Beautiful vegetables in Eataly in New YorkWhy is this pudding so huge with too much cream?!
This is a belated piece about our food whilst on holiday in New York and Florida in April. We love to eat good food all the time and I was looking forward to America because, like the UK, it is very multi-cultural and has such a diverse range of restaurants. My daughter Jess is also quite conservative in her food tastes but embraces American culture, so it seemed that it would be an easy place to find food to her tastes too. This was my first trip to America and Jessica’s too. Paul has been many times before, although not for a long time. I have known him for 22 years and he has not been to the USA since I have known him!
Some of my pre-conceived ideas about eating out in America and were they confirmed as being true or not?
I try not to be closed minded and have lots of pre-conceptions about places and people. However, with American culture being so widely known and shown on our TV and film screens, it was difficult not to have a few expectations. Actually, I did not have that many ideas about what to expect, but I had heard that eating out can be relatively cheap and that it is quite common to dine out a lot. My other expectation was that in restaurants the portions would be large. I have a very healthy appetite and can pile up my plate, but some of the meals defeated me! Hence the caption on the photo above of a pudding I had one day. For this reason we very rarely indulged in a pudding. In New York we ate out all the time; we had two nights there on our outward journey and three nights on our way back. Our apartments were not big enough for catering comfortably and we really wanted to see the big city in all its glory, so sitting in a cramped apartment was not an option we went for! We also like to have 3 meals a day, so sometimes I was frustrated with the breakfast being so huge and being mindful that I would need space for lunch! On our first morning in New York we had bagels – sadly I did not take any photos. They were excellent; mine was the traditional smoked salmon and cream cheese and I had fresh orange juice and fresh coffee to drink. Eating out in America is fun, noisy and vibrant and it is true that a lot of people partake of the pleasure. In terms of the cost, I’d say that New York was really quite pricey and comparable to London, whereas Florida was much more reasonable and as I was expecting American prices to be.
Below you can see some pictures of a breakfast we had en route one day in Florida:
Because of the huge portions, I was particularly looking forward to reaching our holiday home in Florida and being able to cook our own meals. Some might say, why would you go on holiday and cook your own food?! I even invited my dear old friend Gillian round for lunch on Easter Sunday; she has lived in Florida for over 30 years and was the reason for our visit. Well I just love to cook and really it does not matter where in the world I am; I want to go to the shops and go back and cook in a different kitchen. In this case the kitchen was large and well equipped; this made a lovely change from some of the villas we have rented in European countries, which often have rather small and uninspiring kitchens.
However, there are sometimes unexpected items missing or not working even in a big kitchen. The filter coffee maker did not work, so our host sent a replacement very promptly for us. The ice function in the fridge stopped working on Easter Sunday, which was not good news! Also, I could not find a proper can opener. Hence my attempt to open a can with a bottle opener. Result below, with no injuries at all!
Pre-dinner nibbles at Gillian’s fabulous Florida home
Here are some of the meals I cooked in our lovely Florida kitchen:
Roast Pork for Easter SundayA melange of left-over pork, beans and tomatoes with some spice and topped with asparagusFree-form pizza made with a flour tortilla and some chilli mince cooked up by JessFree-form chocolate cheesecake topped with fresh fruit, for Easter Sunday
We did have some wonderfully memorable meals in Florida in particular, where the fruit and vegetables were fresh and tasty and there was plenty of fish. We also tried alligator a couple of times. I had hoped to have it unadorned and looking like an alligator, but it was served in batter or in a macaroni cheese. The latter was for a late lunch after a long afternoon swimming with the manatees – more about that in another blog piece.
Alligator Macaroni Cheese
We spent two nights away in the middle of our Florida break, travelling through the Everglades and finally arriving at Key West. Paul and Jessica did so much driving and I did my usual job of assisting or interpreting what the sat nav was trying to tell us!
We particularly enjoyed Key West, because it is a little bit different in terms of American suburbia. You get used to driving along main roads and passing shopping centres and restaurants without that town or city centre experience. It is true that it would be very difficult to walk anywhere in most locations, and those people you do see walking seem to be an oddity and it does not look very safe! Key West is more of a proper town with streets and shops. You can park your car and then stroll the streets to find somewhere to eat. Curiously though, most of the buildings are of a clapboard design so many of them look the same. We had a bit of difficulty finding the post office. Our main reason for visiting, apart from the wonderful coast (I have to swim everywhere we go!) was to see Ernest Hemingway’s House with the many 6-toed cats. More about this another time, but we had the most wonderful lunch at the Moon Dog Restaurant; it used to be called the 6 Toed Cat, but for some reason was renamed. I had the most divine steak salad, just cooked rare and to perfection.
