Saturday 5 September 2020

2020 and all that

Well, if ever there was a time to relaunch, it's now.

Mrs. and I have not, of course, ceased hiking nor ceased eating and certainly not ceased doing both together though we did fall out of the habit of blogging the experience.  Some of this was differing patterns--more often we're out with another couple nowadays--but to be honest some of it was sheer sloth.

But 2020's odd interruption provides an opportunity to restart.

We've done well out of food on delivery during lockdown-- found some very good suppliers, and Mrs (a very good cook) has been keeping the pan in pandemic and the steak in staycation.  But as lockdown eases, we're looking for someone else to do the cooking.  And we're leery of the big city even if we live on the edge of the centre.  So that's back to the wilderness and the open trail, then.

Not every hike or restaurant will be blogworthy, of course.  I find on re-opening the file that I have an old draft entry about hiking and eating on the Test Way (along the river Test) in Hampshire entitled "Failed the Test not Once but Twice".  But those that are winners will get a writeup.

We've already done a couple of good ones in August--as much a matter of limbering up and remembering things that were once habit.  Looking forward to getting back to it properly.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Well fed and exercised occasional #3: a fine circular hike/run route in Marlow


I'm not normally a fan of loop walks-- walking is a method of getting somewhere, and if you're going in circles then you're not getting anywhere.  And it's too easy to cheat a bit and decide that you'll jsut cut that corner.

But one of the things we're coming to realise is that there are very few combinations of restaurants ~and~ hikes that are both stunners.  There's lots of good restaurants in the upper reaches of the Thames, but the Thames Path is, well, a little on the easy side for exercise, and doesn't have the scenery that some others do.  So sometimes a loop walk is making the best of it.

Marlow is a place we'll go back to: not only for the H&F but The Compleat Angler and others.  But we've already beaten to death the Thames Path.  So loop it is, and I think I've found one for Marlow.  I can't take credit-- it was the local running club that came up with the loop, an exact half marathon (21.1km/13.1mi) and they've mapped it out better than I could have done.  Somewhere there was a chart of the elevation profile, and they've included a video.  Given that these are people who run these roads regularly, they ought to know.

And so it turned out.  I joined the run (easy train ride from Paddington, £9.30 return from zone 2 boundry with annual pass) and was surprised how few people were on the branch line in running kit-- perhaps a couple of dozen.  I guess most people drive to the event.

The day was crisp if on the cold side, but the path warms you up: the first mile and a half is all uphill, and there were three killer slopes.  But that's on the run: hiking, this would be a good level of strenuous.  And lovely, easy walking, almost all tarmacked and very few cars.  Perhaps it was the runners (there were many hundreds) but the kestrels seemed to be very active overhead and coming down to see what all the fuss was about on a Sunday morning.  And beautiful views over the hills and fields.

Mrs. joined for the finish of the run (due to the hills, not a great time, but a very good bit of exercise) and we hobbled off for lunch... nothing too fancy was planned, we went to the local Cantina del Vino.  The food there was nothing to write about (home, or otherwise)... competent, but old Italian resto standards.  The surprising thing (aside from the fact that you can make a business of serving ordinary in a town famous for extraordinary) was the bill-- as we live in London and are used to London prices, the £71.50 charge (including service, wine, bread, everything) was refreshing.  Yes, we did check that they got everything.  We'll try somewhere else in Marlow after doing that loop as a hike rather than jog, but a good day out.

Sunday 27 October 2013

Shameless Plug for People We Like #2: "Battle of the Bottles" at Enoteca Super Tuscan


We're aware that we've been disorganised about gastrorambling over the summertime, perhaps sated by our five-day extravaganza of hiking and dining in Wales... but we have not stopped eating well.  The summer was a few surprises and lots of old favourites around the capital-- the one Mrs found most, well, I think "historical" or "old-school" might be polite terms (indeed, the Indy did use the phrase old-school despite the 24-year old chef) at Accuiga where it transpired that when we sat down, I was offered a menu that indicated prices, and Mrs was offered a menu with the same list of dishes but no prices.  We are not old; we are in early middle age and often mistaken for a decade younger, so it wasn't because of our expectations that they did this. We are still mystified... well, I am (since it's something I had previously only read about never seen) while in Mrs it brought out a level of militant feminism I have rarely seen.

