If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. That’s what they say, right? (Don’t look it up, it’s a simultaneously deep and boring rabbit hole.) My darling bride once again hit my birthday out of the park, setting up not one but two quick getaways to places she knew I was really interested in. The first bit had been our trip to Évora, which you may already have read about. The second part was a real doozy. She’d heard me exclaim excitedly over an exhibition taking place in Rome this year; a gathering of Caravaggio masterworks from all over, congregating in the Palazzo Barberini for four months this spring and summer. Well, my bride isn’t one for idle dreams – goals and plans are more her speed. And so, along with a card announcing our Évora trip was another card explaining that we had three-ish days in Rome plotted out, with flights and lodging already sorted along with tickets to the exhibition. All that being said, do you remember how this paragraph started?

A couple of days before we were scheduled to depart, Lisa threw her back out. Nothing life-altering, but for the immediate future she would be in serious pain. Worse, the activities facing us would be exactly the sorts of things that would exacerbate the ouch – a Ryanair flight, public transit, an unfamiliar bed, and (if we were actually going to make it worth going) a fair amount of walking. It just didn’t sound feasible. It was a disappointment, sure, but life is pretty good here so if I just don’t get to Rome this time it isn’t that big of a –

“Why wouldn’t you go?” She asked. I have to admit I was surprised by the question. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re co-dependent, we do plenty of stuff on our own, but anything like this? This is a two-person venture if I’ve ever seen one, and Lisa and I are the two persons! She wasn’t kidding, though. The Caravggio adventure was my birthday present and she’d be darned if I didn’t get to see it just because she was incapacitated. It took me a pretty long time to get my head around it, but fundamentally there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t go. Sooooooo ok, I guess I’m going to Rome!

The trip itself was, if nothing else, confirmation that we’d made the right decision on Lisa staying home. Our Ryanair experiences haven’t been all bad whatever their reputation is, but this one was a humdinger, complete with standing-room-only holding pens where we stewed for an extra 45 minutes and a plane the image of which is printed next to “dilapidated” in Webster’s. It would have been an ordeal for somebody with severe back pain; I was fundamentally sound and I still came out of it with a limp. (I kid. Kind of.) So, what does a guy on his own do in Rome? Well for starters he goes the wrong direction on the metro and show up to his lodging at the crack of sleepy. I do like to keep myself on my toes. Still, the place was nice and comfortable and the bed served its purpose well.

Rome on my own awaited.

One of the habits we’ve been trying to break is our tendency to go to our old favorites, revisiting favorite places throughout the world rather than branching out and trying new delights. In 2024 we made it to two countries we’d never been to before (Austria and the Netherlands) and poked around in bits of Portugal that we hadn’t been to, in particular the Alentejo region. That being said, we absolutely do have favorites that, for one reason or another, keep calling to us. This past summer, we spent a couple of weeks in London house-sitting for friends of friends, and since we’ve been to London before we named that series of blog posts “London 2024” to differentiate it from other trips to London. Surely that would be enough to tell them apart, right?

Right?

Turns out, nope. John had been seeing notices and rave reviews for an exhibition at the National Gallery that was bringing together works by Vincent Van Gogh from all over the world in what was being touted as a “once in a generation” event. Turns out those words are catnip for ole John boy; see Exhibit A, our detour to Florence for a similarly-described display of the works of Donatello. Still, we’d been to London plenty already, and tickets were going to be tricky to get for such a popular event, so it just sort of sat in the back of his mind, lurking for just the right moment to pounce.

Cut to an idle conversation with our friends Susan; the exhibition came up as a bit of trivia, not an invitation. Susan, however, thought it sounded mighty fine, and you may recall that Susan has already joined us for a theater-crawl through the West End once this year. That one little snowflake kicked off an avalanche of planning that had us putting together a holiday hop to London for Christmas time. Eep! Let’s be honest, though, it was hardly a hard sell to get us on that plane; London is an easy town to have a good time in.

And so, dark and early on the 22nd we hitched a ride with Susan to good ole Oh Pee Oh (OPO, or Porto Airport if you prefer) for a morning Ryanair flight that had us in London by noon, even accounting for the commuter train in from the airport. We checked into our usual haunt, the Hyatt Place London City East, which we just think of us the Hyatt in Whitechapel. We don’t own stock or anything, but we probably should; it’s not “the best” at anything but hits our sweet spot for price, convenience, and reasonable amenities. With just a little more time than it took to drop our bags we hopped back on to the Underground and made for the West End, thence to take in our first show, Hadestown.

Funny thing is, Lisa was excited to see this. If Lisa was told to list 20 facts about herself on a sheet of paper, “doesn’t like musicals” would probably make the cut; it’s just a thing thought of as “true” for her. And yet, she will also readily admit that the list of exceptions is slowly but steadily growing on her, to the point that her and musicals is kind of like John and drinking: it used to be an easy “nuh-unh” but now is more of a “well, maybe a little” kind of thing. Anyway, when the three of us were talking about possibilities and we described Hadestown in the broadest possible way (“Orpheus and Eurydice, with kind of a rock/bluesy music vibe” she instantly said it sounded interesting to her. And so we went. And so we loved it. All of us, absolutely had a ball with it. It turned out John hadn’t even described the music all that well but it didn’t matter. The performances, the music, the way they told a 3000 year old story in a fresh way, it all just worked. None of us had ever heard much about Hadestown until maybe a year or so ago, but (setting aside its 2010 pre-history in the summer stock-bestrewn hills of Vermont) it’s been in production on Broadway and the West End since 2019. Go fig. In any case, it was an easy “thumbs up” from all three of us, if you’re looking for a recommendation.