Steak SaladStunning Artwork on the walls at the Moon DogAnother view of the Moon Dog
On some occasions we got round the huge portion dilemma by sharing a meal. This is really ideal with a pizza, and to be honest we sometimes do this in the UK anyway. At home I make one big pizza and cut it into portions; we would never have a whole pizza each, although my toppings tend to be more substantial than those you get in a restaurant.
Sharing Pizza
The fish in Florida was superb. Common varieties were grouper and mahi mahi. The latter is also known as dolphin fish, but don’t panic! It is not anything to do with dolphins as we know them. One restaurant we ate in offered a couple of different fish with a selection of sauces and side dishes. A lovely, simple way of offering choice to customers.
On our way back home, having had a rather hot and tiring journey, we ate in one of the airport restaurants at JFK airport; much nicer than sitting around in crowds waiting for the flight. On this occasion, even Jessica was a little defeated by the large ice-cream sundae.
In conclusion I would say that the food in America was enjoyable and rarely disappointed us. If you are not like me and can cope with fewer than 3 meals a day when you need to have every meal in a restaurant, then that is definitely a wise option to take on occasions.
This year we are holidaying in West Wales. In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic this seemed like the safest and most sensible option. We’d love to travel abroad again, in particular to visit our dear friend Liz in France, and also to catch up on that Florida/New York holiday that never happened in 2020! However, staying in the UK seemed to be a wise decision this year, and it also gives us the opportunity to catch up with Charlie and Aimee (Paul’s son and daughter-in-law) whose marriage we were lucky enough to attend last August. They live in South Wales, so visits on the way to Carmarthen and on the way back have been worked into the holiday plans.
I booked our cottage through https://www.walescottageholidays.co.uk/ and picked a small, remote cottage in Llangain. There is one other letting property which is also being let at present, and our hosts live here too. This is great, as makes arrival, departure and asking questions so much easier. Readers of my blog will know that I always seem to need to ask how things work or to ask for extra supplies of household items. In Sardinia this turned out to be a bitter experience, not to be repeated! Writing my blog in Sardinia, I discovered the usefulness of an ironing board being supplied. No, I don’t do much ironing, but when you need an extra table for your laptop it is ideal! Actually this cottage has a lovely dining table, and Paul is using this as his base for business and e-mails (yes he does work on holiday but we spend much time travelling and having fun too!) Because we like to eat at an uncluttered table, I decided to bring the ironing board into play, simply because it would save constantly having to shift my laptop at mealtimes. Also I was hoping to sit in the glorious entrance area of the cottage with a big picture window for admiring the views of the hills and estuary. See the picture below:
Below you can see the outside of the cottage just by the picture window:
In fact I had to abandon the idea of blogging in the entrance area, as the wifi signal there is just not quite strong enough and keeps dropping. No matter, it all works fine in the main reception room and I can still admire the views from my seat!
To me it is perfectly normal to set up my writing station on an ironing board, but to others it may seem a little eccentric. Sharon (our host) came round to see if all was well and thought it was very amusing how I was making use of the facilities. She offered to find an alternative table for me, but in fact thought that, on reflection, my set-up was ideal! Maybe it could be added to the cottage property details as a useful extra!
So here I am once again writing my ironing board blog. I wonder if I might start a new trend. Some of my friends in my facebook group Archers Chit-Chat, say that they never do any ironing, so here is a use for redundant ironing boards! The additional perk is that you can always revert to using it for its intended purpose. Also the fact that it has adjustable height settings must surely be a huge advantage. I would normally stand to iron my clothes (there are some which just have to be ironed before wearing! But you won’t catch me ironing the bedding!) but for writing a blog, I sit down.
As I generally include some food and cooking news in my posts, I just have to say that Jamie Oliver’s recipe for Tomato soup with grilled mussels is absolutely divine! I cannot find a useful link to the recipe; it is in the Save with Jamie book, which has some great recipes in using ingredients that not everyone would think of as economical. Mussels must be one of the few types of seafood/shellfish that are genuinely cheap to buy. Squid is the only other seafood I can think of in this category. Anyway, I am sure that the recipe is easily findable. After a long afternoon out, visiting Laugharne and Tenby, I cooked this fabulous dish for our dinner. We had bought the mussels in Tesco in the morning and put them straight into the fridge. It was not an early dinner, ready at about 8:45pm, but luckily on holiday we feel a bit more relaxed about late eating. Here are some pictures for you to drool over, if you like mussels!
I like to support local bookshops, so the link above is to my section of https://uk.bookshop.org/ and you will see there the details of the Save with Jamie book!
