Archive - September 21, 2012

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A Night Less Ordinary: Huettenpalast
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Peru Named a Foodie’s Haven
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Purple Passport: All female cabin crew and hungry travellers

A Night Less Ordinary: Huettenpalast

In this weekly series, we scour the world in search of the most weird and wonderful hotels. From cave hotels to converted prisons, capsule pods to underwater guestrooms, you can expect only the unexpected. This week, Huettenpalast in Berlin.

What’s the gimmick? Situated inNeukölln, Berlin, Huettenpalast is a former vacuum-cleaner factory floor, where you can spend the night in an old caravan or a wooden hut. It’s camping, but without the mud, much and yuck of pitching a tent in a field. Instead, guests sleep in a renovated caravan or cabin, inside the building, and share a living room with other guests.

You should read… Top weird ways to travel on holiday

Why stay? For that summer feeling of camping all year round – even in winter – and a little bit of retro-happiness. Whether you crave numerous amenities, interesting design or just a cheap bed to crash on, Huettenpalast will deliver.

You should read… A Night Less Ordinary : Nevada City Hotel

The Wow Factor: The sunny campsite contains a center dining area where little baggies of croissants, apples, and drinks are hung on a painted tree for breakfast each morning. Just outside the warehouse’s glass doors is a garden patio where guests can lounge on the hammock, and mingle with other ‘campers’. This cosy, original, eco-friendly and most importantly, cheap hotel, is the perfect base to wander around a district once called “little Istanbul” and now spotted by the New York Times as “one of the most creative places” in Berlin.

You should read… A Night Less Ordinary: Boot Bed ‘n’ Breakfast

Hobrechtstrasse 66, Neukölln, +49 30 3730 5806, huettenpalast.de Doubles from €80, caravans and huts from €60 (singles €40), without breakfast

Peru Named a Foodie’s Haven

South America is famed for its cuisine, but the award for the region’s Leading Culinary Destination has been handed to Peru. Beating off stiff competitions from countries such as Argentina, Chile and Brazil, Peru was presented the accolade at the Caribbean and The Americas ceremony at the World Travel Awards, set up to ‘acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry’. The winners are voted for by consumers, who nominate from a list compiled by travel experts.

Peruvian cuisine, which includes quinoa, a staple with health enthusiasts – is growing in popularity on the world’s gastronomic stage. The country’s eclectic cuisine has migrated to become favourites around the world, but the best Peruvian specialties are still found in their home country. Here are PurpleTravel’s top five dishes to try in Peru:

CEVICHE

Due to the icy Humboldt Current that flows through the Pacific Ocean just off Peru’s coast, the country benefits from one of the world’s most bountiful sources of seafood. Ceviche comprises raw fish, citrus-cooked by marinating in Peruvian lime juice, raw onions, and chilli. . The acid in the fruit “cooks” the fish, giving it a delicate flavour and slightly chewy consistency. It is usually accompanied by some corn (on or off the cob) and a slice of sweet potato, which provides almost perfect balance to the acidity of the leche de tigre – the citrus marinade.

CAUSA

Visit any market in Peru and you are sure to find two things—hundreds of varieties of potatoes and piles of the biggest avocados you’ve ever seen in your life. A traditional Peruvian causa layers these two ingredients into what could be described as a sort of casserole, only sliced and served cold. Bright yellow mashed potatoes seasoned with lime and aji is layred with tuna, shrimp, or crab and topped with avocado and a creamy cocktail sauce, making for the ultimate comfort food.

AJI DE GALLINA

Aji de Gallina is a hearty chicken dish gets its enticingly yellow hue from the spicy ají amarillo chilli pepper, which adds its colour and mild kick to several dishes in Peruvian cuisine. This rich, velvety stew is made with chicken and condensed milk that is thickened with de-crusted white bread. The heat of the peppers is softened by the liberal dose of evaporated milk. For a vegetarian alternative, the ubiquitous papa a la huancaina, boiled potato is often used.

ANTICUCHOS
Anticuchos are skewers of grilled, marinated beef hearts (much like shish kebabs), which trace back to the days when Peru’s Spanish conquerors would consume a cow’s choicest cuts and leave the organs for their slaves. They are served all over Peru, from the high-end restaurants that offer them as appetizers to the street-cart vendors that sell them slathered in a garlicky sauce. These Peruvian kebabs are extremely rich – and tasty – but more than one might have your temperature rising through the roof.

LUCUMA

Lucuma is a tree fruit that looks like a little like a mango, but tastes more like custard, with a hint of maple syrup. While Peru’s cuisine is mostly famous for its spicy and savory dishes mains, the Peruvians themselves adore desserts and often use this fruit as a flavouring in cakes and drinks. Try lucuma ice-cream, lucuma parfait or lucuma smoothies for the best of this delicious native fruit.

Purple Passport: All female cabin crew and hungry travellers

What money can’t buy? It’s not an all girl cabin crew.

You’ve got bags of money, you play for one of the most famous football teams in the world, and you’ve got it all, don’t you? Well it turns out there are still some crazy demands to be made out there.
The Barcelona football team has requested an all-female crew for its flights, but claim it’s not for the reasons you might thing. The club says the players prefer to be served by ladies, because male cabin crew are just too interested in their skills.
Barcelona’s sponsors, Turkish Airlines say male staff on flights are just too interested in the boys’ ball skills and so they’ve been given a red card because of their ‘extreme interest.’ The airline will hand pick the all-female crew from now on.

A cup of garlic and a cannoli dammit

We’ve two stories this week of travellers in foreign lands doing dubious things with food. First up eater.com reports a French man, who had a few too many and broke into a Florida Italian restaurant. Did he go for the cash register? Nope, he stopped short at the cupboard and at a cup of raw chopped onions. As you do.
Then there’s the story of an Irishman, who was so excited about Boston’s Italian pastries that he headed straight for a bakery on his first morning in the US. At 3.30 am, brandishing a knife, the man entered the premises and demanded a traditional pastry called a cannoli. Police were called and he was arrested before being granted bail at $2,000. Wouldn’t it have just been easier to buy one?

Lost: one camera underwater

The Mirror is trying to reunite a family with their lost camera after it was found at the bottom of the sea! A diver, Mark Milburn recovered the camera 30ft underwater off the Cornwall coast and was stunned to discover it was still working.
He found over 800 family snaps, some of which were dated just two days before. They also feature pictures of Star Wars theme park show, a steam train and some dolphins. We hope it can be reunited with its owner soon.

Give it a miss

Fancy a trip to Oslo? You might want to rethink that idea after reading this. A new study by Swiss Bank UBS has come up with the worlds most expensive and the Norwegian capital is right at the top.
The research compared the prices for 122 products in 58 countries like iPhones and Big Macs. It revealed Oslo was at the top, even though its residents aren’t the richest. The Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva both featured in the list, while New York City and London make the top ten.
Here’s the list in full:

  1. Oslo, Norway
  2. Zurich, Switzerland
  3. Tokyo, Japan
  4. Geneva, Switzerland
  5. Copenhagen, Denmark
  6. New York City, United States
  7. Luxembourg
  8. Stockholm, Sweden
  9. Caracas, Venezuela
  10. London, England

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