Pretty much, a combination of dealing with some personal issues and returning to work for the season has meant that, unfortunately, Gastronomic Nomad has taken a breather the last month.
Not any more.
Now I am going to be travelling around Europe for a summer of fun and sun (for my passengers) and work – with the added bonus of fun and sun (for me), I decided to put the best of the best in my new monthly roundup, the Best of Europe.
Actually, I am making it sound like I will be trampling the continent all the way from Portugal to Russia, and Croatia to Norway.
I won’t.
But to say the Best of Western Europe, or the Best of Spain, Portugal, France and Italy just sounds like way too much of a mouthful. So here we go, the Best of Europe for the month of April!
Wherever I go, I manage to find cheese and wine. And how cool is that little cheese chopping board gadget?
BEST CITY
It was my third time here, but I am still loving my favourite European city of the moment. Colourful tile front 18th century buildings with a grimy urban undercurrent, a neighbourhood of cobble stone streets that come alive in the evening with buzzing bars and the wailing lyrics of fado, 1920’s trams with local boys riding on the steps as the trams throw themselves around steep corners, and of course, what good is a riverside city without a polished riverfront scene. This city, of course, it is…
LISBON. I love it.
This time I spent two nights over a weekend there, during which time I managed to dodge a 15,000 person protest, not get lost while winding through the streets of the Alfama district – the old Arab quarter that gives you the feeling of being transported back hundreds of years, and naturally, enjoying the Portuguese food and wine, which is becoming even more appealing to my taste buds each time I visit.
Padrão dos Descobrimentos, AKA the Monument to the Discoveries at Belém, Lisbon
BEST DAY TOUR
This was not a hard decision to make. I go back to Lisbon for this one too, and wave hello to We Hate Tourism Tours. Even the name is cool, but the tour is even cooler!
I went on the X-Day Trip, which is basically the best whirlwind tour of Lisbon’s surrounds that one can find!
It was a long day, filled with different destinations and surprising local treats. My favourite stop of the day was the Quinta da Regaleira, an estate just outside of Sintra with sprawling gardens, wells, watch towers and underground tunnels, and a three story palace with a library in the top that gives you the feeling of floating in the room. But Sintra itself was beautiful too, and the mist surrounding the village early on a Sunday morning made the whole experience slightly surreal.
The view from the top of the Quinta (farmhouse)
Our guides, Johanna and Luisa showed us the sights and gave us a little bit of insight to Lisbon that we would have not learned otherwise, while being full of energy and a bundle of fun.
I can’t wait till next time in Lisbon so I can go on We Hate Tourism Tours dinner and evening tour, aptly named Dinner with us or starve.
I’m not sure if that is supposed to be a threat or a promise, but I can’t have starvation happening so I will be there!
BEST MEAL
Uh…this is a hard one. The last month I have been travelling through Spain, Portugal, France and Italy. How am I supposed to choose one best meal out of four different countries that each have their own distinctive culinary culture?! I am an indecisive person by nature!
After much debate, and umming and aching, I decided the only choice was to revisit Arles, a small riverside city in the south of France.
Le Criquet is a cosy provençal restaurant where the clientele are carefully looked after by two charming young French sisters.
In France you generally always have the choice between ordering a set meal, or from the menu, but the set meals tend to provide you a three course meal at incredible value. At Le Criquet this comes in at 28 euros, who am I to say no?
My personal favourite starter here is the warm goats cheese with artichoke, but this time I mixed it up and went for the aubergine terrine. Served with a piece of olive pate toast, I wasn’t left disappointed. When we are talking about main courses, a provençal cod recipe complete with aioli and sea snails is my standout dish, but as I discovered on this occasion, the sea bass fillet with seasonal, local vegetables doesn’t fare too badly either. And while the crème brûlée here is possibly the best in France, a dessert described to me as a cross between a raspberry tiramisu and a cheesecake had my attention. But the truth is, the menu is small, so what they are doing, they are doing it all well! Just the way I like it.
Le Criquet, 21 Rue Porte de Laure, Arles, France
That’s first course, second course and dessert right there! Food heaven!
