Brizzie

Brisbane's a really smart place. I'm not a city lover, but I really quite like B's modernity. Actually, the total lack of historical clutter in both NZ and Oz is very refreshing. Because of its climate (currently it's 25C during the day) this is very much a cafe society. Everywhere you go there are street restaurants, coffee shops, food courts, bars serving pretty much any cuisine you could choose. Forinstance, I have just come back from eating in a Vietnamese restaurant: a large bowl of noodles and salad topped with spring rolls and minced prawn, plus a soft drink and the obligatory tea, all for £3.70!

The art galleries are superb - big, modern, airy, with a good selection of stuff old and new. I particularly liked some of the modern aboriginal art and some very spiky carved 'trees'. Oh, and a room full of Anish Kapur sculptures: a hemisphere covered in darkest blue matt pigment that seemed to swallow light - you really could not see the centre and a huge block of stone with the space in the middle also dusted with dark pigment, also impenetrable. Fascinating and completely unphotographable!