Lisbon & Porto

Europe

Finally: Portugal! Last weekend, Randi and I popped down to Lisbon to join Mike and Melissa for our first trip of 2024, and – given the comparative warmth and sunshine compared to London – treated it as a summer holiday even though all of the Portuguese locals were walking around in heavy duty coats as if it was cold. (Seriously, the receptionist at our hotel was genuinely concerned about my welfare in a short-sleeved shirt and asked her colleague to check up on my welfare/sanity the next day.) From our perspective it was lovely and sunny!

Just look at that blue sky
Just look at that blue sky

After arriving on Friday night – and admiring the efficient metro ride from the airport, naturally – we spent Saturday morning wandering through Lisbon’s gorgeous cobbled streets in the vague direction of the Alfama district. In the same vein as London’s double-decker buses, Lisbon is clearly very proud of their little yellow trams which manage to weave up and down the narrow hilly streets. Later, after coming close to passing ourselves off as Mike and Melissa to their Airbnb host, the four of us took a less magical (but still very good) modern tram to a fancy restaurant for dinner, at which I very much enjoyed my ‘private pie’ in addition to duck rice.

As an aside, we also became very fond of the ‘intern’ working at our hotel whose duties included staffing the little rooftop bar. He didn’t seem entirely comfortable with his duties – most notably asking Melissa if she wouldn’t mind opening our bottle of wine as he didn’t know how to – but he won us over with his apologetic charm and constant refrain about his difficult internship. Wisely, he was not trusted to run the hotel’s breakfast.

Welcome to Portugal!
Welcome to Portugal!
Together at the Rossio
Together at the Rossio
"Hello new blog cover!" - Katie
“Hello new blog cover!” – Katie
Lisbon essential #1: my very first pastel de nata!
Lisbon essential #1: my very first pastel de nata!
Lisbon essential #2: Mike and the adorable tram
Lisbon essential #2: Mike and the adorable tram
Melissa, Mike and Randi on a less adorable tram on Saturday night
Melissa, Mike and Randi on a less adorable tram on Saturday night
Up at the Moorish Castle in Sintra
Up at the Moorish Castle in Sintra

The next day we took the train to Sintra, a town about 45 minutes away which is a major tourist destination thanks to multiple palaces and natural parks. We were there for the hike to the Moorish Castle, originally built in the 8th and 9th centuries and later taken by the Christians during the Reconquista. It felt like the absolute perfect time to be there – great weather for exploring and beautiful views, but not so hot or crowded that it was ever uncomfortable. At one point someone behind me did complain about the lack of a railing, but I wasn’t brave enough to suggest that she take this oversight up with the Moors.

All together on our €5 train ride
All together on our €5 train ride
Mike & Melissa bought a spacious apartment in NYC
Mike & Melissa bought a spacious apartment in NYC
Randi bought a tower
Randi bought a tower
The quite magnificent castle
The quite magnificent castle
The quite magnificent views from the castle
The quite magnificent views from the castle
I thought this was very silly so had to do it
I thought this was very silly so had to do it

Rather than heading straight home at the end of the weekend I had already had the glorious revelation that a fair few of my colleagues at work are based in Porto, so it was of course totally legitimate for me to take the train up there on Sunday night and invite myself over to work from their office for a couple of days. Huge thanks to the team there for hosting me and generously acceding to my eccentric requests, including asking Vitor to record the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter R at the beginning of words to confirm Randi’s mind-blowing discovery of how different it is to the Spanish R. (R is a tricky letter anyway. Honestly it’s best to avoid pronouncing it at all where you can.)

One last picturesque Lisbon street shot
One last picturesque Lisbon street shot
Behind-the-scenes of silly public selfie machine
Behind-the-scenes of silly public selfie machine
The "we've committed to this style and we're really going for it" architecture of Lisbon's Oriente station
The “we’ve committed to this style and we’re really going for it” architecture of Lisbon’s Oriente station

My journey to Porto was incredibly smooth – both the long-distance train and the impressive Porto Metro once I arrived – and I was only momentarily thrown by the weirdness of the ticket inspection on the Portuguese railways whereby they aren’t interested in seeing your ticket at all, but rather your ID (in my case, my passport!) under which you booked. It’s a little odd that you can travel across the entire Schengen area from country to country without any border checks, and yet it’s harder to be incognito on a train from Lisbon to Porto!

