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Are we Tourists or Travellers?






Some Roman Bridge or other in Alghero with a bit missing

Whenever we drive right into the middle of a city along a cobbled street which looks as if it should not be accessible to cars I always say, ‘oh well we’re tourists!’ Not that anyone has ever challenged us. We once famously drove right under the aqueduct in Segovia, Spain, completely unintentionally. Although there seem to be fewer pedestrianised streets in Southern European cities than in the UK, driving under the aqueduct was not meant to be an option! We think that locals are so bemused by seeing a UK registered car in such unlikely places, that generally they take no notice and do not challenge us!

Anyway, back to my original question. I decided that my best place for research would be amongst my Archers Appreciation friends on Facebook. They are such a lovely, witty, intelligent and friendly bunch of people that I often turn to them for ideas. Okay, I am a librarian by profession and know about the value of reliable research and what a wide range of sources there are. However, this article, like most of those on my blog, is meant to be fun and light-hearted. I shall not be referencing using the Harvard system.

At the end of July, the beginning of our long summer holiday, I asked them: ‘What is the difference between a tourist and a traveller?’ I agreed that I would quote their comments and mention them by first name. These are some of the responses I had. I shall then decide whether on balance their responses can prove definitively whether Paul and I are indeed tourists or travellers!

‘Travellers are nice people like us, tourists are other people.’ (Andrew)

‘A traveller is a pretentious tourist.’ (Jean)

‘Delusion.’ (Gina)

‘I travel, you are a tourist, he is a day-tripper.’ (Kate)

‘A traveller thinks they are better than tourists and thinks they are keeping it real! Travellers may wash less often – unless I am travelling! (Niki)

‘We like to think of ourselves as travellers – probably a bit pretentious I know – because we tend to travel for long periods and get close to the lives of real people as we go, rather than just going to see some attraction. I usually take the trouble to learn at least a little of the language if possible.'(Les)

‘A tourist is someone else, making the crowds bigger and the queues longer; a traveller is me, not part of the crowd or queue, just caught up in them.’ (Jamie)

‘A tourist pays for their holiday, a traveller has it paid for by their parents.’ (Dinsdale)

Reply from Helen: ‘Even in middle/old age?’

Reply from Jamie: ‘Oh god no, those yoof backpackers are decidedly tourists.’

‘A tourist takes a photo every 5 minutes, a traveller is content just to look.’ (Joan)

‘Travellers never stay at all-inclusive resorts, they are strictly for the tourists.’ (Louise)

‘I would say a tourist wants to look at places, and a traveller wants to experience places.’ (Sarah)

‘We are travellers; they are tourists. Probably working class. Or American.’ (John)

‘Tourists go where they are led. Travellers go where they will. Tourists seek comfortable situations. Travellers put up with whatever comes their way.’ (Di)

‘I spent 7 days in Petra and visited the site 5 times from different angles and loved talking to the Nabataean; they realised I wasn’t going to hire their donkey so used to just chat about life and drink mint tea.’ (Rachel)

‘Round here, travellers set up their caravans in the local park and leave mountains of rubbish and human poo behind when they depart several weeks later.’ (Deb) – As Les pointed out, this could be the wrong sort of traveller!

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and contributions from my lovely Archers’ friends. In a way I think that Andrew, Kate, Jean, Gina and Niki have hit the nail on the head. I don’t like to think that we are better than other people. Paul and I talk about ourselves being ‘travellers’ in a jokey way. I do like to visit the attractions of the city, the places that everyone else wants to go to. For instance, when we arrived in Bilbao at the beginning of our journey, we spent several hours in the Guggenheim museum.  According to Joan, I am definitely more of a tourist than Paul, as I do take a lot of photos. For our 4 week holiday this year, I have probably taken about 1000 photos, and it is going to take a long time to sort them out! I also like to do silly things, such as standing in the same pose as a statue and getting Paul to photograph me!

Flowery Dog outside the Guggenheim

Sarah with Garibaldi in Palau

We do like to plan our holidays, and always book accommodation in advance. We wash every day, and always eat in restaurants or I cook proper meals in our villa. We do not eat street food or walk around eating – something to do with my upbringing I daresay! I actually love the look of street food, but just want a table and chairs to complete the experience! The planning is partly because we like home comforts, and partly because we often travel at peak times – getting decent accommodation in August last minute is not easy! We also like self-catering, and this is really not practical or even possible to book last minute.