But with the rentrée started in earnest, we've been to an old favourite that is doing something that may or may not be new but the first we've seen of it, and we were impressed enough that we'd like to offer them SHAMELESS PLUG.

~~~~

Enoteca Super-Tuscan is one of those places that modern London dining has largely squeezed out-- doing good food and good wine inexpensively and within walking distance of where at least some of its target audience works, in the City.  We go now and again when nearby.

This autumn, and I gather it's something they do a few times a year, they decided to have a go at changing their wine list.  Not content to trust their own noses, the owner organises evenings where he puts together some wine and several small dishes, and encourages the wines to fight it out for a spot on their list.  My own notes for the evening are a little patchy, and as I was there with Mrs. and the Bon Vivant, it was an educative evening--both know more about wine than I'm ever likely to--but also very pleasant.  Many tastings, even the best of them, offer little more than soda crackers as accompaniment to the wines you're tasting, which is fine for whites but dreadful for reds.  One basement tasting in the basement of the excellent Handford shop in Kensington was South African reds, accompanied by biltong... which worked well and was only slightly deflated when the winemaker admitted that the biltong was from Tesco just down the road.

The four courses Enoteca served that night (two wines with each) were:

  • Cheese stuffed gnocchi with a pair of francocorte
  • Burrata and fancy tomatos with Sicilian whites
  • Penne with tomato pesto sauce with varied reds 
  • Quail with two red Tuscans

Wonderful evening, wonderful food and wines, just wonderful.  More of these, please.



Well fed and exercised occasional #2: Amsterdam restaurants, marathon weekend


Hiking the hills is a relatively gentle exercise, and given how we eat, it's probably good that we do other exercise as well.  Mrs prefers swimming and Bikram yoga; I run.  And generally run quite slowly-- it goes against my own natural laziness.  So to try to counteract this, of long habit, I sign up for and run (slowly) a marathon each spring and autumn.  If that sounds hardcore, well, it isn't-- I'm usually at the back with the guys in the rhino costumes.  It's not quite as slow as John "the penguin" Bingham, but still-- in one of my earlier marathons, I had the good luck to ride the bus to the start with the Chilean national squad: great guys, chatty and funny and giving advice to the first timers on the bus...but once we got going, never saw them again.  I count myself lucky to cross the line before the winner boards his plane back to Kenya.

Marathons present certain nutritional demands.  The real elites take this incredibly seriously, of course--food is fuel.  Like most amateurs, I've read about what they do and ape some of the practices in the lead-up to the run... more to avoid any hands-and-knees on the course than in hope of winning.  So I'll do "carbo-loading" and all that.  The flipside, though, is to my advantage: the guys heading back to Kenya are straight into training for their next endeavour--this is their job after all--while I've just burned an entire extra day's worth of calories and am looking forward to righting some of that deficit at dinner.

Nobody runs the London marathon any more--you can't get in.  The odds of getting in via the lottery are barely better than the real lottery (and a ticket is cheaper in the real lottery) so the only way to get in is to shake your can for a charity (including the Save the Rhino Foundation) committing to raise hundreds if not thousands.  Fine, but not for me and certainly not every year.  The last time I ran London, people kept asking what I was running for: I told them "cardiovascular health", without mentioning the cardiovascular health in question was my own.

So that means going further afield, and covering the marathon-food-specific bases in unfamiliar cities, in restaurants.  This autumn's marathon was in Amsterdam, and dining was more promising than you'd have expected.  The course is nice, too-- it seems there's a lively debate in Dutch running circles about the relative merits of the Amsterdam marathon vs. Rotterdam marathon; which course is flatter.  This is a bit like arguing over the driest desert.  For eating, though, the choice is clear.