I’m hesitant to say too much about Porto because I was just working from an office most of the time, and so I had to demur when eager Porto residents asked me to compare it to the capital. I was very excited when the team agreed to take me to have Francesinha for lunch: a “strange cheesy bread cheesy cheese thing” which Steve at work issued as a warning but I took as an absolute must-do. A dish native to Porto, the name means ‘little French woman’ for some reason and is clearly a hangover cure, served with chips and an optional egg. It was delicious.

A hangover cure without hangovers with Renato, Andre, Paulo and Vitor
A hangover cure without hangovers with Renato, Andre, Paulo and Vitor

On Monday night my teammates Vitor and Paulo kindly took me down to the historic centre so I could get a little flavour of the historical tourist bits, although being authentic residents they didn’t actually know the names of the famous buildings we walked past. I did love the amazing walls of the central train station, but was not as much of a fan of the scary Dom Luís I Bridge which I refused to venture very far along. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine bridge, but I was maybe starting to identify with the woman back in Sintra who wanted more railings.) After surviving the bridge we did the obvious thing while in Porto and shared some glasses of port together, which I wasn’t sure about but very much enjoyed. Perhaps this will finally move along the bottle of port which has been sitting in our kitchen ever since Beth and Stewart lifted it from a hotel room in Cambridge.

"The world's fanciest McDonald's"
“The world’s fanciest McDonald’s”
My fleeting glimpse of Porto by night
My fleeting glimpse of Porto by night

My final reflection on Portugal – other than that I loved it, and would definitely go back – is that I quickly formed a deep affection for the café owner on the route between my hotel and the office. Randi had already admired the Portuguese culture of standing together socially at the bar, sharing a morning coffee, and after coming to terms with my need for tea he seemed genuinely concerned that I wanted it ‘tomar’ – to go – in a lonely Anglo way 😉

This isn't Portugal - this is Brockley Brewery!
This isn’t Portugal – this is Brockley Brewery!

But wait- we’re nearly a month into 2024, so let’s quickly catch-up on pre-Portugal events. Similar to last year, Randi spent New Year with Catherine and AJ in Chicago, while this time I hosted Oliver and Abi at mine for New Year’s Eve along with Sarah and Kat. Kat turns out to be a massive fireworks fan, so after watching the central London display on TV there was a sweet moment when everyone came up to our loft bedroom and took turns standing on the bed and sticking their heads out of our loft windows into the night air to try and catch a glimpse of other fireworks nearby. We also played more Cobra Paw and Bonanza, a bean-themed card game which was delightful.

After a respectful number of bottles had been drunk, and successfully convinced Oliver & Abi to stay overnight before going home in the morning, I spent most of New Year’s Day up in North London with Andy and Bonnie. After a hearty pub lunch, we enjoyed a muddy walk through Highgate Wood during which I was genuinely shocked by Bonnie’s ability to instantly recall intricate plot points from any Agatha Christie novel. Definitely a Mastermind specialist subject.

Other January adventures included a wonderful Saturday in West Hamstead with Josh, Anna and Cora (after which I accidentally stole Cora’s cat – sorry!) and the successful execution of a paid deep-clean for our flat. I mention the latter because, embarrassingly, it took so much longer than expected that the company ended up calling me with a tone of “we haven’t heard from our cleaner in hours… is she alive?”. But she did an amazing job, and our taps were so shiny that I sent Randi a photo of my face reflected in them before ordering a pizza, eating it straight from the pizza box while sitting on the floor of the living room (too terrified of touching any surfaces in case I ruined them) and then going straight to bed so that Randi could still enjoy the results of the deep clean when she arrived back the next day.

Randi and I also had an impromptu walking day one weekend through Wandsworth Common and on to Battersea Park, finishing at the reopened Battersea Power Station luxury shopping centre thing (I expect they don’t like it being called a ‘shopping centre’) which I hadn’t seen inside yet. It is very cool, although we just admired the architecture and didn’t actually buy anything. We also had a very fun pasta-based outing with Reema and Esther and have also officially started watching our next series – The Bear – so I look forward to telling you what I think about it in 2028 when we finish. (I joke: we’ll try to move faster, since Randi has a temporary Disney+ subscription just for this.)

Throwback to New Year's Eve Cobra Paw
Throwback to New Year’s Eve Cobra Paw

Merry Christmas!

