest.

In addition to the tasting room and, of course, the vines, this sprawling estate also houses three award-winning restaurants, a spa, and hotel. Along the service road between the tasting room and the hotel are well-marked vines with signs that indicate each grape type and when the vines were first planted (the earliest, at least from what I saw, were in 1984).

Like many vineyards in the area, Uitsig was forced to harvest their grapes at different times this year–some earlier than usual, some later. They expect a high-quality harvest in 2010, but less quantity than normal. Based on this and other conversations I had with other wine producers, it sounds like there’s going to be some interesting, boom-or-bust blends coming out of the Cape Winelands as a whole from this year’s crop.

As the last full day of our vineyard-hopping extravaganza wound down, we settled into Chamonix just before closing time late Sunday afternoon. Located up a hill near the end of a residential street shooting off from downtown Franschoek, this small tasting room is a cozy, converted 18th-century blacksmith shop, the kind of place where you could hole up for a long, cold winter by the fireplace, surrounded by jugs of cheap wine, pouring glass after glass and eating wedge after wedge of cheese until you pass out.

Known for their chardonnay and pinot noir, Chamonix’s wines didn’t overwhelm; in fact, outside of the 2007 Greywacke Pinotage we felt they were just decent. But three months later, as I look back on the hour or so we spent there, it doesn’t matter that the wine was just okay, just like it wouldn’t have really mattered if it was the opposite. Either way, I’d still always remember being there, at that time in my life, with my best friend, smiling, laughing, hopping back in the Honda Jazz, and asking each other if our teeth were red.

All photos © 2010 Brian Spencer and cannot be used or reprinted without permission.

My favorite beer these days can only be found in Oklahoma.

Fortunately, my Tourism Currents business partner Becky McCray lives in Oklahoma AND runs Allen’s Retail Liquor in Alva, OK.

Life is good!

Becky brought some Choc Beer when she stayed at my house for SXSWi (the South by Southwest Interactive tech conference) the first time; back in 2008. I’d never heard of Choc, but as you know from my adoration of locally-brewed Dutch Alfa beer, I am always up for the good stuff.

First brewed and sold in 1919 by Pietro “Pete” Piegari, it’s an American Wheat ale that’s unfiltered, delicious and still served in the southeastern Oklahoma coal-mining town where it all started, at Pete’s Place Italian restaurant in Krebs, OK.

It was a homebrew that came from Indian Territory; the Choc is short for Choctaw. Here is more choc beer background info from the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Are you kidding? Hand-crafted beer, that’s yummy, that can only be found in one place, that has a really interesting history….this is perfection.

The only drawback is that I have to wait each year for Becky to bring it across the Red River into Texas.

Which, of course, is part of the thrill.