You know how they say you grow to look like your spouse? Well, I do not look much like Paul, apart from the fact that we are both very fair-skinned. He is slim and does not have much hair; I am not slim and have lots of hair! However, in terms of our taste in food we embrace many of the same likes and dislikes. Even when I met him, we both expressed a preference for fresh, black coffee; we both like breakfast tea in the morning and earl grey in the afternoon (the only difference being that I like my tea with a ridiculously small amount of milk in). He had to come to like my way of eating, as otherwise he’d have to offer to help in the kitchen. It is good that he is happy to let me get on with it, as I am very particular about how I cook food, and also love to have Radio 4 on most of the time whilst preparing meals. Naturally there are a few types of food that I do not like – mainly dried vine fruit,glace cherries, candied peel, pickled onions and green peppers. Paul is not keen on squashes, although I can get away with them in soup.
One issue that we agree on is that raw onion is vile, an abomination! Onions have to be cooked until they are sweet and melting. I never put raw onion in a salad (not even a little bit finely chopped my mother would ask?!) and am amazed at how popular it is both in recipes and in restaurants. Luckily Paul dislikes them as much as I do, and it is the only time that I come across as Mrs Picky; I will happily sit in a restaurant fishing pieces of the devillish food out of my salad. The pile that you see in the photograph above grew to about 6 times that size by the end of our activity! It is one reason why I really prefer to make my own salad. Having said that, the salads in Croatia have been really good and imaginative; there are options for just having salad for lunch, whereas in some restaurants in Spain and Italy I have come across, you would feel rather hungry just eating salad.
Anyway, enough of this negativity! Our holiday apartment is really beautiful and well-equipped, but I had not taken in that the cooking facilities would be quite basic; my own fault really for not checking more thoroughly beforehand. We have two electric rings, a kettle and a microwave. There is also a barbecue outside, which anyone in the 3 letting apartments is free to use. Our host family also uses it I believe. It seeems to work out fine. We have in fact only used it once so far, as the weather has been too hot for cooking outside even in the evening. Happily the temperature dropped from the mid 90s to the mid 80s a few days ago! The barbecue is built in with a chimney, and the fuel provided is paper and olive wood – both kindling and logs. I managed to get a roaring fire going and cook some chicken thighs (marinated in honey, mustard, olive oil and rosemary) and squid – marinated in chilli, rosemary and olive oil. I did cheat with the squid and just plonk a frying pan on the barbecue. See the pictures below of our small scale barbecue:
Cooking chicken, squid and a whole red peppper on the barbecue
Roaring barbecue burning local olive wood
To go back to the subject of salads, I love them in all shapes and forms, whether they be for a side dish or a light lunch. I am rather sceptical of people who say that they do not like salad. There are so many thousands of variations and recipes that I really doubt that anyone could dislike every single one. My own daughter is not a salad lover, but I can devise a salad that she will eat – it is just a question of picking ingredients that she likes, and steering clear of raw salad leaves, tomatoes and cucumber! I have made various salads in our apartment including the Italian bread salad in the picture above. I have actually made it slightly Greek too, by adding some chunks of feta. The salad is otherwise a simple mixture of stale bread broken into chunks and sauteed in olive oil (you could bake it if you have an oven!), fresh tomatoes in big pieces, rocket and fennel dressed with good olive oil and balsamic vinegar. If you have time to leave it to soak for a bit and for the bread to take up the tomato juices and the dressing, it will taste even better. Whatever you do, don’t put it in the fridge as it will not taste good when chilled! For this reason I always advise making this salad and indeed any salad containing tomatoes, soon before you are going to eat it; you don’t want to risk your salad festering in the warm weather! It is also therefore logical not to make a mountain of salad that you are not going to eat all in one go. Of course you may have to refrigerate the left-overs, or you can do as I sometimes do, and turn left-over salad into summer soup!
Sort of Salad Nicoise
I am quite flexible when it comes to adapting and changing recipes and embrace new flavours. There are lots of different toppings you can add to a pizza, some of them more successful and tasty than others of course. However, a dish that has a name that means something should, I feel, stick more ridgidly to the original recipe. For instance, I have a huge problem with the way that Caesar salad is presented in restaurants, but I’ll leave that for another time… (mainly because I don’t have the equipment for making the dressing in Croatia).
Another salad that I like to keep traditional is a nicoise. I think that the basic recipe should be along the lines of: new potatoes, green beans, lettuce. boiled eggs, tomatoes, olives, canned tuna and anchovies. I am not doing a huge amount of research into this, and there may well be slight variations, but for me the above ingredients work well. The above dish of salad is lacking in green beans. Should it traditionally have onions in it?! I have no idea, but it goes without saying that I’d leave them out anyway!