A few weekends back I made my final trip to Scotland in 2023 for a festive one-two punch of the Midlothian Labour Christmas party (featuring a tricky Midlothian quiz and a brava bagpipe performance!) and then a Hannukah celebration at Kirsty and Roger’s with Katie and James (featuring Randi’s delicious latkes and an improvised solution to a shortage of candles). In-between, Randi and I went over to Katie and James’s flat for the Doctor Who special which I’ve been most looking forward to – The Giggle, with Neil Patrick Harris as a perfectly-cast Toymaker – and it was amazing.

One of the Toymaker's little games: Randi takes the obligatory "guess what lies behind each door" challenge
One of the Toymaker’s little games: Randi takes the obligatory “guess what lies behind each door” challenge
Snuggled up by the tree
Snuggled up by the tree
Chilling out at the Perry Vale
Chilling out at the Perry Vale

The following week I enjoyed a really lovely end-of-year virtual boardgaming night with my team at work, at which we all learnt that Zirak is absolutely fearless when playing Incan Gold and there’s no competing with him. Randi and I also said goodbye to Alex and finally made it to The Perry Hill pub for dinner and drinks. This is somewhere which should qualify as ‘one of our locals’ but just isn’t in the direction we’d normally think to walk – but I’m glad we did, because it was very cosy!

However, in truth we were merely warming up the cosiness level because our real Christmas treat was a long weekend to the German town of Bad Wimpfen for the authentic German Christmas market experience. This trip was masterminded by Randi as a way both of seeing a different side to the country than Berlin (which we’d both visited already) but also exploring how far we can comfortably get across Europe without flying.

Climbing the Parisian staircase to our room
Climbing the Parisian staircase to our room

To that end we started our journey on Thursday night with the Eurostar to Paris, and then checked-in to a private room in a hostel a short walk from the station. The next morning we had time to enjoy a long breakfast with Reema, followed by a brief wander around the banks of the Seine, before hopping back up to Gare de l’Est (much nicer than Gare du Nord) for our train to Mannheim. Our *sniff* high-speed *sniff* train, on a network which France has been developing for decades… and perhaps the less said about this the better.

Breakfast with Reema
Breakfast with Reema
Getting tricked by Paris's awful magnetic metro tickets
Getting tricked by Paris’s awful magnetic metro tickets
Ready with baguettes for our next journey
Ready with baguettes for our next journey
On the high-speed train through France
On the high-speed train through France

In contrast, Germany’s Deutsche Bahn has been in ‘permanent crisis’ (the words of Germany’s public auditor, not mine) for years, with record delays and cancellations, so we were a bit sceptical that our change of trains at Mannheim would go smoothly. And it did not! But since we were on holiday we secretly enjoyed the chaos (is this train going to the destination displayed on the outside or the inside?) plus the cheer which went up when it finally started moving. This delay also meant we were inspired to break for dinner at our final changeover station (a.k.a. schnitzel at Sinsheim!) which was delightful. And, in fairness, the rest of our DB experience ran smoothly on this trip. It’s important that the German railways stumble every so often, in order to provide hope to the others.

Much confusion at Mannheim
Much confusion at Mannheim
A warming glass in a quiet alley
A warming glass in a quiet alley

Bad Wimpfen itself was truly magical. I had imagined a cute German town with a fenced-off Christmas market somewhere in the middle, but in fact the market stetches out to cover the entire historic centre. The crowds (almost all domestic German tourists) circulate gently around the hilly, cobblestoned streets – glühwein or bratwurst or both in hand – pausing to appreciate the brass band playing from the balcony at city hall, the stalls selling homemade wooden toys or the merry-go-round at the entrance.

We were particularly impressed by the Feuerzangenbowle – or ‘fire tong punch’ – a mulled wine variant which is served alight, although for ourselves we stuck with the safer, less fiery variant. (Full disclosure: if you looked through our entire set of photos from this holiday I think we’re holding glasses of glühwein in at least half of them.) We were also delighted to re-encounter langos, last seen during our Austrian Christmas market adventure of 2017, which came in a smaller, denser variant here but were no less delicious. I persuaded the German man behind us in the queue to help me practice saying all of the fillings (sauerrahm, knoblauch, schinken and käse) so that I could buy the one with everything.

