01.02.2014Wellington or “The great harbor of Tara”

Wellington or “Te Whanganui a Tara” (Māori for The great harbor of Tara) is the capital of New Zealand. The Māori weren’t wrong, the city has a stunning harbor which is beautifully surrounded by hills and a rugged coastline. Because of its compact nature the majority of the interesting sites, boutiques, art galleries, cafés and restaurants are located in the inner city and most of it within walking distance.

One of the key attractions of New Zealand is located on Wellington’s waterfront: The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. It is famous around Aotearoa and the world for being bicultural, interactive, innovative and letting visitors experience the nations art, culture and science on over six floors. We spent two thirds of a day inside and still had the feeling we were hurrying through many parts of it. From New Zealand’s formation to its present state including all kinds of aspects and views one can easily spend days in here:

After the museum we walked around the inner city of Wellington until we stumbled upon an interesting and inviting looking restaurant, called Ombra.

It looked nice and was well visited, which is always a good indicator. The waitress informed us that instead of serving one big course they serve many little courses giving you the chance to try many things within only one meal. That surely reminded us of one of our favorite restaurants in Zurich, the Josef.
We had a delicious Apple Cider:

And since we had worked up quite an appetite in the museum we enjoyed “Zucchini and onion fries”:

“Moscardini baby octopus” and in the back “House baked bred with olive oil”:

“Baked zucchini & scamorza sformato”:

“Rocket salad with pear and pecorino”:

“Lamb cacciatora in garlic and rosemary”:

And the last dish, “Grilled prawns risotto”:

What Tini found especially amusing was that on the women’s toilet of the restaurant (!) there was not only a hair dryer but also a straightening iron… We were just imagining the following conversation: “Oh honey, could you please excuse me for a moment, I need to straighten some of my curls, now.” 😉

And since the harbor is so famous we made sure to spend enough time just walking around it:

Wellington is really a very nice city and we enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately we couldn’t linger here too long as we had some more sights to cover on our way back up north and we were running out of time…