BEST FOOD EXPERIENCE
Uhh… this is a real tossup. I am having trouble deciding between a certain wooden plate of tentacle goodness in Santiago de Compostela, or an amazing dinner with a difference in Florence.
I am tossing a coin and the winner is . . . Florence!
Siro has a store in a particularly non touristy spot near Florence’s historic centre. By day is he supplying the locals with their cold cuts and cheese, but by night he is putting his passion into food of the home cooked variety.
Three nights a week he does an aperitivo , the Italians answer to happy hour where you don’t get two for one drinks, but instead have a selection of food with your drinks – in Siro’s case his food is served buffet style. But other nights, if you call him and ask very nicely, he is able to do a private sit down dinner for groups. Although this sounds quite formal in writing, the experience itself is far from that.
It’s the next best thing to having dinner in Siro’s house.
Siro standing out the front of the entrance to the courtyard out the back, with his store next door
Source
From sparkling wine and cheese for the aperitivo, to dipping almond biscuits in the Tuscan sweet wine known as Vin Santo wand topping it all off with homemade digestivo liquors for dessert, every detail has been looked after. Siro works hard in the kitchen, making sure each plate is delivered with a bit of TLC. We eat our way through aperitivo, antipasti, and the primi piatti – first courses of pasta and a local Tuscan dish of tomato, bread, garlic and basil, pappa al pomodoro. And that’s before we have even made it to the meat course, the secondi.
He takes the time to explain to us the history behind some of his dishes, to make sure that we understand exactly what it is we are eating and where it has come from. Now if that is not slow food, I don’t know what is! Our meal is washed down with local Tuscan wine, and we leave with not only a great experience under our belts (literally) but knowing we have helped a friendly local guy just in the process.
I will have to do a full report on Siro’s amazing Tuscan feast, complete with pictures, next time I go to Florence.
I stupidly forgot all my means of taking photos the night I went to Siro’s, but here is a picture of my favourite pizza in Rome to compensate!
MOST RANDOM MOMENT
In Lisbon (again) I was patiently waiting with my group for the tram to ramble our way up to the Alfama district. There were 10 of us in total, and we waited for a good 20 minutes at the tram stop, with trams coming and going, people getting off and getting on, before our tram finally arrived. I had already warned my group that they might have to “behave a little Mediterranean” to get on, and by that I meant sharpen those elbows because otherwise, everyone would just push in front of them.
The trams are only small and I had to be sure that all 10 of us made it on!
Once we are all on the tram, along with the first crowd of people who raced forward to ensure they got a seat, a tall, well dressed man towers over me and starts telling me how he feels. How dare I, as Tour Guide, he tells me, not tell my group to line up and queue. The Porteuge are civilised people, he tell me, and “they” (meaning him and one disgruntled local lady who appears to be nodding in a agreement with everything he says, though most likely because she just felt like getting in on the action) were there before us and in the queue.
Now I am not sure what part of them sitting behind us on the seats, meant that they were in fact in the queue in front of us, especially not since many people arrived and left from the tram stop while we were waiting, but apparently I “should have looked” when I arrived and CHECKED who was there first. While I know Lisbon reasonably well, I wouldn’t call myself a Lisbon EXPERT.
Was there something I had seriously missed about the culture of Lisbon?
Lisbon’s trams rattling around the hilly streets
Source
Luckily, no, I hadn’t.
Little did tall, dark, and not very handsome know, we had a secret undercover agent in our group. Well, not really. Just one of my lovely passengers who happened to be fluent in German. She told us afterwards while we were waiting she overheard a conversation going on between this man and another person while we were waiting at the tram stop.
The other person was asking this man (in German) why he speaks such good Portuguese. He said he visits often for work. So a German, trying to instil his German views of queuing and order on people, while visiting Lisbon and masquerading as a local? Now I’ve seen it all!
The following day when we told our lovely We Hate Tourism Tour guides (two lovely girls, Lisbon born and bred) they laughed. Their response? Nobody queues in Lisbon!
Thanks to my lovely passengers, the Morleys, for this photo they discreetly snapped of the “offending German”… purely for comedy value!
WORST MOMENT
Well, with all these BEST moments, there has to be a worst – after all, travel isn’t always sunshine and rainbows as it is often made out to be. While I didn’t have any major disasters occur in the last month, it generally hasn’t been the best for me, so as a result this section is more of a personal thing rather than something that happened to me thanks to travelling.