Very cheered by our emergency dinner on our first night in Germany
Very cheered by our emergency dinner on our first night in Germany
More glühwein in Bad Wimpfen
More glühwein in Bad Wimpfen
Slowly trying to compete with Catherine and AJ's Christmas market photo collection
Slowly trying to compete with Catherine and AJ’s Christmas market photo collection
Bad Wimpfen by day
Bad Wimpfen by day
Bad Wimpfen by night
Bad Wimpfen by night

During the days we explored a little further afield, beginning with a beautiful countryside walk to the neighbouring town of Bad Rappenau for lunch. Along the way we admired Germany’s well-signposted rural walking paths, admired the extent of the railway system (because of course Bad Rappenau has its own station for a quick journey back) and – in Randi’s mind at least – decided that Germany was much more reminiscent of “the American Midwest, but with trains” than anywhere in the UK. Which makes sense, given the German influence on the Midwest!

The next day we went on a longer journey to Stuttgart. This was less successful as a destination, since by the time we finally got there Randi was starting to feel a bit sick (for legitimate reasons) and I soon joined her (because I foolishly experimented with the glühwein + gin combination at the Stuttgart Christmas market). As a result we didn’t see a great deal of the city, aside from the main shopping street (bland, post-war architecture), aforementioned Christmas market (fine, but not a patch on Bad Wimpfen) and a legitimately nice park. With all that said, what did make the trip legitimately worthwhile was our initial train from Bad Wimpfen, which opted to become a tram halfway through and took us on a street-level tour of all of the local factories. Since it was a Sunday they were all closed, and it all felt a bit like a movie set, but it was a very very evocative German ambience of “look at all the industry we have”.

A model railway in Stuttgart, which nicely represents what we spent most of our time doing that day
A model railway in Stuttgart, which nicely represents what we spent most of our time doing that day
We were amused by the grumpy German corrections to the walking signs along the long temporary walkways at Stuttgart station
We were amused by the grumpy German corrections to the walking signs along the long temporary walkways at Stuttgart station
The countryside surrounding Bad Wimpfen on our walk back from the station that day
The countryside surrounding Bad Wimpfen on our walk back from the station that day

I’ll save Christmas itself for my next post rather than cramming it into this one too – but suffice to say we both brought back bits of Bad Wimpfen for our Secret Santas!

Hej! We spent last week in Sweden with Catherine, AJ and their incredible baby daughter and – to be honest – we’re all about ready to move to Stockholm and share a flat together. But in the meantime, let me gush about what a great week we had. 😊🇸🇪

Welcome to Stockholm!
Welcome to Stockholm!
Our first night's brewery dinner
Our first night’s brewery dinner
Playing in the sandpit outside our Airbnb
Playing in the sandpit outside our Airbnb

Having arrived pre-armed with the Stockholm Go City pass for our two full days in the capital, we started our whirlwind tour with the Fotografiska museum of photography. Well, technically we started with a very nice lunch in the bougie restaurant on the top floor of the Fotografiska, but we worked our way down to the art eventually. I think the exhibition we all liked was Diana Markosian’s Santa Barbara, a recreation of her mother’s migration from disintegrating post-USSR Moscow to California as a mail-order bride. (This was especially resonant having only just seen the play Patriots in London with my mum on Friday night, but more on that later.) That day we also made it to the Nobel Prize Museum – the coolest part of which is a toss-up between reading some of Einstein’s letters and the mechanical ceiling display in which every Nobel Prize winner slowly circulates around a track. If you’re someone who’s reading this and feels you might be close to winning a Nobel Prize, I hope this is the incentive you need to keep going.

Eager for more museums on museum day!
Eager for more museums on museum day!
That time we got very confused by a photo booth
That time we got very confused by a photo booth
Imagine the click-clacking sound of Nobel Prize winners travelling around the ceiling
Imagine the click-clacking sound of Nobel Prize winners travelling around the ceiling
Trying out stilts at Skansen, before a passing stranger pointed out we had them backwards
Trying out stilts at Skansen, before a passing stranger pointed out we had them backwards

There is something charmingly mad about Stockholm. It just seems like a massive effort to build a whole city around many little interconnected islands, but of course everything is organised brilliantly (at least through the eyes of a tourist) so the next morning it was easy to catch a ferry across to Skansen, the world’s oldest open-air museum which is part-zoo and part homage to pre-industrial Swedish life. We wandered around, admired the bears and puzzled over why Catherine’s ancestors decided to leave such a charming and idyllic country and get on a boat to Minnesota instead. (Side-note: the island of Djurgården also boasts its own theme park, Gröna Lund, which we didn’t visit but whose rollercoasters were teasingly prominent in the skyline. Next time!)