This starts as soon as we arrive.  Landing at Schipol on the early flight from London on Saturday and heading straight to the marathon expo near the Olympic Stadium by train means a walk from A'dam Zuid train station that can easily accomodate walking past le Fournil de Sébastien on Olympiaplein.  We walked past several bakeshops on the way but this was the only one with a queue out the door.  We stopped in for breakfast (my third: one bite before leaving home, one the toy food on the plane; Mrs.'s first brek) where Mrs. chose something solid then a macaroon and I had something that looked like a giant pretzel but was flaky and sweet... for €4.30 all in.  OK, we ate it on the bench in the parkette opposite but this is a promising start.
  
From the expo (which was rammed with too many people in too small a space--no exaggeration, probably the least enjoyable part of the marathon) we walked to our strategically located hotel, a gentle walk to start/finish and a gentle walk to the center, we mooched our way past a number of places not yet open where we made mental notes for "next time", to get a carbo-loading lunch at Forno Communale, with pizza and prosecco for Mrs. and tap water for me.  And while it is just a charming neighbourhood place, the pizza (spicy salami is not exactly carbo-loading but there was bread on the side) was lovely.  After that, we continued the walk to the hotel.

Now, research into restaurants is a fine thing.  Mrs. does most of the research for our travels and I'm glad she does-- she's good at it.  But some of the best finds are serendipity, particularly when wandering around foreign cities, and sometimes you wander past a place and it just exudes an atmosphere.  This can happen anywhere, though it seems to happen more often in Italy for some reason, and when we wandered past di Sale, well, it rang the bell.  The English on the menu was quirky but that added rather than detracted.  And it was much closer to the hotel than the place we had planned... so we changed plans rather quickly.

Four hours (and a little nap) later, we're sitting down for an early dinner.  My choices are limited: marathon in the morning, so it must be pasta.  Mrs. and I split a plate of tagliatelle with Parmesan cream truffled sauce, which was wonderful--pasta cooked just so and the truffles came through very clearly as a crisp high note against the density of the cheese cream sauce.  The couple next to us had a starter that was white and wobbled but also wafted truffle aroma whenever the front door opened, so we were hardly surprised to look up di Sale and find "chef has a particular affinity with truffles."  Main was pasta again for me--pappardelle with cinghale ragu, which was nice though not at the high notch that the truffles had set; Mrs. ordered osso buco which came with risotto and the bone to pick the marrow from.  From the tone of other reviews, I gather this is a little on the pricey side for pasta in Amsterdam, but when the bill came to €74 (including wine for Mrs but sadly not for me) we walked away happy.  We even booked in for an early meal on the Monday, as we were on a 9pm flight back to London and didn't want to eat at the airport.

In the morning, with a drop of porridge and a banana, I made it round the course in a not-bad time, inspired more by dinner and the threat of heavy rain around noontime than out of athletic zeal or ambition.  And after a shower and a long hot bath, it was time for a drink.  Research led us to the Taverna Barcelona after a medium-length but relatively slow walk.  And this was a hit: where Michelin gives Bib Gourmands for restaurants that offer quality at value prices, we propose a Bib Soiffard for the cavas on TB's list.  We had one of each of the Parxet (rosé for Mrs + brut for me) were very good--in the rose, you could taste the reddishness very clearly without compromising the crispy clarity...brut was also crisp and clear but again had real flavour and heft.  One wine blogger clearly agreed, with a review descending from highminded professional tasting notes to "winner winner, chicken dinner" presumably as he worked though the bottle.  The second round was almost as good-- Mrs. complained that hers, a white Garnatxa, had a sweaty feet tang, but mine, the Marques de Alella Pansa Blanca, was wonderfully clear and crisp that was sometimes overpowered by the berry-like olives we were munching on, with not much meat but eathily flavourful.

Dinner was steak across the road at Carlitos Gardel, a new-ish Argentine place.  Steak- glorious, though Mrs.'s came in two parts held together with a wood skewer, huge and tender and tasty, frites w mayo and eccentric Dutch version of Greek salad. The skewer meant one steak went back for a quick re-grill, but they got it spot on the second time.  Wine was more value: Bosca Finca la Linda Malbec for €19.50...and then you pay in the Balti House next door, which was when we realised why it was such value.  But then a great steak meal involves sourcing excellent meat and fiddling with it as little as possible, so whether it's restraint or cost control, the result works both ways.