Louise points out that a traveller would never stay at an all-inclusive resort. Okay, at this point I had to make my confession to my friends that we did do this for our honeymoon in Cuba! (July 2004)To be honest, I think that most of the hotels in Cuba are all-inclusive, and it may have been difficult to do otherwise. We did love the holiday, but it is the only time we have ever stayed in a hotel for 2 weeks and not done any cooking at all! I am not sure we’ll ever do it again, although one of my ambitions is to go on a cruise; my dream holiday is a world cruise for several months! If Paul reads this, there is a great one advertised in the back of the Radio Times – 120 nights departing in January 2019. Passenger 1 pays from £15,999 and passenger 2 goes free!

Rachel’s comments about her experiences in Petra sound very much like our idea of making the most of a place. We often return to a favourite city, and sometimes just wander the streets, not visiting any museums or cathedrals. My favourite activity is to sit in cafes and restaurants and watch the world go by. When we went to the Alpujarras a few years back, we went to Granada several times at different times of the day; once we went early morning, and another time we went in the evening just for dinner. On another visit we did go to the Alhambra Palace, although the intense heat nearly defeated me!

However, when it comes down to it, I know that I am more of a tourist than Paul is. I adore tourist shops and buying souvenirs and gifts to take home. I send about a dozen postcards to friends and family whilst we are away. Paul is in his element when visiting archaeological sites, and has a particular passion for Visigothic sites (okay, my little joke! I believe there are not actually that many Visigothic sites world-wide!) I am convinced that an interest in the Visigoths is not common among tourists! This summer there were many interesting archaeological sites to visit in Sardinia, and I do enjoy these experiences, just not in the heat! Paul very kindly found places for me to rest and amuse myself whilst he went exploring. Luckily he was usually able to find me a beautiful beach with crystal clear sea, and my favourite activity on holiday in August (yes, it even comes above going to the shops!) is swimming. Now, would you consider swimming to be a tourist activity? Certainly on our travels, we came across very few UK visitors, and we did not see another GB registered car for many weeks (not until we reached Chamonix). However, there did seem to be a lot of local tourism.

Les makes a really good point about learning the language. I do feel less of a tourist in France because I speak French (could be fluent if I made the effort!) In fact, I was very pleased to interview our host at our final hotel in France, conducting the entire conversation in French (watch out for my future blog post about Maison Ailleurs). Paul also speaks French (not as well as I do!) and has a smattering of Italian. We both speak a few words in Spanish and can just about manage menus in Italy and Spain. We picked up a bit of Portuguese too, last year. Sometimes I get utterly confused and have spoken short sentences partly in French, Italian and Spanish!

Our mode of travel is probably unusual to some. We very rarely fly (I cannot remember the last time we went on an aeroplane – maybe 7 years ago?) This year we went on 5 ferries – Portsmouth to Bilbao, Barcelona to Sardinia, Sardinia to Corsica, Corsica to Genoa and finally Caen to Portsmouth. On ferries 2, 3 and 4 we were the only UK travellers as far as we could make out! Ours was certainly the only GB, right-hand drive car on these ferries, something which did confuse some of the ferry staff! Now, I ask you this, would a tourist travel all that way by 5 ferries and hundreds of miles of driving?! My daughter came to join us in Sardinia for a week, taking the more conventional route from Heathrow to Olbia!

So, what do you think? Are we tourists or travellers? Does it really matter?!

GB Car Spotted at our Hotel in Chartres!

 

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Harvest Time at Vine Cottage – A few ideas for Fresh Figs


Paul harvesting Figs at Vine Cottage

We often joke that our beautiful, rented cottage should be called Fig Cottage rather than Vine Cottage. The fig trees that you see in the picture are really prolific and yield plenty of fruit each year. The vine sometimes yields a good crop of grapes, but they are pippy and do not taste good. I have tried juice, jelly, wine…. you name it, but nothing is worth the effort!

Anyway, to return to the fig trees. The only way of harvesting ours is to climb up a ladder, as they are too high up to reach and inevitably they drop splat on the ground when ripe! This is our first serious year of harvesting figs, as although we have lived here for 12 years, we did not invest in the ladder for a few years, and then kept failing to erect it in time for the fig season. I am not a great climber, so this task is left to Paul in our great way of the household division of labour.   After all, you would not catch him standing over the stove making a tasty dish from home-grown figs.  The cottage is not very tall, which is a good for the task of climbing up to pick figs. It was a gloriously hot day when we tackled this task, which was most welcome, as, having just returned from a month of almost non-stop sunshine in Southern Europe, we were glad not to be confronted by a typical English August.