King Gustav Vasa! We spent a whole evening reading his Wikipedia page together.
King Gustav Vasa! We spent a whole evening reading his Wikipedia page together.

After an outdoor lunch (and wine, lots of wine) at the very sunny Rosendals Trädgård garden café, we meandered along the riverbank to a cluster of museums, popping into the Nordic Museum, the Vasa Museum and the Viking Museum, where AJ and I encouraged his child to arm herself with a Viking sword while Randi and Catherine drank beers outside, blissfully unaware. Of these, the Vasa is the most striking – the whole museum being built around a largely intact 17th century Swedish warship which was recovered from Stockholm’s harbour in 1961.

Once you actually read the exhibits, however, things get a little disappointing. Why, you might ask, was a 17th century Swedish warship lying at the bottom of Stockholm’s harbour in the first place? The answer is because it sank a few minutes into its maiden voyage. Was there a sudden storm? An iceberg? Attack of the pirates? No, it turns out the whole design of the ship was structurally unsound from the very beginning and would have never coped with even a light breeze. So, in reality, the museum is a monument to a total failure. Sweden being Sweden, they were sophisticated enough in 1628 to hold an inquiry into the disaster, although since the King was partly to blame it’s maybe not surprising that it failed to reach any definitive conclusions.

All together
All together
Admiring the Vasa shortly before it sets sail and sinks for 300 years
Admiring the Vasa shortly before it sets sail and sinks for 300 years
By the riverbank
By the riverbank
Delicious meatball night at our Stockholm Airbnb
Delicious meatball night at our Stockholm Airbnb
Captured for posterity: Randi's frequent attempts to distribute bread to the rest of us
Captured for posterity: Randi’s frequent attempts to distribute bread to the rest of us
Our uphill struggle to reach Visby after the ferry
Our uphill struggle to reach Visby after the ferry

For the second half of our trip we took a ferry to the island of Gotland where, allegedly, Eurovision winner Loreen lives. (To be clear, that’s not why we went, and this unverified intel was provided later by a friendly but possibly unreliable witness who stood behind us in an ice cream queue.) Aside from possibly being Loreen’s home, Gotland is famous for the medieval town of Visby and its beautifully-preserved historic centre, which is dotted by many, many church ruins and encircled by a very much not-ruined defensive wall. Visby is where we stayed and also where we enjoyed a great walking tour by a cheerful British immigrant to Gotland, albeit one who left out any mention of the fearsome Victual Brothers – a gang of pirates who plundered Gotland during the 1390s before being expelled by some Teutonic Knights. My suspicion is that telling this story would have made the town wall seem less impressive.

Outside the Visby City Wall!
Outside the Visby City Wall!
A dog rauk (claimed by both Randi and AJ)
A dog rauk (claimed by both Randi and AJ)

In addition to lots of eating and drinking in Visby itself, we also set aside a day to visit the much smaller island of Fårö, which has a tiny population (around 500) but is a popular summer spot for Swedes and just a short hop from Gotland on a car ferry. Despite being so small, it’s kinda incredible how different its east and west coasts are. One side is all windswept rock formations and shrubland, whilst we emerged onto the other to find sandy beaches and a sparkling blue sea. (The relaxed music from the beach bar was so incongruous it felt like we’d stepped out of reality into one of those dreamlike metaphorical cut scenes from a film.)

More rauks (or stacks) along the coast of Fårö island
More rauks (or stacks) along the coast of Fårö island
And on the other side: sandy beach paradise!
And on the other side: sandy beach paradise!
One cardamom bun of many
One cardamom bun of many

For lunch the island is blessed with a wonderful little pasta place, Pastamakarna, which is staffed mostly by Fårö residents and serves up warm, hearty bowls of pasta which made us all very happy. In fact, this is a good moment to sing the praises of all of the food we ate in Sweden, from our daily cardamom buns or the egg and caviar breakfast sandwich I picked up from a bakery at Stockholm Central to the ‘Chef’s Choice’ mystery meatballs on takeaway night, the amazing pickled herring or the tasty sourdough bread. As Randi and I had a later flight on Sunday morning, we also got to sample/gorge on the breakfast buffet at the fancy hotel which Catherine very generously donated her points for us all to stay at on the last night back in Stockholm. Would recommend.

