Food in Britain is boring. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard a variation of this statement in online travel discussions. When I hear the evidence generally provided to back it up, I tend to wonder about the travel habits of those who make it. […]
I didn’t expect this. Covering almost all of the gable end of a house is a huge blue and red rooster made from discarded pieces of metal. Portugal seems to have a thing at the moment for oversized ‘rubbish’ animals. The rooster’s tail feathers block part of a window whilst a stray metal breast feather juts out over a door […]
What’s available locally has a strong bearing on gastronomic specialities in an area. And what those local specialities are tends to be what restaurants do best. In the hills and mountains these dishes are usually meat based; at the coast they’re whatever salty gifts the sea offers. […]
Will we be up to the challenge? Have our muscles atrophied to the point of no return? A trio of leg muscle-loosening exercises before we set off is akin to slapping a slumbering drunk – “come on, wake up you lazy gits”. […]
We far prefer smaller, more personal hotels to chains, but on occasion we find ourselves pondering whether some owners ever stay in other hotels and then compare their stay to the experience guests might have in their own hotels. […]
Jo will be gutted when I tell her Benedict Allen almost chose La Gomera as a place to lay his dusty, old wide-brimmed hat for a while. She’ll be furious when I tell her why. […]
Where they see squalor and a depressed urban landscape in some raggedy streets and obscure alleys, I see a raw, gritty, honest beauty – a down to earth yin to the yang of the city’s grand architecture. This Jekyll and Hyde character partly makes Lisbon the compelling city it is. […]
Driving through an endless savanna where mounds rather than hills rolled lazily toward infinity, a travel article I’d read in The Guardian a couple of years ago popped into my head. It was called ‘A foodie tour of Portugal’s Alentejo’ and claimed that Portugal’s largest region was being touted as the new Tuscany. […]
Within about thirty minutes I declare I don’t like Florence; too many tour groups clogging the streets, and the restaurants seem grabby; mediocre-looking places charging way too much for uninspiring food. […]
“What the hell are those people doing?”
It’s a phrase I utter in best Victor Meldrew fashion numerous times between checking in and arriving at the destination, except it’s usually not ‘hell’ I use. […]
The first time we encountered a couvert was in Porto when it a waiter brought a tray of small dishes to our table. We weren’t sure if they were a complimentary amuse-bouche or we’d have to pay. […]
There’s a diversity to Portugal’s countryside that surprises us on a regular basis. Where the Algarve’s resort scene doesn’t appeal, the range of walking that exists in the region is a different matter. […]
In the last decade and a half I’ve learnt a lot about hiking boots and shoes. Which is why we have a shoe rack inside our front door filled with them. We own five pairs each; different ones for varying conditions. Wherever we’re travelling to and whatever type of walking is required determines which comes with us. […]
A short route recommended by the folk at our hotel, the 15th century Knipoch, took us along a grassy path lined by bushy confers and moss-covered drystane dykes to an open hillock surrounded by crispy bracken and a tartan coloured vista which took in slender Loch Feochan, Mull, Islay, and a rolling landscape which had me wishing I was wearing my kilt. […]
Whatever anyone thinks about the travel advisory giant, Tripadvisor is the best place for finding information about restaurants in any given location. However, there’s a right way to use it and lots of wrong ways. […]
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