Here I am with the basket of figs. I shall then give you the recipes for the dishes I made from them, with one link where I used someone else’s recipe.

Sarah with a Basket of Figs from Vine Cottage

For lunch that day I made a salad, which I am sure is very similar to fig salads made by many others. Here is my version:

Slice some fresh figs, and drizzle with honey and olive oil. Grill for about five minutes until soft, slightly charred and hot. Add a few slices of soft cheese; I used Chaource, but taleggio or goats’ cheese would be good. Grill for a few more minutes until melted and oozing. Serve with parma ham or prosciutto cotto, dressed with a little more olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Grind over some black pepper and sea salt. You could have some lovely ciabatta with it, or some linguette flatbreads, which we love. I was very restrained and had neither, just choosing to have another salad of tomatoes and avocado to make my complete lunch.

Grilled Figs, Prosciutto and Chaource with Honey
Dejeuner dans Le Jardin

My next idea was to make fig rolls. I have to say that I have never enjoyed them when bought in the shops, or have possibly just looked at them and thought ‘yuck!’ The idea of making them with fresh figs seemed a good one, although having done it once, I think I’ll do it again with dried figs. This time I needed some help, as when making cakes and pastries, for texture and consistency I prefer to leave the research to the experts. I turned to Felicity Cloake (@felicitycloake) in The Guardian for this recipe, as I have often enjoyed her ‘How to make the Perfect….’ series of recipes. Here is the link to her excellent recipe: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2016/may/05/how-to-make-the-perfect-fig-rolls The only change I made was to use fresh figs. Also, I was out of soft plain flour, so used strong plain instead, which was fine. My other flour was spelt flour. We had fig rolls warm for pudding in the evening, with a scoop of home-made banana ice-cream – wonderful combination!

Fig Rolls made to Felicity Cloake’s Recipe

For dinner last night, before consuming the fig rolls, I decided to make a seasonal dish of chicken with figs and honey. For this , I jointed a chicken and so we had a breast, and two legs divided into drumsticks and thighs. We did not finish it all between the two of us, and there is still a breast and some wing pieces for more chicken dishes. If you have never jointed a chicken, give it a go! It makes for some really economical meals, rather than buying chicken pieces separately. I have a big sharp knife and a pair of poultry shears for the job.

I roasted the chicken joints with olive oil and rosemary and a few mushrooms. At the same time I prepared a dish of new potatoes and fennel. I parboiled some sliced new potatoes and an onion, then layered them with a raw sliced fennel bulb and a drizzle of olive oil and some creme fraiche. I baked this in the oven with the chicken at 180 degrees celsius for about 40 minutes. After this, the potatoes continued to cook and I added a drizzle of honey and half a dozen sliced figs to the chicken dish. I then covered the potato dish with foil and turned up the oven to finish cooking the chicken for 15 minutes. To finish it off I took the chicken, figs and mushrooms out of the tin and boiled up the delicious juices with a glass of cider. This happened to be from a bottle that we bought in Spain on our travels.

This chicken and fig creation was declared good, and definitely one to be repeated (even with some shop-bought figs!)

Figgy Chicken with Baked New Potatoes and Fennel

All of these dishes were made from the basket of figs that you see in the picture above, and there were still a few left for breakfast for me; my standard breakfast is Greek yoghurt and honey with fresh fruit.

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Making Salmorejo Sarah’s Way

Salmorejo, as I am sure you know, is a Spanish recipe, but that is no reason for not making it when on holiday in Italy. I used to wonder what the difference is between this soup and the more commonly known Gazpacho. I have come to the conclusion that salmorejo includes bread, whereas gazpacho does not. They can both be smooth or chunky, and have essential ingredients of: tomatoes, olive oil, a bit of spice and some fresh herbs. They should also be served very cold with some toppings for extra texture. I give you below my latest version for Salmorejo. If you are making gazpacho, you can include other finely chopped salad ingredients such as cucumber and fennel. Some people may protest that this recipe is not authentic, but who cares?! It tasted good and used up some of the stale bread.
Recipe to Serve Two People
First cut up, or hack or tear your bread, depending on tools available. I used half of an average-sized crusty loaf. Blitz it in a blender or food processor, although large crumbs are best. If your loaf is not as stale as mine was, you could just tear it into small pieces.
Skin 6 large, juicy tomatoes by pouring boiled water over them and pulling off the skins with your hands. Add these to the blender with the bread still in. Add half a can of tomatoes, a glug of olive oil, half a handful of parsley and the same of basil, a teaspoon of hot, smoked paprika, some rosemary leaves and some tabasco if you have it. You could add a splash of any type of vinegar. Add a can of water and plenty of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Blend it all together until it is not too smooth. Put into a jug in the fridge and add a few ice cubes if you have them. Chill for at least an hour. Meanwhile hard-boil two eggs, fry some chopped bacon with some cubed bread and chop a few cherry tomatoes. Chop some more parsley and basil. Serve the soup in bowls with the chopped garnishes on the side for people to help themselves to.
You will have noticed that this soup contains a little meat. The good news is that if you remove the bacon, it becomes a vegetarian recipe! Furthermore if you remove the eggs it becomes a vegan recipe! So simple! Enjoy!