Looking out over Stockholm from a bridge
Looking out over Stockholm from a bridge
Doing our best recreations at the ABBA Museum
Doing our best recreations at the ABBA Museum
(There's no photo evidence to show that I won this game of Connect 4, but I did win)
(There’s no photo evidence to show that I won this game of Connect 4, but I did win)

To sum up: Sweden is great, and let’s not think too much about the other half of the year when those long, light summer evenings get inverted. Our only major failure was failing – twice! – to turn up early enough to bag spots on the English-speaking tour of the Swedish parliament, but – if any Swedes are reading this – please note that we did not pretend to be Swedish speakers and sneak onto that tour instead, as other tourists definitely did. We did make it to the ABBA museum on the last day, however, of which my favourite part was simply watching clips of Eurovision presenters from 1974. My, how things have changed.

But honestly, I think I would be happy to share an apartment for a week with Catherine and AJ just about anywhere, especially when there’s someone fun to play with who has now mastered the art of walking around, laughing and swatting me with a fly swat. It was also so nice to be able to just stay up chatting late into the night, even if AJ did sometimes insist on making us guess answers to Swedish quiz questions. Can’t wait for our next adventure!


As mentioned above, before leaving for Sweden my mum treated us to Patriots as an early birthday present: a Peter Morgan play about the rise of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in the ashes of the former USSR, his early support for Putin as his protege/puppet and then his dramatic fall from grace and exile in London as Putin turned out to be less controllable than planned. It’s such a fascinating story – the type of play where you’ll find yourself ingesting giant Wikipedia articles on the Tube home afterwards, trying to work out how much is true before concluding that it’s basically all true, at least so far as the basic facts. Even the events which I lived through (such as the poisoning of Litvinenko) is now a shock to remember that it happened. And the lead actors were both great: Berezovsky with all of the bullying charm which a kleptocrat requires, and Putin permanently seething with such suppressed rage that you can see it in how he walks. Another great play this year.

Cora is attacked by a crocodile
Cora is attacked by a crocodile

This first weekend back after Sweden has also been super busy, starting with Alison Hook’s retirement party on Friday night at QPCS. Ms Hook was my GCSE English teacher and all-round extraordinary organiser of so many trips, programmes, summer schools, productions and publications – the kind of force of nature which you take for granted at the time, but I’m so glad that so many people were there to pay tribute. (In fact, it was surprising how many former students and teachers I actually knew.) After staying over at my mum’s I got to hang out with Josh, Anna and Cora on Saturday morning – including more sandpit playtime! – before some shared birthday celebrations at Ottolenghi Spitalfields in the evening with mum, Randi, Tash and Cormac.

Lots of sharing plates at Ottolenghi's (thanks, mum!)
Lots of sharing plates at Ottolenghi’s (thanks, mum!)
Exciting news: Jen is in town!
Exciting news: Jen is in town!
Randi's exceptional lemon cake creation
Randi’s exceptional lemon cake creation

It is my birthday tomorrow, in fact, so finishing this blog before midnight is now a race against time while I’m still 33. But happily I can sign off on a wonderful (and very unexpected note) because today Randi and I got to spend most of the afternoon with my friend Jen, who lives in New Zealand but is visiting for a couple of weeks. I last saw Jen in 2016 but we had such good conversation about everything under the sun, and (as is maybe a running theme here) there’s basically nothing better than reuniting with a good friend. Especially when the sun is shining, you have a table at the Honor Oak and there’s a three-tier birthday lemon cake waiting for you back home…

Tack tack!

As trailed in my last post, we spent last weekend in Valencia to link up with Randi’s uni friend, Mike, on his post-Bar exam holiday to Spain. Spoiler alert: it was lovely!

Ready to begin our Valencia education
Ready to begin our Valencia education

Despite it being a quick trip we managed to pack a lot in, starting (for me at least) with a walking tour of the city centre on Friday morning. Our guide was great, and – in my personal favourite moment – did not seem fazed when Randi decided to clarify whether all of his references to the church’s statue of “our virgin” actually referred to the Virgin Mary and not, y’know, some local virgin. Close runner-up favourite walking tour moments included the history of the still-functioning Water Court of Valencia (which is both considerably older than the US Supreme Court and much more sensibly selected) and how the old course of the Turia river came to be turned into a public park. I actually remembered this fact from a Jay Foreman video (thanks, YouTube!) but I wasn’t aware of the government’s Plan A for the river’s replacement: a giant multi-lane motorway. I think Randi and I shuddered in exactly the same way.