After the play we were getting tired, but fortunately Lisa had found a tip for a restaurant just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, so we had a bite at Amber Restaurant and called it a night. We had another full day waiting for us on the morrow.

Amber was a delight! A super quick walk from our hotel (and therefore the Aldgate East station), its tucked in behind a new apartment building, past the Escape Room place with axe throwing and neon -infused indoor golf. The space is modern and welcoming, with a focus on sustainable woods and lighting that invites conversation.

The menu focuses on Mediterranean in the broadest sense, with almost everything made on the premises. Plates come in small and large, and guests are encouraged to share with one another, which we were happy to do. We tried the breadbasket (pita, sourdough. and challah), hummus gnocchi (in a sage butter sauce), kofte (bulghur and lentil, rolled in baby gem lettuce), lamb meatballs (served with labneh, burnt aubergine, sumac onions, and pickled peppers), smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken (marinaded in preserved lemons and herbs, serves with crispy onions, aleppo and zough). They offer mocktails, a seasonal rotation of wine and beer, and the usual other drinks.

The bread was fantastic, fresh and tasty. We loved the hummus gnocchi, smoked potatoes, and grilled chicken. The kofte was cold and we found it unappetizing. The lamb meatballs would be worth offering again and we wish we’d had room to try the Torched Seabream. We will definitely be going here on future trips to London!

A long-awaited and anticipated trip finally came through for us as friends from our old life in the States came visiting for a long week in Northern England and Scotland. As some of you know (and at this point who can remember what has been told to whom?) there has long been a trip on the horizon during which John would walk the width of England following Hadrian’s Wall. Unfortunately, a little while back it unfolded that unforeseen schedule conflicts were going to keep two of the participants from coming. The other two (besides us) were still coming; in fact, they had non-refundable tickets and had arranged child care. They were going to Scotland no matter what! So, we decided pretty quickly to shelve the two-week hiking itinerary and simply have a nice, seven day vacation in the U.K. with a couple of our dearest friends. There are worse ways to spend a week!

Due to the mild vagaries of Ryanair’s flight schedule (not all cities are available every day), we flew into Edinburgh on a midday flight, took a bus to …

… and a hush falls over the room. Yes yes, Ryanair. We have railed against Ryanair, and for what was good reason at the time. Actually, this time everything worked really well! Yes, our flight was delayed a few minutes and there was a super scary 30+ minutes when absolutely no luggage made it off our flight. This was only mildly ameliorated by the fact that no luggage was arriving on any of the three carousels in the international arrivals area. (You may remember that luggage issues at EDI made the news last year when literally thousands of suitcases went missing and were later found in an abandoned warehouse. I certainly thought about it as we waited and waited and . . .) In the end we were united with our bags. A thing you may not know if you haven’t flown much in Europe: the airlines are divorced from the baggage-handling process almost entirely. With isolated exceptions, third-party companies exist here to move bags to and fro in the airports. We can speculate as to why (our personal guess is liability shenanigans) but the truth is we can’t really lay the blame for the luggage issue at the feet of Ryanair, which means… well, things went basically fine with our new best pal Ryan. Thus encumbered with our bags, it was off to the city proper.

Here’s great news: for 8 pounds sterling, you can get a roundtrip bus right into the center of Edinburgh on the Airlink 100. It runs 24/7, every 10 minutes from 04:00 until just after midnight, and then every half hour. Its clean, efficient, and well-signed. Two other routes (200 and 400) take you to the Ocean Terminal and Fort Kinnaird, respectively. Considering that a taxi will cost you 30-40 pounds, and even a rideshare service will easily cost 10 pounds one way, this is a very good deal. The ride is about 30 minutes each way, depending on traffic. Our route went smoothly and we were downtown even faster than expected.

(There is also a tram service that takes about the same amount of time, has a few more stops, and costs about the same.)

We stayed at a great place on George Street, a fantastic area for walking and eating. Eden Locke has fast-fast-fast wifi, a cafe, in-room washer/dryer, fully-kitted-out kitchenettes, underfloor heating, air conditioning, and a 24-hour front desk. Oh, and they are dog friendly! They are a new brand and have a surprising range of locations — Manchester UK? — all over Europe, including London, Dublin, Munich, and Berlin. New locations are coming to Lisbon, Zurich, Copenhagen, and Paris.

Dinner was at a classic steakhouse, Hawksmoor. (Lisa has been craving filet mignon, a cut of meat not properly found in Braga, so that made the choice of where very easy.) It was fun — but a bit of a bracer for “big city” prices. We had the belly ribs, which were rich and tasty, and steaks. Yummy all around.