Monday was spent in the re-opened Rijksmuseum, which has been covered elsewhere better than I can.  After, via a beer, we head back to di Sale: the wobbly white is a truffled leek flan, and tastes every bit as good as it smelt on Saturday night.. and better again as it goes with a splash of white wine.  Mrs. opts for a starter with scamorza cheese, which is nice but the truffles still are the winner.  The mains are a little step down: a stuffed venison main is nice but it's not clear what exactly it's stuffed with, and Mrs.'s lamb shoulder is pleasant but a bit pedestrian after the chef has shown off what he can do with truffles.  Yet all of this, washed down with a Baglio di Pianetto 2007 Nero d'Avila that Mrs. suggests smells and tastes of blackberry leaf still sets us back less than €90 as we head for the door and the airport.  I do hope they're making money-- we might need them if we find ourselves running Amsterdam again next autumn...

Sunday 13 October 2013

Eurozone dining solidarity #2: the wine bars of Athens


If you live anywhere else in Europe than Athens, these last few years, you've probably only seen images of the city that appear on the evening news to illustrate stories that begin "riot..." or "government in trouble.." or "economic disaster"

Well, the economy certainly is a bit of a disaster and no doubting the politics are complex, and there's plenty of evidence of the riots still around... but life goes on: it's not like everyone's dead.  And despite (or because of) economic stress, some of the enjoyable bits of life are thriving.

Work takes me to Athens now and again, and I've always liked it as a trip.  The welcome you get from the professional community there is magnificent, and they don't get a lot of visitors so people make time.  I had a lot of sympathy for some parts of the professional community there: some people were doing the right things, but still got sideswiped by the larger issues.  So for my first work trip back for a few years, I had planned to stay over the Friday evening after my last meeting...enough time for an early dinner and a couple of glasses, a visit to the Acropolis museum (new since the last time I had enough time to play tourist) and the Acropolis itself, and then another good meal and few glasses before returning to the airport and London.

In terms of hotel, I wasn't sure I'd be able to stay over, so booked a relatively cheap one.  Looking on Expedia, the prices had come down since the start of the crisis-- the youth hostel was the #27th most expensive bed for the night, rather than the cheapest pre-crisis.  I chose somewhere with no bunk beds, and while Spartan, it was clean and only a few blocks from the Syndagma Square hotel where work put me, and was less than £25 for the night.

The first night after transferring bag from one hotel to the other, I went walkabout to find my various targets: one of the difficulties with road names is not just translation but transliteration: Syntagma Square will be rendered as  Platia Sintagmatos or Constitution Square when we all know it's really ΠΛΑΤΕΙΑ ΣΥΝΤΑΓΜΑΤΟΣ.  Different maps use different spellings, and if you're less than fluent with the alphabet even upper/lowercase can confuse.  So it's easier to go out wandering and remember you need to turn left at Starbucks.

First stop for aperitivi and unwind is At "By the Glass" on Souri.  Reading the reviews, I'm not sure what to think.  I showed up at a time when few others were around, alone, and while I have nowhere near the wine knowledge of Mrs., I have learned a few things over the decade we've been together and probably managed to say something semi-intelligent on the topic of wines.  The barman thought for a bit then poured tastes of:
  1. Malagousia "Techni" from Wine Art, round and mineral and great whiff
  2. A Gewurtz, un-blended...Melissopetra Ktimatselepos (I think?)...almost a like a minerally viog
  3. "Sideways" mixed white -- something on the nose I couldn't place at all. Chequerboard label only marked in Greek. A sort of smoky honey scent.

Oenomatic machines are clearly the thing in Athens now. I wasn't having full glasses for the taste, though I then settled into a proper glass of the Malagousia which was the winner of three.  I suspect if I had Mrs. there it'd have been more interesting as she has a knack of translating her wine knowledge into an incentive for the sommeliers to bring out their best (which is not always, or even usually, the most expensive) but with Mrs. on the hook by SMS and e-mail it wasn't quite the same