Slale Bread for making Salmorejo
Tomatoes to be blended for Salmorejo
Eggs and Tomatoes for Salmorejo Garnishes
Croutons and Bacon for Salmorejo Garnishes

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An Ironing Board could be useful: The Trials and Tribulations of blogging on holiday

I am trying to write a daily blog whilst on holiday, which is quite a challenge. I discovered that my own laptop has a non-functioning battery, so will only work when plugged in. Fine, I can cope with that. However, on arriving at the apartment in Sardinia, we discovered that the internet connection is non-existent inside. So we have some further potential problems – I am only able to blog by using Paul’s laptop, as I can take it out to the public areas of the apartment block and not have to plug it in. This of course assumes that he will not need it at the same time that I do. Also, there is the question of heat – how long is it possible to sit at a steamy laptop writing great words of wisdom with no air-conditioning, in temperatures of 85 degrees plus?! Then there is one more issue, of where to put the laptop. Okay, so Paul’s model is lighter than mine, and you could possibly actually use it on your lap, but I find this makes me work slowly and end up with a crick in the neck, pains in my calves and an ache in the behind! Right now, there are Italian children playing on their ipads, and listening to Christmas music very loudly!! Why?!!

Part of the solution would be to find a table to work at, as the table-height logs are in full sunshine for most of the day. Our apartment has two tables – a dining table which cannot be carried outside, and a coffee table of the wrong height. You would think it might be simple to go to Bricofer, the local DIY Store, and buy a camping table, but no, nothing suitable was available – unless you count the wooden table and chair set, which we did not really need, or the plastic table with removable legs which would not fit in the car with all the luggage for our return journey. It was whilst investigating the possibility of using an upturned laundry basket that I suddenly remembered the ironing board which our host’s mother had brought for us the day before! Perfect! Many people sit down to do their ironing, so it would be possible to adjust the height and have a novel laptop station, with room for my camera, mouse and glass of wine!

So here I am in the public area of the apartments La Perla del Mare writing my blog at an ironing board, listening to very loud Christmas music…… I’ll have to ring Paul in a minute to ask him to help me carry all this paraphernalia back to the apartment….

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Cooking in Sardinia – the first few days

First Dinner cooked at the Apartment in Lu Bagnu

 

 

I love cooking on holiday more than eating out. Those who know me well will know that I am ever amazed at the lack of vegetables in meals in Southern Europe on restaurant menus.

I look forward to cooking in  our self-catering accommodation, and spend a lot of time and money buying local produce. Admittedly we do tend to use the supermarkets more than the street markets. From a practical point of view, markets tend to be in cities, and so, apart from buying non-perishable goods and really firm fruit and vegetables, the question of how far it is to dash back to the villa to get the food into the fridge. This year we are having average daily temperatures of 85 degrees plus; no joke when you need to keep food fresh.

All of my recipes are a blend of Southern European, with a touch of Modern British and some Indian and Asian thrown in for good measure. The pictures above are of the first dinner I made in the apartment: Pasta with roughly sliced Italian sausages, canned tomatoes, fresh fennel, courgette, onions and garlic, with some white wine and fresh parsley and basil thrown in for good measure.

I also cannot resist making my version of Spanish tapas. Whether or not these are entirely authentic does not matter to me. I always think it is worth taking some good base ingredients, and a wonderful concept such as tapas, and creating a snack that you really enjoy. The other night we had a meal entirely composed of my tapas recipes. In the following pictures you see:

Tuna and Chick Pea Salad with Fennel and parsley, dressed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Olives with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and some mushrooms from a jar, in olive oil

Egg Mayonnaise

Warm Ratatouille

Squid cooked with Chorizo and Hot smoked Paprika

We ate all of these with thin Italian bread, which is a speciality of Sardinia

I’ll be posting more holiday recipe ideas as we continue our jolly jaunt in Sardinia!