We had a lovely day in Edinburgh all in all… which just drove home the point that really, someday, we ought to actually visit Edinburgh. The last time we were here was 11-ish years ago to the day; we had truly atrocious weather and mostly stayed in indoors. This time we’re here for one day before collecting friends and heading south. Someday, Edinburgh, someday… This day, however, was over, and we had a big one tomorrow. Company arrives!

So, as our last post explained, the trip we had planned to take toward the end of January just kind of fizzled out. Boo. Thus, our actual kick-off to TravelFest 2023 is a 10-ish day excursion to Italy. For those unfamiliar with how our brains work, the planning for this trip went something like this: “I (Lisa) have always wanted to go to Carnival in Venice.” “Well, I (John) think that’s a great idea, but if we’re going to go to the trouble of packing our bags and getting on a plane, we might as well see other things, too, right?” And thus has trouble often emerged. This time, it feels like we kept things pretty well under control. It’s five days in Rome, followed by five days in Venice, then home. Nice and tight. I mean… it’s not really, not at all. More like, “it could have been so much worse.” But, hey! Rome! Neat, right?

By the standards of some of our trips, we got to wake up at an incredibly sane 7 AM to make our 8 AM bus for Porto. Brief diversion: buses are much more a part of our life than previously and certainly if you ignore daily work commutes. We now take the bus to *places*. [Granted, most of those places so far are the airport in Porto, but we have plans for more!] There are multiple bus companies in Portugal and, indeed, all over Europe. As a result, they have to be cleaner and cheaper than, say, Greyhound or else people will use the competition. We take an immaculate bus straight to the airport curbside for about eight bucks. Sadly (we think) the other end of the bus ride holds disappointment, as we have swallowed hard and booked our flight on Ryanair. As has been previously reported, we aren’t fans but, of course, they sing the siren song of low fares and we sailed right back to them. Cue our shock when we ended up having an acceptable experience! Despite the line for our flight not opening at the check-in counter for more than an hour after we arrived, a lovely attendant in a different line waved us over and checked us in! Might sound simple, but nothing was simple about Ryanair last time. We were able to meander through security, have a coffee as we saw fit, and get to our gate area with no trouble. Pre-boarding was also painless, except for a landmark event for John: a younger person gave up their seat so that he could sit down. John tried to wave it off, but the young man and his girlfriend insisted that he please take a seat next to Lisa. There was nothing for it but to sit down. Ouch. The flight itself was relatively painless, just the usual advertising pitches. (If you haven’t been on a Ryanair flight before, the cabin is festooned with marketing signage and they use the P.A. system to actively push “great values!” from the duty-free. It’s…. whatever. Life these days, I guess.)

We flew into Ciampino airport for the first time – it’s the Gatwick of Rome, if that makes any sense. In other words, there was a bus transfer to the train station followed by a 20 minute train ride to Rome’s Termini station. Yes, we know that’s like the soup du jour of the day or the ATM machine, but that’s the name of the thing. And not to be a broken record, but man is train travel lovely. None of this “outskirts of town” nonsense, you’re right in the heart of the city immediately. You’re also five minutes from the public streets, rather than circuitously navigating through a cavernous airport. Horses for courses and all that, but we do love a good train. The taxi stand in front of the station was actually a lot saner than we’re used to, and it was simplicity itself to book our ride to our home for the next few days, the Palm Suite. The location is phenomenal. This is not a budget accommodation; we don’t often go for luxury, but we will occasionally pay for access/location, and we are in the middle of everything.

After a day of travel we did not feel like doing much in the way of tourism, but just getting to dinner for the evening caused us to circle around the Colosseum, so … yeah. Beautiful. Our meal was at Contrario, or at least one of them. They have a Bistro and a “Vineria con Cucina” which translates, I believe, into “booze and nummies.” Whatever we’re calling it, we had a dang fine meal. It was only a little odd at first because we’d specifically told the concierge that we’d be eating all sorts of adventurous things this week and could we just start off with a straight-down-the-middle, traditional Italian joint. What we got was Italian classics juged up with modern sensibilities. Whatever we’re calling it, it was a truly delicious meal. We began by sharing a dish of Giuarda (Jewish) style artichokes (deep fried) with a Taleggio cheese fondue which was fantastic. But the standout may have been the pasta course we shared, a manicotti with minced sausage (Norcia) and a sauce of roman peccorino cheese and broccoli that had been pureed into almost non-existence and yet still infused everything with flavor. Hard to describe but bonkers good. John had a dish from the day’s specials — veal saltimboca, perfectly prepared and flavorful. Lisa had the beef cheek, meltingly tender and rich, served over mashed potatoes. They had an Amarone della Valpolicella Classico for 10eu/ glass, which was a perfect choice. But Lisa notes that they take their wine seriously and have a binder of options — 50 pages! So this is a great place to explore a variety of wines under the guidance of the knowledgeable staff. This was as good an end to a day as we were going to get, and we knew it. A lovely walk back home and into bed.

The rest of Rome awaits!