Reunited!

I’d like to say we looked this happy when we woke up in the morning in our tiny shoebox hotel room, but neither of us got enough sleep and so we struggled out of bed and over to Euston station. Along with an average breakfast sandwich, I had what I hope was the worst coffee of my life, because if anything worse is ahead of me I might avoid coffee forever.

I like how people with bags on wheels take up twice the space of one person and they always seem to walk right in the middle of any walkway.

Our train was, and I am not exaggerating, 16 carriages long and we were in furthest one.

The train was on time and we enjoyed watching the scenery roll past and catching up with each other’s lives since we were last together.

We spotted lots of bluebells from the train, so lovely!

We got into Windermere on time just before lunch and dropped our bags at the information centre so we could go for a walk around town and use up the time before check in.

We had some coffee while chasing up the address details for our accommodation in Keswick then went for a walk down towards Bowness.

It’s been a real trend for people to crochet letterbox decorations for the coronation.

We found a beautiful pub for lunch.

Then walked to a little lookout through some quiet woods.

Lovely weather!

Eventually we got our bags out of storage and caught the bus to Ambleside. Our Airbnb was right in the centre of town in a little alleyway called ‘The Slack’.

By the time we got into the apartment we were more exhausted than we’d been in a long, long time. After almost falling asleep a number of times we decided to go out for groceries and then to the nearest pub.

We walked into the Ambleside Inn and everyone was watching football so we asked who was playing and who we should barrack for (Liverpool against Leeds, the crowd was fairly split on who to support). We bought a drink each and went into the upstairs bit. We ended up talking to a local guy who told us basically his life story and all about the area. He and his friend gave us a recommendation for a pub on the last leg of our LD trip (the Kirkstile Inn) and I showed him my fell pony photos. We ended up hugging him goodbye and he wished us a lovely holiday. Delightful!

Finally we fell into bed for a long and dreamless sleep, the best we’d had in several nights!

13May2023

Santiago de Compostela Day 3

by Miss Penny Black

First, happy Mothers Day, Mum!

The focus today has been recovering from last night’s bar and club hopping. It was a good night out but ended up being bigger than I expected.

There was an astonishingly loud funfair happening in a park.

We started off with drinks around town and spent a while at this place where musicians arrived and started jamming at the bar.

We took a wander around the old town and stopped at a few places, eventually getting to Bloom, where a Eurovision party was happening the following night.

Unfortunately, we only got there at 4am and it closed at 4:45. I got outside quicker than Danny, Peter and Ash. I sat for a few minutes and then ended up texting them to say I was heading home. I don’t remember the last time I was out so late and I almost felt like I was going to keel over.

I made it to bed and didn’t hear the others get in a bit later. After sleeping in until 1pm I really had no idea how I’d adjust back to normal waking hours on return to regular holiday hours.

I took a trip back to the mall in the afternoon for food and some new underwear (thrilling stuff) after having a salad in the food court. After such a big night I did wander around in a bit of a daze and I was glad to get back to the apartment and find that we’d be watching Eurovision in the apartment.

I made pizzas, we drank wine, brought blankets to the couch and are now watching the votes come in. Personally I liked the Finnish entry best but it’s not looking good for them.

Tomorrow is the flight home and finally seeing Luke, hooray!

11May2023

Santiago de Compostela Day 2 Part 2

by Miss Penny Black

So, an ongoing theme of this trip to Galicia has been me playing second string to Daniel when it comes to meeting people. Galicians seem to feel some sort of kindred-spirit connection to Ireland and Australians are as good as chopped liver in comparison.

When discussing holiday nicknames ‘Chopper’ was even suggested as an option for me but I was not keen.

Last night we turned up at 9pm to a fancy restaurant called Benedita Elisa (because 9pm is when they open. WHEN THEY OPEN!!) and they couldn’t fit us in so we went for dinner to a place that one of the patrons at the bar had suggested the previous night.

The place we ended up going to was great, the helpful waiter had lots of recommendations for Galician dishes.

We shared all the dishes and it was very enjoyable to discuss the flavours and which were our favourites.

Afterwards we walked into the old part of town to see the cathedral by night.

The centre was largely quiet but there were a few groups of musicians around and some pilgrims walking into town. The alleyways must look almost identical now to medieval times but probably smell a lot better.

After a walk around we went home to bed where I managed to spend hours getting to sleep despite having far less alcohol than the previous night.