Other dishes that I have made in our apartment have been blackberry spoom (a great recipe I found in the Waitrose magazine for the month of August). It is a sorbet with added beaten egg whites. I used that for making some ice-cream sundaes, by layering the sorbet with bought vanilla ice-cream (too difficult to get the ingredients for that and I could also have done with a whisk!), fresh strawberries and blackberry liquer. See the picture below:
Ice-cream sundaes, but not in sundae bowls!
For lunch today I made a Spanish omelette and some Italian bread soup – another great way of using stale bread. I cooked fresh tomatoes, red onion, fennel, canned tomatoes, dijon mustard, fresh basil and rosemary and some chunks of stale bread. I added some water by filling up the tomato can a few times. When cooked I bashed it about in the pan with whatever implement I could find in the drawer. I served it warm, as there was no room in the fridge to chill soup. I think that warm soup is really pleasant on a summer’s day. The trick with limited cooking facilities is not to get carried away, and only aim to cook two different dishes for a meal. I am not used to using a microwave, but I have used it for cooking apricots and plums quite successfully. I have also heated up Paul’s morning pastries in it, although not entirely successfully. I did try heating them in a frying pan, but that seemed to be a rather slow process!
Hunting for my make-up and jewellery bags Why does my dressing gown have the wrong cord on it? All these cables, yet not the one I am looking for!
I love our long jaunts through Europe. Once you have crossed the English Channel, the world is your oyster, or your lobster as Paul always says. I am very lucky to be married to a man who does not mind driving me everywhere, frequently round the bend! There are very bendy, mountain roads on many of our routes! He even puts up with my rubbish navigating and we always end up in our hotel or apartment in time for dinner!
One disadvantage for me of living out of a suitcase for a few days, is the possibility of losing essential items, and muddling up my clean and dirty clothes! Paul never muddles his up – he has a system! It is often not until we get to our longer self-catering stop (anything from a week up to 3 weeks) that I finally establish whether or not items are lost, left in hotel rooms, dropped out of the car in a manic attempt to find something or were left behind in the UK!
So far this holiday I have managed to lose:
My laptop charger
Half a night’s sleep worrying about the laptop charger and wondering if I can get a new one delivered to our apartment in Croatia
My phone charger
My dressing gown cord
My beach wrap
My make-up bag
My jewellery bag
Filters for the aeropress
My credit card
About 30 euros
My glasses (actually not true – I just forgot to pack them!)
Portable chargers for the mobile phones as we have no USB connection in the car
A quick update:
Everything turned up apart from the beach wrap (left at home), filters (no idea! I do remember packing them so maybe they will turn up in the car in six month’s time!), the dressing gown cord (just spotted by Paul’s mother in her washing machine!), the credit card and the euros – my purse was either lost or stolen in Strasbourg, but thankfully it is less hassle losing a credit card than a ‘phone!
The chargers turned up but were worse than useless! Paul gets a selection of them free from conferences, so maybe we need to buy some better ones! The problem with not being able to charge the phones in the car is that we have long days of driving and inevitably the ‘phones don’t keep their charge that well. So it is touch and go whether or not we’ll manage to find our hotel/apartment at the end of the day!
Once we arrived in Kastel Novi (or Newcastle as we call it) I found another way of losing things, underwear and other items of clothing. We had a lot of washing to do when we arrived, and there is a washing line on the side of our first floor apartment, which you access from the balcony in the second bedroom. It is quite easy to lose knickers and other essential items with a little casual flick of the wrist in the wrong direction! Fortunately my knickers launched themselves into our hosts’ garden rather than onto the awning. However, Kathrin assures me that they have a broom reserved for exactly these situations! See the pictures below of the scene of devastion on our first morning:
Washing line with missing knickers….Phew! The knickers landed safely!
What is the most interesting item you have ever lost on holiday?
After last year’s very enjoyable tour of the Scottish outer Hebrides and my failure to enjoy a swim in the sea, we decided to head to sunnier climes this year. However, before heading to France for the start of our main holiday, we spent a few days in Brighton and Hove, keeping Paul’s mother company whilst his sister and brother-in-law took a well-earned break. I shall write this blog piece as a diary with entries every few days and post updates and photos regularly.
29th July – 1st August
Sadly for my readers, you don’t get to see a photo of me going for a swim in the sea at Hove on a sunnier day. I did go swimming in the sea twice, as Monday and Thursday were really beautifully sunny days. As I went swimming on my own, I took no valuables with me; Paul’s mother lives 10 minutes walk from the beach, so this is not an issue. Also, I don’t take selfies as they are so unflattering! So photos of me are always taken by other people. Paul was born in Brighton, but I am the fish in the family and really should have been the sea-born one in our relationship. He will not swim in the sea until the air temperature reaches at least 90 degrees.