Having a bit of adventure and knowing something had only gotten me so far with Sommelier--a little herbed mini-toast. It seemed he's a big fan of the Sampler in South Ken, less than a km from home...and somehow the "By the Glass" guys billed me only €6.60.

No seriously, I asked twice if it was right, and they insisted three tastes, two platelets of mini-toasts and a full glass was only that.  They did give a receipt (in Greek) and the only thing I could read was the bottom line, which was definitely €6.60

By then, it was dinnertime for me (not yet for locals though) so wandered over to Oiniscent for a tomato-mozzarella with olive oil and pepper, and another glass--this time a Santorini Assyritiko, but an odd one...it seems to have been oaked and has a heft that the others don't. I couldn't say more than that about the wine as the label is all Greek except for something that looks like a Decanter gold sticker. Pepper brings something in the olive oil out.  As light bites go, it was exactly right as it was still hot and not in need of a huge meal... and a bite and glass at Oiniscent was only €11 so clearly economic disaster is doing a few good things. After two days hearing from some of the most distinguished economists in the country about how Greece has regained cost-competitiveness, it's good to have directly observable evidence.  But it's Friday night, so difficult to nurse a glass in the corner alone with blackberry or Economist magazine...best to bumble gently back to the somewhat Spartan hotel to read and an early-ish bed.

As much as my Spartan hotel was an OK bunk, we can do better for breakfast--just around the corner, Harvest bills itself as "coffee and wine" and I had spotted it on the previous evening's walkabout, so I came back to see what was open before 9am, and they're say they're doing coffee but not food.  "Food breakfast" starts at ten.
"What about that?" I ask, pointing at a cakestand on the counter...
"Apple pie."
"Can I have a slice"
"Sure"
All very good natured, but there is a service concept that isn't yet getting there. Progress, I suppose: they wouldn't have had the pie for sale in the past, but still. Pie is nice... thick crust with a cinnamon crumble top.  Their coffee is suspect: a double espresso is double strength rather than double size, and was served with seltzer water, which I've never seen before.  Their tables outside give the street scene-- at this hour flower stands are just setting up, and there's an old guy opposite with a stand of pretzels, pistachios and OPAP lotto tix. Traffic isn't yet jammed and sitting in the sun is very pleasant.  With another coffee-- strategically a cappucino this time rather than double anything.

By the time I get to the Acropolis Museum after a lingering breakfast, it's rammed.  For some reason, it's free today (normal charge is value at €5) and everyone's out.  The museum itself is remarkable: it was built of course for political reasons and the entire top floor is plaster casts of what's in the British Museum, interspersed with the bits Elgin missed. It's quite the least impressive bit...I hadn't realised that the Persians had flattened the Acropolis during a short occupation in the same series of wars as the land battle at Marathon and the naval one at Salamis...all the rubble was buried in pits on the plateau before they rebuilt, and a lot of it has come out again in stunning nick, with pigment and expression, looking probably very similar to when it was buried.

After the museum, climb the hill to the Acropolis... well, if there's a hill, after all.  This also was free for the same, somewhat vague, reason as the museum, but there weren't as many takers as for the air-conditioned comfort of the museum.  What can I say-- some will see a pile of rocks, some see a hill to climb for fun, and some see one of those rare places where something big happened once.

 At 3pm and starving, ended up back at Oinoscent, where I'm trying the dish called "lasagne sheets" in paprika, another mozza and a malagouzia, this one a Ktimra Roxani Matsa.  Also about halfway through a litre of water...clearly I've been sweating on the hill-hike.  Malagouz is apparently a close relative of Malvasia and this one has same roundness and depth of yellow colour. Lasagne sheets turn out to be a sort of chip, I guess they deep fried them: ingenious.