We were all up and about by 11am (really getting into the Spanish lifestyle now) and spent the morning getting ready for our 2pm lunch booking at Bernadita Elisa.

This restaurant was a little more upscale than the previous night and we did the same – shared plates so we got to try many things on the menu.

Calf bikini with trumpets of death (a type of mushroom). Delicious and not as dramatic as the name suggests.

Curry crispy rice with mango, sardines and roe.

Just a few of the many dishes!

We each had such a small bite of the dishes so that we had room for dessert, which was nothing short of fabtastulous.

Ok, no more food photos, I promise.

A cross between creamy cheesecake and crème brûlée.

Good times!

10May2023

Porto to Santiago

by Miss Penny Black

The bus station in Porto was very well equiped, clean and organised. Public transport really is a dream in Europe compared to Australia.

We bought snacks.

Four kinds in one! I don’t think we have this in Australia, correct me if I’m wrong.

Then got on the almost empty bus (the best kind) and it turned out we had the whole back row.

Time for some crossword puzzles and three hours to enjoy the views of the countryside.

The photos don’t do it justice, the whole way was lovely and green and dotted with little Portuguese villages, rivers and sea views. Here they mostly seem to grow their grape vines on head-height trellises, which seems very sensible.

Eventually we arrived back at the Santiago bus terminal, our third time here! We have now arrived in Santiago by plane, on foot and by bus and left by train so we’re really having a modern pilgrim experience.

The apartment is nice but the security features make me a bit worried about the neighbourhood.

Peter and Ash are arriving this afternoon so we went out to get some supplies. The local bakery was doing something unusual.

Was actually delicious dipped in olive oil and salt. It did taste like carbon but … in a good way.

I just looked at the door and realised there’s another security feature.

Seems like it should be one or the other.

Looking forward to having other people to listen to Danny’s blister stories ;-).

10May2023

Porto Day 3

by Miss Penny Black

First, a big hello to Kathy, Danny’s mother, who has been reading the blog and I’ve been shouting ‘HELLO’ to from the background most mornings while Danny is on the phone. Looking forward to meeting you again when we get to Ireland!

After staying up until 1am watching Ted Lasso (using our holiday time wisely, I know) we decided to have a lie in. Our only planned activity of the day wasn’t until 12:30.

To get across to the port house side of the river we walked down, down, down to the water level and crossed the lower level of Porto’s iconic bridge.

This was our first proper trip over to this side and it provided an excellent view of the side we were staying on. Hills might be an effort to navigate but hilly cities are much more scenic.

If we had thought the other side of the city was busy, this side was heaving – and on a Monday.

We had booked an Airbnb port and cheese experience but we were a bit early so we went for a wander. We saw a famous rabbit.

And a tower painted all around with beautiful flowers.

I had booked the port and cheese tasting experience at a port house called Quevedo, through Airbnb experiences. It was only $30 and came with a talk on port and the history of the port house.

I am 90% certain that it was one of the same port houses luke and I visited last time we were here but the cheese was a nice addition and I got to refresh my knowledge of port.

We both agreed the white port was our favourite. I don’t think it’s available to Australia but I might try bringing some home from the uk.

For the rest of the afternoon we wandered around and sat a few different places. The first did a port and chocolate pairing.

The chocolates were excellent and locally produced.

After all the chocolate and cheese what I obviously needed was a large lunch. We found an Italian restaurant in a nice laneway and I ordered carbonara and Danny had pizza. But first they brought out tiny perfect little garlic breads.

Obviously we needed a litre of sangria too.

It was an absolutely stunning carbonara, served in a bowl that was lava-hot, but I realised halfway through that I had severely overestimated my capacity. I ate it all and refused to learn any kind of lesson from my experience.

One thing Danny observed as we sat there was that not a single table in Spain or Portugal had been the slightest bit wobbly. At home about half of tables require extensive chocking with coasters or wadded-up serviettes, yet here they seem to have no problem setting up a table on a cobblestone street with a 20 degree slope.

We had a drink on the waterfront and listened to a busker for a while, then caught the cable car up to the top of the hill.

We went back to a little bar we had visited two nights previously. It was by a bus stop and looked like the kind of place frequented by locals. Six drinks and a bowl of chips were 24 euros – and the gin and tonics here are at least double the size of ones at home.

One the way home we crossed the top of the bridge and managed to be right on time for an absolutely spectacular sunset.