Dennis Kioko

Off from a cold weekend in Vienna which you can read about by clicking here, I took the train to Italy, hoping for warmer weather.  My first stop in Italy was in Venice, which is quite an interesting destination. The train from Vienna will leave you off at Padova in Italy, where you will need to catch a regional train to Venice, and then a bus, train or water boat to proper Venice. The buses on the mainland are aged, but they do work quite well and are properly maintained. Age is just but a number. Venice consists of a series of islands, with proper Venice being a mostly tourist destination abandoned by locals who have settled on the other islands around Venice. There is however a regular water boat service to the different islands and even a car ferry to the larger islands but not to Venice itself, where only walking and boating are allowed. Venice’s Grand Canal. The grey and orange rectangular structure in the canal to the left is a water-bus station I took the train t...

Four years ago, precisely in 2015, I wrote about beer in Kenya in what has gone on to be my most popular post this year with more than 5,000 people reading it. It seems that there is a lot of interest in exploring beer in Kenya, which is understandable. The brewing sector has grown since then and we now have lots of options, which means it is time for another review. Back in 2015, Kenya had one major brewer - EABL/KBL, challenged by Keroche and Sierra which is more of a small volume craft brewer, and arguably Kenya’s first craft brewery. It had also been joined by Brew Bistro which mostly sells its malted stuff at its outlets in Nairobi and later by Sirville, a bar located at Galleria Mall. Sirville was later sold to Brew Bistro and converted to the latter for a while, before shutting down in what is alleged to be a tax dispute.

I have already talked about my trip and stay in Germany extensively, which you can read  about by clicking here to follow the link. My next stop was Vienna in Austria. I found a discounted train trip on Google for just under 13 Euros (one of the few trains Google resells in Europe). Good thing too because Google ensured I could book in English and not German, which is spoken in both countries. The train was a high-speed Deutsche Bahn train that took just over four hours to reach its destination and on top of that, I found the economy class seats to be quite comfortable. This being Germany and Europe, you can bring food and drink on the train, including beers. I had bought some Belgium beers at Biervarna in Munich and took the opportunity to enjoy some of them on this trip. It was a rainy Saturday morning and I connected to the Munich main train station (Ostbahnhof) through the U Bahn. The D Bahn to Vienna takes you through rural Germany, giving you a view of the country’s ag...