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Getting Ready for our long summer holidays: don’t let those left-overs fester in the fridge!

Recently we left for our long jaunt to Sardinia and Corsica via Bilbao and Barcelona. Now, just be aware that this is not an announcement that our house is empty for a month! Sorry, but we don’t leave the house empty, as my daughter will be staying behind. We also have family and neighbours watering the garden and painting the house whilst we are away.

My daughter Jess is a chef, and like many chefs, has little time to cook at home. I therefore aimed to use up most of the food in the fridge, leaving a few bare necessities and, more importantly, some money for her to buy easier to cook food. As we ate up the food, every time I looked in the cupboards and the fridge, the chance of making just one more tasty meal seemed ever less and less likely. I surprised even myself with the amazing dinner I managed to rustle up on Saturday night. It started with a lamb bone I took out of the freezer. This was one of a few left over from a roast lamb feast the previous weekend. I catered for a party and cooked for my mother’s birthday all over two days, and basically did the same menu twice. Cutting lamb legs off the bone and butterflying them was hard work, but so worth it for the tasty bones left behind! I also found half a bag of raw prawns in the freezer – one of my stock items for the freezer.

The meal that resulted with these two basics was absolutely divine, and completely unplanned. I give you a vague recipe below, but the point of this kind of meal is that quantities and exact ingredients should be flexible.

Warm Lamb and Prawn Salad with Fresh Flowers and Herbs

Roast one lamb leg bone for about half an hour with olive oil, salt and pepper (both freshly milled), chunks of onion, fresh chillis and herbs – use them from the garden if you have them. I used rosemary, sage, marjoram, mint and lemon balm. Meanwhile cook some carrots and fresh sweetcorn (cut off the cob) in a pan with a small amount of water and butter. You could of course roast these with the lamb. Cook some puy lentils until just soft. Cook a handful of prawns in a pan in some olive oil.

When the lamb is cooked, cut it off the bone, and mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl. Toss with more olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, plus plenty more pepper. Mix in some chopped olives and, if you have them, a few snipped anchovies. For the fun bit, toss in a few edible flowers. Obviously you need to be sure that your flowers are edible and have not been sprayed. I used rose petals and nasturtiums. Day lilies are also edible and suitable. If you have some spinach or salad leaves, these would be great tossed in too.

This is the kind of salad which needs to be eaten warm and fresh. If you have to chill it to keep it fresh, it just will not taste as good! I would serve this in smaller portions as a first course, although it worked very well as a last supper at Vine Cottage! I am so pleased with this recipe that I want to share it with the world. See the picture below for how it looked on the night! Oh, and this recipe is meant to be flexible. If you want to give it a go and don’t have a lamb bone, you could try some lamb neck fillet instead. Or it would be great with pork too.

Image may contain: flower, plant, food and indoor

 

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Muy Hecho (well done!), or The Perils of trying to relearn Spanish in middle-age….

I passed ‘O’ Level Spanish at school, and then never visited Spain, so really lost it all. In recent years Paul and I have been visiting Spain on a regular basis, and keep trying to learn the language. It is just so difficult to remember anything. French was so easy to learn when I was at school, and I then did my degree and visited France a lot as a child and teenager. My brain is just not as fresh as it used to be.

We are both fine with restaurant menus and the basics of saying hello, good morning, good-bye and so on. Well, the menus are fine if they are in Castillian, rather than Basque, Catalan or Galician! Names for meat and fish varieties are always an interesting challenge in foreign languages. Yesterday we were having a set menu lunch in Bermeo, and I  took out our Eyewitness Guide to Northern Spain to check the useful glossary of words provided. There is a survival guide for eating in a restaurant, and I quickly scanned it for useful words. The last word in the list was ‘Muy hecho’ which translates as ‘well done.’ I said to Paul “that’s a bit patronising isn’t it?! To say well done to the waitress for bringing your meal to the table!” He thought I was trying to be funny, which of course I was not! However, I then noticed that the words above ‘muy hecho’ were ‘poco hecho’ and ‘medio hecho’ which of course mean ‘rare’ and ‘medium.’ So ‘muy hecho’ was the word I would not use for ordering my steak! (as I prefer mine poco hecho!)

Anyone who knows me well will be familiar with my ability to laugh at my own jokes and idiocies and the accompanying fit of the giggles which can last for quite a long time after the joke has passed! I have even been known to wake up in the night laughing at a joke I made hours beforehand!

You can be sure that ‘muy hecho’ is our new family phrase when you just need to say to someone ‘well done you!’