Though, that was a pretty freaky moment. Am I going to fall down the sides of this room? Photo credit to the Morleys, once again!
I have been on and off sick, including being violently ill in Seville after drinking something with artificial sweetener in it (to which I am allergic) but finally, on the 18th of April, I found out part of the reason I have been so unwell. I have a severe intolerance to…wait for it…Octopus. And not just octopus. But every single critter belonging to that damn family.
I know, to the ordinary person it might not seem so bad, but to me this is a fate almost worse than death. Lucky for me I have my super duper nutritional therapist friend on the case via email, and we are pretty sure this is related to other health problems rather than the octopus itself, so hopefully I will be reunited with my favourite tentacle bearing friends soon. But sitting in that doctor’s surgery, with the 15 page report from the blood test report in front of me, I felt like someone was trying to beat every last little bit of life out of me. Okay, slightly dramatic.
But that moment was definitely the lowest of lows in April.
Farewell my friend, the octopus (luckily, dear wine, you are allowed to stay!)
NOTABLE MENTION
I needed a section for funny things which didn’t quite fit in to one of the categories above, so here it is.
A couple of weeks ago, a passenger on my tour had the unfortunate incident of being robbed in Arles, in the south of France. Even the locals were surprised. Anyone that knows Arles would know that this snatch and grab sort of incident is very out of character for this sleepy town. But it happened.
Fast forward three hours later and we are sitting in the Police station. My French is bad, at best, and the Police officer filing out our report didn’t speak a work of English. “Sprechen Sie deutsch?” No, I don’t speak German. “Parlez-vous italiano, español?” No, she tells me. So between five languages we still can’t find a common language.
To the phrase book we go!
It turns out that Police in Provence are well equipped for us annoying foreigners who don’t speak French. The Police lady whips out a book, divided into chapters which outline almost any kind of incident us foreigners could have found our self in while visiting in the region. With her tongue poking out the side of her mouth in concentration, she flicks through until her eyes widen and she looks satisfied. Obviously, she has found the chapter she was looking for!
With the book down on the table, she looks down at the page, the back to us, and back down to the page, “You have been….” and the rest of the sentence trails off into something I cannot recognise as any language. I ask if I can have a look at the page, and in front of me I see the statement that the Police offer is trying to mumble out in English. I repeat what I read in front of me.
“You have been a victim of crime”.
Talk about starting with the basic. Tell me something I don’t know! So it was pretty funny, but now it doesn’t sound as funny in writing. Perhaps you had to be there…
That’s me enjoying the best gelato to be found outside of Italy in Caisais, Portugal. I am not sure that I looked that happy when I was trying to bumble through in French at the Police Station in Arles!
And last, but not least…MOST POPULAR INSTAGRAM PHOTO
Like it says on the tin… this photo got 25 likes (I don’t have that many followers, so what?). It was taken in Carcassonne as I was walking over the Pont Vieux towards the modern city of Carcassonne. The bridge is over 400 years old, and used to the be only connection between the medieval city La Cite and the modern city of Carcassonne. Now, in an effect to preserve the heritage of the bridge, it has been made pedestrian only.
We were just walking over at that perfect moment – I snapped this with my phone but by the time I had got my camera out, the opportunity was gone and the sky was getting ready for nightfall.
Follow me on Instagram for some more pretty, and maybe not so pretty, snaps: @gastronomicnomad
Taken with my beaten up, screen smashed, Samsung Galaxy III. I’m high tech.
Franca says
Everybody says how lovely Lisbon is and believe it or not I’ve never been to Portugal, not yet. We traveled a lot around Europe and visited many countries, but still have to go to Lisbon which has interested me for a while now, I guess I need to book a one-way ticket then 🙂
Cyra says
You definitely should book a one way ticket! Lisbon is amazing but Portugal as a whole is a great country which fully deserves some time to explore. I have only ever been to Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Lagos, but I really want to have more time to explore the places in-between. I am always there with work though so I have limited time, though at the end of the year I am thinking of basing myself in Lisbon for a bit. Such a cool city!