The photo above is therefore from the Tuesday when I went into Brighton on the bus to do some shopping. I also wanted to have lunch looking at the sea; it was quite a blustery day, so sitting in the Palm Court restaurant watching the lashing waves was a sheer delight. I am so pleased that the powers that be acknowledged that local people refer to the Pier as the Palace Pier, not Brighton Pier. I suppose that Brighton Palace Pier is a bit of a compromise. The West Pier which is now no longer, has a beauty of its own. See the picture below:
Is that a boy or a buoy floating out there?
I just love Brighton, which is so vibrant and much more exciting than my own home town, Maidenhead, but being surrounded by family and friends as we are in Maidenhead counts for a lot. Whenever I go there, or indeed to any seaside town, I wonder why I don’t just make the decision to live by the sea! It is ever changing and is as appealing in stormy weather as in bright, sunny weather. For me though the best bit is immersing my body in the briny stuff. Brighton also has the best shops and restaurants too, so really it has it all!
Other activities undertaken whilst we were in Hove and Brighton included rescuing Jean’s milk from her failing fridge. Paul had already discovered on his visit the previous week that the fridge was not functioning properly, and had had to throw away some milk. Because of health issues, Jean eats very little, so there was not much food in the fridge, but of course we needed to have meals whilst we were there. I suggested that we should buy a mini fridge as a temporary solution until she could sort out a more permanent resolution to the problem of a fridge that was not cold enough. When I chose the fridge in Argos, I had not appreciated quite how small it would be! It will come in handy for future holidays, as it can also operate from the car battery. Anyway, I managed to cram some bacon and a pack of sausages in there, as well as some yoghurt and the essential milk. I am beginning to think I have bad vibes which cause electrical appliances to fail. Only a few weeks ago we had to replace our own, large fridge, as I managed to pull the door off one day and we decided it was not worth trying to get it repaired. Usually our dishwasher and washing machine need replacing with quite short intervals between the two.
We played a few rounds of Rummikub at the table one evening. Jean really enjoys board games. I love games, and luckily I am not of a competitive nature, as I usually lose the game.
On Wednesday Paul’s sister and brother-in-law returned from their holiday in Spain, so we met up for a coffee on Thursday morning and we went round to their house for an early dinner before heading for Newhaven for our late night crossing to Dieppe.
Friday 2nd – Sunday 4th August: Dieppe, Nancy and Strasbourg
Grand Hotel de la Reine, Nancy
We took the over-night ferry to Dieppe. We have used this ferry once before; it leaves Newhaven at 11:00pm and arrives at Newhaven at about 5:00am! We always take cabins on over-night ferries, but you do have to be a bit organised with this one. We like to have breakfast when we arrive in France, and it is just not possible to find anything at that time in the morning. Apart from anything, Paul has to get behind the wheel right away and drive, so some caffeine is really needed. This time we were prepared, and I packed up some croissants, a wrap and some fruit. Then I got up in time to dispense hot coffee into our insulated mugs. All in all the experience was a lot better than last time with a bit of pre-planning.
Paul had decided that after a short night’s sleep, we deserved a night of luxury, so he booked us into the Grand Hotel de la Reine in Nancy. That was quite a drive, and as usual my navigating skills were tested to the limit. We have settled on a routine with the navigating, which is to use road atlases most of the time, and resort to google maps on the phone when trying to find streets in a city, or trying to find the right road to get out of a city! This year I bought some new road atlases. We have one for France already, but I added to our collection: Germany (including Benelux, Austria, Switzerland and Czechia), Italy and Croatia (including Slovenia, Bosnia and Hercegovina). Bad as I am at navigating at times, I do love following the route on the atlas and occasionally making the right decisions about which road to take. I write down Paul’s suggested route in a notebook.
Anyway, I diverge. Back to the Nancy experience! The hotel is in the very grand Place Stanislas, with so many grand buildings (all from the 18th century) and with many golden gates. Our room was very luxurious and pleasant, although we did not have a view over the Place. We ate in the hotel restaurant, which was superb, although I could have done with some potatoes to go with my excellent beef fillet. Plenty of vegetables though, so full marks there!
Our hotel room
Should I offer to provide some translation services to the hotel? Place Stanislas in Nancy by nightSarah enjoying her beef fillet
It is wonderful having the opportunity to explore so many beautiful cities whilst we are on holiday. I often think that I have visited more noticeable cities in southern Europe than I have in the UK. We enjoyed looking round Nancy the following morning and paid a visit to the Musee des Beax Arts, which is one of the other grand buildings in the Place Stanislas. After lunch we continued on our road journey, heading for Strasbourg. This is of course on the border with Germany and is very Swiss and German in character. There are many wooden houses and buildings reminiscent of the Swiss alps. It was nice to have a little more time to be able to speak the native language; French is the only language I have ever manged to learn competently and retain. We stayed in a completely different style of accommodation in Strasbourg, and not as close to the city centre. However I would highly recommend the City Residence Strasbourg Centre if ever you visit the city. It was more of a hostel for backpackers, but so clean, spacious and well-equipped. In fact the shower was more modern and worked better than the one in the grand hotel in Nancy! Breakfast was included and was more than adequate. We only had a fifteen minute walk into the city.