Other blogs (more political ones) make Athens sound like a post-apocalyptic wasteland... while it's certainly post-something, there's no apocalyptic in the bar...it's inventive, tasty and cheap.  I'm convinced the disaster in Greece was worse two years ago--people are getting on. Life's reverted to 1990 when Greece was still a medium-poor country with potential. Other bits are more of a contrast--you get reciepts for *everything* with computer-generated tax codes on.  There's still more than enough scope for things to go wrong--Syriza sound like cavemen to hear those who've met them...apparently even Beppe Grillo thinks they're economic illiterates.

But at the shallow end of the pool, on the whole, I think I'm more in favour for the unoaked Santorini Assyritikos, but glad I've taken an evening to get to know the food and wine a little better.  And will be back.

Note: digging around for this article, we found: http://www.culinarybackstreets.com/athens/2013/athens-new-school-wine-bars/ which we agree with, by and large.  A site we'll be reading again when hitting the cities they cover.

Sunday 6 October 2013

Totally off topic #1: London Review of F*****g Books

Despite the name, the London Review of Books does not actually review books.  At no point is an opinion given whether the particular book on the dissecting table is worth three hours of your life and fifteen quid of your hard-earned.  It awards no stars out of five.

It is, in fact a literary publication with brow so high as to be invisible unless accompanied by a receding hairline.  It does publish lengthy literary essays broadly around the topic covered by the book in question, fortifies each strand of argument with references to other books which are at or near the apex of that particular subsection of literary endeavor, and often is a better reference on the topic than the actual book being reviewed is likely to be.  Mrs. subscribes, and I'll tend to flip it between the Sunday breakfast table and the recycling bag, reading some of the less challenging essays and looking at the cartoons.

So it was with almost iconoclastic amusement that I stumbled across a review entitled Frog’s Knickers which is a review/essay/dissertation upon a recent book Holy Shit: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr.  I think to get the full force of the article, you need to have read some of the other very worthy and/or very dense articles in the rest of the mag before alighting on this review, as it really does change gears without the clutch, but by a wide margin this passage is the best I have ever read from LRB, combining gutter erudition with complex wit in a way that--in the LRB pages--flirts with selfparody:
"As Geoffrey Hughes noted in his excellent Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths and Profanity in English, the more charged a swear word is the more susceptible it becomes to grammatical transformation.​ This means that the boundaries between nouns and adjectives and adverbs can all get completely fucked up by swear words, and before you know it the little fuckers are everywhere."

Five star f«««««g brilliant reviewing.  I might even buy the book.

Offa's Lunch (day 1): connecting the dots of great restaurants, mostly along the Offa's Dyke Path


Mrs and I have hiked longer distances as multi-day hikes more than once.  Indeed, it seems to be a theme in our marriage-- we first hiked the West Highland Way before we were married, and have done a number of longer distance multi-day paths over the years, both in the UK and elsewhere.  Some had pleasant dining experiences, too: doing a stretch of the South West Coast Path through Cornwall allowed for a rest day in St. Ives, and a break in Edinburgh before going up to the Great Glen Way was excellent (and a post for another day).

But we've also been a few times to the Welsh borderlands, and were well aware of both the good hiking there and the good restaurants, but had only done day-hiking, sometimes added to other things (eg. hiking weekend attached to tickets to the Rugby World Cup game where Canada frustratingly lost to Fiji in RWC2007).  And of the longer hikes on the list, the Offa's Dyke path was always there, albeit higher on my list than Mrs' list.