Welcome to Valencia!
Welcome to Valencia!
People get bored of me saying how pedestrian-friendly city centres are, but it's true
People get bored of me saying how pedestrian-friendly city centres are, but it’s true
The park which was once a river and narrowly avoided motorway doom
The park which was once a river and narrowly avoided motorway doom
Remnants of tapas
Remnants of tapas

Although it may not feel like we live in the multiverse’s best timeline right now, at least we do live in the world where Valencia has a long park rather than a long road, so the next morning we took advantage of this fact and walked through it down to the City of Arts and Sciences. This open-air complex is quite hard to describe – so perhaps just look at the surfeit of photos below – but essentially it’s like stumbling across the headquarters of the United Federation of Planets, with a cluster of culturally worthy institutions linked by open walking areas and glistening reflective pools of water. All of the buildings share a stunning modernist architecture, and I really do mean ‘stunning’ in the sense of ‘stunningly good’ rather than the stunningly awful 60s British modernist buildings made of concrete. (Dear British architects: why couldn’t we have done this instead? Is it the weather?)

The sign. Everybody needs a photo with the sign.
The sign. Everybody needs a photo with the sign.
Casual sculpture in the pool
Casual sculpture in the pool
Randi's very proud of this photo
Randi’s very proud of this photo
We were all big fans of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
We were all big fans of the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias
I think we got more joy out of the Metro train/tram combo than Mike, though
I think we got more joy out of the Metro train/tram combo than Mike, though

Our ultimate destination in the complex on Saturday morning was the L’Oceanogràfic – Valencia’s aquarium – where we dedicated a solid morning to staring at the pretty jellyfish, watching the dolphin show, sadly not coming anywhere close to the top in the pre-show dolphin quiz aimed at 8-12 year olds, holding our hands up against the penguin ice block and, relatedly, regretting holding our hands up against the penguin ice block. Then, in the late afternoon, it was beach time! Reader: the sea was so warm. It’s been so long!

BEACH!
BEACH!
A short but sweet trip
A short but sweet trip

This would have been a great trip in itself, with only minor disappointment at my failing to secure any Agua de Valencia (gin, vodka, cava, orange juice) at our slightly-too-snooty-for-cocktails tapas restaurant on Friday night. Fortunately, help was at hand on Saturday night, because – by fortunate coincidence – Randi’s ex-colleague Sam also happened to be holidaying in Valencia with her friends at the same time we were there, and they were extremely on-board with the plan to go for dinner and then touristy drinks together. We all bonded immediately over the challenge of finding a vegan-friendly restaurant – and massive kudos to Randi for having an American’s instinct to bail out the indecisive Brits from the first not-vegan place we sat down in by paying our €12 water tab and getting us all out of there again – and then afterwards we finally found a bar willing to provide jugs of promised Agua de Valencia. Hurray!

Oh, and since you asked, Metrovalencia is a very nice transport system. This summer it’s also free to ride every Sunday, so many thanks to the man who stopped Randi and I from throwing away money trying to top-up our cards on the way back to the airport. And thank you to Mike for letting us crash your Spanish trip for a long weekend!

In my job I’m lucky enough to work with a truly awesome development team, based in many different countries, and for a long time I’ve tried to get a group together for an in-person meetup. For a while this was impossible thanks to the pandemic, and then the war in Ukraine, but last week were able to gather in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, which meant that I could finally hang out with Kira, Maria and Hanna IRL and (spoiler alert) drink a lot of wine.

Maria, Hanna, Kira and me
Maria, Hanna, Kira and me

The scheduled options into Tbilisi’s airport are not fantastic, so by the time Maria and I had completed our overnight flights, met up at the airport and taken a Bolt back to our Airbnb it was already 5am and the sun was coming up. Thankfully, Kira was waiting for us with our inaugural bottle of sweet Georgian red wine, and we all sat on the terrace pretending that we’d all had more sleep than we’d actually had.