Strasbourg CentreA walk along by the river
We had dinner in Strasbourg, then a good long time to look round the following day with stops for coffee, lunch and ice-cream. One minor incident in Strasbourg, which was silly and possibly unavoidable, was losing or having my purse stolen. I realised over lunch – of very delicious Tarte Flambe ( a local speciality) that it was missing. After lunch we rushed back to the cafe where we had drunk our morning coffee, but all to no avail. Luckily I had made the sensible decsion of carrying a minimal holiday purse containing just euros and one credit card. We actually had a reasonable number of euros, as we travel a lot so just save them from the previous holiday. So although it was frustrating losing about 30 euros, it was not a disaster. Paul dealt with the online cancelling of my credit card whilst standing by a fountain on the way back to the car. Oh the wonders of modern technology! You may be surprised to learn that since then he has entrusted me with his credit card, the other one linked to the same account….
Next stop, Friedrichshafen!
Sunday 4th to Tuesday 6th August: Friedrichshafen
The lake at Friedrichshafen with Switzerland in view
I am a water lover and love the sea best of all. I cannot imagine what it would be like to live in a land-locked country; there are of course many in Europe, including Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg. Andorra, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Vatican City. I have been to Luxembourg, Andorra, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is highly possible that I have been to the Vatican City, having visited Rome as a very young child, but I’d have to check that with my mother!
Germany of course is not land-locked but it does not have much coastline. The beauty of Switzerland and of parts of Germany is the staggeringly beautiful lakes and mountains. Swiss people must treat their lakes as their places for watery leisure. Paul booked us into a guest house in Friedrichshafen in Germany for two nights. This is a beautiful town with the lake as the focal point; you can look at the other side of the lake and see Switzerland. Although we do take long holidays, we make a point of not staying long in expensive countries, so we enjoy the scenery of Switzerland without stopping there. For this same reason, we have not yet explored Northern Europe. In the future we hope to explore Norway, Finland and Sweden, but this can wait!
Our Guest House in Friendrichshafen
We had a very pleasant two day stay in this German lake-side village. I spent an afternoon swimming in the lake and walking along the beach. It really was like a beach, with lots of water sports and opportunities to hire boats and other equipment. Our guest house was very pleasant, but quite basic. Although the room was spacious, I felt that the owner was somehow missing a trick. We had a lovely balcony, but there were absolutely no facilities, such as kettle or a fridge. We really wanted to have breakfast on the balcony, but of course this involved going to the shop, having coffee dispensed into our insulated cups, and purchasing fruit and pastries to take back. Luckily there were a few good, small shops nearby, so this was feasible.
Dinner at Buchhorner Stuben by the lake in Friedrichshafen
We had two excellent meals in Germany. The first one was at a simple Italian restaurant close to our guest house. This might sound unadventurous, but it was getting late by the time we arrived and we needed a quick fix and for Paul not to have to drive much further. The second night I researched lake-side restaurants and made a booking online. Usually we don’t book restaurants on holiday, but the town is quite stretched out and I was really keen to find a location with good views of the lake.
As my daughter Jess has not joined us on our jolly jaunts this summer, choosing instead a jaunt with her cousins to Scotland, I have been having a little joke with her, seeing how many flamingos and cats I can spot and photograph for her. Flamingos we love, and we held a flamingo-themed 80th birthday party for my mother last year. Cats are just because we are a cat-loving family, and love seeing all the semi-wild cats in europe. Here are some flamingos I spotted in Friedrichshafen:
Next stop: Merano!
Tuesday 6th to Saturday 10th August: Italy (Merano, Udine and Trieste) with brief stops in Switzerland and Liechtenstein
Udine centre The view from our apartment in Trieste showing the fabulous ‘Eataly’ shop Driving through the mountains in Switzerland
Our lovely hotel pool in Merano
Before leaving Friedrichshafen, we purchased some excellent sandwiches, fruit and drinks from the excellent shop there. Paul had planned that we would be in Switzerland for lunch but did not want to pay for lunch out! This might sound crazy and stingy, considering how far we have travelled and how many meals out we’ll be purchasing. However, Switzerland is notoriously expensive, and it is on the list to visit when we are even richer! It also seemed like a novel, fun idea to take sandwiches to Switzerland. In addition, the mountains are fabulously breathtaking. However, I am ahead of myself here. Paul is trying to help me to visit a few more countries, as I am not very well travelled. We both filled in one of those ‘how many cities and countries have you visited on this list?’ games on facebook recently. Of course he scored about 60 and I scored about 30; I cannot remember how many destinations there were altogether. We worked out that the only way I can catch up with him is if from now on we only go to places he has already been to before! Anyway, we can both now add Liechtenstein to the list (not sure it was even one of the options on the facebook game!) Before you exclaim that this was a rather expensive stop, I hasten to add that we only paid for parking and two cups of excellent coffee.