Making it happen, however, was a more serious undertaking.  The obvious practical bits required were in place: there's a train station very near the start of the path at Chepstow on the Severn (change at Newport) and if we follow our noses to Ludlow then a train back.  There's well-marked trails in the middle and some lovely places to eat.  And baggage transfer is available (albeit expensive and we found we didn't need it so didn't use it) from point to point.  But the bare bones of a practical trip aren't the same as a completely formed one, and looking through the OS maps for the stretch we were looking at, Mrs had some reservations about the length of the segments... we wouldn't just be hungry at the end, we'd be flattened.  And I suppose (with ill grace on my part) fair enough, a twenty mile stretch might be on the far side of the point when it stops being fun.  If you haven't done twelve or fourteen you don't feel like you've earned it, of course, but once past twenty miles you don't care that you've earned it and just want to lie down.

Well, fair enough-- and we did spend several evenings poring over the maps (I do hope less time than we actually spent hiking) to plot out a few shortcuts, detours, and other options.  And we had two things that made the shortcutting all OK.  The more direct one is that Mrs replaced her boots with some fitted by professionals--this was almost accidental, but we wandered in to Altimus in Kensington for what we thought would be something easy, and wandered out again with something life-changing in terms of boot-fitting and orthotics.  The life in question being mostly Mrs' as it did wonders for her posture and stamina hiking, but also mine as she's now much faster than me.  So would probably have had no difficulty with 20-mile sections if pressed...but after all that discussion, I didn't dare press.

We also were joined by an old friend, the Bon Vivant.  He's a little older than us, and with young child at home, he has not been hiking as much as we have recently and was (at the beginning) not entirely on form, but years gone by he had done harder-core hiking than we've done, including a circuit of Mont Blanc... something we're now playing with doing, since there's also good restaurants in Chamonix town (and the Vielles Luges).  He had found child-minding for a few days, and we were certainly glad of the company, and after the first day or two found his form again.

Planning survived the failure of one of our intended stops--we had been looking forward to a starred first stop at the Crown at Whitebrook, when it suddenly announced it was just giving up.  Thank you and goodbye.  This was at a ticklish phase of the planning, but fortunately there is a place that won "pub of the year" recently only another mile or two up the road, that swapped in nicely.  As a side note... writing this some time after the fact, there are suggestions it might re-open...

Day 1 ~~~ Paddington to Chepstow to the Inn at Penallt

We now know Paddington well, and our second breakfast order is settled and automatic.  Since we were booking well in advance (and this was in the lead-up to a long weekend) we splashed a remarkably small amount of cash to get first class tickets on the train.  While this is a relative bargain if booked a long way in advance, there's first class and there's first class: Mrs commented, looking around Paddington, "it's not exactly the Concorde Room".  Train took us to the carpark at Chepstow, where I had to do one last work conference call (getting some strange looks from the staff of the caf, who were hanging around outside smoking: the finer points of Italian securitisation law are apparently not everyday conversation in their caf) while we waited a few minutes for Bon Vivant's slightly later train.

Although the path skirts that selfsame carpark, the first couple of miles didn't look like much fun, and as the first of several compromises we picked up a taxi to a lookout point, Wintour's Leap.  The taxi was £6 (slightly more than the flag fall in London) and dropped us off in excellent time, excellent spirits and even in excellent sunshine.  The lookout area was a wonderful place to lounge and relace boots, with a great overlook of a bend in the river and hills off into the distance (if Wintour did leap, he certainly wouldn't have survived it).

After a first little bit along the road, the Offa's Dyke path ducks into the wood, following closely to the ridgeline of a cliff overlooking the river, in a wood with a very well-made trail, and apparently following very closely to some visible remains of the actual earthwork itself... and though I thought I had spotted parts of it, it's not obvious.  On the right as we walked, were cow fields, and in one, two young bulls facing off against each other and clicking horns (this was springtime, so we can guess what they were fighting about).  After a good bit of up and down--and a magnificent view of Tintern Abbey from the ridge down to the romantic ruins on the far bank of the river--and after only five miles feeling that second breakfast at Paddington was quite some time ago now, just as we walk down off the ridge into Brockweir.