A few hours later Kira took us on a short tour of Tbilisi’s Old Town, which at 9am on a Saturday morning felt more like a film set than a real city. The streets are narrow and hilly, with plenty of quirky street art and gorgeous views over the rest of the city, but almost no other people to be seen. It soon became clear what should have already been obvious by looking at a world map: Georgia is pretty far south, hot, and therefore has the same late-rising, late-sleeping culture you’d expect anywhere else at this latitude. Only tourists would wander around in the morning, duh.

We had the Leghvtakhevi waterfall all to ourselves
We had the Leghvtakhevi waterfall all to ourselves
A Connectivity team hike
A Connectivity team hike

Still, I hadn’t brought my hiking boots for nothing, so the next morning we made another early-ish start so we could meet up with Hanna and climb up to the ancient fortress which overlooks the city before it got too impossibly hot to walk around. (Don’t worry, we’re a good team. Everybody came prepared with hats and sun cream.) After a while on the hills we descended into the National Botanical Garden, which was beautiful, even though I’m sure we only saw a very small portion of it. Shout-out to the large group of children, all dressed up in matching outfits, who were being filmed singing and dancing by the base of the waterfall where we were sitting, and apologies to whoever’s job it will be to edit us out of this particular music video.

Reaching Narikala, the ancient fortress
Reaching Narikala, the ancient fortress
A beautiful view of the city down below
A beautiful view of the city down below
Hiking along the hills
Hiking along the hills
Poking our head inside an apartment entrance
Poking our head inside an apartment entrance

Tbilisi is a fascinating place, and if you’re looking for a relaxing balance of nature plus tourist amenities in a friendly atmosphere then I would totally recommend it as a city break option. It very much feels like a place in flux. For example, the streets are lined with Soviet-era apartment buildings which feel a little abandoned on the outside, but also house one or two shops, bars or restaurants inside which are buzzing with energy and life. I was fascinated by the haunted-house foyers of these buildings, and I very much wonder what they will look like in a decade or two.

An apartment block on a typical street in the central historical area
An apartment block on a typical street in the central historical area
Pulling our best "haunted house" faces
Pulling our best “haunted house” faces

During the week we were, of course, working from our (thankfully air-conditioned) apartment, so we only scratched the surface of things to do in Tbilisi. That said, we did manage to tick off some other items, including a visit to the Gabriadze theatre on Wednesday night to see a marionette performance of Ramona. Ramona is a beautiful locomotive engine who is separated from her lifelong love, and – despite the meddlings of an officious Soviet bureaucrat – joins a travelling circus troupe and learns to walk the trapeze. It was genuinely extraordinary and moving, and although obviously the English surtitles aren’t capable of communicating all of the history and nuance of the text, listening to the Georgian voices was also beautiful. My only recommendation, if you decide to visit, is to sit further back than I did so you don’t have to crane your neck to combine the text with the puppetry!

We also made it to a jazz club on Friday evening, which I also really enjoyed. And, to make this a fair cultural exchange, I also tried to provide the very best of Britain in return: namely Jelly Babies (which went down very well, albeit with initial qualms that “it seems weird to eat babies”), Dairy Milk, Crunchies, multiple episodes of Would I Like To You? and a rewatch of one of my very favourite films – Four Lions – on the last night with Kira. Oh, and of course everyone thought I was weird to add milk to my tea.

We also watched Encanto together (which was good and all, but I’m not convinced that it’s OK for poor Mirabel to be put through intense childhood trauma just because it serves some cosmic bring-the-family-together ends-justify-the-means grand plan!) and I introduced everyone to Dominion. Since Kira is a highly competitive board game expert, this inevitably led to several more games of progressively more drunken Dominion until she could beat me – but I did enjoy my brief winning streak while it lasted.

Suspicious interrogation of the Jelly Babies
Suspicious interrogation of the Jelly Babies
I suspect this was Kira's first Province
I suspect this was Kira’s first Province
One last khachapuri before flying home
One last khachapuri before flying home

The other obvious reason to visit Georgia is the food, which is both (a) very delicious, and (b) extremely affordable for tourists. We ate very well, including a decent fill of the ubiquitous cheese-filled khachapuri!

Overwhelmingly, though, the purpose of this week-long adventure was to spend time with some of my favourite people beyond the confines of a Zoom call. I’m super-grateful to everyone for making the effort to congregate in Tbilisi, and I hope it won’t be too long before we can all play Dominion together again.


Me and Kira
Me and Kira
Hanna and Kira, probably laughing at some ridiculous British nonsense
Hanna and Kira, probably laughing at some ridiculous British nonsense