Portugal
How living abroad has changed us
The wounds are still gaping red, raw, and very sore. It’s too painful for me to talk about Brexit at the moment. No, painful is not the right word at all. If I let my […]
Tenerife
Europe
Inside a cave house on Tenerife
Ever since we first heard about the troglodyte village of Chinamada in the Anaga region on Tenerife we desperately wanted to see what the interior of the cave houses looked like. […]
Austria
Europe’s just desserts, ten standout puddings
My least favourite part of a meal is dessert… unless there is something which awakens the sweet-toothed child that slumbers within. And there regularly is, no matter where we travel around Europe. […]
Food and drink
Bacon, an essential travel item
During the course of a neverending monologue from Marcia, with an “aye, that’s right” thrown in by Preston every now and again, she mentioned their suitcase was half-filled with tins of Spam. It snapped me out of the self-induced coma I’d retreated into. What sort of strange person would pack Spam in their suitcase? […]
Living Abroad
Of postal delivery and speaking another language
The Portuguese, like the Spanish, are complimentary when you make an effort, telling us we can speak it well when we rattle of a few stock phrases when we’re appalling. […]
Hiking
A wash in the woods, the joys of forest bathing
Enter a forest and an unseen entity gently detaches your problems and deposits them at the treeline to be collected, or not, when you depart with renewed spring in your step and a glow in your heart. […]
Hiking
Why pay for specialist travel guidebooks and holidays?
It’s a convivial gathering, eight of us around a dining table at a rural hotel in a converted farmhouse. The food has been plentiful, the wine flowing. As the evening progresses we get to know one another better and tongues loosen. […]
Europe
Emrelishment, a tale of travel, food and drink preparation
In the middle of the 20th cent in the cool and shady interior of the Imperial, an unexceptional bar next to the bullring in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a regular known to the waiting staff as ‘El Barraco’ grabs a seat at the bar’s counter mid-morning and orders his favourite bocadillo […]