As the first bite on a gastroramble, this is not unpromising: the pub claims (and looks) to be a 14th century monks' house (presumably the overspill annexe for spare monks from Tintern?).  The menu at the pub is of old standards, chili con carne and sausage sandwiches but comes with the first of many lovely local pints, this one local-ish from Wiltshire called Tunnel Vision with enough heft to feel warming and not a bad match to the mildish spice in the chili.

At this point we changed banks of the Wye river, crossing to the west side and picking up the Wye Valley Walk that took us up the opposite bluffs and back into the woods.  I think we'd cheerfully have stayed for another pint and snooze, but it seemed too early to knock off and take another taxi... though the path became less well made and it was a bit of a long walk through the forest... parts of which, it would appear we did not just share with horses but also Amish-style wagon trains, to judge from the signs.  We kept hearing but never saw woodpeckers in the woods.  With a good lunch and pint and a good dinner to look forward to and a soft bed, well, someone said, it's active and good exercise but not very Bear Grylls, and nicer for it...which sparked discussion of an idea Mrs. had been kicking around and elaborating for some time: that there are hard-charging type A personalities and introspective laid-back type B personalities, but there should be something in the middle for those who have done enough type-A to have gotten somewhere in the professional world and know they should be pushing harder but it's all just so much work and we're not sure we can be bothered... the "type A minus".  This wandered through a discussion of the mastery of strategic sloth (exemplified in the Dilbert world) as a corporate tactic... and a lengthy riff on type A- in action = type A- inaction.  This seemed to fit the day's gentle pace.

We wended through Whitebrook, thinking that really this would have been the better place to knock off, but with dinner booked further on, we descended to the riverside for a last couple of miles along what felt like dismantled railway path, past river birds and even a few fishers in the late afternoon sun.  After some debate--since it all looked a bit similar--we did find the right path up to take us to Long Lane, the road into Pent-Twyn.  For complex reasons of their own, the Inn at Penallt is not in fact at Penallt but about a mile south... as that's a mile we weren't going to have to hike this particular afternoon, we weren't complaining, but it did feel a bit lacking in the "truth in advertising" department.  The last stretch of inclined climb up Long Lane was where we all were feeling our long-neglected boots, though Bon Vivant more than the rest of us since he might have neglected his boots for longer, but there were enough things to take the mind off, as it was a postcard lovely village lane, with goats in some front yards and a garden party at one house.  Over the fields on the far side a hawk was being mobbed by some crows in mid-air.

The Inn took us in immediately, and we showered happily.  Our rooms overlooked a long lawn that descended into the valley and the hills rolled away in the distance.  Birds still chirped as the first hint of sunset blushed.  And the bar would be open in just about the time it'd take to shower and change.

We reconvened at the patio near the bar-- benches faced the glorious view, and a pint of local (Wye Valley brewery) helped.  We went though to a dining area, more formal than the pub.  The menu listed "posh chips" and these, taken as a side to the starter, or perhaps as a starter itself with a side of starter, turned out to be very nicely done chips with truffle oil, that had a wonderful high note on the nose and filled your mouth with truffle earthiness.  There was a somewhat eccentric-sounding blue cheese donut starter which Bon Vivant ordered and ate with enthusiasm.  Mains were more main-stream: tagliatelle with crustaceans, cod with chorizo, and a dish called chicken faggots which was the meat stacked as a bundle (similar to firewood, a now archaic use of the word faggot, I believe).  This probably makes it sound like they gave us turkey twizzlers, but if they did there was something in the prep because they were lovely.  The wine list included a crispy Spanish white (which we drank) and a Brazilian wine (which we did not).  Lovely end to a lovely day... we drifted off to bed well fed and happy.







[more pictures and map to be added]