We had a beautiful drive through the Swiss mountains, and enjoyed the German sandwiches immensely. We also managed to find some statues and landmarks commemorating ‘Heidi’ from the book by Joanna Spyri and the sequels by Charles Tritten. They were books I really enjoyed reading as a child.
Paul enjoying his German sandwich in Switzerland Sarah sitting by the Heidi statue Paul about to fall off the mountain
Being musical theatre enthusiasts, we planned to drive into Merano playing the relevant soundtrack from the musical ‘Chess’ so I made sure that we had the CD in place ready to play and sing along to. Our hotel in Merano was beautiful, a boutique-style hotel with excellent customer service and a very friendly German host. She welcomed us most warmly, advised on places to eat and assured me that I’d be able to use the outdoor pool before we set off on our travels the next day.
We drove into Merano and had a very simple dinner of pasta. It was actually pouring with rain, so we did not get much of a chance to explore the city centre. We did peer into the Therme hotel, which is modern and quite splendid. Through the windows you could see the amazing set up of the various pools and thermal treatment rooms.
This is all I have time to write at the moment, but watch soon for the update to include the rest of this section of our journey….
We spent 2 nights at a fabulous apartment in Trieste. The view from our window is in one of the pictures above. See below for a couple of pictures of the interior of our apartment:
This was one of those situations where we nearly came to grief trying to find our apartment. This time it was not just because of my inadequate map reading. We stayed in a number of hotels/apartments this holiday which were not obvious from the outside in terms of similarity to the picture included with the property details; this letter had included a photo of the seafront. There was no number or name on the building. In the end we had to find a space in the car park and then do some further investigating. Anyway, it was worth it in the end!
Once more I shall say, and I could bore for England on this subject, that not all people in the holiday letting business want to rip off August holiday-makers. We stayed in some fabulous places, some quite quirky. probably at an average of £100 a night, but some costing only £40 or £50 a night. Of course, with an apartment, you have the option of self-catering, so you can save on restuarant bills too. I decided to cook in the Trieste apartment, because we had eaten out for many nights, and it is relaxing just having a meal ‘at home.’ In addition, we had this wonderful shop just across the road called ‘Eataly.’ Having a wander round, your immediate impression would be that the prices would be high, but it really was very reasonable. Here is one of the meals that I cooked in the apartment, a simple dish of pasta with seafood:
We also bought delicious ciabatta sandwiches from Eataly, for a picnic by the sea, and for our onward journey when we left the apartment.
The only feature of the apartment I would fault was the design of the bedroom. For a start it had beautiful beams; yes very attractive, but hazardous for bumping your head on, which Paul did a couple of times! However, he might not have bumped his head quite as much had we not switched to sleeping at the ‘wrong’ end of the bed. I have a habit of getting up in the middle of the night at least four times to go to the loo. I also have to sleep on the right hand side of the bed, as I like to lie on my side but I cannot lie on my right side! Why not? I don’t know; maybe it is something weird in my genetic make-up but it is so uncomfortable that I just cannot do it. The other feature of the bedroom, as you can see from the picture, is that you can only get out of the bed from one side, without climbing over your partner. Hence we had to switch the pillows to the other end, and hence the low beam being particularly hazardous – I actually took the photo before we changed the bed round!
Whilst staying in Trieste we visited a castle by the sea and had the most beautiful walk. Because of the difficulty of parking the car in the high season, we had to park closer to the castle and pay for the parking; at this end of the beach swimming was not allowed, as it was a protected area. I had to ressit immersing myself in the water, and just gaze at its beauty. See the pictures below from our walk.
After our short stay in Trieste, we headed off on our exciting journey to Croatia. This was quite a challenging day, and we kept crossing borders and wondering what documents we might be asked for! Having been stopped in Switzerland a few days before and asked to show passports, driving licence and log book for the car, we were somewhat apprehensive. Paul had forgotten to pack the log book. ‘Well, how do we know you haven’t stolen this car?” demanded the Swiss police! What I was thinking, but did not actually voice out loud, was that car thieves very rarely bother to steal or pack a collection of dirty clothes, board games and a large collection of chocolate bars – the chocolate was even Lindt bars! Anyway, they let us go, but told us that in Switzerland it is the law to have the car lights on all the time.
To get to Croatia, we had to cross into Slovenia first, which meant going through border control twice. We had to wait an hour in the queue at border control, and were wondering if they would let us in without the car log book – would they also accuse us of stealing the car? Not that they would see many GB cars on the road, and most officials are initally confused by the right hand drive. I did actually spot one other GB car, which was quite exciting! Anyway, after establishing online with the DVLA that we could not prove Paul’s ownership of the car without writing in (the queue was not that long that this was a feasible option), we did manage to retrieve the insurance documents; the wonders of technology! In the event it was a bit of a let-down. Border control did not even open our passports; luckily they did not ask for any other proof of identity either!
I am going to start a new blog to relate the exploits of the Croatian leg of our holiday…..
Dinner provided by Ainsley on our first evening in El Nidito
Fun in the pool at El Nidito
I first found this villa four years ago when doing my usual internet search for interesting, out of the way properties to let in Europe. The first thing that struck me was the amazingingly good value rental cost; no difference between coming in April or August. However, the properties (there is a larger one called El Nido) are obviously so popular that the couple letting them get repeat business so you really have to plan ahead. So I found another villa in Spain and forgot about El Nidito. Last year soon before we were due to set off for our holiday in Southern France, for some reason I remembered the little villa in Orgiva and made enquiries. Because of the good price, we made a provisional booking for three weeks in August of this year. We have taken to travelling in Europe by land and sea, so the journey is all part of the holiday and we see much more of the country than we would if flying.
Anyway, back to El Nidito. It is in the Alpujarran town of Orgiva, and is the area of Spain made famous by Chris Stewart of ‘Driving over Lemons’ fame. Paul is much more travelled than I am and was enthusiastic at the prospect of visiting this part of Spain again. After travelling across Spain via Cherbourg, St Nazaire and Gijon (our two ferries, more of which I’ll tell you in another piece) we reached Orgiva on Saturday evening. We had left England early on Monday morning. There are three properties next to each other, and Clare and Ainsley live in the largest house and are on hand if guests have any problems or questions. The properties are reached up a steep, rough track just out of the town. It is a ten minute walk into the town with its wide selection of shops, banks and restaurants. If you are as unfit and vulnerable to the heat as I am, you might find the walk back really tough, and not to be attempted between 10:00 and midnight without a bottle of water!
Clare and Ainsley are an English couple who have lived in the area for over 20 years. They are very in tune with the needs of holiday makers, and as well as the usual welcome pack of wine, butter and yoghurt and a well-stocked cupboard with spices, olive oil and vinegar and local eggs from their neighbours’ chickens, we accepted their offer of a starter veg box. Also Ainsley cooked us a two-course dinner to make it a little easier for us arriving on a Saturday evening.
The kitchen cupboards are well stocked and there are plenty of saucepans and bowls as well as useful utensils such as a vegetable peeler, sharp knives and a corkscrew. I was also impressed by the inclusion of kitchen scales and a good lemon squeezer.
The layout of the house is all on one level; a single and double bedroom each with an ensuite, then one kitchen/dining room. Of course most of the living and, for us, dining, takes place outside in the summer and there is a lovely big table outside under a gazebo/awning construction. As the property sleeps only four and there are only three of us, the space is generous. I sometimes find that if properties are for small families or groups, tables can be very small and there are never extra chairs. Not so at El Nidito, which has plenty of dining chairs, and also extra small tables outside so that you can sit in different locations depending on where the sun is shining. The pool is small, but just right for a family of three as we are. Paul keeps saying he will go for a swim if it gets warmer! Jess and I swim several times a day which we consider necessary to our sanity and well-being.
There is a washing machine in the garden, which I use frequenntly. We have found that in smaller holiday properties there is either a dish-washer or washing machine, and I much prefer the latter given the choice. There is also an excellent charcoal barbecue which heats up really efficiently. Personally I can only barbecue later in the evening given the intense heat. Last night I lit it at about 7:45.
The pool is filled up and cleaned every day, which is very pleasant. I am used to spending much time pool cleaning as we have an above-ground one at home.
Finally, the main bedroom has an air-conditioning unit, which is great if you are hot and weary during the day, as you can just sit and be blasted by cool air. It is far too noisy to use during the night, so we leave the doors and window open; there is a bead curtain and mosquito net to deter biting bugs. Happy to say that in this part of Spain there are fewer horrific insects and mosquitoes than for instance in Tuscany, where Paul acquired some truly ghastly bites.Also we could not eat outside in the evening as much there.
We have just over a week left here at El Nidito and can truly say that it was a good choice, whilst being a very economical option for a three-week break in August!
